Planking quick question.

[Balsafer]

Surrender should net the option to either loot the player ship of goods or capture the ship.

[StaleMemes]

I personally think the current idea of "Planking"  HP pool is not the best system.

 

Changes I would like to see to the combat and damage model. (Might as well post them all, as a lot pertain to planking.)

 

     1. More crew damage from Ball and Double, and slightly more cannon displacement. Raking fire especially needs some love.

     2. Locational damage. To sink a ship players must shoot at the water line, shooting the upper/middle decks should only serve to kill crew and dislodge cannons as well as damage the interior corridors (Increasing reload times)

     3. Ships should not sink when "Planking" reaches zero. The planking bar should show the armor's ability to repel incoming fire, not the hulls ability to keep water out. Damage to the structure right above/at the water line and fires that lead to explosions should sink ships.

     4. No instant repairs for rudder, pump, and magazine. The crew repair times for these modules should be MUCH longer as well. It should also be possible to blow the rudder off, at which point it would be irreparable. (You can still steer with manual sails.)

     5. More detailed rigging and realistic chain shot. Chain shot currently just whittles away at the overall sail HP pool. It should also be able to sever the sheets and destroy rigging in other ways. Hitting the ropes that hold the masts up should dramatically weaken them. Damaged rigging should be harder to handle and with enough damage eventually become impossible to control.

     6. No repairing under fire. In order to repair armor, sails, a destroyed rudder(See above) and especially masts, players should (In my opinion) have to be at least 800 meters(?) away from an enemy ship and have not have taken noticeable damage at in the last 30 seconds. (A few stray cannonballs aren't a problem. This is to stop people repairing right in the middle of a heated engagement.) This should have some limits for instance a lynx should not be able to stop a frigate or SOL from repairing.

     7. Crew management. As crew count lowers, a ship's effectivity will be greatly decreased. The player should have to decide where to send the crew they have, and what to do with them. As crew are lost the player must decide which cannons to keep functioning, how many crew to set to repairing armor and sails, which to take out of the ranks of gunners for a boarding party, etc. etc. For instance in a line fight, a player may want to take the crew from whichever wide of his ship is not facing the enemy and move them to the other side to supplement them and replace casualties. While out of the immediate battle and repairing the player can take crew away from the cannons to expedite the repair process.

     8. Crew surrender. If a ship takes too much damage to its crew or loses too many cannons (Basically are in an impossible situation) they may surrender. Normally ships wouldn't keep fighting until they sank, they surrendered when they had no hope of winning.

 

Battles are too clean right now. Ships neatly sink once they have been shot a few times. Look at the battle of Trafalgar. Ships sat next to each other for hours pounding away continually, and only sank later while trying to tow them home as prizes. Just because planking is weakened and unable to repel fire from other ships does not mean the ship should sink. These are just a few of my suggestions