Cruise control

[mouse of war]

I've noted how line fighting is complicated by the need to constantly adjust sails to keep station with the ship ahead.

 

In the real world the speed of a ship could be minutely adjusted by the sailing master to keep station while the captain concentrates on fighting his ship.

 

So perhaps it would be a good to have some sort of cruise control that would instruct the sailing master to keep a set speed and in effect to keep station with rest of the line 

 

What do you think?

[MikedaBike]

Why not? everything else is going arcade style, why not have cruise control too. One more magic button please. It will certainly fit with other magic buttons lol.

Personally i would much prefer the ability to lower a single sail to gain more control but hey... it is a game not real.  (Not meaning to be sarcastic at you mouse, Just losing interest with all the dumbing down and magic buttons of late). But good luck with this, i feel it has a high chance.

Edited July 20, 2015 by MikedaBike

[Rramsha]

If you use depower , battle, and turning yards it is quite easy to stay in formation as ships stop and accelerate very quickly in this game.

[DazednConfused]

Like many other things, station keeping is a skill. People new to large battles tend to stay far too long in the aim - with the inevitable consequences. 

 

The other issue is lead ships going too fast too early, starting a concertina wire effect DW  - With the guys dwelling in the aim getting 'scope eye', ramming their team mates.

 

Keep up comms with your team and constantly scan your surroundings (or use the little mini map in the bottom corner), and you will do better.

[Leviathan]

Part of the skill in a line battle is situational awareness. You need to be able to shoot, maneuver, watch the ship in front of you, communicate with the ship behind you and so on. Yes, in real life you had someone do that for you, but the only way to keep the game skillful is to leave this to the player themselves. Otherwise we take another element out leading us toward a point and click game with less skill.

 

To simulate what you want they should have designed the game around a player crew. 1 player steers the ship, other players man the guns, others repair the ship, others check the rum stores...

 

I respect your opinion but I feel the very things that set this game apart from other age of sail games (yard and sail control, realistic ballistics, unique aiming system, and physics) is what many people are trying to take out of the game.