Visible Crew numbers and Animations

[Godream]

Hi all, As this is my first post I wanted to say don't judge me too harshy and I am loving this game so far. I played PotBC and Age of Pirates 2 etc a ton back in the day and am so happy to see such a beautiful looking and enjoyable game. On to my suggestion then.

 

I am a big fan of seeing crewmen on a ship, it makes it seem more "alive" and I also think can be used to represent game systems as well such as the boarding preparedness, sailing "focus", or "gunnery focus" toggles available now in the UI which are simply represented by a green/red circle filling up. I am curious if there are any plans to extend the animations and number/quality of crew and perhaps marines on the ships at all? to me it seems many of the larger ships have very little crew onboard (I know many of them are below deck) If you are focusing on sails or gunnery wouldn't it be realistic and enjoyable to see more crew "bustling" around the guns or rigging. Or if you are preparing to board (using the UI function) then you could have crew and marines forming on the deck?

 

I think it would add to the immersion factor and depending on how it it implemented may not take that much effort in terms of rendering resources. I am not that familiar with the graphics engine used in Naval Action, but I fondly recall watching my crew run around my ship in POTBS or especially seeing the crews in Napoleon TW fire and then fight each other. Of course the suggestion becomes much more complicated once boarding itself is considered and again I am not familiar with how the devs have mentioned this will be represented in the game. (aside from the placeholder UI and system, I assume it is only a placeholder?) Basically I just wanted to put my idea or suggestion out there as I am still in amazement at the beautiful graphics of the game and can't wait to see it develop further and was hoping to see more lively and animated crews,marines, and officers on my deck

 

Cheers all and Happy sailing!

[Azzak]

Yup, more crew would be great.

[RoadblockFR]

indeed that could be great  with some country uniforms  be cause  the war of the clone has begun ^^

[SteelSandwich]

Although noone denys it to be great, it is rather demanding on the performancr of the game. Which, if i am not mistaken, is why it wont be introduced just yet.

[Azzak]

Why not putting a setting for it ? Players with gaming rig can put it extra high, while others can make it very low. It's just graphics and don't impact gameplay.

 

Would love a crew of 40-50 men.

 

Can we post screenshots of other games ? If not please delete it from my message, but that is from NTW for example. Sure it is completely different game, but you see what I mean :

 

[Godream]

Yes, Azzak makes a great point as well, if I remember correctly POTBS had a few sliders so you could decide how many ship captains and crews were rendered and at which distance. So your own crew only, or yours and nearby vessels up to a certain (visible with the naked eye) distance etc would be clever ways to maintain system performance etc while adding this great level of detail and flavour. Also to add to the idea, since ships sails and ensigns (I think?) are being customizable, perhaps the basic crew uniforms, I mean primary colour and secondary colours, could be modified as well? again just suggestions for the Devs, would love to hear peoples feedback too.