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My Shakespeare book is dated 1985 for some reason. Maybe its not Shakespeare? Congrieve was trialed in 1815 and Blomfield in 1813 And they look very very similar to those prints. Of course one would also mention that no shot was ever fired in combat from both those short patterned guns. But they were ordered by the navy and first ship that used short pattern 24lb was Eurotas. But they never fired (and fared poorly in testing - they were light and jumped a lot during recoil). Maybe the designs was stolen by the french, or borrowed. + I am not good in french - maybe it says printed in 1840. Anyways - as people say - there is a tweet for everything. Thus we will pick the gun we feel most appropriate after the first tests of the ship.

We argue that canon - obusier looks and shoots like short pattern Blomfield (shortest before carronade). Short pattern Blomfield cannon is known to have performance similar to the normal guns with first absolutely no difference in distance at 5 degree elevation (drop at 1800m) (source https://www.amazon.com/Frigates-Napoleonic-Wars-Robert-Gardiner/dp/186176135X)

We disagree We trust our sources too and in our opinion Obusiers look like british short 24lbs (short congrieve and even more like short blomfields which were extremely short) here is the pattern Source https://ancre.fr/en/basic-books/12--artillerie-de-mer-france-1650-1850.html Just took these photos from the book above (sorry for attachments - imgur down) The fact that Obusier can look like shorter version of normal gun can further be inferred from the 12lb obusiers (napoleons) and other variants introduced much later.

diana wont be an imported ship

You reaction to a new (and maybe temporarily overgunned) ship looks too negative to me. As if it is the first time you saw a temporarily overgunned ship in this game. Perhaps if players reacted with more excitement to new vessels - artists would work faster hearing the loud applause.

Important point This is a game first Realism vs gameplay balance is a made up dilemma, it does not exist in reality. full realism is amazing in single player and coop games (and we plan to do one fully realistic single player game after NA) PVP Games must be balanced and fun first. The concept of NO USELESS SHIPS is going to be applied going forward. If it will require some temporary bending of historical gun composition until new ship models appear in game - we will pick temporary balance over realism. Having said that - balance can also include good gun compositions.

ok!

I will see - i have a couple of old french ordnance monographs at home (not in the office) but as far as i remember they look more like edinorogs and are definitely longer than carronades.

The logic was always simple. This is a game and we allow maximum caliber this ship or any sister ship of same class carried historically - even if they carried it for just one day on the sea trials. We have weight penalty from guns and we have crew size per gun. For example - because its a game some players are sailing with 6lb santisimas. Is it historical - probably not very historical, but was it possible in history - yes - captain decided on gun composition provided ship could fit them into ports, provide for recoil, and wont capsize on the first journey due to extra weight. Overgunning has penalties, especially if you lose crew. But we are not 100% sure and ready to review credible descriptions of 24lb spanish obusiers so we can tune the ship closer to what could have been.

Link the references and we will review Need more data on the Spanish 24lb obusier from the end of 18th century (not late 1850s european/french obusiers like napoleons)

You are asking a wrong question. The correct question to ask would be - if captain could fit 6 24lb guns, could he fit the whole gundeck with 24lb guns suffering the penalty for crew and speed. + again - the proper definition of obusiers will solve the dilemma. for all popular ships main deck is listed first. Victory, trincomalee, endymion

References point to a historical mix of 6 24lb guns (obusiers) and 26 12lb guns on the gundeck three decks for example lists main gundeck first Also diana is not small - its only 20cm narrower than Endymion and has same width as Leda/Hebe class.

The main determinant is if the gun fits the port and the deck and if at least 1 gun had been installed on the deck historically. If the 24lb gun was on the deck historically then it means they CAN fit 24lb guns on the gundeck. now if you have enough crew or if the ship will be slower because of 24lb weight its another question. + definition and size of Obusier could be argued as well. If more data is uncovered we can review this again.

Those will be different privateers, might fight better than players.

long term K/D and usage rate takes average and meta mods and ship popularity and usefullness into account.

officers and specialists will come back after release - and will fix most of the problems with strange books, strange perks, etc.

noted. we plan to bring back privateers that could join battles on your or enemy side if they are close and will also sometimes attack players and traders.

If BR is affected by performance (and adjusted monthly until it stabilizes) - then mods indirectly affect the BR: better mods influence - better performance upgrades are already rebalanced in internal builds - 23 unique groups for upgrades, some books changed or removed based on logic (hand combat book is knowledge, boarding ax is not knowledge but an item(upgrade))

Remember that this first change is gradual and is not final - importance of performance and other data will increase over time. Initial tunes will be slight to not break mission balance. Once old mission system is removed we can expand the influence.

Fragata Diana

Spanish Diana - carried 12lb in 1793, but started carrying 24lb in 1815 And its dimensions give her the weight and displacement that is a bit lower than Trincomalee.

oooops. well indeed. the qa made a mistake in write up - will post an update soon.

Hello Captains Patch has been deployed today to live servers. 29th August 2018 Diana wil be given out for testing to all captains in the Caribbean. It will be a timed reward - you will have to login and claim it within 15 days after the patch. if you miss this 15 days window for some reason do not worry. It will be brought to the game as crafted ship or as admiralty note ship in the next patch. Spanish frigate Diana Spanish heavy frigate filling the gap between heavy and medium frigates Gundeck - 24lb guns 42lb carronades Upper deck - 9lb guns 32 lb carronades. Major BR rebalance We are gradually moving away from the static BR based on HP and DPS characteristics and will also consider several other factors including battle performance data. How it will work Ships with much lower performance statistics will have lower BR even if they are a higher class vessel. For example 2nd rate pavel having a much worse battle performance than 3rd rate Bellona will have a lower BR than Bellona. The changes will be applied gradually as full performance based BR is currently impossible as it will break old mission system. Once new mission system is added in September we will let battle performance influence the ship BR slightly more. This will mostly affect the port battles and will require captains to recalculate their battle plans for future conquests. Speed changes Wind curves slightly tweaked for Hercules Privateer Speeds slightly increased for Mercury Niagara Lynx Privateer Prince Elite and Spanish/Pirate rig refit bonuses lowered from 30/15 to 20/10 Keep in mind that this speed change is a temporary fix to provide more options in the 6th rate category - all ships speeds, turning, and heel performance will be updated after port ui patch based on battle performance with the goal to increase gameplay depth. Current historical wind curves (fully based on sail plans) have been found to reduce gameplay depth instead of improving it, and will be adapted this autumn. Update 30th August 2018 Battle rating has been corrected for some of first rates: L'Ocean 900 BR Santisima 800 BR Diana sailing curve has been properly applied on live servers Hotfix was deployed 12th September Fixed the bug locking you in port if you wanted to claim tutorial rewards without the outpost Fixed basic cutter BR issues Fixed Diana bugs with decals and colliders Constitution Classic timed redeemable added to all captains. Hotfix 19th September All upgrades increasing crew rebalanced (data below) XP and Money for kills and assists rebalanced based on BR of vessels (slight increase for 1-2nd rates) Yacht can now enter port battles and can be added to fleets Determined defender bonus lowered from 30% to 0.001% Boarding max speed increased to 8 knots (previously around 4 knots). speed difference between your ship and enemy ship was lowered and now cannot exceed 5 knots to board (previously it was 8 knots). Both vessels must be below 8 knots. Barricades defensive bonus increased by 0.1 and attack penalty increased by 0.1 as well. Crew bonuses reductions Shipbuilding: Very cramped: 5% - previous 10% Cramped: 2.5% - previous 5% Extra crew trim: 7.5% - previous 10% Modules and books: Light ship hammocks refit: 5% - previous 15% Hammocks book: 7.5%-7.5%-2.5% - previous 20%-10%-5% Diana Screenshot

We had neutral nation (with the capital in Pitts town) Nationals could not attack them, only pirates could attack them. But neutrals were discontinued as they went against the philosophy - you can attack anything you see (you could attack anyone anywhere then and that feature got removed too due to too many mistakes new players made turning pirates right and left by mistake). + even with basic economy and no crafting they already were causing stir with economy oriented players who could be attacked and had to risk cargo when moving.

Players pick the best options for them (sometimes the best option is to not play). We will tune BRs based on the battle performance this august patch with 1-2 ships. We will see if the things change There is concern that they wont - and the issue might have more to do with convenience. These screens remind me the times when 3rd rates could be captured and all port battles were full of captured 3rd rates, despite the fact there were better alternatives -generating a lot of comments here on the forums. We fixed it then but not sure if it was a good idea to fix as we dont know how many players lost desire to go to port battles at all by our removal of capture of 3rd rates.