maturin

I think you should allow your gunner to fire each gun personally, with accuracy based on his skill, and a very slow, rolling broadside as he aims each piece and runs along the battery. Obviously that wouldn't be workable in a general melee. Range could also be displayed as an estimate with player skill-based margin of error.

Besides some hints later one, nothing in the post really touches on control schemes for gunnery. So it seems like the basics are automated? I guess the most important question is whether we designate targets for the crews, or just give elevation and traverse commands to put the pipper on target. I certainly assume that we then just press spacebar and fire the broadside, and if some of the guns don't bear, then that's our fault. I would like to see close range brawls devolve into disorderly 'fire at will' behavior for maximum DPS and gun crew efficiency. And if you want to line up at the perfect raking broadside or organized an aimed salvo at the masts, this means you cut down on the fire rate in preparation.

I once read that brigs don't point as well as full-rigged ships. How weatherly is Lady Washington?

Основая конструкция без разныцы. Положение маленьких лодок, общая грязь и беспорядок суда плус один или два допольнительные паруса. И все. Любой торговый корабль, который хорошо построенно ради скорости, невозможно различать от военных кораблей. По конструкции.

If 3rd Rates are the most popular, it means they're balanced in a way that fits history. Modern 74s were not clumsy behemoths. They were maneuverable and fast, never an opponent to be laughed at by a frigate. In the right wind and sea conditions, a 74 might just run you down.

Well yeah, if the shots don't travel directly down the interior of the deck, there's not much difference. Effective raking fire has to be point blank, from a rather narrow angle. Redoutable fought for hours because her captain and crew was willing to fight on despite massive casualties. That's the difference between games and real war. Games operate according to rational systems, war is mostly down to unquantifiable factors of chance, whim and emotion. As for having to carefully time a rolling broadside when raking a vessel: isn't this forcing the player to micromanage what the gun crews should by doing individually? In a large fleet battle shouldn't that be the case? 3rd Rates can shoot through the hulls of 1st Rates just fine. It's the job of cost and availability control to determine what ships are used. No one should use a First Rate for piracy or merchant-hunting.

I'm confused... that's almost exactly the same thing as 'Fire as you bear.' Only, the latter can be used in other situations as well, such as when turning towards a target. Each gun crew knows when they can line up a shot. It can also allow the rolling of the deck to affect gunnery, but without putting the strain on the player. Battles will change based on sea conditions. 18th century cannon were actual subsonic weapons. I also thought that they were supersonic because the internet is full of recorded muzzle velocities for the 1860s 'Napoleonic' 12-pounder. Confusing name, way more modern. The Constitution resisting 18-pound shot is a well-known fact, although non-penetrating hits could conceivably cause spalling.

That's what I was saying. The 'armor' of these warships only protected against the weapons of inferior adversaries, just like most tanks. So the SOL doesn't have to fear the frigate, but another SOL will hurt it just fine at most any range. The game should probably be balanced so that evenly-matched ships can hurt each other at most ranges. And remember that more penetrating power doesn't equal more damage, so a 32 pound ball hurts a little brig just the same at 1000 yards as 100. It's hugely incorrect to describe the effects of hitting sails as 'minimal.' A crippled vessel is no threat to anyone. Here's a good blog post I just read on the subject of the supposedly inferior French approach: http://ageofsail.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/making-virtue-of-necessity/

I think you're mistaken that modelling penetration necessarily encourages close combat (at least between evenly matched ships). AFAIK, naval cannon were capable of penetrating warship hulls at rather long ranges, at least well beyond point blank range. That is, from 500m 32 pounders can penetrate SOL bulwarks and 12 pounders can punch through a frigate hull. It's only the frigate's 12 pounders that won't be able to harm the SOL at longer ranges, thus forcing the lighter ship to withstand the withering fire of its opponent up close, where it is very hard to escape or maneuver. Penetration in the Age of Sail, unlike in modern tank combat, is more of an 'either/or' situation. If you penetrate the hull, that's great. But the benefits stop accruing there. A penetrating hit fired from 50 meters does not do more damage than a penetrating hit from 500 meters. It may even do less, because the ideal shot penetrates only one side of the target's hull, with a velocity just high enough to make it through. This creates the most splinters. Or at very least, the ball shouldn't overpenetrate the ship, but bounce around inside (even rolling on the deck it can disrupt the crew's efforts). This means that penetration does not encourage players to engage in close combat. You get in close with your target to shoot accurately, but can't expect your guns to do more damage. So penetration is only necessary as a way to prevent small vessels with light guns from kiting heavier warships from long range. It will not force close engagements if balanced properly. Double-shotting should be controlled by heavy reload penalties. I don't believe guns would often be double-shotted except for the first broadside. And shouldn't carronades of sufficient caliber be able to penetrate ships of the line in any case? The real question is how to prevent 1820s technology from unbalancing the previous century's worth of ship designs and loadouts. (The game really needs a set date like POTBS!) Thanks for the source.

Mind if I ask what those sources are? It's a tricky subject to research. As for long-range accuracy, I suspect it was pretty abysmal no matter how the crew trained, but at the end of the day you're only going to be shooting at the rig, which is a massive target. Elevation is an unforgiving affair when your target is six feet high, but at 150 feet, you're already bound to hit something.

Waaaait a minute, I remember your name now. Beforehand I was just generally wishing that all that POTBS shipbuilding talent could be put in the hands of this team, who looks like they can do the naval architecture justice.

And he was the exception that proves the rule. In two of those examples the non-British fleet was at anchor (or inherently immobile) and thus incapable of using the leeward position to affect the battlespace. IIRC, there's not much difference in the ranges for different cannon at this point in history. Caliber certainly means nothing (can a pistol shoot farther than a rifle?); it's all a question of the ratio between projectile weight and powder charge. It seems to have been a fairly linear progression as the barrels got bigger, keeping ranges more or less the same. A 5 pound ball does nothing to a hull at 1000 yards, though.

That was the British approach, anyway. Most fleet battles never became a close-range melee, and success (if any!) hinged on longer range accuracy, which would have required elevating the gun or using the roll of the ship. Reloading speed is king, but as Stalin never said, rate of fire has an accuracy all its own.

A "fire as they bear" command actually solves your two biggest problems. Namely, how to rake a vessel's stern without missing shots, and how to time shots according to the roll of the vessel. Let the gunners decide the exact moment to shoot and you have effortless taking fire and realistic gunnery dependent on sea conditions. Since you have such wonderfully detailed ballistics and mechanics, I would be very much in favor of basic gunnery being automated, like in PotBS or Total War. And a note about waterline hits. Round shot doesn't travel through water well. The ship at risk to below waterline hits is the leeward combatant that is heeling. Otherwise, only hits right on or near the waterline will leak, when the vessel begins to heel or faces heavier seas.

How ironic.

*Rubs hands together with glee* On the Russian forums last night you said освещение, so you probably meant lighting, not lightning.

I don't understand what use a musket is from a small boat. You can't hit anyone on any deck or through the ports. Do you have any more details? Anyways, sharpshooters in the tops were very deadly, as were marines firing from the waist. When cleared for action, all the crews' hammocks would be piled into the boarding netting and strung up to create cloth shields against the snipers. In game terms, I'm not sure how best to handle officer casualties, this being an MMO and all. Men at the wheel could be replaced pretty instantly, and there would usually be at least two. By the way, the main purpose of marines, besides the obvious amphibious role, was to prevent mutinies. Their hammocks were slung between the officers aft and the men forward, a physical barrier.

The big problem with the poll is that it seemed to define realism as preparation, and preparation is really here nor there. No one goes into a naval battle with a detailed plan, and the crew can reach full readiness in a matter of minutes. If you've got ammo, you're good to go. Naval combat has never been done well in a game (pure arcade) aside, and it's because of too little realism (in this case realism is synonymous with detail in damage models, tactical possibilities, and general immersion), not too much. The only real hangup in terms of realism vs gameplay is the speed and maneuverability of sailing vessels, and the difficulty of tacking and beating upwind. Do the ships move at 10 knots or twenty? There's the rub. As for the learning curve, I think we should ask players to LEARN. I have learned an absurd amount by playing ArmA and participating in its community. Strategy games tend to end up teaching a lot of history, etc.

That's good, because in game terms, only the highest-level crews are disciplined enough to fight both sides of the ship, and suddenly switching sides takes a lot of coordination. Also, a hull full of holes doesn't really offer that much less protection than an intact hull. Sure, the grapeshot will get in easier, but the normal roundshot will just have less material to make shrapnel with. What really matters is whether you've got guns dismounted.

And I think we can all agree that Total War is a good what-not-to-do example from top to bottom.

I really hope we have a damage model where HP means very little, and am sort of worried about apparent hitpoint bars shown in screenshots. The only way hitpoints can work is if there are dozens of them. The mainmast, for example, should have integrity tracked for the timber itself, and then the standing rigging that supports it. The only hitpoints a hull can have is the amount of water in the hold and the rate of leakage. Sails can have hitpoints based on the number and size of holes in them. And remember that 6-pounders will do nothing at all to the broadside of a battleship. If it takes too many system resources to make simulation-style damage models, then at least create a probability-based system, assigning damage to rigging, guns and (the very few) crucial control element in the hull whenever shots pass nearby.

Или с 4.5м в тумань. Я не старался давать правильные дистанции. Скоро узнаешь общий вид корабля, но очень трудно узнать чей он. Маскировать как торговое судо легко. Как я сказал, активная маскировка не особо нужна... только если тумань войны как важный элемент геймплея. Почти всегда не знаешь, что за шлюп, который подходит на горизонте. Опознание зависит от качества информации о судах, которые действуют в регионе. И узнаешь знакомые корабли, конечно. Если есть динамическая система опознания, тогда немного маскировки (краской, флагами) легко добавить.

Нужна пасивная маскировка. Не знаешь что за корабль до того, как он стоит за километр от тебя. Но паруса были видны с тех пор, как они появились, 30км в дали. Когда обычный геймплей так загадочный, создать и балнсировать сложные системы маскировки уже не так важно.

Awesome! And the 74 gunner as well (I don't think we have a name for her yet?)?

I don't think sea state is actually simulated, though, or there would be a stat for swell height. And it doesn't seem possible for a square rigger to roll 40 to windward with too much sail set.