maturin

I would also recommend making the elevation limit a very minimalistic, dynamic UI feature. I don't think anyone wants two more little lines on their screen all the time. The maximum traverse line should only appear when you are aiming near the limit already.

I definitely support some form of indication for elevation limits. This would make firing less frustrating and unpredictable without actually making it easier.

You would, however, probably be surprised at what your brother's aquarium could accomplish. It would go a long ways towards stopping a modern 100mm anti-tank shell, for instances. Anyways, when it comes to hits at the waterline, it's the angle of incidence that matters more than anything. That roundshot is probably just going to skip, and if it doesn't, then a round ball will lose velocity much faster than any conical bullet.

Excellent idea.

Seamanship in the Age of Sail is the most useful reference that is also (usually) comprehensible to the layman.

Guys, forced surrenders versus no surrenders is a false choice. No player should EVER be forced to strike. But you can reach pretty much the same result by simulating debilitating morale failures and disorganization among gun crews. ie, after HMS Victory takes 200 casualties, men start hiding below the waterline, the upper deck is mostly clear of officers and marines, etc. Rate of fire slows to almost nothing for what guns are still being served, sail handling speeds are sluggish too. In such a situation a player will see that he is combat ineffective, and either flee or limp away, depending on the state of the rig. Tell me how this is less desirable than a straight-up surrender. It gives a defeated player a chance at escape if the enemy is preoccupied. Moreso, it gives a daring captain in a light frigate the chance to chase down the wounded elephant and claim an incredible prize!

Spontaneous explosion should only occur as a sort of random-chance coup de grace for ships that were already beaten into submission, completely disorganized. That will keep it in the game for a very rare spectacle, without throwing off the results of any battles.

It's probably best not to render the ship's boats being carried on deck, even if the models will look a little bare when out of combat. But we do need to have extra spars rendered! The waist of a ship is generally cluttered with spare topmasts and such, even when cleared for action. Trincomalee looks especially barren in this regard, with her vast expanse of grating in the waist, completely empty.

At Trafalgar the light winds and slow approach of the British line was a serious liability, so they probably decided to risk the boats rather lose half a knot. Assuming the painting is accurate.

I'm not particularly enamored of the increased damage idea (especially because the focus fire death spike is so gamey). But still, I think you guys should remember one plain fact. It's not possible to reenact Trafalgar or most other famously decisive fleet actions in this game and probably never will be. And why is that? Because real battles are won by 10% technology and 90% 'magic.' Always good to keep in mind, when forumers are making such amusing statements as 'gunlocks would have won the allies the battle of Trafalgar.'

Nothing magical at all about it. A crew is drastically less likely to surrender if they perceive that they are surrounded by the main force of allies. On the one hand they don't want to be seen giving up before their comrades do, on the other they have good prospects for being rescued from any tough spot. The trick is to tie this sort of bonus to following orders.

Time for my weekly 'the frigging magazine is underwater of course' post.

Because being forced to pick from some tiny list of pre-approved names is DISMAL. The game is going to include many different nationalities and factions. Are the devs really going to fly to Istanbul and search the archives for the names of every Ottoman warship ever launched? Who's going to go through the Greek dictionary and choose the words that are worthy to call a ship by? But most importantly, making players wait while their names is in committee is unacceptable. So let the HMS Leeroy Jenkins appear as plain old HMS Surprise on the stern.

There can be compromises, though. Ship names could be added to a community-curated whitelist. So whether I want to name my vessel Bellona or L33roY J3NKinS, the name has to be cleared by a forum panel. Until then, it will be visible to the owner of the ship only, or those players who have ticked the 'Show unhistorical names' in the UI options. At which point Bellona will be approved and L33roY J3NKinS will not appear on the ship's stern except for the eyes of its captain. That's more or less how POTBS' user content system worked, no?

Just please don't make fireships high-seas suicide bombers or homing missiles. They aren't useful unless the enemy can't dodge them.

I think admin meant that there will be money and goods and cost-benefit situations, but players will not be running or contributing to the economy themselves. Most games have an ambient economy in the world that structures players' actions and advancement, even if they don't trade anything besides captured loot. Like a less-detailed Skyrim. Or the Soviet Union.

It's not possible to heat shot on a wooden ship. Where do you put the furnace? What happens when the gunner drops one of them?

While the ships' physics models in high seas are very pretty, they seem to be excessively buoyant. Because despite waves that would preclude all gunnery in real life, even HMS Victory never seems to pitch or roll her lower ports under.

Yeah, small differences would be best. However, there could be larger differences for (dis)advantages that can be mitigated. That is, maybe a ship could have a 30% speed bonus but only on a close reach.

It's a lot of code to set up a system of handling characteristics like in the OP. But a random stat generator is a feature of every simple browser-based RPG out there.

Great suggestion, I added the first one to the OP. The second does not easily translate into videogame stats, I don't think. I'd have to give it some thought. Edit: Oh, and I forgot to mention that all these stats and attributes are HIDDEN to the player. As Admin says, maybe you have the best upwind sailor in the fleet but never noticed.

The devs clearly think so. It adds unpredictability and tactical depth to gameplay, rewarding the player that takes time to experiment and learn the quirks of any given vessel. I think that is dull, dull, dull. I completely agree. We should be able to construct a ship slightly heavier or slightly sharper to tweak performance.But just because you increase bulwark thickness doesn't mean that all the other properties I mentioned will be known ahead of time. People didn't know how to design for those attributes and to a large degree still don't. There's a lot of art in the science of shipbuilding. The practical use of such a system is to create variety in ship stats without resorting to PotBS' horrible outfitting system, which did more to alienate players than ship loss in itself. A brand new frigate in that game was a worthless non-contender without the mods that became obligatory.

So you imagine that there were dozens of identically optimal frigates with only a few failed experiments here and there accounting for every subpar vessel on the ocean? This forces me to ask... have you ever built anything? So much as a birdhouse? Obviously...

John Paul Jones? Only the U.S.? He must have been confused when he was a Russian mercenary, then.

That assumes that shipwright were even trying to build carbon copies of a given design. They really weren't. The days of mass-produced assembly line warships was far in the future. Otherwise why would slow warships have even existed? No one tried to build something sub-par. And all oaks of a given species are the same? Even after you cut them into beams and let them sit in a warehouse on the other side of a continent for several years?