maturin

Specs are only as good as the shipwrights that follow them. That's a tall order, so far as 18th century technology is concerned. There are always going to be differences with something as large as a wooden warship, which is constantly flexing and decaying from the moment the first timbers are laid down. And how can the materials be the same? The most they can do is come from the same forest. But anyways, I was thinking more of the game's ships. Every Bellona will not, of course, be built at the same time at the same shipyard. Rather, they will be built all over the gameworld, in different countries and climates.

To my delight, the devs have stated that even within a class, each ship will have its own 'personality' and handling characteristics, determined by hidden stats. I want to support this excellent idea by throwing out a few reality-inspired properties that each ship could have (or lack) to make it unique. Because ships of course, moreso than anything else created by human hands, have souls. Everyone should post their own ideas as well. Inherent properties of ships: Ardent or Slack. In layman's terms, upwind vs. downwind turning ability. Rig balance notwithstanding, some ships are 'ardent' and naturally require a lot of weather helm for mysterious reasons. This can make them difficult to sail, but if you need to tack really fast, it can only work in your favor. Conversely, a ship might be slack and always be wanting to fall off the wind, which is handy if you want an easy downwind turn. Stiff or crank. A stiff ship heels and rolls less than a crank ship, which is a clear boon for gunners. Stiff ships can be very uncomfortable to live on, so maybe morale could take a slight hit as a penalty for this advantage. Best point of sail. A square rigger isn't necessarily only good at going downwind. Our famous HMS Surprise was "happiest on a bowline," which means sailing closehauled. The replica brig Niagara has a top speed of 10 knots, but has made 9 knots or more sailing upwind. There can be a lot of difference here. A dull sailor might struggle along going a half its top speed when closehauled, while another vessel could be tearing along without a care. Some ships might prefer the wind abeam, some might suffer less when sailing dead downwind. Best in light airs or half a gale. Some ships sail well in a 'hatfull' of wind, tripping along quite happily in light airs. The same ship may or may not struggle in high winds and heavy seas, wallowing and pitching excessively. And some ships are good seagoing craft that just go faster as windspeed increases. Soundness of planking. Some craft are better built than others, which will become apparent as the hull starts taking damage from gunfire or waves. If your planking is good, it will be easier to plug holes and leaks. If not, then plugging one shot hole may open up other seams. Best tack. Most wooden ships are asymmetrical to some degree, meaning that they when closehauled they will perform better on one tack or the other, with up to a knot difference in speed. Griping and control issues. Some ships tend to lurch to windward violently at inconvenient times. Or the bow is always wandering about, the wheel trying to jolt itself free of the helmsman. In-game, certain ships could suffer small penalties to rudder response times under certain courses, speeds and conditions to simulate the helmsman struggling against the ship.

Иногда посчитали все пушки, не только значительные. Это британская система, которую мы используем, когда мы говорим о количестве пушек. У Конституции всего больше 50, а не 44, например.

They are equally as important as mortar brigs for attacking ports. But no good for fleet battles.

Торговцы плавали на всем что угодно. Бриг, шхунна, куттер и похожие легкие суда. В том числе корабли, мало отличающие от легких фрегатов в глазах современного человека.

Or, you know, because the targets stood in dense rows at several dozen paces rather than hiding in trenches with camo. Soldiers back then were rather dismally trained as gunmen (they were expert marchers, I'll grant). Most if them just went through the motions in the rear ranks, shooting their muskets over the enemies' heads. At sea, snipers were chosen from the best marksmen and engaged only at pistol shot.

I hope we will see some half measure for cannon recoil, at least. Something like only animating guns on the player's vessel. Or only in spyglass view, or only within 500 meters. Something of that nature.

And even if you don't use auto skipper, you only control two sets of masts. So that's a simpler control scheme than even the most arcade flying game, which demands WASD, a rudder, and a throttle.

There are more useful things to know. Neither boxhauling nor clubhauling are ordinary maneuvers by any stretch of the imagination. The latter is an act of desperation, and many regarded boxhauling as being not worth the risk of tearing your rudder off.

What good is it to rest your case if no one reads your case? Please make some effort to write in sentences. There isn't a language in the world that uses double commas instead of periods.

Have you actually seen any new players get stuck yet? Tacking is accomplished by building up speed and then pressing A twice; let's remember that. So far as I can tell, the game's square riggers have 3 advantages over real ones. 1) No leeway, which is worth 5-10 degrees of windward progress 2) No apparent wind, which means the sails keep drawing for an extra 10-15 degrees 3) Independent of the first two factors, you can make headway with staysails and spanker alone, with all your square sails backing. IRL the backed canvas would overwhelm the staysails, and even if not, you would make massive leeway (15 degrees or more). I would propose resolving the 3rd issue to give light fore-and-aft vessels a proper role. Actually, my existing proposal about staysails would solve this problem as an added bonus.

Imho everything but lower masts should be repairable in battle. We should be able to replace even topmasts, although this should be much slower than sending up a new topgallant. Lower masts should only be replaced by jury rigs, with around half the power of a course. Accordingly, however, losing a lower mast should be much rarer. It should always take more than one shot to take down a three-foot-thick mainmast.

A square rigger in that situation would be heeling considerably as well. The difference is that your swiss army knife array of sails provides almost limitless ways of reducing the forces that cause you to heel.

Gotcha. I will have to test this again myself, but my suspicion is no. So far as I can tell, ships only heel in this game if they are moving fast. Admin tells me that heel is not related to speed, but has not explained what it IS determined by,. That's exactly what happens. If you heave-to foresail to the mast in this game, the staysails keep drawing and result in 1-2 knots of headway. You have to back all your square sails to counteract them, usually. Anyways, if you have experience with square riggers, maybe you could help me with something I've been wondering about. What determines the difficulty of bracing a yard in or out? In what situations is this easy work, letting the wind blow the yard where you want it? In which cases is it difficult, a hard pull against the wind? Am I correct that a close-hauled yard will want to fly fore-and-aft if you let go of a brace?

The spanker is the gaff sail at the very rear of the ship, overhanging the stern. So-called because it 'spanks' the stern of the ship, spinning it up into the wind. Luckily, the boom is too high up the mast to be a serious hazard. Earlier ships, however, had a lanteen spanker instead, and the forward end of this spar would indeed careen about the quarterdeck at head-height. Spanosh seamen called it the 'matasoldas,' the 'killer of soldiers.' So don't strut around the poop deck of a galleon in plate armor unless you know what you're doing.

Not necessarily. Swivelling a yard can be as simple as throwing a line off a cleat. If you're working with the wind and not against it, the yard will come over essentially by itself. If a brace suddenly snaps, you'll probably see the yard hurtle around with a crash.Once again, the mantra should be to model the optimal within the realm of the possible. Much better than your strange desire to abandon realism altogether and make everything arbitrarily faster than some time you don't have a good handle on anyhow. And what makes you think this is typical? Shannon took Chesapeake in 15 minutes. Constitution took another of her opponents in around a half hour.So if we take the fast end of all these battles and maneuvers, we get a good standard for the game. Have you played the early access yet? Don't suggest fixing what's not broken.

Where the heck did you get the idea that tacking takes even a fraction of ten minutes? These are famous warships we're sailing, not hogging replicas with liability and modern crews. Again, such an engagement would not be the norm.Your hyperbole does your argument no credit. Plenty of things on a square rigger can happen very fast. And so far the game does a great job focusing on those things, keeping its simulation in the realm of the possible by modelling the optimal.

Naturally. Of course, when hove-to you rarely back a sail more than a few degrees. You want the backing forces to be small: providing balance but not serious negative thrust. A sail set at a highly oblique angle, whether backing or drawing, will have little power in any regard. Historically, the mainsail was never intentionally backed because of the risks involved. It's just because of those darn always-on staysails that heaving-to doesn't work well in NA. You can set up the square sails for the maneuver, but the staysails keep drawing and ruin the effort, removing control from the player. If I were a dev, I would code the staysails to lose 85% of their power as soon as one or more square sails is backed. This would simulate the crew letting go of the sheets. Yeah. That's why you heave to with only topsails set, generally. In any moderate weather, reducing canvas will bring the deck almost level again. The crew would trim sails to choose the proportion of heel and roll, given the situation. Yeah, probably out of scope. And in battle you would rarely choose to lose way entirely; the lack of control leaves you vulnerable. Just shivering a few of your yards (swivelling them not quite parallel) will briefly ruin their performance and bring heel to a manageable level.If you find your bow drifting in any particular direction, you can often remedy that by sheeting in the jib to fall off, or the gaff to come up,

Right, but in a chase situation, leeway will function more or less as a constant. One ship will simply have an advantage in pointing higher. That sort of thing can be baked into any ship's stats without the added complication of modeling bow heading vs true heading. And yes, naturally different ship types will be able to pinch up closer to the wind, with different behavior in stays. That part of the game should shape up very well. The square sails in the game start luffing (not animated, unfortunately) and come aback based on wind angle. Apparent wind isn't modeled, meaning that the sails come aback based on the fairer real wind and can point higher than real vessels. But its an acceptable compromise for simplicity and playability.

It happens ten times too slowly. You have to bleed off multiple knots of speed before there's a serious change. Meanwhile, you've badly delayed your broadside or lost your window for firing.

Естественно.Кстате, я заметил, что у Беллоны есть таеие же мачты и реи как Виктория. Если мои глаза не обманивают, размер мачт тоже одинаковый. Значить, такелаж слишком большой. "Экстремальный," как говорится.

I was referring to a close range engagement. If the leeward ship wanted to kite, it would have to spebd lots of time running away.And as regards the heeling problem, are there plans to fix it or not? Swivelling yards to de-power sails should result in almost instant heeling decrease. Realism, gameplay and balance all in harmony.

The game doesn't need to model leeway when under way, but ships that are stopped or going slowly should definitely drift with the wind. If you try to sail upwind with only a few sails set, your lack of speed will result in you not making any windward progress at all. That's where leeway actually matters (again, I'm fine ignoring it for vessels traveling at speed). This is a balance issue to. Currently the windward player can simply stop his ship and remain in place, pounding away at his helpless opponent. In reality, he should be drifting downwind slowly. Also, since when is boxhauling possible? I'll have to try it, but I doubt it works since the game forces us to carry staysails, like havinv one foot on the gas and one on the brake.

Clawing off a lee shore is a very specialized and rarefied form of gameplay, and damnedly hard to capture in a digital medium. Sure, it makes for great situational drama, but it's a kind of drama that relies on a whole confluence of factors more easily drawn together by a storyteller than a game server. And leeway isn't the crucial element. Even with leeway, any decent vessel could make some windward progress. Since no player will choose to sail a worthless ship, that means that a digital lee shore is only of consequence when a player finds himself embayed. And even then, the leeway that matters is the leeway of drifting when hove-to. To really create lee shore gameplay you need highly developed storm gameplay, with worsening conditions that prevent easy tacking, and subtle consequences for pinching up against the wind and pitching into head seas. It's all really hard to model and harder to balance, since a player doesn't care about wild or uncomfortable pitching movements until the moment his ship actually cracks in half. Digital reality has no room for subtlety and half-measures.

I think that when it comes to sailing in a straight line or making very basic maneuvers, even a full-on tallship simulator would be hard-pressed to make player skill win out. After you learn the system, most competent players are about equal. That's the way it is with yard control. But if you want to demonstrate your mastery of maneuver, have no doubt that Naval Action is the game for you. All the theoretical knowledge falls away in battle, where the element of uncertainty and imprecision demands skill and cunning, even if the underlying sailing system is simple. RE, private servers and mods, I should clarify that that is my pipe dream. Anyhoo, about studdingsails. Maybe they do make a ship look like a pregnant elephant, but they mostly only do that in paintings. Because a ship would only set ALL its stuns'ls in a near-calm, when headed directly downwind. 80% of the time, you're just going to have the weather foretopmast stuns'l set, maybe combined with a lee maintopmast stuns'l. And then beyond that there are dozens of combinations that only work in certain conditions and headings. Stuns'ls are never going to happen unless we get individual sail setting, because they demand it with their complexity.