Cecil Selous

There is this wonderful ignore function. Let's advertise this more and keep global chat. If one has to go then battle chat can go down the shitter imho but keeping it also is still the better solution.

Until now I just had three battles. The first was me in a teak(S), WO(S) Endy against an AI Belle-Poule. Since the thickness values also got a buff I still had a lot of bounces on the belle at short distances and the usual difficult angles while he also bounced a lot on my hull. So the felt difference to the live server wasn't as drastic as expected. I still murderd him though. Especially from distance, but this isn't the best match-up to test either. I didn't go for his masts so no comment on this. Second battle was against a Cerb. quick thing not a valuable test. Then I joined the test battle of Nixolai and while I closed in on the three Oceans they shot at my masts. I would say it roughly started at 800 meters and as I got as close as 200m, I was completely dismasted. Granted it was a 5th rate against 3 1st rates and this outcome is what I would expect. It took them maybe 9 to 12 broadsides in total and all 3 focused me. If you join such a battle and spawn close to them or you get tagged very close, you stand no chance against bigger ships I assume. I still think that accuracy is too high, especially at longer distances. @admin Is it possible (with a simple change in the code ) to disable the vertical stabilization after shooting a broadsides for a day or so? I guess not that trivial but It doesn't hurt to ask.

could be countered with proper ransom and abandon ship mechanics. A lot of these are in UA: Age of Sail. So at least the devs already thought about it

You read the article right?

It's not the penetration. It is the bonkers idea that 40 balls (of varying sizes) that penetrate the hull is somehow enough to possibly absolutely destroy a ship. Not even mentioning that single shooting into an enemy that decided to bow tank immediately decreases structure and if he is unlucky even by a very big amount. In the video that Liq posted, Reverse managed to get 17 shots penetrating the hull. With that he killed (or as some like to say disabled) 4 crew members and no cannons. But the ship is almost done. 17 small iron balls!!!! I wonder what the rest of the crew is thinking. They must be absolutely perplexed what is suddenly happening to their ship. Who build this ship?, why did I join the navy?, this is ridiculous... The emphasis in the damage model is imho on the wrong variable, the artificial hull HP pool (structure too). At least the way it works now is way off and absolutely not historical despite everyone using this term frequently.

How about bringing back some very rare reports that NPC traders can carry, that give a hint to a port with rare woods? Just a hint to make it not too easy.

Boarding AI is the same as it was before. At least on the testbed it was like that. Yes Ai knows exactly what you choose but If you know which action the AI usually chooses against a given action by you, you can easily bait the AI. Then just change your action accordingly in the last second and you are fine. For example use attack right at the beginning, AI will choose defend and then you change your action to musket fire or deck guns and kill a lot of crew. AI will usually choose fire grenades in the next move were you can use attack at the last 1 to 2 seconds. Granted you always have enough prep of course. It is also very predictable that the AI uses fire deck guns every time it is off cooldown, except you interfere with an early command by yourself. Is the system great? No not at all and I also would like something much different but it isn't unpredictable or luck after you get the hang of it. But I agree, until then new players will probably become desperate at the beginning with reading all the numbers and not understanding what they mean and without knowing the AI behavior or seeing what the AI chooses and why it does it. How it works is not really transparent for the starter I can imagine.

So if I bounce my shots or they just partially penetrate, it should transfer the most of the kinetic energy into the hull and to overall structure. At least more than penetrating shots that continue flying. scnr.

I can understand the idea behind it but the problem is, that it is happening so ridiculously fast. 40 holes (or a even bit less than that) in you hull can mean a total disintegration of your ship and a loss of structural integrity. I am talking here about heavy frigate against light frigate. This is just so artificial and random. I like your wind example. Why not introducing this in the future? Varying wind strengths and the need to adjust your sails to that or risk losing a mast section. This would give depth to gameplay. We also need hitboxes for the shrouds And why did captains surrender that fast? The obvious reason of course is if the enemy is just superior. Like SOL against normal frigate. So if you find yourself in that situation without a possibility to escape and no real chance of winning or doing anything significant you surrender to avoid meaningless loss of life. If you are massively losing the gun battle you surrender for pretty much the same reasons. One batters the other into submission. Now with the new dmg model this should be represented in NA. But in a totally different way. By completely destroying ships in a few broadsides. And I just think that this is false and the wrong way. A few players in this thread already presented ideas of how crew and avoiding casualties should be the main thing to care about. A SOL will still always have the upper hand when it comes to that. While I mostly agree with the rest of your post, I can't get behind this. It equals consensual mass suicide of up to a few hundred men. Shouldn't be a thing. You say it yourself and yet the most prominent reason to lose after 1 to 3 broadsides in the testbed isn't that. I will wait for changes and I appreciate that we get the possibility to test all of this but can we stop talking about real and authentic as long as HP bars determine damage done and the mere number of cannonballs that enter your ship decide about loss of structural integrity. HP may be necessary to simulate damage it in a satisfying way without introducing a potentially extreme performance heavy more sophisticated damage/hitbox model. But then it has to be tweaked and tuned because right now it is just too much.

Since you asked I will explain my thoughts behind my posts (that mental is meant in a totalyl harmless way I assume ). Of course it is just my opinion and I can't prove them with any studies, hard numbers and just approach this by my logic and general knowledge. This table shows the diameters of the cannonballs we use (I took them from this website https://www.arc.id.au/Cannonballs.html). Most of us also now the various videos on youtube about modern tests of naval cannons. For example the experiment with the part of a Niagara hull that gets shot by 12 lb, 24 lb and 32 lb carronades and the Test of the 24 lb long gun of the Vasa. They show what kind of damage is done to the hull and more importantly what happens after penetration inside the ship. The link to the Niagara video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGM6AlwjGS0 Those balls don't explode. They make holes at varying sizes mostly depending on velocity at time of the impact. Some are remarkable clean, some break out larger parts. All in all the important is what happens at the exit hole and what and where they hit. One broadside of a Victory (no carronades) shoots 16 x 42 lb, 15 x 24 lb and 22 x 12 lb cannon balls. At the moment one broadside of a Victory to the hull above water is enough to sink small frigates and sometimes also the medium ones if the majority of the shots connect. And that for me is simply not comprehensible. That's where I asked what kind of damage is done by those 53 solid cannonballs of different size that causes a fairly big wooden sail ship to be totally destroyed and sink without even a chance. That is where I asked the question of what we understand as Hull HP and cannonball damage and how they should relate to each other. That's also the point where I questioned the use of the term "historical" and "realistic" because they are thrown around here? Usually the example of the frigate La Sérieuse comes into play at this point to validate the current gameplay on the testbed. And then I simply said that we don't know in detail what happend to her. At least I don't. I couldn't find a really detailed source and have no book about the battle of the Nile to search for more. Maybe someone could help out here. The best I could find is that the frigate was heavily damaged, disabled and driftend onto a shoal. Then the next day it was scuttled by the french to avoid capture by the british. It is also highly questionable if we should take this particular example as the norm. A broadside of a first rate to a frigate is devastating and it should be. I totally agree with that. It is devastating because it is simply a huge amount of metal that enters the ship all at once with all the resulting consequences to the crew, cannons, everything that has anything to do with the rigging, modules etc but not in a way that immediately completely negates the ability of the ship to float and hold itself together. I said that I think this is a step into the right direction and I appreciate that we can test this on the testbed. But it needs a lot of tuning. Just two examples. Excuse the horrifying graphic settings This is what just three Trincomalee broadsides (32 lb carronades and 18 lb longs) do to a Cerberus, a light 5th rate. And this happens to a snow after 25 hull hits from a Trinc (full 32 lb carronade loadout) 2 and a half minutes into the battle. Nothing left and completely dismasted. Sure. Big frigate against a smaller frigate and a small 6th rate. But seriously guys. This is way over the top. And? Don't we have bad or new players? They should suffer extremely for being just that? Besides this doesn't only relate to first rate vs frigate. As the pictures above show. Like mentioned above. Those ships can be 2 - 3 shotted atm by ships in their own class.

Exaggerate? Did you test it? If you can get a good tag (or a good position when you get tagged) and the poor guy lies right next to you, he is done before he can raise his sails. In a bigger battle it is also not far fetched, that you get the opportunity to deliver a perfect broadside. For the smaller frigates you don't even need to hit with every cannon. This may have the positive effect, that lone or a just a small number of frigates don't tag SOLs from now on but still I don't like it. I needed 5 broadsides to sink stupid AI Surprise, L'Hermione and an Indefatigable. Imho a first rate should never sink a 5th rate with one broadside despite all La serieuse dreams. I am fine with the penetration though.

I want to ask something since we kind of loosely throw the words historical and realistic around here. What exactly is HP for you? What does it mean? What does it represent regarding the damage that a ship can take and the damage that is done by cannon balls. What kind of damage is done by a broadside, that immediately sinks another ship? Also again: How does the weight of the solid shot exactly translate into damage. How can those parameters be tweaked to still get the general characteristics we have now on the testbed but with a better feeling without oneshotting frigates or in general ships, that are two classes below your ship. I still think the relation between HP and damage is not quite there yet.

Except for the poor first guy in the line

Yeah, I would like to know how exactly HP correlates to weight respectively how the calculation is. Next step, getting rid of every speed mod But yes, I have a slight fear this could be the case

I just did a rake on a Wasa with the Victory from around 250 meters. took 3/4 of its structure away. EDIT: but another player in a Vic was next to her and shot a broadside into her side too. So I can't verify the exact amount, that I did. Before both broadsides, the Hull HP of the Wasa was around 3/4 on both sides.