Henry d'Esterre Darby

The Developers are currently fully engaged on the Open World Prototype. We don't know how long it will take to finish, but I have helped to test an early version and it's looking quite good. We hope that more players will be added to the Open World testing soon, but there is no announced timeline. Meanwhile, the Developers are also working on a few ships to be added this year. Those are the Rattlesnake, HMS Indefatigable, a Dutch Indiaman (the name escapes me), and a wild card that has not been announced. Hope this helps.

Mr. Confused, so far, we know that you will be limited to ships that you can crew effectively at your rank. Admin has stated that you can buy a First Rate as a Midshipman, but you'll only be able to staff it with a small crew which will make it unmanageable. I don't thi we need further limits on Premium Ships than that. The second thing we know is that Admin wants to make sure that if you buy a Premium Ship, it is immediately available to sail (though I assume not necessarily crew). This prevents buyers remorse when you buy something and then can't sail it until you build it.

I've split this conversation out into a new topic. Let's please be respectful of each other and make logical arguments that do not call people of different beliefs derogatory names.

So far, it appears that the plan is to make that pirate flag a permanent situation. Be careful whom you attack!

Ahem...I believe that is called....humping.....not boarding. What you do in the privacy of your own harbor is one thing Mr. Freedom, but parading it in front of the fleet is unconscionable.

You have some great points Mr. Shelby. Wind, like myself, is a Player Forum Moderator. We have Staff tags, but we are not employees of Game Labs, just folks like you that have stepped up to help police the forums so the small Dev Team can focus on writing code and making a great game. Graphics Optimizations are definitely on the future list of things to do - Admin has been very upfront that graphics are not currently optimized nearly as well as they'll need to be at a much later phase of testing. There are a number of engines out there, but we have no idea what the Dev Team may be planning, both with regards to Unity Version, and with regards to any other engines that may be out there. The Dev Team has been mum on that point. Ship modelling will, at some point, be opened to the Community. My personal opinion is that right now, the Dev Team is still finalizing the exact specifications of what they want to see in a ship model (polygon counts, quality levels, etc.). As such, it's hard for them to go to the community and request models when they know it could all change next week, or that they'll have to request a modeler repeatedly tweak and resubmit a model.

Welcome! This game is considered to be very early Alpha right now. There are tons of features and changes coming, including an entirely new Damage Model which, you may find, will bring more "realism" to the effect that cannonballs have when they smash into your enemy (or you). Everyone sucks badly for a while, that's just because the Developers do want skill to be a factor in the game, but you have the spirit already - keep at it, read the forums for hints and tips, and you'll find yourself gaining comfort and skill very rapidly. Enjoy your new Command sir!

That all depends on whether or not the move would delay currently achievable development goals. You can spend time version chasing, or you can stay where you are and try to get the code completed. Now, having said that, you also don't want to write a crap-ton of code that isn't compatible with a later engine, which would cause a lot of technical debt. So it's a balancing act.

My opinion is much the same as Mr. AP514 - greatly, greatly increase the time between asking for a sail change (W or S), and implementing that sail change. A/D should work the same as they do today. Fully furling sails (0%) and then going back from 0 to 25% should take twice the amount of time that the increased time for sail changes will take. Make it a punishment to go to 0 sails and people will stop doing it.

I think we've all violated the weapons portion of Level 3. Seriously though, a lot of the "social" prohibitions in the chart you've posted are quite good sir.

They added that requirement with the Santi to ensure testers generated adequate damage on the Yacht. Up until that point, the Yacht was not involved in advancement in any way, so they hadn't yet gathered enough data to analyze for balance.

Very good! Glad to hear you got it working.

Replacing a cannon model with a destroyed cannon model wouldn't do much of anything to FPS or performance. You're just replacing an object with a different object - much the way the sails start to show rips when the sail condition drops below 100%. Damaged Spars are a little harder since they interact with the entire rigging model, including stays/braces/etc.

The very first time you connect to Naval Action, go very slow. There is a popup during the initial login process that shows your Steam name and lets you choose a custom name if you like. If you pick the name you want in NA at that time, you don't have to use your Steam Name. If you get all excited and start clicking like a madperson, you'll be the right Honorable Captain BunnyPoopCereal until character naming comes sometime in the future.

At least with regards to US ships, a number of Captains had a custom flag flying (Don't Give Up the Ship comes to mind). The British had three different colored Squadrons, and they would fly a flag commensurate with the Squadron, as did the Spanish I believe. The National Flag and Ensign were fairly standard, but I think there's room to fly a Squadron flag, which, since this is a game, could be custom for a particular group in my personal opinion.

When you very first log into Sea Trials, there was an option to change your name. After you pass that first dialogue box and play the game for the first time, your name is locked for Sea Trials unfortunately. I think a lot of folks missed that field, however. That said, Sea Trials has no way to change your name at this time, however, the ability to select/change your name is planned for a future release after Open World from what Admin has said.

Ok, the Radeon video card appears to be powerful enough. Here's the rub - are you sure the Radeon is being used for the game and not the Integrated? My laptop wouldn't run the game until I realized that whatever software it had to "detect" which card a program should use wasn't using the NVidia card to run the game - it was using the integrated card. Do some quick googling to determine how to figure that out, and see if you can "set" the Radeon Card to be primary when playing Naval Action. Let me know if you have any problems or challenges getting this done, and let us know if it works. Thanks!

That's the hard cost - is that per developer? Then there is the soft cost in labor as a full regression test has to be performed, incompatible features fixed/reworked, bugs identified and repaired, and any graphics changes that must be made to incorporate the new engine completed.

As a port protection mechanic, they're absolutely brilliant. Exactly what I'd like to see protecting a port. As a random encounter match, they're pretty overpowered.

Forts are pretty broken right now, generally your fellow players in a match prefer you don't use them. There's no rule about this, it's just a courtesy thing.

Don't read much into that "Currently". Fancy Tom, like myself, is a player forum moderator. We have very little insight into the goals and planning of Game Labs. Nobody outside of the Development Group themselves knows if there are any plans to move to the next version of the Engine. Until such time as it is announced by Admin, any speculation is just that, speculation that is not based in fact.

While in St. Lucia, I chartered a restored wooden sailboat for a sunset cruise and rum tasting. After that, I prefer only: If you can find Lucian Rum, in any vintage (they have aged and non-spiced versions as well), grab a bottle - it's extremely good.

Pabst Blue Ribbon? Seriously though, what is PBR? This coming from someone running an extremely old rig (I'm hoping to upgrade late this year).

We can not say officially yet, but without an Avatar, I would think ports would work somewhat similarly to what you describe.

That's a new one. What are your system specifications?