Henry d'Esterre Darby

My rule since the early 90's for computers reads the following: NEVER install an application that does something the computer should already do by itself. 9/10 times, the application you're installing tries to do things it shouldn't, isn't written with adequate skill and foresight, etc. Steam tries to be always on, has an annoying interface, doesn't allow me to easily check for updates (it prompts for updates when it wants to), etc. Further, many games seem to be migrating towards this idea that they have to have their own special unique launching environment (Origin, Arc, etc), meaning I have more and more extraneous resident applications running on my machine, taking up resources unless I manually kill them. A game should have a launcher, it should only run in memory when I'm actively playing that game, and it should bugger off when I exit until the next time I want to play. A memory resident launcher just begs for a company's executives to decide that it should do other things, like track the applications I'm running, pop up ads, etc, simply because it can. I'm not saying Steam does this (yet), but Arc pops up ads from time to time and it's really annoying. I totally understand where Admin is coming from - for a small house that doesn't have the time/resources to write a launcher, provide a server for game/patch download, etc. it's the way to go, but applications such as Steam drive me nuts. It's a tribute to Naval Action that I love it so much that I'll actually tolerate Steam on my computer at all.

I have had no problems playing with a 180 ping in the US Veyron. What kind of issues are you experiencing and what is your normal ping? What is your internet connection?

We can disagree without making ourselves pariahs, we're both gentlemen and can disagree civilly sir. This is an early Alpha. The process to create keys is quite likely a time consuming, manual process. The team is quite small, maybe six developers if memory serves. To have a developer standing by, poised to manually create a key each time an order is received is a waste of time. Paying someone to do only this task is uneconomical. They are doing the best they can as an independent development house with extremely limited resources, and despite that turning out an amazing product. Paypal is known for knee-jerk over-reactions, and favoring the buyer over the seller, even when no fraud has occurred. Even after receiving proof that no fraud occurred, they often don't care, and won't restore the access/funds that they initially stole back from the seller. They weren't a great choice for payment processing, but I'm sure there were specific reasons the developers had to rely on their service. I agree that this will cause some loss of sales, and surely the Developers don't like that idea, however, agitating on the forums and acting like you are owed a response when they have been quite forthcoming on what is going on isn't going to help the situation, nor will it make things move any faster. Steam will not allow a company to start charging for their product until certain criteria are met, and Naval Action either doesn't meet that criteria, or isn't ready/able to make that jump. So that leaves NA between a rock and a hard place. A payment processor that is uncooperative, and a distribution method for which they can not utilize the payment features. Rather than take a goodly amount of time better spent developing to make a change in processor, they likely have deemed it a better use of time to keep developing while Paypal moves slowly towards restoring their account. In the end, many of us waited months or a year or more to get access. And while I understand your impatience, this is an Alpha, things are going to happen that prevent you (and even existing testers sometimes) from playing. The best bet is to be patient and watch for more news. Causing the developers stress does nothing more than negatively impact their productivity and the product they are putting out. They're smart folks, they are heavily invested in giving us a great game, and until the game is deemed ready for release, it's a test and we must endure bugs, problems, and interruptions. Anyone not willing to put up with issues should not even be considering trying to help test the game just now, but should wait until a later phase when there is a higher degree of stability and a more reasonable expectation that everything works and works well. ETA: Your pre-order is just that, a pre-order of a game that hasn't been released yet. It is not a guarantee of immediate game access, it is not a guarantee of a stable, working product. That you're given access to Sea Trials as part of that pre-order is just a cherry on top - that's an extremely generous gesture by the developers. Treat it as a gift, and please have some respect for those that are granting that gift.

As I understand it, yes, they've temporarily removed this. Many of us have asked that it be supported at a later date when they have the time to get it working well and right.

It's not their fault Paypal are fools. They're rushing what they can, and Paypal is moving with its regular glacial slowness to restore their account. Blaming the developers for this isn't productive and I feel you're a little out of line.

For the most part, isn't pumping ship effectively the same thing as fighting a fire, just with the pump output redirected? I have no idea how they fought fires at the time, other than O'Brian's mentions of using the fire fighting hoses to wet down the tops to draw better air. I basically don't think pumping ship and fighting fire have to be totally separate - maybe a reduced efficiency in pumping as the pump has to work harder to push the water to the fire, but in the end you're still moving water - why not use the water you don't want in the ship? I don't like the idea of consumable repair "kits" for fighting fires. "Midshipman, take a crew and address that fire!" "Umm...we're out of fire fighting kits Captain." "Oh well, abandon ship then." Possibly create a "Fire" mode. Ship pumps at 75% efficiency, other Survival Mode negatives are also employed, perhaps at a higher rate due to increased crew needs to fight the fire. Make it a mode you really don't want to be in, but a mode that you need to be in to save the ship if the fire has taken hold. I agree with what has been said above about battlesails. They should reduce chance of fire before a fire starts when used. Usage of battle sails after a fire starts might reduce the fire spread rate a bit. Magazine Explosions - These weren't always the ship-killing insta-death catastrophe that is being suggested. Some might just kill a lot of crew and severely damage the section of the ship the magazine is located in, others might create a mushroom cloud. I think the size of fire when it reaches the magazine is important here. A huge fire hitting a magazine would create a larger explosion than a small one. Agreed with akd that you should be encouraged to use battlesails when firing yourself.

And to be clear, those are just the two easiest, watching for a partial stall and a luff. Telltales, how the reefing lines are behaving, all of these can help you to see if the sail is drawing correctly.

Was Portugal even a player in the mid-1600's and later? I'm asking the question, I don't know.

Pourquoi traduire le nom? Pourquoi ne pas simplement ajouter des noms français dans la liste aléatoire. Si vous voyez un nom différent de celui que je fais, nous ne pouvons pas communiquer efficacement, mais si l'on ajoute des noms français à la liste des noms, ils allons montrer à tout le monde. Désolé pour la mauvaise traduction - Google. ---- Why translate the name? Why not just add French names into the random list. If you see a different name than I do, we can not effectively communicate, but if we add French names to the list of names, they will show up to everyone. Sorry for the bad translation - Google.

No, we don't need a dialed in "aim in between here and you hit" mechanic at all. The current functionality is more than sufficient in my opinion.

Manually setting sails properly, if you're not just going to fiddle until the speed stops going up, requires a thousand little details that aren't modeled. Without detail pre-luffing and luffing animations, it's very hard.

You don't even need any modifications to do this. Once we have Open World, get some friends, and sail from point A to B. http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/route.html

This was suggested, but I'm not a big fan only because the Captain himself didn't need to go stare at the ship to receive a status report. He had officers that would tell him those kinds of things without him having to narrow his focus down to a scope.

They're avoiding playing actual voice commands to avoid the annoyance of hearing the same thing a million times in a battle. My wife hates the bosun's whistle even because of how repetitive it is.

I'd say quite effective - can you imagine the wind shadow a tallship puts out?

I'd still put flying above age of sail naval battles. Yes, there are a limited number of maneuvers, but it's not dissimilar tactically to age of sail with the extra complexity of altitude and airspeed.

Mr. Mouse, that's actually an incredibly interesting idea. I have been having a hard time figuring out how to deal with the roll of the ship without having to micromanage each gun, but that's a very novel approach.

Yup, this! When I run out of "likes" I'm a sad Admiral.

<claps on to the line and helps to haul> Email sent.

I won't violate my NDA by commenting specifically, but the "World of" Series (let's just stick to tanks and warplanes here) adjusts many things for you to hit. Your tank reticule automatically shifts to account for drop when you're on a target. In planes, they provide reasonably accurate lead indicators so you don't need to learn to estimate the lead on your shot. Massive RNG is applied to prevent someone from being too good accuracy wise. You can let the computer fly your plane and just point your mouse where you want the nose to go in planes. There are many things that they have in those games to remove skill and "dumb it down" so to speak. That is not what I want to see in this game. While we don't need 100% accurate sail handling and sailing physics, we do need to continue to express the need to require a level of mastery to do very well, and encourage people to develop skill to excel. Adding all kinds of aiming helpers does not meet that need in my opinion. That's all I was saying above.

I had responded to your post, only to realize that I had missed the part where you specifically addressed my concerns. As I had misread your post, my reply was completely unnecessary so I edited it. No worries sir.

The CoD mainstream should go play World of Warships when it comes out. I don't think instant gratification players will be a good target audience for this game. Part of the skill is the lack of gunnery input. Adding a near-guaranteed hit mechanic would destroy the playability of the game, and remove the ability of little ships to coexist on the battlefield with larger ships.I think you did yourself a disservice by not learning gunnery in the Lynx/Cutter. Learning to hit the little targets on a unstable platform better prepares you for longer distance shooting later.

Personally I believe I've more than gotten my money's worth out of it. Before you purchase, though, you may want some folks that have played or are familiar with AC4 to make a comparison between the two games for you so you don't have expectations that won't be met.

Edited because I forgot my reading glasses. Cheers Mr. Larkis.

Wouldn't this remove the need to sit astride a busy shipping lane - you'd just sit outside a port or in the middle of a transit area and wait for people to appear. The transit itself is what protects the merchantman or smaller naval vessel - you're taking a huge area to search for an enemy or prize, and compressing the entire world down to just port entrances and warp gates (this is pretty similar to Eve Online or, moreso, Earth and Beyond's travel system). There would be absolutely no reason to even have the areas between the ports and transit areas, the entire planet would just be a bunch of nodes. It's not a bad idea overall, but I don't think it fits the spirit of travel in this time. I'd far rather see a sped-up travel system similar to PotBS than this.