Survival/fireship change

[DarkFenix]

Okay, so presently survival is something you can toggle on/off, you can literally order your crew to sit there and burn to death or drown. Not exactly realistic.

 

My proposal is as follows; survival mode can't be turned off. If your ship catches fire or springs leaks your crew will automatically go to work and resolve the emergency, not wanting to die and all that. However, I propose a new function, an "abandon ship" button. When pressed (and confirmed), your crew will start to drain away rapidly and survival functions are immediately disabled, when your crew reaches zero it'll function much as it does now, your ship just goes on sailing but you are 'dead'.

 

Why am I proposing this? Well, fireships are a bit silly at present, behaving more like guided missiles than a real fireship. A real fireship would be ignited, set on a course and abandoned.

[Mongoose McMoose]

Abdandon ship isn't really practical. Sailors couldn't swim. If your ship burned, you put the fire out or died.

[maturin]

Players should lose a rank every time they blow up without ever engaging Survival.

 

Murder 800 of your own men and the admiralty isn't going to rush to send you another crew.

[DarkFenix]

Abdandon ship isn't really practical. Sailors couldn't swim. If your ship burned, you put the fire out or died.

 

Maybe they get into boats or cling to debris. One way or another they wouldn't simply sit and die. It's just a reasonably elegant way of leaving in fireships but making them function more realistically.

 

Players should lose a rank every time they blow up without ever engaging Survival.

 

Murder 800 of your own men and the admiralty isn't going to rush to send you another crew.

 

I don't know about that, but being able to simply order hundreds of sailors to die for the sake of giving yourself a makeshift cruise missile is extremely silly.

[G'Kar Rah]

As "that guy" that lost a Santisma being firebombed 5x then captured!.  I was also involved in fleets sinking another two Santismas with firebombs and captured a Santisma I have a few things to say about fireships vs 1st rates.

 

 

I absolutely love fire ships and believe they are an exciting and realistic part of the game!

 

1. The Fireships as implemented are too great of a threat to a moving Victory / Santisma or grouping of any 3rd rates without any clear counter other than shooting masts of every ship before shooting hulls.  

 

3.  The Fireship is far too devastating, the magazine explosion even from 5-6 ship lengths causes 1/3 crew loss, 400 crew on a Santisma and Sail/Hull damage basically crippling the ship for the remainder of the battle.  A crippled Santisma is just a sitting duck for more fireship attacks.

 

2.  The Fireship as implemented is against organized cohesive groups focusing fire and working in tactical teams in port battles.

 

 

Fix Suggestions:

 

Reduce the damage caused by explosions.  Reduce the chance of catching fire over 50% health.  

 

 

A suggestion is to make the "fireship" a selectable option!  

This option when selected starts a 60 second countdown and causes the crew to abandon ship with rudder turn only.  

Edited March 25, 2016 by G'Kar Rah

[Jack Marslow]

I don't think Fireship should be something you can activate. It would be pretty easy to ruin someones day with it. How would the timer for the explosion work? I like Fenix's idea the best. Abandon ship if you want to fireship. The fire explosion time would have to be mildly random though.