Enemies visible damage Yes or No (Health Bars)?

[Reitak]

we want healthbar, but ok, if not, we need visible on that enemy ship he is destroyed, low armor, you know what i mean

[Peter Fouche]

I voted for it to come of.

 

The state of a ships' sea worthiness can be judged by a skilled captain and officers just by looking at it.

A couple of things to look for:

 

Shot holes and splinter marks

Amount of guns that are ran out (ready to be fired)

How deep she lies in the water

Sounds (like the clanking of pumps, hammering of patching holes)

Ripped sails

Broken masts or spars

 

I say keep it real. The success in sailing these ships and in the sea battles at the time greatly depended on the captain's abbilities, experience and intuition. Try to simulate that.

 

Since the game went live I've seen so many "Land lubbers" asking questions in-game that should really not be asked, like:"Can I attack a 3rd rate with my Cutter?" Offcourse you can... Will you survive? Deffinately not! But let the people experience that for themselves. Feed the fishes if a poor judgment was made by the Captain (Player). 

[Taranis]

I agree to keep it real.  That said, perhaps a hybrid solution could be compromised: by using the spyglass.  I like the idea of the spyglass a lot - but it seem under implemented at present. 

 

IMHO, the spyglass could be used to provide the following information:

• Type of opposing ship
• Number of guns of ship
• Name of ship (should we start naming ships)
• Number of crew in opposing ship
• Expertise level of crew (should we start having crew skill leveling)
• Port of origin of ship
• Name of Captain
• Condition /state (health bars) of opposing ship

[MaxBauer]

I want say "yes", but at the moment i cant see there is a way to indicate the damage.

 

Sails, Masts are no indicator for the ship damag, ony for sails and Masts. In my opinion we can remove the indicator for sails and mast with no problems.Because there is good visible indication.

 

The Problem is, the ship itself has no (real) damage model. Thats my Problem. I cant say "Yes" at this point, i want better visual indication or at least the crew can told me how the enemy ship is damaged.

Edited January 31, 2016 by MrWagner

[jpjchris]

I concur, damage should be assessed via the enemy's maneuverability or damage visible on the ship itself (tattered sails, battered hulls, etc).

[Ghroznak]

I am not voting on this.

 

Why?

 

Because there needs to be a way of seeing how damaged a ship is.

 

Experienced sailors and officers would know how damaged a ship was by simply looking through their spyglass. The amount of damage seen on the ships hull itself, the extent of damage of the planking, how many gunports seem to be in operation, how many sailors are dead, dying or otherwise incapacitated, what is the extent of damage to the sails, rigging and masts.

 

Not to mention, what is the reaction and look on the face of the enemy sailors? Are they are afraid, panicked, calm, gritting their teeth?

 

All of these things, both material damage and the human condition and behaviour onboard the ship is currently all rolled up into the top right stats and healthbars.

 

Now to the point... I can't vote yes or no because I have never heard anything being said about how to estimate the extent of damage on the enemy ships, or their morale, amount of dead sailors or otherwise if we remove the healthbar, crew stats and ready-cannons indicators on top right.

 

It's easy to jump on this poll and simply vote "Yes, remove it because realism", but realism means there is a plethora of things that need to be added (as mentioned above) for a captain to properly understand the condition of the enemy ship so he can make informed tactical decisions for his own ship.

 

So someone please elaborate on how we are to know the status of the enemy ship if there is no indicators in the game?

 

Just count the amount of textured holes on the side of the ship?

 

I'm willing to listen, but I won't just snap-shot vote on a poll without more information about what is coming down the pipeline.

[Ampen]

I went with remove them on this one. I do think however graphics or something is needed to give a hint what's happening, if there's a leak f.x, and if there's plenty leaks for that matter. If that is shown by text or actually seeing water spring up through the deck doesn't really matter for me (I would prefer the water springing through the deck though, just as you can see fires), but at least something that give away what's going on on the enemy vessel.

 

edit: furthermore, we're stuck with navigation aids from the 13th century in this game, how could this be too hardcore? (there, I got that said as well)

Edited February 5, 2016 by Ampen

[The MetaBaron]

With a better damage model that showed how destroyed a part of the ship was, I would be totally fine with removing the armor indicators.

[Tremor]

Just keep the healthbars as they are at the moment.

 

Don't touch them

[Azzak]

It'd be in favor of a more precise damage model, and removing health bars.

[PL_Harpoon]

I voted no because I'd rather not have them at all than have them giving too much info, but to be entirely honest I think current system is not that bad and just needs a few tweaks.

 

First, AFAIK "health bars" display the status of armour rather than actual "health" of the ship, so for ex. a ship can still be far from sinking even with little to no armor on one broadside.

 

However i would restrict them to only show status for those parts of the ship that are visible for you, so no data for the stern if the ship is sailing straight at you etc.

Also I think it would be a good idea to add more decals, specific to damage percent in addition to current cannon holes so that with enough experience you can determine the state of enemy's hull just by looking at it.

 

 

Second, crew counts are IMHO much too precise. It's true that IRL captains could measure crew size just by looking at the enemy ship but they could not count the exact number of them. My suggestion is giving a vague description how much crew a ship can have, like "fully crewed", "about half", "almost derelict" etc.That could also depend on type of ship, because it's much harder to determine crew size of a 1st rate where most of it is hidden on multiple decks, than, say a frigate or a brig.

 

 

The same goes for loaded gun counters, however it is IMHO a bit much controversial, because theoretically IRL you could see if the guns are being loaded or not. But on the other hand I don't think that either captain or his officers had enough time to gather that information. In my opinion this should not be visible or at least, just like armor bar, restricted to visible sides of enemy ship.

 

 

About the sails, I'd say this is one thing that could be totally removed. You can clearly see the damage to sails by just looking at them. (BTW, with the new crew system announced by shooting at sails it should be possible to kill some of the crew assigned to sailing.)

 

 

The last thong is the special status info like "crew shock" or other. These should be IMHO remove as there's no real indication on the enemy crew's morale or if the pumps are damaged or not. Besides, when there's fire you can clearly see it as well as rudder damage.

[Aetrion]

Personally I think the information should not be as perfect as it is right now to give more of a psychological element to the game, but you should have some idea of how badly damaged an enemy is. Personally I think the armor indicator is less of a problem than the crew indicator though. Being able to take one quick glance at a ship and know exactly how many people it has on board seems silly.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Aetrion

[Musuko42]

I voted no. There are already some good damage indications in game; how tattered the sails are, number of cannonball impact marks on the hull, whether the ship is slow, low in the water, or listing. As the game develops, perhaps we'll see more; crew visible moving on deck, or lying dead, cannons visibly broken in the ports, that sort of thing.

 

And for less-experienced players, a "report" button you can press when sighting a ship with your spyglass, which gives you a canned response from your First Mate that helps you to interpret what you're seeing. "She's barely got a scratch on her!" "I count a dozen cannons out of action on her port side, sir!" "She's low in the water, sir, she's taking on water and no mistake!" "There's a lot of dead bodies on that deck, sir. I'd wager there's barely a soul left alive on that ship."

 

(delivered in the voice of Gibbs, naturally) XD

[Jim]

It should clerly be tested, cause such small change could make significant change to gameplay. 

Another skill related element of the game, the only con i see  it could be to hard for new players.

[Captain Red]

 

the best indication of the state of the other ships fighting capability was its rate of fire.

This. But let's make the game "playable", especially when there are many ships around ^^

 

To me damage doesn't need to be displayed (at least not more than it is now). Not sure if crew shown on deck(s) reflects the actual crew size, but I'd say no to more informative enemy status bars (current system is like having a crew member/officer constantly watching/estimating enemy damage, and it's fine). Enemy crew state (shock) might even be too much, as is showing enemy repairs. I like Charles Caldwell's suggestion screenshot.

 

Now what bugs me is to have my own ship info split over the screen, to me having the ship's info displayed vertically (and not horizontally as it currently is) is much more intuitive. I have to say, PotBS has/had(?) an excellent system where all info is on the same spot (cannons/reload per deck, armor integrity info with colors depending on the damage). Moving bars around, fine, but none can beat the all-in-one, clear display.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Captain Red

[haemol]

A more cheat-like feature than the health bar is seeing how many cannons are loaded! how on earth would a captain know???

-- without having hacked the enemies ship cannon monitoring software ofc  

[Destraex]

Sometimes you can see when the cannons are run out to fire?

 

Unfortunately the game does not show cannons running back in as they fire. Seen here. One side run out and ready to fire. Other side fired and rolled in to reload. Although here they look like they are resting instead of reloading.

 

[Fastidius]

I think it is fine to put in if the majority want it.  It makes little difference since in TS we generally have the information being passed in some form.

 

Personally i think that if you don't do this then you have to fix the telescope view to show it on the targets looked at because at the moment you cant really target ships that have a LoS close to another.

 

For the minimal effect it has I would say put it in as withacrew 1 person can keep trackof how messed up a ship is.

 

If they don't want too much info then make it 5 levels of damage so you have

 

strong

light damaged

medium damage

Heavy Damage

leaking/sinking

 

you couldjust change the armour maps to show up on the screen with colour shading to mark how damaged something is rather than more textual info

 

 

[Banana_Joe]

What about removing the damage bar on the enemy ship and add audible advice/oppinion by your first officer which might be more or less randomized in accuracy.

Or more cheers by your crew if you do good hits. Like after 15% (+/-5) of damage to the enemy the crew cheers a hussa or your officer makes a joke about holes in that ship suiting her lines.

You will get an appropriate image of the enemy damage state and can remove the damage bars.

At the same time, I would give no hint at all for the enemy rank, or crew size. I want to suprise and get suprised when I board enemy ships.

Edited May 9, 2016 by Banana_Joe

[Fastidius]

audio cues only is bad unless you have captioning....not everyone has ears...

[BusterGut]

I voted yes, reason being that I sometimes like to pick on a ship thats got better guns and more of them, plus of course the graphics are not real world sharp so its quite hard to tell if its badly damaged.

[Rebel Witch]

I really like this idea and hope they at least give it a chance in the game. they could always revert back to damage meters if enough players grow too disgruntled not having damage meters. but if this game is going for more realism, this will really be a challenging mechanic

[admin]

CTRL H disables all unnecessary visuals - except for sector and aiming line. Try playing with it. game looks beautiful then

 

You will also play like a real captain relying only on audio visual clues.

• Wind - by flags and ensigns
• Yards by looking at your ship
• Damage by looking at your ship
• Cannons by gunner's whistles
• Enemy reloads by enemy whistles

Ctrl H is awesome because it allows those who like health bars to play with them while giving players like you a so called hardcore mode..

[Powderhorn]

Are reloads indicated by whistles on the vessels?  I've either never heard them before, or never noticed them?  (If they are there, do you need to be zoomed in a ways to be able to hear them?)

[surfimp]

Are reloads indicated by whistles on the vessels?  I've either never heard them before, or never noticed them?  (If they are there, do you need to be zoomed in a ways to be able to hear them?)

 

Yes, they are - just before your broadside is completely reloaded, a whistle will sound.

There is a setting under options to control how loud this is.

 

You can hear other vessels giving commands (i.e. to board) and signals via these whistles, too, but you have to be fairly nearby.