Missing ingame mechanics.

[Alex Connor]

Naval Action covers a great many of the different ship types from the age of sail, so in order to make all ships useful we have to look at the reasons why these ships were built in the first place.

Crew

One of the most important considerations for any large navy was crew requirements. For example, the Royal Navy favored two masted brig sloops over three masted ship sloops because the brig required fewer crew, even though the brig was more vulnerable to rigging damage in combat. For a ship to be able to perform it's role with less crew was considered an asset.

In Naval Action, crew are freely available for only a gold cost, and gold is no barrier to any veteran player. I propose instead that crew are generated or recruited over time. This makes smaller ships that require less crew valuable, for example losing a frigate has much less of an impact than losing a 3rd rate, and losing a 1st rate might leave the player unable to sail SoL for several days until they can rebuild their crew, promoting combat in ships where crew loss is sustainable instead of always using the largest and most powerful.

Crew recruitment rates might also be used as a point of balance between overpopulated and underpopulated nations, the nations with less players would find it easier to replace crew losses.

Endurance

The ability to remain at sea for long periods was very also important to a navy. Frigates had the greatest endurance at sea, more than SoL and shorter ranged small craft. Between individual ships of similar types, endurance could be a distinguishing point, IE the Niagara with it's shallow hull would be very fast but quite limited in range.

Proposal; Ships should have an endurance at sea set by ingame days, after which they will suffer combat penalties for running low on provisions. This endurance would be reset by visiting a friendly port, resupplying could either be automatic or by purchasing supplies. Might need to rethink or reduce the number of neutral ports so that conquest makes a difference in where fleets (especially SoL) can operate.

Draught

Depth of hull was also an important consideration for a ship design. For example, small 2 deckers like 4th and 5th rates were largely obsolete by the end of the 18th century, but retained a small though valuable role because they were more powerful than anything else which could operate in the same depth of water (being more powerful than a frigate that required the same crew also made them useful escorts). Some nations such as the dutch and danish even made shallow draught part of their design whole philosophy, which comes at a cost of range or performance, and smaller examples of the same ship types (Cerberus/Renommee and the lynx/privateer/cutter etc) would have an advantage of being able to operate in shallower water than better armed opponents.

Therefore in order to promote the use of different ships it is very important to add more depths of water beyond simple shallow and deep. Whether this is physically modeled as a seabed or simply which more different depth maps like the current system is not important, but one way or the other different depths of water must be added to both combat and the open world.

 

Between these three mechanics players would be encouraged to use a much greater variety of ships.

 

[SirSamuelHood]

I very much like the sound of endurance/provisions. 

[MikeCK]

I love the endurance and provision ideas. In fact, when I first bought this, I thought I had to purchase and store fish and food for the trip (and that's what it was for). I was disappointed to find that I could sail for as long as I wanted with an empty hold

[The Spud]

I wouldn't mind having the game a tad more historicaly accurate but an over time regeneration of crew is a bad idea, it would be another reason not to do PvP or to only fight in overwhelming numbers. If you take out a first rate for a PB or for a screening action, and you get sunk you immediatly lose almost all your crew, and you're done for the day. This would kill player population for sure.

Endurance/provisions is something where I don't realy see the added value gameplaywise, its another time and moneysink where people will just fail to see the benefit of it.

Draught I would be OK with.

I still think that the devs should release the game, and then go on to create a seperate server where they implement more historical features like the ones you proposed. Those are great ideas but it slows down the action too much, and I think the majority does not want to see the action slowed down any further. Non the less I think it would be something that many age of sail enthousiast would love, and it might bring back some players who were a bit let down by some ahistorical features.

[JollyRoger1516]

6 hours ago, Alex Connor said:

In Naval Action, crew are freely available for only a gold cost, and gold is no barrier to any veteran player.

Endurance

The ability to remain at sea for long periods was very also important to a navy. Frigates had the greatest endurance at sea, more than SoL and shorter ranged small craft. Between individual ships of similar types, endurance could be a distinguishing point, IE the Niagara with it's shallow hull would be very fast but quite limited in range.

Proposal; Ships should have an endurance at sea set by ingame days, after which they will suffer combat penalties for running low on provisions. This endurance would be reset by visiting a friendly port, resupplying could either be automatic or by purchasing supplies. Might need to rethink or reduce the number of neutral ports so that conquest makes a difference in where fleets (especially SoL) can operate.

 

1. I would be very careful with such a statement. Currently this might be true but it only applies to the actual veteran players. Right now any newcomer is sitting in front of a wall of problems economy wise unless he finds a player who gives him money or a trader brig that contains fine woods. Otherwise new players are consistently being bought out and unable to get to better upgrades. I suggest we wait for the economy changes before we put any more pressure on players in terms of money. So far all these money bleeds that were introduced have primarily been bad for those who didn't have any money yet. The big players haven't lost significant amounts of money.

2. I see your idea here but I think it would be counter productive. One reason being that you could techincally sail for a few months and the ingame days would make that several real days at sea and players tend to go into port more than once per day anyway. Also back in the old flag system I had the idea that players would only be able to use their own ports meaning for long range operations into enemy waters they would have to sail into these waters. Then your system would ahve meaning but it would render these attacks kinda worthless and only inhibit players and prevent PvP.

[Alex Connor]

1 hour ago, JollyRoger1516 said:

1. I would be very careful with such a statement. Currently this might be true but it only applies to the actual veteran players. Right now any newcomer is sitting in front of a wall of problems economy wise unless he finds a player who gives him money or a trader brig that contains fine woods. Otherwise new players are consistently being bought out and unable to get to better upgrades. I suggest we wait for the economy changes before we put any more pressure on players in terms of money. So far all these money bleeds that were introduced have primarily been bad for those who didn't have any money yet. The big players haven't lost significant amounts of money.

2. I see your idea here but I think it would be counter productive. One reason being that you could techincally sail for a few months and the ingame days would make that several real days at sea and players tend to go into port more than once per day anyway. Also back in the old flag system I had the idea that players would only be able to use their own ports meaning for long range operations into enemy waters they would have to sail into these waters. Then your system would ahve meaning but it would render these attacks kinda worthless and only inhibit players and prevent PvP.

The idea is to replace gold cost for crew recruitment, not add to it. Gold is zero barrier for veteran players with millions (in some cases billions) of gold in the bank, and only serves to punish new players. A recruitment timer to replace losses or similar would be better as it puts players on a more even footing and still functions as a mechanic to encourage even the richest to not use the largest ships all the time.

Range would be scaled of course, days at sea not months. Probably need to reduce free ports (and increase travel speed to compensate) for range to be meaningful. Not a big fan of free ports in the middle of enemy territory, although I understand they are something of a necessary evil because it would take so long to find combat with ingame travel times.

[Alex Connor]

3 hours ago, rediii said:

A timer just forces players to stop playing after losses. As we could see with the battlescreen camping it is the worst possible thing you can do.

Not unless they are losing 1st rates 24/7. 

Would probably need to lose 5 frigates in a row to run out of crew, more even accounting for any surrenders reducing loss and the time it would take to lose 5 frigates. Same for the smaller 4th rates with 300 or so crew. Possible to play these ships indefinitely even if you were losing most fights.

Bigger SoL you'd need to be more careful, as losing a 74 would put you on 450 or so crew. Which is enough to sail a 4th rate or any frigate, but not enough to bounce straight back into a 74. And of course losing a 1st rate would pretty much wipe you out (probably have enough crew left over for a small frigate), which would make players much less inclined to just throw 1st rates into every fight.

In turn, that encourages much better variety of ships to be used, with the larger ones reserved for the really important battles.

 

[maturin]

18 minutes ago, Alex Connor said:

Not unless they are losing 1st rates 24/7. 

Would probably need to lose 5 frigates in a row to run out of crew, more even accounting for any surrenders reducing loss and the time it would take to lose 5 frigates. Same for the smaller 4th rates with 300 or so crew. Possible to play these ships indefinitely even if you were losing most fights.

Bigger SoL you'd need to be more careful, as losing a 74 would put you on 450 or so crew. Which is enough to sail a 4th rate or any frigate, but not enough to bounce straight back into a 74. And of course losing a 1st rate would pretty much wipe you out (probably have enough crew left over for a small frigate), which would make players much less inclined to just throw 1st rates into every fight.

In turn, that encourages much better variety of ships to be used, with the larger ones reserved for the really important battles.

 

Admittedly, it wouldn't do much for your example of brig vs ship-rig.

[BungeeLemming]

The idea to have crew regeneration instead of infinite has been around for quite some time. I wholeheartly agree with such a feature that would reduce the spam of 1st rates potentially.

You should always be able to crew small to maybe medium ships (18pd frigates?). That should ensure endless OS pvp if you want to. Just use the correct shp for it. 320 crew as backup should be enough for everybody. Could even be less.

However loosing a 1st rate should hurt. Money is kinda fake in this. But if you prevent a player from playing his beloved 1st rate for 1-3 days he would consider twice of thrice if he uses his lets say ocean or sainti in the next given PB. loosing 1000+ crew at once is immense. A complete village whiped out if you think about it. Ingame - it is just a minor annoyance which you refill with a click on crew.

The idea is simple: crew which you can hire regenerates over time. Up until the current rank limit. And I do say it should be paired with the gold cost. The only factor a player really hurts is time.

To easen the stress on the server there could be ticks every hour. Every tick is like 5% (basic example) of your max crew which is then for hire.

[Prater]

If you are always able to crew up to 12lb frigates, then there is definitely no downtime.  So, you have the max crew you can have from your rank (40,60, 120, 150, 200, 240, ... 1100).  If you are under rank 6, the min crew you can have is your max crew amount.  Rank 6 and above the min amount is 240 crew.

Edited January 11, 2017 by Prater

[JeanJacques de Montpellier]

I like really much the suggestions of Alex Connor.

The endurance idea is very interesting; would show better types of vessels even in relation to their endurance and would give much more realism and atmosphere of age of sails.
I have one doubt about that, the map. The Caribbeans are very small, you can travel them in a few days, with the possibility to make stops in free ports. For this reason i would for a world scaled map. I want ships that do what they really were; such frigates in long patrols on the routes of merchant ships and whaling.

Areas of particular interest to merchant (maybe even some AI) or whaling, create hot areas, invite hunters to go there; also invite those who want to kill the hunters. All combined to statistics/status career and rankings global statistics and divided by type (warships kills, merchants kills, trading score). Here is the desired PvP (as you call).

And without using artificial mechanisms such as PvP event, etc.

PS: why not give one of the admiralty missions more precise things and concerning the PvP, such:
- patrol a given area for a given time
- kill warships for a total Br ....
- Capture or sinking of merchant n ...

 etc. etc

Just some ideas...

Edited January 11, 2017 by JeanJacques de Montpellier

[Darayavahus]

So why don't we make it in old style: based on a game i very liked on my first PC:
"High Seas Trader" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Seas_Trader

Crew:
To gain crew (marines, sailors) you had to visit ports and recruit them from a tavern, so it took atleast several ports to visit if you lost most of your crew. Of course there was no teleport between outposts, so new crew members could be available only when sailing into port with a ship (disabled for outposts). Game currently remembers when last time you have visited the port, based on this value the system would offer certain ammount of new crew members to recruit (marines, sailors separately?).

Provisions:
Each having consumption rate set separately affecting crew morale, and/or ship handling - mostly on longer voyages
1. Rum - only purchasable at ports
2. Fruit - purchasable at ports / collectible near coast
3. Water - replenished automatically at ports / collectible at certain areas near coast

In addition it had nice leveling system that required traveling (visiting certain number of ports), level of wealth aquired since previous level up, battle experience aquired - a rank up required all of those at a certain level, at mid rank it required 'estate' and later few treasures found.

Edited January 11, 2017 by Darayavahus

[Cmdr RideZ]

Crew and Endurance: These are not fun.  Ask from you how these work in the game?  Like you sail 1st rate, and as raking and crew damage are maxed atm.  How is this going to be fun?  Or time sinking even more, that you have to sail back to port all the time?  Like not enough time sinks yet?  This is like -> Everyone has to go now in a Surprise.

 

Draught: This is good.  Definitely would be a nice thing to see.

[Alex Connor]

On the subject of timesinks, the vast map is an enormous timesink, it takes an eternity to get anywhere. Even "nearby" important enemy ports are 30min or more sailing and that's with freeports all over the map. Probably too late to rebuild the map, at this stage the only solution would be to speed up travel by about 2-3x (I know, this isn't ideal).

Crew regeneration doesn't have to be a timesink, at least not more than present. No reason why you can't recover crew at sea, doctor skill, medkits, pressing men from merchant ships etc. Pretty much anything up to the limits of crew allowed.

[Alex Connor]

As for the idea that people would save their crews for 1st rates and not fight otherwise...

I don't think any player should be able to sail 1st rates all the time.

1st rates are special ships to bring out in small numbers for the really big fights, and in fact I would like to see as many methods as possible for fighting 1st rate spam. Crew loss is one, dedicated fireships would be another, along with shallow water that would restrict 1st rate movement in port battles. 

Fireships especially could be a hard counter to 1st Rate fleets, combined with some reductions to 1st rate agility and upwind/beam reach speed fireships would be very dangerous to three deckers that would lack the maneuverability to avoid them. In turn, this makes the optimum fleet include at least a reasonable number of 3rd rates which would be better able to fend off and sink fireships.

To be sure, people would still bring 1st rates, but it would be situational because a full 1st rate fleet or majority 1st rate fleet would be setting up your side for a crippling loss.

[Prater]

Don't rebuild the map, it is perfect how it is.  If you scale it, ships will be larger in size compared to islands.  Don't speed up travel either.  Leave this stuff alone.

[Angus McGregor]

17 hours ago, Darayavahus said:

So why don't we make it in old style: based on a game i very liked on my first PC:
"High Seas Trader" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Seas_Trader

Crew:
To gain crew (marines, sailors) you had to visit ports and recruit them from a tavern (snip)

Provisions:
Each having consumption rate set separately affecting crew morale, and/or ship handling (snip)
 

Pretty much every Caribbean Age of Sail type game I've ever enjoyed had these mechanics and was very disappointed (after purchase) that NA didn't. I know the devs are trying walk the tightrope between sim and arcade, so I don't get everything I want. But it would be nice...

[DeRuyter]

While your crew idea is a good one I think it conflicts with the stated goal of allowing people to have no delay between battles. I think even if people are not sailing SoL they would worry too much about losing crew.

Draught - +1 absolutely should be in game. You are probably familiar with some of the proposals for variable depth and draught in PB. Unfortunately afaik a complete terrain map and collision system has been ruled out for technical reasons. Also the devs worked on some kind of depth system for the new PB but said it was taking too long to implement. Keeping my hopes up that something even a simple system gets in game. My favorite example is Copenhagen where several British SoL ran around and they didn't even risk the 1st rates in the shoal waters.

Another mechanism that should be in game: Variable winds and consequences of carrying too much sail. Set a floor so no one is becalmed or complaining about OW travel being too slow and go from there.

[Pagan Pete]

Pagan Pete likes this. +3

[Sir Cloudsley-Shovell]

I like the idea of not having just one "standard" of crew.Back in  the day when a ship was short of crew they were garnered in several ways.

1."Removing" Crew from Merchant Vessels(Most of these would be accomplished Seamen)

2.The Infamous Press Gang(Mainly low grade Seamen if at all,most likely Landsmen.

3."Volounteers",either from Shoreside or from other ships,even Enemy ships(Most of these were seasoned seamen but of dubious quality especially if they came from another ship.)

 

So how would we "impliment this"?

Looking at Number one is simple,when you take a Merchantman or Warship there would be a certain Number of Seasoned Crew available to use.Their Quality would be fairly standard.

Number 2,When you dock in a port there is a Perecentage Chance of getting hold of Extra Crew of Varying Quality.Obviously Free Ports would also have the same % chance of obtaining Crew.This would be a small number,we arent talking Hundreds here but a dozen or score of Bodies.

Number 3.This mechanic could be one done on a Clan Level.You apply to the Clan for more Crew(these being trained Seamen)Also a random chance off the odd Volounteer would happen when Visiting ports.

 

There would need to be a system of "distribution" of Expert/Seasoned Crew between Gunnery,Sailing and Survival mechanics(Similar in the way we have crew management in a Battle Instance)The more Seasoned/Expert Crew you have the more of an impact on that ships ability to sail,fight and survive.Nations could have a randomly generated "arrival" of a Fleet which would enable Clans to receive replacements for Captains in their Clans.There also could be a mechanic for "training" up these Crew.

As a ship fights on,then the Crew would get more experienced(similar to the Officer you can recruit)Possibly you can accrue "Crew XP" which post Battle you can apply to crew to improve their Quality.

 

Just a few thoughts.