Testbed - Demasting & Accuracy cap

[Liq]

I've been testing demasing on the testbed for a bit.
There seem to be quite a few new +accuracy upgrades / skill books. The ones a clanmate has found so far are the following:

• "Table Of Parts Of Ships Of War" -10% Dispersion
• "Flag Officer" -8% Dispersion
• "Sir William Congreve's Sights" -5% Dispersion

Additionally, if running carronades, the perk "Carronade Expert" lowers the Dispersion by another 5%.

All these buffs combined result in an accuracy bonus of +28%.

Now, I'm wondering, is there a cap for dispersion? Because I think the point of Carronades is to be somewhat in-accurate close up damage dealers and they're not meant to be laser guided missiles.
Combined with the buff regarding demasting (It takes 7 32pdr hits to demast a surp's main mast, see the video below), and the repair time being upped to 15 minutes, demasting might actually become a more often used thing to do in battle. We will know once it goes to live servers I'm very curious to see.

(In this Video I didn't have any accuracy buffing upgrades / skill books, so imagine if someone stacks all possible upgrades together, that might result in some crazy sniper action.)

 

Edited May 9, 2017 by Liquicity

[jodgi]

4 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

if you do not even try to understand my point.

Maybe I understand your point perfectly but disagree strongly at any rate?

[Cmdr RideZ]

3 minutes ago, jodgi said:

Maybe I understand your point perfectly but disagree strongly at any rate?

I make an example to understand my point, and it seems like you take it literally.

Lets agree to disagree.

Edited May 11, 2017 by Cmdr RideZ

[Cmdr RideZ]

1 hour ago, jodgi said:

Anyone fairly good at #2 can deny you good rakes, and that makes the "one trick pony" a complete donkey. I'm not theorycrafting, I'm talking from my own experience fighting the best.

For example this.  Of course I understand this.  This is not part of my point.

More efficient #1 is, less important #2 is.

 

...

I have to still say..  There is a video where a guy takes down 3 masts in 10 minutes.  And you still disagree strongly.

I should not continue.. So I suppose have to just stick to that agree to disagree.

Edited May 11, 2017 by Cmdr RideZ

[jodgi]

12 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

 There is a video where a guy takes down 3 masts in 10 minutes.  And you still disagree strongly.

I could show you a video of me and Doran trying to dismast each other unsuccesfully for 40 minutes. I have no illusion of changing your mind whatever documentation or opinion I provide. I only post to steal the wind out of your sails in this attempt to make NA balanced more towards hull bashing.

20 minutes ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

So I suppose have to just stick to that agree to disagree.

I agree!

[Vernon Merrill]

As a side note, I think this example posted in the video is a bit skewed by the ships selected.  Over 50 ball/broadside at 100-yd. range with the other player giving him a perfect shot at all 3 masts is something akin to the perfect storm.  Again, it comes down to risk/reward.  If somebody is that close and I can out-DPS him, I'm gonna do everything I can to hug him and bash his hull.  Get close enough and he cant even elevate his guns enough to shoot masts.

That being said, I think there nearly always room for balance if we find that masts are too weak.  

[Sir Texas Sir]

10 hours ago, rediii said:

videos of norfolk are not even on the testbed

Yah we are having a hard time getting clan members like Jean on testbed.  The grind is going to kill our numbers of some players and these new ship knowledge.  He's one of those players that only likes 1st rates for the most part, but we have been able to even get him to show up to shallow port battles, but you prob never see him in a shallow ship in the OW other wise.  

Though after getting demasted by a PvP1 player that single shot him (I think he had to win by boarding the guy) he has been looking at the demasting in a different light than the full broad side thing.  I been doing single shot demasting in 4/5th rates and below for some time.  Hell the whole reason I run a Niagara in the shallows it for the accuracy and 9lbr longs how fast I can demast some one in a 6/7th rate.   I just keep my distance, demast them single shot and than move in to board them.  If I"m in a group my other team mates are brawling while I do this.  

I would like to test out both my builds on testbed once we get the refits.  One is a Pirate refit (the boarder) with just Pillews and the rest baord mods.  The other is a french refit with all accuracy mods.   Even that ship still got green/blue marines for once I demast a ship I moved in to board.  Cause of the stupid crew kill in shallow ships you have to keep your distance in that ship as you can decrew it way to easy.  Speaking of that is something I haven't been able to really test on testbed.  Need to get some folks in shallows and see how much that was changed.

[William Death]

Demasting on Testbed is NOT OP. You can repair every 15 minutes for goodness sakes! And if you want to exploit that, here is how: stack up with repair upgrades and perks, as soon as you lose 1 mast, hit repair and assign max crew to repair, then as soon as you get part of one mast back, turn on EVERYTHING else: the whole point is to move crew away from that sail repair. That way you can be constantly repairing sail/mast damage as it is dealt. I think you should be able to coax at least 3-5 minutes out of a single repair, meaning you only have to wait, at the most, 10-12 more minutes for another repair. Our top-of-the-line demasters will  have no problems tearing you to pieces again in that short timeframe, but noobs and hotshots cruising around with big boy guns won't be able to do a meaningful amount of damage in that amount of time.

I just had a fight last night on PvP2 with the skilled Captain Jean Paul Vilvenue. We did a small battles with some of the other guys in our clan and a few participants from Global Chat. He was in a Santi (shocking, I know ), I was in a Bellona. I decided to go for masts just for the heck of it, I knew he would too. He took out my foremast with about 2 solid broadsides delivered to my rigging. I think another Bellona on his side hit me with a volley too, but the shots hit my masts much less than Jean's expertly-aimed broadside did. I took Jean's mainmast down with about one broadside of single-shotted and double-charged 32s and 24s: I missed quite a bit owing to the awkward range and trying to get shots in before he could turn his ship and deny me any good mast-shots, but it only takes 11-14 double charged 24s to knock down the mainmast of a first rate, at least in my testing. So down his mainmast fell . He took out my mainmast, I took out his foremast, we both repaired, He took out everything but my mizzen , I took out everything but his mizzen and bowsprit. Along the way we both had some team-mates helping each other out, but the two of us did the most damage to each other's masts. We ended up so close in crew numbers, the last two ships left in the fight, and not being able to maneuver, so I did a gentleman's surrender once we boarded. All in all, a fun battle  

On testbed, that match would have gone MUCH differently. If we both tried the same tactics again but with the testbed mechanics, I forsee it looking like this: I could have repaired my masts over and over and so could he. Due to the slow nature of our ships, the fight would have timed out with both of us plinking each others masts down, only to have them repaired very soon afterwards. We just can't have multiple repairs to masts in these battles.

And I agree with what others have said, if you let a guy within 100 meters and he has carronades onboard, you should ABSOLUTELY pay the price for that. Although I never make it a point to try to demast with carronades... the little guns just don't have the penetration to demast at "normal" ranges.

Furthermore, I'd like to point out, for those that don't know, that there are two different methods to demast, the "broadside method" shown in the videos Norfolk posted in this thread, and the "single-shot" method, which is what Liquicity posted in his video. Both have advantages and disadvantages, and the choice is often made by the ship class, speeds, angles, ping, etc...

People complain too much about getting demasted by the few skilled guys who are actually capable of doing it well, but these same people who complain about that seem to have no problems with anyone sailing past a brig and killing 50 crew in one broadside when the brig is in perfect condition.

Demasting is a skill to be learned, and it can prove exceedingly valuable in combat, but if you don't execute it properly, you just signed a one-way ticket to the bottom of the ocean.

[seanjo]

On 5/11/2017 at 10:21 AM, Cmdr RideZ said:

1st mast down at 4.5 minutes

2nd mast down at 8.5 minutes

3rd mast down at 10 minutes

 

I seriously do not understand why we have to even talk about this.

 

Because some of us, no matter how hard we try, can't demast a ship...

[Farrago]

5 hours ago, seanjo said:

Because some of us, no matter how hard we try, can't demast a ship...

I just switched my perks so I can use Double Charge. Alas, I'm going to try and learn. Always in the past, the few times I've demasted something, I've wondered how the hell I did that. 

[Norfolk nChance]

 

[Liquicity]

 

Apologies my post was on the servers and not the Test Bed. The reason for the post was something I get asked or I see a lot with players wanting the best mods money can buy etc. And they do help but the basic know how... is the core to the success and not the mods. With my style or the Broadside way is exactly the same. Having seen De-masting I tried and tried to work it out to very low success rates like Joggi says 40 minutes plus. I quite literally hunted down anyone that was good at it to dual. 

This works in the TESTBED also I have done it. But these are my stages to working it Jean Paul may say differently this is his original idea I use...

 

1. Larger Ships are better. The Smallest I've used is the Trinc, lower rated ships TurnR is too quick  

2. 250m like in the video is best distance with LONG cannons and if possible Double Charge.  

3. Mods but not completely necessary are Pellew Sights, Optimized Ballast and Officer Perk Trim Optimizer  

4. Game Mouse that you can reduce movement I use Razer Mamba Tournament  

The mouse when adjusted will still fixed as the ship is moving on the right height target you want.  

5. Rolling Back is the broadside delivery   

Check by left click the mouse that the target triangle dose not adjust when pressed. So its lined perfect center on your ship. Adjust via left click in and move the red target the opposite way.
 

Now at 250m move the red target up to the same height as the middle mast bottom yard. Start to turn into the target and line up the red target just to the side away from you.  

All stable, fire then immediately double the "A" or "D" key to turn into the target. Use the front mast also in the correct turned position for speed...  

It genuinely takes a lot of practice to turn. The turn keeps the red target and the broadside fixed at the same position making the chances of a hit higher...   

 

am sure lots of you won't agree with this method. It works for me, but took practiced...  

 

Norfolk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2017 by Norfolk nChance

[Sir Texas Sir]

3 hours ago, Farrago said:

I just switched my perks so I can use Double Charge. Alas, I'm going to try and learn. Always in the past, the few times I've demasted something, I've wondered how the hell I did that. 

The best way I learned was taking out a shallow ship and going after Trader Snow and Brigs.  In fact that is how I got to learn it hunting players in Shallow Waters.  I would keep my distance from any Heavy Rattler in my Niagara and once i demasted them I would move in, broad side of grape and board them.  It's lovely on live when some one pops sail repair when they still have 80-90% sails.  To me that just means they signed there death warrant cause now they can't repair there sails any more.  Testbed this going to be interesting as they will be able to, but folks forget this.  How much repairs are you going to carry to give up your speed?  Sooner or later that player will run out of repairs.  Had this happen last week.  Not to another player but myself.  I had one repair left and saved it for the end of the battle but was out classed so made a run for it and got away.  Mainly cause they other player was prob loaded with repairs and was way slower than me.

Oh and here is a key when you see some one repair on testbed...>GRAPE THEM<   The crew repair takes longer and gives less, but if you grape them while they are doing any repairs cause most of there crew is going to repair and you crew shock them....they will pretty much be stuck not reloading or repairing.  I found it's way easier to crew shock folks in testbed now.   While they might not loose a bunch of crew, but it puts a stop to anything they are doing.

[Cmdr RideZ]

20 hours ago, Willis PVP2 said:

People complain too much about getting demasted by the few skilled guys who are actually capable of doing it well, but these same people who complain about that seem to have no problems with anyone sailing past a brig and killing 50 crew in one broadside when the brig is in perfect condition.

Demasting is a skill to be learned, and it can prove exceedingly valuable in combat, but if you don't execute it properly, you just signed a one-way ticket to the bottom of the ocean.

I think shallow water battles with grapes are extremely boring, which is the reason why I do not sail in shallow waters.  So yes, your Brig example should be fixed as well.  That has been told for devs multiple times, they have done nothing.  I assume they like it like that.

Demasting is way too efficient at the moment.  In Trafalgar, how many masts Victory lost?  All?

[maturin]

Quote

 In Trafalgar, how many masts Victory lost?  All?

Almost all

[William Death]

1 hour ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

I think shallow water battles with grapes are extremely boring, which is the reason why I do not sail in shallow waters.  So yes, your Brig example should be fixed as well.  That has been told for devs multiple times, they have done nothing.  I assume they like it like that.

Demasting is way too efficient at the moment.  In Trafalgar, how many masts Victory lost?  All?

Agree with the small ships.

About historic loss of masts, I'm not sure if HMS Victory lost any masts or not, but I think some people need to see the battle logs for USS Constitution vs HMS Java:

At 3	The Head of the enemies Bowsprit & Jib boom shot away by us
At 3.5	Shot away the enemies foremast by the board
At 3.15	Shot away The enemies Main Top mast just above the Cap
At 3.40	Shot away Gafft and Spunker boom
At 3.55	Shot his mizen mast nearly by the board
At 4.5	Having silenced the fire of the enemy completely and his colours in main Rigging being [down] Supposed he had Struck, Then hawl'd about the Courses to shoot ahead to repair our rigging, which was extremely cut, leaving the enemy a complete wreck, soon after discovered that The enemies flag was still flying hove too to repair Some of our damages.
At 4.20.	The Enemies Main Mast went by the board.

[source: https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/u/uss-constitutions-battle-record0/uss-constitution-vs-hms-java-1812.html aka one of the top results when I googled it  ]

In one hour and twenty minutes, Constitution nearly completely demasted Java. Remember to allow for time compression in the game, and I believe our demasting in game is quite alright, based on this example. Also look at the records for how many masts ships would lose in a fleet engagement. Look at the historical paintings, some ships are pictured having lost a mast or two, and their rigging badly cut up.

Demasting was a real thing, and it is in game. It is not OP, it is a viable tactic, one which has several viable counter-tactics. If anything, demasting is harder on testbed than on live server because your enemy can repair his masts over and over and over and over and over again.

 

 

[Sir Texas Sir]

Reminds me of one of the port battles we did a while back. Where a few of us got pretty hurt by some lucky fire-ships, but not enough to kill us or make us completely combat ineffective.  Though one thing we had to do was protect those guys hurt from the other teams boarders.  We had those ships fall back in the line (more like group mass the way we pirates fight) and just support from there slow moving rear.

Even in Port Battles we hardly did any demasting cause with proper focus fire you can sink a ship faster than you can disable it.

[William Death]

9 minutes ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Even in Port Battles we hardly did any demasting cause with proper focus fire you can sink a ship faster than you can disable it.

I think a lot of people have forgotten the original pirate hack:

 

if 1 guy shoots the same ship repeatedly in the hull, the ship he is shooting will sink

if 2 guys shoot the same ship repeatedly in the hull, the ship sinks twice as fast

if 3 guys shoot the same ship repeatedly in the hull, the ship sinks 3x as fast

....

 

Demasting is not the only way to win a fight. 

[Sir Texas Sir]

3 hours ago, Willis PVP2 said:

I think a lot of people have forgotten the original pirate hack:

 

if 1 guy shoots the same ship repeatedly in the hull, the ship he is shooting will sink

if 2 guys shoot the same ship repeatedly in the hull, the ship sinks twice as fast

if 3 guys shoot the same ship repeatedly in the hull, the ship sinks 3x as fast

....

 

Demasting is not the only way to win a fight. 

But if I shoot water, sails or hull with chain shot, than it counters the pirate hacks right?

[Norfolk nChance]

 

Speaking from the other side so to speak... the demast saps morale in the player, a bit like the first time you are hit by a Mortar with the count down. The mast falling over although not lethal   does hurt somewhat...  

When [BLACK] attack in a PB I notice now Jean Pual sticks to the outside of the melee. Keeps balanced and steady pace waiting for the opportunity to take out the masts. A great strategy as focus is miss directed away from him and someone will wonder into his range.           

love the pirate hack... will have to use sometime     

 

Norfolk

 

[Cmdr RideZ]

10 hours ago, Hodo said:

A better question is how many masts were left standing out of ALL of the ships in that fight... I am willing to guess it was less than half of what started in the battle.  

 

Someone has the facts?  Also, they could not just repair masts right there like in the game.  They had no masts and they were planning to sail back?  How did they sail back in that time when in every battle they lost a mast or two?  Or maybe even all. How did the warfare at that time work at all?

 

8 hours ago, Willis PVP2 said:

In one hour and twenty minutes, Constitution nearly completely demasted Java.

Which ship in game represents Java the best?  Any records from the battle, what and where did they shoot?  They sniped masts?

[Cmdr RideZ]

If mast sniping would be harder than it is -> Someone is really good at mast sniping still, 10x better than you.  He comes in a battle, and snipes always your mast off before you have time to do anything. This is a good meta, or not?  You end up to fight with the same guy, and you know that you have to snipe his mast or lose.  And every time he just snipes your mast before you get a shot.  The idea that you have to shoot just masts, is a fail.

Edited May 13, 2017 by Cmdr RideZ

[seanjo]

16 hours ago, Farrago said:

I just switched my perks so I can use Double Charge. Alas, I'm going to try and learn. Always in the past, the few times I've demasted something, I've wondered how the hell I did that. 

 

I did it!...I demasted a ship...very satisfying. Twas in my Surprise with a heavy rattlesnake as fleet ship, took on a mission, ordered my rattlesnake to destroy, so the enemy ship would take damage and I concentrated on demasting shots and it worked....woooooo hoooooo!

[Farrago]

5 hours ago, seanjo said:

I did it!...I demasted a ship...very satisfying. Twas in my Surprise with a heavy rattlesnake as fleet ship, took on a mission, ordered my rattlesnake to destroy, so the enemy ship would take damage and I concentrated on demasting shots and it worked....woooooo hoooooo!

That's a good idea: taking some heat off using your AI while you practice. Thanks!

[Challenge]

16 hours ago, Willis PVP2 said:

<snip>

In one hour and twenty minutes, Constitution nearly completely demasted Java.

<snip>

 

 

And in that 1hr and 2o min they weren't able to repair one of the masts? I only takes 15 min in our time acceleration -- that's what maybe an hour in real time?

[Remus]

34 minutes ago, Challenge said:

And in that 1hr and 2o min they weren't able to repair one of the masts? I only takes 15 min in our time acceleration -- that's what maybe an hour in real time?

In the same piece @Willis PVP2 linked to, there's the letter First Lieutenant Chads of the Java wrote to the Admiralty, Captain Lambert being mortally wounded (he died 7 days later):

Quote

We succeeded in clearing the wreck of our Masts from our Guns. a Sail was set on the stumps of the Foremast & Bowsprit the weather half of the Main Yard remaining aloft, the main tack was got forward in the hope of getting the Ship before the Wind, our helm being still perfect. the effort unfortunately proved ineffectual from the Main mast falling over the side from the heavy rolling of the Ship, which nearly covered the whole of our Starboard Guns.

Now, there's a couple of things we don't see in game

I've posted this picture before

[William Death]

9 hours ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

Which ship in game represents Java the best?  Any records from the battle, what and where did they shoot?  They sniped masts?

I listed the logbook entries from Constitution in that same post, read it again. As for ships representing Java, any heavy frigate could stand in for her: Trincomalee, Pirate Frigate, Essex, Endymion, Indefatigable, etc. Java was a very well worked-up 18pdr frigate, so any of those I listed would stand well for her example. The Constitution was obviously shooting the masts of the Java, (as the article indicates) because Java kept trying to rake the Constitution. Sound kind of familiar to what we do in Naval Action? Because if you try to rake me, I shall try to demast you. One tactic to counter the other.

10 hours ago, Cmdr RideZ said:

Someone has the facts?  Also, they could not just repair masts right there like in the game.  They had no masts and they were planning to sail back?  How did they sail back in that time when in every battle they lost a mast or two?  Or maybe even all. How did the warfare at that time work at all?

They had spare topmasts and topgallant masts that they could sway up after a battle. It would be nearly impossible to step a new lower mast at sea: if those took damage, you had to patch it as best as possible and be very careful with the stress you place on it as you limp to port. If that mast was lost completely, you could try to rig a new, smaller mast there, to at least dampen the roll of the ship, but if you lost more than one lower mast, you'd probably need a tow to get back to port. Read up on the towing, capture, and re-capture of HMS Africane:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_frigate_Africaine_(1798)#East_Indies:_capture_and_recapture  

So having mast repairs in battle is extremely unrealistic. You could probably sway up a new topmast or topgallant without too much trouble if you could manage to pull away from the battle long enough to do so, but repairing masts over and over again would not be an option, especially in the heat of battle.

PS: Its best to read up on some historical battles before claiming that demasting was not a tactic, or that ships could repair masts after every battle. In some cases, a simple yard from one of the sails would have to suffice to stand in for a mast: if a frigate lost her topmast, perhaps a lineship in the squadron could send over one of her spare topsail yards to be used as a jury rigged mast aboard the frigate.