Patch 14: Part 1 experimental patch increasing realism in ship behavior

[Zoky]

32 minutes ago, Malachy said:

If some crappy little ship doesn't have every advantage handed to it, game labs isn't happy

*looks at wasa and giggles*

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Guess it will be the Brig, not the Snow anymore. Those mains and spanker will finally be done justice. *giggles*

[Malachy]

43 minutes ago, Zoky said:

*looks at wasa and giggles*

Wasa as bad as it is isn't as unbalanced as a snow. 

[Vernon Merrill]

Well I guess it’s all now based on sail area vs Hull, so I guess the ships SHOULD be all “unique”?

[DeRuyter]

2 hours ago, HachiRoku said:

am looking on my phone so Im not sure but if its 60 its ok tbh. 60 is close reach and would be realistic since the mainsails are catching wind. There is a huge performance difference if you're sailing 45. I know for a fact my 13.5 knot Connie did no more than 6.8 knots and that's ok. 

60 degrees is close hauled. That's as close as you get on a square rigger IRL, and some were recorded close to 10 knts closed hauled. 6.8 knts at 45 degrees is a gameplay bonus. Since @admin is rebalancing sailing profiles and wind force I'd say look at the sailing angles too. Want realistic sailing performance, there you have it.

[Jarlath Morrow]

2 hours ago, Hethwill said:

Guess it will be the Brig, not the Snow anymore. Those mains and spanker will finally be done justice. *giggles*

As a Snow captain, I have to wonder what its sails are made of. They are so tiny but produce so much force!

[HachiRoku]

48 minutes ago, DeRuyter said:

60 degrees is close hauled. That's as close as you get on a square rigger IRL, and some were recorded close to 10 knts closed hauled. 6.8 knts at 45 degrees is a gameplay bonus. Since @admin is rebalancing sailing profiles and wind force I'd say look at the sailing angles too. Want realistic sailing performance, there you have it.

close reach mate. 

Edited November 22, 2017 by HachiRoku

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

5 minutes ago, HachiRoku said:

close reach mate. 

[HachiRoku]

5 minutes ago, Hethwill said:

these are maneuvers unless im mistaking so I dont get the point..

[Cmdr RideZ]

Malachy is mostly right there, at least I agree with him.

We have players who want very high rake damage.

Players who want instantly breaking masts.

Players who want that ship side is protecting from everything while at the same time everything else comes down fast.

Players who think that shooting hull side needs 0 skill.

Unlimited repair kits to fix all your mistakes.  Sure we have those who support idea of not having repair kits or having only few.

Unlimited repair kits so that fast ships can always repair and run when needed.  Only engaging when they actually want, have superior numbers, can gank.

Players who know the current meta and already forgot what we had before.

Players who directly look from perspective of current meta, from perspective of their current playstyle and what are the issues for them.  "I sail a Surprise, I can rake 1st rates.  That is the most difficult thing to do so we have to increase rake damage." ..  Pro gamers in their Surprises, how many of them thought that maybe the game is broken?  I believe they rather wanted to think that they are PvP gods of Naval Action.  Because of that, they did not ask devs to fix things when those were clearly broken.  Instead they started to defend their godly position.

etc.

We have players who think completely opposite to everything that I just wrote.

If you think about this from devs perspective.  In case they try to listen our community, it can be very hard to know what would be the best thing to do.  Simply so many opinions.

Edited November 23, 2017 by Cmdr RideZ

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

They sail as close as they can to perform the maneouver, no ? Meaning ANY ship can actually sail into the eye of the wind Sir.

 

[Quineloe]

7 hours ago, HachiRoku said:

You mean beam reach. Connie teak teak will max out at 6.5 close hauled with 10.5 % speed mods

The one thing POBS had up on this game was that player knowledge about broad / beam / close haul / running was much better.

[William Death]

I actually managed to get my Teak/Teak Constitution up to 10.3 at the same angle as @Liq. I had no sail-force modifiers to get that speed, but was 10.8kn at the same angle with treatise on staysails. Base speed after cannons and a lot of repairs was around 13.37 IIRC.

Tacking is great with it. I found a few tricks with manual sails that allow me to spin in place, slip sideways downwind, and other fancy maneuvers. Its really fun to sail.

A separate point:

I'd hold off on calling Constitution, or any other ship that got a sailing profile change for that matter, OP or unbalanced...at least wait until we see what is done with the 5th rates. I am really liking the patch though.

 

*looks sadly at the wasted Elite Spanish Rig Refit on the speed Bellona* 

[Bjerg Bjergsson]

What difference does any of this debate actually make when establishing a baseline is so difficult? You adjust the base stats for a ship but ignore the dozens of speed/sail/hull mods which pile on stats multipliers to the degree that the base stats become meaningless. What SHOULD be the fastest ship in the game becomes outdone by the second fastest ship in the game + all the insane speed mods/wood builds.  I chuckle at the comparisons people are trying to make Person A: "I achieve X kts at Y degrees in a teak/teak" while Person B "I achieve Zkts at Y degrees in a teak/teak" when no mods are mentioned, no bowsprits or rig refits or all the other stupid BS that is piled on top of what should be universal base stats. 

"How many Captains did it take to achieve that speed?" THAT IS THE RUB. Negating the degree of skill/luck/chance involved in actually managing your yards, firing your guns by piling on MOD META is making this totally moot. If the fully upgraded sports car is the only one that will win the race then why get on the road at all in your minivan? 

[Malachy]

3 hours ago, Willis PVP2 said:

I actually managed to get my Teak/Teak Constitution up to 10.3 at the same angle as @Liq. I had no sail-force modifiers to get that speed, but was 10.8kn at the same angle with treatise on staysails. Base speed after cannons and a lot of repairs was around 13.37 IIRC.

Tacking is great with it. I found a few tricks with manual sails that allow me to spin in place, slip sideways downwind, and other fancy maneuvers. Its really fun to sail.

A separate point:

I'd hold off on calling Constitution, or any other ship that got a sailing profile change for that matter, OP or unbalanced...at least wait until we see what is done with the 5th rates. I am really liking the patch though.

 

*looks sadly at the wasted Elite Spanish Rig Refit on the speed Bellona* 

I have several sail force connies. They are just as awesome as the ones that don't... pretty much like the old Connie but turn better.

[DeRuyter]

18 hours ago, HachiRoku said:

close reach mate. 

That diagram shows a modern fore and aft rigged sailboat mate. Try this one:

Notice it shows only 2 points of sailing above a beam reach. I would recommend "Seamanship in the Age of Sail" by Harland if you really want to learn about sailing square rigged ships. Some of diagrams that @admin posted are from this book. I got the book when I was in classes to crew on a tall ship, it was recommended by our captain. Here is a quote on the subject:

"Why a square rigger can only sail six points from the wind, The traverse of the foreyard is limited in front of the forestay, and abaft by the lee shrouds. These prevent the yard being braced up more sharply than three points from the keel line. If the sail is to fill, the wind must be three points further aft; this is because of the curvature of the sail. As the wind hauls ahead of six points from the bow the weather half of the sail starts to lift, then the weather half of the sail to flap, and finally the sail is all in the wind...."

"Many square riggers could not brace up as sharply as mentioned above, and therefore could get no closer to the wind than seven points." This included men of war.

"The fore and aft sail, of course, filled when the wind was three points on one side....A fore and aft schooner could, therefore, lie about four points from the wind. 

A point being 11 degrees on the modern compass. Here is another diagram for you:

[vazco]

DeRuyter, your diagram doesn't include option of staysails. I sailed a historical war brig (La Grace) and of course it could go closer to the wind on just staysails. If we want to add more realism, maybe mainsails should go down once you want to go close hauled.

Of course going close hauled you can forget about speeds that eg. Victory or Surprise have in-game now. Going 3 knots against the wind in 6 Beaufort is already a lot.

 

Btw, it could be cool to add drift to ships  (when you're pushed by the wind sideways, especially when sailing with low speed).

[Jef]

4 hours ago, Intrepido said:

I hope devs do the neccessary tweaks but dont remove the current increased chances of big ships against smaller ones.

The actual turn rate of lineships makes them able to avoid to being sternraked a million times as before.

Yeah, they turn to well at this point... the one advantage a small ship had, being nimble and being able to turn, seems reduced at this point

but I see it as an extra challenge, to sink a big ship in my snow

[Quineloe]

Didn't get to play until now, so first fights...

Starting with the Pavel 30° into the wind, I managed to do a full turn through the wind and after just ONE minute, I was fully turned through the wind, almost at 45°. Sorry admin, this is not realistic, this is arcade gameplay similar to AC Black Flag.

Damaging the rudder is irrelevant now. I don't even notice it anymore.

Edited November 26, 2017 by Quineloe

[Farrago]

8 hours ago, Quineloe said:

Didn't get to play until now, so first fights...

Starting with the Pavel 30° into the wind, I managed to do a full turn through the wind and after just ONE minute, I was fully turned through the wind, almost at 45°. Sorry admin, this is not realistic, this is arcade gameplay similar to AC Black Flag.

Damaging the rudder is irrelevant now. I don't even notice it anymore.

Agree. Although there is some element of fun when my Bellona sails like a light frigate and my Victory like a fairly nimble 4th rate, something needs to change to make the “more realistic” physics affect the heavier ships in a realistic way. It’s weird as it is now and I’m afraid applying the same physics to lighter ships are going to make them sort of supernatural.

Perhaps go ahead and apply the new system to the light ships and then quickly scale down all the numbers?

[DeRuyter]

On 11/24/2017 at 1:13 PM, vazco said:

DeRuyter, your diagram doesn't include option of staysails. I sailed a historical war brig (La Grace) and of course it could go closer to the wind on just staysails. If we want to add more realism, maybe mainsails should go down once you want to go close hauled.

Of course going close hauled you can forget about speeds that eg. Victory or Surprise have in-game now. Going 3 knots against the wind in 6 Beaufort is already a lot.

That's the trade off though - not enough sail area on just stay sails so you'll not be making much headway. Hard to find historical references to using just stays'l to beat to windward in large warships. I sailed on a 17th century ship the only fore and aft sail was the lateen mizzen!  The sprits'l could be braced up fairly sharp though.  

What year was "La Grace" built?  Is she a sharp built brig like Niagara or Mercury? 

[vazco]

2 hours ago, DeRuyter said:

That's the trade off though - not enough sail area on just stay sails so you'll not be making much headway. Hard to find historical references to using just stays'l to beat to windward in large warships. I sailed on a 17th century ship the only fore and aft sail was the lateen mizzen!  The sprits'l could be braced up fairly sharp though.  

What year was "La Grace" built?  Is she a sharp built brig like Niagara or Mercury? 

La Grace is a 8-year old replica, based on a ship built just before Napoleonic wars. The biggest warship of Czech navy in history - whole 8 guns   Whole ship is replicated with a lot of details. Sparing main rigging lines ("wanta, sztag, achtersztag" in Polish, I don't know english names) made of metal and safety equipment made of plastic, everything on deck is built just like the original.

La Grace was going quite sharply to the wind. The limit was that yards were slowing you down when not set parallel to the wind. Since you can't put them parallel to the deck, they were limiting how sharp you can go. We were sailing with 3 staysails and a mizzen against the wind.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Finally got to really practice with the new wind on a 4th rate. Everything feels nice except the "swivel effect" when holding on spot during a tack ( beautiful how now we are able to hold on downwind ).

Feels like the ship has no keel, that there's no mass underneath, and she just skims and swivels. A full 90º - 180º - 270º turn takes half a minute it seems.

While all the different sails feel good on the wind the side force effect on the hull is wicked odd and I hope some of the maritime savvy fellows here can help.

Would be faster for the ship to simply be blown aback to go through or how fast does she turn when held in place ( if at all ).

Overall the new proportions of sail plans versus hull mass feels good. Is just that "rotation" that feels really odd.

[Liq]

@admin any way to get another forged paper? I've got some bills to settle   I'll gank the shit out of some "friends" and enjoy good fights in NA Legends in parallel.

[Batman]

Where to, Liq?