Sterncamping realism - possible solution

[Johnny Rotten]

To counter unrealistic sterncamping (which I do a lot of in all honesty) I put forward a suggestion that I don't know wether or not could be achievable :

Marines having the ability to shoot crew on nearby ships (within musket range).

How it would work :
- Whenever a ship has excess crew in boarding, or has the marines ship knowledge, the crew can fire from top deck at the enemy ships crew
- Musket range is limited to 50m (or 100m, idk how challenging it would be to shoot a moving target from a moving target)
- Crew loss will be slow but effective over time, especially if you're in a taller ship and a smaller ship is hugging you

This would make taking down bigger ships harder when in a smaller ship, as their marines would have a better angle for hitting crew.

Discuss.

 

Edited August 10, 2018 by Johnny Rotten

[z4ys]

 

First pages contain same suggestion with responses

[Johnny Rotten]

5 minutes ago, z4ys said:

 

First pages contain same suggestion with responses

I'm more suggesting the mechanics of how it would work, and how it could be affected by what ship knowledge you use.

As the topic says, grenades were lobbed, so having the grenades knowledge could increase your kills. Same with boarding cannons. But as I suggest, this should be based on wether you have excess crew in boarding or if you have fitted the marines knowledge (which assigns crew to boarding permanently).

Maybe if the smaller ship fits barricades it would get a resistance to deck fire, making the knowledge a useful book to have again. Bigger ships would have to carefully consider their fits too, as they wouldn't get the deck fire ability unless they have boarding prep.

 

[Angus MacDuff]

38 minutes ago, z4ys said:

 

First pages contain same suggestion with responses

I read those pages with great interest.  Couple of points:

1. Basically ALL ships 5th rate and above carried Marines all the time.  Their job in any combat was of course to give musket fire against close ships and additionally, to fire from the tops with muskets and swivel guns. 

2. Muskets are very inaccurate at any range and even worse on moving ships, against moving ships (catenary is a bitch), so the suggestion that it be only effective out to 10-15m is valid.

3. I believe (correct me if i'm wrong, Yanks) that the US Marines were armed with rifles (vice muskets).  This would of course give greater range and in the game would be a fun perk to select from our limited number.

4. The Xebec sucks...

Edited August 9, 2018 by Oberon74

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

This was pretty much how the system worked in real life,  every ship carried marines as one of their primary functions was to protect the Captain and officers from mutiny, They also fulfilled a landing party role and were invariably found in the fighting tops (the platforms between mast sections) from which the unknown French Marine ended Nelson's career at Trafalgar.

To be honest, unless the ships were locked together, accuracy was poor, smooth bore weapons, that were notoriously inaccurate, muzzle loaded with a long reload time on a platform 30 ft+ from a moving deck made for some interesting weapons skills. I suspect many Captains were more likely to place their faith in the 2lb swivel guns loaded with grape for deck clearance while sniping officers from the fighting tops.

In the 18th/19th centuries no small ship Captain would attempt to lay alongside a ship of the line, Sol's were seldom caught out of support distance from other SOL's or Frigates unless they were badly damaged, and any Captain would be aware that if he attempted such a maneuver, he could be risking Courts Martial and a death sentence if it went wrong, and,  should he survive.

Of course it makes better game play for small ships to try their luck against larger ships and there is not the 'gentleman's agreement' that essentially prohibited a Post Captain from engaging smaller ships unless fired upon by the ship in question in game as existed during the Napoleonic wars. 

[Thonys]

16 minutes ago, Sir Lancelot Holland said:

This was pretty much how the system worked in real life,  every ship carried marines as one of their primary functions was to protect the Captain and officers from mutiny, They also fulfilled a landing party role and were invariably found in the fighting tops (the platforms between mast sections) from which the unknown French Marine ended Nelson's career at Trafalgar.

To be honest, unless the ships were locked together, accuracy was poor, smooth bore weapons, that were notoriously inaccurate, muzzle loaded with a long reload time on a platform 30 ft+ from a moving deck made for some interesting weapons skills. I suspect many Captains were more likely to place their faith in the 2lb swivel guns loaded with grape for deck clearance while sniping officers from the fighting tops.

In the 18th/19th centuries no small ship Captain would attempt to lay alongside a ship of the line, Sol's were seldom caught out of support distance from other SOL's or Frigates unless they were badly damaged, and any Captain would be aware that if he attempted such a maneuver, he could be risking Courts Martial and a death sentence if it went wrong, and,  should he survive.

Of course it makes better game play for small ships to try their luck against larger ships and there is not the 'gentleman's agreement' that essentially prohibited a Post Captain from engaging smaller ships unless fired upon by the ship in question in game as existed during the Napoleonic wars. 

4

good read 

the problem is", only forum dwellers will read this. (about honorable captains ")

and most of the players don't even know what " honorable" means

in some way it actually should be implemented in the game, because I think it is a part of the wars on sea and even land.

but like I said 95 % of the players don't give a sjit about it. and therefore should be given a lesson for that bad behavior.(for better game play)

i dont think the developers know how to implement this or have no time to implement it.

 

ps.even in wo2 the Japanese "forgot" to warn first. what resulted in the big boy by surprise..

Edited August 9, 2018 by Thonys

[Hullabaloo]

Yes a good read. I really like these ideas. Not just for realism but it would solve quite a few issues around OW PvP too. 

Unfortunately none of it will ever be implemented. Pretty sure the introduction of any new combat mechanics is finished now, though admin has never explicitly said this, it's not difficult to read between the lines. That ship has sailed.

Fun to see the ideas though.

[admin]

The width of stern for the first rate might not exceed 15-16 meters (or even less)
Realistically only a set of maybe 30 people could lay fire from the stern at the same time. With people changing for reload there is another 30 people. 
The shooters from the smaller ship stern camping are also shooting and might hit people. Smaller ships could be even more effective than a big ship

Example of effectiveness of shooters on smaller targets can be illustrated by the Victory vs Redoutable boarding action.
French crew of 650 having lost 300 men after raking fire was still able to completely stop boarding attempts and at one point forced most crew on Victory to abandon the top deck (and killed Nelson). All by effective musket fire  (shooters on redoubtable were a lot more effective than shooters on victory).

Thus
Musket fire if implemented must include ways to replicate historical situations, must include ways to level it up to be effective and will not solve the stern camping problem. 
 

[Angus MacDuff]

10 minutes ago, admin said:

Thus
Musket fire if implemented must include ways to replicate historical situations, must include ways to level it up to be effective and will not solve the stern camping problem. 
 

Swivels are portable and also fired from the mizzen top.  It would be easy to grab a couple of swivels and mount them on the stern. 

[Hullabaloo]

I think Johnny Rotten is talking more about larger ships firing down upon on smaller ships though? 60 Marines firing down from the stern of a Victory onto a Le Requin (for example) would be pretty effective I would have thought. Where as the Le Requin, which I'm assuming (perhaps wrongly) wouldn't  be able to place too many muskets in the masts would have no line of sight to the top deck and musket fire would be ineffective.

[Johnny Rotten]

28 minutes ago, admin said:

Realistically only a set of maybe 30 people could shoot at the same time. With people changing for reload there is another 30 people. 

So I would need to have 60 crew in boarding prep, or Marines knowledge that hopefully gives me at least that number.

28 minutes ago, admin said:

 The shooters from the ship stern camping are also shooting and might hit people. Smaller ships could be even more effective than a big ship

But if I am in a Snow raking a Bellona, my shooters wouldn't have the angle to hit the ones on the top deck. We don't have a realistic damage model to simulate destruction of the planking protecting the crew behind the stern but for balance sake I would accept that my shooters wouldn't be able to kill crew - my grape is dong that anyway as I'm already in a more effective crew killing position.

28 minutes ago, admin said:

Example of effectiveness of shooters can be illustrated by the Victory vs Redoutable boarding action.
French crew of 650 having lost 300 men after raking fire was still able to completely stop boarding attempts and at one point forced most crew on Victory to abandon the top deck (and killed Nelson). All by effective musket fire  (shooters on redoubtable were a lot more effective than shooters on victory).

I don't know their respective height differences, but we are talking about crew on deck aren't we? IIRC, crew that is prepped for boarding is already on the top deck. Those 300 men that were killed during the rake would have been those on the lower decks, so the Marines would have avoided taking casualties and would have still been able to shoot.

28 minutes ago, admin said:

Musket fire if implemented must include ways to replicate historical situations, must include ways to level it up to be effective...

Add an officer that is based on skill level - or shooting kills in battle - that can level up with XP? I like the idea that your ship fit is tied to this, meaning bigger ships might fit boarding knowledge on their non-boarding ships.

28 minutes ago, admin said:

...and will not solve the stern camping problem. 

It won't but I will have less crew and reload - giving the bigger ship a better chance, and like @Hullabaloo said, ships such as Le Requin wouldn't have line of sight to the enemy ships shooters and it would lose a lot of crew due to its unprotected deck making it more of a skirmish/support ship.

Edited August 9, 2018 by Johnny Rotten

[admin]

17 minutes ago, Louis Garneray said:

I don't recall any historical account of a small ship firing musket from the bow to hit the stern of a 3rd or higher rate.

I don't recall any historical account of a small ship stern raking effectively a 3rd or higher ship in combat.

 

2 points

• There were no examples of large ship being able to fend off stern camping of a smaller ship by just musket fire. Generoux 74 vs Leander 50  for example.
• Sterncamping existed in game for quite a while and was always a huge feature of hate for some, AND a huge feature of love for others.

We are not worried and are not focused on stern camping until we deliver port UI, localize the game, rebalance the economy and add new missions for battles, economy and conquest. 

[z4ys]

By the way sterncamping doesnt sink ships 😉

[Pada]

Mimimi small ships and frigates are too powerfull, make our fat ships untouchable mimimimi.

[Vernon Merrill]

LOL...  "your "trash ships" are killing my 5/5 Speed-rigged Bellona!!!"....  

 

Do we need to post the video of how to effectively fight off smaller, more agile ships AGAIN, for the millionth time?!?

 

P.S.- Every 4th thru 2nd rate that I've been part of killing lately has lost because he's be an absolutely TERRIBLE shot...  invest in some additional powder for gunnery practice.

P.S.S--  I think many of you overestimate the accuracy/effectiveness of musket fire.  Has anyone actually ever shot a musket, even a rifled one, and examined the accuracy?  It would be interesting to examine combat reports and see what percentage of casualties was from small-arms fire.  My guess is its somewhat small.  I think we get caught up in the "Nelson was sniped.  Therefore marines can decimate an entire frigate in 10 mins" syndrome.

Edited August 9, 2018 by Vernon Merrill

[Cmdr RideZ]

I don't know if it is realistic or not but it is good for the game.

Keep smaller ships in the game, versatility, optional playstyle, etc.

[Dibbler (Retired)]

 Maybe if you sail smaller ships for a bit to see how "easy" sterncamping is,  and perhaps learn from how people counter yourself in the oppsite situation.

You will  quickly find that guys who know what they doing are no easy meat to smaller ships.

 

 

Edited August 9, 2018 by Dibbler

[Johnny Rotten]

I think we have gone off topic a bit here. Ive made an illustration to show what I mean...

 

[Licinio Chiavari]

Honestly, the simplest solution to stern camp to death and therefore setting an end to corvettes sinking SoLs is pretty simple.

No ship get crew hits under 50% crew.

Or a strong diminishing return on crew hits as it drops similar to chains against badly damaged sails balanced that way it would be next to impossible to reduce enemy crew under 50%.

This way a 1st rate will keep in any case 500+ crew making her un-boardable by frigs.

Deleting DD (or reworkibg it like longer timer to start a boarding - so more time for defender to speed up) would be necessary.

[Bluetooth]

13 minutes ago, Johnny Rotten said:

I think we have gone off topic a bit here. Ive made an illustration to show what I mean...

 

This is very clear, and shows the ease at which a large ships would snipe using muskets, swivel guns etc onto a stern camping or hugging ships.

The height advantage is obvious!!

If you did not wish to use marines in the calculation directly then just a % of the crew would also work. 

In short, as Mr Rotten has tried to explain, larger ships crews would kill crew, on smaller ships which strayed to close.

[Farrago]

Due to the inaccuracy of the standard smooth bore muskets with which most marines and sailors would have been equipped during the period AND the relatively limited number of said muskets that would be brought to bear, it's doubtful that a high number of casualties would be caused by musket fire. But, casualties of significant importance would occur. Rather than every musket being able to select his own target, the orders would probably be aim for the officers, helmsman, etc. Mass fire at just a few targets or target areas.

So, rather than simulating this defense by causing a lot of crew casualties, perhaps it would be more accurate to simulate it by constant states of crew shock and rigging shock.

[maturin]

On 8/9/2018 at 7:53 AM, admin said:

The width of stern for the first rate might not exceed 15-16 meters (or even less)
Realistically only a set of maybe 30 people could lay fire from the stern at the same time.

Poop deck

Quarterdeck

Upper deck

Middle deck

Gun deck (2-4 ports only)

So that's more like 120 people.

[Barbancourt]

On 8/9/2018 at 6:03 AM, Vernon Merrill said:

Do we need to post the video of how to effectively fight off smaller, more agile ships AGAIN, for the millionth time?!?

 

Well, I've never seen it, so perhaps...

[z4ys]

1 minute ago, Barbancourt (rownd) said:

Well, I've never seen it, so perhaps...

 

[Dibbler (Retired)]

 I think the suggestion for diminishing returns on rakes makes sense, but in return to balance perhaps make so that when in crew shock DD doesn't work would make sense to balance. Don't diminished returns already happen though, maybe change taper of loss.

 

 Ships were stern raked in history though, thats where the phrase "crossing the T" comes from i believe. Although was also bow as stern and bow were weakest parts of a ships  build.

Edited August 10, 2018 by Dibbler