Ship Visual Customization

[Captain Black]

I've been looking around at the different nations and they all seem to have their own look, being a very big fan of this era in our history I wanted to ask a simple question and post a few ideas on it.

 

Firstly the question at hand,

 

In Naval action, is there a ship customization aspect to the game?

 

Now to my ideas.

 

Firstly I'm going to list a few things I'd like to see added to ships, and list a few reasons as to why.

 

1. Deck clutter - During a period that any ship of the era was out at sea, they were homes for the crew aboard. This means the ship would look more cluttered and homely than fresh out of the factory if you get me.

 

2. Damage - I've never seen a ship sustain fire like those ships did and not show signs of damage and wear, would it be to much trouble to show a miserable looking ship after a long battle if they managed to survive.

 

3. Crew - The ships in this era are not manned by a skeleton crew, the cannons, 4-5 people, not to mention those working on the sails, the marines etc. Are we to expect a full deck of crew in future?

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Now onto ship Customization.

 

Here I will list a few things that I and I think a fair few others might like to see.

 

1. Ships colors - hull colour choices to fit nations of the era.

2. Bow figureheads - would be nice to have a choice.

3. Sails - maybe a choice look, clean, dirty etc.

4. accessories - Boats

 

[Flip]

Sadly adding loads of clutter or crew tends to tank performance, that said, how much the devs can add or want to add is kind of unknown. Unity is a good engine but you don't usually see it used in highly detailed settings like cry engine or other top of the line ones can do.

The same goes for damage models, they chew frame rates and require separate model variations for each ship and type of damage. A lot of work in other words.

If this was a corporation with 200 million dollars in investments (think swtor) a detailed crew and damage model would be expected and required for sure. Alas this is more of a indie style developer so anything we get related to details is a nice bonus.

[Robert Danforth]

I agree it'd be a bit of unneeded clutter, especially at this point, but Kerbal Space Program is done in Unity, and it looks pretty detailed to me.

[Mirones]

I agree it'd be a bit of unneeded clutter, especially at this point, but Kerbal Space Program is done in Unity, and it looks pretty detailed to me.

 

not really unless you mod it

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/52080-Basic-Aircraft-Design-Explained-Simply-With-Pictures

 

specially how drag and other things are calculated in the vanilla version

gotta lova that ,,Majestic Eagle on its maiden voyage,, drawing

[Marques]

I suggest a small customization. No mandatory. Every player can choose the regular, or the custo shade given for his country. Only one shade for faction. But able to choose many diferents flags. Every country, in those times, had a trading company with their own flag.

 

Only a small approach about the shades and diferent flag, you can see in this images. Please have a look, and let me know your opinion. This is the same Ship, Ingermanland, in 7 differents shades:

 

 

 

  British  usually  RED LIGHTER

 

 

 Denmark  RED  DARK

 

Ducht  .  ORANGE

 

 

French   Ligh BLUE, or WHITE.

 

 

Spanish.  YELLOW

 

 

Sverige.  BLUE and  Less Yellow.

 

 

 Pirates.  BROWN  DARK,  BLACK.

 They have many differents Flags.

Edited July 23, 2016 by Marques

[#Seven]

I love and agree with the above suggestions.

 

Concerning performance issues, I heard that cannon recoil and being able to close and open the gun ports was worked on at some point but abandoned because of performance problems, would it not be possible to have these things as toggleable graphical options? I believe all these small details add hugely to the game.

[Marques]

Thanks Seven,  I agree !!

[Sven Silberbart]

I would like to color the ship by myself. The Parts of the hull and the Sail Color should be changeable.

Maybe some predefined patterns for the sails like a cross or something.

[z4ys]

Sail color shouldn't be changeable because every sail was dirty white in the age of sail.

[delaine]

I would like to color the ship by myself. The Parts of the hull and the Sail Color should be changeable.

Maybe some predefined patterns for the sails like a cross or something.

agreed id honestly like to pick my own colors for the trim and above water hull color

[Marques]

I would like to color the ship by myself. The Parts of the hull and the Sail Color should be changeable.

Maybe some predefined patterns for the sails like a cross or something.

 

I disagree,  multicolor for sails, or multicolor for ships would be a kaos. Nothing to do with the historical view.

Only Flags should be allow for players.  Ship´s color should be reduce only one per faction. Nobodys wants thousand of multicolors, or benetton style, because would be so ridicoulus for XVIII century.

Edited July 23, 2016 by Marques

[Mirones]

in historical paintsheme mix is what you can expect in distant future

[Marques]

Thank you Antonio,  I put color in your idea.  Could be a nice customization.

 

Have a look and let me know your opinion.

 

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

One suggestion could be as player you can only choose one customization for free. Only the faction inner shade.

If some player wants another color, he should get it by capture. It means you can not pick out every color.

 

I hope the Devs could make this changes in customization. Changes in Flags and little color for ships would be nice.

 

Thank you.

Marques.

Edited July 24, 2016 by Marques

[Grundgemunkey]

not too keen on the idea ..most british ships historically were black and tan not red ....however it would be good to see a clan flag added to mast tops so you can identify your clan mates during battle easier

[pietjenoob]

to the addition on this topic it is Dutch not Ducht and most dutch ships besides the orange had if i remember correctly they had a blue band around the ship. and most dutch ships had a triple prince and the admiralty flag most of the time flag of privince on top of the masts besides the flag signals

[z4ys]

I dont think hole ships were brushed in blue. Because it was the most expensive paint at this time. It was made out of Azurite (2CuCO₃Cu(OH)₂) which is very rar or out of Lapis lazuli which is a gemstone.

Oil paintings that show blue ships were done to show the prestige of the picture owner.

The most common paints for ships at this time were shades of: white, yellow, red, green and black.

 

Extracted from: zu Mondfeld, Wolfram (2008): Historische Schiffsmodelle. p. 144-147

Edited July 24, 2016 by z4ys

[Marques]

Sorry, I change Dutch....and I will change a little bit more accurate colors, and flags,  if the Devs respond to this  thread, or if people liked those ideas. Of course there are a thousand of combinations or differents colors and this is only a small suggestion. Who I wanted to show them is that possible to do a seriuos, or accurate customization following the historical view.

 

Thank you for your ideas. You can show here your prefer colours with your picture´s ships.

Edited July 24, 2016 by Marques

[Mirones]

sadly most of your ideas are unhistorical.

 

British at the Beginning had the Paintsheme of Bellona with the Blue top

 

Sweden these:

 

 

 

French hat similar to old British a Blueband on top.

 

Spanish had alot of varity

sometimes the Yellow Band, White with Black Stripes or Yellow with Black stripes.

 

but with the base plate i posted above you should have i rather easy to change things around

[Marques]

Thank you Antonio, I Knew that this suggestion is not Historic, but maybe could help in battle. Could be easier to see the enemies in the middle of the cannons smoke.

Anyway, another kind of colors could be suggested to the DEVs, but my idea is to do something easy and avoid to much colors.

 

Thanks for your information. As some people said the blue color is present in many models, I´m thinking to do arrange in one model with blue top details for each faction, except pirates, or maybe green details for Denmark.

If you want we can do another suggestions more historical.

Edited July 24, 2016 by Marques

[Marques]

Something like this with blue, I still believe that to many colors would be worse, but blue on top suit very good and it is historical as well...

 

See this blue modification, in this way they still keep the main color for his faction, red, orange, white or yellow...etc

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Edited July 24, 2016 by Marques

[Marques]

not too keen on the idea ..most british ships historically were black and tan not red ....however it would be good to see a clan flag added to mast tops so you can identify your clan mates during battle easier

 

I agree in some part with you, nevertheless :...which  paintsheme or models do you prefer ?...because you don´t give a proposal, you don´t say nothing about it. The problem is currently all the ships are brown, yellow or black.  Some of them are fit historical in accurate way, however there is a lot of ship that looks like identical yellow patern, even if they were crafted in differents countries or shipyards. 

 

Please say if you prefer the current boring model, or given us a best suggestion, because only with addition of flags,

I think wouldn´t be enough.

Thank you.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Marques

[Grundgemunkey]

I agree in some part with you, nevertheless :...which  paintsheme or models do you prefer ?...because you don´t give a proposal, you don´t say nothing about it. The problem is currently all the ships are brown, yellow or black.  Some of them are fit historical in accurate way, however there is a lot of ship that looks like identical yellow patern, even if they were crafted in differents countries or shipyards. 

 

Please say if you prefer the current boring model, or given us a best suggestion, because only with addition of flags,

I think wouldn´t be enough.

Thank you.

 

I like the current paint schemes in game , having ship hulls painted the same colour for each nation  dumbs the game down . .. instead of nations  choose a colour you wish to play .. part of the challenge in a big brawl is identifying  whether your firing on the enemy or a friend .. a clan flag wouldnt change that too much but would help a little and give clans a little individuality

[Destraex]

there is a huge thread on this sonewhere

[Destraex]

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/5816-ship-paint-schemes/