Patch 29. Sextant, shallow water changes, improvements in the User interface.

[Macjimm]

1 hour ago, Angus MacDuff said:

Really a grid and a scale.  A map without a scale is a picture.

Could be that sextant displays a magic icon, or circle, on the ingame map.   If the sextant shows co-ordinates, then use https://forum.game-labs.net/topic/8451-shrouded-recluses-map-with-accurate-coords/?tab=comments#comment-159381

 

Many thanks to Shrouded Recluse

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/h8pqnkfp3wb2nb5/prelimmap01.jpg?dl=0

[Archaos]

7 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

I don't like that it's a perk, but then I don't like the whole perk system.  Perks should be tied to ships, not the player.(sry, off topic).  For me, Navigation is as automatic as having sails.  Noon sights was perfectly common in the day and should be here as well.

I do not believe that accurate position fixing was as common as you make out in the time period the game is set in as marine chronometers were expensive and not many ships had them. The more common method of finding longitude was by lunar distance and the error could be quite large. Noon sights requires you to have a good idea of your longitude so you can calculate when the sun is at its zenith and make the observation to get your true longitude. So a system where not everyone has precise positioning would be okay.

[Marquis de la Fayette]

 Bonjour Capitaines,

Tout ceci va dans le bon sens. Ce jeu poursuit une tendance lourde qui fera de NA un jeu excellent. A suivre donc, en souhaitant que 2019 apporte son lot de correctifs significatifs.

Cordialement. La Fayette.

[greybuscat]

2 hours ago, admin said:

Captains. Heads up on the patch 29 that will hit live servers within 7-10 days. 

• Sextant perk
  • 2 points (price might change) perk will allow to determine your position at sea 🤨
• Shallow water based on draught of ships (experimental change)
  • All ships below 4m draught will be allowed into shallow waters and shallow water battles 🤔
  • This includes
    • Cerberus
    • Renommee
    • Pandora 😲
    • Surprise (L Unite)
  • Hercules and LRQ will be allowed into shallow port battles. 😠 🤬
  • Please make necessary preparations if needed. 
• Additional patch details will be added soon.

Pretty much sums it up for me. I don't mind the idea of the sextant, but perk selection is already a tough choice for most everybody, and I can't imagine what i'd be willing to give up for it. Plus, if it just gives you an exact position, it seems too accurate compared to the old triangulation method. If it isn't pinpoint accurate, then it definitely isn't worth a perk slot to me.

Why couldn't we all just get a 15k grey bubble on the map, randomly centered within 15 km or so of our real position, refreshing every four in-game hours? If you sit still for awhile, the bubble shrinks and the positioning becomes more precise.

DLC ships in PBs is always a bad idea. Always.

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 hours ago, Crimson Sunrise said:

whats the point of adding the DLC ships back to shallow water PB's after removing them the requin was the last to be removed as the devs set 110 the prince being the largest ship to be in a shallow PB

Hecules BR 220    Sides 3415 HP

Cerberus BR 165 Sides 3488 HP

Surprise BR 165 Sides 3552

Renommee BR 179 Sides 3760

H Rattler BR 90 Sides 2639.

While most of the crafted ships can match HP and more of the Herc they actually have more crew than it does and can manage those guns better and even set up for build.  Every one can craft these ships.  While I kinda agree DLC's should not be in PB's but lets test it, they can always take things out after all.  Oh and these are all Teak/Wo builds I just made to test stats currently.  If one was to take the lighter ships they could get more ships into a PB if they choose. I takeing reno and suprises out with Naiga's and H Rattlers.

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

I'm in support of testing these, and seeing how it goes. I'm with others, I feel like DLC ships should be excluded from port battles. One, because the Requin circle kiting meta just doesn't make for fun battles, but two, I think crafting ships to support RvR is an important feedback loop, even in shallow water battles, and that should be encouraged.

That is why asked in the other post if @admin will let us test this in the OW first before any ship is allowed in PB's.  I think we should test the light frigates in PB's before the DLC are added.  DLC honestly shouldn't be allowed simply cause not every one owns the, but every one can have a crafted ship made in game if they want.

28 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

I don't like that it's a perk, but then I don't like the whole perk system.  Perks should be tied to ships, not the player.(sry, off topic).  For me, Navigation is as automatic as having sails.  Noon sights was perfectly common in the day and should be here as well.

They really need to redo the perk system.  Combat Perks should be tied to the Rank of your Char and Crafting perks should be tied to the Level of your crafting, not both tied to Rank only.

[Angus MacDuff]

19 minutes ago, Archaos said:

I do not believe that accurate position fixing was as common as you make out in the time period the game is set in as marine chronometers were expensive and not many ships had them. The more common method of finding longitude was by lunar distance and the error could be quite large. Noon sights requires you to have a good idea of your longitude so you can calculate when the sun is at its zenith and make the observation to get your true longitude. So a system where not everyone has precise positioning would be okay.

Quality Marine Chonometers were showing up in the mid-18th century and were quite common before 1800.

[Marquis de la Fayette]

Pas tout à fait d accord Spectre. L idée du sextant est très bonne. 

Soit tu prends le sextant dans ton skill, et dans ce cas tu as une navigation précise. Ce skill serait utile aux navires de commerce par exemple, alors qu il ne a pas besoin de la double charge par exemple.  Pour les navires de guerre, il suffit qu un bateau de la flotte le prenne pour guider les autres. 

L idée est sans doute de specialiser les bateaux.

 

Cordialement, La Fayette

[Sir Texas Sir]

13 minutes ago, Wraith said:

I totally agree. I think, like many of the perks, the sextant perk will be one of the fake features of customization since they are basically either required or useless.  I'd wager that 95% of all people run almost exactly the same perk setup on their mains, perhaps with alternative setups like mortar brig or crafting perks, etc. on alts.

The larger point I'm making is for features like basic navigation that everyone would like, but no one will sacrifice two perk points for, why not just make that feature apply to everyone without perks?  It's just a quality of life feature, shrouded in the fakery of customization, that would make nearly everyone happy, makes sense from both a gameplay and historical context, and has literally no downsides/exploits to include in the game. 

If you are one of the usual suspects that likes to get lost... DON'T OPEN THE MAP. 

Honestly perks like DOuble Ball and Double Charge should be included just like Chain is, it's limited use just like chain.  I really think they need to dump the perk system and do something like you earn certain ckills as you level up or even once you learned the basic ones that every one should know by Rank 10 the extras you can buy (what are we doing with all this XP we are gaining after RA?).

 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Anolytic said:

Interesting, however I think the shallows might rather loose some of their charm with a bunch of 5th rates sailing around. I still think this is very good to test however. Especially now that tutorial allows everyone to bypass the lower rates and jump straight to 5th rates if they wish to.

this is why I think the game needs certain levels of shallow, so some 6th and even 7nd rates would be prefered

[Sir Texas Sir]

@admin

Ok do we have any updated teasers of this guy?  This is from Mar 2017 and maybe what it's load out will actually be?  For every one else this is the only teaser I known posted of the Pandora. 

[Vernon Merrill]

[La bouche]

2 hours ago, jodgi said:

This is fantastic! Now the guys will get what they want but they have to pay for it in perks. So dragging fleet ships and sextant leaves little room for fighting perks. Meanwhile I completely ignore fleet perks and sextant for full-on fighting perks.

Yes...people will need to make wise choices, as this is cleary an mandatory perk for traders. So- and I hope that the economy changes and trading missions will come in that patch too - players will need to get more specialized in their way to play because changing perks will be very difficult to do due to costs.

[Guest]

@admin will the other 5th rate be available for PB since you add back the DLC ships i can only see dlc pb fleets again..

Also would you remove F11 coords? or else the perk will be useless and not receive an proper test before you make up your minds  

Edited December 11, 2018 by Guest

[La bouche]

1 hour ago, Macjimm said:

Could be that sextant displays a magic icon, or circle, on the ingame map.   If the sextant shows co-ordinates, then use https://forum.game-labs.net/topic/8451-shrouded-recluses-map-with-accurate-coords/?tab=comments#comment-159381

 

Many thanks to Shrouded Recluse

 https://www.dropbox.com/s/h8pqnkfp3wb2nb5/prelimmap01.jpg?dl=0

Oh! I remember that map. Was mandatory to having it opened while exploring the map. I miss that days. Nice to remember that.👍🏻

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

16 minutes ago, La bouche said:

Oh! I remember that map. Was mandatory to having it opened while exploring the map. I miss that days. Nice to remember that.👍🏻

Printed  on the side desk. Same as other non-GPS games.

[Jack Lowe]

Firstly I'm going to say to admin I like this it's a good patch that appears to be another overall positive step foward. 

I like others have some potential concerns on the impact of certain changes. Still I'm more than willing to give them a go test them out and reserve my opinion till some solid data is collected for the most part.

In response to Wraiths post. I dont disagree with your position that making the sextant cost two perk points can be problematic. I would however offer a different view point. 

The dev's from what I have seen didn't intend to add the sextant at all. It's only being put in due to our feedback on the removal of the trader tool. It's a good move I believe I'm not arguing that. Only that it wasn't intended to be part of this development cycle. Therefore the perk implementation was probably the most economic and at the same time sensible way to get it into the game. A full and correct implementation would require further design and coding time taking resources away from the current work. 

I believe they will revisit the sextant in a later cycle. Although it may not become in there view a priority until after release. It will be on us through testing how it works with other game features and mechanics to provide constructive feedback and determine whether it should be pushed up the priority list, just as our feedback got it pushed onto it now.

[HachiRoku]

2 hours ago, Wraith said:

I feel like DLC ships should be excluded from port battles

As someone that has not bought the dlc I disagree with you 100%. Dlc ships must be the same as other ships. This patch is a step in the right direction. I love this idea. Let's just see how the rest of the shallow ships get on. 

[Gregory Rainsborough]

If Herc and Requins had to be made as any other vessel, this wouldn't be a problem.

[Captiva]

1 hour ago, Wraith said:

The larger point I'm making is for features like basic navigation that everyone would like, but no one will sacrifice two perk points for, why not just make that feature apply to everyone without perks? 

I agree totally with this. The sextant should be available to all, for no perk cost. It gives, to all players, the opportunity to experience common navigation during the age of sail while at the same time providing a much needed activity to engage in while in the Open World.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Sure. Mid-day spotting. Mark. Next mid-day, mark.  Have the debug F11 coordinates removed entirely ( from API as well ) and all good.  Let them use the Perk if they must.

[Tiedemann]

Awesome! But if shallow water ship is defined* by the dept of the ships hull (= logic) then please increase the BR of the Le Requin to make it less tempting to use in RvR. Because that ship is OP. Not as a fighting ship, but for trolling circles it will outrun basically anything else unless you dedicate min 3 ships in a pb to hunt a single Le Requin for the entire battle. And this is not possible if you intent to hold circles to gain points. And then when it comes to boarding the Le Requin is OP when attacking smaller vessels, it really is!

Edited December 11, 2018 by Tiedemann

[Jack Lowe]

20 minutes ago, Captiva said:

I agree totally with this. The sextant should be available to all, for no perk cost. It gives, to all players, the opportunity to experience common navigation during the age of sail while at the same time providing a much needed activity to engage in while in the Open World.

I agree with this as well but I also believe to implement it correctly will require some additional time in design as well as coding algorithms. Determining for example how accurate the base "free" sextant should be. How much any additional books, perks, or upgrades should affect it. Which ones should affect it. I think speading it around to all the above areas or at least most, with a simple less accurate version available to all is the correct final implementation. Rather like the basic system used for repairs. Not to say repairs dont need improvement.  Just that the same basic design structure will probably yield the best results. This would however require resources that I dont believe the dev's currently wish to divert from other tasks atm. 

Edited December 11, 2018 by Jack Lowe

[Angus MacDuff]

Too easy.  A shaded circle of your approx. position (=/- 5KM?). Stays there till next sight?

[Vernon Merrill]

38 minutes ago, Captiva said:

I agree totally with this. The sextant should be available to all, for no perk cost. It gives, to all players, the opportunity to experience common navigation during the age of sail while at the same time providing a much needed activity to engage in while in the Open World.

What "activity" do you speak of?  Opening the map and seeing a circle?  

I don't believe there will be any player interaction to get your position.

[Archaos]

2 hours ago, Wraith said:

You're telling me that royal navies sent their men-of-war to sea without multiple chronometers by the late 1700's?  🙄 Nope.

I think you should read the history of marine chronometers. By the end of the 1700's there were reliable marine chronometers but they were very expensive and lunar distance was more commonly used to get the vessels longitude. Whether the royal navy fitted their ships with chronometers early on I am not sure, but definitely many small traders would not have had such luxuries, especially ones on inter Caribbean trade routes.