Testbed Feedback - Battle UI, Localization, Patrols, Delivery quests

[AeRoTR]

Only problem, in testbed, we are testing without super books or skills. 

Accuracy mods / Penetration mods etc. So something has to done for mast sniping with single shot, cause it will be dismasting festival. Also broadsides dismast easily. 

Dismasting should occur after heavy rigging damage or heavy structure damage. 

[Marquês do Bonfim]

It would be easier to just quote me, my dude. I'm not calling myself pro, not even close to that. I don't have dlc ships nor wish I had, if you think everybody is just how you think they are, you're seriously mistaken and don't go around spitting in your own plate when you don't even know who you're trying to hurt verbally. I didn't say names, I didn't quote or say any particular story or particular thing that has happened before, I don't know why you're firing shots like that.

At the end, we are trying to say the same here. What I was trying to say is that I was getting sick of people trying to get a reason behind getting sunk by smaller ship simply because "the meta helped it" and not fully accepting that perhaps the player was better than them.

I like this dmg model and I wish it success, I'll be playing and I'll be testing it out till it gets better and better and I hope you do the same.

[HachiRoku]

3 hours ago, Hethwill said:

Nope, that's not what I said. I said review the actuating forces on the sail plans. Stay sails and jibs are pushing massive hulls up wind and by rule, this is not a invention, there's a point where square sails and even fore and aft ships cannot go beyond, thus having to either fall back to the wind or initiate a change of tack through the wind.Second, turn capability of a ship is dynamic and linked mainly, but not exclusively, to straight vector speed. So the more speed the longer the turn, the longer the hull the longer the turn, the heavier the ship the longer the displacement of its tonnage, etc.

Same as cannon shot mass being propelled by a certain amount of gunpowder charge at range.

Both things are well documented but for some mmo arcadish pleasure we have all kinds of rigs going as close to the eye of the wind as it is impossible.

So, real gunnery real ship handling  

What you call nerf I call correcting.

sorry for  unintentionally putting words in your mouth btw... I corrected my post but the way I wrote it did implied you wanted turn rates to be lower also.

[Slim McSauce]

17 minutes ago, AeRoTR said:

Only problem, in testbed, we are testing without super books or skills. 

Accuracy mods / Penetration mods etc. So something has to done for mast sniping with single shot, cause it will be dismasting festival. Also broadsides dismast easily. 

Dismasting should occur after heavy rigging damage or heavy structure damage. 

Demasting is pretty bad already, it's going to get a lot worse in this DM. Mast mods are OK but if you really need a mod to ensure half a broadside doesn't rek you bottom masts then something is wrong. An all or nothing approach like buffing masts into oblivion isn't going to work. Cannon's do need to be less accurate. We know for an absolute objective fact that cannon accuracy does effect demasting potential as seen from stern v bow cannon comparisons. Cannons are unrealistically accurate so that's one thing to look at, but one thing isn't going to make a solution. It has to be multi-faceted so along with cannon accuracy, repairing mast should be easier since you can expect to lose an section of mast in a single broadside from a similar sized ship. Not only is this unfashionably unrealistic that an entire section of masts can be focused down one by one in consecutive broadsides, it's gamey as there is no type of angling that can prevent this damage like there is with hulls. All in all I think bottom sections of masts shouldn't be lost right off the bat, some damage needs to be taken from sails AND hull before a mast can be weekened enough to chop from the bottom. Topsails should remain how they are, accuracy on all cannons reduced to realistic standard to match realistic DM, and emergency repairs of downed sections of mast made more feasible so you aren't left canoeing in the first 5m

Edited February 9, 2019 by Slim McSauce

[z4ys]

Funny thing is we just sprayed into the rigging and masts came down. What will an accuracy reduction solve here?

[Cabral]

 Maybe the problem is not the heavy damage the cannons have on testbed, the damage is not far from real life damage. The problem is the extreme accuracy of the cannons, nerf the stabilizers and make use of battlesails for a stable gun platform. We get realistic turnrates and battles will last longer than 5 mins.

[Marquês do Bonfim]

 

Live Oak/White Oak Trincomalee

32pd carros + 9pd mediums bow chasers.

Bow Figure - Elephant

Navy Structure Refit

I show the ship status at the end of the video.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Portuguese Privateer

[Slim McSauce]

^that type of stern rake power could stay if we had urgent repairs repairing a % of internal structure only, same with demasting. would probably save tones of tweaking.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Slim McSauce

[Carlos_Condell]

41 minutes ago, Portuguese Privateer said:

 

Live Oak/White Oak Trincomalee

32pd carros + 9pd mediums bow chasers.

Bow Figure - Elephant

Navy Structure Refit

I show the ship status at the end of the video.

carros shouldn't pen that much at that distance..

[AeRoTR]

52 minutes ago, Portuguese Privateer said:

I show the ship status at the end of the video.

You have 25 cannons each side, you miss half of the shots, you penetrate 12 each time, you have half dps. I think damage and penetration needs to be tuned down, demasting may be more rare  

[Marquês do Bonfim]

That's because I'm not used to carronades, they usually go all over the place, the reason why I was penetrating 12 each time is because I had the carronade master perk, otherwise I would've missed all of 'em. They usually go all over the place, some of them got crew, some of them went into the sails but half of it I managed to hit the hull. 😂

[Slim McSauce]

I don't know if I just suck but it's extremely hard to land mast hits with carronades. It's wayy harder than with longs which kind of support my thinking that you could potentially improve the mast sniping by reducing accuracy across the board. Other than that carronades are amazing for damage and make 1v3's very possible without feeling cheesy or unfair.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Slim McSauce

[Beeekonda]

4 hours ago, z4ys said:

Funny thing is we just sprayed into the rigging and masts came down. What will an accuracy reduction solve here?

Nothing

You can take down masts with shooting hull  

Welcome to discussion  

[Malcolm3]

7 hours ago, admin said:

mercury did not sink Turkish ships of the line. Mercury escaped with honor in very unfavorable conditions (turkish wanted to capture it). 
His name was chosen because of another russian Mercury - Cutter - which captured a swedish frigate Venus - designed by Chapman. Using rowing in full calm cutter sailed to stern of the frigate and camped for couple of hours until Venus surrendered. So it is possible to use light ships historically and win against heavy vessels in proper conditions.  

Actually that "cutter" had 22*24-pdr carronades and was disguised as 2-masted merchantman.

Still the small frigates (12pdr and below) now obsolete against SoLs as they were in reality, to deal damage even with stern raking your need at least 18pdrs.

 

[Marquês do Bonfim]

9 hours ago, Intrepido said:

My conclusion is a frigate still can engage a higher class ship but with a risk.

And I dont know for how long is portuguese privateer playing but I expect guys with 3 years of veterancy to fight much better.

I've been playing for almost a year now, I didn't play that battle with serious tactics or anything, I wanted to get shot at to see how much damage the trinco could take. It almost sunk me, but I managed to sink him first (at the end, I started getting water because my pump was hit, I fixed it and it went all good after that).

I got 302 hours on my belt, if that's something.

Edited February 10, 2019 by Portuguese Privateer

[Marquês do Bonfim]

I'm a frigate guy myself, and I can say this-- frigates are a little bit weaker on the new damage model, it can be done tho. You can go against a bigger ship (idk about SOLs right now) and still give it a beating (even tho you might sink or not). I think bumping the structure hp + thickness, get some more heavier cannons aswell for the heavier frigates like the Endymion, Trinco, Connie, Indef, and some of the smaller frigates like the Belle Poule, Essex, L'Hermione and the Frigate/Pirate Frigate would give them a little bit of a chance of not being so easy targets in OW. Don't get me wrong, if the captain sailing a frigate is skilled enough and you're not that much skilled sailing a 3rd rate or a SOL and you do some mistakes in battle, that captain could and should be able to take you down. You can sail a 1st rate, but if you don't know how to sail it or don't know how to battle with it, you can and you will get sunk, that's plain and simple strategy outcome of war. I agree with the system right now, 1st rates and SOLs should sink smaller ships with 2 broadsides or even 1, but that doesn't mean it have to be that way just because they're the big boys in-game. if you sleep in battle, you will get sunk.

I was sailing a LO/WO Trincomalee with HP and Thickness upgrades, my HP was up to almost 9k structure HP and that Ingermanland still gave me some serious damage. Damage could use some tuning down, like 8%, tuning down cannon accuracy would actually give a better chance for players vs AI and players vs players would significantly decrease mast sniping. Ships could also get more heel, specially corvets and sloops. Also, get rid of speed boosts like copper plating and naval clock, because 1st rates, 2nd rates and 3rd rates using those would be deadly in OW.

[admin]

13 hours ago, z4ys said:

Funny thing is we just sprayed into the rigging and masts came down. What will an accuracy reduction solve here?

Mast thickness is not updated on the test bed (uses old parameters) and hull as well. It will be hotfixed on monday, after data review. We will tune the thickness for ships which will update the mast to all distances and values. We are even thinking of increasing mast hp a bit which will reduce mast sniping even to lower level than on current live servers making it so that new system is preferring the demasting through rakes.

The increased speed commented on by @OjK is caused by change of structure damage calculations

Previously structure was damaged ONLY if your planking was low. Creating cases where you had low planking on both sides but almost full structure
we tuned it - because structure IS planting + frame, we start to damaging it early, Thats why battles are 20-30% faster (if you shoot into correct places). To bring them back couple of options exist and we will post them on monday.

 

[Marquês do Bonfim]

That explains A LOT.

[z4ys]

4 minutes ago, admin said:

Mast thickness is not updated on the test bed (uses old parameters) and hull as well. It will be hotfixed on monday, after data review. We will tune the thickness for ships which will update the mast to all distances and values. We are even thinking of increasing mast hp a bit which will reduce mast sniping even to lower level than on current live servers making it so that new system is preferring the demasting through rakes.

The increased speed commented on by @OjK is caused by change of structure damage calculations

Previously structure was damaged ONLY if your planking was low. Creating cases where you had low planking on both sides but almost full structure
we tuned it - because structure IS planting + frame, we start to damaging it early, Thats why battles are 20-30% faster (if you shoot into correct places). To bring them back couple of options exist and we will post them on monday.

 

I would rather see hp increase of side armor. Penetration of guns felt right for the first time.

[Sir Loorkon]

3 minutes ago, z4ys said:

I would rather see hp increase of side armor. Penetration of guns felt right for the first time.

I can not agree. Penetration was tuned good before. If pen increases, armor should increase to. The angle should be important, otherwise it only would matter to have more hp because you can pen at nearly every angle with some cannons and that would be really boring. I am fine with the new damage system because it is more realistic and makes it easier for average captains in big ships (and might increase the player base) but there should be some skill based mechanics, too. Otherwise we would be in danger to get a „gear matters all“ game: The one with best gear and most hp and bigger cannons wins (Some people like Slim believed that we had that before. Wrong.) 

@admin I like it that you are tuning fast this time. Its the core of the game. I also appreciate that you are considering to increase mast strenth to make dismasting (except by raking) harder. To many fights are won by that mechanic and it is very frustrating for average players.

[vazco]

Main issue with a new build is that fights are too short and that different classes of ships can't fight each other. Both lead to bad battle to OW ratio and battle to crafting cost ratio. 

 

Good change in new mechanic is better noob friendliness in fights,but right now it doesn't outweigh the costs. 

@admin maybe you could use morale to give big ships advantage, but in the same time don't block fights of ships in different classes by making them hopeless. 

[z4ys]

26 minutes ago, Sir Loorkon said:

I can not agree. Penetration was tuned good before. If pen increases, armor should increase to. The angle should be important, otherwise it only would matter to have more hp because you can pen at nearly every angle with some cannons and that would be really boring. I am fine with the new damage system because it is more realistic and makes it easier for average captains in big ships (and might increase the player base) but there should be some skill based mechanics, too. Otherwise we would be in danger to get a „gear matters all“ game: The one with best gear and most hp and bigger cannons wins (Some people like Slim believed that we had that before. Wrong.) 

@admin I like it that you are tuning fast this time. Its the core of the game. I also appreciate that you are considering to increase mast strenth to make dismasting (except by raking) harder. To many fights are won by that mechanic and it is very frustrating for average players.

On testbed you need to be a pro to bounce stuff not like on live server where most shots bounce when slightly angled. Thats why I said for the first time it felt right. Sure fights should be longer but not because everything bounce. It should be longer because HP pool is bigger.

[AeRoTR]

@z4ys may be tune down cannon damage a bit, like %15-20? Hp has been already increased.

[Cecil Selous]

On 2/9/2019 at 6:21 AM, admin said:

What is supposed to happen with Surprise after a HMS Victory broadside in your mental historical pattern/model?

 

Since you asked I will explain my thoughts behind my posts (that mental is meant in a totalyl harmless way I assume ). Of course it is just my opinion and I can't prove them with any studies, hard numbers and just approach this by my logic and general knowledge.

This table shows the diameters of the cannonballs we use (I took them from this website https://www.arc.id.au/Cannonballs.html).

Most of us also now the various videos on youtube about modern tests of naval cannons. For example the experiment with the part of a Niagara hull that gets shot by 12 lb, 24 lb and 32 lb carronades and the Test of the 24 lb long gun of the Vasa. They show what kind of damage is done to the hull and more importantly what happens after penetration inside the ship.

The link to the Niagara video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGM6AlwjGS0

Those balls don't explode. They make holes at varying sizes mostly depending on velocity at time of the impact. Some are remarkable clean, some break out larger parts. All in all the important is what happens at the exit hole and what and where they hit.

 

One broadside of a Victory (no carronades) shoots 16 x 42 lb, 15 x 24 lb and 22 x 12 lb cannon balls. At the moment one broadside of a Victory to the hull above water is enough to sink small frigates and sometimes also the medium ones if the majority of the shots connect. And that for me is simply not comprehensible. That's where I asked what kind of damage is done by those 53 solid cannonballs of different size that causes a fairly big wooden sail ship to be totally destroyed and sink without even a chance. That is where I asked the question of what we understand as Hull HP and cannonball damage and how they should relate to each other. That's also the point where I questioned the use of the term "historical" and "realistic" because they are thrown around here?

Usually the example of the frigate La Sérieuse comes into play at this point to validate the current gameplay on the testbed. And then I simply said that we don't know in detail what happend to her. At least I don't. I couldn't find a really detailed source and have no book about the battle of the Nile to search for more. Maybe someone could help out here. The best I could find is that the frigate was heavily damaged, disabled and driftend onto a shoal. Then the next day it was scuttled by the french to avoid capture by the british. It is also highly questionable if we should take this particular example as the norm.

A broadside of a first rate to a frigate is devastating and it should be. I totally agree with that. It is devastating because it is simply a huge amount of metal that enters the ship all at once with all the resulting consequences to the crew, cannons, everything that has anything to do with the rigging, modules etc but not in a way that immediately completely negates the ability of the ship to float and hold itself together. 

I said that I think this is a step into the right direction and I appreciate that we can test this on the testbed. But it needs a lot of tuning.

 

Just two examples. Excuse the horrifying graphic settings

This is what just three Trincomalee broadsides (32 lb carronades and 18 lb longs) do to a Cerberus, a light 5th rate.

And this happens to a snow after 25 hull hits from a Trinc (full 32 lb carronade loadout) 2 and a half minutes into the battle. Nothing left and completely dismasted.

Sure. Big frigate against a smaller frigate and a small 6th rate. But seriously guys. This is way over the top.

 

 

On 2/9/2019 at 7:15 AM, Intrepido said:

If a first rate can have a good tag against a frigate then the captain on the frigate is pretty bad.

Normally it is the frigate captain who does the tag, often behind the lineship to begin the sternrakes easily.

And? Don't we have bad or new players? They should suffer extremely for being just that? Besides this doesn't only relate to first rate vs frigate. As the pictures above show.

 

On 2/9/2019 at 12:50 PM, admin said:

Model requires tuning but we are not coming back. A light 5th rate (like hercules or surprise) should be 1-2 shotted by a 3rd rate. Or devastated losing most combat capabilities. 

Like mentioned above. Those ships can be 2 - 3 shotted atm by ships in their own class.

 

Edited February 10, 2019 by Cecil Selous

[Sir Texas Sir]

On 2/9/2019 at 6:00 AM, Intrepido said:

Please, follow my advise.

Tune down (-15%) a bit the penetration and damage values cause dimasting is very very easy and a broadside should wreck a frigate (lose full side bar and a bit of structure) but not directly sink it or dimast it completely. It is too much at the moment.

Perhaps a decrease of accuracy will help against dimasting too without compromising much.

So I did a test of my crafters Vict that was Teak/WO with Elephant and I had the mod witch gives you more bow/stern thickness on it and the Naval Structure for thickness.  My cannons where 42 mediums, 24 longs, 12 meds (I would of ran longs here but none on test) and 42 carros.  I took down that wasa in about 3 1/2 (two was double ball) broad sides.   But this is what all the the other ships did to me during that time.  Had a buggy Bellona going in reverse 4 knots (That what most of the port structure I lost was from, the Wasa was on my Starbord side).  While I took to running to do a repair I had another wasa on my side but most of the AI keep a good long distance so I couldn't get good shots on them.  Lets just say I had one ship almost sunk and another half way there when I finaly went under.   So folks thinking SOL's will be super fleets remember numebrs will prob always win unless they players are stupid.  How I could of dictated this battle and won would of been I had to string the AI out one by one and take them on like that much as a good skill player would do against that many players.  So if you get revenge ganked in front of a capital it's not going to be auto win for you if your sitting in a 1st rate.

For those saying just use carros, remember if it's a bigger ship you have to get close, every thing pens under 250m pretty much, so if your going to try to get next to that big ship with those carros your going to loose unless your another SOL that can take a few hits.

I also want to add but this was prob the Bow/stern mod and the teak of the ship, I didn't take on water until I was down to two structure bars.  So your not going to auto sink and I didn't loose any of my Mast. 

Now I'll add when I was hitting 5/6th rate fleets the light frigats would pretty much get two shotted with my 24/24/12/12 mediums set up.   Indefatable was the biggest ship and it took about three broad sides to sink, while surprises would be one broad side and a deck or two reload to finish them off.   Which means these smaller ships need to keep to the stern and not take broad sides.