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

[Draymoor]

2 hours ago, Sea Archer said:

We have to leave the "the ship must sink by gunfire" way.

This should be a possible result of the batte, but most battles should end because the captain of the loosing side has to surrender to save his crew. Therefore only very low hits should destroy the structure. 

I really hope we get to see this be modified into the game. 

[jodgi]

9 hours ago, admin said:

This gordian knot has to be cut and it could only be done in 2 ways.
1) Ships should receive somewhat realistic HP and realistic ball damage, and this will justify longer progression and costs
2) OW costs mechanics must be abandoned and all ships must be made accessible from day 1

Dude, are you giving me a choice... ARE YOU?!

[Malcolm3]

4 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

New BR on testbed. Today update.

And Basic Cutter now armed with 3-pounders only

[Teutonic]

14 minutes ago, Intrepido said:

New BR on testbed. Today update.

Would love to see the new list.

[Preechur Blackheart]

I am intrigued by the worry that the new damage model will lead to a predominance of 1st rates. I happen to have The Naval Chronicle: The Contemporary Record of the Royal Navy at War. In their 1804-1806 compendium, they list the following totals for rated ships as of the end of 1803:

Ist Rates: 10

2nd rates: 10

3rd rates: 152

4th rates: 22

5th rates:165

6th rates:41

Sloops, Cutters and Schooners:177

SO if the new model produces a spread of ship types like this, it will be historical! 74 gun SOL's should be more than abundant, but 2nd and 1st rates rather rare....

 

[DeRuyter]

7 hours ago, Archaos said:

At present ships can sail unrealistically close to the wind and tack with relative ease, this allows the downwind player get close to their enemy to engage even though the ships are sailing closer to the wind than they would have been capable of in reality. In a few posts in this thread people have mentioned making the sailing more realistic (I thought you were one of the people that was proposing that) and I am just pointing out that if ships did sail realistically with big line ships only being able to sail slightly closer to the wind than a beam reach it would make battles drawn out as the downwind player would only really have the option of running with the wind. In game ships can sail a lot closer to the wind than they could in practice and I think this needs to remain so for playability.

Maybe so as it applies to lineship battles, although there were tactical benefits to the lee position as well.  Widening the "deadzone" as @admin noted may have beneficial effects as well, like ship variety. There has been a lot of hand wringing over everyone sailing in a 1st rate or a fir/fir Bellona, well this is one way to fix that since frigates are much more handy in stays than line ships as well as being faster close hauled. It would also benefit the schooners of course. Something to test, at least increasing the angle in battle instance to reflect the importance of maneuvering, in particular when each broadside is more important now. 

 

[Preechur Blackheart]

if there is consensus as to the ratio of 1st to 2nd to 3rd rates, etc, cannot the devs produce that ratio by tinkering with the cost of first and 2nd rates, the availability of materials, and the number of permits made available to builders? Perhaps the Damage Model is not to be the means of keeping the game from being overrun with 1st rates?

 

[Sureshot]

I love the new combat, SOL's now feel like the beasts they they should be. Frigates can't tank broadsides anymore from SOL by angling, so much more realistic. Played some PvP on test server and had a lot of fun with it. 

UI looks really nice and clean, great job. 

One other thing I'd add: Now that you've added ROE to keep the battle open for the weaker side for the length of the battle you should now look in to fixing revenge fleets. You need to stop players from retagging and griefing after long battles that run an hour and a half. I think if you could find a way to fix that type of toxic behavior it would go a hell of a long way. Wouldn't it be great if people who have lives to get back too could enjoy a nice battle and then logg out afterwards or have a chance to sail to port?

You have a great game here and I love it, but I just don't have 3-4 hours to play every time I want to have a battle. I think now that you've left battles open for the weaker side for the length of battles there is no reason to let players greif for hours. I've been wanting to return for a long time but I can't get past the trolling with revenge tagging. 

Edited February 13, 2019 by Sureshot

[Hawkwood]

7 hours ago, Grundgemunkey said:

makes line ships  out of reach to new players so is detrimental to the aim of changes .. getting new players into big ships quicker that they dont lose all the time

Grundge...

You should know by now, that a new player in a  1st rate or even Bellona, is almost like having a 10 year old in a Maserati. Basically what we have in game now...Otherwise, GB wouldn´t lose 50 screeners each time, attacking important ports.

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 hours ago, Malcolm3 said:

And Basic Cutter now armed with 3-pounders only

It's actually been like that on test for a while and you can't put any other guns on it either.

Edited February 13, 2019 by Sir Texas Sir

[LIONOFWALES]

Do I need to take pictures of all my progress on the test bed? Will I lose my progress if I didn't take pictures?

Or is the progress recorded automatically.

What I think of the battle UI...

looks good, the boarding UI is not especially easy for me to look at, but I could get used to it... looks a lot nicer than the old one! Also, name of players I feel should be announced somehow on the boarding UI.

New damage models are awesome... damage feels like it applies more realistic. Unless I am just a fart and haven't noticed the changes yet... the smaller ships just seemed to die faster than they used to I guess.

I really like the different convergences as well. Their names were good also. Friendly names for newer players I think.

I haven't had a chance at the Santa Cecelia yet... I look very much forward to test her out... and maybe getting her sunk.

Also... is it possible to bring paints in as basic craftable items? I know everyone is going to want paints... or maybe a paints DLC? With specific colors only available through doing something really difficult? I am speaking from the place of a player that almost always plays alone... I am sure the random loner would want access to paints as much as clans. People like myself would be willing to buy a DLC for paints because we play alone and aren't always on. Just a thought, from a random player.

 

[jnovotny6]

you dont have to take pictures but you do have to keep count of the 25 kills including 5 won boardings

 

 

[LIONOFWALES]

Thank you... I hope I wasn't too late

 

 

[jnovotny6]

as long as the testbed is open you should be good. No one has any idea how long that may be, admin said 7 days 2 weeks ago, lol

[Sir Texas Sir]

1 hour ago, jnovotny6 said:

as long as the testbed is open you should be good. No one has any idea how long that may be, admin said 7 days 2 weeks ago, lol

There is only 14 days left on the redeemables so that is a good telling that it's going to prob go down in a week or so.  Which reminds me I missed counted and have to go do one more alt so all 5 have it done.  Well now I know what I'm doing tomorrow when I get home from work.  Kinda good cause a few changes have been done so I can test them out fresh again.

[jnovotny6]

well they could always refresh the redeemables but you are prob right

[van der Clam]

OK, I'm guessing the tesetbed was updated because my Pavel vs Buc is a beautiful well balanced battle. The only mod I had was Bow Figure Rattlesnake for pen and was firing poods and nothing on top 2 decks. Angling actually worked to bounce shots. Masts didn't insta-drop. This felt almost the same as the live server. 'twas nice.

Well done devs....you had us all in a massive panic....

[Carlos_Condell]

you put some love in the pavel??? it's feels soo good now... also i noticed that OW speed buff

Edited February 14, 2019 by Carlos_Condell

[Carlos_Condell]

one thing i would love is had the Boarding panel semi transparent, cause now is just block almost the entarely screen and did not see well the shooting nor the map

 

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Preechur Blackheart said:

I am intrigued by the worry that the new damage model will lead to a predominance of 1st rates. I happen to have The Naval Chronicle: The Contemporary Record of the Royal Navy at War. In their 1804-1806 compendium, they list the following totals for rated ships as of the end of 1803:

Ist Rates: 10

2nd rates: 10

3rd rates: 152

4th rates: 22

5th rates:165

6th rates:41

Sloops, Cutters and Schooners:177

SO if the new model produces a spread of ship types like this, it will be historical! 74 gun SOL's should be more than abundant, but 2nd and 1st rates rather rare....

 

That roster only accounts for the state owned warships, it doesn't take into account the privately owned warships which was predominantly 6th and 5th rates. 

[admin]

On 2/12/2019 at 5:44 PM, rediii said:

Do we get realistic reloadtimes aswell then? (timecompressed)

What would this be ingame? 10 seconds? Less?

time is relative. 
Average reload for a 36lb (based on Boudriot) was 14 mins, heavy ship tacked in 20-30 mins (average crews). In game heavy ships tacks in 2-3 mins which makes reload relatively historical compared to tacking time. 

[LIONOFWALES]

So... after doing some more testing on the test bed server I came to another conclusion...

I really think that the boarding UI would look better in a more vanilla/off white tone with either light tan or medium tan high lights... the blues and greys I find a little disorienting, maybe that is just me... other than that the battle UI looks awesome and the boarding UI is a major improvement... also, please don't change the color just because it doesn't work for me... if every one else is a fan of the color it should remain.

Damage models looked good to me, I did a little extra testing and noticed that I wanted to be able to fire at the water as in the waterline arch mode, but without the horizontal convergence...just a thought.

[LIONOFWALES]

The current waterline fire arch is good for larger ships that want to shoot smaller ships... I just feel we need a low waterline arch that is less converged... a wide waterline convergence for travelling at higher speeds.

This is my opinion anyway.

Edited February 14, 2019 by LIONOFWALES

[z4ys]

1 hour ago, admin said:

time is relative. 
Average reload for a 36lb (based on Boudriot) was 14 mins, heavy ship tacked in 20-30 mins (average crews). In game heavy ships tacks in 2-3 mins which makes reload relatively historical compared to tacking time. 

But tacking is overall to fast. It's actual faster than wearing in-game.

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

28 minutes ago, z4ys said:

But tacking is overall to fast. It's actual faster than wearing in-game.

Not really... entirely... true. Distance covered and time. In tacking you only have to turn through about 12 points, to wear you have 20 points to cover. ( points of sail )

But yes, the "future position" determines how the guns will be used. Hence beating can be sustained, as much as wind allows, but that's it. 

 

Did come across these when designing some rules for tabletop, which may even be more effectively used in NA. ( in tabletop, time is better be abstract for game flow ). Has some solid fact about the wears and tacks and immobilization of ships with cross yards at 6 points of the wind ( not on the eye of the wind ).

http://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol13/tnm_13_4_29-39.pdf

https://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol14/tnm_14_3_57-68.pdf