Fireships & Are we still Testers?

[Anolytic]

I seem to remember this game being released some months ago. On Steam it is no longer marked as Early Access.

And yet we are still treated to game altering changes to mechanics, most importantly combat mechanics - the only mechanic that seemed finished and in a stable state when the game was released.

Fireship mechanics are the prime example of this. The dial is turned to 11 on explosions and change the battles - the strongest selling point of this game - from fairly "historically realistic", and yet skillbased, into trollfests like we had with ramming leaks and NPC 4th rates back in 2016. 

While we were testing this game, players expected changes to the game to sometimes break it temporarily. There was no lack of frustration and outrage from this, but it was what we signed up for.

Now we are playing a final state game with an official release, and changes that are made should be well considered, and thoroughly tested before going to the live servers.

If you need us to help with any of this? Open the testbed server back up, and give us some incentive to go there and give feedback. Or nominate some players (the now practically defunct tester rank on the forum comes to mind) to help you consider the impact of planned changes.

If we are going to continue testing serious alterations to game-mechanics on the live servers - then players who suffer losses directly related to when these tests produce mechanics that don't work the way you intended, need to be compensated. When playing the game after release, we are no longer signed up to be testers, and when you break the game, the affected players need to be compensated (rather than for RvR-players, who can typically afford their losses, this goes for the myriad of players who over the course of the last few weeks have lost their ships to randomly exploding AI or in PvP encounters). 

Fireships:

First of all, let's separate between fireships and exploding ships. 

1 month-2 months ago, explosions were mostly alright. A good explosion could do serious damage, enough to cripple a fleet if quickly seized upon, but in a moving fight they were hard to pull off. There were some issues, that were F11'd many times. Ships would frequently explode without warning. Fireshocks were supposed to be the warning, but more often than not, ships would explode directly from just being on fire. Sometimes, ships would even explode directly, without even catching on fire first. This happened to me once in San Juan.

One could argue about the frequency of this occurring (it was way too often), but it's somewhat historical - if not the best gameplay - to get randomly blown up without warning from a stray cannonball igniting the magazine. 

Since the changes to explosions the situation is completely different. A "fireship" (exploding ship) doesn't have to be particularly accurate. It can blow up far from the enemy fleet and still devastate it. With the "great" combination of captured NPC 1st rates it is a tactic without risk or cost whatsoever. And it has no counter. "The only winning move is not to play".

I am no expert, and I don't have access to the historical records directly, but I know enough that 1st rates were never used as fireships. Moreover, gunpowder was an expensive resource and even if they could have packed every deck of a 1st rate with gunpowder, we would not see the kind of nuclear explosions we now see in-game.

One of the most spectacular historical 1st rate explosions in history was the destruction of Orient. 

Wikipedia says about this explosion:

Quote

The concussion of the blast was powerful enough to rip open the seams of the nearest ships

Falling wreckage started fires on Swiftsure, Alexander, and Franklin, although in each case teams of sailors with water buckets succeeded in extinguishing the flames,

Hundreds of men dove into the sea to escape the flames, but fewer than 100 survived the blast.

For ten minutes after the explosion there was no firing; sailors from both sides were either too shocked by the blast or desperately extinguishing fires aboard their own ships to continue the fight.

There is:

Nearby ships took hull damage (ripped seams) - but not to the point of sinking.

No mention of crew killed on other ships from the blast - after all they are well covered by the solid hulls of their own ships.

No mention of masts falling on other ships - presumably sails were ripped.

Other ships caught fire from falling debris.

Other ships got "crew shocked" by the blast.

If we want to model explosions in-game on this, here's how I propose:

Crew shock to all ships in the battle after an explosion, but longer crew-shock to ships within short distance from the blast. I.e 15 seconds for all ships and 2-3 minute crew shock for ships within say 500 meters.

Crew loss only on ships immediately near. I.e up to 500 crew lost on ships that are literally touching the exploding ship. No crew loss on ships more than 100 meters away from the explosion.

Fires, fires everywhere. All ships within say 500 meters should catch up to multiple fires, simulating falling debris. Fires that have to be fought, and could be dangerous, but which especially a ship in brace should be well prepared to handle. Fires spreading should be the real danger from any exploding ship - or any fireship really.

Masts should fall (if at all) only on ships in immediate vicinity to the blast. And then no more than middle sections. Only on ships within 250 meters max. And if you want to make it somewhat realistic, only ships with their sails fully raised, not depowered, and perpendicular to the direction of the blast should be susceptible to loose mast sections. Otherwise the force of the explosion would not catch the sails. 

Sail damage, as in ripped sails, on ships close to the blast. Sail damage should be up to 50% on the closest ships, and reach no more than 400 meters away. Sail damage should however be increased again for ships on fire. This goes especially for the fireships themselves, but also for ships catching fire from falling debris after an explosion.

Hull damage to show how ships seams were ripped. Maybe manifesting as structure damage or som 20-30% damage to hulls, depending on proximity and angle.

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As a whole, fireships themselves and fireship fittings should be changed to focus more on fires and less on explosions. They are after all named fireships, not explosive ships.

The real danger of a fireship, should be spreading fires to other, adjacent ships. Explosions should be rarer, more chancy, and significantly less potent. 

There should be no fireship fittings above 5th rates. Possibly 4th rates. It is just not historical. 

And the purpose of a fireship should be to drive close to enemy ships and spread multiple, significant fires, to their hull and sails alike. Fires that would be crippling, do sail damage and take up big numbers of crew in firefighting, leaving the ships vulnerable. 

A fireship should have an increased radius at which fires spread, so that it would not need to completely touch/hug an enemy (or friendly) ship to spread fire to it, but the more it hugged a ship, the more severely the fire would spread to the next ship.

Edited December 8, 2019 by Anolytic
Corrected misreading of a quoted sentence (ref. ripped seams).

[Donjuan Dimarco]

Hello Dear Devs,

The game mechanic "fire ship"  is a joke.  Please put it in the settings it was before.

Cheers Don

[admin]

42 minutes ago, Anolytic said:

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