Sails and masts

[Cpt Eole]

Hi captains,

I have two questions about mast and sails.

1. Is sail damage localized ?

Let me explain this: most of the time square sails are damaged and aimed because of their size and it's easier. So with square sails damaged does it proportionately affect your speed regardless of sailing upwind or downwind ? Or do your good condition staysails allow you to keep sailing almost as fast as before upwind ?

2. how sail repair really works with masts

Are mast instantly repaired and that's it ? Or does it repair your mast as sails ? Or maybe both, instant repair then repair continuously as sails ?

 

o7

[van Veen]

Each sail and each mast segment has its own damage pool. There is a minimum cap (I think it's 35%) for sail damage, i.e. when a sail is destroyed completely (0 HP), it still has 35% sails. When the damage pool of a mast segment hits zero, the mast segment falls. Of course, the bottom mast takes down middle mast and top mast with it. All sails attached to missing mast segments are removed completely. 

When you hit sail repair, damaged mast HP get filled up immediately. For this reason, sometimes you see players repairing sails even when sails are at 97% or so, because they are afraid to lose a mast. The moment you hit sail rep, mast damage is reset. 

Damaged sails are repaired continuously, i.e. their HP pool is filled up throughout the duration of the repair. This can be seen in battle as holes in sails are patched up. 

Lost masts are stepped one after another: bottom mast first, then middle mast and top mast. When a mast is stepped, sails attached are also attached to it. Initially, the sails look damaged and are patched up continuously. From my understanding, sails attached to a stepped mast have 0 HP and are filled up. When all sails are at 100%, the next mast segment is stepped up. 

[z4ys]

When you dmg the square sail of a privateer it can go upwind faster (between 30° and 5°)

So yes the area that is dmged influences the sailing caracteristicas. When you dmg only the square sails (of a square rigger) of the front mast the ship will not go straight anymore even with autoskipper enabled. But most of the time we do not notice because all sails are shredded.

You can notice this effect as well when rasing sails on the Le requin. She will try to turn when the sails come up but as soon all are hoisted she goes straight.

Edited January 13, 2020 by z4ys

[Aster]

As far as I know. Each sail provides its own speed yes to one. Mast repair is the same as sail if you get dismasted during a sail repair it will still repair masts.

[Captain2Strong]

and if I remember correctly, when you're missing 2 masts, it's going to build two bottom sections of each of those masts instead of finishing the repair of just one of them

it always repairs the bottom section of each mast(and then middle section, when all bottom sections are repaired) instead of finishing just one of them

 

Edited January 13, 2020 by Captain2Strong

[Cpt Eole]

Thanks for your answers. It is exaclty what I was looking for.

My question was specifically aimed at the case where the masts were still standing at the beginning of the repair. To sum up, if masts stand at the begining of the repair, it will be instantly full hp. If hit during the repair, the hp wiil increase as sails do.

14 minutes ago, van Veen said:

Each sail and each mast segment has its own damage pool.

But does it mean, as Aster says, that each sails provides its own speed and so when hit, this particular speed decrease ?

If it is, you better sail the closest to the wind you can when you are low hp on sails and try to preserve your staysails.