crew loss from cannons

[hoarmurath]

Currently, we are experimenting a meta where boarding allow to win battle faster and easier. We could keep boarding as it is, but it's not really satisfactory from a gameplay perspective, and certainly not from an historical point of view.

 

During the period covered by the game, many ships were lost not necessarily because of structural damage, but also from loss of crew. This is represented currently in the game by the use of grape shots. But grape shots were ammunitions mostly used in preparation of boarding, or to repel boarding, quite useless unless ennemy crew was massed on decks. Many crew loss would come from damage from cannonballs, and especially from the splinters they would send flying in target upon impact. This is not what we currently have in game, what we currently have are crew hitboxes that the cannonballs have to hit to provoke crew loss.

 

My suggestion is that, instead of using hit boxes for crew, we could use % loss from cannonballs hits. If you consider that a ship, before it would sink, would have probably lost as much as 2/3 of its crew, what you have to do is take the total number of structure points for the sides of the ship, and divide them by the number of crew the ship can lose, and then take the result as a crew loss/point of damage that go through the planking, thus simulating the effect of splinters thrown inside from impact. You can also limit this crew loss to some extent, by making impossible to reduce a crew below 1/3 of its original strength without actually boarding.

 

This method would make gunnery a better alternative as by concentrating on it, you would as well reduce the boarding ability of your opponent. It would also allow to make raking fire more efficient, by making, for example, bow raking fire double crew loss, and stern raking fire triple crew loss. If you add additionnal gun loss from raking fire, you would create the conditions that would make bow or stern tanking ineffective, and give back to raking its historical tactical value.

 

The values indicated in this suggestion are, of course, only used as examples, and would probably require some tweaking to get the desired results, making the choice between boarding and gunnery a real choice, with a system that would be better balanced.

[Benezet]

Greetings Helene. I do agree that crew loss via round or double should be increased, but I'm generally very wary of linear damage systems, as I'm sure many are. Creating a "If Hull Damage = X(%), Crew Loss = X*.2" algorithm, or something similar, seems to be a step backwards in the other complex hit-mapping the devs have created.

 

What you are proposing -- could it not be achieved through the current hit box system, just by adding additional crew loss hit locations, and perhaps increasing the damage each causes? This seems to be most steeped in realism anyway, as a ball to certain locations such as the rim of open gunports would, via proximity of crew and weaker structural integrity, cause far greater splinterage crew loss than a ball to the hull near the bow.

 

A system that bases crew loss entirely on linear hull integrity could run the risk of seeing a ship battered purposefully and carefully near or below the waterline losing its crew at the same rate as one targeted deckside from the same angle. Obviously not ideal.

 

It seems to me that modifying the current hit box system, and adding multipliers for bow and stern raking, would logistically accomplish the same goal you have set out, without establishing a linear algorithm that may produce "gamey" situations.

[Prater]

Keep the hit boxes.  You already lose a good number of crew, how it should be.  Use grape, and you kill more.

[jodgi]

If someone presents their stern to me so they can "tank" my shots, I just say "thank you".

What's wrong with bow tanking?