Buccaneers! Screenshots and Videos

[Armada]

That sounds like a relatively navy-like approach.
How about free pirating?

I'm a bit surprised adding ships to your fleet isn't part of the "Fleet Commander" category...

Fleet Commander is more of a naval approach whereas Swashbuckler is the more piratey playstyle. You can combine both if you like capturing and keeping lots of ships.
The former allows you to get more money from selling captured ships and eventually gives you a discount on purchasing and upgrading new ones.
The latter makes it easier to capture ships by giving you more weapons and eventually increasing the enemy's surrender chance.

The Opportunist path sits somewhere in the middle, with abilities that compliment either of the others. It allows you to fly a false flag, reduce your detection radius at sea, bribe various officials and even lure enemy ships into an ambush. It works well with Swashbuckler if you prefer to keep a smaller, more nimble fleet, but it also combines well with Fleet Commander if you want to infiltrate enemy ports, sabotage their defences, and then bring in your large fleet to conquer the town.

All of this is of course subject to change. We have a LOT of testing to do, and user feedback from the beta will be crucial to determining what works and what doesn't.

 

[Homo eructus]

Looking good!

Btw, give me a shout if you want a Spanish translation when you reach a stage where such decisions start being considered (which I assume is still a way off).

 

[Armada]

Looking good!

Btw, give me a shout if you want a Spanish translation when you reach a stage where such decisions start being considered (which I assume is still a way off).

Thanks for the offer! I'll keep that in mind and let you know once we're looking into it.

 

[Armada]

We've made several changes to boarding to add a layer of strategy to the mix...

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2714861635455868

The enemy captain now spawns mid-way through a boarding fight, and once you kill them, their crew has a chance to surrender which increases as their numbers dwindle. All ships now also have a minimum crew threshold required to sail effectively, so forcing the enemy to surrender becomes key to making sure you have enough crew left to man both ships. If you want to board multiple ships in a single battle, you'll need to plan ahead and try not to lose too many crew.

You also have the option to transfer crew between ships after winning boarding. If your ship or an AI ship is left with fewer crew than its minimum threshold, it has a penalty to cannon reload time and cannot initiate boarding (but can still be boarded by an enemy ship), but can still fight. If a ship is left with no crew at all, it cannot move or fire, and will be an easy target for the enemy. You'll need to decide whether to prioritise your own ship's crew and leave your prize at risk or give both ships enough crew to last the battle. You will have the option to transfer crew again at the end of the battle, so under-manned ships can be reinforced later.

 

[Armada]

Just a heads-up; I'll be away for a week starting tomorrow, so I will not be posting our usual weekly videos here until I get back.

You can still see the videos when they go live on our Discord server along with our Twitter, Facebook and Instagram profiles.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Just a heads-up; I'll be away for a week starting tomorrow

Hope you have a good time, mate!

 

[Armada]

Here are the two videos that were posted while I was away, in case you missed them:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2758673981077849

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=730610534164403

And today's video completes our trilogy of ship type previews:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1205959059743991

There's not much new information shown off, but they give a brief overview of each type's role in battle.
The third video also features a battle with our largest fort for the first time, so you can see what an end-game battle might look like.

(Apologies for the inconsistent text sizes and formatting.)

 

[Martes]

I just have to remind that the spritsails went out of use in the beginning of the 18-th century with the introduction of the jibs to large ships. They were used only rarely, in light winds, when every scrap of canvas was critical, but generally that yard under the bowsprit was left bare.

 

[Armada]

We might remove that sail from smaller ships where it slightly obscures the player's view, but I see no harm in leaving it on larger ships where that isn't a problem.

 

[Martes]

but I see no harm in leaving it on larger ships where that isn't a problem.

Well, besides being very anachronistic (I don't remember a single painting depicting this sail in use after 1750, and it was rare even before), it obscures the external front view of the ship.
It would be logical to include it if stunsails and skysails were implemented (and even then it would look slightly archaic), but not otherwise. It's either spritsails or jibs, but not both. The fact they use them on replicas now doesn't make it historically correct

 

[Armada]

Playable demo inbound!

You'll have your first chance to try a small slice of Buccaneers! very soon! We're aiming to release a short ship combat demo to coincide with the Ocean Institute Maritime Festival next weekend. The demo will feature all playable ships including the Pilgrim, and will take the form of a wave-based scenario taking you through increasingly difficult battles.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=645046343114847

It's just a sample of things to come, and does not feature the campaign mode which will be the heart of the full game. We'll be on the lookout for feedback on the naval combat and boarding mechanics, both of which are still a work-in-progress. We're working hard to eliminate as many bugs as we can before the demo goes live, but you may still encounter some during gameplay, so please be aware of that.

 

[Armada]

Avast, ye scallywags! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day, so here be a handy guide fer any landlubbers who haven't yet laid eyes on Buccaneers!:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2744445795832458

Savvy?

 

[Armada]

One popular request from the demo was to add grapeshot as an ammo type, so we've now done just that.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=971872419991100

As you'll see in the video, it works a bit differently to PotC. We've implemented a shotgun-style spread where each cannon fires multiple projectiles that do a small amount of damage to crew, so to be effective, you'll need to get very close to the enemy! And to make sure boarding is still relevant, you can only kill up to 50% of the enemy crew with cannon fire, so the rest must be dealt with the old-fashioned way.

Other changes you may notice in the video:

• We've added a spyglass view to non-VR mode, accessed by holding down the Aim button (right mouse or LT).
• Ship hull health is now split into "armour" (yellow) and normal health (red). When the armour is depleted, the ship becomes vulnerable to status effects such as catching fire, and grapeshot becomes more effective.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

We've implemented a shotgun-style spread where each cannon fires multiple projectiles that do a small amount of damage to crew, so to be effective, you'll need to get very close to the enemy!

Isn't that the textbook definition of how that is supposed to work?
PotC doesn't quite get that right.
But then, it doesn't really arc cannons properly at all...

And to make sure boarding is still relevant, you can only kill up to 50% of the enemy crew with cannon fire, so the rest must be dealt with the old-fashioned way.

That's an interesting idea!
Not sure how I feel about it though...
What if you prefer sea battles over boarding; but you still want to take prizes?
You can't keep pounding your enemies until their morale drops and they surrender then?

Ship hull health is now split into "armour" (yellow) and normal health (red). When the armour is depleted, the ship becomes vulnerable to status effects such as catching fire, and grapeshot becomes more effective.

So...
You'd have to chip away their armour down first; and only the regular health after?
So it'd be like one bar with the top part yellow and bottom red?

Or they're separate and you can somehow target either the one or the other?

 

[Armada]

Isn't that the textbook definition of how that is supposed to work?
PotC doesn't quite get that right.
But then, it doesn't really arc cannons properly at all...

Pretty much, as far as I understand it. We initially prototyped the same system as PotC by replacing the standard round shot model with a single cluster of grapeshot per cannon, but to balance that properly we were going to have to reduce its range so much that the shots would seem unnaturally heavy. The shotgun spread didn't need a range reduction because it naturally makes grapeshot completely useless unless you're very close, so that worked out really well.

That's an interesting idea!
Not sure how I feel about it though...
What if you prefer sea battles over boarding; but you still want to take prizes?
You can't keep pounding your enemies until their morale drops and they surrender then?

It's done this way so that players who do like to board will still have at least some challenge, though it's definitely something we'll need to test and get feedback on.
If you want to take prizes but don't like boarding, you can get one of your allied ships to do it for you instead.

We haven't implemented surrendering in naval combat yet, but that's on the to-do list. Surrendering currently only happens during boarding if the enemy is heavily outnumbered.

So...
You'd have to chip away their armour down first; and only the regular health after?
So it'd be like one bar with the top part yellow and bottom red?

Or they're separate and you can somehow target either the one or the other?

It's a single health bar split into two parts; damaging the hull reduces the armour first and then reduces the normal health afterwards. Currently it's just a visual indicator to tell you when a ship is vulnerable, so armour isn't more difficult to damage, but some ships have more armour than others.

It briefly appears in the video above (sorry for the low-res crop):

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Pretty much, as far as I understand it. We initially prototyped the same system as PotC by replacing the standard round shot model with a single cluster of grapeshot per cannon, but to balance that properly we were going to have to reduce its range so much that the shots would seem unnaturally heavy. The shotgun spread didn't need a range reduction because it naturally makes grapeshot completely useless unless you're very close, so that worked out really well.

Nice! I like it.

It's done this way so that players who do like to board will still have at least some challenge, though it's definitely something we'll need to test and get feedback on.
If you want to take prizes but don't like boarding, you can get one of your allied ships to do it for you instead.

Ah; that's a cool feature, that is!

It's a single health bar split into two parts; damaging the hull reduces the armour first and then reduces the normal health afterwards. Currently it's just a visual indicator to tell you when a ship is vulnerable, so armour isn't more difficult to damage, but some ships have more armour than others.

It briefly appears in the video above (sorry for the low-res crop):

Gotcha.
Makes sense.

 

[Armada]

Another common issue brought up during the demo was the possibility of being dismasted and the battle ending in a stalemate. Not any more!

We've now added an emergency repair system which can restore up to 25% of your hull and rigging health during battle. This works even if you've been dismasted, though your mainmast won't magically reappear.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=253059926082785

The catch is that your ship cannot move or fire while repairing, and taking damage will stop the repair process. Repairs go through multiple "cycles" that each restore a small portion of the maximum 25% once complete. You can start or stop repairs at any time when below the health threshold, so you don't need to wait until the full amount has been restored.

Currently this iteration of repairs can be done as many times as you want, but in future it will require resources such as planks and sailcoth. The 25% threshold and time taken to complete repairs may change depending on feedback.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

This works even if you've been dismasted, though your mainmast won't magically reappear.

Does that mean if you lose all masts, you could end up being able to sail without any sails...?
Or would provisional rigging appear?

 

[Armada]

Does that mean if you lose all masts, you could end up being able to sail without any sails...?
Or would provisional rigging appear?

Currently you can only lose your mainmast, so you won't end up 100% dismasted.
But yes, if we do allow all masts to be destroyed in future, we would probably have some jury-rigged masts appear in their place when doing repairs.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Currently you can only lose your mainmast, so you won't end up 100% dismasted.

AH! That sure explains a lot.
No problem then.