Released Corvette V.2

[Pieter Boelen]

Funnily enough, the built-in figurehead would be easy to replace, as would the headrails and other small details.
In this sense, I guess I could do a quick bare-bones upgrade of the bow and cannons, but the ship still wouldn't really be the Amsterdam, would it? I'd rather do the ship justice, if you know what I mean.

The Amsterdam we have never really was the Amsterdam anyway. But indeed I'd rather have a real one.
Plans of her must exist, considering that a replica was built, but they seem very difficult to find.

 

[Armada]

I've just finished repainting Corvette2 for the new hull:

Spoiler: Show images

I just need to get the figurehead sorted out and then I can upload the files for this version.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Awesome! And again, that newly modeled stern is AWESOME!

 

[Hylie Pistof]

And it has that weathered look.

 

[Armada]

Awesome! And again, that newly modeled stern is AWESOME!

Thanks! It seems to do the trick, doesn't it?

And it has that weathered look.

That's one good reason why I didn't ditch the old-fashioned texture mapping. These old stock textures can look fairly decent with a bit of polish.

Speaking of which, I'm wondering what we should do about all these corvette clones.
We have ten versions in the latest Build, including the two stock ones, four national variants, three pirate versions and the cursed one.
Question is, do we really need all of them? I mean, ten versions is more than any other ship type has in the game.

At the very least, I reckon the RN and FR Napoleonic paint schemes should be scrapped and replaced with a more contemporary mid-1700s blue/plain wood scheme, which both nations (and others) can share.
Not sure we need three pirate versions, either, but I wouldn't know which one to scrap.
Any thoughts on all this?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

10? Well they were very popular back when they were over gunned. Dunno how popular they are now, but I do see the Pirate versions quite often. Just guessing, but it would seem there should be 7-8 of them anyway.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

We can lose the RN_Corvette, I suppose. We've got only a gazillion higher detail RN ships anyway. And her skin is too brightly coloured to be truly considered nice.
The FR_Corvette looks a bit similar to the Corvette1 in that they've both got a red stripe; could we lose one of the two as well?
However, the RN_Corvette and FR_Corvette do seem to have the nicest stern windows; don't think any other ships have those.
Should we keep one? Or can we put those stern windows on another of the Corvettes instead?

The PiratCorvette is very black indeed; almost as if she's a corvette-styled Black Pearl.
The PiratCorvette50 is more colourful and therefore nicer, I reckon.

The CursedCorvette is very clearly a unique ship, but does not have any storyline use at all. The CursedCaravel does, though.
Should we drop the Corvette or put the Corvette in the Bartolomeu storyline instead of the Caravel?

The two Fast Merchantmen are also corvette-based, of course. But those do provide some additional gameplay, value right?
And you were going to upgrade their models as merchantment too. Should we keep both? There colour schemes are only subtly different.
Though on the other hand, it would be nice to allow for some repaint options on her.
I prefer the FastMerchantman2. Can we swap the skin on FastMerchantman1 with one of the skins we would otherwise drop?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

The cursed corvette could be dropped as it is from the wrong time period for the Bartolomeu storyline, isn't it?

In that tonnage range there is the small pinnace, small fluyt, the caravel, and the fast merchantman. The pinnace and fluyt are slow and under gunned. They can not run or fight and need an escort to survive. The fluyt Derfflinger was actually escorted by the Friedrich Wilhelm zu Pferde frigate on one of her voyages to the Dutch East Indies.
The caravel is fast and actually well gunned, and can take care of herself.
The fastmerchantman is fast but not well armed, so must use her speed to escape. Her most important guns are the stern chasers.
You see that there is some good variety in that class.

 

[Armada]

We can lose the RN_Corvette, I suppose. We've got only a gazillion higher detail RN ships anyway. And her skin is too brightly coloured to be truly considered nice.
The FR_Corvette looks a bit similar to the Corvette1 in that they've both got a red stripe; could we lose one of the two as well?
However, the RN_Corvette and FR_Corvette do seem to have the nicest stern windows; don't think any other ships have those.
Should we keep one? Or can we put those stern windows on another of the Corvettes instead?

As I said above, I already plan to scrap the RN and FR versions and replace them with a single shared paint scheme (much like this model of the Victory I mentioned).
I'll probably adapt the stern windows from the RN version, since those do look pretty good.

The PiratCorvette is very black indeed; almost as if she's a corvette-styled Black Pearl.
The PiratCorvette50 is more colourful and therefore nicer, I reckon.

Don't forget the CrimsonBlood version as well. I think we should keep PiratCorvette50 and CrimsonBlood, but perhaps I should repaint the latter to Morgan Terror's specifications from ages ago:

I suppose that at the moment it does look a bit bland. I stand by my statement that having the maroon stripe in the middle rather than the top looks much better in any case, since it balances the color scheme out. Perhaps, to reduce the blandness, a third color is required? Green does tend to go rather well with red, given that they're contrasting colors. Additionally, some scrollwork is always nice. It doesn't have to be significant, just a little bit of decoration on maybe the bow rail (i'd say pulpit, but the meaning has changed over time) or the corners of the stern. Basically places where the lines of the hull visibly change from one thing to another. For example, the bow rail is now slightly higher than it used to be, higher than the rail amidships. That piece of additional height could have some decoration, at the point where it rises above the rest of the rail. You have the last say in this though, since you'd be more able to judge the look of things while you're making it and wether they'd look good.

The CursedCorvette is very clearly a unique ship, but does not have any storyline use at all. The CursedCaravel does, though.
Should we drop the Corvette or put the Corvette in the Bartolomeu storyline instead of the Caravel?

Personally I think we should drop the cursed corvette. The caravel makes more sense in the Bartolomeu storyline because it suits the time period better.
Plus, the V3.0 hull wouldn't work so well with the "seaweed" paint scheme, unless we add more textures to cover the masts, cannons and many other details in seaweed, which wouldn't be very practical.

The two Fast Merchantmen are also corvette-based, of course. But those do provide some additional gameplay, value right?
And you were going to upgrade their models as merchantment too. Should we keep both? There colour schemes are only subtly different.
Though on the other hand, it would be nice to allow for some repaint options on her.
I prefer the FastMerchantman2. Can we swap the skin on FastMerchantman1 with one of the skins we would otherwise drop?

The new model has an interchangeable section (the "deck" model), of which I have both a navy and merchant version, so I'll deal with the merchantmen very soon.
I do think we should use two distinctly different textures for them; like you, I prefer the weathered yellow of FastMerchantman2, so we should probably replace the other one.
Perhaps we could use the SP_Corvette texture, and ditch that model in favour of letting Spain use other navy versions? I quite like its distinctive look, though the stern windows need to be modified.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Good call on all of the above! I especially like the idea of re-purposing the SP_Corvette as Fast Merchantman.
She never did really belong in the Spanish fleet and that would give her a good, distinctive use.

 

[Armada]

Good to hear; I've now finished tweaking the Spanish texture and have added it to the new FastMerchantman1:

Spoiler: Show images

I'm really pleased with how this one turned out. I pretty much maintained the original look, with the exception of the stern galleries.
I decided to simplify the design on the stern, which now has a sort of humble appearance more suited to a merchant vessel.
Originally, the red stripe below the gunports wasn't visible, but I modified the texture to show it because it adds a nice subtle colour change.

Anyway, you can see in the first pic how the different cannons show up on deck, along with the extra clutter in place of the chasers (cos I couldn't be bothered to change the path model).
Also note the stern chaser ports are closed. I feel kinda guilty about this after what Hylie said...

[...]Her most important guns are the stern chasers.

Still, hopefully the extra broadside guns should make up for it. More firepower!!!

I've also sorted out the figurehead for both this and Corvette2, so I've bundled both ships together here: Corvette2&FM1.7z

 

[Hylie Pistof]

How many guns does she have now? 26? Maybe she can stand and fight now. Before I would kind of zig zag away shooting only at the sails.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Ooohhh; very nice! I'm surprised you removed the chasers; didn't see that one coming. Does make her more different though.
But if those stern gun ports are closed, does that not suggest that they'd still have cannons behind them? That now cannot be used?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Got them both in my game now. Nice job, like usual!

Caught an apparent slight mistake with the Corvette2's flag code. Should be:

    refShip.Flags.Mast3.Flag1 = FLAG_PENNANT;
    refShip.Flags.Mast5.Flag1 = FLAG_ENSIGN;

Find attached pictures for the interface screenshots.

 

[Armada]

How many guns does she have now? 26? Maybe she can stand and fight now. Before I would kind of zig zag away shooting only at the sails.

Yes, she has 26 guns. That should be more suitable for a ship of this size.

Ooohhh; very nice! I'm surprised you removed the chasers; didn't see that one coming. Does make her more different though.
But if those stern gun ports are closed, does that not suggest that they'd still have cannons behind them? That now cannot be used?

The idea is that both sets of chasers have been removed to lighten the load, and all remaining guns replaced with lower calibres.
I can't see why merchant vessels would ever use chasers; it's surely more of a military thing, anyway.

Got them both in my game now. Nice job, like usual!

Caught an apparent slight mistake with the Corvette2's flag code. Should be:

    refShip.Flags.Mast3.Flag1 = FLAG_PENNANT;
    refShip.Flags.Mast5.Flag1 = FLAG_ENSIGN;

Find attached pictures for the interface screenshots.

Thanks! Yeah, I must have missed the flag code this time.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Does changing the guns from 30-12s to 26-9s make enough difference to justify raising the cargo capacity by 800 tonnes? Methinks the current light frigates top out at 1800 tonnes and the fastmerchantman tops out at 2600 tonnes.

 

[Armada]

Good point, I'm not sure about that. I haven't touched the cargo capacity yet. Do you reckon the Fast Merchantman should have a reduced capacity because of the extra cannons, then?

Moving on: I've now finished the new texture I'm planning to share between the British, French and Spanish navies...

Spoiler: Show images

Quite pretty, don't you think?
I considered using newer, cleaner planking for this texture, but I thought that might make this version look too drastically different to its sisters.
So instead I worked from the Corvette2 texture and simply changed a few colours, moved some decorations, and borrowed and tweaked the RN texture's stern windows.

I've uploaded the model and textures here: RN_Corvette_V3.0.7z
To clarify, my intention is to use this to replace RN_Corvette and have it shared with the French and Spanish, and remove the old FR and SP versions.
So when all is said and done, we have three main navy versions (Corvette1/2 and RN_Corvette) instead of five.

There is, however, an odd one out, and that's PO_FastNavy. I'm not really sure what to do with this one.
It's meant to be an earlier ship, right? Does it have any special quest use?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Yes, the cargo capacity will have to be reduced. It is more of a warship able to put up a good fight against the likes of the Postillionen. Even the Unicorn would have to be wary of it. Pirate Brigs? Ha! Maybe 1700 tonnes would be realistic.

That is a sharp looking ship. She has really been improved.

The PO_FastNavy is based on Spanish and Portagee frigates which were lateen rigged as I remember. It does add some variety and I use it as an escort ship for merchantmen. It doesn't get stuck downwind and out of the battle so much as the regular frigates.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Quite pretty, don't you think?

That is EXACTLY what I think. How did you KNOW???
On the subject of planking, "different" is not necessarily bad. Though in this case, she already looks SO good that I think I'd rather keep her as she looks on those there screenshots!

There is, however, an odd one out, and that's PO_FastNavy. I'm not really sure what to do with this one.
It's meant to be an earlier ship, right? Does it have any special quest use?

She is the player ship in the Bartolomeu storyline for a while. She's also in use by "Lourenco Vaz", who is available for hire as companion.
The skin she is using these days is really quite pretty; I reckon we should keep that. Her rigging is quite different from the regular Corvettes, of course.

 

[Armada]

Yes, the cargo capacity will have to be reduced. It is more of a warship able to put up a good fight against the likes of the Postillionen. Even the Unicorn would have to be wary of it. Pirate Brigs? Ha! Maybe 1700 tonnes would be realistic.

That's probably more reasonable, but is it enough?
Looking at the national stat multipliers, the Spanish navy version would get 1.15 times the regular 1500 tonnes, which is 1725 tonnes. In that case, why choose the merchant version at all?
How about 1900 tonnes or so?

That is EXACTLY what I think. How did you KNOW???

By my powers of telepathy...

On the subject of planking, "different" is not necessarily bad. Though in this case, she already looks SO good that I think I'd rather keep her as she looks on those there screenshots!

That's what I realised when I had finished the texture. Why bother redoing it with new planking when it looks this good?

She is the player ship in the Bartolomeu storyline for a while. She's also in use by "Lourenco Vaz", who is available for hire as companion.
The skin she is using these days is really quite pretty; I reckon we should keep that. Her rigging is quite different from the regular Corvettes, of course.

I do like the skin, I was just confused by the ship's role. The problem is that the new model is technically too modern for that time period.
I guess the new hull would actually be more suitable, having less of a Napoleonic shape than the old one, but the new masts won't fit the rigging, so we'd need to keep the old masts.