• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


    Visit our website www.piratehorizons.com to quickly find download links for the newest versions of our New Horizons mods Beyond New Horizons and Maelstrom New Horizons!

"Fake" 64 gun 74 gun Line of Battleships

J

jmv575

Landlubber
Storm Modder
I've been crunching numbers and I have come up with a way to "fake" having 64's and 74's. This is entirely dependent on us being able to add more cannon calibres. So, please, if anyone has figured out how to do it, please let me know.

What I've done is researched the broadside weight of an average `run-of` the mill 44, 64, 74 and 100 gun ship. Then I compared those numbers to the ingame numbers.

Real life:
44 gun Frigate: approx. 232 pounds per broadside
64 gun ship of the line: approx. 1179 pounds
74 gun ship of the line: approx. 1493 pounds
100 gun ship of the line: approx. 1842 pounds

POTC weights:
44 gun Frigate: 456 pounds per broadside
100 gun `man-o`-war: 3008 pounds

Using precentages, if we keep the `man-o`-war constant, the POTC in game 64 and 74 would throw the following broadsides:
64 gun ship of the line: approx. 1925 pounds
74 gun ship of the line: approx. 2436 pounds

So, if we ignore the number of guns issue, and focus only on broadside weight we can "fake" a 64 and 74 by creating two more cannon types: 34.8 pounder, and 43.75 pounder.

The 44 gun Blackpearl model, if armed with "43.75 pounders" will throw a broadside of 1925 pounds, thus making her function like a 64.

The 70 gun Battleship model, if armed with "34.8 pounders" will throw a broadside of 2436 pounds, thus making her function like a 74.

So, again, if we can make two more gun sizes, and with a little clever painting, we can create 64's and 74's.
 
I think the hardest part of making new cannon calibers would be creating the various interface images. The actual code doesn't seem to be that difficult, really. I'll have to dig through the code and see where new cannon calibers would have to be used (probably everywhere, LOL), but the information in PROGRAMCANNONS is fairly simple.
 
Right... I thought I had remembered someone saying the added new guns. If they could speak out now, and people were in favor of something like this, I think it would really enhance gameplay. I know a lot of people like sailing the big line of battleships, a mod such as this would add to their gameplay (not to mention my terror since I never sail anything bigger than a corvette).
 
I'm not sure how difficult it would be to create a `decent-looking` cannon that's <i>bigger</i> than the 32 pdr cannon image already in cannons.tga.tx, so one option would be to reuse that image for your 35 and 44 pdr guns. With that, all you'd need is some `code-work`, and you'd have your cannons. I'm poking around, and I'll see if I can come up with some preliminary ideas about damage, and how to edit the code for your new cannons.
 
Okay, I don't know <i>what</i> I was thinking with my last post. For some reason, I was thinking that bigger guns were being created for their own sake, not to fake <i>extra</i> guns. That being said, on which caliber of POTC guns did you base your weight information? Using the 24pdr cannon as a reference, you could create an entry in <span style='color:red'>PROGRAMCANNONSCannons_init.c</span> like this for your 44 pdr (rounding up):

<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->    makeref(rCannon,Cannon[CANNON_TYPE_CANNON_LBS44]);

    rCannon.type = CANNON_NAME_CANNON;

    rCannon.caliber = 44;

    rCannon.ReloadTime = 70; //48; calculated load time of 64 guns

    rCannon.Weight = 55; // 38; calculated weight of 64 guns

    rCannon.Cost = 2400; // 1650; calculated cost of 64 guns

    rCannon.FireAngMax = 0.40; // 0.60; NK change, not mine

    rCannon.FireAngMin = -0.35;

    rCannon.DamageMultiply = 2.6; // 1.8; estimated damage of 64 guns

    InitBaseCannons_CalcSpeedV0(&rCannon,920.0*CANNON_RANGE_SCALAR);<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->

Because they're actually 24 pdr, just <i>more</i> of them, the fire angles and range would remain the same, however the reload time, weight, price, and damage multiplier would all increase to reflect the "extra" guns. To do that, I just multiplied the original number by 64, then divided the total by 44. That would give you a pretty decent estimate of what 64 cannons of 24pdr caliber would do in the Black Pearl (or a frigate). You can formulate the 35 pdr guns of a `74-gun` battleship the same way.

Keep in mind, this isn't the only file that has to be edited. I'm still working on exactly which files have to be edited to add in new cannon calibers, but it's a start. The only trouble is that you're restricted to one 'original' gun caliber--IOW, you'd have to make separate calibers to reflect 64 12pdr, 16pdr, 32pdr, etc. Making new entries for culverines wouldn't be hard, but you'd still run into the same issue as far as multiple calibers go, if any of that makes sense.
 
You are right a long with my line of thinking.

My calculations were based on the actual guns of late 18th century ships. For example, the 64 gun Raisonnable had 12 9pdrs, 26 18pdrs, and 26 24pdrs. Adding it all up and dividing by two to get a single broadside (ignoring bow or stern chasers since were generally just quarter guns shipped forward or back) I came up with 600 even. Then I did the same thing with a 44, 74 and a 100. Then I did it with in game numbers and went to work with ratios and percentages. Simple stuff, but its been years since I took a math course... incidentally I'm embarrased to say it took me forever to remember how to do <i>x</i> * .61 = 100). Then I compared the distance in broadside weight a 64 is from a 100, and a 74 is from a 100... then I set up it up using the in game manowar's broadside weight of 3008... weight a minute, I didn't divide that by two! Okay, so that would be 1504 (it all makes so much more sense now... guess they were right when they said "check your work"). I'm going to rework the rest.

The POTC 44 gun Frigate is 1.965 times as heavy as a real life 44 and the manowar is 1.34. times as heavy as a real 100 gun ship of the line. Using these as my base, I can begin to put the ships into proportion. The midpoint is 1.65, so I will use that to calculate the weight that the 64 and 74 should throw.


64= 990 pounds
74= 1254 pounds

The Blackpearl has 44 guns, 18 on each side. 990 divided by 18 is 55, so a 55pdr is needed to signify a 64 if any of the 44 gun models are used.

The Battleship has 70 guns, 32 on each side. 1254 divided by 32 is 39.1875, so rounding down, a 39 pounder would be needed to signify a 74.

A good repaint job will make the 44 gun 'Pearl look like a right proper 64. Simply adding two more gun ports to each side of the battleship will make her look like she always was a 74.
 
Please, by all means, go ahead. With some more gun ports and a nice Nelson Checker she will look right beautiful. Any help would be great.
 
Good ideas here, gentlemen. Nice to see the game steadily getting the `Nelson Touch` <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="8)" border="0" alt="cool.gif" />
 
JMV

I think it would look better with the fearless model...
I already made a retexturing of the battleship1 I just need to add four guns...

you can download it from Caporegime's site
www.freewebs.com/caporegime/
 
I know you'll make them right good. I had said the blackpearl because I figured iit for a 44 gun ship... anything with 44 guns would work.

The frigate model would work too. Already the hull is very big for a ship with that many guns. There is definitely room for another gun deck. Perhaps that would be better just because it looks more Naval in my opinion than the blackpearl/fearless model. They are too squat to be proper men of war.

Admiral Koch, I know you prize historical realism like I do. I know what ever you create will be good.
 
I think that we should use the masts from the fearless model and the Blackpearl ship model...

is it possible to change the waterline?
 
Aye, de waterline kin indeed be adjusted in de ship_init file! <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/yes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":yes" border="0" alt="yes.gif" />
 
Great work guys, would definetly love having a 74...

Manowars get so boring over the time...

<img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheers" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />
 
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Aye, de waterline kin indeed be adjusted in de ship_init file!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

thx
 
Yep, AFAICR you can just add new calibers. On the fly, even, since IIRC I set the max for the array at 32.

And, sorry to throw your calcs off, but IIRC Clutch Marauder found that the BP/Fearless models only have _40_ guns, not 44 like the frigates. That's in terms of locators, which is all that matters.

And, I really like this effort. In fact, I'd recommend doing the same but in reverse to simulate ships with too little crew to man all the guns (rather than increasing the time delay between broadsides as we do currently). On the fly, though, which suprisingly isn't as hard as it sounds. <img src="http://www.piratesahoy.com/forum/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" />
 
For adding new calibers, I think you'd need to:
Add new #defines for the new calibers.
Change GetCannonCaliber and GetCannonByTypeAndCaliber

Maybe some more; that's what I see offhand.

However, it might be a good idea to get rid of the defines alltogether (like what PRS2 did), so cannons can be found/add/removed by ID. But that'd require a restart.
 
That's a good thought on the reload times. For a while I tried playing with the basic reload time about 2 minutes. Since when I do play (rare) I like it to be more of a thinking game, than an action game. However, a problem I ran into is that the the ai isn't smart enough. In the original version, the physical situation (enemy ship poisition in relation to player ship position) wouldn't change much between broadsides. With my new realistic gunner change, however, the situation was constantly changing except in running battles. Therefore, as the situation was changing, the ai would constantly reload with what ever ammo type was more fitting based on range only.. therefore, I would be pounding away and keep hearing the enemy say "load with grape"... 30 seconds later "load with bombs" 10 seconds later "load with grape"... etc. They wouldn't pick an ammo type and stay with it.

Had it worked, it would have been amazing. Until I realized that they never fired, I was concentrating every thing on wind and position. By reducing the maximum elevation of the guns, but increasing their range it allowed me to have to ride the roll to use chain... something else the ai wasn't smart enough to do.

Regarding this mod though, how would you insure that they had too few crew?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top