Need Help Minimal crew which cannot be killed

[Hyde911]

Is it possible to set minimal crew which cannot be killed by guns (I'd say 40% of ships crew limit) ?? I think seizing ships is too easy. With such limit there would be always a fight and therefore capturing ships would be more challenging.

 

[Luke159]

Not without a coder because it would need new code adding.

Are you saying that even with realistic damage on, its still to easy to de-crew a ship?

If that is the case i can lower the damage to crew even more (perhaps reverting back to the original RTBL settings would be the best idea).

 

[Hyde911]

I mean that with grapes it possible to de-crew ship entirely (sooner or later with or without realistic damage, I chose midway option with some personal tuning). This makes capturing ship quite easy.

There is workaround solution: If hull damage of grapes was high enough(above certain hull/crew damage ratio), ship would be sunk before crew was killed. So if one wanted that ship, he would have to board before that. However it is obviously not perfect solution.

 

[Luke159]

Or the alternative setting would be to lower the damage to crew so much that grapes will kill 1 or 2 crew per broadside but not enough to warrent you to continue to try and de-crew her before boarding. This was how it was set in the original RTBL settings. You would kill crew but it would take you a lot longer forcing you to either board or run away.

 

[Hyde911]

Or the alternative setting would be to lower the damage to crew so much that grapes will kill 1 or 2 crew per broadside but not enough to warrent you to continue to try and de-crew her before boarding. This was how it was set in the original RTBL settings. You would kill crew but it would take you a lot longer forcing you to either board or run away.

But it would work only on bigger, well armed ships. In case of weaker ship I can withstand their fire long enough to kill theirs crew entirely. However, spending hours on depopulating single ship would encourage to board it earlier.
I have to try some settings.

 

[Luke159]

Well the other way is to increase the hull damage of balls and bombs, so getting up close can be a bad thing, making you have to either turn and sail away before you get within grape shot range or take your chances and hope for the best. Or lower the ship hp values for smaller ships so that you don't need to change the shot type damage value's, this way you are forced to be extra carefull.

 

[Hyde911]

I've already increase cannon balls damage to compensate some obvious flaws in AI behaviour. Since AI overuse balls (whereas I don't use it at all) and I cannot change AI behaviour I increase its damage output at least. I know you try to keep it realistic, for me increasing difficulty is more important.

BTW How do you set crew salaries?? I think it's still not high enough. Paying your crew should be your constant worry.

 

[Luke159]

How about if the code could be found and edited to increase the AI skills, so that you will see AI with better aiming and cannon skills giving them a better chance of hitting you and doing heavy damage?

I don't know where to look for this could, but obviously it can be done.

I haven't edited the crew salaries yet, haven't even looked for the code. It is on my to do list though.