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"Modify Ship" function from the shipyard (In Prog)

<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/hi.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":gday" border="0" alt="hi.gif" />

Some of these ideas indeed sound very good! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheers" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />
 
Some of those ideas, like load balancing and sail trim, are supposed to be covered under the skill "sailing". Trim on sails is not something you need a shipyard to do - it's a matter of pulling on ropes. Put more or less slack in sails on one end or the other, to redistribute energy. A good bo'sun would take care of that.

Quality of rope, sail, whatever sounds good in arcade game land, but it doesn't really add up. I mean, "I am faster than you because my ropes are new!" ... er, no. At sea, ropes become 'old' in about a week. Before nylon, they had to be replaced frequently. Unless a group of them break all at once, it's not an issue. If they break (like because someone is shooting holes in you), that is rigging damage.

Cargo space and weight need to have some relationship. That is, cannons should have weight, and the weight should reflect on the ship's behavior. You could load a ship with nothing but guns, ammo, and extra marines - and this would make it a tough boat. However, it would be utterly useless to transport anything, and the large crew and low cargo space would shorten its effective range. Being loaded heavily would probably be bad for speed. This would make it a sitting duck for lighter, faster ships, who could circle around to the bow or stern and cut the masts. So unless it was a battleship already, what good would it do? And if it WAS a battleship already, why bother?

Now, more types of guns would offer potential. As I mentioned earlier, the "carronades" did not appear until about 1780. The French long-range culverines were an interesting touch. However, cannons were seldom standardized, unless military contracts required them to be - every foundry made guns with different weight and barrel length. (Of course, barrel length helped determine range and accuracy. Weight translated to heavier walls on the gun, which meant you could burn a little more powder and get a little more range and knockdown as well.) Mortars were still popular on ships before 1700 - especially ships intended to bomb land emplacements (as the high angle let them shoot over the walls). (Mortar riverboats - a tiny boat with one huge mortar mounted mid-ship - were used in the American Civil War as late as the 1860's - and their guns were sometimes used against other watercraft.) More variety in the guns would be a useful mod. Get some new tactics out there.

This is what we are going to get into. Fact is, aside from armoring the hull (which is a questionable practice), gun configuration is the only major thing you can modify without getting a new ship.

Here's a good web page with some of this info:
<a href="http://www.nelsonsnavy.co.uk/" target="_blank">http://www.nelsonsnavy.co.uk/</a>

I found that one by accident.
Ron
 
now thats a good idea.
add swivel guns that can only use grapeshot.
make them increase the width of your firing range, by 30%.
 
I have to disagree with most of kblack's ideas.
Reason?
If they were good, they would already be implemented. I mean, why wouldnt the original shipyard improve the ships with it when they built it? That would be change as opposed the entire ship price. And the 'Expensive' comments also, you get several millions when sacking a city. What good is cash to you after that event? I mean, the ideas are good, but EVERY 'improvement' NEEDS to have a downside.
 
<!--quoteo(post=144823:date=Apr 7 2006, 08:46 PM:name=Galliente)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Galliente @ Apr 7 2006, 08:46 PM) [snapback]144823[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
I have to disagree with most of kblack's ideas.
Reason?
If they were good, they would already be implemented. I mean, why wouldnt the original shipyard improve the ships with it when they built it? That would be change as opposed the entire ship price. And the 'Expensive' comments also, you get several millions when sacking a city. What good is cash to you after that event? I mean, the ideas are good, but EVERY 'improvement' NEEDS to have a downside.
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Humm, not sure if that is a reason... after all, nobody has implemented (still) an improvement for AI behavior in ships battles, but surely you'll agree with me that it will be a (very) wanted feature... :)

AFAIK, several of my proposals have a downside. And, speaking about expensive... well, in the ending game maybe you'll have millions, but not in the start and middle game.
BTW yesterday i read the wiki entry for HMS Victory... in 1780 they spent 390.000 copper sheets on her... by chance, anybody what could be the cost in 1780?

About the mod, it's defined the variables needed (there are more than you can suppose at first glance). During Easter free days I'll code it.
 
Yes, don't get me wrong, I think the ideas are great, but every improvement needs to have a downside if it is modifying the ship, otherwise it's upgrading. Modifying would go more to the edhe of reducing one thing to increase the other, it would give anyone a chance to set the ship up as they like it. But yes, having other thaings than just cannons to upgrade would be cool too.
 
Again, the things you could certainly change on any ship:

-add armor to hull. Might help, but expensive (both to build and repair) and heavy (reducing cargo space and/or total performance, depending on how heavily loaded the ship is otherwise). Weight can also have a very negative effect if you do start taking water.

-add/rearrange/resize guns. You could put just about any gun on just about any ship, but weight and size are going to be issues. One of those big 32 pound guns is going to weigh as much as five or six little pea-shooters. Between that and recoil control, an 8 or 10 gun boat could theoretically trade them in on one really big gun. Would it be smart? I'll say no. But it could be done. Likewise, a normally large gun ship could trade those guns for a larger number of lighter ones, or use lighter guns and use the extra space for cargo. We already have a cannon mod started, so these kind of changes can be added to that - whoever is ambitious enough to try this.

-add crew. This should not need a shipyard. You can always turn cargo space into sleeping space for extra people, using only the contents of their own seabag. Of course, there won't really be room for them to help above deck, so they would just be stand-by replacements or passengers.

So, in a word - add armor as a possible mod. Make crew and guns take up cargo space instead of using set limits. Actually adding guns to the total number in use might require a shipyard, but otherwise, it should mostly be a weight issue. (You should at least be able to haul extra guns and people around, like trade goods.)

About everything else (balancing the load, sail trim, etc.) falls under the "sailing" or "defense" skills, and is not something you could hard-rig.
Ron
 
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/hi.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":gday" border="0" alt="hi.gif" /> Ron

<!--quoteo(post=144886:date=Apr 8 2006, 11:50 AM:name=Ron Losey)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ron Losey @ Apr 8 2006, 11:50 AM) [snapback]144886[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Again, the things you could certainly change on any ship:

-add armor to hull. Might help, but expensive (both to build and repair) and heavy (reducing cargo space and/or total performance, depending on how heavily loaded the ship is otherwise). Weight can also have a very negative effect if you do start taking water.
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I'm curious about this. Do you have any source about armor hull in 1700? Because I've never read anything about. Of course could have had experiments.


<!--quoteo(post=144886:date=Apr 8 2006, 11:50 AM:name=Ron Losey)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ron Losey @ Apr 8 2006, 11:50 AM) [snapback]144886[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
So, in a word - add armor as a possible mod. Make crew and guns take up cargo space instead of using set limits. Actually adding guns to the total number in use might require a shipyard, but otherwise, it should mostly be a weight issue. (You should at least be able to haul extra guns and people around, like trade goods.)
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I've to diseagree... the weight and recoil of cannons were the most important factor in designing sail ships, because they have a very impact in the balance of the ship. Putting a bigger cannon can either damage the hull in the recoil, or impact the right balance of load, making the ship slower, or made the ship very unstable, thus degrading it's capabilities as fire platform (too much roll)

<!--quoteo(post=144886:date=Apr 8 2006, 11:50 AM:name=Ron Losey)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Ron Losey @ Apr 8 2006, 11:50 AM) [snapback]144886[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
About everything else (balancing the load, sail trim, etc.) falls under the "sailing" or "defense" skills, and is not something you could hard-rig.
Ron
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Disagree again. IMHO "defense" perk refers to pre-combat activities (put the coys as a barrier, hung nets against falling rigging parts, throw sand, etc...) and "sailing" refers to the ability to "sense" the wind, to catch it, to have the tide in account, to deploy correctly the sails and yards...
 
There is of course one other form of ship modification beloved of pirates as mentioned in accounts of the time, which is to make the captured vessel 'Flush', ie. remove the raised sections on deck etc so the ships has flatter profile like a frigate or corvette and is lighter:

George Lowther and his comrades took the Gambia Castle ship from the Royal Africa Company and modified by knocking down cabins and making the ship flush fore and aft. A would be mutineer called Robert Sparks in 1719 said to his fellow sailors he could make the ship go much better by ripping off the upper deck making her a ship fit for business.
Paraphrased from Rediker, M. (2004). Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. London: Verso. pp138-9.

I rather doubt this is something that can be added to any mods however, unless there are flush versions of ships available to swap with. However, in order to 'mod' some of the ships could you not make it possible to say swap a captured normal fleut or any other ship with a pirate version with more guns, faster etc? Ok you'd lose the control of literally outfitting the thing, but it would make it rather easier.
 
I said it was "possible" to add guns, or larger guns ... I did not say it was smart. There is a factor of diminishing returns. By the time you set up a cannon deck to handle a gun too big for that ship, you would use the space of at least three other guns. Controlling recoil and working in cramped space would probably increase reload time. If not on the top deck, the ability to elevate the weapon could be limited. By the time you modified enough ship parts to account for all of this, you would probably come up with less total firepower than when you started. Then there was just the general issue of weight. However, pirates were not known for "running the numbers", as they were not planning on a sustained fleet engagement. If they could put a huge (or long range, or whatever) gun on a small boat and scare the spit out of some merchantman... I mean, what if they've got ten more of those?

On a similar note to that, in the 1600's whenever the French captured English warships, they removed some (a lot) of the guns to make the ship lighter, and therefore more seaworthy. (It would take me some time, but I can find references on that.) Combined with the French practice of opening the engagement with chain shot to the rigging, they hurt the overgunned British navy pretty badly for the better part of that century. France and England played the more guns vs. faster ships game for years. That IS something we can put into a game.


I cannot give the names of ships or shipyards from memory, but copper and/or brass sheeting was first used on underwater hull portions around the beginning of the 18th century. It was first just to keep marine life off the hull. (Earlier ships used mixtures of white lead and crushed glass in a paint-like tar mixture, or some similar compound.) Once this practice was started, of course, some people got the idea of making the sheeting heavier to reduce leakage during gun battles. How much it helped was always in question, as hits below the waterline were somewhat rare anyway, and gunfire reacts strangely to water. However, most ships built after 1700 had at least some copper or brass on the lower hull already - some substantially more than others. This only applied to waterline areas - as far as I know, there were no major experiments in armoring upper decks until the ironclads appeared in the 1860's. Most people believed (and rightly so) that increased armor was not worth the weight.

Warships tended to be "flush" already. It was only pirates who couldn't get a proper warship that tried to turn merchantmen into frigates. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it did not - but it made them feel good to try. Adding something like that to the game would probably be making life too complicated, but again... if somebody feels ambitious.

Ron
 
As for the armor, the ironclads were indeed the first in, starting at, 1859. It all started in 1840s with the new technological inventions (steam engine), but that's way beyond the PotC timeline.

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship#Early_battleships" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship#Early_battleships</a>
 
But brass or copper plate below the waterline certainly appeared around 1700. Some ships certainly had more than others, as some people thought the extra protection was worth the weight. That is something we can change, if we're just looking for things to change.

Armor above the waterline was mostly sandbags or the like, and fall under "defense" skill - it was not really an addition to the ship structure. Actual armor on ship structure would not appear for some time.

That and gun configuration are the only major things that could be modified without creating a whole new ship design.

Ron
 
the platings below waterline started roughly at 1680s, but ONLY for the English. The other nations had to wait till the start of the 18th century. Which went into the whole 'bigger heavier slower' ship philosophy they used anyway. And it was mainly ment to keep the sea life off the wooden hull, which posed a BIG problem.
 
wtfime, i really like your great project and i hope you can finish it,But please test it for bugs if you finish it cause i dont think we would like another situation like now (the bloody CTD's)

succes i wish you luck
 
there was no armor of any sort above the water line in the great age of sail, the armor was the hull itself, the americans in particular started building frigates at the end of the 18th century that had extra thick hulls in order to withstand enemy cannon fire better, thus recieving the nickname "ol' ironsides"
 
<!--quoteo(post=145989:date=Apr 19 2006, 07:55 PM:name=Merciless Mark)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Merciless Mark @ Apr 19 2006, 07:55 PM) [snapback]145989[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
there was no armor of any sort above the water line in the great age of sail, the armor was the hull itself, the americans in particular started building frigates at the end of the 18th century that had extra thick hulls in order to withstand enemy cannon fire better, thus recieving the nickname "ol' ironsides"
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I've to disagree... Old Ironsides was designed at start as a two decker, then changed into a frigate... thats the reason of its incredible amount of cannons and its thick sides.


BTW I'm coding the mod... seems easy most of the things.

Only has doubts about:

- "flushing" ships
- improved characteristics for better chasers
- inertia mods

Kblack.
 
Well, coding was easy... what it was difficult was to debug it :)

and inspecting the code to find where to code some things (in particular, damage to sails)

I'm about to finish a first alpha:
Only add-ons
- Copper plates
- Bronze cannons
- Good chasers
- New sails and ropes
- Long top masts
- Stay sails
- Reinforced hulls
- "Flushing" ships

Only available at Douwesen shipyard.

All the effects coded, except inertia modifications, as I'm still trying to decide if those parameters are used by the engine.

Some effects added (well, still not checked, but very confident about them):
- If firing with chasers, there is a chance of critical hits at sails and of bring down a mast
- If firing with good chasers, the chance is bigger and of bring down a mast
- If fired at sails, and using long top masts, the chance of losing a masts are increased

Don't expect to see the mod included in Build 13... at least, I will NOT recommend to do it, as this mod involves a lot of critical files, adding attributes to certain objects, and even new routines... all this means high likelihood of unexpected bugs.

Now, let's wait that Real Life will allow me enough time to finish it :)
 
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/hi.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":gday" border="0" alt="hi.gif" /> there kblack,

This sounds great. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/me.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":onya" border="0" alt="me.gif" />

I agree that nothing should go into the Post Build or pre-Build 13 (whatever???), however I'll be looking forward to the time when you can get a reasonably bug free version of this mod up on the FTP for a bit of testing. I certainly understand that with a mod of this complexity it's going to take time to develop and to eradicate bugs.

Cheers, matey <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/par-ty.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheers" border="0" alt="par-ty.gif" />
 
This is great! It would be awesome to have this in our game. I won't add it to the Pre Build 13 versions though, as you request. But I will gladly add it to the Post Build 13. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/danse1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":dance" border="0" alt="danse1.gif" />
 
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