Willemstad Builders' Trials

[morgan terror]

i tend to start off with gunboats, but i've never actually fought anything of the same size. gunboats vs. cutters are more common, like with the pirate hunting missions. kinda fun, since you're right in the middle of all the smoke and splashes. how do they handle with your new mods and not having half sail? also, can you still go through those gaps at what used to be khael roa and devil's throat at jamaica? i've managed to squeeze a galleon through the former, but i'm not sure i could still manage that now the steering has changed.

 

[carmenara]

The steering is simpler with the new settings as the yaw intensity can be precisely controlled in an analog fashion. You just have to not turn the wheel so fast (be gentle on the keys) for delicate maneuvers.

Oh and of course, it doesn't hurt your fingers if you're doing a 180 in a galleon.

Please find attached the "V0.25" manual below. The ship descriptions have been completed up to the bark/barque and subtypes. They have vastly different characteristics depending on which side of the Channel they hailed from. These differences stem from both historical classification (the famous HMS Bark Endeavour apparently looks exactly like a Yacht model), and from some extrapolation - the descendants of the Hanseatic League of Continental Europe probably preferred short hulled ships with large and wide cargo bays (hence the blocky barque and barque longue; the latter is the AOP model which appears identical to the historical La Belle)

Barque longue is basically totally undocumented in history. No one knows how the design came about! (apparently it was an "unimportant" design). So using logic, I'd say it was a development of the European trade barques with a larger hull and more advanced rigging with improved maneuverability. Which in our world makes for a large, slow and lightly defended target... can't expect much speed from that stubby, shallow draft hull.

The Royal Navy of course, classified all "miscellaneous" 3-masted ships not fitting anywhere else "Barks" and one of them is the collier that came to be the famous HMS Bark Endeavour. In concert with RN ship statistics / national preference in our Build mod, the finer-hulled "English Bark" is a faster vessel with a smaller cargo capacity as a tradeoff. This enables you to use it for actual scouting missions.

But enough rambling, you can read some of the above in the manual itself.
http://www.filefront...als%20v0.25.pdf

I suggest take a read through and let me know as fast as possible the first impressions, as there will be radical changes to gameplay and ship naming (which gets rid of ahistorical ships; Yachts are pleasure craft and pilot boats, Gaeloths didn't even exist!)

 

[carmenara]

I'm not satisfied with "merely" altering ship handling.

There are certain ship types that never had a chance to prove themselves in gameplay because there was always the easy option of taking an easily playable vessel instead, that never seems to have any weakness in any point of sail in stock game config.

If a sloop can go 16 kts and have no vices, why use any other ship?

Now, it is not the case. We don't have a sloop with a spinnaker. She won't go more than 10 knots in "Real Life" with that very short hull of hers. [Yes, the real-world HMS Interceptor prop / prettied up Lady Washington replica brig had the same problem with hull length and required "creative" camera work]

Sloops are distinct in their ability to sail against the wind as well as turning on a dime. But when faced with attacks from faster ships you're restricted to using agility to defend yourself which means you're forced to a battle for survival. Fun if you're fresh out of port. No fun if you're headed home after a month's work.

My aim is for each and every ship class mentioned in the manual and available in game to have some sort of character like that; and there's a certain rather useless coastal vessel with the very broad gun deck... obviously designed to support heavy cannon armament. Well, that one ain't "useless" now.

 

[morgan terror]

the way i see it, is that the game always wanted you to make a tradeoff between cargo space, speed, and firepower. thinning out the line would most certainly be good, since cargo space is something most people ignore. i'd love to see all ships getting a chance, since i've often had to turn down a good-looking ship because it was too limited in it's use. having to take the sailing characterictics into account would most certainly help. each ship would be good at it's own thing, which means you would be constantly adapting your playing style, making the game far more interesting.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

^ Very true, that is.

 

[carmenara]

Thanks for the support Morgan :3

Definitely that's what I'm trying to do. I'm working with a very diverse cast of ships and like my preferences for actors, I like them very dynamic.

The WBT documentation, intended as the official Build 14 Beta ship recognition guide, will be improved incrementally as we reach the "ceasefire" date for this mod - 7 Jan '10. No ships will be worked on after this date to allow for Beta stage testing.

In particular I have concerns with the new ship naming system. But seriously I find the more historical references there are, the easier it is to play. I don't have to think now, oh, a yacht has so much turn rate vs a barque - I just look up an example of an English Bark and compare it to a French one, then decide which I prefer based on needs. How intuitive is that!

If gameplay herein proves too radical, then this will be offered as an indie-development, addon for Build 14 Beta. With yet more creative liberties planned :3

I haven't forgotten the experimental frigate...

ps. How drastic do we want to be with the game balancing act - making each ship do its own thing well?

Right now the points of sail limitations are generally relaxed because
1. The AI doesn't know how to tack. At all.
2. If you're a real captain and you realise your brand new galleon isn't really sailing well, you're bound to make field modifications to the rigging, etc. This is the reason why this mod is termed "Builders' Trials".
3. Your subordinate officers and crew are there to help you. Captain is the brains of the ship and should not have to work so hard to "manually" sail the ship (the crew provides the muscle after all), realistic game mode or not.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I wouldn't recommend making this mod an add-on for the Build.
In the worst case, we'll include it with an Advanced Options toggle.
Preferrably we'll be able to just plain include it.

As for how extreme you should make things, I think you should probably use your own best judgement.
Then we'll include it in Build 14 Beta 1 and see what kind of feedback we can generate.
After that, maybe you can make some adjustments as per those comments.

 

[carmenara]

Good news!

I fixed the crew walk files for the Fleut5 and USS Constitution.

Also:
- enabled walk files for fleut1, fleut2 (were mysteriously missing from the init entry), and "retired corvettes" (fastmerchantman)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Great news! I had indeed noticed the Constitution error. Not good!
That still leaves the FlyingDutchman and Dutchlineship1; I think those have some weirdness as well.

 

[Darth-me]

Hi, great idea here, this looks like it'll make the game much more interesting, and hopefully make the game look nicer (I always want the sailing in this game to look more... dramatic ) How will frigates and Man'o'Wars sail now? Will they change much?

Also, a question about playing the game. I am NOT a sailor, and although I vaguely know how to tack, I have no idea how to change tack. I just end up either goig backwards because of the wind or striking all my sails... Any advice would be welcome.

 

[carmenara]

I just end up either goig backwards because of the wind or striking all my sails... Any advice would be welcome.

Wait for WBT - you can't properly tack in the stock game :3

Some interesting developments

It looks like my game is broken somehow - it defaults to arcade mode on startup; that means my playtesting was entirely in arcade mode for the past few days!

I noticed... No difference at all. That's because my advanced options were set to 1x multiplier for all the arcade values (ship speed, turn rate, cannons reload?).

Gameplay actually improved, because since the AI doesn't know how to properly fight upwind, arcade mode works much better for them.

We concluded a long time ago this game can't properly support a realistic sailing mode. Well, there was one, but it was more of a "masochists' mode" which made gameplay very easy. See an enemy square rigger? No problem, just sail upwind and the AI instantly loses control.

Now... since realistic mode in my scripting somehow fails to work, the AI just turns around and bashes you in the face (as it should!)

Proposal - screw the realistic mode, WBT is a balance of realism and playability

As today's players mostly don't care about what fancy historical terminology I put in the manual, I care more about putting the ships's historical traits into motion and gameplay directly. And its much more effective.

Pieter - can you take a look at my ship_init.c and find out what caused realistic mode to stop functioning all of a sudden? (Get it from my msn). That's in case we don't want to take the easy way out like above (and I am confident the hybrid system works much better!).

Sometimes the best discoveries happen all of a sudden.

 

[morgan terror]

i did manage to tack in build 13, actually. the problem i met was that once i had successfully tacked, the wind changed again, making it pointless. in fact, you could achieve exactly the same thing by simply dropping anchor and waiting an hour. i think my logbook topic has such an instance.

one thing that shouldn't be overlooked is that most new players won't know how a sailing ship actually works. they'll have huge difficulty with realistic sailing mode. of course, i don't know how big the change in controls really is, so it might be quite easy to get the hang of it, but most new players will be struggling with the game's complex controls which don't come in the manual. then again, that's what the new manual would be for.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The controls are the same as they were; it's just the response that's different.

In Build 13, when the weather would change, it could change quite radically.
In Build 14, not anymore. The weather change is gradual.
The wind never changes direction 90 degrees in one hour or so.

 

[carmenara]

Update 2 for today:

1. Galleons were reconfigured extensively to mimic their historical counterparts. There are now huge 2000 ton Manila galleons able to carry close to a thousand passengers, defended by a broadside of powerful demi-cannon.

We also have a period-accurate Elizabethian galleon with lateen sails on the mizzen; she has been given a "hybrid" rigging performance rating accordingly.

The 4th Rate MoW was reclassified to East Indiaman if the shipinit.c file regards them as traders; there is a separate naval configuration as well. Her capacity was reduced from 5600 to a more reasonable 3000, and mounts 56x 12 pdr guns. It's actually a small ship, this one. Also, her lower gun ports were all flooding. Waterline raised accordingly.

2. WBT is fully functional in both arcade and realistic modes.

3. I intend to tweak cannon shot performance to take into consideration spalling (carronades were infamous for generating immense amount of shrapnel as round shot impacted enemy hulls) - the immediate crew casualties from fortress bombs will be reduced as historically, humans were very resilient and our cannon damage is by default set to 0.5. You should not lose half your 500 crewmen in 30 seconds.

"Heated shot" as it was deigned to be, shall be primarily used for setting fire to enemy ships. Crew casualties are secondary and not immediate - even for modern day advanced warheads, you need something in the scale of a Harpoon missile to cause massive casualties in one hit.

 

[morgan terror]

understood and liking the sound of it so far. i'm afraid i can't help much off the top of my head with tonnage on ships, but you seem to be managing just fine.

 

[carmenara]

I'm having a lot of fun making Xebecs the 16th century L.C.S. (don't know what that is, look here!)

I haven't touched a small ship in ages.

I've fixed all bugs with the current implementation and am sailing with full realism settings from now on. Big ships -are- hard to handle.

I've also created a couple of ship variants to make lesser available hulls more prominent and common, or add distinction to differently configured ships but still carry names of the basic class:

Elizabethian Galleon, in several configurations with a War Galleon type
"Swordfish" pirate heavy xebec

Setback:

Galeon5 (Elizabethian Galleon)'s player walk file is below deck; urgent fix required


List of historically / semi historically named ships

string = Caravel1,"Caravela Latina" - historical "portuguese man o war"
string = Caravel2,"Caravela Redonda" - square sails
string = Caravel3,"Caravela Hermafrodita" - hybrid lateen mizzen & square main
string = Schooner1,"Gaff Schooner" - basic schooner
string = SchoonerMod,"Jury-rigged Topsail Schooner" - "war" schooner with 12 pdr guns
string = SchoonerUSA,"Baltimore Clipper" - advanced American schooner, 17kts top speed
string = SchoonerSq,"Squaresail Schooner" - "HMS River Thames" naval auxiliary, 15kts longhull schooner
string = Schooner3M,"Grand Schooner" - French xebec hull with schooner rig, heaviest 3 masted schooner type
string = FrigateUSA,"U.S. Heavy Frigate" - USS Constitution
string = Frigate1,"Dutch Frigate" - 42 gun early 80 Years' War battle frigate
string = FrigateL,"Light Frigate" - 32 gun late 80 Years' War frigate
string = Barque1,"Barque"
string = BarqueHeavy,"Barque Longue" - historical "La Belle"
string = LuggerHvy,"Heavy Lugger" - AOP? model that is significantly larger, rare ship.
string = Galeoth1,"Espadina" - no such thing as a "Galeoth", "Espadina" is the Spanish response to English fast privateering ships operating in the Spanish Main, 12pdr coastal monitor
string = Yacht1,"English Bark" - yacht model found identical to historical collier "HMS Bark Endeavour". All English ships of 3 masts but do not fall into naval classification were termed Barks
string = BarqueHybrid,"Jackass Bark" - intended as quest/smuggler ship, hybrid rig improves upwind performance. Historical name.
string = LightMerchantman,"Retired Frigate" - decommissioned frigates with large capacity, occasionally "Assault Frigate" for boarding operations, big carronades but only 4 of them.
string = FleutWar,"Fluyt-of-War" - FoW naming to differentiate between trade and battle flutes
string = Galeon1,"Manila Galleon" - stock game GIANT galleon that is now properly a floating fortress with 24pdrs (yes they historically carried weapons up to 32pdr demi-cannon) and almost indestructible; historically re-used for generations
string = Galeon2,"War Galleon" - typical huge Spanish galleon with 32pdr
string = FastGalleon,"Fast Galleon" - advanced galleon with 12.5kts capability, like a cruiser
string = GaleonEng,"English Galleon" - appearance identical to early Elizabethian galleons
string = GaleonEngW,"English War Galleon" - variant of above, with greatly increased bulk
string = GaleonEngF,"English Fast Galleon"

- variant of above, with greatly reduced bulk 12pdr artillery only, but 11.5kts speed - English response to Spanish fast cruisers
string = Xebec1,"Xebec"
string = XebecPir,"'Swordfish' Xebec" - CT and Barbarossa variants which have heavier guns, larger capacity, upgraded steering and a stronger hull... at the cost of seakeeping
string = XebecPir2,"'Swordfish II' Xebec" - cargo xebec that is quest-specific or player use only
string = SloopUS,"U.S. Sloop-of-War" - USS Enterprise

Confused? Don't be. That's what the manual is for (and it's painstakingly detailed + contains links to wikipedia entries). Read up a bit and they're all second nature.

Some ship variants have dynamic waterline - Elizabethian war galleons sit lower in the water than the standard and fast ones. Yes, those ships were loaded almost to dangerous levels for wartime. Mary Rose is a good example.

Far less confusing than having galleon1,2,3,4,5 - and more descriptive than what we have now as standard. If confused, just look at the hull type - a schooner is a schooner.

Update:

I found a stray curly bracket somewhere near the armed merchantmen. Grrr..... (These can cause crashes )

 

[carmenara]

Now at 210 ships. There are 217 total in Build 14, with 2 additional I've added.

 

[Thagarr]

Incredible work SWS!

I am really looking forward to giving this a try when I get the chance!

 

[carmenara]

With the amount of changes being done "stealthily" I'm sure this entire thing will cause a stir for months.

I've increased ships' natural yaw stability for survivability in storms; the game doesn't capsize the ship so storms make some ships go into a "death spin" which is fine... if the engine could handle broaching or capsizing and sinking. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

I've also fixed the age long problem of having way too many huge ships being generated. This is obviously ahistorical as 3rd rates were deployed overseas as flagships, and 1st rates were deemed too expensive to operate unless in times of war (they had very long lives being kept in ordinary) and restricted to home waters anyway.

The reason for this is... well you have 80 big ships and 60 frigates with 100% probability of encounter generation vs 80 assorted classes of small ships also with the same probability. Who do you think wins out in the random picking of ships?

Of course, common sense result - you see frigates and battleships 70% of the time.

I'm reversing that trend.

And.. it has been fixed.

All modifications completed, including shot damage rebalancing and increased sail hitpoints.

Increased sail hitpoints? Do you notice how easy it is to destroy enemy sails? You don't actually need chainshot in the default Build settings. What I did was double the sail hitpoints for each ship so the player is compelled to invest in the increased sail damage perks and deliberately sail in such a way as to maximise damage to the target's rigging. Or get lucky and fell the masts.

Historically, ships were also able to recover from serious rigging damage under fire (again, example of USS Constitution). Also consider that unlike today, Age of Sail riggings were inherently extremely inefficient; ship rigs were also designed to be as redundant as possible. So the sails you poke holes in might not even be contributing to propulsion; to immobilise an enemy ship, you simply aimed to destroy the entire rigging or a critical part of it.

So don't expect random long range gunnery to have a huge impact on enemy rigging the first try. Raking fire is the key.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Congratulations, Snow White Sorrow! This is GREAT!

I did do some testing today, but haven't really got much to comment on sailing characteristics so far.
However, I did encounter an NPC ship using my own ship type, while that was inappropriate for her nation.
Of course that happened before your modifications as well, but it is something to keep an eye on.
I also did still encounter some fairly big ships (Master and Commander storyline).