Feats & Skills

[carmenara]

Dear Pirates,

I noticed how you have kept the stock POTC feats and skills for players and officers - are they open to customisation? I for one would not mind a few less arcadey feats (i.e., "double shot" vs "increased ship damage", "overcharge" vs "increased range", add a penalty - chance for guns blowing themselves up!) in favour of semi historical reality. And yes, they should have their fair share of nasty surprises and drawbacks too! No pain no gain remember.

Oh and maneuvers. How could I forget. If they could do 180 degree turns I'm sure more maneuvers could be programmed, opening up a whole new realm of sailing competencies and features, whatever you call auxiliary sails for increased speed and the like.

 

[superdurnius]

Good idea...

And I'd like that there could be added more land skills, like restrict of wearing armors until you have proper perk (as done with quad-shot pistols).

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Sure; why not. Only adding disadvantages to perks means that you should also be able to remove your perks again.
Otherwise you're stuck with the disadvantages forever.
For now, I'd suggest renaming some of them and adding new ones.

 

[superdurnius]

I dont think that ther should disadvantages at all... These should be reprasentations of your experience, that you know how to do manuevers.

 

[Captain Maggee]

Maybe have it so that you need to level up the perk like beginner, intermediate and expert with there being less disadvantages as you level it up

 

[carmenara]

Good ideas all!

It is agreed from experience that a captain should be able to setup "15% more maneuverability" without penalty by coordinating rudder with "dynamic ballast", working the rigging appropriately to the wind etc, but a level 1 newbie would probably just find a way to make the rudder bigger and live with the consequences because a fully loaded merchantman going 10 knots downwind with a larger than design maneuvering capability is going to face some problems.

Problems meaning I do intend to modify the ship stability ratings such that if you do the above, a top-heavy ship will keel over dramatically. ManoWars seem to be historically plagued by top-heaviness causing excessive roll and I'd love to see that kind of inertia being presented in Build. It adds to realism and makes for more interesting tactical battles.

Thus while rudder mods (aforesaid 15% maneuverability) start off as acts of desperation, with requisite penalties, the player no doubt can invest more in seakeeping feats and advanced ship upgrades in order to counter physical limitations. At least, that would be my intention!

Another thing supporting my proposal for feat penalties is how I used to enjoy setting up shots into hull or rigging by doing a hard over at speed and this feature seems a bit muted in Build due to the slower ship speeds. I would use the 15% "enlarged rudder" basic feat to be able to deliberately upset the ship's balance for interesting broadsides. In concert with proposed inertia/seakeeping related mods, excessive roll would be generated from both wind conditions and by dynamic maneuvering, and roll angle should probably be controllable due to increased hull inertia as opposed to the bathtub-toy sailing model as in stock. Which is appropriate for bathtub toys but not representative of high seas ships with high tonnage.

So disadvantages (i.e. poor seakeeping with 15% maneuverability bonus) might actually be of surprising use!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Those rudder modifications that you suggest could be a ship upgrade rather than a character ability.
Reason being: you can remove ship upgrades again.
But I do definitly like the idea and I also like to fire my cannons while making a turn to shoot further.

 

[carmenara]

You can do that right now - that feature was a part of stock game (and even old old ones like Sea Dogs). Issue is with the lower (realistic) sailing speeds there is naturally less roll with the stock inertia settings.

The roll effect in turns is still there - I was able to get a few yards out of carronades (which are challenging to use in a long range battle) earlier today by firing in a turn. I'm definitely a fan of more inertia if only for the realism.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It's less in realistic sailing mode, is it? In that case, you probably CAN modify it.
Search the PROGRAM folder for bArcadeMode ; that's the code name for the realistic/arcade mode toggle.

 

[carmenara]

Good tip there; I'll take a look later today, as I'm annoyed I can't do a tack without losing steerageway. Ship reverses too fast and loses too much speed when sails furled. I've been on motorised launches that are able to coast on momentum a hundred times further than a PotC modelled ship.