Sails! And their colors

[Officerpuppy]

Something that's been on my mind on and off for years...

So many games we love have the option to change the color or design on sails. How historically accurate was this? I'm sure you had to have quite a bit of money to dye sails so I imagine the practice wasn't very common but if people did dye the color of their sails, what were some common colors or designs?

 

[Homo eructus]

Tanned sails (ochre, red or brown) were used to preserve the sails from rot and mildew. They were common on small ships (and still are although they're mostly for looks now), for bigger ships with bigger sails maybe the cost wasn't worth it. That's why when I play POTC NH with a lugger I like to use the Crimson sails

In ancient times Illyrian pirates were said to dye their sails purple as a show of their wealth and arrogance. Medieval and early modern ships sometimes featured colored patterns or designs in their sails, the most famous probably being the Spanish or Portuguese ships sporting red crosses. But I think this had mostly gone out of fashion by the 17th century.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Tanned sails (ochre, red or brown) were used to preserve the sails from rot and mildew. They were common on small ships (and still are although they're mostly for looks now)

That's indeed quite common on historical Dutch flat-bottomed boats.

 

[Grey Roger]

Hmm... I don't think I could restrict sail colour choice by ship type so that only tier 7 and tier 8 ships can have tan sails. For that matter, I'm not sure if we'd want that, or if people might want to use tan sails on everything from a dinghy to a first rate ship of the line. But adding a colour can certainly be done...

Crimson sails vs. tan sails comparison:


There are a lot of texture files which need to be copied and changed to give the full range of tan sail options, especially for pirates. So the first question is, do we want tan sails in the game?

If so, possibly change a few of the smaller ships such as some luggers to use tan sails by default. Anyone wanting to put them on a battleship can do so, but it's the little ships which will show them off initially. (Especially Nathaniel Hawk's heavy lugger.)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Hmm... I don't think I could restrict sail colour choice by ship type so that only tier 7 and tier 8 ships can have tan sails.

That's definitely possible one way or another, but:

I'm not sure if we'd want that, or if people might want to use tan sails on everything from a dinghy to a first rate ship of the line.

The way I figure it: why bother limiting the player?
If the player wishes to usehistorically incorrect sails, why not?
We've got torn ones anyway, so tan ones would be the least of our historical worries!

So the first question is, do we want tan sails in the game?

You could only add the plain tan ones as "special" sails and set the appropriate ships to use them in ships_init.c .
That would be simplest and would already add a nice bit of variety.
Then if people like them, it can always be expanded on later.

 

[Homo eructus]

Hmm... I don't think I could restrict sail colour choice by ship type so that only tier 7 and tier 8 ships can have tan sails. For that matter, I'm not sure if we'd want that, or if people might want to use tan sails on everything from a dinghy to a first rate ship of the line. But adding a colour can certainly be done...

Crimson sails vs. tan sails comparison:
View attachment 32137 View attachment 32138

There are a lot of texture files which need to be copied and changed to give the full range of tan sail options, especially for pirates. So the first question is, do we want tan sails in the game?

If so, possibly change a few of the smaller ships such as some luggers to use tan sails by default. Anyone wanting to put them on a battleship can do so, but it's the little ships which will show them off initially. (Especially Nathaniel Hawk's heavy lugger.)

Cool. But on those pictures at least (it may be just the light) both colours look very similar to the point that it seems almost pointless to have such a small variation, maybe the tan sails could be a bit more bleached and washed out to look a little more different from the crinsom ones, or maybe a more yellowish ochre sahde that is also common.

Spoiler: Like these maybe?

 

[Grey Roger]

I don't want to tone down the colour too much as the weather will probably do that to some extent anyway. (Weather plus camera colour balance settings probably contributed to the low colour intensity in the photos, too. The flag on the second photo should probably not be near-black. ) But I have shifted the colour a few notches towards yellow. Crimson vs. tan now - and that lugger is now set to use tan sails by default, as are a few other ships:


Mostly I used the red sail textures as the starting point for sails with emblems. But the Spanish cross on the red sail is itself tan so that it contrasts more with the red sail, so I used the cross from one of the others. The end result is that the Spanish emblem crimson and tan sails are effectively inverted copies of each other:


Also attached: zip file which should contain all the files needed to put the new sails into the game.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Amazing job, @Grey Roger!