Brigantine Castell Friedrichsburg 1688, upgraded to 16 guns

[Hylie Pistof]

Methinks I'm done. It's to the point where I don't know what to do next, so it will not be touched again unless someone finds something wrong.

An oddity: There are a lot of bad ropes in system.log. I found the ropes but they are all good so I don't know what ship they belong to. Oh well.

 

[Grey Roger]

Do those "Bad Rope" messages consistently appear when a CastelF or Polacca model is around? What happens if you sail to another port, or go via worldmap to open sea; save game, quit, restart the game and load the savegame?

I'm not that sure the polacca does need to be slowed down, on the basis of two encounters during a new FreePlay game I've recently started as an outright pirate. The first act of piracy in this game was against what worldmap called "merchants with light escort", and which turned out to be, in sequence from front to rear: polacca, light pinnace, heavy pinnace of war (the latter being the "light" escort). Having recently visited Santo Domingo, I was still under a Spanish flag, and as this lot were French, they let me sail past them. The wind was about 45 degrees from directly astern - I don't remember the actual directions, but if we'd been sailing due north then the wind might have been blowing from the south-east. In any case, the wind was not from directly astern. Though the polacca was under full sail, and I was in a CastelF, I was easily able to overtake her. She'd opened up the gap ahead of the other, slower ships, which suited me. I raised the pirate flag and fired a salvo of grapeshot, the polacca raised the white flag, and I got to test out my new dialog for surrendered captains again.

By the time of the second encounter, I'd taken a tier 5 brig - faster than the CastelF with a wind from astern but not as good at close haul. I met a single polacca, with the wind blowing pretty much straight in our faces. The polacca was stupid; instead of trying to sail across wind, she tried to run directly away from me, which meant she had to tack, and each tack cost her speed. I sailed as close to the wind as I could, tacking a few times but not as often as the polacca, and eventually got into cannon range. A few broadsides of cannonballs then persuaded her to surrender.

I hadn't downloaded your newest file at the time I started this game, but I had set the CastelF to use the revised speed and turn rate, and set the Polacca to rig type "Xeb".

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Those bad rope messages turned out to be other ships. What fooled me at first was that they were always the same, which meant that whatever ships has the bad ropes is pretty common. I suspect that it is also a larger ship as some of the rope numbers got pretty high, but I have not found her yet.

The AI ships tack too often which does cost them some speed. I got one of each type from the Spanish and then swapped back and forth while sailing in different directions. Into the wind the Polacca is faster, with a side wind the Polacca is slightly faster, and with any kind of tail wind the CastelF is faster. It is to the point that I don't know what to do next so will call them good unless someone wants some changes.

The current "Pol" rig type is between a "Xeb" and a "Btn" as I took an existing profile and bumped up the "best point" setting until it started sailing like I wanted it to. Those numbers turn out to be pretty sensitive.

 

[Grey Roger]

The speed and turn rate for the Polacca are increased in your new file. That might make it a match for the upgraded CastelF, but does that perhaps make it too fast compared to everything else? Or are the improved speed and turn rate offset by the new "Pol" rig type?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I was compromising between everyone's ideas. Bava said the Polacca should be fast and now it is. With the "Xeb" rig it was too fast into the wind. What I wanted is in between the existing rig types so created "Pol" for it. My goal is to have the CastelF be faster with the wind and the Polacca be faster into the wind, but for them to be closely matched overall.

The Polacca impresses me as a ship specialized for the riverine and coastal trade routes of Northern Europe and it seemed to be successful until the Fluyt appeared. The polacca has a large open deck which means it payed higher taxes, as taxes were assessed based on deck area. The Fluyt was designed to have the smallest possible deck area. Then it had that big lateen sail which needed a larger crew to handle, so its payroll was larger. Overall the polaccas speed and maneuverability could not offset its higher operating costs. In POTC the economics are not modeled well so it should seem to be a very good ship very close to the CastelF.

 

[Grey Roger]

OK, I'll put your revised figures for both the polacca and the CastelF into the next update. (I needed to merge your file with mine because I'm also trying to add in a Dutch version of the "Superbe".)