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Fixing the ship battles.

R

ronlosey

Freebooter
Storm Modder
OK, split from the other thread, let's get started on the sea battles.

Let's get real basic. Right now, sea battles are determined more by chance and character attributes than by tactics. That's got to go.

Issues:

1. All ranges on sail-to or minimum opening ranges of battles should be greatly increased. Right now you start at musket-shot (200 yards). It needs to be 2000 yards at least, preferably 3000. "Sail-to" and world map needs to be disabled within that range.

Purpose: to eliminate slow ships easily catching fast ones just because they appear on top of each other. To give room to maneuver before cannonballs start flying.

2. Ship defense skills are absurd. There is an attribute and three perks devoted to it, and if you get them all, your ship and crew are bullet-proof.

Propose several changes here. One, set up a wounded/killed system for crew. Such that the crew number would read like 43/70, meaning you have 70 crewmen and 43 of them are in good working order.

Part two of that change - convert either the defense skill or the defense perks to medical skills, which would be used to determine how many of the wounded would either die or recover from their wounds on any given day. Doesn't really matter which one is converted (read: someone with technical programming skills should decide which is easier for them).

Purpose: This fixes both the abnormally low casualties and the excessive defensive abilities of player ships. Also the absurd ease of getting healthy crewmen from captured ships.

3. Replace the quick repair function with some sort of emergency damage control perk. As it is, it makes the repair skill and the shipyard repairs mostly useless.

4. Fire. It currently behaves very strange. Scrap the "fire drill". Set up a formula where fire will either spread (become two fires) or go out once a minute based on crew numbers and related skills. During the fire, the ship operates at efficiency equal to half the current crew (as the other half are busy). Fire should do more damage to rigging, crew, and cannon than it does to hull ... by the time a ship sinks from fire, everything else will have been destroyed long ago.

Purpose: If done properly, it should cause ships to sit and burn ... as was historical. It will make fire a real problem, not just a button to push. However, it will also make fire a controllable problem, not just an arbitrary "your ship is on fire, you sink." It should also make boarding a burning ship a really dumb idea.

5. After these changes are made, no doubt tweaks to the damage effects of certain shot types will be necessary, to balance the effects. But those will be difficult to predict until after the changes are working.



These should take care of the worst of the balance issues and noticeable absurdities.
Note that I did not say making these changes would be easy. Some are pretty easy, others a pretty big setback.
 
I'll read this later. Don't have time anymore right now. Comments of other people also appreciated, as per usual. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/whistling.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":wp" border="0" alt="whistling.gif" />
 
actually, i've read quite a few times that players where complaining about too MANY casualties, not too few. still, the defence trait giving wounded crew a survival chance seems good to me, just for the sake of not having either living or dead crew.

the quick repair skill is fine as it is. you can't use it in battle, you hardly ever have enough resources to entirely fix your ship unless you completely load the thing full of planks and sailcloth, so shipyards just about allways retain their function. the skill is usually used to just fix a few % of hp after battle, using up the repairing materials in your hold. i think it can also make your ship last a bit longer in a storm.

i agree that fire should do damage to rigging. cannons already explode due to fire. in fact, the longer the fire lasts, the more cannons explode, and THIS usually sinks the ship because of the damage they cause and the powder magazine exploding after a while. your ideas on the fires seem like a good idea, as long as it's not overdone.

as for the battle distances, they shouldn't be increased THAT much. maybe 1000 yards, the distance at which i for some reason always start a battle at. that doesn't make the waitng period too long and doesn't make escaping too easy.
 
<!--quoteo(post=230424:date=Jan 2 2008, 09:16 PM:name=Morgan Terror)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Morgan Terror @ Jan 2 2008, 09:16 PM) [snapback]230424[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->actually, i've read quite a few times that players where complaining about too MANY casualties, not too few. still, the defence trait giving wounded crew a survival chance seems good to me, just for the sake of not having either living or dead crew.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Too many, too few ... right now there are both problems. Too many killed, too many healthy, none in-between.


<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->the quick repair skill is fine as it is. you can't use it in battle, you hardly ever have enough resources to entirely fix your ship unless you completely load the thing full of planks and sailcloth, so shipyards just about allways retain their function. the skill is usually used to just fix a few % of hp after battle, using up the repairing materials in your hold. i think it can also make your ship last a bit longer in a storm.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

It makes the repair attribute much less critical. Also it makes damage far too cheap. Any time you can push one button and make things come back to normal, it's not helping with the immersion of having a ship shot to splinters under you. It's got to go.


<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->i agree that fire should do damage to rigging. cannons already explode due to fire. in fact, the longer the fire lasts, the more cannons explode, and THIS usually sinks the ship because of the damage they cause and the powder magazine exploding after a while. your ideas on the fires seem like a good idea, as long as it's not overdone.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

The point is to get something we CAN balance, so it won't be "overdone". As it is now, it's both overdone and absurd.


<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->as for the battle distances, they shouldn't be increased THAT much. maybe 1000 yards, the distance at which i for some reason always start a battle at. that doesn't make the waitng period too long and doesn't make escaping too easy.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Not making escaping too easy ... that IS the problem. That's why it's so easy to capture other ships.

There's still accelerate time commands to deal with the waiting, should the wind be light or if the enemy turns to run.
 
<!--quoteo(post=230430:date=Jan 2 2008, 09:34 PM:name=Morgan Terror)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Morgan Terror @ Jan 2 2008, 09:34 PM) [snapback]230430[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->you know, all your idea just seem way too drastic and self-centered.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->


If my ideas are drastic, it's because I have concluded that the time for half-measures has passed, and that continued use of such patches and half measures is why game balance is a continual problem now.

And they're not "self" centered. They're centered around creating an arbitrary game balance. In this case, a balance somewhat closer to reality, as that is the quickest way to knock the most unbalanced corners off of the current model.

But when it is the consensus of absolutely everybody that the current game balance needs work, and the general consensus that any single change will unbalance something else ... that means it's time to scrap a bunch of what's there and start over.

I'm not new to this. I've seen it on a dozen game/mod projects, on very different game engines. One little thing is off (usually something that was there when the game was sold originally), and so instead of fixing that thing, they patch ten other things to make it balance. When it's done, half the game is built around maintaining a principle that most people would disagree with, had they just been asked outright.

The POTC Build mods are a perfect example - freaky economics and bizarre arcade-type perks and levels have been added to an otherwise rather realistic simulation, and then somebody wonders why game balance appears to be on drugs. Until those bumps get hammered down, there's not going to be any game balance. We cleaned up some of this stuff before, with Hook's improved sailing codes ... but now we have to get the rest of it.

Personally, as far as my hobby of game modding goes, I've got bigger fish to fry ... but I've always liked the Sea Dogs / POTC game engine, so I figured it was worth my time to try to save it. I just about gave up back in Build 13 ... as there was a time there with a dramatic lack of response from anybody about anything. But, we seem to have some activity over here again, so I'll give it another shot.

But don't give me that "your ideas are too drastic and self-centered" stuff. If there's a mistake in the code or the history, point it out ... but don't claim the ideas are too much until you've tried them. And especially don't assume that Akella had it right the first time, and that any other idea is "too drastic" ... that kind of thinking is the death of modding. That's what got the game balance so screwed up to start with.
 
well, i didn't turn down everything you came up with, did i? it's just that you give the impression of forcing what you think is best onto everyone. true, you ask what we think of it, but that's the impression. anyway, i need to actually experience how it works out in the game to see if it works out well.
 
Reality is, we haven't got anything now. Pretty much everybody has more or less given up on playing the game, with the exception of checking out the new stuff in each new Build version. In spite of numerous measures to clean them up, the economics are a disaster. Ship combat is completely arbitrary to whoever has the bigger ship and/or the higher level character, with no measurable use of tactics whatsoever. In spite of a lot of cool features being added, the underlying game is not long-term playable.

I'm not pushing ideas on anybody, as such ... I'm just bailing water before the whole project sinks. If I am blunt, it is because, in a word, when the ship is sinking you don't need a committee to decide to bail water.
 
Well, rebalancing has to be drastic because you have to set up a completly new value system and a logic behind that.

For example, if the ship and cannon stats were realistic then late 18th century SoLs and Manowars would be the fastet ships with the wind and you´d need at least 18 or even 24 lbs guns to damage the lower hull (max caliber for frigates would be around 12 or 16 lbs, imo ). So fighting against one of these beasts would be madness BUT if you actually manage to capture one it would be a real accomplishment, far more rewarding than it is now and a thus a better gameplay experience.

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->anyway, i need to actually experience how it works out in the game to see if it works out well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Tbh, I didn´t like Losey´s Realistic Combat Model for M&B after playing a couple of battles, everthing seemed to be
too fast paced and I died way too often. But once I got deeper into the game I recognised the logic behind all that and hey - everything made sense and it was far more fun to play. Now I cant play mods that don´t have RCM (or
something similar). Same thing with the Table Top Round up mod for DoW: Dark Crusade, other mods may have more eye candy and features but either the combat system too close to vanilla or they introduced a new one but without a real logic behind it and have to rebalance everthing once they add new units/weapons.
 
well, something i've always been thinking of is having different cannon calibers on one ship, like in reality. however, according to the modders, this is impossible.

the main thing about the AI that bothers me is that they're completely unaware of the wind. they just sail straight into a headwind at times and then just sit there or go backwards into their own ships.

getting a manowar is indeed too easy at the moment. however, this could be largely compensated by making the swordfights during boarding harder, which is, for as far as i've seen, already being worked on.

manowars shouldn't nessesarily be the fastest ships with the wind though. although they've got a lot of sail area, they are incredibly heavy. in fact, if i strike all sail when having a manowar, it often continues to sail on for half a mile or more before it stops. that's why i'd like anchors to use at low speeds, although i don't know if that's really possible. wait, i just saw that you said <u>18th</u> century ships of the line etc. those actually don't excist yet in the game, apart from the victory and endeavour, but the same rule partially counts for them as well, although not to such a big extent. the sloops of war where actually the fastest, meaning the more lightly armed 3rd and 4th rates, which are rigged largely in the same way.
 
Yeah, well, I haven't even proposed the kind of changes I did with M&B. Those really were drastic changes from the Native form. And they were intended to produce realism at any cost, specifically for historical setting mods.

I don't really think POTC could stand THAT much realism. The engine just isn't built for it.

But seriously, ship and gun specs would be a whole other project. That's way more in-depth than this proposed change list. This list is just to stamp out the worst stupidity and get the game playable in some form.


Edit:
The larger battleships should be fast, but due to excessive size and weight, maneuverability should be next to nothing. I doubt they would be playable, as such. That alone could be a benefit ... the stats sound good, but trying to use one in anything except a major fleet encounter would be utterly a waste of effort.
 
well, what i usually do with the large battleships and manowars when i meet small hostile ships, is just running them over. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile2.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":))" border="0" alt="smile2.gif" /> after i prevent them from running away, of course. one thing you might want to look into is the fact that you can use sail to to get really close to the enemy. the distance at which you end up at the target, at least in battle, should be increased in that instance as well. you already can't use sail to within a certain distance and below a certain speed relatively lower to the enemy though, which is an improvement.
 
<!--quoteo(post=230503:date=Jan 3 2008, 12:45 AM:name=Morgan Terror)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Morgan Terror @ Jan 3 2008, 12:45 AM) [snapback]230503[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->well, what i usually do with the large battleships and manowars when i meet small hostile ships, is just running them over. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile2.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":))" border="0" alt="smile2.gif" /> after i prevent them from running away, of course. one thing you might want to look into is the fact that you can use sail to to get really close to the enemy. the distance at which you end up at the target, at least in battle, should be increased in that instance as well. you already can't use sail to within a certain distance and below a certain speed relatively lower to the enemy though, which is an improvement.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

That WAS point #1 - make all sail-to and opening ship positions at least 2000 yards out, maybe 3k, from the nearest hostile ship. Far enough that, even if you wake up downwind of something with long-range guns, you'll have time to get ready.

Sail-to would still work for movement around islands, if there were no hostiles nearby. However, the very realistic problem of enemy ships having time to maneuver and/or shoot back would be there.
 
About defence skill and the three ship defense abilities : you're definitly right. That's something I didn't like the very first time I played stock PotC. Especially as you were sunk in no time if you didn't have the three abilities, all enemies using bombs.
In Seadogs, there were a defense skill as well, that was dealing about crew loss during seabattle - but it was a bit different, it mixed up good coordination, discipline, and surgeon work. It worked perfectly. In PotC, I think it'll be an improvement if that is changed - good luck with that!
 
oh, so you where talking about using sail to? you should have been a bit more clear about that. i thought all along that you where talking about entering a battle from the worldmap. in fact, the distance for sail to already was increased. well, at least it's for sure that it can be increased some more. but i think 1000 or 1500 yards would be right, not 2000. otherwise it would pretty much loose it's purpose as sail to.
 
<!--quoteo(post=230584:date=Jan 3 2008, 04:54 AM:name=Morgan Terror)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Morgan Terror @ Jan 3 2008, 04:54 AM) [snapback]230584[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->oh, so you where talking about using sail to? you should have been a bit more clear about that. i thought all along that you where talking about entering a battle from the worldmap. in fact, the distance for sail to already was increased. well, at least it's for sure that it can be increased some more. but i think 1000 or 1500 yards would be right, not 2000. otherwise it would pretty much loose it's purpose as sail to.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

It would retain its non-combat purpose. I said 2000 yards of "hostile" ships ... it would still work with ports and the like. But yeah, it should include both the world map and sail-to commands, or it would be a useless change. I thought that was so obvious that it didn't require extensive explanation.

---------------------

The defense skill is exactly the same as what it was in the original "sea dogs" ... but those extra perks are very unbalancing. Furthermore, they make it hard to balance the damage factors of particular shot, because the results are so drastically different from ship to ship. It needs to be reworked, for sure.
 
Good, good, good ..Lesser crew loss IS the thing what most of us wants. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/danse1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":dance" border="0" alt="danse1.gif" />

And whats M&B? Is it Men & Black or what? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shrug" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" />
 
1. Not sure how to change the worldmap engagement distance, since it depends on where you engage the enemy on the worldmap. We might be able to get the "Sail ho" screen triggered earlier, though I do not know how to. At least not yet.

Also: If the distances are increased, the distance at which you can't go to the worldmap must be increased as well. That would make escaping much harder, especially in cases such as the escape from Oxbay with the Corvette you steal from the French during the main quest.

As for "sail to", I really think that is thoroughly unrealistic anyway. Of course I understand the point of it, it makes sailign much quicker for those fast-paced gamers these days and I use it all the time as well, but how should we change "sail to" so that it does help getting into ports faster, but doesn't make fights any easier. Right now if an enemy ship appears to be escaping, I can just use "sail to" to get right back next to the enemy ship. That is WRONG.

2. Adding wounded crew in addition to the current living/dead crew would be a great idea, I think. That could also add some use for the doctor officer you can hire. Definitly a good idea as far as I'm concerned.

3. No opinion.

4. Interesting. Would there still be any way for the player to influence the (control of) the fire like we have now with the firedrill? I imagine it would be very frustrating for the player to have his ship on fire, seeing it spread and being unable to do anything about it. Of course that <i>would</i> be realistic... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":?" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" />

BTW: Please respect each others' opinions. We all have the same goal of making this game better, so we'll be needing to listen to each other and treat each other with respect. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/whistling.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":wp" border="0" alt="whistling.gif" />
 
<!--quoteo(post=230999:date=Jan 3 2008, 08:01 PM:name=Cylon13)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Cylon13 @ Jan 3 2008, 08:01 PM) [snapback]230999[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Good, good, good ..Lesser crew loss IS the thing what most of us wants. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/danse1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":dance" border="0" alt="danse1.gif" />

And whats M&B? Is it Men & Black or what? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shrug" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

"Mount and Blade"
<a href="http://www.taleworlds.com/" target="_blank">http://www.taleworlds.com/</a>


And the modding communities for it:

<a href="http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php" target="_blank">http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php</a>

<a href="http://mbx.streetofeyes.com/index.php" target="_blank">http://mbx.streetofeyes.com/index.php</a>
I'm involved in several of the major mods on this site.

I thought everybody in the whole world of computer games had heard of Mount&Blade by now. It's a major revolution in how to portray a sword fight on a computer - absolutely brilliant game engine (although the stock game leaves something to be desired). There are thousands of people active in the modding communities alone, and some of the mods that are counting are up into the hundreds of thousands of downloads. A good number of those people are familiar with my work on combat models.

Have you been living under a rock, that you missed this?

----------------------------------
Back on topic:

I'm really not talking about lesser crew loss. Actually, if you count the wounded as "loss", I'm probably talking about greater casualties on both sides, at least during the battle. However, the losses would mostly be in wounded rather than killed ... some would recover (depending on the medical skills of certain of your officers).
 
I had never heard of Mount and Blade either. I'm not familiar with very many games, just with a bit with the main piratey ones and some RTS games. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shrug" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" />

As for the casualties, I think right now you DO get a lot of casualties in boardings, either on your own side, the enemy's side or both depending on how even-sided the battle is. However, you hardly get any losses before the boarding with all those defense perks. What would you propose? Higher losses during the actually ship-to-ship battle? And the introduction of wounded crewmembers instead of having living/dead crewmembers? Then I imagine some would recover, depending on the health perks and presence of a doctor aboard and some would die anyway days after the battle.

If we added "wounded" crewmembers anyway, we might as well add scurcy as well: First you have a healthy crew, but with scurvy, some of them will become "wounded" and depending on the presence of a doctor and the distribution of fruit, they could either die or become healthy again.
 
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