Additional Ship Balancing

[Armada]

See your PMs.

I've just checked them; cheers Pieter! That's very useful for me.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If you have any questions to him, you can also post them there. With a bit of luck, you'll get an answer.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Can you please have a quick look at this?
http://forum.piratesahoy.net//topic/16273-assassin-problem
It's related to the capacity changes made to the ships and we need to know
if we can reasonably increase the capacity or must lower the amount of quest cargo.

 

[Ben]

*cough*

I was a little bit absent from PotC during the hot days here.

Which files in this thread should I take if I want to try the new balancing from Oberleutnant + the improvements from Experienced Captain? There are quite few different...

 

[Armada]

Which files in this thread should I take if I want to try the new balancing from Oberleutnant + the improvements from Experienced Captain? There are quite few different...

I know it hasn't been very clear, so sorry for the confusion.
Here are my latest files, with a couple of adjustments:
- The English Bark and Jackass Barque have been given more cargo space, due to Assassin and Bartolomeu storyline issues.
- Various ship names have been changed

(EDIT: see latest patch for files)

For the excel file explaining these changes, please refer to this thread.
That should be everything.

 

[Ben]

Wow! Thank you for your clarifying answer.

But I suppose that you accidently uploaded the same file twice.

I have seen that these changes are also part in the Patch 3, but I don't want to start a new game... (I have read that I need Patch 2 for the installation of Patch 3, but I have no idea where I could get it.)

 

[Armada]

Wow! Thank you for your clarifying answer.

No problem!

But I suppose that you accidently uploaded the same file twice.

I did WHAT?! Oops. Never mind, that's fixed now.

I have seen that these changes are also part in the Patch 3, but I don't want to start a new game... (I have read that I need Patch 2 for the installation of Patch 3, but I have no idea where I could get it.)

Actually these specific changes are more recent than Patch 3, so if you don't want to upgrade to that, you need only press F11 in game; no need to start a new game.
But you can find Patch 3 here, where you may also notice if you read further down, that Pieter's original instructions for installing it were not quite right... Patch 2 is not required.

 

[Ben]

Experienced Captain, you are awesome. You are the best thing that could happen to the Build Mod!

Could you please inform us about new versions of your version of Oberleutnant's Balance Mod?

Do you know whether it's possible to continue a savegame (f11) with the patch 3?

 

[Armada]

You are the best thing that could happen to the Build Mod!

Er, I'm flattered, but I seriously doubt that! :blink:
I've only been here since early June, and haven't even contributed half as much as some people on this forum!
But on the plus side, I'm glad you appreciate my work!

Could you please inform us about new versions of your version of Oberleutnant's Balance Mod?

Of course; anything new I add will not be kept secret! Especially since it's originally Oberleutnant's work, so I have to keep him informed about what I'm doing.

Do you know whether it's possible to continue a savegame (f11) with the patch 3?

As far as I know that's only possible if you already had Patch 2 before Patch 3, due to there only being minor changes between them.
Otherwise, I believe it's a new game. Sorry mate!

 

[Ben]

To clarify it, I meant "You are the best thing that could !recently! happen to Build Mod!"

Of course there are many other great modders and people who are working or worked on Build Mod. But it was very good for the project that you joined.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Experienced Captain is very much correct. No Patch 2 required for installing Patch 3. I don't want to make things complicated for the users.
You might be able to get away with not starting a new game after upgrading from Patch 1.
Open PROGRAM\globals.c and find:

#define IS_SGV					14.868					// must be a float

Replace it with:

#define IS_SGV					14.867					// must be a float

This will allow you to reuse your savegame. Once you've got it loaded, press F11 to Reinitialize it.
I can't promise that this works without issues, but you can always try.

And I agree with Ben that it was very good for the project that you joined.

 

[Ben]

Experienced Captain is very much correct. No Patch 2 required for installing Patch 3. I don't want to make things complicated for the users.
You might be able to get away with not starting a new game after upgrading from Patch 1.
Open PROGRAM\globals.c and find:

#define IS_SGV					14.868					// must be a float

Replace it with:

#define IS_SGV					14.867					// must be a float

This will allow you to reuse your savegame. Once you've got it loaded, press F11 to Reinitialize it.
I can't promise that this works without issues, but you can always try.

And I agree with Ben that it was very good for the project that you joined.

Em, should I do that change before or after installing patch 3?

PS: I read that thing with Patch 2 on Moddb...

 

[Armada]

And I agree with Ben that it was very good for the project that you joined.

Cheers guys, my pleasure!

Em, should I do that change before or after installing patch 3?

PS: I read that thing with Patch 2 on Moddb...

Good points:
1) Not sure about that, but I would *guess* it's after upgrading...?
2) That's true, the ModDB profile has not yet been updated for Patch 3 installation instructions,
as it still says install Patch 2 first. May want to change that when you get a moment, Pieter.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It indeed is after installing the latest patch; otherwise it'd overwrite your modifications in the file.
Basically, any modification must ALWAYS be made AFTER installing the latest patch.

ModDB text should be fixed now.

 

[black_kobluna]

Hi,

in my opinion the crewsize in the different classes and ships is much too big in potc stock and build 14 as well.

I did some changes in the ship init that may help your Mod to more historical numbers. I changed the Cannons (Merchants now have less Cannons of less Calibers) ->>Big Change to Gameplay!

And the Crew is reduced for nearly all ships, merchants now have a small max crew. Frigates and Ships of the Line more historical correct numbers (sometimes a guess of course).

But do not use this file as it is
I dont like Manowars so they are deactivated and the historical more correct number of cannons and calibers for merchants and navy ships will not allow to attack a frigate with a shooner or a ship of the line with a corvette

Corvettes has 22 9' or if lucky 12', greater Ships of the Line 74 Guns (32 or 24). Historical correct would be a deck of 32' and a deck of 18' or 24' but there is no chance to have different cannons in one ship right?

The Surprise no has 28 12' guns and about 200 max crew for example. The attached File is the Changed Standard Build File:

[attachment=5232:Ships_init.rar]

I'm going to test your new ratings in the next couple of hours.

regards
John

 

[Armada]

Hi, and thanks for your opinion!
Your adjustments sound very sensible, however I believe that some things can't really be changed too much.

Firstly, I agree the crew numbers seem far too many on some ships, but there is a reason behind that.
I think some code is in place which requires a certain amount of crew to fire all cannons efficiently.
It's not very historically accurate, but unless you want to wait the full REALISTIC reload time, it makes more sense.
This quote explains that:

// Wappen von Hamburg by Yo Ho Ho
refShip.Name            = "ConvoiShip1";
refShip.SName            = "TwoDecker1_47";
refShip.Cannon          = CANNON_TYPE_CANNON_LBS24;
refShip.MaxCaliber      = 32;
refShip.CannonsQuantity = 60;
refShip.MaxCrew         = 300;
refShip.MinCrew         = 30;
refShip.HP              = 5750;

I noticed that it took a very long time to load the guns, especially with minimum crew. It's obvious when you look at the ship stats why this happens.

Here's how cannon reload time is calculated:

First, it requires 1% of your ship's HP in crew to sail the ship. In this case, 57 crewmen (rounded down).

Second, it requires 10 crewmen for each gun. This is calculated by dividing the cannon weight by 2, or by 6 for carronades, then the number is limited to no more than 10.

We figure half the guns are being loaded at one time. That's 30 guns times 10 crewmen... a reload requires 300 crew plus 57 more to sail the ship. If you have less then 357 crewmen on board your guns will reload slower. With only 30 crewmen it takes over 10 times as long to load.

A good rule of thumb for max crew is 10 crewmen for each gun the ship carries, or in this case a max crew of 600. Minimum crew would be 20% of that, or 120. There are a lot of places in the code that assume max crew is 5 times min crew, but it doesn't have to be exact. With 120 crewmen it would still take 3 times as long to load the guns. A 60 gun ship might carry more than 600 max crew, but certainly no fewer.

A ship that carries smaller guns needs fewer crew. A ship with 20*9 pounders would only need about 90 crew. That same ship with 12 pounders would need 120.

As for reducing the number of guns on a ship, that's all very well for historical accuracy, but it won't reduce the PHYSICAL cannons modelled into the ship.
Therefore, if a ship had say, 40 guns, and you reduced the 'cannonsquantity' line to 20, the ship would only fire 20 guns, but still have 40 guns on board.
But I'm sure some of your changes to the gun calibres make more sense than the original ones!

I'm afraid that it seems virtually impossible to put different gun calibres on the same ship, as it would require SO MUCH extra coding, it probably isn't worth it.
See here for more info.

So what's wrong with Manowars? If it's just the models, I've recently put the HMS Victory (the real one) into the game, which looks stunning!
It's not available for everyone else YET, but will be soon.

Thanks for testing the rating system- do give your opinions in the 'Ship Classification System' thread.

 

[black_kobluna]

Hi Captain,

thank you very much for your fast feedback!

As you quoted: "A ship that carries smaller guns needs fewer crew." The most Ships have much and big cannons Thats why they need much more Crew. There had been some frigates with a number up to 54 32' cannons.

My Changes in the Crew and Caliber are not balanced enough at this time, so reloading takes sometimes really long as you figured. Do you know where the Calculation for the Number of Crew per each Cannon is located?

A look at wikipedia says:
1. Rang: 100 und mehr Kanonen; Dreidecker; ab 2600 t; 850-950 Mann Besatzung
2. Rang: 98 - 90 Kanonen; Dreidecker; ab 2000 t; 750 Mann Besatzung
3. Rang: 80 - 64 Kanonen; Zweidecker; 1300-2000 t; 490-720 Mann Besatzung
4. Rang: 60 - 50 Kanonen; Zweidecker; 1100 t; 350 Mann Besatzung
5. Rang: 44 - 32 Kanonen; Eindecker-Fregatte; 700-900 t; 215-320 Mann Besatzung
6. Rang: 28 - 20 Kanonen; Eindecker-Fregatte; 550-650 t; 160-200 Mann Besatzung

The Surprise for Example has 28 Guns calibre 12. With 200 Crew and 4750 HP.

47 Men to sail the ship (1% of your ship's HP in crew).

28*12/2 = 168 Men for the Cannons (This is calculated by dividing the cannon weight by 2).

At all: 215.

A reduction of the men needed to sail the ship to 0.75% of the HP in crew would solve the last problems (means 35 sailors).

The second point is the number of sailors on Merchant-Ships:

The Merchant loves maximum profit so he will send out his ships with the crew needed for sailing and a small backup may be a max of 20%. If the Min. Crew of a ship is reduced to the needed sailors, they will need hours to reload or not? (may be realistic if they got a stupid captain but not in general). At this point the numbers of cannons and their caliber is the best point to get it historical correct and realistic.

merchant-ship with 2750 HP needs 27 Men to Sail. It may have 8 4 Pds to scare the sea-gulls. Which means 2 Men per Cannon *8=16 Men. At all: 43..

This Merchant will never have a chance in fighting of course and that may be a point where this mod get's against the "game-fun" for merchant characters. Beacause they will need an escort to get their ships to the next island..


"As for reducing the number of guns on a ship, that's all very well for historical accuracy, but it won't reduce the PHYSICAL cannons modelled into the ship."

Yes it's a bit crazy to sail a corvette with 4 physically mounted cannons on the quarterdeck but only 2 in the ship interface...

"I'm afraid that it seems virtually impossible to put different gun calibres on the same ship, as it would require SO MUCH extra coding, it probably isn't worth it." Yes... thats the problem


"So what's wrong with Manowars?

Yes it's the models

I've recently put the HMS Victory (the real one) into the game, which looks stunning!
It's not available for everyone else YET, but will be soon.

I'm really looking forward your update!!

regards
John

Hi, and thanks for your opinion!
Your adjustments sound very sensible, however I believe that some things can't really be changed too much.

Firstly, I agree the crew numbers seem far too many on some ships, but there is a reason behind that.
I think some code is in place which requires a certain amount of crew to fire all cannons efficiently.
It's not very historically accurate, but unless you want to wait the full REALISTIC reload time, it makes more sense.
This quote explains that:

// Wappen von Hamburg by Yo Ho Ho
refShip.Name            = "ConvoiShip1";
refShip.SName            = "TwoDecker1_47";
refShip.Cannon          = CANNON_TYPE_CANNON_LBS24;
refShip.MaxCaliber      = 32;
refShip.CannonsQuantity = 60;
refShip.MaxCrew         = 300;
refShip.MinCrew         = 30;
refShip.HP              = 5750;

I noticed that it took a very long time to load the guns, especially with minimum crew. It's obvious when you look at the ship stats why this happens.

Here's how cannon reload time is calculated:

First, it requires 1% of your ship's HP in crew to sail the ship. In this case, 57 crewmen (rounded down).

Second, it requires 10 crewmen for each gun. This is calculated by dividing the cannon weight by 2, or by 6 for carronades, then the number is limited to no more than 10.

We figure half the guns are being loaded at one time. That's 30 guns times 10 crewmen... a reload requires 300 crew plus 57 more to sail the ship. If you have less then 357 crewmen on board your guns will reload slower. With only 30 crewmen it takes over 10 times as long to load.

A good rule of thumb for max crew is 10 crewmen for each gun the ship carries, or in this case a max crew of 600. Minimum crew would be 20% of that, or 120. There are a lot of places in the code that assume max crew is 5 times min crew, but it doesn't have to be exact. With 120 crewmen it would still take 3 times as long to load the guns. A 60 gun ship might carry more than 600 max crew, but certainly no fewer.

A ship that carries smaller guns needs fewer crew. A ship with 20*9 pounders would only need about 90 crew. That same ship with 12 pounders would need 120.

As for reducing the number of guns on a ship, that's all very well for historical accuracy, but it won't reduce the PHYSICAL cannons modelled into the ship.
Therefore, if a ship had say, 40 guns, and you reduced the 'cannonsquantity' line to 20, the ship would only fire 20 guns, but still have 40 guns on board.
But I'm sure some of your changes to the gun calibres make more sense than the original ones!

I'm afraid that it seems virtually impossible to put different gun calibres on the same ship, as it would require SO MUCH extra coding, it probably isn't worth it.
See here for more info.

So what's wrong with Manowars? If it's just the models, I've recently put the HMS Victory (the real one) into the game, which looks stunning!
It's not available for everyone else YET, but will be soon.

Thanks for testing the rating system- do give your opinions in the 'Ship Classification System' thread.

 

[Ben]

Since I have installed your new ship balance files my potc often crashes. I'm not sure whether it is related to your files... because once it crashed after I captured a east indiaman which is recently rank 2.

 

[Armada]

My Changes in the Crew and Caliber are not balanced enough at this time, so reloading takes sometimes really long as you figured. Do you know where the Calculation for the Number of Crew per each Cannon is located?

I wouldn't know where to find the calculations in the code, but I'm sure someone can.
But I'm guessing that changing some of the calculations would allow us to lower the crew numbers to the more realistic values.

A look at wikipedia says:
1. Rang: 100 und mehr Kanonen; Dreidecker; ab 2600 t; 850-950 Mann Besatzung
2. Rang: 98 - 90 Kanonen; Dreidecker; ab 2000 t; 750 Mann Besatzung
3. Rang: 80 - 64 Kanonen; Zweidecker; 1300-2000 t; 490-720 Mann Besatzung
4. Rang: 60 - 50 Kanonen; Zweidecker; 1100 t; 350 Mann Besatzung
5. Rang: 44 - 32 Kanonen; Eindecker-Fregatte; 700-900 t; 215-320 Mann Besatzung
6. Rang: 28 - 20 Kanonen; Eindecker-Fregatte; 550-650 t; 160-200 Mann Besatzung

The Surprise for Example has 28 Guns calibre 12. With 200 Crew and 4750 HP.

47 Men to sail the ship (1% of your ship's HP in crew).

28*12/2 = 168 Men for the Cannons (This is calculated by dividing the cannon weight by 2).

At all: 215.

A reduction of the men needed to sail the ship to 0.75% of the HP in crew would solve the last problems (means 35 sailors).

It's true, those historical numbers make more sense, even in the game's perspective.
And I do think changing the calculations, as mentioned above, should solve this in-game.

The second point is the number of sailors on Merchant-Ships:

The Merchant loves maximum profit so he will send out his ships with the crew needed for sailing and a small backup may be a max of 20%. If the Min. Crew of a ship is reduced to the needed sailors, they will need hours to reload or not? (may be realistic if they got a stupid captain but not in general). At this point the numbers of cannons and their caliber is the best point to get it historical correct and realistic.

merchant-ship with 2750 HP needs 27 Men to Sail. It may have 8 4 Pds to scare the sea-gulls. Which means 2 Men per Cannon *8=16 Men. At all: 43..

This Merchant will never have a chance in fighting of course and that may be a point where this mod get's against the "game-fun" for merchant characters. Beacause they will need an escort to get their ships to the next island..

Hm, perhaps a separate calculation could be made for merchant vessels' reload times?
They are by no means the same as the navy ships, so it would work better to calculate the reload times to be decent even with the lower crew numbers.
Although supposedly, because merchant sailors are less trained for battle, they would reload slower than navy ships with equal guns anyway?

I'm really looking forward your update!!

If you mean the HMS Victory, then that's not all! If you look on the 'Storm Engine Modelling' forum, you'll see that I'm currently adding a lot of very high-detail ships (made by talented modeller, pgargon) into PotC. They were originally configured for CoAS, so no-one has ported them until now. All the ships I add will be made available in one big ship pack soon!

Since I have installed your new ship balance files my potc often crashes. I'm not sure whether it is related to your files... because once it crashed after I captured a east indiaman which is recently rank 2.

Um, I doubt it's my changing classes which is causing the crashes. Hasn't caused me any trouble. :?
I assume you have Patch 3, right? Perhaps you should report specific crashes on the 'Build 14 Beta 1' thread, and see what happens.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

For the reload times code, check PROGRAM\SEA_AI\AICannons.c.