Additional Ship Balancing

[black_kobluna]

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.

That's great, attached you will find the new version with my current changes. It would be a pleasure if someone else than me could give it a try, to check how "balanced " your feeling with the new cannon numbers and crewsize is.[attachment=5245:Ships_init260701JSc.rar]. Remeber to make a backup before ;-)

The last problem is the crew-size on ships of the line and some big frigates. A 34 cannon frigate with 18 pds for example needs 306 Men to reload plus the crew needed for sailing. That may be the reason why some big frigates and ships of the line have a little more reloading time.

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!

That's really great News!

regards
John

 

[black_kobluna]

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

Hi Peter,

thank you very much for your help. i will give it a try

 

[Herculite]

Was any balancing done in relation to speed?

I'm found the only reason to use smaller ships is working your way up to a bigger one. I captured a pirate fast galleon that goes almost 16 and can run down just about anything, along with having a large crew and good cannon load out.

I would think the ideal pirate ship would be fast with a large crew, but I find the best is as big a ship as you can get. I recently captured a 70 gun 3rd rate (which is a beautiful ship) and I'm a one man wrecking ball despite the less than 11 knot speed. At least my light frigate I was playing with prior COULD be sunk.

 

[Armada]

That's great, attached you will find the new version with my current changes. It would be a pleasure if someone else than me could give it a try, to check how "balanced " your feeling with the new cannon numbers and crewsize is.

Would someone else be kind enough to test this, please? :?
I'm currently busy with porting ships as mentioned, which ALSO involves fitting them into the balanced system, so it takes a while.

The last problem is the crew-size on ships of the line and some big frigates. A 34 cannon frigate with 18 pds for example needs 306 Men to reload plus the crew needed for sailing. That may be the reason why some big frigates and ships of the line have a little more reloading time.

True, the larger ships like those should have longer reloading times, since on average there are less crew per gun than on the smaller ships.

Was any balancing done in relation to speed?

I'm found the only reason to use smaller ships is working your way up to a bigger one. I captured a pirate fast galleon that goes almost 16 and can run down just about anything, along with having a large crew and good cannon load out.

I think Willemstad Builders' Trials covered speed adjustments, as it was all about improving ship handling characteristics. I don't think anything was originally done in this balancing system about speed, but if a ship seems too fast, that can be adjusted.

I would think the ideal pirate ship would be fast with a large crew, but I find the best is as big a ship as you can get. I recently captured a 70 gun 3rd rate (which is a beautiful ship).

Just wait 'til you see the Victory...

 

[Ben]

In my opinion Speed is completely unnecessary. If the enemy ship is faster than yours you simply use sail to after there is some distance between him and you. As for capturing there is "instant boarding"...

I'm really looking forward to see the Victory!

Experienced Captain, perhaps you could also try to find the following ships: Santísima Trinidad, USS Pennsylvania, Valmy... that would be my greatest wish.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Was any balancing done in relation to speed?

Snow White Sorrow did do speed and manoeuvrability balancing as part of the Willemstad Builders' Trials.
Check "New Horizons Ship Recognition Guide.pdf" in your "Documentation" folder in your main game folder.
Admittedly some larger ships CAN sail quite fast, but on Realistic Game Mode (which all balancing was done for),
these ships speed up and slow down very slowly and generally do not manoeuvre very well.

 

[Armada]

Experienced Captain, perhaps you could also try to find the following ships: Santísima Trinidad, USS Pennsylvania, Valmy... that would be my greatest wish.

Those are some MONSTER ships you want!
Hm, I think ZarethPL was working on a Santísima Trinidad model, but I've no idea how far he is with the project.
As for the other two, I can't see them being added any time soon; we already have a nice choice of 100+ Gun 1st Rates!

(P.S. for convenience, can all ship requests please be kept to the 'New Ship Models?' thread in Storm Engine Modelling )

 

[Ben]

Where do I get a 100+ Cannons ship?

I know that there is not real ingame purpose for such big ships... even the 1st, 2nd and 3rd are way too huge for the game, because there are no line battles. It would be just nice to see those 4 deck ships.

 

[Armada]

Where do I get a 100+ Cannons ship?

Well there are a number of ways:
If you play fair-
1) Get promoted to 'Admiral' (or equivalent) in any country's navy with a Letter of Marque, which then grants you access to buy 1st Rates from the shipyard. Please note this takes a LOT of time sinking enemy ships!
2) Capture one! :ixi (this way's the most exciting!)
If you cheat- :d:
3) Give yourself one through the console. (I used that to test the new ships I've ported, but for gameplay value it's not recommended )
4) Set one as the start ship for a storyline.

I know that there is not real ingame purpose for such big ships... even the 1st, 2nd and 3rd are way too huge for the game, because there are no line battles. It would be just nice to see those 4 deck ships.

True, especially the Santisima Trinidad (140 guns- WOW!).

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Where do I get a 100+ Cannons ship?

I know that there is not real ingame purpose for such big ships... even the 1st, 2nd and 3rd are way too huge for the game, because there are no line battles. It would be just nice to see those 4 deck ships.

That is not strictly true. If you intervene in battles between navies you can get involved in line battles, especially if you are in a large ship yourself. I have been in several battles with 22 or more ships that start off in lines. It gets hard to count them all. Hehe. That is a good place to capture those monsters too when the damaged ones try to leave.

 

[Ben]

True, especially the Santisima Trinidad (140 guns- WOW!).

In fact I would prefer the USS Pennsylvania.

@mikkit, where do you find battles with 22 ships? That sounds really exciting. But I suppose that the AI won't stay in lines.
I should probably just enter some battles on the world map... Btw. can you discover such battles between different nations in directsail, too?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Yes, you just enter battles in the world map. Try to choose battles with one country friendly to you. It does you no good to have all ships firing at you. Large battles don't happen all the time. Sometimes you find nothing but Brigs. And be very careful about your aiming. If you overshoot an enemy ship and hit a friendly ship, they all turn hostile.

 

[Ben]

Btw. I have discovered a little bug with long range shooting: (perhaps I should make an own thread for that)
When fighting with 32pound long guns at maximum range the automatic shooting (space) "overshoots" the enemy ship. That means the balls are landing some way behind the ship in the water. Sometimes it hits the mast but that's not to often.
I don't know why the automatic shooting doesn't aim for the hull at max range... that's annoying.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

There's no battles between nations in DirectSail, but I reckon we should add that some time. It only makes sense, doesn't it?

When overshooting, are you firing chainshot or other ammunition?
Chainshot is automatically aimed higher than other types of ammo.

 

[black_kobluna]

Btw. I have discovered a little bug with long range shooting: (perhaps I should make an own thread for that)
When fighting with 32pound long guns at maximum range the automatic shooting (space) "overshoots" the enemy ship. That means the balls are landing some way behind the ship in the water. Sometimes it hits the mast but that's not to often.
I don't know why the automatic shooting doesn't aim for the hull at max range... that's annoying.

It's a part of the code someone added to get the aiming more realistic. The code says that your cannons will aim at the upper half of your ship when the enemy is more than 350 yards away. That may help you to demast the enemy but is sometimes really anoying as you said.

The code is loacated in the AICannon.c

case "Balls":
if (dist > 350.0 && stf(aEnemy.ship.SP) > 15.0)		// if firing ball at long range, aim for sails - LDH unless you've shot them up 06Feb09
{
Y  = BoxY * 20.0 / 100.0; 	// aim 20% up the box
DY = BoxY * 10.0 / 100.0;	// Variation of 10%
}

We can change it so something like this:

case "Balls":
if (dist > 350.0 && stf(aEnemy.ship.SP) > (stf(aEnemy.ship.SP)/2))		// if firing ball at long range, aim for sails - LDH unless you've shot them up 06Feb09
{
Y  = BoxY * 20.0 / 100.0; 	// aim 20% up the box
DY = BoxY * 10.0 / 100.0;	// Variation of 10%
}

This will change the aiming of your cannons back to the hull when the enemy has left no more than the half of its sailpoints where 15 points (which means nearly complete demasted) before.

regards
john

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Or you could disable auto aim and not use the space bar, but the "V" button instead. When you use the space bar your gunner will fire at any hostile ship in range. If one is in the middle of 20 or so 1st, 2nd, and 3rd rate ships and cannons on the other side of the ship go off, overshoot, and hit a friendly so all ships turn hostile, then one is in hot water. Been there, done that.

 

[Ben]

No Chainshots used. Normal cannonballs.

It fires on the masts, even if they are already broken. That's annoying.

It's just in long range fighting... it's so far that I can see the icon that I can go to the worldmap.

 

[black_kobluna]

No Chainshots used. Normal cannonballs.

It fires on the masts, even if they are already broken. That's annoying.

It's just in long range fighting... it's so far that I can see the icon that I can go to the worldmap.

Hi Ben,

its not a bug. In Standard Build-File it says:

If your Enemy is more than 350 Yards away AND has more than 15! Sailpoints AND you are using balls - your cannons will shoot higher. The problem is: The AI doesn't care when your enemy looses his masts. Only when the enemy has 14 SP or less your crew will fire at his hull. 14 Sailpoints or less means his rigging is totally destroyed...

If you like to change it use the code from my last post.

regards
John

 

[Armada]

Quick question, has anyone managed to figure out changing the calculations for minimum crew required to fire all guns effectively? :?
One thing I would like to do is to lower the crew numbers for some of the ships to more realistic values... but we need to sort this out first.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I think I pointed john to the code for this...