Don't get me started on these people who use "I just can't" as if they can't finish a bloody sentence.Can't until the next reveal.
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Time for a closer look at the carronades we briefly showed off in the Twelve Days of Christmas videos.
In this video, the player is using a Heavy Frigate (48 guns) to face off against a Two-Decker (74 guns).
Normally the latter has the advantage, but when the frigate is equipped with carronades, its broadside is almost as deadly as the two-decker using standard guns. Of course, the downside is the frigate needs to get a lot closer to fire, leaving it vulnerable to enemy fire while approaching. Cunning captains can counter this by aiming for your rigging, so careful manoeuvring is a must!
This strategy heavily favours faster ships, and there may be a faction that excels in this regard... Find out soon!
Notice both ships were already damaged at the start of the video, so they had been trading blows for a few minutes.Sunk? On second broadside?
We are still tuning broadside damage to influence the average duration of a battle, and we'll be gathering feedback during the beta to help with this.
Nice, it will be interesting to experiment with the upgrades.Time for a closer look at the carronades we briefly showed off in the Twelve Days of Christmas videos.
In this video, the player is using a Heavy Frigate (48 guns) to face off against a Two-Decker (74 guns).
Normally the latter has the advantage, but when the frigate is equipped with carronades, its broadside is almost as deadly as the two-decker using standard guns. Of course, the downside is the frigate needs to get a lot closer to fire, leaving it vulnerable to enemy fire while approaching. Cunning captains can counter this by aiming for your rigging, so careful manoeuvring is a must!
This strategy heavily favours faster ships, and there may be a faction that excels in this regard... Find out soon!
I know it's a gameplay consideration mostly, but actually when I tuned the damage system in my mod I realized they historically did not sink at all. They could accidentally explode, catch a fire and burn or be burned after capture, be lost in storms or run aground, but I couldn't remember a single encounter that actually resulted in a ship sinking as a result of damage done by artillery fire. Too thick, too wooden. Anyway, regularly sinking ships are a great turn off here.
For this reason each encounter, again, historically, poses a logistical nightmare. Gunfire decimates the crew, overturns the guns, breaks and snaps the rigging, rendering the ship helplessly float, but it won't sink unless it explodes, so it has to be captured, the prisoners should be somehow accommodated and the prize secured, and it can hardly be done again and again in succession, especially on a long voyage.
Here is relatively detailed overview of such battle:
USS United States vs HMS Macedonian - Wikipedia
When I envisioned the campaign generator table set, I had to deal with those questions:
- How to get rid of prisoners?
- How to replenish the prize crews?
- What to do with the prizes?
So in addition to ports I put into the table an encounter with a friendly convoy, where the prisoners can be turned into, and some sailors and repair supplies drafted from hapless merchantmen
The prizes either escorted or sent to nearest port where they are sold or taken into service, but the player may or may not see them again, and the sailors can be generally picked up at those ports. In case of capturing a larger and newer ship the player could get to command it.
All valid points, of course. If this game were intended to be more authentic, then yes, actually sinking a ship from cannon fire alone would be quite rare.
In our case though, the game needs to appeal to a wide audience and be fairly intuitive, and that includes playing into some (but not all) stereotypes or tropes that people might associate with a "pirate game". That includes being able to sink a ship just by shooting at it repeatedly. Heck, that includes ships having health bars, which wouldn't make sense in a more realistic damage system. We may also add a small chance for a ship to explode if it has been on fire for a while.
The most I can see our system changing is if depleting a ship's hull HP results in them starting to take on water instead of instantly sinking; that could be an interesting mechanic, but we'll have to test it first.
That said, capturing ships will definitely be the more rewarding strategy in terms of possible gains, and some quests will require you to capture a ship instead of sinking it.
When it comes to prizes, there will be a fleet size limit based on your level, so if you don't have the fleet capacity for a captured ship, you will have to send it to a friendly port to be sold for prize money (or swap it with your ship first).
We will probably allow crew transfers, but I doubt we'll have a prisoner mechanic (at least, not for enemy crew; we have some ideas relating to your ship being captured).
That's what I meant by gameplay considerations I more or less realize the constraints you face.
AFAIK, one of the Age of Pirates games solved it by adding special "bomb" ammo type. Completely unhistorical, but it did the job.
I was going to suggest something like that. To make it stop, let masts break and spars fall, and give it the whole appearance of a floating hulk slowly gaining water. As an option the player may be given a choice to try and recover it, let it sink or burn it with spectacular satisfaction.
Edit: Also as an option, to make things faster, the outcome can be shown as a generated backdrop picture, but it may be interesting to watch the process "live" from time to time.Last edited:
...also what this ships real name is. "Don't worry be happy"?
Today we're giving you a first look at the new game experience, including the process of joining a faction.
Let's set the scene...
The Caribbean colonies are at peace. Trade is flourishing, towns are prospering, and the people are optimistic of their future.
But a new threat has emerged after the latest war came to an end. Piracy, once thought to be all but eradicated from these waters, is on the rise in the form of a new unified faction: The Buccaneers' League.
Believing that their only chance of survival is to push the entrenched empires out of the region once and for all, the League is aggressively attacking merchants and warships alike, swarming ships with superior numbers and building up a fleet of ever more powerful prizes.
After several months of attacks, the pirates captured two small colonies by force, and the other nations started to take the threat seriously.
Governors from British, French and Spanish colonies agreed to try a diplomatic approach, so they negotiated a day of truce with the pirates. Ambassadors from each faction have come together discuss a solution, but talks are going nowhere and old grievances are sparking concerns of all-out war. Knowing that a peace deal is unlikely, each faction begins recruiting new sailors to try to gain an advantage.
You are an experienced sailor discharged after the last war, having commanded a small vessel but never seen any major action. You still long to make a name for yourself, so this opportunity is too good to miss.
But who will you join...?
Once you make your decision, you are given command of a small sloop... and what happens next is a tale for another day.
Each faction will have a different playstyle, and we will be revealing each faction's unique bonuses very soon, so watch this space!
We've briefly shown off ship repainting before, but now we're showing two more features: you can change the sail colour via the same UI, and you can now walk onto your ship while it's dry-docked to make sure you're happy with your colour choice before you set sail.
The view from the forecastle of a three-decker is particularly impressive, but it's a long way down from there!
Why have one ship when you can have two?
We've now added the ability to buy more ships for your fleet, with more slots becoming available as you level-up.
The ship marked with a blue flag icon is your flagship, which you control directly, and the others are AI companions that will join you in battle.
Currently the max limit is four ships (including yours), as battles are no bigger than 4 vs 4. We feel this is the best balance between performance and scale, and in practice these battles feel suitably impressive while not being too overwhelming.
Some battles might have multiple "waves" as a way to put more than four enemies against you, and this way we could give the player a brief respite to perform emergency repairs before the next fight.
We will soon expand this system to allow you to add captured ships to your fleet, provided you have a free slot for it and enough crew remaining to man both ships.
If you can't add it to your fleet, you'll be able to send it away to be sold for prize money if you have enough crew for it. If not, your only option will be to set it on fire to sink it.
Will you be a lone wolf who avoids large battles, or will you build a fleet to overwhelm your enemies?
We haven't shown much from the early days of the game's development, so here's a quick peek at how our early prototypes compare to the current alpha footage:
Needless to say, we're quite pleased with how the game looks now, and we're looking forward to letting you see it in action for yourselves once the beta is ready!
That is SUPER-cool, @Armada!
Please keep that video safe somewhere for posterity.
Also, would you ever consider upgrading the graphics further; somewhere down the line?
I talked with a guy from the local expert computer store and he likes pirate games.
He won't play games that don't have top-of-the-line graphics though...
But from my own side, I really like what you do.
I only tell you this to let you know the potential audience might be smaller than I believe you deserve.
This guy mentioned playing Sea of Thieves and something else that I forgot the name of.
Do you have a YouTube channel/playlist with all this in there?
If so, give this one a title in CAPITALS or something.
It's really educational.
So here's a new feature I've been really excited to implement for some time: bomb vessels!
These are specialist support vessels which excel at coastal bombardment, equipped with up to two mortars that fire explosive shells.
Unlike games such as AC4: Black Flag, mortars will not be an upgrade option for your own ship, so adding these to your fleet will be the only way to gain that firepower.
The bomb ketch we currently have does mount some small guns for self-defence, but it will be up to you to protect it from any enemy ships defending the fort.
There's not much more we can do without radically overhauling the art style, which isn't an option now.Also, would you ever consider upgrading the graphics further; somewhere down the line?
I talked with a guy from the local expert computer store and he likes pirate games.
He won't play games that don't have top-of-the-line graphics though...
That's not to say we aren't continually pushing to improve the graphics where we can, though we have to keep our least powerful target platforms in mind in terms of performance.
Even when it comes to the latest fancy features like ray-tracing, we can't implement that without reworking all of our custom shaders to work with Unity's new HD Render Pipeline, and doing so would prevent the game from running on low-end hardware as it does now, so that's one example of a feature that we simply can't add.
We're well aware that some people won't buy games unless they're photo-realistic, but they weren't our target audience in the first place.
I have every confidence that there are enough people out there who will buy this game because of its art style, not in spite of it
The response we've had from all our social channels has been nothing but positive so far, and we have attracted the attention of some influential people, I'll tell you that much.
Our Twitter/Facebook videos are not on our YouTube channel yet, as most of them are too short. They are in a playlist on Facebook, though: Skyward Digital
Understood.
And makes sense.
Great to hear!
Congratulations.
You deserve it.
Some factions have now had a much-needed overhaul with new crew uniforms and custom character models to add variety and make them stand out in battle.
Also new: enemy captains now join boarding fights! They have their own uniforms and are much tougher than regular crew, making them priority targets.
France and Spain in particular have been given uniform colours that more closely resemble marine outfits from the late 18th century, with some modifications to make their captains easily distinguishable from regular crew.
The pirates also gained several new models of sea dogs and miscreants to make them more diverse and visually different from their naval counterparts.
As for captains, they're currently just tough melee fighters, but we're planning to give them different personalities and combat styles, including the ability to dual-wield swords or pistols.
This will bring them in line with the player's capabilities and make them very dangerous adversaries.
They will also play a role in the surrender system we have planned, but more on that later... -
