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Willemstad Builders' Trials

i would like to add something i noticed yesterday in relation to this mod, which is a slight detail in need of tweaking.

the ship stats, most notably the maximum speeds, are perfect. no comment on that. however, this is a statistical value based on reality. what seems to have been overlooked is that the actual wind speeds and the relation between wind and ship speed haven't been adjusted accordingly. also, this would be the speed of an in-game unloaded ship, which was never the case in reality. as a result, a ship will never come close to it's statistical maximum speed, even in ideal conditions. the only way this could be achieved, would be in what are now 30+ knot winds, and if this would be translated to reality, you wouldn't dare to carry all sail in such winds anyway. my conclusion is that either maximum wind speed should be increased or you should go faster in less wind, compared to the current situation. maybe an adjustment of both.
 
I wonder if this has anything to do with Realistic Sailing Mode.
The mod was largely made on Arcade Game Mode, where things possibly do appear better.
 
Who said I based my work on arcade mode?

There are also several reasons why a completely realistic sailing model will not work in POTC. At this point I'm not obliged to go through an essay writing session, but let's just say there's a lot of additional complexities involved in the suggested features above including AI integration, game engine limitations as well as the factor to scare off all your regular players (that don't know how to describe, in sailing terms, the process of using certain sails to swing ownship's bows onto the opposite tack without losing steerageway).

There is a code in the ini file - speeddependweight, that may work in slowing down a heavily loaded vessel. Leave the speeds as they are, unless you're willing to spend say, 500 hours in making sure the AI and the player benefits from fair balancing. Cannon ballistics are out of league of the current WBT version; I just modified the loadout on less conventional ships to give them distinction and/or unique advantages over the usual list of easy to sail and fight ships (we all have our favourite ubership).

I believe the shiplist does balance itself out. History has developed a lot of "heavily unbalanced" ship designs because that's what a naval architect does: create overwhelming advantages over competitors from other potentially hostile nations (ref. Constitution vs traditional frigates, and single-deck heavy battery frigates razeed from lineship hulls vs again, traditional frigates).

And yes, logically and historically, galleons did carry demicannon (that's 32pdrs to us) and be thankful San Martin-sized ships don't have 42 pounder full cannons. These were not used by the Royal Navy at sea due to their unwieldiness, but earlier-period Spanish wielding fleets still commanded by land generals, who knows?

Summary:

- Experiment with load dependant max speed: Yes
- Start modifying an already working as advertised product at risk of overcomplication & screwing up other aspects of my work: No

Should there be queries/accusations like my work being based on arcade mode (why do you think I read up my history BEFORE starting the mod?), I expect these concerns to be raised personally, not posted publicly. I do not want to deal with two dozen people jumping on the bandwagon on some rumor (not from the horses' mouth) that I have to work to dispel.
 
Snow White Sorrow said:
Who said I based my work on arcade mode?
Click to expand...
No one did SWS, Pieter just said that you did most of WBT while playing in Arcade Mode instead of realistic mode (and then came back later to make Arcade slightly less realistic ;))

If its hard coded then we cant do much about it at the current time then and I agree that we can probably just leave it as is for the time being :yes
 
That is blasphemy. I expect exactly such misrepresentation to be removed from ANY discussions. The only person entitled to state which mode I developed WBT in is myself. And I sure as hell know which game mode I was on during development of this project.

So everything Pieter says is the word of God? And mine is worthless? Ridiculous.

Again I will ask you this very simple question: Why the hell did I do THAT much historical research if I wanted to develop and play in arcade mode? Why do we have a separate arcade vs realistic flag in the first place?

If WBT is "arcade" then why do we have people requesting we keep the old ship stats for arcade mode? Why do we have discussions on tacking if it isn't even NECESSARY in arcade mode!?

I have entire essays in this forum and in the WBT documentation stating exactly how does playability go hand in hand with realism. I suggest consulting those sources before accusing me that "WBT could be better if I developed it in realistic mode".

You are not me and you did not spend a months' worth of free time taking the AI and Storm engine physics to the limit. Do not presume you can speak for me.
 
Your reading into this all wrong SWS...

The toggle between the modes in OPTIONS/REALISTIC SETTINGS might do things automatically to the engine that we cant get control...
This is what Pieter was refering to :yes

No one has questioned anything about the historical values either... If we are wrong and you didnt have the toggle in REALISTIC SETTINGS set to ARCADE MODE all you need to do is say. "Actually when I did develop the mod I had it toggled on realistic settings".
Then Pieter would have said "Oh sorry my mistake I thought you did it with arcade mode toggled"
We are all human and sometimes Im afraid humans make mistakes

What your saying is ridiculous as everyone knows Pieters word isnt the word of god, sure he has a major say but he still will change his opinion if someone suggests something is better or he gets something wrong (he is only human). He is constantly asking for peoples opinions on bits of work (ie Features of the Build Mod) and takes everything into account

Why is there both Realistic and Arcade modes? The same reason the stock game had them, not everybody enjoys the challange of realistic mode and enjoy playing a computer game that feels like a computer game. But then others love how people (like you) can make a game feel so much more real and historically accurate than they would have thought possible.
This is the way of PC gamers :shrug
 
SWS, how does it come, that there is always a discussion going on, when it is not needed?

And no Pieter is not God, but thanks for him, this project is been running for a long loooooong time. So we owe him something.
 
In all fairness there was a glitch in an earlier installation of Alpha 10.1 that kept defaulting to Arcade mode despite the settings in Options. This, in concert with an Alpha 10 Realistic mode save created an interesting hybrid between the two.

We fixed it by forcing realistic mode to default, ships were re-tested as necessary (in both modes mind you - WBT was meant to function in both modes without compromise until CM predicted correctly the inertia would make life difficult for our junior sailors) and life went on as normal.

This is the reason for my offense since the glitch was merely temporary and originated from the 10.1 upgrade on my end, back when WBT had only about a dozen ships finished (vs 220 as completed today). Also, the glitch was shared on MSN and I believe such conversations are confidential; we won't want to misrepresent ourselves in any way - I did make comments in jest that the hybrid-mode glitch did make some aspects of realistic sailing more fun as greater leeway was given to maneuvering.

Fixing the glitch was top priority because well, you can't create a realism mod in arcade mode, can you? Hence, I found certain comments on "WBT being developed in Arcade mode" being in bad faith.
 
Good to have it all ironed out :yes

Conversations via MSN are just like PM's and should remain convedential unless the parties want to share it (like some of the ideas posted that have been discussed between several members)
 
What I thought had happened was that you did your work on Arcade because your game didn't want to switch to Realistic.
I then recall you made a forum post mentioning that WBT on Arcade actually works really nicely
and that you were going to proceed with making it on Arcade mode.
Then I don't remember ever hearing that you had redone your work once we switched the default to Realistic.
So that's why I thought that while your work got the intended effect in Arcade mode,
Realistic Mode might have slowed down ships more than you originally intended.

Clearly I misunderstood several things here and for that I offer my apologies.
None of it was, is or ever will be meant as an accusation of you or your work in any way, shape or form.
Hell, anyone who knows me should, by now, be aware that I do not have bad intentions. Ever.


For your information, over the past few days I have re-read your Manual and WBT documentation again,
just to understand better exactly what you have done.
Unfortunately I have not the time and opportunity to actually see how it works out in the game.
And neither do I have the proper historical knowledge to fully appreciate everything.
In fact, I don't have much of a clue on real historical tactics at all.
My shiphandling knowledge is based mainly on modern motorvessels (Hey, who can blame me? THAT's my job!)
and all I know of period shiphandling is based on what I understand from the Hornblower books.

However, despite these personal limitations, I do see the massive value in the work you have done.
It should add a lot of gameplay value and I sincerely hope that our actual players,
especially the historically inclined, will be able to appreciate it's genuine worth.
 
I do accept the apology and agree that such situations should not be cropping up; but as such WBT is still a tyre fresh from the shop and hasn't actually been worn-in per se with our playerbase. As you say, the actual gameplay effects need time to be charted down, new tactics and other intricate details documented, and so forth, before we might chart a course ahead for this Build component.

A good wine is a matured one and some of the new Beta features are no different. It's tempting to start tinkering again but without a clear action plan we won't be able to do a reasonably successful blind release without running afoul of major issues. Despite the rush to the Jan 20 deadline we managed to slip this under the radar and that itself is a major accomplishment considering the sheer size of the shipsinit file.

What we'd need are of course gameplay logs and the more the merrier; we have new tactics made possible with relaxed ship stability, new desires for improvements in ships and weapons, and many new possibilities (like using a galleon as a battleship, or a snow as a gold-carrying blockade runner). Without a few months of constant exploration (that's why it's an open beta) we won't fully realise the potential of what we have before we start tinkering again,

I agree that the solution presented here is not a perfect one. But it's the first we have and the best we can do in the present.
 
would it be useful if i start logging the wind speeds in my journal? right now i've only got the occasional ship speed, but i don't see any reason why i can't squeeze one more report.
 
Morgan, I have reread your posts here a few times, but I guess I haven't grasped the issue you are experiencing. Are you saying that your vessel is moving too fast or too slow relative to the wind strength? I haven't used any empirical data to look at this, but in the ships I have used so far- Lugger, Topsail Schooner, Gaff Xebec (chebec to you), 16 Gun Brig and Light Frigate- the correlations between wind speed and expected sailing speed have seemed pretty accurate. I can also start logging wind speed vs boat speed for various wind angles so we can look closer at this. We will also have to keep track of cargo weight, I guess as a percentage of capacity for comparing ships of different sizes.
 
well, i noticed that i was never coming close to reaching the statistical top speed, and tried to give an explanation about why this was happening. as for the angles, i've seen that a cutter's perfect angle of wind is a bit too sensitive. looking at the rig, i would expect the ship to perform pretty well with the wind 45 degrees from the stern, like it does with the wind at 90 degrees, but it instead drops down to about half speed.

funny you remembered the chebec spelling.
 
What we have there with the sloop is a game engine limitation. It does not allow the ship to 'sail well at all points of sail'. Ships that can sail well in close haul are thus penalised quite harshly when running.

This does however make for interesting balancing where the sloop unlike that in the stock game is no longer an ubership able to move at 16 kts in all conditions.

The sloop's point of sail config was unchanged from original Alpha 10, so I'll say leave the sloop as it is and use a square rig for downwind ops. The ability to operate in close haul, by itself is a huge advantage for a sloop in any case.
 
oh yes, it's great when seen from the gameplay perspective. a fore-to-aft rigger basically has twice the perfect wind angles compared to a square rigger. it just a little nit-picking thing, really.
 
I don't think anyone could be expected to do a perfect job at first try.
You did do an absolute stunning work for the first version, but as you say,
now it's time for testing and see what works as intended and what might need further tweaking.
There's nothing wrong with that and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with what you did.
Thorough testing and feedback from multiple people is what can make a good mod great and a great mod even better.

I don't know how you feel about it, but to me, I value any and all nitpicking.
Some of the nitpicking I might think is too small to bother with,
but any issue not reported is an issue that cannot be addressed (unless the modder finds the issue too).
And at least in my case, I don't play enough to actually find much gameplay/balancing-related issues.
Of course SWS DOES play, so actually CAN find gameplay issues as well.
But still, more people is more input is potential improvement. Right?
 
My guess, and it is only that, is that in order to hit the max number, you would have to start with a 10 in Navigation, an empty ship, and a good 20 knot breeze. Then be sure you are at the particular vessel's ideal point of sailing with relatively small wave heights. I don't know if wave heights factor into the equation at all, but they should. My experience with the light frigate (yes, I do sail square riggers occassionally)which has a speed rating of 16 and change has been to hit a top speed of around 12 knots, in 18 knots of wind sailing about a point off of directly downwind. My navigation skill is 9, and my cargo hold carries 500 round shot, 80 grape, 200 chain, 2400 powder, 250 food, 80 rum, 120 meds, 50 bales of sailcoth and 50 of planks. This is my standard hunting load. That seems like a pretty reasonable performance and meets my expectation.
 
i am using some type of frigate, don't know which, and reached only just 11.5 knots in a 28 knot wind, while it's top speed is marked as 13.27 knots. i got the frig in the jack sparrow quest as a gift, anyway.
 
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