Ships and seafaring changes

Kinilan

Skye said:

@Tecton are you going to make all my dreams come true and delete forceboarding? 

I think we need to look at that bloodline disown idea again.

Skye

pfft. There are plenty of PVP opportunities on dry land without having it as a determining factor on the seas. Even worse when it functions as a magical boarding plank that requires just one lucky shot for instantaneous travel with no health/mana cap.

Anaria

Greys said:

@Anaria To me part of the appeal of naval combat was how you need to work as a team. I mean sure you can do it solo but its going to be a lot weaker than as a group. 

But... you never needed to work as a team. It was simply an advantage. Almost all of the naval battles I've been in have involved three or more ships. Team work tends to take the form of solo captains working together with their ships rather than one captain with a bunch of player crew members. 

It's understandable really. Few people are willing to pour time and credits into mastering seafaring just to crew for someone else. Besides that, two sea striders with one captain each is worth more than one sea strider with a captain and a player crew member, since the rate of fire is the same and the opponent has two ships to worry about rather than just one.

Kinilan

Anaria said:

Besides that, two sea striders with one captain each is worth more than one sea strider with a captain and a player crew member, since the rate of fire is the same and the opponent has two ships to worry about rather than just one.

This one time I had @Dunn board a ship captained by some kid. Dunn pitted his ass right off the ship. Two ships are better. but not always.

Ruth

I would take one strider and crew member over two ships and one captain each any day. 

Kinilan

Oh shit, or the time we took like 5 Striders with maybe 12-14 people total to shit on one little ship. AFTER a 2 hour chase?  One good ship > a bunch of boat

Klendathu

Now that ships can sail through chops, how about making chops so they can be flown over by those with a Transoceanic Orb? Pretty please, with sugar on top @Tecton

Kyrra

Klendathu said:

Now that ships can sail through chops, how about making chops so they can be flown over by those with a Transoceanic Orb? Pretty please, with sugar on top @Tecton

This so much. Could you imagine walking to Meropis from the Shipwrecks ferry and not have to keep jumping in and out of the wilderness because the Tears of Sarapis is full of chops?

Kayeil

I think the latest crowdmap for mudlet mapper said the Tears of Sarapis were made static instead of changing? Would be nice if the ocean floor map would be visible with the in-game MAP command.

Tecton

Sarathai said:

 @Tecton can you give any sort of timeline to when you'll be moving the specs? (Something like "the next week or two" is plenty.) I'd just like to know for reasons of when I'll want to look at changing my specialisation layout (i.e. if it's urgent or not, and if you'll do it all at once, or take it one or two specialisations at a time).

Designs aren't finalised yet, so nothing I can give firm dates on.

Kresslack

Kinilan said:

Oh shit, or the time we took like 5 Striders with maybe 12-14 people total to shit on one little ship. AFTER a 2 hour chase?  One good ship > a bunch of boat

I remember having an encounter like that. I started out chasing/attacking one ship with a captain that was more focused on running their mouth than doing any actual sailing, next thing I know, a few other ships trickle in. Think managed to get two or three of them, including Artanis, before the others slinked off.

Tecton

ANNOUNCE NEWS #4464                                     (12/02/2015 at 00:49)  
From   : Tecton the Terraformer
To     : Everyone
Subject: Ship and Seafaring changes - Batch III
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our third batch of ship and seafaring changes has just been loaded up! The main focus of this batch was overhauling the way ship weapons work and making ship combat a lot less frustrating and more fun. There are still many more changes in the works, include reworking specialisations to make solo sailing more accessible, adding in more fun and rewarding adventures at sea, and many more.

Without further ado, I give you:

Ship targeting
--------------
* Ship captains can now set a ship-wide target for the vessel.
* Will colour the ship a different colour for all adventurers on the ship.
* Will allow weapons to be fired without specifying directions or names.
* SHIP TARGET LOCK <ship> will set the target. SHIP TARGET LOCK CLEAR will clear it
* Ships need to be within 40 metrons to target them.

Weapon aiming and accuracy
--------------------------
* Weapons now have 100% accuracy, but aiming and firing upon the target vessel will now be a channeled action when you FIRE.
* The length of the aiming/firing sequence will be determined by your skill in the weapons specialisation, the distance to the target, and the size of the ship.
* In the future, we'll be adding more modifiers to these calculations, such as manoeuvres.
* Seamonsters are not included in these calculations yet, and will be changed as part of a larger overhaul in that area.

Ammunition
----------
* All ammunition damage has been adjusted and rebalanced.
* Chainshot will now do pure sails damage and will bind the sails until the rigging is CLEARed.
  * When dipped, this will set the sails on fire.
* Spidershot will now bind a weapon on the enemy ship, rendering it inoperable until it is CLEARed.
  * This ammunition no longer does any hull or sails damage.
* Wardisc will no longer damage players on a vessel, but will fly across the deck causing the crew to duck and cower.
  * The crew will be interrupted from their present task and will not accept orders for a few seconds afterwards.
* Ballista darts will now cause significant hull damage and cause the enemy vessel to start leaking.
  * When dipped, they will cause an outdoor room to catch fire.
  * Rowing crew will be interrupted when hit.
* Starshot will now encircle the ship's figurehead, causing any melded sailors to be unmelded.
  * The figurehead will remain unusable until it is CLEARed.
  * When dipped, it will start a fire on the bow.
* Flares remain unchanged.
General weapon and skill changes
--------------------------------
* Weapons have a short recovery period as they return to a fireable state.
* Damage to weapons has been removed.
* Weapons will no longer misfire.
* Weapon enhancements are no longer in the game, and all weapons are now fixed speed.
* WEAPONENHANCEMENT have been removed from the Seafaring skill. (Don't worry, there are more changes to the skill to come).
* WEAPONMAINTENANCE has been modified to reflect the above.
* WEAPONAIMING has been repurposed as per the section above.
* LOADWEAPON has been added at Weapons specialisation rank 1, removing the balance cost to load a weapon.

Because this is such a large change, and we want to see people out trying them, we have removed all harbour salvage costs until further notice.

Latest batch is now live!

Valkyn

Wow, very pleased about the damage being removed. Does this mean we don't have to customise ship weapons as resetting anymore?

Jonathin

Decay and damage are 2 different things. maintenance being kept is also evidence that decay still lingers.

This also makes galleys more useful for the multiple weapons. I'm pretty impressed thus far with the changes.

Shirszae

In other words, you still need to make them permanent, but not resetting.

Morthif

You begin the painstaking process of aiming a ballista at The Gypsy Wind.

You strain to turn a ballista to aim at your target.

You make a few fine adjustments to the aim of a ballista.

You call out "Fire!" and release the mechanism on a ballista.

A heavy wooden shaft streaks from "CTS Resilient" toward "The Gypsy Wind", burying itself deeply in 

her hull.

looks like 7.5 second delay at weapons 5.

Valkyn

Jonathin said:

Decay and damage are 2 different things. maintenance being kept is also evidence that decay still lingers.

This also makes galleys more useful for the multiple weapons. I'm pretty impressed thus far with the changes.

Yes, that's why I asked about resetting, seems like it's no longer necessary. Decay would be the same, but my ship weapons are already non decay.

Eld

Morthif said:

You begin the painstaking process of aiming a ballista at The Gypsy Wind.

You strain to turn a ballista to aim at your target.

You make a few fine adjustments to the aim of a ballista.

You call out "Fire!" and release the mechanism on a ballista.

A heavy wooden shaft streaks from "CTS Resilient" toward "The Gypsy Wind", burying itself deeply in 

her hull.

looks like 7.5 second delay at weapons 5.

At what range?

Lorielan

On the flip side, the shots don't miss, so while the firing itself is slower, you're getting a lot more connection than ever before. #worth

Edit: We are monitoring all the ship engagements since the changes were released, this will likely be a week of alterations and balancing as we see how things shake out.

Morthif

Lorielan said:

On the flip side, the shots don't miss, so while the firing itself is slower, you're getting a lot more connection than ever before. #worth

Edit: We are monitoring all the ship engagements since the changes were released, this will likely be a week of alterations and balancing as we see how things shake out.

Oh, yeah sorry I forgot to mention how much I realllllly like these changes.

Morthif

Eld said:

Morthif said:

You begin the painstaking process of aiming a ballista at The Gypsy Wind.

You strain to turn a ballista to aim at your target.

You make a few fine adjustments to the aim of a ballista.

You call out "Fire!" and release the mechanism on a ballista.

A heavy wooden shaft streaks from "CTS Resilient" toward "The Gypsy Wind", burying itself deeply in 

her hull.

looks like 7.5 second delay at weapons 5.

At what range?

not sure. was a fun chase.

Anaria

I have no real opinion as of yet, because I haven't tested the changes and I'm still sort of digesting them. But I do have a couple questions:

1. If weapons now have 100% accuracy, what does Steadygoing now do?

2. What about weaponaim?

3. If Wardiscs no longer hit players on vessels, what is the point of envenoming/enhancing them?

My only concern here is that weapons is rapidly becoming the most important skill tree. There really aren't any acceptable solo combat configurations at the moment that allow you to have weapons 5 and do much of anything else. I know that stuff is likely to change around so I'm being patient, but I sure I can't leave port without shipscan/shipwarning. And dropping Rainstorm seems kinda suicidal if everybody is going to have ammoenhancement for combat. 

Elowin

What a crappy time to be shrubbed! Learn from my example, kids.

Autofishing. Not even once.

Taraus

At first glance, this certainly seems to have made huge strides towards making seafaring more group-oriented, with a need for specific individuals trained accordingly, and doing assigned tasks. Which is horrible for me, but better for seafaring as a whole!

That all ammunition now has a place, a definitive reason, and actually makes all the guns viable weapons is fantastic - and I'm particularly glad the arm is no longer the gimpy baby brother that people only get because they have to.

After my initial jaunt into the new reworked combat, I'd say a majority of the changes are definitely positive, but I'd want to see one tweak:

Make it so that the captain ordering the crew to change direction/stop/row/change sail status doesn't interrupt the firing sequence. Any other action, fine - but being unable to change your course without halting the weapon is brutal, and seriously neuters the captain. I don't necessarily think this would shift the balance too radically, as it appears now that with the new changes, one person on a gun shooting at someone who has even the faintest idea about seafaring really won't be sinking anyone. You're still going to need another dedicated gunner (and if the ship is on a counter-offensive, at least one other person (ideally two) to handle the incoming threats (rigging and fires).

Taraus

I apparently do not have permission to edit my own post!

Something that might require investigating: according to the announce, firing sequence speed factors in level in weapons specialisation. Morthif is weapons 5, and he was firing ballista at roughly 7.5s -- I'm weapons 1, and also firing at roughly 7.5s (in both instances of moving vessels, and stopped/grappled vessels).

Morthif

Taraus said:

I apparently do not have permission to edit my own post!

Something that might require investigating: according to the announce, firing sequence speed factors in level in weapons specialisation. Morthif is weapons 5, and he was firing ballista at roughly 7.5s -- I'm weapons 1, and also firing at roughly 7.5s (in both instances of moving vessels, and stopped/grappled vessels).

avg looks like closer to 8 but yeah wonder which way this bug fix will go.

Tecton

Looks like Morthif is too fast there, but we'll get it fixed up ASAP.

Morthif

Tecton said:

Looks like Morthif is too fast there, but we'll get it fixed up ASAP.

You monster

Skye

I'm really liking what I'm seeing so far. Even if I didn't get to full on participate and was just auxiliary crew. I loved that shiptarget now highlights the intended ship, which made things so much less confusing, especially when you're trying to grapple.

Since highlighting a targetted ship is now proven feasible, is there any chance we may get additional highlights for hostile and friendly vessels as per designation? There was a 2-4 ship scrum earlier. Since most of the other ships were sort of meandering on the edge of the map, it didn't really interfere, but I imagine it'll also be chaotic if they had bundled up closer.

Kresslack

These changes are awesome, but I'm not sure about the 100%  guaranteed accuracy. I know that in the past accuracy was near abysmal, but guaranteed hits seems odd. Would be nice if there were some variables to account for the potential of an occasional miss, such as distance, wind, etc. Just my thoughts. Other than that, the changes are awesome and exciting, especially the ammo changes.