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Comments
Not that I necessarily mind being about to sink people without leaving fingerprints.......
Edit: Although I suppose if the target was on fire and taking fire damage that resulted in 0% Hull, that might be the reason? Like the system doesn't know/care whose fire is whose?
Also, I'm very much not the only person to encounter this. Ellodin say he's bugged it before too.
I'm not convinced of this. I've tested this with cutters and galleys so far, and I have only seen an increase of a flat 1 knot to my row speed, regardless of ship size, crew xp, or weather. Granted, +1 knot is a lot in stormy seas if you don't have sails, (given that row speed in stormy seas can be effectively zero) but I am so far not that impressed by the Helm rank V perk overall.
I think Ellodin said he had bugged something along the line of 18 bugs on ships, though some were repeats. There's been a lot of breaking of things lately.
That said, getting fed a log of the fight to try and pick out problems helped me set up some highlights and begin considering some better methods of defense, despite that none of that would have saved the ship I think.
That love soon might end You are unbreaking
And be known in its aching Though quaking
Shown in this shaking Though crazy
Lately of my wasteland, baby That's just wasteland, baby
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
And you won't understand the cause of your grief...
...But you'll always follow the voices beneath.
Still a perfect record for Mhaldor if we ignore bugs, too :bleep_bloop:
(pause)
Great!
*hangs up phone*
My life is an episode of the IT crowd
A Windcutter engaged by a pirate is put into a situation where they have zero chance to come out on top, with the only outcome resembling victory being that of escaping into a harbour. To achieve the great victory of not completely losing, the Windcutter has to outrun a ship much faster than it, all the while maintaining enough distance to elude Wavescythe, as a single successful volley by the pirate ship will result in being hit by chain-shot and grapples that remove all hope of escape.
On the other hand, getting caught comes with heaps of punishment. At a minimum you're going to get plundered, which you're more vulnerable to due to having fewer swashbucklers and fewer means to train them. Then you're practically guaranteed to be sunk, which can be a massive annoyance (or gold cost) to raise depending on how far from harbour you were. Lastly, to add insult to injury, we've had it very clearly stated that you have no right to seek any sort of vengeance for being stolen from, largely inconvenienced and possibly killed.
The niche that the Windcutter -should- fill is a less capable, less expensive and easy to handle ship designed for small crews of one or two players. They don't fill this currently, though, because the way ship afflictions were designed makes them obscenely potent against small crews while being naught but minor inconveniences to big ones. You mention being clever, but were it not for the increased ability to spam Wavecall, I'm not sure that Windcutters would have any means of escape at all.
'Strider vs. Cutter' isn't a contest, it's a pursuit meant solely for the fun of the Strider at the expense of the Cutter.
That being said, this is just the perspective of a casual seafarer whose few brushes with seafaring combat have been no fun and all stress.
Cutter's firepoweris already the shittiest as you can only have one weapon, but you have to be in close range as well.
However.
I agree that the cutter's complete and total lack of offense is an issue. Before, with forceboarding, I could always at least launch a deck at an aggressor and board them to settle it that way. Now that I can't do that, running is the -only- option, and I agree that's not a lot of fun to be on the dedicated defensive side. Cutter offense should be "weak", but you should still have the theoretical possibility to sink an aggressor.
An idea I've toyed with for a long time is to make flares, when fired at a ship, actually do hull damage. It would need to be a very small amount of damage, but with the ability to load multiple flares into an arm, a cutter should be able to launch 3 flares at a time for a bit of damage and chances to start fires. (The fires themselves are easily handled, hence cutters' lack of offense in the first place.) This would mean that ballistas and onagers would also be able to fire flares for damage, so it would need to be balanced carefully, but I think it could be done.
I haven't had the opportunity to engage in real ship combat much, (and none since the changes) so I'm not the one to do that balancing, but I figure if an onager firing 7 flares hits for about a ballista's worth of damage, then a Cutter firing an arm with 3 flares will deal about half the damage of a ballista, at a much higher ammo cost, but that's still something. Numbers would have to be crunched to see if 1/2 a ballista's damage would even overcome basic repair (I'd assume ship crew + 2 players repairing) and numbers would have to be crunched to make sure that the onager's new-found ability to damage at long range (for high ammo cost) didn't suddenly make striders and galleys into death cannons, but provided a sweet spot can be found, that may give cutters some teeth while not pushing strider/galley damage output into an unreasonable range.
Edit: The thought struck me that 3 flares fired at a ship could deal 50% ballista damage (or whatever arbitrary value was reasonable) but additional flares would scale up only slightly, to a max that was still less than a ballista dart. (Say 75% of a ballista with 7 flares) That way 3 flares would always deal "reasonable" damage, giving cutters teeth, but striders and galleys would be discouraged from using flares as damage, since it would deal less damage than a ballista at a much higher ammo cost.