Naval Realism in IS/ETW

[Serenissima]

Second thread in as many days. I suppose I'm either doing something right or something very wrong. The same disclaimer about the search function and reading back a page or two applies, but I thought - unless it's been done already - that the topic of if any changes are to be made to the game's navies.

Now, in this case, I don't mean changes to the way the battle engine works, or is balanced - I primarily mean the actual ships in-game themselves. And as a bit of a naval historian, it bothers me.

The reason for this..? Well... CA did a horrendous job on their ship classifications, especially in the frigate area. And despite getting their 'ship plans' from the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, they don't seem to have used them for what vessels the plans actually represent... and have also used the 'rating system' of the Royal Navy without actually paying attention to what that system meant.

To start, there are the sixth-rate frigates in ETW... which are armed with thirty-two guns. Not only would a 32-gun sixth rate be a very large sixth rate... it'd sort of have become a fifth-rate in doing so, having more than thirty guns.

Not that the fifth-rates do very well either, given that they're all forty-eight gun monstrosities... when the largest number of guns a ship still classified as a 'fifth rate' and a 'frigate' would carry was forty-four. Of course, for some reason, the "fifth-rate frigates" in the game have multiple gun-decks, so they are not really 'frigates' at all, by later standards. In terms of accuracy, it also doesn't help much that the 'brigs' of ETW are effectively sixth-rates, given their twenty-six guns.

I don't claim to have any knowledge whatsoever, however, of if such changes can be made to the game in terms of ships' armament - or if, indeed, it's even possible for a ship to have multiple types of gun on it, rather than a homogenous shot where every gun on the ship is identical to any other, for example.

Anyway... the point of this over-long, boring rant at ETW's naval element is mostly to ask if there are any plans to alter the naval combat in IS to better reflect how things really were. (If there are any plans in that direction, I'll be happy to help, though it seems much of what I'd be able to do revolves around consulting my books... or the university's libraries, failing those.)

And of course, I'd like to hear what other people - players, like myself, as I'm certainly not a modder - think about the naval element in ETW and if it would be desirable to anyone but me to make it more accurate historically. Part of me suspects that the overabundance of multiple-decked ships even in the most inappropriate places stems from a desire on CA's part to make everything "epic", after all, and perhaps people enjoy that sort of thing.

[Quixote07]

Ships do indeed have different weight guns at different decks

I understand what you mean, and it bothers me too, the only problem is that we are much more restricted in editing naval units than land units.

I couldn't, for example, reduce the number of guns a 5th rate carries by 4. I could maybe take out an entire gun deck (though I don't know if that's possible, it could cause a CTD), but that's about as small a change as I could make.

Naval reforms have taken a back seat currently due to 2.0 (that thing is eating up every spare second I have), but I'm looking into changing that, with news possibly coming soon.

[Serenissima]

It sounds like they've coded the naval combat in a very odd way indeed, if it's that restricted! I expect the same problem applies with adding 'new ships' to replace the old ones, rather than attempting to edit the existing ones. I can certainly understand why the sea side of things isn't a priority, when it has been made so difficult to change.

Thanks again for replying so quickly. You rock, Quixote.

[RuleBritannia]

Lack of naval realism is a problem in the game. I mean, Sloops historically had anywhere from 0-10 guns, but in the game they have 18. Pirate vessels historically had normally low amounts of guns, as they wanted to damage the ship and then steal it and/or whatever items (food, weapons, gold, etc.) it was carrying, but in the game, their ships have as many guns as regular ships.

[Daergar]

(Not really aimed at RuleBritannia, just some mindspam.)

It's difficult to put everything in one big "piracy" bag and be done with it. I mean, a lot of the carribbean pirates (since those are the only "pirate" islands in the game) around the beginning of the 18th century would probably have been former soldiers serving in the Spanish succession muckety-muck.

I recall another post with the same logic regarding pirates, with lack of training and no guns and not wanting to sink and plunder and booty and parrots and so forth. To my understanding, generally, the pirates in this timeframe were former soldiers without a war and wanting a "better" life, turned to piracy and evolved more towards seriously clever special operations soldiers than a mob bent on looting without a thought or care in the world.

I'm going to guess that it took a wee bit of guile, cunning and skill to lure, or hunt down, a prospective target and take it for yourself. And if you got cornered by a navy ship with the intent of sinking your own little boat, I assume you would make sure you had enough guns to at least defend it properly.

As far as not sinking or killing those you captured, that's pure logic. First, you'd lose your prize and second, showing mercy instead of butchering captives to the last man sort of ensures that future targets won't fight to the death. Why surrender if you know you'll be shot anyway?

By the way, Quixote, does it seem likely that future CA-released mod tools will let you remedy all these errors or will we still have the old hard-coded, untouchable, shenanigans?

[Quixote07]

Honestly, I have no idea what official tools will be capable of, or if/when they'll be released.

Jack said a while ago that the community created tools had "far surpassed" what they were planning on giving us. My hopes are not super high, at this point.

[Disaray]

You can reduce the number of guns on a ship, like Quixote07 said, by the gun deck. You simply have to remove the entry for that gun deck in the pack files. I learned this by mistake you see. The problem with doing this is that the crew takes a moral hit. Aperantly ships need to have all the guns they are capable of having or they get unhapy in battle. A way to fix this, I supose, would be to input entierly new modles for every ships that alows for the proper number of guns on them. I don't know how long that would take but I am going to venture a guess and say a long damn time.

[Serenissima]

Well, that's sort of what I mentioned about 'new' ships - using the existing models, but having them as new entries in the game with the correct amount of guns, so that the problem would not apply.

[Electric Sheep]

It sounds good in theory but it might be boring to have a couple of six gun sloops plugging away at each other. Does it really matter what the ships are called? I think the naval combat could be improved more by changing the mechanics of it - better fleet composition, less sinking/exploding ships, differences in speed and feel of larger ships. IS has improved it but I'm still have a hell of a lot of exploding smaller ships.

[Serenissima]

I'd say it'd improve the game myself, not just because it's realistic, but because the gameplay itself is currently weighted entirely towards big ships with many guns pounding at each other... and that's just not how most combat was back then. It'd be far better if commerce-raiding and attacking ports with frigates, as it was in history, was the norm, and big fleet battles were setpieces, committed only for the very, very important things - rather than ships of the line doing everything after 1720.

[RuleBritannia]

There should also be a fear bonus against pirates for British ships. I'm not being biased, but historically, many pirates feared Royal Navy ships more than anything else, so if a pirate Brig or Sloop fights against a British ship of equal or higher strength, the British should get a fear bonus against the pirates.

[Bongfu]

There should also be a fear bonus against pirates for British ships. I'm not being biased, but historically, many pirates feared Royal Navy ships more than anything else, so if a pirate Brig or Sloop fights against a British ship of equal or higher strength, the British should get a fear bonus against the pirates.

Probably because they were the only policing force in the Caribbean. The French and the Spanish did not put much of a crackdown on Piracy as the British did because they couldn't afford it. If anything, I think Pirates should have a fear bonus against Britain, because many times did British ships run from Caribbean pirates.

[Serenissima]

Trading ships, certainly.

Warships from any nation, however... well, pirates definitely didn't want to meet any sort of warship, due to the high likelihood of being killed or captured and then hanged.

[Electric Sheep]

I'd say it'd improve the game myself, not just because it's realistic, but because the gameplay itself is currently weighted entirely towards big ships with many guns pounding at each other... and that's just not how most combat was back then. It'd be far better if commerce-raiding and attacking ports with frigates, as it was in history, was the norm, and big fleet battles were setpieces, committed only for the very, very important things - rather than ships of the line doing everything after 1720.

I guess, but there are ways to make the bigger ships less attractive - higher costs, lower manoeuvrability. I suppose there a limits to how far you can take this before they become useless. But the things you mentioned, commerce-raiding and ports, don't have anything to do with the amount of guns on a ship. It's more the limitations of the game (ie not bothering to go for trading ships once they're on the spots). I've been having fun battling pirates in the Caribbean with nothing higher than a 5th rate, so for me that element of realism doesn't need to be 100%. A difference of 5 or 6 guns won't really improve the experience unless you're sperging like crazy.

[Daergar]

Until the CA fixes the CAI (hah) or provides the tools/option that makes it fixable, just play with your own rules. Limit your own navy to match the AI's, either in composition or numbers. I mean, I can enjoy a battle with a single 3rd or 1st rate on my side and ten ships on the AI's.

[Anbar]

Probably because they were the only policing force in the Caribbean. The French and the Spanish did not put much of a crackdown on Piracy as the British did because they couldn't afford it. If anything, I think Pirates should have a fear bonus against Britain, because many times did British ships run from Caribbean pirates.

well, in POTC maybe.

[KindredBrujah]

Regarding the OP... I think you may be forgetting something.

Yes, the ships do have more guns than the classified amount, but if you consider that the Royal Navy Rating system didn't actually factor in Carronades (for example) until much later on, it is entirely within the realms of possibility that a Sixth Rate could have 32 guns, 8 of which are smaller, shortened or mounted on the foredeck and thus not counted in the rating.

[Serenissima]

True. The classification of 'frigate' however did include number of main gun decks (one), which the "fifth rate" immediately disqualifies by having two levels of gunports -and- guns on the topdeck.

[Disaray]

Wouldn't it be far more advantagous to get the ships we have in the game now to work more like wooden sailing ships did? All that not sinking like modern ships and the like? If you ask me geting the phisics right should be president over weather or not the ships have the proper number of gun decks on them.

[Serenissima]

I think we ought to have both, personally. There's not much point in making the physics 'realistic' if the actual ships themselves are Pirates of the Carribbean-level fantasy.