Empire Realism | Feedback + General Discussion (until incl. 3.7, defunct thread)

[JaM]

regardint the text file, it modifies localisation.txt, so i guess german version has a different file.

and about ships limits, that is little bit more tricky - for example 3rate SOL was the most numberous warship used - GB had about 90-100 of them, so did France and Spain. Small nations had only a few. probably we just need to find out which number should represent 100 SOLs in game terms, and then balance everything around it.

[DaVinci]

@ JaM

Language version: I bought indeed the english version from UK-amazon. But use just the GE version. I guess if i switch to EN in Steam, i should be done, right?

Ship numbers: Ok.

And, what do you think about to implement the blood and smoke mod, is it something that you would prefer or not?
As it fiddles with the projectile file etc., and if you have the interest, can you look to implement it and perhaps adjust it, ie. i think the blood mod makes too much blood ? Also, i'm not sure about the smoke and particles in this mod ... .

[ZaPPPa]

ZaPPa: you are totally right, problem is that we cant change number of guns right now, so Fluyt is stuck with 40 guns... if we could change it, i wouldnt give Fluyt more than just few guns - its a trade ship - it couldn't carry all those guns, crew and also have enough space for cargo...

i'm not sure what we could do right now with it. because we cant remove guns, we could make Fluyt represent smaller late 17.century warship. but for that i need to figure out how to remove trading ability from it. (same for Galleon)

I guess guns are tied too closely to the 3D model for CA to allow us to change them.. Bad design on their part. Did you already give Fluyts the lowest available caliber cannon?

At least the 4400+ hull strength should be lowered significantly and perhaps lower manouverability even more so those 40 guns become rather useless. A single Fluyt should be a sitting duck for any sloop or brig even if it had 1000 guns.

[JaM]

yeah, Fluyts and Galleons use 6-9pdrs (warship/galleon uses also 12pdrs at the main gun deck)

but probably better would be to create separate "old-fashion" guns for those ships with different parameters.

[Thorn]

Update 0.60 available in the 1st post.

EDIT (okay, now have time to give info for DER+ 0.60)

Here is one of the most important and interesting change ... (more and other details will follow in the first post).

The naval overhaule provided by JaM
- gun composition on practically all ships is based on real composition used by countries.
- Sail damage by cannon balls depends on caliber now, the bigger the caliber, the greater the damage.
- max speed of ships changed, fastest ships could do 14 knots, SOLs 8-11knots.
- 42 pdr gun now represents 38 pdr french long gun.
- damage of all guns based on caliber (it is slightly lower as it was, and there is a bigger difference between small 6pdr and 18 pdr, before it was just too similar).
- hull resistance slightly increased for SOLs and Frigates.
- US heavy Frigate has now 32 pdr carronades instead of 32 pdr long guns (same with Constitution and other similar ships).
- campaign movement changed. SOLs have 65, Frigates and small ships 120 points. Indiaman stays at 80, so SOLs will be not able to catch it, and player will have to use Frigates for that. It also provide a choice, you can put your tradeships into the convoy with SOLs, but then they will be slow, or you can leave them alone, and they will be vulnerable. Best option would be protecting them with Frigates as it was done in reality.

Hi guys,

I see you are aslo trying to improve naval battles, if you need help it i will be glad to do so.

About Sail damage, i have been trying to mod that for a long time.. is there a value about it?

[DaVinci]

Info

Just implemented erasmus777's Equipment Tweak Mod into internal 0.61. Will be content of the public follow up version.
Also JaM changed already some things which i have still to implement / Edit: Done (nice naval improvement).

Another important info: The in 0.60 added text file is only active and useful for the users who run the english language version. If one runs another language version, he don't need to use this text pack, but it'll also do not any harm, if activated in the user script.

---

Naimad, it is JaM's thing to decide in how far you could work together or would team up for the naval aspects, as this is solely his department.
If you both team up, then let me know it, JaM .. just if the DER+ team grows or if Naimad contributes to you as active free lancer, that i change the credits accordingly.

[ZaPPPa]

i'm not sure what we could do right now with it. because we cant remove guns, we could make Fluyt represent smaller late 17.century warship. but for that i need to figure out how to remove trading ability from it. (same for Galleon)

Look at 'unit_stats_naval' at the very end of every unit. Right before 'maneuverability' is a field 'unknown' with three bytes in it. The third byte is the trade boolean. If you set this to '00' the trade lane will no longer be created when a Fluyt moves into a trade node. Unfortunately the little trade icon still shows up in the unit badge.

You're right about not being able to change the cannon count, but there's plenty of other ways to gimp the fluyt. Fluyts have marines, while Indiamen do not. You can lower their morale, marines, gunners, accuracy, reload skill and so on.

I have attached a file which includes a bunch of changes to the Fluyt and Indiaman. Take a look at it and see what you want to do with it. I kept the Fluyt a trade ship, but severely nerfed it. It is down to 44 men from 142 and though it still has 42 guns, it will have a hell of a time reloading them. The Indiaman is now the better option (if you ask me).

This file needs tweaking! So, if others are just out to play and have fun, stick with the regular file.

[JaM]

Naimad: yes, there is. its the third row from base reload time. and sure, we can team up. why not?

[Thorn]

Look at 'unit_stats_naval' at the very end of every unit. Right before 'maneuverability' is a field 'unknown' with three bytes in it. The third byte is the trade boolean. If you set this to '00' the trade lane will no longer be created when a Fluyt moves into a trade node. Unfortunately the little trade icon still shows up in the unit badge.

You're right about not being able to change the cannon count, but there's plenty of other ways to gimp the fluyt. Fluyts have marines, while Indiamen do not. You can lower their morale, marines, gunners, accuracy, reload skill and so on.

I have attached a file which includes a bunch of changes to the Fluyt and Indiaman. Take a look at it and see what you want to do with it. I kept the Fluyt a trade ship, but severely nerfed it. It is down to 44 men from 142 and though it still has 42 guns, it will have a hell of a time reloading them. The Indiaman is now the better option (if you ask me).

This file needs tweaking! So, if others are just out to play and have fun, stick with the regular file.

Uhm... We cant change gun numbers, but:

We can leave some decks free of guns and we can also reverse some ship models (Indiaman becomes a fluyt and fluyt an indiaman, but using only 1 deck of guns)

Another option could be makin sloops the new trade ship, they are small and can only carry 18 guns..

Naimad: yes, there is. its the third row from base reload time. and sure, we can team up. why not?

Nice, i missed that in my previous mod..., now i only need to find marine numbers

[ZaPPPa]

I'm working on the naval editor app. Hope to have a new version uploaded later today.

[DaVinci]

Just one comment to the Fluyt:

IF this "unit" disturbs everything, we can also disable it entirely from the recruitable units (file building_units_allowed_tables).
And then replace it with another ship for the according faction(s)?
Or we could also steer which faction can recruit them, ie. reserve it only for Pirates?
But it's under JaM's rule what shall happen here. I won't touch such things

[JaM]

oh BOY! oh BOY! oh BOY! it works.... no more superFluyts....

so, for next version:

- Carronade Frigate is now 44 gun doubledecker with long 18pdrs on lower gun deck and 32pdr carronades on upper gun deck. (works like charm...)
- Fluyt looses half of its guns to 20 gun (12pdrs), trading ability stays as it is, marines are gone...
- Indiaman gets new model - 64-gun SOL,but most of guns will be removed. That model is much better for classical Indiaman - those ships always had fake gunports to scare out potential enemy. plus often were bought out from East Indies company and armed as a 4 rates (especially in second half of 18.century, when orriginal fourth rates were only seldomly buildt).

right now i'm thinking about new type of ships - 6-rate 24gun Frigate/ Corvette/Sloop of War - using 24 gun model originally assigned to Carronade Frigate.


DaVinci: so now, when Fluyt is just a obsolete trade ship, we could reduce its price considerably.

[DaVinci]

Great
I'll dl/implement the file.

Will do the price change ... right now we have:
1510/240, suggest -> 600/50 as Indiaman?
Limited to 20 max, shall this stay? Or same value as Indiaman 40 max? Will do 40 for now.
Now 3 turns to build, shall go to 2 turns as Indiaman.

Will do these changes for now unless you have no other suggestions.

Should the Indiaman get other costs/conditions now?
In this regard, is there any reason to recruit a Fluyt still, if the Indiaman is better all in all? Perhaps we need to adjust some values to make it reasonable to have still a Fluyt recruited. Ie. is it faster than the Indiaman (ie. movement points different)?

[DaVinci]

Just implemented. Cost/conditions done as above.

I see the Fluyt is slight slower than Indiaman, but has slight higher morale, both have 120 men crew. Hull strength is different, Indiaman much better there. Anyway, just tell me, if and when the Indiaman/Fluyt shall get other costs/conditions as we have now.

Another thing: Still the Fluyt has the 5th admiral in it. guess we need to remove that, or the AI will assign this ship as ruler of a fleet? (... hope the removal won't bug the start situation where perhaps Pirates or UP has this ship as admiral in the fleet). Can you check this out for the next file update?

Another question: Shall we remove other ahistorical land units or ships from the recruitable file?

Ok, great work so far. I'm going offline in a minute (it's very late here).

[ZaPPPa]

I updated the Naval Units Editor to version 0.6. This should make editing Naval units a bit easier. In your case you need to extract the darthmod pack file (or whichever pack file you're working with).

Let me know if there are any more 'unknown' values you know the meaning of and I will add them.

I am not 100% sure about the point of sail values. Someone called Midknight came up with those meanings. I suggest maxing everything out with a 1st rate and see what happens on the battlemap. If the meaning of those values are correct, I suggest turning naval combat into a much more realistic experience where you cannot simply turn a 1st rate into the wind and expect to maintain speed.

@DaVinci,
You could just switch the fluyt and Indiaman cost and upkeep. I supercheap Fluyt is great for trading and gives a role to Sloops and Brigs (escort duty).

@JaM
I noticed that when making major changes to ships, only newly built ships are affected. With the removal of guns from Fluyts and Indiamen, the first battle with an existing fleet (at startup) leads to a mass rout because all ships report concern because of the missing cannons. The fluyt is report as having 22/42 cannon at the start of the battle (can't remember the exact values) and after one hit from an enemy ship, the Fluyt retreats. Also, an existing fluyt still shows 142 men in its information screen, but as soon as you enter battle, the count reverts to your new value, leading to a loss of morale. I have read Darth ran into the same issue with the increased unit count of land units and the start position file needs to be updated to reflect the changes.
It could also have to do with the lack of gunners. A ship needs two gunners per gun, so a 24 gun ship needs at least 48 gunners otherwise morale will drop. According to MidKnight you can also potentially offset this by raising base morale.

PS. Can I suggest using Cannon Type 6 for the Fluyt and Cannon Type 5 for the Indiaman (2deck64). These gun types are the middle decks of both ships. This way more rooms is available for cargo on the lower deck.

[JaM]

good points. i will add some gunners so there will be 2 for every gun. also move active guns to upper deck.

[DaVinci]

@Zappa
Oh well, sure the start situation is bugged then. Let's see if it can be solved via adjustment by JaM.
The Fluyt has now 600/50 (cost/upkeep), as i wrote already above, i guess it's cheap enough. Of course those counts can still be adjusted, if necessary.
Nice Naval tool

@JaM
Please check also the 5th Rate Admiral content of the Fluyt, as written above.

[loet66]

Hi DaVinci,

I like your work very much.

+ rep !

[JaM]

np, will change it. Lets try out how it will work (i will adjust numbers of gunners)

btw, DaVinci, what do you thing about Mass Fire instead of Volley fire mode? its kinda strange seein only one rank firing and other staying idle.. As you remember, much more effective fire drills were used in Renasaince by Spanish Tercios, its quite hard to understand why should 18.century musketeers fight with much less effective fire drill. (if Mass Fire is too effective, we could balance it out by longer reload time(every fire drill had its own reload value) and reduce accuracy a bit.)

[Thorn]

np, will change it. Lets try out how it will work (i will adjust numbers of gunners)

btw, DaVinci, what do you thing about Mass Fire instead of Volley fire mode? its kinda strange seein only one rank firing and other staying idle.. As you remember, much more effective fire drills were used in Renasaince by Spanish Tercios, its quite hard to understand why should 18.century musketeers fight with much less effective fire drill. (if Mass Fire is too effective, we could balance it out by longer reload time(every fire drill had its own reload value) and reduce accuracy a bit.)

I tried to add mass fire to some troops, but they take too much time reloading.. if we could chose what type of firing drill we can use i will add it, but having a unit with only mass fire will, from my point of view, hurt its effectivity.