Getting rid of the super-sloops

[Didz]

Well I'm having great fun playing ETW since 1.5 sorted out 'the player hate routine' and gave us a reasonably sensible diplomatic AI.

In my current French campaign northern Europe is gradually dividing into two major power bases. The pro-French alliance of France, Wurtemberg and Westphalia and the Pro-Austria alliance of Austria, Bavaria and the Netherlands. With Prussia as the loose cannon trying to pick off anyone who is weakened by the conflict.

However, I've noticed at sea that for some reason I still have the super-sloops. In fact, it seems to be any sloop, corvette or privateer (basically anything base on the sloop model) has an enormously long ranged broadside. They seem able to outrange every other ship in the game happily taking chips out of the paintwork of a frigate before that vessel with much larger guns can even get a shot off.

I'm assuming that this is the idiotic change that CA made to keep the MP people from moaning, but I would have thought that TROM would had corrected it.

Is there a specific TROM mod I need to install to get rid of these changes?

[Johan217]

That is not supposed to happen... The TROM projectile files should be overwriting the ETW values, so ranges should be the same as they were before CA's changes.

[Didz]

That is not supposed to happen... The TROM projectile files should be overwriting the ETW values, so ranges should be the same as they were before CA's changes.

Hmm! thats weird. Does that come as standard with the basic TROM Part 1 and 2 then?

If so then somethings wrong, I assumed that perhaps it was part of the naval sub mod or something. Not sure if I'm still using that.

[Johan217]

If so then somethings wrong, I assumed that perhaps it was part of the naval sub mod or something. Not sure if I'm still using that.

Get rid of it. That hasn't been updated for a long time, as far as I know.

You were using the BloodSmoke 3.1 version, right? That one possibly changes the projectiles tables too. If it does, that could explain the vanilla ETW behaviour.

I think your best bet is to look into your empire total war\data folder and remove ALL mods, see if everything works, and only then install TROM.

[Didz]

Yeah! but TROM only uses the lite smoke version of BSM, which is why I stuck withn the original.

[Serenissima]

Not anymore - the three different versions are included now in TRoM versions.

And you can hardly expect it to work as TRoM stats properly, if you're using a version of BSM that overwrites the projectile tables, can you..?

[Johan217]

Hm... sounds like I need to write up the installation instructions more clearly.

Anyway, you have the choice between smoke light, medium and full, which are all based on the 4.0 version of BSM. All necessary files are installed with TROM, so you just need to activate the version of your choice in ModManager.

[Didz]

Not anymore - the three different versions are included now in TRoM versions.

Really, so how do you select the version you want I've never seen a facility to set it and I thought I had the up to date version running. My understanding was that TROM had gone with the lite version of BSM to avoid the lag problems on lower spec PC's

And you can hardly expect it to work as TRoM stats properly, if you're using a version of BSM that overwrites the projectile tables, can you..?

I thought the BSM mod only overwrote the GFX and Sound files. According to Mod_Manager it only conflicts with 6 files and all of those are in the Effects folder.

Hm... sounds like I need to write up the installation instructions more clearly.

Anyway, you have the choice between smoke light, medium and full, which are all based on the 4.0 version of BSM. All necessary files are installed with TROM, so you just need to activate the version of your choice in ModManager.

In that case, I do have a problem. As I only have one Trom_Blood__Smoke file appearing in my Mod Manager list, which either means I've downlaoded an old version of TROM, or I haven't installed it right.

The version in my Download folder is labelled:

trom_corev1.62_part_1 (created 14/10/2009)
trom_core1.6x_part_2 (created 14/10/2009)

I'm pretty sure I installed them correctly, I've done it several times, so unless something has changed recently I would have done it the same way as in the past.

OK! SORRY GUYS...just been and rechecked the forum and realised I've somehow slipped two released behind and TROM is now on version 6.4.

Its only been two weeks, how are we supposed to finish a campaign

Downloading the 6.4 self-extractor now.

[Red Paladin]

BTW, I'm playing on hard for battle and I notice that the sloop seems to be out gunning the 6th rate frigate constantly...

[Johan217]

BTW, I'm playing on hard for battle and I notice that the sloop seems to be out gunning the 6th rate frigate constantly...

All ship stats and projectile values are the same as in earlier versions of TROM. If this is happening, it either means it was always so, or something else is overwriting the TROM values.

I don't know what is going on, to be honest.

When you say "outgun", you mean they have longer range or more firepower?

[Didz]

I haven't systematically tested sloops since downlaoding patch 6.4. The only obvious thing I did notice was that all my options reverted to vanilla and I had to reset them. The impression I do get is that sloops are no longer firing a lot earlier than frigates and liners, suggesting that something has changed, but I would have to deliberately set up some test battle to see if sloops can actually out gun a 6th rate.

One thing I noticed in recent campaign skirmishes is that the crew strength of French Sloops, privateers and corvettes is pretty close to the crew strength of a Russian Frigate. Not quite enough to make boarding a viable tactic for a 6th Rate but enough to work on an Indiaman.

Checking out the NavWar game rules I note that according to them the French Corvette 'Hebe' had a crew of 160 men and a amarament of 2 x 12 pdr Cannon and 18 x 24pdr Carronades. So, she was clearly arms for close in work and boarding.

The more standard French corvettes are like 6th rate Frigates with crews of over 200 men and 24 x 8 pdr cannon, plus 6 x 36 pdr carronades.

Sloops on the other hand such as USS Maryland are quoted as having a crew of 180 men, 20 x 9pdr plus 6 x 6 pdr cannon. Whilst USS Wasp and Argus have crews of 160 men with 2 x 12 pdr cannon and 18 x 32 pdr carronades.

[I think ETW may scale down crew strength universally, by about 50%, so 75-85 men would be about right at that ratio.]

The other thing worth noting is that according to these rules sloops could not outrun a 6th Rate Frigate or three masted Corvette. So, on one side sloops are overpowered, but in many other respects they are under-powered e.g. their range is too long and they are too fast relative to a frigate, but they don't come with powerful carronade options.

[Itkotw]

I am having a little troubles with the sloops too, though I am also using the unit variety mod. It is very annoying having all ships shoot about the same.
Does the unit variety mod overwrite any naval range files?