Naval Action - BETA tester screenshots inside - AGE OF SAIL first person shooter

[Destraex]

Patch has Arrived.... A few shots of the Tricomolee a new type of frigate designed to be able to catch the latest (much bigger) American super heavy constitution classes or at least be in the same league armament wise. Also a few shots of the mortar ship primarily for shore bombardment.




[img]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3945/15559012298_622ace48d2_b.jpg[/img

[[G-Shock]]

I hope the ships are added in the end all the men required to handle those guns and sails and the troops who would, eventually, board the enemy ships.
Seeing an empty deck is bad but the rest of the HUD speaks of a game where sailing tactics have to be employed.

I've seen a video of this game in the making on the GLG website and I was very impressed.
Keep it up!

[Destraex]

Yeah I don't know if all the crew will ever be added. I think it just grinds things to a stand still. Most of your time is spent looking outward so you don't notice.
You just need a little activity on deck to lend to the realism when you see other ships through the looking glass.

But yes it would be awesome. I just don't think possible.

[Destraex]

A few more screenshots from the latest build for those interested in this games lab game.
Although Darth's games lab game seems to have all the lime light at the moment

[Destraex]

dministrator

Administrators

2,214 posts
Posted 12 November 2014 - 09:27 AM
The pre-orders invites to alpha sea trials will come this november.

[Destraex]

Good day Captains.

We are planning to start inviting pre-order buyers to Alpha Sea Trials this week (worst case beginning next week). Please register at our forums if you have not done so yet. Please remember that our game is DX11 only - so it is maybe time for a video card upgrade.

http://forum.game-labs.net/

[[G-Shock]]

Please tell me they'll put the crew on the deck!

[Destraex]

Not sure if there will be more than you see due to frame rates being affected. This is not total war. Its like asking for 10000 players in battlefield3. But i also hope they figure a way to add more.

[Destraex]

It is Alpha and tutorials and the like come when all game features and balance etc are set in stone.. writing one now would just mean they have to do it again later.

BTW there is actually one on the sea trials forums which only you and I can see as pre-order peeps. Look at the top post in there.

Here are a few tips:

Shooting
Right Click on the side you want to fire from to enter firing mode
Space bar for single ranging shot
Left click for full salvo

Deck Control
f1 f2 f3 f4 to lock a deck for firing
press again to unlock (red crosses indicate lock)

Rudder
double tap A or D for perma rudder setting
Hold Rudder key A or D down to turn rudder temporarily. Let go and it will centre again

Mast and Yard Controls
W - Tap W until you have the sail speed settings and right amount of sail canvas set
S - Tap S until you have ordered less canvas set to setting you want

Manual Yard Controls
Q and E to adjust forward mast
Z and C to adjust rear mast
F to return to auto skipper

Telescope
Hold Left shift is telescope
scroll mouse to adjust it to the zoom you want

Boarding Ships
X Capture ship at lower speeds?

Chat
Press enter to enter chat mode and speak
had to press ESC to get out of chat

Shfit T to team chat?


Special Statistics
L = show shot damage
k = show sounds

Fire Mortar
M for mortar on mortar brig

Free Camera
home disconnects camera to go looking for the enemy
home key is spectator after dead
Z X up and down
scroll for camera speed
right or left click changes ship in dead free camera mode

ctrl H to hid interface

[Destraex]

Every friday steam keys are sent via email
This will enable you to download and play the testing game atm.

The testing game consists of these modes currently

* Player vs enemy AI - light ships only
* Player vs enemy AI
* Player vs player - light ships only
* Player vs Player

Player vs AI means you join a lobby and wait to see if anybody else joins within 60 seconds. If not you play on your own vs 1 or two ai ships that are random. If so then the other player(s) are put on your side and you coop vs AI ships.

Next year open world alpha/beta should arrive. Nobody knows what that will look like.

This is the last I heard from the devs on single player:

This is what the devs had to say about single player when I asked:

"PVE is going to be in game - you will be able to sink AI ships with friends.
But i promise pvp will be more fun. We plan to make it a lot less hostile than POTBS or EVE."

A few more screenshots from my PC. I don't edit or sugar coat anything in my pictures so people can gauge things as they really are. Apparently there are rough seas maps testing at the moment but I have not been fortunate enough to play on one.

[Destraex]

Some rough seas that I finally got to play on.

[Destraex]

Coming soon... now this picture is not mine but the devs.... anybody know what this is?

[Destraex]

The new snow. The Nuestra Señora de la Santísima Trinidad is now also in game also but I do not have enough points for it to show you guys.

[Destraex]

These little gunboats as they were called. Were used in calm seas for harbour defence in the west. Fleets of them would swarm out and hit frigates at all sorts of odd angles confounding the larger ships broadside. By the time you got back you would have missed out. I need to go and ask on the forums if heavy seas will swamp this one.
Captain Jack was in a frigate just outside an enemy harbour. His ships boats were rowing back with a friend or spy. The enemy harbour defences were somehow alerted and a swarm of these gunboats came out even though the seas were a bit rough for them. You see each gunboat carries the same armament per tonne as a large ship. Get 32 of these gunboats and you essentially have a 32 gun broadside of a larger ship with the advantage of being able to attack from all angles and have a small profile that is harder to aim at.
Captain Jack was forced to clear the area as fast as possible.
A real life example of a frigate getting captured like this is the USS Philadelphia which got stranded in a Tunisian Harbour trying to raid it and forced to surrender by gunboats firing from its blind angles while not being able to turn effectively. Decatur iirc then raided into the harbour many months later to destroy this state of the art super frigate.

[Destraex]

[Destraex]

From a dev post in the forums.... consider that every ball is tracked when fired when reading the below;

Ballistics and Damage model 4.0


To make the gameplay feel real and provide more tactical depth: we will be gradually moving to the final damage model, which has passed several iterations before. To find out how previous systems worked please refer to the Damage 2.0 and Damage 3.0 posts on forums. The new system is in development. Testing of this new model will start by spring of 2015 or earlier.

Key new features

Penetration classes
Penetration exists now, but needs to be expanded for faster development and additions of new features. It also needs to be improved to allow for more customization of ships and weaponry. Cannons and ships will have a penetration class that will determine the ability to go through the armor. We believe that will provide more tactical diversity to combat. Ship armor will not be unified any longer. There will be weak spots to be exploited. Heavy planking at the waterline will make ship of the line more effective against lower level ships.

Angles and ricochets
Hitting a ship at narrow angle will ricochet from the ship hull. Longer guns with higher cannonball velocity will have better chances to penetrate at angles. This will make positioning very important. This feature is completely new and gameplay might change significantly and will require testing.

Exact colliders and positioning of internal modules
We are moving to the exact collision models that fully represent the shape of the hull. Same will be done with important internal modules. To blow up a bow magazine or break a frontal pump you will need to shoot at the front part of the ship.



Pass through shots
Gun ports will be implemented in the damage collider models. If the cannon ball does not hit anything it will pass through the ship and could hit the next target


Crew damage
Crew damage will also change significantly as crew will no longer be a unified mass of people. Crew will be located deck-by-deck creating the situations where you destroyed everyone on the top deck leaving intact gun crews on the gundeck. This system also will allow for potential expansions of detailed crew management if the need arise.

Ballistics changes
We were very unsatisfied with the ballistics of carronades and frog like double shot and have reworked the formulas to allow better customization of cannons and fast additions of new features. Reload penalties will be added to certain types of shot. New system could also allow for types of powder charge type weight if this feature is be needed. Gun sights experiments will continue and we will test a couple of implementations of the sights next year.

Carronades will receive long overdue love and will be a formidable close range choice of weaponry.



Feel free to provide suggestions, feedback, and improvement ideas.

[Destraex]

From the facebook page.
Is the the famous Russian brig Mercury?
My first new PC background for 2015.

Open world distance and travel time testing is coming next year.
Happy New Year Captains!

[Destraex]

A quick update on naval action:

Well they got their paypal account unfrozen after a massive community effort to tell Paypal that a couple of people with cold feet does not = a reason to freeze an account based on the grounds that somebody complained the game would not be delivered.
What this actually was was somebody not reading the forums and waiting a week for the steam key. Part of the cause was also the devs not having a mechanism sending a confirmation email saying the player has paid immediately after payment. First sign you know your payment is accepted is the key a week later. So they kind of dug themselves a hole with that behavior. However what is really ironic was the amount of players waiting to buy the game. As soon as paypal was back they ran out of steam keys!!!! It got sold out.
So they have to buy a new batch of steam keys and many people now don't get a key until next week.

Cannot wait until its on steam proper.... the demand is too great now for the game developers to manage their own sales in this pre pre alpha testing phase. There can be over 300 people online testing at a time now.

Development plans Winter - Spring 2015
Hello Captains.

Here are our development plans for this winter and spring: Jan-May 2015.

1. New ship models
The following list of vessels will be delivered for testing by the end of Spring. Some ships might get delayed by storms.
Mercury brig
La belle poule
Ingermanland
La Renomme
Privateer Schooner (based on Lynx - with more guns)
Brig Navy Edition (based on Brig - with more guns)
HMS Pickle
28 gun light frigate
Gunboat
2. Open world distance and speeds testing

3. Ship customization
Ship parameters randomization
Simple ship upgrades
Simple loot
Simple crafting
4. Gameplay
Updated damage model 4.0
Improved sailing of for-and-aft rigs
Better turning and rudder mechanics
Commander tablet
New game types: Operations gameplay – 24 hours large battle map with respawns, and shore defences
5. Other improvements
Improved chat
Manual
Soft launch of early access on steam
With your pre-orders we are moving significantly faster. Thank you for the continued support and feedback you are providing us with.
Special thanks to all community correspondents, streamers and youtube content makers, who are making awesome videos about our game.

[Destraex]

An article on naval action and game labs
http://www.wargamer.com/Article/10252

[Destraex]

Not sure if there is any point posting this... feels like I am talking to myself... but anyways in case anybody is interested

Before I go on I should mention that their are plenty of AI and there are also areas in game where higher tier vessels cannot enter... shallows so to speak.

Now I will tell you a story however:

Watch out around Le Moule, I just got overtaken and ganked by not one but two pirate constitutions. Double my crew and faster than me. They got me before I had learned my new ship which was finally fully crewed as well. I am betting they had all the best upgrades. I was told by the French fleet that they were seen yesterday doing the same thing in a victory and a bellona. I kept them at bay for over 30 minutes though. But because they were taking turns to fire at me while the other continued chasing and were faster than me anyways there really was no way out. Perhaps once I know the ship better I may be able to find a place in the wind they cannot follow me to.
They were nice enough to admit it was not a fair fight but said they were happy to take my ship because "game mechanice"... pirates will be pirates I guess but should not have access to this pocket battleship class of ship or the SOL classes.
P.S. They seemed to be faster in the open world but be advised that it was my fault they got me as I ran into an island while watching them chase!! One of my five lives in this ship gone.