Naval combat question

[JaM]

Hello Guys, work on next version progresses nicely, anyway i want to ask you for opinion on one thing. For quite some time i was trying to make naval combat more realistic, yet only recently i have figured out how is the ship damage handled exactly. Certain ship models have special destruction animation hardcoded with them, therefore every single destruction for them, is automatically catastrophical, where ship disintegrate into parts, while whole crew is set flying..

Thing is, such destruction is complete and total fantasy and has nothing common with actual reality. rams were unable to break enemy ships in half, where typically, ramming attacks were quite problematic, as it was quite common for rammer getting stuck in the hole created by the ram. Yet of course, due to another issue with the naval model, it is not possible to do anything about ramming location, and the one location that was actually targetted in reality, is completely immune to ramming attacks in the game (rear)

Anyway, here is the question - out of all ship models, only Quadrireme ,Trireme and Trihemiolia have such ridiculous destruction animation. every other ship just get sunk normally. Would you mind if I have just used Bireme model for all Trireme and Trihemiolia ships?


I have also found that there is one Quadrireme model (persian_barbarian) that actually doesnt have this damage assigned. So i can just use that single model for every single Quadrireme.. of course, they all will have same shield types, but i think thats the least problematic thing i suppose.

Please let me know what you prefer - actual semi-realistic looking destructions, but with less ship models or CA/Hollywood nonsense with crew flying, and unrestricted models..

[bobbyr]

Hi JaM,

good find!

Since this is TOTAL REALISM I definitely prefer the more realistic way.
I don't mind having fewer ship models.

Off Topic: Do you have any contact to the guys who made the 'Haegemonia' Mod? French Modders, I think some of them are on the Hellenika Team aswell.
They have actually created the ONLY realistic looking legionaries for the Caesarian time period, with Mannheim helmets and large republican Scutums.
Would be awesome if you could include them in RTR2 to replace the Vanilla Marian/Caesarian Legionaries and to go in line with the awesome retextured Republican Legionaries in RTR2

Cheers

[Causeless]

I'd argue that the lesser evil is to just include the animations.

I'd say the net realism loss from over-the-top destruction animations is less than the net realism loss from having ships be inaccurately shaped and sized.

[Eamonn]

Go with what ever has more realism. I'm not too worried about animations. If rear ramming (giggidy) was a tactic used and now can't be used in the game by the bigger ships, make it so you can rear ram, (giggidy goo).

[JaM]

thats the thing.. rear ramming is not possible due to "turtle vs rabbit" physics used for naval combat - ramming wont initiate, with rear attack, because difference of speeds is very small.. so ship sailing away is practically immune to ramming.