Ambushes at sea....

[Aurelius]

Was pondering something earlier about the ability to put your boat into deed form, and 'launch' it at sea - and it opened up an interesting theory about something to consider if attacking another boat in the new booster.

You see one boat, sail towards it in yours... and the other players on that target boat all launch the boats they are carrying, and it turns into a small fleet! Hopefully not so many you start seeing lag problems, but then if you as 'pirate' do the same and your side becomes five or six strong, it could get rather messy!

 

[R Traveler]

You can't place boat standing inside another boat.

 

[Basara]

You can't place boat standing inside another boat.

Currently - but will that be true from launching within a rowboat, since the rowboats are meant for transport between a dock and a real ship?

 

[Fink]

I think they should possibly remove the "come about" type manoeuvre from tall ships or sea combat will consist of two vessels flipping back and forth to swap broadsides. Kind of silly to watch. A fleet approach would be great but I expect most exchanges to be ships turning 180 degrees without moving.

I was a little disappointed they still only have four directions as I thought successful piloting might (and should) be more of a factor.

 

[Merion]

I was a little disappointed they still only have four directions as I thought successful piloting might (and should) be more of a factor.

Oh! you can't go diagonally even with mouse control? that's a let down!

 

[Basara]

yes, they can go diagonally under mouse control, from what I saw at the Town Hall.

Frankly, I'd never use the mouse control for long-range movement, because to me it was too erratic, BECAUSE of it side-slipping slightly as he attempted to move it in a straight line.

They may only POINT 4 directions, but they've had 8 directions of movement since they were introduced (forward, back, left, right, forward left, forward right, back left and back right). And, I don't think even I as a player would want to deal with the complexities involved if you could rotate the nose in amounts less than 90 degrees, for purposes of things like docking, and coming ashore. The animation and deck layout would be too complex to deal with the rotations, in a "square" based game environment.

 

[Fink]

I don't think even I as a player would want to deal with the complexities involved if you could rotate the nose in amounts less than 90 degrees, for purposes of things like docking, and coming ashore.

I'm only suggesting 45 degree increments for the ship's heading, same as a horse, player, mob, etc, not fractions of fractions. Being able to circle (okay, octagon) an opponent would be so much nicer than turning jarring squares in a supposedly boundless environment.

The animation and deck layout would be too complex to deal with the rotations, in a "square" based game environment.

I've heard them say that before. They've also long said they can't ever make ships move in sub-tile increments, but they have. Once you lose that "must be on a world tile" restriction, figuring out diagonal offsets and so on isn't a huge leap in maths. In fact the entire game world is on a diagonal, we've just been trained to think top-right = due north = straight "up".

It's more likely they kept things square to keep them compatible with the older boats, and/or because it was simply less work, not because it was impossible. I'm only saying it's a shame they overhauled the entire system without giving it the full eight headings like every other moving item in the game.

 

[Aurelius]

You can't place boat standing inside another boat.

As Basara says, that's true now, rowboats may change that, as might the status of the 'Whale' ship as effectively a house.

 

[R Traveler]

Every large boat have only one owner and one rowboat linked to it.

 

[Beastmaster]

I think they should possibly remove the "come about" type manoeuvre from tall ships or sea combat will consist of two vessels flipping back and forth to swap broadsides.

I agree. A 'come about' aka 'turn around' command could still be available but it should entail the boat actually making 2 turns with at least 2 tile of movement between the 2 turns. It should probably also include the turn direction. So more like 'come about to port'. And 'left, right, forward, backward' should be dropped from the recognized vocabulary.

 

[Aurelius]

Every large boat have only one owner and one rowboat linked to it.

Fine, if that's how it works - but can the non-owner of the larger boat place other boats alongside it from on-deck?

I doubt anyone not in the Dev team can answer that yet...

 

[R Traveler]

It should be possible to place own rowboat from others ships in case you have already your own ship somewhere on same ocean.

 

[Metalstorm]

Ships have always had 8 directions.

i.e. "forward left" while facing north made you move straight up the screen heading NW.

Mouse control should still allow all 8 directions and be much easier to navigate. More intuitive.

 

[Hurley]

Hopefully, they won't implement something as asinine as launching full-scale ships from other ships.