Topic: Version 1.1.6

[jakal323]

I'm going to put this out there as an idea and see if anybody can flesh out the game details a bit.

One major limitation of fighting ships in the Age of Sail is that they couldn't sail into the wind, or they would become becalmed and torn to shreds by their opponents. So, there was a considerable advantage to the cunning (hint, hint) sea captain that could manipulate the combat such that the wind was to their advantage (termed "holding the weather gage"). This advantage was best taken by surprise. The enterprising sea captain that could overtake their opponent by surprise and with the weather gage could end the engagement with the first broadside. (For this first one, holding the weather gage could either give initiative or give an advantage over time. I would think this would only work at distance, unless somebody had some other thoughts)

Another combat tactic was raking (or razing) fire. If the attacking sea captain could line themselves up across the bow or the stern of the opposing ship and their fire is accurate, the cannonballs would not only impact and stop. They would bounce around causing mayhem to both limb and oak. This would multiply the damage done by a broadside.  Furthermore, as the majority of the firepower stuck out of the side of the boats in this age, the opposing ship wouldn't have a chance to reply. (Again, it's easy to say that this would only work at distance, because ships would likely lay parallel to each other up close. A good sailing captain could get multiple hits from their shots, but it would be a rare event as the situation has to be pretty prefect.)

I've also a more concrete enhancement suggestion: Anybody remember the list of titles that games like Civ or Pirates would give you when the game was over as sort of an evaluation of how you did? Wouldn't it be cool to have one of those based on your score at the end of the game?

[ConstantOdds]

Oh, no way.  That's the lamest part of every pirate game, and ruined the remake of Sid Meier's Pirates.  I can't see bloodthirsty pirates with bounties on their heads were serenading débutantes outside of their bedroom windows to woo the daughter of the local magistracy.

But if you are a trader then?

well, you got me there  

[ConstantOdds]

For jakal's whole becalming the wind gage stuff, it's pretty cool to read the detailed info he knows on it.  As far as I'm concerned, though, that's all part of the "sailing" skill, and explains why good sailor-captains can close or distance well even with outclassed rigging and masts.

And yeah, I know what you mean about the post-game title system.  It would only be cool if it were multidimensional:  I usually play until I sink with nothing in the stash, so I'd hate for all my entries in the score list to be prefixed by "The broker loser" or something like that.  Of if all the pirates that sank over 30 ships were prefixed by "Bloodthirsty", then I'd have the same caption for all of my pirates and that would be as exciting as having none at all.  So I guess I like jakal's idea in principal, but I think it would be harder than it sounds to do it well.

[MicaByte]

Interesting discussions, guys and I will try to reply some more when I can find the time.

This next one is my least favorite, and I'm hoping it's a bug and not by design.

It's a bug. A very nasty bug too. A line of code that should have been:
this.crew_ = this.crew_ - crewKilled;
Was instead saying:
this.crew_ = ship.crew_ - crewKilled;

I.e., your crew was being reduced to the level of the opponents crew minus the casualties inflicted. Ouch. 

The bug works both ways, btw, but always to the advantage of the defender. If you've killed 40 men with a single blast, you've probably hit the bug there. Max damage the carronades should be able to inflict is 30 losses, and the average should normally lie around 10-15.

I was hoping to finish work on the quest module before the next update, but I'll try to push out a fix for this and any other nasty/game-breaking issues during the weekend.

[ConstantOdds]

Ah, snap!  

Your story checks out--in my screenshot, my 300 crew were dropped down to 10 when I tried to board a 40 crew ship:  instantly drop me to his 40 crew member count, subtract 10 from his cannonades, 10 from my crew's pathetic attack attempt, and 10 from his successful rebuttal, and then we had my 10/300 versus his 40/80.  I've been avoiding carronaded ships like the plague, and look forward to the fix!    

[MicaByte]

When I have the Commodore rank, I'm now getting attacked by pirate hunters from my letter-of-marque country.  I don't know if that was present before this update or not, but it makes the expensive Commodore rank worthless.

Do you know whether this was in a situation where you sailed into a pirate hunter event? That the only situation I can think of where this might be an issue. Will check it.

[MicaByte]

Will you add some kind of flirting with governor daughters later on?

Oh, no way.  That's the lamest part of every pirate game, and ruined the remake of Sid Meier's Pirates.  I can't see bloodthirsty pirates with bounties on their heads were serenading débutantes outside of their bedroom windows to woo the daughter of the local magistracy.

 

In defence of SMP, the "rescue governor's daughter" thing is a pretty established trope in modern pirate mythos.

Don't worry, though - all the missions of this kind added to the game will be completely optional. And there definitely won't be any rhytm minigames involved. 

[MicaByte]

Wish you could have different crew: sailors, cannoneers & soldiers, and experienced versions of them (in addition to the coming special people helping you out).
<...snip...>

First, I need to actually implement the specialist crew, etc. The list of stuff to add is already quite long... 

After that, I also need to keep an eye on game complexity - I don't want the learning curve of the game to get too steep (I think it is already quite complex compared to what people are used to from a mobile phone game).

[MicaByte]

Thanks for starting interesting discussions, all.

I'm going to put this out there as an idea and see if anybody can flesh out the game details a bit.
<...snap...>

As ConstantOdds mentions, these factors are essentially factored into the way your Sailing skill affects the battle (i.e., the way good sailing skill with a mobile ship will allow you to dictate the pace of the battle).

I have considered ways to add stuff like raking fire into the combat system, but I have not found any elegant way to do so. It is - as you say - something that would only happen in very specific circumstances. For now, the player will have to imagine that this is what occurs when you roll particularly well in an attack.

I've also a more concrete enhancement suggestion: Anybody remember the list of titles that games like Civ or Pirates would give you when the game was over as sort of an evaluation of how you did? Wouldn't it be cool to have one of those based on your score at the end of the game?

I have considered such a scale, but I'd need to figure out an alternate way to score the game for this, as it can't be entirely dependent on the gold you earn.

[jakal323]

Thanks for starting interesting discussions, all.

I'm going to put this out there as an idea and see if anybody can flesh out the game details a bit.
<...snap...>

As ConstantOdds mentions, these factors are essentially factored into the way your Sailing skill affects the battle (i.e., the way good sailing skill with a mobile ship will allow you to dictate the pace of the battle).

I have considered ways to add stuff like raking fire into the combat system, but I have not found any elegant way to do so. It is - as you say - something that would only happen in very specific circumstances. For now, the player will have to imagine that this is what occurs when you roll particularly well in an attack.

I've also a more concrete enhancement suggestion: Anybody remember the list of titles that games like Civ or Pirates would give you when the game was over as sort of an evaluation of how you did? Wouldn't it be cool to have one of those based on your score at the end of the game?

I have considered such a scale, but I'd need to figure out an alternate way to score the game for this, as it can't be entirely dependent on the gold you earn.

I reckon the bits about raking fire and such don't have to be mapped to an active behavior that the user initiates. It could be "reward flavor text" for a particularly good roll.  If a shot particularly damages the crew at distance, it could display something appropriate.

"Your accurate fire wreaks havoc on (or rakes) the opposing crew!!" Or something like that.

[ConstantOdds]

When I have the Commodore rank, I'm now getting attacked by pirate hunters from my letter-of-marque country.  I don't know if that was present before this update or not, but it makes the expensive Commodore rank worthless.

Do you know whether this was in a situation where you sailed into a pirate hunter event? That the only situation I can think of where this might be an issue. Will check it.

Is a pirate hunter event triggered by reading rumors?  I recall not having read any rumors that game, as they seem to be pretty much trader-specific.

I don't trade in gems or guns and always submit to inspections, and pretty much never encounter pirate hunters in the wild.  It would figure that the time I do, they're my own nationality and I'm a Commodore, to no avail.

[ConstantOdds]

Don't worry, though - all the missions of this kind added to the game will be completely optional. And there definitely won't be any rhytm minigames involved.  

Yeah, it was more the frilly dancing that seemed painfully out of place than the idea of seducing a lady at a port of call (which sounds just fine).  

For anyone fortunate enough to not have spent hours of your life pretending to be a dancing pirate, here's what you were missing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV0k-bkxADw

[ConstantOdds]

There still seems to be an issue with diplomacy, unless it doesn't work the way I think it would.  In my current game, "France and Spain are at war. Great Britain and France are Allied. Great Britain and Spain are allied".  Maybe the Limeys are just really good at playing all the angles.

[ConstantOdds]

*Sometimes you accidentally buy things (and sometimes fill up full). You should be able to sell back things you just bought at same price.

The reason I don't allow this is because I can't/don't want to maintain buy/sell history across pauses of the game (e.g., if you switch out to another app while trading). I agree it would be a nice feature to have, though. I might consider implementing it without save information.

I second Zuul's suggestion on this one.  At first I was like, caveat emptor.  But then yesterday my broke pirate in a big ship rolled into port, and I figured I'd buy enough food to get me back to see before I overspent on repairs.  I guess I held down the purchase button for a millisecond too long, because I suddenly had 60 food in my cargo hold and about 7 gold left over.  I hope a quartermaster got keel-hauled over that one. 

[ConstantOdds]

On a more serious note, I haven't implemented any sound or vibration into the game (too many sound glitches in games for me to want to have to fix bugs with that also).

Yes it vibrates when you hold buy/sell button long enough so you get full/sell all (same with take/dump cargo).

Yeah, that vibrates on my phone too.  It's fine with me that it does, actually, but I wanted Zuul to know he wasn't crazy.

[MicaByte]

I reckon the bits about raking fire and such don't have to be mapped to an active behavior that the user initiates. It could be "reward flavor text" for a particularly good roll.

Something like that would be doable.

Is a pirate hunter event triggered by reading rumors?  I recall not having read any rumors that game, as they seem to be pretty much trader-specific.

No - events happen randomly every turn. The rumors are just randomly chosen reports about the current events active in the game (except the first rumor, which is always recent). So you can easily sail into an on-going event.

There is - incidentally - one event that you very much want to find as a Pirate - the Treasure Galleon. 

I don't trade in gems or guns and always submit to inspections, and pretty much never encounter pirate hunters in the wild.  It would figure that the time I do, they're my own nationality and I'm a Commodore, to no avail.

Yes. This bug still leaves me rather puzzled, because they should definitely have left you alone based on what I can read from the source code.

There still seems to be an issue with diplomacy, unless it doesn't work the way I think it would.  In my current game, "France and Spain are at war. Great Britain and France are Allied. Great Britain and Spain are allied".  Maybe the Limeys are just really good at playing all the angles.

Devious diplomats, those Brits. Feature.

*Sometimes you accidentally buy things (and sometimes fill up full). You should be able to sell back things you just bought at same price.

I'll bump this up on my unofficial prioritization list, and see if I can find a nice way to implement this.

Regarding the vibrating, I don't think Zuul is imagining things. I'm just very sure I haven't done anything to switch it on. Have you guys checked menu > settings > sounds and display > Haptic feedback (this only works on OS version >= 2.1 - earlier versions of Android simply cannot turn this off).

[ConstantOdds]

I don't trade in gems or guns and always submit to inspections, and pretty much never encounter pirate hunters in the wild.  It would figure that the time I do, they're my own nationality and I'm a Commodore, to no avail.

Yes. This bug still leaves me rather puzzled, because they should definitely have left you alone based on what I can read from the source code.

Since I barely ever see pirate hunters anyway, I'm not too worried about it.  I pretty much see "Commodore" as just a getting half-way to a slow $7000 Rear Admiral commission.

Just going out on a long shot, you know how stern chasers fire at friendly ships when you try to leave the battle before it is engaged--could that have anything to do with an otherwise friendly ship attacking?

There still seems to be an issue with diplomacy, unless it doesn't work the way I think it would.  In my current game, "France and Spain are at war. Great Britain and France are Allied. Great Britain and Spain are allied".  Maybe the Limeys are just really good at playing all the angles.

Devious diplomats, those Brits. Feature.

It's probably just me getting confused on how your diplomacy works.  My understanding in this scenario would be that with my French letter of marque, when I attack Spain it makes my reputation with Spain go gown, France goes up, and doubly-allied England goes down?

Regarding the vibrating, I don't think Zuul is imagining things. I'm just very sure I haven't done anything to switch it on. Have you guys checked menu > settings > sounds and display > Haptic feedback (this only works on OS version >= 2.1 - earlier versions of Android simply cannot turn this off).

Nope, because I like it the way it is.  I'm haptically happy with it, I guess.

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