Hello Captains
While programmers are working on the tutorial and the user interface we will address the long overdue Battle ratings, combat performance and sailing performance of the vessels in the series of patches.
This patch is first part of the final ship performance rebalance and addresses sailing performance of ships of the line (from 4th rates to 1st rates). The goal is to bring more realism into sail curves and yard power. 1000-1200 square meters of sail of the fore mast on the first rate should provide enough side force, allowing amazing realistic maneuvers and more options in combat.
Maneuvers like this become possible (to a certain degree):
Changes done (4th rates, 3rd rates, 2nd rates, 1st rates)
- Exact (better) Balance between staysails and square sails
- Exact (better) Balance between front mast and stern mast + spanker
- Yard powers was reduced (based on agamemnon testing from 4 to 3) for better more realistic performance. Rudder power slightly increased for Aga based on the testing.
Speed changes example 4th rates (ignoring indiaman)
- 4th rates are split into 3 groups
- Downwind sailers - excellent performance downwind due to more square sails area
- Agamemnon (67% square sails area)
- Ingermanland (68% square sails area)
- Universal sailers - ok performance downwind but great performance upwind
- Constitution (60% square sails area) Wasa (61% square sails area)
- Good turnrate brawlers (ok performance everywhere, but great turning)
-
Wapen
Implications
- Damage model will improve drastically due to exact calculations of square areas of sails
- Constitution has more square sails per mast it will get an additional buff to yard power (effect on rotational force)
- Some ships will get lee on bow (bow will turn better)
- Some ships will get lee on stern (stern will turn better)
- Main mast role will be significantly reduced for turning for all ships due to mast position
Example of main gameplay change
- Constitution/Wasa will not catch Agamemnon downwind
- Agamemnon/Inger will never catch Constitution upwind
Open world speed will be slightly relaxed to give more flexibility and will be adjusted more if needed
Remember that this is a first draft of changes and they WILL require tuning. But its a great start for finalization of the sailing model and making every ship unique
Known issues:
- Bots are affected and might need rebalance (especially making sternway).
- OW speeds might go down for some ships at angles closer to wind - we will monitor situation and adjust it if needed)