The Ship Game

[Svartypops]

First of all, I know lots of people skip over this and Josh himself said the company should have concentrated on boarding as the only way to interact on ships.  Even the mighty Sid Meier had trouble making ship-to-ship combat good.

So with that in mind,  let's just try to make the ship game in Deadfire slightly better. Just a smidge. 

Here... I made this spreadsheet....

That's where I'd like your help. I was wondering, if you could tweak the ship/cannon numbers ...

What would you do?

Preferably, I'd like to be able to compete with any vessel.

As it stands, a broadside from a large vessel with double-bronzers will completely wipe you out. Perhaps chance to be hit should be lower for the little guys?

Look at all those guns! How many do players actually use? Two or three?

 

SHIP
Name	GUID	Sail Health	Hull Health	Be Hit Chance	Turns to Turn	Turns to Jibe	Crew	Cost
Dyrwoodan Ship		20	50	55	1	1	5
Voyager		25	60	55	1	1	5	20000
Dhow		40	65	60	2	2	7	35000
Galleon		40	100	60	2	3	8	100000
Junk		60	70	70	2	3	9	120000
CANNON
Name	GUID	Damage	Range	Reload	Cost
Dyrwoodan		4 to 7	150-400m	3	1000
Aedyran Channel		4 to 7	350-600m	4	1125
Iron Thunderer		6 to 9	200-500m	4	1200
Haerferic's		8 to 11	200-600m	4	1500
Imperial Long		6 to 9	300-600m	6	1650
Royal Bronze		8 to 11	150-400m	5	1800
Vailian Hullbreaker		10 to 13	0-250m	4	1900
Double Bronzer		12 to 15	250-350m	8	2100
Sub Gun		8 to 11	150-400m	5	1800

 

I think a lot of people hated this system so much that the developers allowed people to "get it over with as soon as possible". What do you think?

 

Edited July 14, 2021 by Svartypops

[house2fly]

I've been thinking about changing the stats on various ship items, if only so there's more difference between them. The extra items they put in with a free DLC have the exact same stats as other items, eg Ymyran helm and Lurker helm. What's the point of that?!

I experimented a bit with chance to be hit (or "hittability" as the code calls it) and if it's low enough the enemy doesn't even bother firing on you and just closes to board. That might be why it's not a visible stat and no equipment changes it? Sounds hard to balance

[Kvellen]

The ship combat was something I tried to get into on my first playthrough but fell off of after a while of every single engagement seeming to take a really really long time to play out. I don't know if it is just not explained very well, or that I missed something in the explantion of the mechanics. But it got frustrating to the point that most of the game I took long routes to avoid enemy ships, or would closed to board right away.

Which is a real shame as captaining a ship battle in the age of sail is a really neat idea!

You are missing the flame thrower ship weapons from your list: 

CANNON
Name	GUID	Damage	Range	Reload	Cost
Magranite Firethrower	49e185d8-48e8-4d63-a358-3f50e1971b77	6 to 9	0-75m	2	3000
Wyrmtongue	2f82b41e-63dd-43d1-9475-c37af23f96cb	6 to 9	0-400m	5	3000

 

Magran Firethrower was added with the ship focused DLC "Scalawags Pack". The data of which is in the "laxc_exported" folder in the "laxc_ships.gamedatabundle" file (Under the name "Aedyran Firethower"). From what little I played with these the short range, was a neat idea, but always lead to the enemy ship closing to board before or just after I had fired them. The other weird thing, description for the Wyrmtongue mentions there being a chance of starting a fire on the enemy deck/rigging/crew. Which ever happened when I hit with them, so either a very low chance or just a bit of confusing fluff. I'm tempted to assume it to be the latter as the Magran Firethrower has no mention of this.

Also really disappointed that there is no ship battle with a kraken (or other beat of Galawain), but I can imagine that would have been strange to implement in to the ship to ship interface. So probably for the best

Edited July 14, 2021 by Kvellen

[Svartypops]

 

1 hour ago, house2fly said:

I've been thinking about changing the stats on various ship items, if only so there's more difference between them. The extra items they put in with a free DLC have the exact same stats as other items, eg Ymyran helm and Lurker helm. What's the point of that?!

I experimented a bit with chance to be hit (or "hittability" as the code calls it) and if it's low enough the enemy doesn't even bother firing on you and just closes to board. That might be why it's not a visible stat and no equipment changes it? Sounds hard to balance

I just spent some time making some changes to upgrades (on the right, below).

 

HULL				Hull
Name	GUID	Travel Speed	Combat Speed	Health	Cost
Bird****		-5%								PROPOSED CHANGES
Aedyran (Treated)	14c0a64a-ed0e-4992-a398-2575c994066e			5	1000					2	2	2
Warship (Reinforced)	a14f842b-9d50-4e2f-85c5-559dc2ce007b	-2%	-2%	15	3500					4	4	4
Bardatto		5%		5	5000					6	6	6
Improved Warship (Reinforced_Improved)	"5b572b32-d1b0-45fc-aec1-1beadbdc522c"			15	7500					7	7	7
Merchant's					9000					10	10	0
Red Dream			-10%	40	16000					-10	-10	80
Boneframe		5%	5%		25000					10	10	10
Blackwood		5%	15%	15	64000					15	15	15
Infested
SAILS				Sail
Name	GUID	Travel Speed	Combat Speed	Health	Cost
Linen
Bird****		-5
Berath		5	5	2	500					2	2	2
Cottonweave		5	5	-2	1000					3	3	3
Vithrack				5	1250					5	5	5
Trollstitch		5		10	2250					6	6	6
Valera		5	5	5	4500					7	7	7
Palm		20	20	-7	8500					8	8	8
Gulskin			-5	30	9000					9	9	9
Stormwind		15	15		12500					10	10	10
Mageweave		5	5	5	18000					12	12	12
Dragonwing		10	10	15	40500					15	15	15
Ragged
HELM	(wheel)
Name	GUID	Travel Speed	Combat Speed	Health	Cost
Standard
Ymyran Steel			5		14000					3			6000
Lurker			5		14000
LANTERN
Name	GUID	Travel Speed	Combat Speed	Health	Cost
Standard
Scavenger's		5			4000
Arcane		10			8000					7			6000
Blight		10			8000
ANCHOR
Name	GUID	Travel Speed	Combat Speed	Health	Cost
Standard
Ymyran Steel		5	5		18000					3	3		6000

Living Steel

5

5

18000

 

As you can see, I've tried to make it so that the player isn't as confused about what's better for them. This simple incremental system has similar maximum values, but gives the player a different dilemma over what to buy - they're unlikely to buy all of them - so money will probably be a deciding factor in the early game. 

 

 

@KvellenThanks a lot for that info, I've put it in my spreadsheet.

I think smaller ships should really get a huge advantage at very short range combat, but atm they get annihilated by big ships because they roll the dice so many times (lots of guns). I'm not sure how smart the AI is, but if they're closing to melee, that's a shame because it could have been quite an interesting situation.

Having said this, I think ships full of guns were the answer to pirates in real life, too!

[Svartypops]

21 hours ago, Kvellen said:

The ship combat was something I tried to get into on my first playthrough but fell off of after a while of every single engagement seeming to take a really really long time to play out. I don't know if it is just not explained very well, or that I missed something in the explantion of the mechanics.

Funnily enough, I was watching "Secrets of the Spanish Armada" (drain the oceans) and it reminded me of what I'd been doing in Deadfire! So they did SOMETHING right!

What they said in the documentary was that Spanish vessels returning from South America were full of gold plundered from the Incas/Aztecs.

The English wanted a slice of the pie and commissioned Privateers like Drake to ... well they were pirates. 

The Spanish didn't like that so they sent the Armada to invade England with soldiers and hence stop the piracy by conquering the nation.

The English couldn't compete with the Spanish in traditional BOARDING and melee tactics.

Instead of boarding, the English, who had adapted their tactics to those of the pirates, had packed their ships with as many cannons as possible, and didn't have any troops on them.

Wake up, here's the interesting bit!

So the English did the same as I was doing in the game (sort of) ...

Fire a broadside, come about (AKA jibe, AKA "Do a 180")  and fire a broadside from the other side. 

Then the English would flee to reload. I don't do that in the game - I use cannons that reload about the same amount of time it takes to turn the ship.

-So perhaps each ship type should have a different turn speed, and that turn speed should synchronise with different reload times of various cannons?

 

 

With 600 as max range, perhaps the nimble ships should be hanging out at 400-600 range to avoid those double-bronzers, and damage outside of the cannon's range values should be zero?

Edited July 15, 2021 by Svartypops

[Svartypops]

I have a suspicion that the ship game should take a LOT longer to complete. Repairing gives me that idea - when the AI moves cannoneers to repairing, it's pretty obvious that cannons aren't supposed to be quite so powerful. 

I think the cannons need nerfs to both range and damage, small vessels need to be much faster with much lower hittability (tbh the speed should factor into that equation - I don't know whether it does or not). 

These changes would make The Ship Game much slower.

I don't know that the AI would even play smart with such changes?

Edited July 16, 2021 by Svartypops