205 replies to this topic

[kurigan]

Though I have no model to present, I do propose a discussion about MOCs, so I’ll place it here and if it should be moved I’ll ask the indulgence of the moderators’ to make it right.

Perhaps it's a bit arrogant of me, but I feel as though the plethora of LDD ships I’ve bombarded the forum with have in at least some small way, inspired some other "brick built" hulls in MOCs from others, both in the digital and plastic variety. What I’ve noticed, in all of these, is a lack of consensus in the type of models produced. For my own part I purposely kept my hulls "abbreviated" (a term I coined for myself to describe the shape which my own technique provides) in order to stay more in line with the underlining theme of Classic Pirates. All the vessels of Lego Group’s design are "water line" (stopping at the level where the hull rises above the water) models. The intent of this is so that the ships can be played with or displayed as though they were at sea; making the surface they sit on representative of the ocean's surface. Many of the MOCs I’ve observed as of late are of the full hull variety, requiring some medium in which to bury the hull partially, to achieve the same effect as the water line type, but being of a more accurate disposition. I don't feel there is any superiority either way, nor do I seek to make one more standard than the other. I do, however, wonder if for the sake of direct comparison, (if not healthy competition) has a consensus ever been attempted upon. That is to say is there any standard, written or otherwise, by which models of either type can be fairly judged and compared to counter parts in of the opposite variety?

I may be alone in my desire, but I would be very interested to see how all the vessels of this community would rank amongst one another. Not just by the craftsmanship of the builder but in terms of models as though they were actual ships in a real world setting. Comparing such things as a vessel’s fire power, sailing qualities, overall size, etc. might serve to invigorate discussion and serve to propagate new techniques. I would be very interested to hear what the rest of the community thinks on the subject. If a consensus could be reached, perhaps some sort of registry could be developed.

EDIT: by Big Cam, the rules, tables, and spec sheets are on post 104 of this thread

[Tazmaniac]

As you state yourself this is a discussion thread and should have been posted in the "discussion forum" not the MOC sub-forum.
I'm not sure where your going with this, I don't see any reason to have conformity with in ship building. As with all mocs it's an artistic expression of the builder and to create a standard building guide or judging table seems counter productive to me.
Who will this benefit ?
Why do we need to be judged against one another? (we have comps for that)
This idea sounds to me like something that could stop new ship builders from posting if their techniques are unorthodox.
Have I got the wrong end of the stick here?

[Dockmaster Brickington]

I do not know. It sounds like you might want to make your own website with specific rules and competitions as not to exclude others and that many builders don't care about firepower; some only like minifig decals! It might be a good idea, but may be not on Classic-Pirates with a Variety of MOCs.  

[Capt.JohnPaul]

kurigan, on 12 June 2011 - 01:17 AM, said:

Perhaps it's a bit arrogant of me, but I feel as though the plethora of LDD ships I’ve bombarded the forum with have in at least some small way, inspired some other "brick built" hulls in MOCs from others, both in the digital and plastic variety. What I’ve noticed, in all of these, is a lack of consensus in the type of models produced. For my own part I purposely kept my hulls "abbreviated" (a term I coined for myself to describe the shape which my own technique provides) in order to stay more in line with the underlining theme of Classic Pirates. All the vessels of Lego Group’s design are "water line" (stopping at the level where the hull rises above the water) models. The intent of this is so that the ships can be played with or displayed as though they were at sea; making the surface they sit on representative of the ocean's surface. Many of the MOCs I’ve observed as of late are of the full hull variety, requiring some medium in which to bury the hull partially, to achieve the same effect as the water line type, but being of a more accurate disposition. I don't feel there is any superiority either way, nor do I seek to make one more standard than the other. I do, however, wonder if for the sake of direct comparison, (if not healthy competition) has a consensus ever been attempted upon. That is to say is there any standard, written or otherwise, by which models of either type can be fairly judged and compared to counter parts in of the opposite variety?

So we vote on each others' ships to see whose is better because one ship has been built at water line and others are beyond that and goes below the water?  

Quote

I may be alone in my desire, but I would be very interested to see how all the vessels of this community would rank amongst one another. Not just by the craftsmanship of the builder but in terms of models as though they were actual ships in a real world setting. Comparing such things as a vessel’s fire power, sailing qualities, overall size, etc. might serve to invigorate discussion and serve to propagate new techniques. I would be very interested to hear what the rest of the community thinks on the subject. If a consensus could be reached, perhaps some sort of registry could be developed.

But these two quotes contradict/go against each other, if we vote to see whose is more realistic, it will be the ones with the below-waterline hulled ships, so there is no need to vote. And why vote for fire power? Count the guns, 1,2,3,4... 16 cannons! Now for Joey's HMS Unicorn- 1,2,3...101... it will be no contest.  
And then we vote for techniques and "develop a registry" as you said. Wouldn't that discourage newer members? As far as I'm concerned, this forum isn't a contest, we don't comment on peoples MOCs saying, "pretty good design, though CGH's technique is a lot more mastered IMO..."

Sorry, I don't think this will work.  

[kurigan]

You get me wrong entirely and I don’t want the confusion to perpetuate and ruin the idea before it has a chance. Perhaps my chosen language is a bit complex, allow me to clarify. History shows that competition encourages innovation. Conformity nor exclusion are in no way part of my intentions, particularly as it would be a voluntary thing and more over that no one aspect of design is considered over others.  In my own head, I had envisioned a system that would be fair and encourage inclusion of ships of all kinds. This is just an idea, on which I want to gauge the community’s reaction, and presents no danger of being forced on any one. As for starting my own web site, the internet is far to full of mediocre sites, simply for the sake of over simplification. What draw would anyone have to go join a different blog when there is already such a well populated one right here? Besides, just because there is something going on that you don’t want to be involved in; you shouldn’t feel excluded, or threatened. In fact it might be just as interesting to create a similar thing for mini figures and the characters created through them. All in all, don’t be offended if you don’t like the idea.

[Captain Genaro]

I hate to put a damper on this but I agree with the rest of the comments.

I think that a better idea would be to create a list of MOC's and then group them based off of construction, size, etc. I think that the mods have something similar to this already.

Now, if you want something where individual owners had their ships battle each other,that might be a different story...

[kurigan]

Have to add on just one more clarification, i said nothing about voting, that far to political. you never get a fair ruling it's clearly just turn into a popularity contest. It’d be more creating set values to judge your own work on, then volunteering it for "registry". Furthermore aren't most of these war ships, built for direct and deadly competition? IMO that’s a big part of the fascination with them, so why not make it part of the sharing. Be honest to yourself; you don't compare in your own head any way?

[Capt.JohnPaul]

kurigan, on 12 June 2011 - 03:21 AM, said:

You get me wrong entirely and I don’t want the confusion to perpetuate and ruin the idea before it has a chance. Perhaps my chosen language is a bit complex, allow me to clarify. History shows that competition encourages innovation. Conformity nor exclusion are in no way part of my intentions, particularly as it would be a voluntary thing and more over that no one aspect of design is considered over others.  In my own head, I had envisioned a system that would be fair and encourage inclusion of ships of all kinds. This is just an idea, on which I want to gauge the community’s reaction, and presents no danger of being forced on any one. As for starting my own web site, the internet is far to full of mediocre sites, simply for the sake of over simplification. What draw would anyone have to go join a different blog when there is already such a well populated one right here? Besides, just because there is something going on that you don’t want to be involved in; you shouldn’t feel excluded, or threatened. In fact it might be just as interesting to create a similar thing for mini figures and the characters created through them. All in all, don’t be offended if you don’t like the idea.

Yes, history does show competition creates innovation, but there can hardly be innovation if there is a "system", as you say. And trust me, history shows "systems" cannot really be fair to everyone as this system would have to include all ships, so there is no system at all, I believe. If you are instead think that we should just create a topic that shows ships and let's us discuss the best techniques, how could a new member react when someone comments on his moc asking why not to use said technique. If people really wanted to gauge techniques or make a census, we already have an index for that.

EDIT: Yes, we all compare, so why need to have a discussion about it?. And as Capt. Genaro said, if ships would battle eachother, that would be pretty cool. Ex: all ship-o-lines fight each other in brackets, and winners move on, and same for smaller ships, though then we would have to say one ship is the "champion", I don't have a problem with that, but declaring who wins on technique is to negative, we must put in a more tactical aspect.

EDIT EDIT: kurigan, if you like the battle idea perhaps we could PM each other and overtime create a system in which we could decide would be fair to declare whose is the most fierce warship? Just PM and perhaps we could get into details, and if Genaro would join in, he might want to as he was the first to say the idea. Let us know.

Edited by Capt.JohnPaul, 12 June 2011 - 03:44 AM.

[kurigan]

I appreciate the invitation and in time may take you up on it but the whole idea is to be non exclusive, if the three of us take the idea “behind closed doors” and run it with it, isn’t that exactly what we’re doing? And again as I stated all aspects of design would factor in, if you’re like me for example and all you can muster is a tiny brig with fourteen or so “pop guns” on deck, consider building her for speed, this way if anything throws up an unfriendly signal, don’t fight, “run like smoke and oakum” and you’ll still win the day.

[Horry]

Lucky me to have gotten up that early this mornin'. This gave me the time to prepare an answer to this interesting discussion. I do not mind a comparison of the vessels on this board because this is what we do all the time here, anyway. We don't do it by system, we do not state it explicitly, but I'd say we all have thoughts like "oh, this looks alot like..." and "those sails are good, but not as good as..."

It hardly matters for me as long as we stay focussed on being constructive. If the more experienced folks around here had not compared my creations to better ones and pointed out errors, I would never have gotten better in building.


Now to the part where I got up early. The combat idea is a great thing and I took the liberty to prepare some suggestions. I am a member of a roleplaying game group (Star Trek pen & paper, that is) ans there we've got a complex 2D battle system for planetary fights (something for the evenin' after finishing the p&P game). I took some of the rules and tried to translate them into a system for doin' fights with our ships. Tell me what you think! I'll do an example in a few minutes. The rules are a bit complicated but they are fun!

Rules for Rocks and Shoals

Rocks & Shoals is a turn-based strategy game for Lego-ships.
A game consists of turns in which both sides make their turns in terms of moving the ship, firing and doing other actions.
It is possible for players to participate alone or in groups of players.

In order to participate, players have to give aerial view pictures of their brick-built vessels and the specifications. While this gives a great opportunity to cheat, we assume that it makes just more fun to see how your ship would perform the way it actually is.

Basic rules

 Premises

• The game host sets up the map with all the vessels and a wind direction (that will not change during game).

• All players will give the co-ordinates of their moves or their actions in the thread and wait for the game host to alter the map.

• If an opponent comes into weapons range, broadside, single cannons and muskets can be fired. The game host determines how much damage has been done.

• A fight can be fought between two opponents or more. Before the game starts (done in a board-thread), players apply to the game host and present their ships and the relevant ship-overviews with the features required. The features are:

 Attributes of a ship

• Offensive
• Officers
• +marines
• +sailors
• +cannons
• = attack

• Defensive
• hull
• +structure
• +equipment
• = health

• sails
• speed in irons (against the wind) = no movement possible
• close-hauled = slow movement
• speed running (with the wind)
• beam breach (45° angle of wind/sails)


• additional
• dinghy (enables to break free if the ship has hit ground)
• flags (enables communication between allies)
• music corps (boosts morale and increases damage)
• special features, such as customized mini-figs, etc. (can boost different things – are decided by the host)
• special crewmembers (can provide different bonuses)

 Attack rules

• There are different types of cannons with different attributes
Attributes: damage|range|recharging time

• 9 pounders (10|3|1)
• 12 pounders (15|4|2)
• 24 pounders (25|5|5)
• mortar (10|10|5) - no movement

• There must be at least 4 officers on-board every vessel. If they get killed, there are disadvantages
• Captain killed = - 2 speed - 4 damage
• Lieutenant killed = -2 range
• Ensign killed = +2 recharging time (two ensigns)

• There are different numbers of crewmen on-board different vessels. The more are killed, the less performance the vessel will give.
• per 25% dead = -2 speed -2 attack +2 recharging time

 Defence rules

• The bigger a vessel is, the more damage it can take.

• Certain equipment/crewmembers can provide additional health:
• carpenter: regenerates +5 points every 4 rounds
• ship's surgeon: can save an officer (chances 50/50)
• bilge pumps: eliminate damage that occurs when hitting the ground
• ship’s cook: can save a crewmember with a good meal (chances 50/50)


 Special events

• Hitting ground

There are small areas where there are shoals. If a bigger ship passes them it can hit the ground. It will then take a total of 10 damage and must be gotten free by warping (five rounds without being able to move)
If there is a dinghy onboad, the ship can come free within two rounds

• Manoeuvres

If a team has got signal flags, they can use it to make battle manoeuvres. Those manoeuvres must be announced at the beginning of the turn. In order to perform a manoeuvre, the opponent must be in range. A manoeuvre can be performed every three rounds.

• Line of battle - there must not be more space in-between the ships than two squares - attack per ship +5 | taken damage per ship -5

• Suffren Attack - concentrating fire on a single opponent that must be announced - rate of fire per ship +1

• Eldin Attack - attacking an opponent that must be announced from the rear - attack per ship +10 | taken damage per ship + 5

The battlegrounds

The maps used in the game are grid squares with coordinates using numbers and letters.
Within the maps can be solid areas like islands and rocks and hidden obstacles like shoals. Solid areas cannot be passed; shoals can only be passed by smaller ships.

The standard grid resembles a 16x16 baseplate.

The compass rose on the right top shows the cardinal directions, the speed of the wind and the direction of the wind. The latter two will not change within a game but can change from game to game.

There are a moon or a sun next to the compass rose. They indicate whether it is day or night.
Day: full visibility.
Night: Obstacles more than 10 grids away must be spotted by a lookout.

Next to both symbols are the size of the map in studs and the name of the map.

Example:

exmple island von HMSCentaur auf Flickr

Edited by Horry, 14 June 2011 - 12:38 PM.

[Capt.JohnPaul]

Horry, on 12 June 2011 - 01:42 PM, said:

Now to the part where I got up early. The combat idea is a great thing and I took the liberty to prepare some suggestions. I am a member of a roleplaying game group (Star Trek pen & paper, that is) ans there we've got a complex 2D battle system for planetary fights (something for the evenin' after finishing the p&P game). I took some of the rules and tried to translate them into a system for doin' fights with our ships. Tell me what you think! I'll do an example in a few minutes. The rules are a bit complicated but they are fun!

This is what I was thinking, I just skimmed it real fast. And kurigan, if you can only muster a brig, we have brigs on brigs, or have a fleet of brigs vs a larger ship. Though I guess this battle scenario wasn't what you had in mind. Now, Horry, if you want it like the clone/star wars thing in the game section, perhaps contact dragonator?

Edited by Capt.JohnPaul, 12 June 2011 - 02:56 PM.

[Tazmaniac]

That's great Horry and something I'm sure a few members would enjoy doing!
This in essence is a war game and assuming players are realistic with their ships, crew and armaments could be a great deal of fun, even fleet battles could be done with multi players once rules and game play becomes familiar.

I'm not sure if this was the intention of this thread but I like the spin you've put on it.

[Horry]

So, this definetly took a while. I had to prepare some data-tables and do some research, but here it is:

This would be the examples of two very famous Lego-vessels around here:

The Admiral Croissant's Vesta (with his kind permission) and Redbeard's Black Seas Barracuda (Well, I didn't ask him!)


Example 2 von HMSCentaur auf Flickr


Example 1 von HMSCentaur auf Flickr


Now, I added some rules here and there up there (a third speed for example). I tried out some short games on paper and the rules seem to work, at least in a one-on-one game (haven't tried fleet combat, yet).

Edited by Horry, 12 June 2011 - 06:30 PM.

[mobricki]

This game looks cool Horry I think I would be interested in playing this with my 100 gun first rate that I'm building.

[Horry]

Now, I need your help with the graphics. I have troubles deciding how to depict the ships that are used. There are some possibilities:

(1) everyone taking part in the game has to make a photo of his/her ship in aerial view on white ground. the ship can be directly included in the batteground.

(2) the ships are displayed in simple 2D - paint graphics that can be adjusted to resemble the ships accordingly.

(3) we use LDD-creations of the ships - effective but loads of work.

(4) we use micro-scale LDD versions of our ships. I've created a quick template that everybody could use to re-create a small representation of his/her ship.

What do you think would be suited best? Do you have more ideas?


Templates von HMSCentaur auf Flickr

[Capt.JohnPaul]

Horry, choose  number 1 definitely. With LDD from far away, (to see the entire vessel), you can't see the studs and details. While in real life, you can. I wouldn't do mini models because they make great ships like the Vesta seem not as powerful.(small tiny little thing compared to the actual ship in all its glory   ) Also in LDD, somethings you can't do that ARE physically possible in real brick building, so maybe advanced techniques couldn't be displayed. And I wouldn't suggest a paint program, because then it doesn't appeal to the mind as a LEGO ship, just a graphical drawing.

So my choices in order from    to   are
(1) everyone taking part in the game has to make a photo of his/her ship in aerial view on white ground. the ship can be directly included in the batteground.
(4) we use micro-scale LDD versions of our ships. I've created a quick template that everybody could use to re-create a small representation of his/her ship.
(3) we use LDD-creations of the ships - effective but loads of work. (yes, lots of work   )
(2) the ships are displayed in simple 2D - paint graphics that can be adjusted to resemble the ships accordingly.

I hope you see my logic here.
Capt.JohnPaul

[Admiral Croissant]

I think your first idea is the easiest, the fastest and the nicest way of doing this.
Creating ships like the Vesta in LDD would indeed take ages, and I think some building techniques aren't even possible.
And I think perhaps we should think of something to make this game look even more attractive (although it already looks better than the SW-game )

[Capt.JohnPaul]

Admiral Croissant, on 13 June 2011 - 04:14 PM, said:

And I think perhaps we should think of something to make this game look even more attractive (although it already looks better than the SW-game )

I know! I know! Everyone put in some money! If the ships are on a solid color background, we could "green/what ever color background screen in the ocean like in Admiral Croissant's signature. And we could take different pictures of the ship to show what direction it's going.

[Horry]

Capt.JohnPaul, on 13 June 2011 - 04:43 PM, said:

I know! I know! Everyone put in some money! If the ships are on a solid color background, we could "green/what ever color background screen in the ocean like in Admiral Croissant's signature. And we could take different pictures of the ship to show what direction it's going.

Yes, that'll be easy, using photoshop or somethin' similar! Okay, aerial view pictures it is, then!

Continuing.... I am doing some battlegrounds including the classic pirates baseplates and I will completely rework the approved-vessels sheets for some eye-candy-effects.

[Phred]

Horry, on 12 June 2011 - 01:42 PM, said:

Now to the part where I got up early. The combat idea is a great thing and I took the liberty to prepare some suggestions. I am a member of a roleplaying game group (Star Trek pen & paper, that is) ans there we've got a complex 2D battle system for planetary fights (something for the evenin' after finishing the p&P game). I took some of the rules and tried to translate them into a system for doin' fights with our ships. Tell me what you think! I'll do an example in a few minutes. The rules are a bit complicated but they are fun!

I believe that we should create rules and stats based on the ESPG that some people either play or already play.  Granted there will definitely need to be modifications to the ESPG rules for each individually designed MOC, where the ESPG is primarily made for standard Lego ships.

I have started with using the Mass of the non-MOC ships and graphed it against the Hull Points from ESPG. There is satisfactory correlation for a conversion from Mass to ESPG Hull Points. The more bricks you build a ship with, the more it weighs and the more hitpoints it has.

Horry, on 12 June 2011 - 01:42 PM, said:

sails

• speed in irons (against the wind)

• Beam Reach (partially with the wind)


• speed running (with the wind)

-snip-
The bigger a vessel is, the slower it is but the more damage it can take.

Sailing speeds according to wind speed and direction can actually be very complex, depending upon how complex we'd like to get.  I struggled with this for a couple years following comments about the creation of my own Pirate Game.  

Since then, I have been able to work out a maximum speed formula that I am satisfied with.  It uses the attributes of a ship's sail area, mass, hull length, and beam.  The formula "behaves" as I would expect it to.  The longer a vessel is and/or the more sail area it has, the faster it goes.  The more beam and/or mass a vessel has, the slower it goes.  I have no problem sharing the formula.  My brother is currently reviewing it in an Excel file that I had made.  The excel file is currently way more detailed than it needs to be though.

From what I've read, frigates and vessels slightly smaller than frigates seem to be the fastest vessels and brigs or ships-of-the-line are the slowest.  The brig, HMS Sophie in the book Master and Commander, had a top speed of about 8 knots (if I remember correctly).  The great lakes schooners traveled (and still travel) at around 11 to 12 knots under sail.  According to the Wiki articles, the USS Constitution's and HMS Surprise's top speeds are 14 and 15 knots respectfully, and the HMS Victory has a top speed of about 8 or 9 knots.

Horry, on 12 June 2011 - 01:42 PM, said:

[*]music corps (boosts morale and increases damage)
[/list]

I really like this idea.

Horry, on 12 June 2011 - 01:42 PM, said:

There are 4 officers onboard every vessel. If they get killed, there are disadvantages

The number of officers on a vessel usually correlates with the number of crew or the size of the ship.
Off the top of my head,
There's the boatswain, sailing master, Marine officer(s), midshipmen, etc.

[Horry]

I do know that the handling of a ship changes accordingly if the ship is brought more into or against the wind and that having luffposition would be a key advantage.

I've read your rule-theories and find them to be most fascinating and impressing. However, while I find these suggestions to be incredibly accurate, I created my suggestions for the sake of playability. It took a bunch of highly organized, well trained geeks for Star Trek like my RPG group half a year to realize, that sometimes it's more fun to simply add a rule than searching for the power coupling that would make it possible for the phasers to be more powerful in that tank.

The rules I suggested are far from being complete and I do not mind at all if they are changed or dropped completely for the sake of another game. But I'd really advice to allow ourselfs a little artistic freedom here. Sailing is fun, but before anything else, it's frikkin' hard work and damn complicated, the bigge the thing gets.



As for the officers: my bad, I didn't want to implicate that there are only four officers but only made rules for those  

[Dread Pirate Wesley]

This is an interesting idea, though I admit I was a little offended by the OP as it discourages the innovation that makes this forum so interesting (to me anyways).  With the way the rules are developing, a frigate built with CGH technique could go to battle with my schooner Pickle, or even cb4's xebec in a fairly realistic battle, is this what we are trying to achieve here?  This would be a fantastic idea if it can work, and I like Phred's idea of uniform formulas for MOC's rather than trying to standardize peoples ships.  I have 4 ships right now from 6 to 64 guns all using different techniques so it would be fun to see how they would fair in battle!  Ill be following this with interest, but please let's try to incorporate rather than discourage as many different techniques and styles as we can  

Dread Pirate Wesley

[Horry]

Dread Pirate Wesley, on 13 June 2011 - 09:13 PM, said:

This is an interesting idea, though I admit I was a little offended by the OP as it discourages the innovation that makes this forum so interesting (to me anyways).  With the way the rules are developing, a frigate built with CGH technique could go to battle with my schooner Pickle, or even cb4's xebec in a fairly realistic battle, is this what we are trying to achieve here?  This would be a fantastic idea if it can work, and I like Phred's idea of uniform formulas for MOC's rather than trying to standardize peoples ships.  I have 4 ships right now from 6 to 64 guns all using different techniques so it would be fun to see how they would fair in battle!  Ill be following this with interest, but please let's try to incorporate rather than discourage as many different techniques and styles as we can  

Dread Pirate Wesley

Okay, now that gives me somethin' to work with. If the folks around here are so deep into the whole stuff that talking about formulas is no problem, then I love it! Just didn't want to scare people away.
I'd start programming a calculator for the ships based on Phred's formula if he gives permission to do so.

[SkaForHire]

A long time ago (maybe  up to 12 years ago), in a whole different pirate forum we had a fleet listing which were put together in order to determine whose fleet would win in an overall contest. Only a few people wanted to participate because some people had very large fleets. So we made different fleet size categories, and a "build your own fleet" with a ship amount limit of 5 category. It really just ended up a long debate on what made some ships better than others. It was also clear that the guy with 50+ ships would win any battle and could take out the next 3 largest fleets on his own. What I am getting at was that this debate actually just sputtered and made people angry. I see that doing this to make a game would be interesting, but I think taking input on rules is a slippery slope. In all honesty, two people should just come up with some rules, post them, and play a game or two with them. IF the rules look too biased, then others don't have to play. They can even come up with a competing game. Then after two games or so, an open forum to discuss improvements would be good, because then others would know the game mechanics.

I would like to see a rating system, the wargamer / boardgame geek in me says that would be really cool. However, I don't want to see 75% of the MOCers here limited by a set of rules. In fact, Evil Stevies Pirate game already creates a set of rules that some people try to build by - I find a lot of those models stale because they are conforming to the game. Although I applaud mass war-gaming at any level.

Still, I would be interested in seeing what you all come up with.

[Capt.JohnPaul]

SkaForHire, on 13 June 2011 - 10:17 PM, said:

A long time ago (maybe  up to 12 years ago), in a whole different pirate forum we had a fleet listing which were put together in order to determine whose fleet would win in an overall contest. Only a few people wanted to participate because some people had very large fleets. So we made different fleet size categories, and a "build your own fleet" with a ship amount limit of 5 category. It really just ended up a long debate on what made some ships better than others. It was also clear that the guy with 50+ ships would win any battle and could take out the next 3 largest fleets on his own. What I am getting at was that this debate actually just sputtered and made people angry. I see that doing this to make a game would be interesting, but I think taking input on rules is a slippery slope. In all honesty, two people should just come up with some rules, post them, and play a game or two with them. IF the rules look too biased, then others don't have to play. They can even come up with a competing game. Then after two games or so, an open forum to discuss improvements would be good, because then others would know the game mechanics.

Are you getting the posts confused? When you say "rules" and "game" like that, it sounds like you are getting an idea that is a mixture of kurigan and Horry. Kurigan was the one that wanted a census taken and to compare ships based on certain rules or techniques. Horry is creating a game, there is no rules on technique, just rules on how much damage a certain cannon would do, or how far a ship could sail in 1 turn. There is no rule stated to be able to play, you must follow some building technique. This also would be fair because we wouldn't have a fleet against a smaller fleet, I would like to establish brackets were brigs go against brigs and so on. So we wouldn't have a first rate attack a 6th rate. Each battle is fair unless the players announce otherwise. ("How about we see what happens when my frigate attacks your frigate AND brig at the same time!")