kurigan

A proposal

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(2) What do you think of the fights? I noticed that I haven't shown my tables for calculating the casualties. It is done in a similar fashion as the damage: 25% of the crew will be killed off if the hull damage increased up to 25% and so on. Additionally, there will be 2 possible victims among the special crewmembers, determined with a D20.

I would like to see these tables that you're using.

(3)I've come to the conclusion that we have to work on the rules for bringing the ship into firing position. If you can fire the broadside anytime and then go off to any square, the game becomes too lenient in my opinion. Would you agree if we say that a broadside determines the course? e.g. You fire a broadside with the course being west, you have to go west afterwards for the remainder of this turn? Or shall we say that changing course by more than 90° will use up the turn anyway? The rule is now:

You can pivot up to 90° if you want to be able to fire a broadside OR you can make a >90° turn but NO broadside

You think that this is enough?

A vessel will typically bring in sail when firing at another vessel. They bring in sail to decrease chances of the sails catching on fire and only use the lower main sails which are the easiest to maneuver during a battle. My idea would have a vessel lower its speed when it begins firing a broadsides.

A slower vessel probably would not be able to turn as much in a turn either.

(5)Concerning the islands: There'll be no cannibals with me in this game, sorry mates - I've outlined my stubborn opinion on this matter in this thread and I would be not happy if I had to support prejudices against other peoples. But if you agree, we could discuss point 6 to replace the islanders.

Islanders aren't prejudice. They'll eat anybody. :pir-laugh:

However, it's not a big deal if we can't have cannibals.

(6)we could position little pirate forts that could attack anyone that comes close - if the forts are destroyed or taken by marines, they could be salvaged for bonuses. What do you think?

I think this is a good idea. :thumbup:

5/6) Pirates/ islanders/Redcoats/Blue coats all sound good to me , maybe it could be any of these factions with a single rule set. The game master can choose one that fits the map/battle.

A thought that I had would be to have your ship choosing a faction that it belongs to between Red Coats, Blue Coats, or Pirates. All of which would provide certain benefits and penalties to your vessel and crew.

A vessel that goes to a friendly report could come in for repairs, upgrades, additional crew, etc.

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Oh, btw, I tried to animate the battle by using MS moviemaker - guess, I'll have to get Premiere out again... :pir-sceptic:

Here's my akward result anyway:

Battle 1

On topic: The tables just crashed in my face when I tried to convert them into a state that is compatible to other systems :pir_bawling: - I used a standard RPG ability-testing-program we use at our Star Trek game. Guess, I'll have to get back to our admin-nerd or even better: just rewrite it in excel.

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Here's my akward result anyway:

Battle 1

I love the music. It's pretty cool how you put the entire battle together. :thumbup:

On topic: The tables just crashed in my face when I tried to convert them into a state that is compatible to other systems :pir_bawling: - I used a standard RPG ability-testing-program we use at our Star Trek game. Guess, I'll have to get back to our admin-nerd or even better: just rewrite it in excel.

Is there a link available to download the program (in English :blush: )?

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I love the music. It's pretty cool how you put the entire battle together. :thumbup:

Thanks! It's a part of "Pictures at an Exhibition" by Mussorgsky

Is there a link available to download the program (in English :blush: )?

I am afraid not - so far, we've only had German members and there has been no need to make an international version - I will see to it but it could take some time.

Anyway, I have started rewriting the tables and think I'll have them up and running again (AND public) by tomorrow.

Edited by Horry

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I think that you should add something so that when a ship sinks, the remaining crew has a chance to board the longboat ( if the ship has one) or grab onto a piece of wreckage. Then, a passing ship could pick them up and they could join the crew or be captured.

Also, I felt like the battle was a little short compared to the time that it took for the ships to reach each other.

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A thought that I had would be to have your ship choosing a faction that it belongs to between Red Coats, Blue Coats, or Pirates. All of which would provide certain benefits and penalties to your vessel and crew.

A vessel that goes to a friendly report could come in for repairs, upgrades, additional crew, etc.

Yes that's a great idea and an attack on enemy ports could also provide extra crew though press ganging ( with the chance of mutiny ).

Ports would have a set number of hit points and cannons, once conquered the port would fly your flag and ship repairs ect could be done there.

These rules could be good for larger fleet battles but too much for one on one.

On another note I think larger battles could have multi players on each side.

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Yes that's a great idea and an attack on enemy ports could also provide extra crew though press ganging ( with the chance of mutiny ).

Ports would have a set number of hit points and cannons, once conquered the port would fly your flag and ship repairs ect could be done there.

These rules could be good for larger fleet battles but too much for one on one.

On another note I think larger battles could have multi players on each side.

Well, I always thought that the rules would make it possible for two players to join the same faction.

If we read it all like that, people could also build their custom harbours - but I did not say that! :innocent2:

Captain Genaro: that actually would be a good idea, but there would be normally not enough time to launch a longboat if your were sinking. All small crafts had to be stored away tightly when there was the beat to quarters in order to guarantee safety if there would be a sharp turning manoeuvre. This would also ensure that the crew would fight to the last man.

But if the powder magazine did not explode during battle, there could be survivors for a certain amount of time - an idea that I like very much! :thumbup:

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What about swivel guns like the one on the Brickbeard's Bounty? Do you need a turn to change the direction the gun? Swivel guns negate the disadvantage of having to change direction of the ship to fire. Is there a limit for the arc of fire?

In my opinion, swivel guns could work like how you make a broadside

You can pivot up to 90° if you want to be able to fire a broadside OR you can make a >90° turn but NO broadside
only the ship doesn't have to change direction at all.

About the multiple players joining the same faction, I think this is a great idea but because of the different timezones members are in, the game might take a lot of time to play. The more players there are, the longer it would take to finish a game. Also, too many players on one side might make the game one-sided although this issue is also present in the large fleet versus small fleet situation.

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About the multiple players joining the same faction, I think this is a great idea but because of the different timezones members are in, the game might take a lot of time to play. The more players there are, the longer it would take to finish a game. Also, too many players on one side might make the game one-sided although this issue is also present in the large fleet versus small fleet situation.

When people commit to playing an online game there are usually guide line as to how often they must post a turn.

The rule of tumb is you must take a turn every 24 hours, if people can not find a few minutes a day to post their moves then this type of game is not for them. If for some reason some one can not or has not posted their move and is holding up game play then the Admiral (team leader) of that team moves thier ship for them.

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Horry asked, I answered

(1) looks good enough, as long its fun to play

(2) -

(3)

I think you should have your broadside facing the other ship before you can fire the broadside

(4)

It looks good to me

(5)

To much different groups will make it too complicated I think

(6)

Sounds good

(7)

Yes good idea the crowsnest

or like you have a visibility range around your ship, which gets bigger with a crowsnest

(like the rest is in a fog)

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Dear sailors,

Here's the complete 1.1 version of rocks & shoals!

Please give your kudos to Phred for doin' a marvellous job with the new sheets!

Here are the sheets

Here are the rules

Here are the templates for ships

We need your feedback on the first two files, it would be greatly appreciated :pir-classic:

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I have just gone through the rules and the templates and the sheets. I have a question in mind. Are 2 squares per round the maximum movement you can have?

Also, when will the next beta test be up?

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Looks great guys.

Just one question, do the "events" occur from a dice roll or just add at the Game masters discretion?

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The rules are getting really well developed. I'm not sure I understand how some things scale, however - for the special attacks, it indicates that the damage increases by a fixed number of points. Is this per gun?

Also, if a ship runs aground it always takes 10 points of damage. It seems like it would make more sense for it to take a percentage of its hitpoints in damage, since this would otherwise give larger ships (which were most vulnerable to grounding and would tend to take the greatest damage due to their great weight) an advantage. Perhaps the speed of the ship should be taken into consideration as well. Maybe the faster a ship is sailing, the more damage running aground causes and the longer it takes to warp the ship off.

Also, I'd like the ability to slip my cable and not be penalized a turn for weighing. This would of course mean you lose the anchor.

I'm not sure about the damage to the masts - if I have a very fast ship (maybe one with only two masts) and I lose my main mast, it should have a massive impact on my ship's speed, but right now it will only reduce all my speeds by 1. It will also have no impact on the sailing qualities of my ship. Also, what happens when the die comes up for a special events that cannot happen more than once or cannot happen at all (if the ship doesn't have a given feature, for example)?

Unfortunately I can't run the tables as I don't have something that will deal with .xls files. Would it be possible to get them in another format or just the raw data as a .csv or something?

Are fore-and-aft rigs treated differently with respect to speeds and their best points of sail?

There doesn't seem to be any mention of boarding in the rules. Is it possible to carry another vessel by boarding?

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I think the only method of attack is by broadside.

If enemy vessels pass each other, they can exchange fire
It does seem like an interesting suggestion though.

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Also, if a ship runs aground it always takes 10 points of damage. It seems like it would make more sense for it to take a percentage of its hitpoints in damage, since this would otherwise give larger ships (which were most vulnerable to grounding and would tend to take the greatest damage due to their great weight) an advantage. Perhaps the speed of the ship should be taken into consideration as well. Maybe the faster a ship is sailing, the more damage running aground causes and the longer it takes to warp the ship off.

I agree with taking a percentage of the original hitpoints instead of a fixed value when a vessel runs aground.

I'm not sure about the damage to the masts - if I have a very fast ship (maybe one with only two masts) and I lose my main mast, it should have a massive impact on my ship's speed, but right now it will only reduce all my speeds by 1. It will also have no impact on the sailing qualities of my ship.

It could get real complicated real fast if there were toggles for every type of possible rigging configuration in the Excel file.

If a person does loose a mast, the player maybe should re-enter their vessel's sail area for the vessel's updated speed with the downed mast.

Unfortunately I can't run the tables as I don't have something that will deal with .xls files. Would it be possible to get them in another format or just the raw data as a .csv or something?

There is an xls file viewer available online at Microsofts website.

Are fore-and-aft rigs treated differently with respect to speeds and their best points of sail?

Fore and aft sails are not treated differently. However, square and lateen-rigged sails are treated differently with their best points of sail.

There doesn't seem to be any mention of boarding in the rules. Is it possible to carry another vessel by boarding?

I like the idea of boarding rules. It's how most vessels were taken over in that era. There were not a lot of ships that were sunk during combat.

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It could get real complicated real fast if there were toggles for every type of possible rigging configuration in the Excel file.

If a person does loose a mast, the player maybe should re-enter their vessel's sail area for the vessel's updated speed with the downed mast.

That's a nice, simple solution. :thumbup:

Unfortunately it's not available for Mac. I am able to open and edit the .xls is OpenOffice, but I can't see the results of any calculations. I can see the results in Quick Look, though, so I've been able to try some things.

I did run into some odd behaviour, but I'm not sure if it's just because my setup doesn't work quite right. I tried punching in the numbers for my Xebec (a full hull model), which has a hull length of 80 studs, a beam of 22 studs, a total sail area (estimated based on the drawings and the scale I've chosen) of 4371 square studs, and a weight (again estimated using a lever and a 5 lb weight) of 750 g (so I'm going to say 900 g completed with rigging), with twenty 9 pounder guns.

Without guns the estimated maximum speed was given as 10.2 knots. I'm not sure if the full hull part was taken into account here as Open Office can't seem to make heads or tails of the radio button for that.

I found that adding the guns reduced the ship's speed to 5.5 knots, but that the ship's speed went up immediately if I then added more weight. I was able to add more weight up to 10 kg and still get more speed (up to 8.3 knots) that way. At 15 kg the speed starts dropping again.

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That's a nice, simple solution. :thumbup:

Unfortunately it's not available for Mac. I am able to open and edit the .xls is OpenOffice, but I can't see the results of any calculations. I can see the results in Quick Look, though, so I've been able to try some things.

I did run into some odd behaviour, but I'm not sure if it's just because my setup doesn't work quite right. I tried punching in the numbers for my Xebec (a full hull model), which has a hull length of 80 studs, a beam of 22 studs, a total sail area (estimated based on the drawings and the scale I've chosen) of 4371 square studs, and a weight (again estimated using a lever and a 5 lb weight) of 750 g (so I'm going to say 900 g completed with rigging), with twenty 9 pounder guns.

Without guns the estimated maximum speed was given as 10.2 knots. I'm not sure if the full hull part was taken into account here as Open Office can't seem to make heads or tails of the radio button for that.

I found that adding the guns reduced the ship's speed to 5.5 knots, but that the ship's speed went up immediately if I then added more weight. I was able to add more weight up to 10 kg and still get more speed (up to 8.3 knots) that way. At 15 kg the speed starts dropping again.

I shall leave the answer to that to our sheets-expert Phred :innocent2:

I agree on your suggestion to use a percentage of the total health instead of the fixed points.

Yes, the damage will increase per gun.

concerning the boarding: While I totally agree that this would be a neat idea, the problem with this is the terrible work it'll mean for the game master and the players to set this up: There is an immense difference between the numbers of the crews on different MOCs (for example: some of the brigs around here use more sailors than some frigates) and the equipment of the sailors. Additionally: what can swivel guns do in a situation like that and what rules to set up for encountering the ship's cook?

So.... this text I have written just to make me look better as I have made a set of rules for the boarding of an enemy's MOC! :pir-grin:

Boarding your enemy:

Feel like visiting your foe today? No problem, just get near enough the enemy's vessel to board it. Boarding is a little bit like a game within the game, so be sure to read those rules carefully before you try it in combat.

There are two different figures important while boarding: Attack and Defense. Choosing different sailors, weapons and tactics will influence those two figures. If your Attack altogether is higher than the Defense of the enemy, the boarding is successful and your tactic will work. If your Attack is lower than the Defense, your men will be killed during the attack and your enemy can choose to try a boarding himself.

please be fair and use only the equipment that your crew ACTUALLY HAS.

Boarding a ship will only take one turn.

(1) preparing the boarding

in order to board a ship, you must either have a dinghy or be in the same square grid as your enemy STEERING THE SAME COURSE.

You must prepare your crew for boarding a ship at least one turn before by writing a PM to the game host.

This PM must include:

-The sailors used (different sailors have different features)

-the weaponry used

-the tactic used

You publicy announce that you board the ship in the combat thread.

The enemy can now try to prevent the boarding and prepare the ship for a man-to-man-fight.

(2) what sailors to use

-a boarding party must have at least one officer that carries a cutlass and a pistol

-one officer can command up to 10 sailors

-a marine squad does need no officer but cannot use the tactic "taking her a prize"

(3) weaponry and equipment

-a cutlass has an Attack of 5 and a Defense of 5. The numbers are displayed like this: 5|5

-a pistol has 10|5

-a rifle has 10|10

-a swivel gun has 10|30

-a grenade has 15|0

-a knive has 5|5

-anti boarding nets/rails have 0|20

-frying pan has 0|10

(4) crew

-the captain has 30|30 (can use cutlass and pistol)

-a lieutenant has 5|10 (can use cutlass and pistol)

-a midshipman has 10|5 (can use cutlass and pistol)

-a crewman has 5|5 (can use cutlass OR grenade OR knive)

-a marine has 10|10 (can use rifle and pistol)

-a marine officer has 15|10 (can use cutlass and pistol)

-a cook has 5|15 (can use cutlass OR frying pan)

-other specialists have 0|5 (can use cutlass)

(5) attack tactics

-hit and run - making as much damage as possible and be gone: 50|-20

if it succeed, the defending crew will be killed and the boarded ship will sustain a total of 50% damage

-taking her a prize - taking over the ship: 0|-30

if it succeeds the ship will be handed over to the the boarding player. The boarding party has to stay on the prize.

-damaging a part of the ship: 70|-40

if it succeeds the named part of the enemy's ship wil be destroyed (e.g. the rudder)

(6) defense tactics

-repel the boarding - try to use all hands to prevent the boarding -50|50

using ALL crew and equipment to defend the ship (so all the crew can get killed)

-make a stand - try to use a part of the crew to defend the ship -30|30

choose how much crew will be used and what equipment

-counterattack - bring the fight to the enemy - 30|0

choose two units and equip them to defend your ship and board the enemy at the same time

EDIT: (didn't want to do another double post)

I'd like you to consider this additional idea:

maneuvre:

-ramming the enemy - if you manage to ram the enemy (must be officially announced in the battle thread), half of your remaining hp will be used to damage the enemy's vessel and vice versa.

When we have discussed all the additional rules and ideas and made the 1.1. version of the game "stable", I'd like to make a gamma-test afterwards, including two fleets consisting of two players each (four altogether). You can apply now :pir-sweet:

Edited by Horry

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Perhaps you can add a 25% defense extra to ships with tumblehome. In the age of sails, tumblehome was utilized because it could make boarding difficult. Also, the ramming idea seems a little outdated for this game. We aren't using Roman triremes or Viking longboats, we are using galleons, frigates and brigs in the 16th to 19th century. Ramming was already an obsolete concept at that time.

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Perhaps you can add a 25% defense extra to ships with tumblehome. In the age of sails, tumblehome was utilized because it could make boarding difficult. Also, the ramming idea seems a little outdated for this game. We aren't using Roman triremes or Viking longboats, we are using galleons, frigates and brigs in the 16th to 19th century. Ramming was already an obsolete concept at that time.

Well, as it was also used to stabilise the vessel's centre of balance and went with almost every constructed ship of the time, it seems a little redundant to me to include this. But let's gather some more opinions on that theme.

While I do find it funny that you of all folks around here want to tell me something about outdated ideas for the game :pir-grin: I know what you mean. It will be difficult enough to catch an enemy's vessel anyway and it was more meant as a last resort, not as a standard method of attack :pir-hmpf_bad:

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I'm keen to take part in further testing so count me in. So who dares challenge the the Hell Hound and who will join her ? We'll take Blue Coat faction so the other team will need to be pirates or reds.

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Ramming wasn't THAT outdated. (John Paul Johns rammed the Serapis and boarded her and took the ship. And I'd like to apply for the 2 vs 2 though if someone else wants too, they can as I already played.

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I want to join the battle. The faction system would make Rocks and Shoals more exciting to play, plus, this would be the first fight with islands or outposts.

About the whole ramming concept, I think it was more of a last ditch effort, sort of a suicidal attempt to sink another ship. There were very few examples of it used in the age of sail although it could still be added to the game.

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