Naval Action coming to Steam EA on the 21st......

[JasonPratt]

It's an Age of Sail game: I DEMAND GIANT RATS FOR VERISIMILITUDE!

Also, rum and the lash. The sodomy they can make an optional DLC, on the Paradox model.

[MengJiao]

I played Spain in PotBS.  Lotsa action.  :)

Spain seems to be doing okay at the moment.  The chatter last night suggested some victories in battles around Bimini.

[MengJiao]

Going to purchase myself today, sailing ship just too good to pass up, even if MP....but before I do, just a couple of quick questions.


3)  I have seen posts at Steam that indicate they only have one server (I think) capable of hosting up to 2000 players.....are you able to get one when you want or long wait times?

There are currently 3 servers, each capable of hosting 3000 players.  The two North American Servers have relatively low populations at the moment.

  Some time soon there will be 4 servers (3000 each): 2 PvP EU and 1 PvE NA and one PvP NA.  There were almost 700 players on PvP NA last night!
I had to wait 3 seconds to get on! 

[MengJiao]

It's an Age of Sail game: I DEMAND GIANT RATS FOR VERISIMILITUDE!

Also, rum and the lash. The sodomy they can make an optional DLC, on the Paradox model.

I think PotBS had all that and more.  I think Naval Action is a much, much, much better Age of Sail gunnery simulator, though.  I may think this because I ran down and blasted a AI pirate to bits last night in a spritely little action that even got applause from the extra players who turned up in hopes of spending 20 minutes pounding a pirate to splinters.  But I ran out at medium range and finished him off with about 12 long 6 pdr shots.  It was all over pretty fast even though I fired one shot at a time.  The pirate was shooting back, but I think what is happening is that I have (by pure luck) an oak cutter.  So with long 6 pdrs, my shots penetrate anything most of the time at longish medium range while the pirates seem to have shorter 6 pdrs and cannot penetrate oak very much at say 200 meters (which feels like longish medium range to me in this game), though they get off more shots and probably almost as many hits as I do.  So the oak boat and the long guns and careful aiming (locked automatic -- ie the convergence is reset based on my range estimation per shot since I shoot one shot at a time) and sailing (going as slow as possible while keeping the target at the optimum range).

[RedArgo]

I just switched to the 6 pdr long cannons on my yacht from the 12 pdr carronades last night.  I was able to stand off and blast the pirate from long range taking little damage in the process.  I am a pretty bad shot though, so I don't know how this will work against humans.  So far I've just been hanging around Charleston running missions to get my rank up and I haven't encountered any human opponents. 

[MengJiao]

I just switched to the 6 pdr long cannons on my yacht from the 12 pdr carronades last night.  I was able to stand off and blast the pirate from long range taking little damage in the process.  I am a pretty bad shot though, so I don't know how this will work against humans.  So far I've just been hanging around Charleston running missions to get my rank up and I haven't encountered any human opponents.

  Plus carronades have had their penetration increased very recently.  I have no idea how the long six strategy might work against humans.  It seems like they could easily run in and hit you hard well before the long sixs (which reload relatively slowly) could do much damage.  So i think I'll buy I boat I don't much like, load it with medium sixs and see what a human does to it.  I just can't give up my oak boat at the moment.  It is just murder vs the AI.

PS.  I'm working out of Havanna.  I tried ramming as a tactic: died fast 2 out of three times, killed the AI fast the other time.  Sounds like a poor tactic, unless you want to die fast for some reason (which was why I tried it the first time when it worked fine and I didn't die!).  Oh the humanity, or oh the AI!

[Nefaro]

In the old PvP matches I played, about a year ago, Long Guns were definitely pretty popular.  There have been changes since then but, overall, it still looks to be the same.

Of course, we were able to load Double Shot back then, and I think they removed that option.  That alone is enough to make you think twice. 

On most ships, I'd still have a tendency to use Long Guns when there is a possibility of PvP.  There's nothing more frustrating than having an opponent raking your bow while you're attempting to close.  If they're a good shot, and can do a good delaying dance, you'll end up with some serious damage before firing a shot.

Medium guns sound like a good compromise, but I'm not sure how good their penetration is these days.  IIRC, they used to bounce noticeably more against larger ships such as frigates and maybe even some of the smaller square-rigged ones.  Same with Carronades.  The biggest problem was their pen, which probably doesn't become as much of an issue until you get into larger ships.

Going all Carronade or Mediums seems to be more popular against the AI.  I've seen people recommend using them when "farming" those because the AI reportedly doesn't try to use any gun range advantage it may have when maneuvering.  So you can rush AI more easily.   

[JasonPratt]

This discussion reminds me of how in Mechwarrior my favorite build, if Clan weapons were available, was to load up on the smallest caliber double-barrel ("ultra") autocannons, nothing else (except as many close defense Clan small lasers I cared to fit in any laser slots after bulking up armor, engine, etc.). Sure, I ran out of ammo eventually (although I could also bring a lot more ammo), but until then I was shooting stupidly long ranges with little heat buildup and tons of punch. And the closer the enemy got, my damage per second went up a little by proportion. (Most of the damage being from explosive shells of course, but with small amounts of increasing kinetic.) Aiming was a little fuzzy at long range, compared to point-and-shoot lasers (or the railgun), but that was the only problem and could be easily adjusted.

When I taught my late pupil to play MW, (back in the days of MW4, not the online version), and he got to feeling a little cocky, I'd pull out the massed small-caliber autocannon build and murder him in about ten seconds at long distance. He was convinced I was cheating with haxors.  >:D

Naturally that wouldn't work as well with non-Ultra ACs.


All of which is to say that my interest in getting this game eventually continues to increase. 

[RedArgo]

PS.  I'm working out of Havanna.

Are you on PVP One server?  Maybe I'll see you once I venture out. I started on PVP One before I understood there is a NA server.  I'd hate to switch now because I already redeemed my bonus ships and they aren't available when I log into PVP Two, plus no gold.

  I tried ramming as a tactic: died fast 2 out of three times, killed the AI fast the other time.  Sounds like a poor tactic, unless you want to die fast for some reason (which was why I tried it the first time when it worked fine and I didn't die!).  Oh the humanity, or oh the AI!

I've accidently rammed a couple times, but haven't killed or been killed that way.  I did see a guy actually capsize another ship by sort of getting underneath him and flipping him though the other day.  Back in the old days before open world, I got ran over a couple times by large ships when I was focused too much on shooting and not enough on navigating.

[MengJiao]

PS.  I'm working out of Havanna.

Are you on PVP One server?  Maybe I'll see you once I venture out. I started on PVP One before I understood there is a NA server.  I'd hate to switch now because I already redeemed my bonus ships and they aren't available when I log into PVP Two, plus no gold.

  I tried ramming as a tactic: died fast 2 out of three times, killed the AI fast the other time.  Sounds like a poor tactic, unless you want to die fast for some reason (which was why I tried it the first time when it worked fine and I didn't die!).  Oh the humanity, or oh the AI!

I'm on the North American PvP server (PvPTwo, I believe).  Haven't done much except now I know that Live Oak is very nice and just plain Oak, not so good.

I've accidently rammed a couple times, but haven't killed or been killed that way.  I did see a guy actually capsize another ship by sort of getting underneath him and flipping him though the other day.  Back in the old days before open world, I got ran over a couple times by large ships when I was focused too much on shooting and not enough on navigating.

[MengJiao]

In the old PvP matches I played, about a year ago, Long Guns were definitely pretty popular.  There have been changes since then but, overall, it still looks to be the same.

I tried a Small PvP battle.  I took a basic cutter with the basic not-even medium 4 pdrs on it.  There were 7 other cutters and I think they all had the same stuff except maybe for a guy who ran in with carronades and was sunk pretty fast.  Which left our team down to 3.  I got the rather disappointing 4 pdrs to hit at something approximating long range for such a fight and in the end my side won.  Or at least the battle ended when we sank somebody -- maybe there were some collsions else where?  Collisions seem like a potential big problem in these small melees.  Overall, I'm not sure what happened except that the bottom-of-the-line 4 pdr is not an impressive weapon and yet seems to be pretty popular in small PvP -- no doubt because they cost nothing to replace.
Next time I might take some long six pdrs and some powder monkeys...which I guess might get me ganged up on, but it might be worth it in terms of fun if nothing else.

[Pete Dero]

Is there any content in PVE ?  Can you try out battles other than one player vs one AI ?  (6 vs 6 with 11 bots and the player for example).

I know PVP is the the way to go in games like this, but i would prefer PVE for training.

[MengJiao]

Is there any content in PVE ?  Can you try out battles other than one player vs one AI ?  (6 vs 6 with 11 bots and the player for example).

I know PVP is the the way to go in games like this, but i would prefer PVE for training.

  The missions are PvE battles.  It's true in theory that they are 1 ship vs 1 ship (actually a very common occurence for smaller ships in the Age of Sail)
but 1) at first the AI ships are definitely not easy to defeat and supposedly there is an incentive to board and capture.
      2) you can ask for reinforcements (CTRL while pressing the reinforcement button) -- I haven't done that, nor have I managed to board anything
      3) there are AI fleets around to attack (and if you hit reinforcements, you might get a big battle)
      4) PS -- you can have a group on your side
      5) lots of players join fights in progress
      6) there are non-mission AI you can attack

At the moment I'm leaning toward doing more PvP battles since the players don't seem to be quite as relentless or well-armed or accurate or fast as the AI AND you get about 2 times the points and money, though the battles can be long.

Anyway, if you learn to sink the AI 1 on 1, I think you will find the average player in small battles is not as much of an opponent.  After all the AI always fights to the death and players occasionally seem to have second thoughts somewhere along the line.

BUT, I've only been in about 30 battles and haven't (for example) managed a boarding fight, so my advice (ie fight the AI until you are confident at least of sinking them most of the time and then do some PvP) might not be well-based.

[Skoop]

^ How does the boarding work ?  Do you see the combat or is it abstracted in some way ?

[MengJiao]

^ How does the boarding work ?  Do you see the combat or is it abstracted in some way ?

  You have to get next to the target and hit G (grapple).  I've gotten that far.  Then the battle is resolved with each side picking its moves (fire, grenades, muskets, brace, melee/attack/counter-attack)...it can go on for quite a while I'm told, with morale bouncing around and casualties piling up.
But relatively  abstractly.