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

[RedArgo]

From reading the NA forum, sounds like the big patch could be any day now, although the main dev is sick, so that's slowed things down a bit.  Looking forward to see what they were able to include.  I wonder if this will bring another server wipe?  As long as they don't touch my xp!

I have noticed at the main time I play on the PVP1 server, evenings US central time, the player count is down.  Last night there were only a little over 400 people on line.  Hopefully that will increase with new content.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I really hope they do something to make PvE more engaging as it's rather a one-note affair as of now.  Trading is still not fully working so apart from mission-based combat there isn't much on offer.   I see a lot of complaining about travel times and lack of variety between locations hurting long term play.  I can see that POV.  I'm currently based out of Grand Turk (lots of French Mercuries sailing around there) and I've not seen a single human player there in almost a week.

[RedArgo]

I agree there needs to be more to do and more immersiveness than there is now.  The style I play now is basically like World of Tanks, except it takes 10 minutes of travel each way to get to a fight.  I still do it, so I must like it. :)

I read in a future update, I'm assuming not the next one, they are going to change battles so the land masses near you will pull into the battle instance.  This will allow trapping ships up against the land so they can't escape so easily.  I'm looking forward to that.

I'm not sure what they have in store for the economy.  So far, I've only been a consumer anyway.

[Nefaro]

I agree there needs to be more to do and more immersiveness than there is now.  The style I play now is basically like World of Tanks, except it takes 10 minutes of travel each way to get to a fight.  I still do it, so I must like it. :)

Ummm..

I'm pretty sure you can queue up for PvP battles at any time, just like WoT.  Without going anywhere..?

It was like that when I played a year ago.  Plus I read a dev mention that as currently being the fastest way to level up, too.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Not from PvE, you can't.  You can request to join a battle if you're in a port but they almost always end up timing out with no participants.

[Nefaro]

Not from PvE, you can't.  You can request to join a battle if you're in a port but they almost always end up timing out with no participants.

What are you doing only playing PvE server?! 

The PvP queues are the reason I originally bought this thing.  The Open World stuff is just extra variety fluff.

[RedArgo]

Ummm..

I'm pretty sure you can queue up for PvP battles at any time, just like WoT.  Without going anywhere..?

It was like that when I played a year ago.  Plus I read a dev mention that as currently being the fastest way to level up, too.

I did that the other day for the first time, it was 2 vs 2.  I found the xp to be similar to what I'd get doing a regular mission except without the mission bonus.  I don't think you can escape either and since, except for the entry level ships, you only get 5 lives total, I'm apprehensive about risking the ships I care about.  It'd be better if you didn't risk that durability, like the way it was before open world started. 

[Nefaro]

Ummm..

I'm pretty sure you can queue up for PvP battles at any time, just like WoT.  Without going anywhere..?

It was like that when I played a year ago.  Plus I read a dev mention that as currently being the fastest way to level up, too.

I did that the other day for the first time, it was 2 vs 2.  I found the xp to be similar to what I'd get doing a regular mission except without the mission bonus.  I don't think you can escape either and since, except for the entry level ships, you only get 5 lives total, I'm apprehensive about risking the ships I care about.  It'd be better if you didn't risk that durability, like the way it was before open world started.

Do you actually lose Durability in those PvP queued matches?  :o

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Yup, and it's a real crap shoot because people join the queue and then jump out at the last second if the odds don't look good and you end up with a team of mouth-breathers.

[RedArgo]

Some info about the upcoming update relating to crew management

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/11499-new-crew-mechanics-proposed-crew-compositions-discussion

I am a little concerned about being overwhelmed when you're in pistol range having to manage course, manual sails, gun loading, aiming, firing, fixing leaks, ect.  Sometimes I get fouled up now with just sails and firing when the pressure is on.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I finally made Master and Commander rank.  I decided to use my free Renommee at first but I found that I really didn't care for that ship.  It seemed like it was a mix of all the negative of the Niagara and the Cerberus rolled into one.  I ended up dumping it after three days (and kicked myself hard for throwing on the exceptional rudder, copper plating, and trim on as permanent upgrades) and switching over to a Surprise.  Now this is a ship I like!  Packs a hell of a punch and can take a real beating.  It doesn't turn so well but with long cannons, you don't really need to.  You can just stand off and blast away.  It does seem to roll a fair bit though, especially when turning so it can be a bit frustrating trying to line up your guns when you're downwind of the target and at full sails because your guns will almost never drop low enough for you to get a shot off.  I think I'm going to toss some ballast in her to cut down on the roll.

 

[RedArgo]

Nice job on the promotion, that's a long slog.  I'm about 40% to M&C.

I found an exceptional Suprise for sale at Cabo a while ago and bought it since I had plenty of money.  It is sitting in Charleston waiting for me to get promoted.

Where'd you find the exceptional upgrades?  I never see anything above common anymore and I hardly ever pillage anything off defeated ships.

I read a couple days ago the new update could drop today or tomorrow, hope so, looking forward to it.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I found all the upgrades during boarding actions.  I've been hunting the French around Grand Turk.  The place is lousy with them.

[RedArgo]

New patch is up , have to try it out this weekend...

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/11791-patch-965-crew-and-resource-production/

Trading and crafting
•Niagara Blueprint added to the game
•Crafting notes were renamed to High Grade Notes
•New crafting note types added to the game: low grade notes, mid grade notes. New notes are made by paying copper or silver coins to the researchers (imaginary scientists)
•BP is renamed to Blueprint
•Resource store interface reworked
•Resource production buildings added – buildings can be built only in national towns
•Ship construction building added – shipyard – shipyards can be built in all towns which you can enter
•NPC production will stay on its current level and will be gradually decreased over time to fully player dependent economy
•Blueprint learning chance now depends on the quality of the ship you are making
•Better upgrades now can be made by using mid grade crafting notes
•Compass wood requirements  in ship construction are changed (more wood needed)

ROE and attack mechanics
•Battle over timer now lets you stay in battle for only 5 minutes (to solve the pre maintenance port battle bugs that did not transfer the port to the winner if someone stayed in the battle)
•Battle entry timers reduced to 2 minutes. This is a very important change - you will be able to pick the place of attack better and if you don't see enemy sails on the horizon you will be safer
•Invulnerability timer does not let you enter battles anymore

XP rewards and statistics
•Additional trackers are added in battle UI for better debug
•PVP XP for kill and assist are increased 50%
•Reward manager was reworked completely and now allows better slicing and dicing of damage and crits allowing better and more detailed rewards and achievements in battles.
•Kill and Assists now grant monetary rewards which are doubled in PVP
•Traders now give full loot if they carried any – previously because of the bug if you captured a trader it did not award full loot.
•NPC Traders now can carry national resources

Port battles
•Shallow water port towers now carry 12lb guns
•Assault flag now weights 100 to not allow yachts and cutters to be a flag carrier

Combat
•Niagara is now a better ship
•Crew management completely reworked – remember that it is an early version and it will be improved based on the community feedback.
•Sail repairs now repairs masts (if you did not have broken masts before). Previously, if you repaired sails it did not recover masts HP (if you had them damaged but not destroyed).
•Camera bugs are fixed on Snow, Pavel, Pickle and Renommee.
•Friendly derelicts now cannot catch fire from friendly damage
•Exit timer now resets if the ship is on fire
•Fast explosions on snow – fixed
•In battle physics completely reworked and we now have better integration of Physx in game. It solved the collisions issues (and flipping) almost completely
•Ship heel from damage eliminated – it was unhistorical and extremely annoying.
•Sail furling and yard turning speed curves updated and should be more realistic now – falling first gradually then suddenly.
•Crucial bug with cannon influence on speeds fixed (some ships UI speed indicated previously did not take the cannon weight into account).
•Ships now cannot turn with 0 speed – this is extremely important and potentially game changing
•Frigates are now less comfortable sailers in very narrow angles to wind
•Bots stopped shooting chain temporarily
•Fires now do more damage
•Fires now are extinguished 10% slower

Boarding changes
•Marines now work differently. They are not part of the crew anymore and affect your performance depending on their number. Marine upgrade now determines which % of your crew is allocated to marines. This is done in preparation for crew and officer hiring. Please check which Marines upgrade you have before going out of to sailing - exceptional marines replace 50% of your crew with Marines.
•Fixed bug with incorrect musket counts in certain rare cases
•Brace now costs 5 preparation
•Preparation per round growth is increased by 5
•Certain formulas are reworked for boarding and if you have decisive advantange it will be easier to win during assaults.
•Boarding now requires 50 preparation to initiate
•Boarding pulling is improved and will suffer less random interruptions.
•Expect other significant changes to boarding in the next 1-2 patches

Other fixes
•Maintenance time moved 2 hours earlier required some heroic sacrifices from our QA  :) 
•Some graphical assets were improved for the open world. Some players might not like them but changes were needed in preparation for land in battles. To enable better variety of trees enable Render Decorators function in options
•Family sharing is now impossible
•Ship report letter is taken out from loot
•Battle sail mistakes fixed for Niagara
•Victory model upgraded
•More than 100 other minor bugs and problems fixed thanks to your report
•Several rare exploits were fixed and closed thanks to qw569 research

Potential problems
•With better physx integration possible bugs could happen – including visual problems with turning and heel to bow on certain ship models.
•Some NPC bots became dumber – we are working on it
•Several other marvelous bugs are probably introduced

Discuss

[RedArgo]

Anybody still playing this?  I haven't been too much lately, but I may more now.  On PVP1 the pirates have taken over most of the former US ports, so there are now lots of targets for US ships if you can avoid the gank squads.

Another big patch.  Looks like the big items are change in the way shell penetration works, open world spyglass, and unlimited port teleporting (so just your character, not your ship)

They are also shutting down PVP3 due to low population.  I heard PVP2 may be next.  They said they will be compensating players for whatever is lost.

Patch will be deployed tomorrow 19th May



What's new:     



Closing server PVP 3 EU mirror
•PvP 3 EU Mirror will be closed down during patch deployment.
•Player assets will be moved to accounts on PVP EU 1
•Most assets and currency will be given to players as redeemables.
•More information and details on the process are posted here http://forum.game-la...osing-and-merge

Damage model 5.0
•Penetration models were completely overhauled
•All last remains of random factors and probabilities were cleared out of the code base to make damage purely skill based.
•Cannons have penetration numbers based on historical data (very close to admiralty test tables)
•Armor width is added to ship parameters and effective armor based on angle of hit is added as well.
•Masts have received thickness (in addition to hp) - no more 1km demasting
•Modifiers of wood types have changed
• •Fir = -10cm
•Oak = standard
•Teak = +5cm
•Live oak = +10cm

•Detailed description is in this topic http://forum.game-la...amage-model-50/

New damage system was extensively tested by our QA and us, but of course it still requires final tuning based on player feedback and results. Expect potential problems and unbalanced ships or gun types.



New ships added
•Player voted ship: Rattlesnake - sloop of war
•Player voted ship: Chapman's Indiaman - combat trader

Changes in port battles
•There are 3 types of port battles now. To give frigates more intensive testing of the damage model and to give more options for frigate captains.
•Shallow water ports - no changes
•Medium depth port battles - Cerberus to Ingermanland/Constitution
•Regional port battles - Cerberus to Santisima
•Defense timers cannot be changed by defenders after they were picked the first time. Choose them wisely.

Changes in battle entry, reinforcements, and capital waters
•Captains wont be able to enter battles immediately after log in, port exit or sitting in battle result screens. To do that the system of invis/invul has beend changed. After login or port exit or battle exit you will not be able attack or be attacked for 30 seconds. 120 sec invulnerability timer wont let you enter battles. This will completely solve hiding in battles issues.
•Positional reinforcements system has changed closer to the old method. Captains wont be able to position themselves ahead of the enemy. Captains can only reinforce battles from defined zones that will be visualized on the map.
•Capital water protection system changed. You can attack enemy ships in your capital waters. Not only that. That battle will be opened for 1.5 hours and reinforcements will be fully positional during the whole battle time.

Other changes
•Spyglass added to open world
•Clan warehouse added to the game
•Clan tag is now showing on the open world
•Ports will sometimes purchase ships from players on the auctions
•
•Fleet orders will now scale based on your group size
•All orders after their start will be open for your nation for 2 mins to allow bigger engagements
•We are doing certain experiments for xp for travel for future exploration and other features
•System allowing a much stronger side to exit battle has been reworked. We now take into account only starting battle rating difference situation at the start of the battle (previously it was dynamic). The rest works as before. If you were attacked by a weaker force - stronger side could deny battle and exit during first 2 mins (this is a legacy feature somewhat reducing the effect of trolling by light ships).
•Exit timer is now going to reset if you are taking water. This will help in group battles where you always had to keep destroyed enemy tagged.
•Mortar brig hits will now generate leaks under waterline if it penetrates
•Teleport between outposts(docks) is now without cooldown
•Teleport to capital (unstuck) is now possible only with the empty cargo hold

Fixed bugs:
•Certain CPU load optimization was implemented.
•Fixed camera bugs on Essex
•Fixed bug with time bonus on Steel Toolbox
•Fixed main camera bugs on the Mortar Brig
•Fixed reload bugs on Mortar brig
•Fixed several lightning issues on Mortar brig
•Fixed bugs causing distance problems on mixed decks
•Several sound bugs fixed

Tunings:
•Ingermanland и Constitution are now built on 2nd level shipyards (because they are 4th rates)
•Ports will stop buying resources if NPC stock exceeds 25000 - further changes to economy will be done in the next patch
•Broken rudder bug fixed (it was not giving enough penalties)
•Repair kits are removed from loot
•Minor changes in pricing of blueprints and ships were done to allow faster tuning and design changes
•Num Enter on keyboards can also send messages now
•2 important exploits were fixed thanks to the Captain qw569
•Multiple headspinning bugs were introduced

Next content patch will be deployed in a month. Before that we plan to issue 1-2 hot fixed to finalize damage model and several other things.