Let´s talk about ships and sails balance and meta gaming

[Shintai 117]

The current ship balance and metaplay is severely one sighted towards speed sails. But also towards bigger ships and bigger mast types. I haven´t sailed the Galleon yet so I will ujust focus on the 3 other ships.

Lets first recap on a few things.

Weight sails add 450, 750 and 1100 for the 3 sizes. Like if anyone actually used those.

Speed sails includes an unknown bonus, but it´s clear the bonus for the bigger sails is much higher than for equal sail force of lower sails. Unlike how it is for weight sails.

Handing sails have a hidden property that it effects the ship turning rate in a quite significant matter. The tool tip and BPs only list the wider wind catch range.

Sail force for small is 1.0, medium 1.7 and large 2.7.

Schooner and Brigantine, despite using the same planks have different HP levels. (5100 vs 6000).

So let´s begin and look on the ships and their configuration first.

Sloop (2.0 sail force limit) is currently the slowest ship, this includes both sail configurations with 2 small speed sails or the faster option of a single medium speed sail. This is the first example on that using 1 larger vs 2 small sails not only saves you 1 crew, but it is also better and less space consuming.

Schooner can be quite flexible, 4.0 sail force that allows for up to 4 masts. However again the current meta evolves around 1 large sail and often 1 small handling or more rarely 1 small speed sail. 1 large + 1 small speed sail is faster than 2 medium speed sails. That again is faster than 1 medium and 2 small. That again is faster than 4 small speed sails.

Brigantine is the fastest of the 3 ships, it allows for a sail force of 8.6 and at least 5 masts. The current meta for Brigantines are either 2 large speed and 1 large handling that not only makes it faster than any Schooner, it also turns faster than any Schooner without a handling sail. Or the pure speed run of 3 large speed sails.

So what we have learned so far is, that not only is the bigger ships faster, they can also be a lot more maneuverable.

However it doesn´t stop here. Schooner vs Brigantine is so offset you almost have to be a poetic fool to sail the Schooner and here is why:

Not only do you gain additional plank HP on the Brigantine vs the Schooner and can sail faster and turn better for the low cost of what is roughly 30% higher cost. You also gain 67% more weight and level up bonuses that ranges from 50 to 150% over the Schooner. And do we have to talk about size, 2 relatively small decks vs 3 quite sized decks.

Sloop vs Schooner vs Brigantine vs Galleon level up.

Weight +60/80/200/300

Crew space +0.5/0.5/0.75/1

Accommodation +0.5/0.5/0.75/1

Study is the only directly balanced metric with 2.5% per level.

Accommodation is outright silly, this essentially dictates the cost of the crew with less relevance on bed count. So in any means a Brigantine is cheaper to run per level up than a Schooner. and a Galleon is yet again even cheaper.

Crew space you can easily argue about size of ship.

Weight increase the Schooner is the loser again. The Sloop increases it´s weight per level over base with 1.765%, Schooner 0.089%, Brigantine 1.333% and the Galleon 1.035%

Personally I would recommend getting the accommodation to the same value on all ships. Equalize the plank HP on same planks types as well.

Increase Schooner eight to 10500 and/or increase Schooner weight per level to 120/125. Increase Galleon weight per level to 350.

Balance handling and speed sails so more sail force and extra crew is better like weight sails. Example with Schooner would be that 4 small speed sails should be faster than 1 large and 1 small that again should be faster than 2 medium. Just as weight in those cases would be +1800, +1550 and +1500 (Expect I think sail force may still be broken there).

[TerrorTrooper 64]

Although mathematically the schooner does loose out massively to the brigantine, it does have some benifits over the brigantine that aren’t immediately apparent.

1:- small shipyard and shallower water makes it much easier to build than the brig.

2:- due to the single large sail, it can easily be fully piloted solo as the small sail isn’t a huge loss in speed/handling whereas a brig requires crew to effectively sail solo.

[pygmy 20]

1 hour ago, Shintai said:

The current ship balance and metaplay is severely one sighted towards speed sails. But also towards bigger ships and bigger mast types. I haven´t sailed the Galleon yet so I will ujust focus on the 3 other ships.

Lets first recap on a few things.

Weight sails add 450, 750 and 1100 for the 3 sizes. Like if anyone actually used those.

Speed sails includes an unknown bonus, but it´s clear the bonus for the bigger sails is much higher than for equal sail force of lower sails. Unlike how it is for weight sails.

Handing sails have a hidden property that it effects the ship turning rate in a quite significant matter. The tool tip and BPs only list the wider wind catch range.

Sail force for small is 1.0, medium 1.7 and large 2.7.

Schooner and Brigantine, despite using the same planks have different HP levels. (5100 vs 6000).

So let´s begin and look on the ships and their configuration first.

Sloop (2.0 sail force limit) is currently the slowest ship, this includes both sail configurations with 2 small speed sails or the faster option of a single medium speed sail. This is the first example on that using 1 larger vs 2 small sails not only saves you 1 crew, but it is also better and less space consuming.

Schooner can be quite flexible, 4.0 sail force that allows for up to 4 masts. However again the current meta evolves around 1 large sail and often 1 small handling or more rarely 1 small speed sail. 1 large + 1 small speed sail is faster than 2 medium speed sails. That again is faster than 1 medium and 2 small. That again is faster than 4 small speed sails.

Brigantine is the fastest of the 3 ships, it allows for a sail force of 8.6 and at least 5 masts. The current meta for Brigantines are either 2 large speed and 1 large handling that not only makes it faster than any Schooner, it also turns faster than any Schooner without a handling sail. Or the pure speed run of 3 large speed sails.

So what we have learned so far is, that not only is the bigger ships faster, they can also be a lot more maneuverable.

However it doesn´t stop here. Schooner vs Brigantine is so offset you almost have to be a poetic fool to sail the Schooner and here is why:

Not only do you gain additional plank HP on the Brigantine vs the Schooner and can sail faster and turn better for the low cost of what is roughly 30% higher cost. You also gain 67% more weight and level up bonuses that ranges from 50 to 150% over the Schooner. And do we have to talk about size, 2 relatively small decks vs 3 quite sized decks.

Sloop vs Schooner vs Brigantine vs Galleon level up.

Weight +60/80/200/300

Crew space +0.5/0.5/0.75/1

Accommodation +0.5/0.5/0.75/1

Study is the only directly balanced metric with 2.5% per level.

Accommodation is outright silly, this essentially dictates the cost of the crew with less relevance on bed count. So in any means a Brigantine is cheaper to run per level up than a Schooner. and a Galleon is yet again even cheaper.

Crew space you can easily argue about size of ship.

Weight increase the Schooner is the loser again. The Sloop increases it´s weight per level over base with 1.765%, Schooner 0.089%, Brigantine 1.333% and the Galleon 1.035%

Personally I would recommend getting the accommodation to the same value on all ships. Equalize the plank HP on same planks types as well.

Increase Schooner eight to 10500 and/or increase Schooner weight per level to 120/125. Increase Galleon weight per level to 350.

Balance handling and speed sails so more sail force and extra crew is better like weight sails. Example with Schooner would be that 4 small speed sails should be faster than 1 large and 1 small that again should be faster than 2 medium. Just as weight in those cases would be +1800, +1550 and +1500 (Expect I think sail force may still 

they should measure the area of the sail and by that set the standards for the speed depending on how much wind the sail could catch. There are alot of flaws and i thank you for the information. Need this for my own brigathine then haha

[Redrick 14]

1 hour ago, TerrorTrooper said:

2:- due to the single large sail, it can easily be fully piloted solo as the small sail isn’t a huge loss in speed/handling whereas a brig requires crew to effectively sail solo.

i have no probblem with solo piloting my brig (npc crew) and also use crew on my schooner -)

[TerrorTrooper 64]

True, but you can easily pilot a schooner with no NPC’s

[archaegeo 192]

And weight sails are used for transport, just because you dont on pvp is just one aspect.  On private and PVE weight sails matter for some folks.

 

[Hodo 147]

I use a small weight sail on my Schooner because it is basically 5 levels in weight for the ship and a large speed sail because well... speed. 

I dont have guns on the gundeck only on the weatherdeck because the gunports are expensive and really kind of pointless when I can mount more guns on the top than in the gundeck and still have room to move around and repair things.  The schooner is not a combat ship... it is at best a bad blockade runner.   I havent tested but I believe the sloop is faster in lighter wind situations than any of the heavier ships.  And the Schooner scales about the same.   

So the big test will be try testing the 4 ship classes with their best speed setup in variable wind conditions to see how that affects the speed of the ships.

[Shintai 117]

4 hours ago, archaegeo said:

And weight sails are used for transport, just because you dont on pvp is just one aspect.  On private and PVE weight sails matter for some folks.

 

You can move more cargo in the same time frame with speed sails I bet. On PvE you rarely see weight sails either. Try make a race in 2 ships with the different setups and you see how big the difference is.

The problem is simply that speed sails and the way their bonus works is too good to do any other alternative unless you want to penalize yourself or got an exotic setup. Weight sails are mainly for the floating base setup unfortunately.

Edited January 16, 2019 by Shintai

[archaegeo 192]

With the weight increase on ships weight sails are used more for putting lots of large cannons topside more than anything else.

[TheSzerdi 79]

The larger sails have far more canvas, so while it looks a bit silly it makes realistic sense. Now if the ships actually had roll mechanics you couldn't use those sails. You'd tip over. 

[Hodo 147]

48 minutes ago, TheSzerdi said:

The larger sails have far more canvas, so while it looks a bit silly it makes realistic sense. Now if the ships actually had roll mechanics you couldn't use those sails. You'd tip over. 

That would come down to ballast and keel setup.  You can also trim the sails to catch the wind but not cause as much heel as you would expect.  I am no expert, but the age of sail is a bit of a hobby for me.   You would be surprised the amount of canvas a ship can fly before it has to worry about capsizing due to the wind.  

There are reports of the USS Constitution, a 4th rate 44 gun frigate, having a sustained heel of 14-16 degrees.  

 

As for more realism in the sailing.. I would love that.  But most players wouldnt know how to handle their ships if they had to worry about the staysails, the jib, and all of the various trimming methods of the sails... not to mention the addition of sailing profiles of a square rigged ship vs a fore-aft rigged ship.... 

[TheSzerdi 79]

1 minute ago, Hodo said:

That would come down to ballast and keel setup.  You can also trim the sails to catch the wind but not cause as much heel as you would expect.  I am no expert, but the age of sail is a bit of a hobby for me.   You would be surprised the amount of canvas a ship can fly before it has to worry about capsizing due to the wind.  

There are reports of the USS Constitution, a 4th rate 44 gun frigate, having a sustained heel of 14-16 degrees.  

 

As for more realism in the sailing.. I would love that.  But most players wouldnt know how to handle their ships if they had to worry about the staysails, the jib, and all of the various trimming methods of the sails... not to mention the addition of sailing profiles of a square rigged ship vs a fore-aft rigged ship.... 

Oh I totally agree. All that canvas is distributed better as well. Not just square rigged on a single redwood planted in the middle of the ship... Lol

[Dread Pirate Ash 5]

I'd like to chip in, as a high-weight Galleon owner, that all speed sails on your galleon makes your ship an absolute whale of a ship, pun intended there. It takes FOREVER to turn. My own ship's initial setup was 4 large speed sails and 2 large handling sails, and good god is it slow to turn. I mean like 'Ships of the Damned run literal circles around me' slow. I suspect that a well-equipped schooner could, with little trouble, come up behind me and literally kite me to death if the pilot was good and had all handling sails.

Even just slight angle turns take several seconds to accomplish, while the schooner can turn almost 90 degrees in the same period of time. My original ship design called for all gunports on the starboard side, leaving port clear of them to save weight, like I'd done on my schooner. This was a bad, bad plan as it turned out, because I literally couldn't face the right direction long enough to get a kill before I took seriously dangerous levels of damage.

Sure, I can outrun almost literally anything, but unless I've actually got something mounted on the top deck (hard with the galleon of you wanna go all-out, given structure limits) facing both fore and aft, then smaller, more manueverable ships will just laugh in my face. It's sad AF when a level 5 SotD can damage 2-3 gunports on my lvl 50+ galleon to the point of risking sinking if I dont line up PERFECTLY before going in to attack. Against a human opponent? Forget it.

Edited January 17, 2019 by Dread Pirate Ash

[Shintai 117]

I didn´t know the Galleon was so bad. The Brigantine on the other hand can turn on a dime with just a single handling sail attached. But it just shows how bad the sailing model currently is. At least up to and with the Brigantine bigger means better in all aspects.

[AntonyVW 62]

My question/s in all this is why on earth is the sail quantity and style so unlike real life? As far as I'm aware (but I'm sure someone will find evidence to the contrary),  There were no 5 masted galleons (the only 5 masted ships I'm aware of were the clippers which were not military ships). A search of ships like HMS Victory show it had 3 masts not 5. Also the bowsprite. Why is is not a mast option? It carried sails to the first mast and quite frankly most ships look a little silly without one. The cost of buying one (400 gold) as a figurehead denies its proper purpose.

As for style of sails - can we have ones that looks correct on their masts? The main mast should be taller than the others and looks a little stunted on the bigger ships.

On top of that of course there are varying sizes of galleon from 74 gun upwards. And where is the frigate? 

[Hodo 147]

7 hours ago, AntonyVW said:

My question/s in all this is why on earth is the sail quantity and style so unlike real life? As far as I'm aware (but I'm sure someone will find evidence to the contrary),  There were no 5 masted galleons (the only 5 masted ships I'm aware of were the clippers which were not military ships). A search of ships like HMS Victory show it had 3 masts not 5. Also the bowsprite. Why is is not a mast option? It carried sails to the first mast and quite frankly most ships look a little silly without one. The cost of buying one (400 gold) as a figurehead denies its proper purpose.

As for style of sails - can we have ones that looks correct on their masts? The main mast should be taller than the others and looks a little stunted on the bigger ships.

On top of that of course there are varying sizes of galleon from 74 gun upwards. And where is the frigate? 

I agree with everything else.

But the Frigate you can make out of a Brig in game.  

Just use your imagination and build one.  I have seen some fantastic builds on youtube.  And I have made some interesting builds myself.   Like I have made a Schooner with the capability of mounting 15 gun broadsides.. I could probably push that to 20 if I really wanted to.  

And most of those ships back then had MASSIVE sailing crews.  The idea that one man is handling the main, top and moonraker sail is just crazy, not to mention turning the yards.  

Then the cannons... realistically these are small cannons.. each shot is what 10kg?   So we are looking at 18lb guns, with 4lbs of powder behind each shot.   

[Recloud 5]

I was out pacing another schooner with 1 large speed and 1 small handling... I had 1 med speed and 1 med handling on my schooner... we had to keep slowing down for them to catch up... both of us under half weight.

Edited January 17, 2019 by Recloud

[Hodo 147]

2 hours ago, Recloud said:

I was out pacing another schooner with 1 large speed and 1 small handling... I had 1 med speed and 1 med handling on my schooner... we had to keep slowing down for them to catch up... both of us under half weight.

I believe wind strength plays a factor in some sails performance.  Like a handling sail does better in lower wind situations than a speed sail.

[Poot Pootington 30]

I don't care what anyone says, I like my schooner with one med weight sail and one med speed because it looks neat!

(And this is why I play PVE)

[Hodo 147]

5 minutes ago, Poot Pootington said:

I don't care what anyone says, I like my schooner with one med weight sail and one med speed because it looks neat!

(And this is why I play PVE)

I run a small weight sail on the front and a large speed sail on the back.  Looks pretty good and is functional for what I do.

[Sulfurblade 194]

Regardless of looks the Meta is wrong!

 

First off there are Best Points of sail that exist in real life but in the game the best point of sail on a square rigger is Not correct!!!

And its not even close on a Lantean sail either!!!!

 

Not to mention the ratio of weight to canvas is way off too....  and dont get me started on the fact that 6 sails on a Galleon would be pointless!!!