New Ship: 3rd Rate SOTL - the "74"

Er...I feel like you're missing a point. It's not even relevant to the discussion though, so I'll throw in this last bit. They follow a similar design pattern, with the only obvious difference being the number of decks, and perhaps some differences in inner hull bracing to accommodate the extra mass of more guns. That, naturally, is going to lead to each being used for different things. Aircraft carriers and submarines don't even remotely fit as a comparison pair. I mean, if you want, I can bust out some diagrams...
 
WilyJaymes said:
Here are some stats I've put together for a potential in-game 3rd rate:
Armor: 16,800
Sails: 15,000
Speed: 9
Cannons: 16 (7 on each side, with 2 facing directly forward)
Broadsides: 30
Cargo: 18
Crew: 14
Turning Radius: Very large
(Around 10-15% larger than that of a base frigate)
Weak Armor Location: Back
Strong Armor Location: Front
Base Cost: 150,000
Resale: 75,000
Required Sailing Level: Mastered
Upgrade Costs: Can be discussed later

Ships of the line are basically giant frigates (referring to real world design), so I used the war frigate's stats as a base template. When progressing from light, medium, to war, frigate armor increases each class by 4,200 and the sail health increases by 3,000. So that's how I arrived at those numbers. The broadside count is high because that it is the defining characteristic of any line ship. Without that, it might as well be a different ship. The tank and damage potential makes up for the undesirable maneuverability. Don't underestimate the drastic effect that not being able to turn quickly can have.
Possible means of acquisition:
A ship of this status should require more than just 150,000 gold and mastered sailing. So I've thought of a short quest that would need to be completed before purchase.
Title: Rite of Admiralty
Quest Giver: any shipwright
Objective: Show the shipwright that you have 1 of 4 swords in your inventory. Admiral's/Vice Admiral's Cutlass OR Admiral's/Vice Admiral's Sabre.
Simple, difficult, perfect.
Click to expand...
I say yes to all of this, except there is one or two issues. The price of the ship is so high, it may make any upgrades past rank II upgrades cost over the gold cap. Meaning a gold cap raise would be in order for those higher rank upgrades (if they are to be used on the ship). (Never mind, gold cap was increased.) On the other hand, the only thing I can say that I don't quite agree with is the speed in those stats. A Galleon has a speed of, I believe, 8. Considering the game seems to go by a variable of "if ship has more cargo, it goes slower" (except for when upgrades are involved) I feel it would make sense if the 3rd rate was as slow (if not slower) than a Galleon... then again the pure amount of SAILS may speak otherwise. Other than that, I'm all for this! Quest and all!

(On another note: Using Frigate as a template? Genius! No need to reinvent the wheel... er... ship, eh?)
 
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@Jack Firesteel
Yeah man, you should look up some pictures of old warships under full sail. It's mind boggling how much surface area of canvas is flared out on those things. They're actually quite long and narrow, and cut through the water efficiently. So once they get going, they're pretty quick. Turning is the hard part. Most of them had copper plating below the waterline to reduce friction as well. There's nothing really holding them back from going fast, but the climb to top speed is sluggish due to the immense weight. Massive objects take more energy to move. Sort of like a train: hard to get rolling, but darn fast and hard to stop after the fact.

I think the speed of 9 is fine since turning has a far greater impact on its performance. However, we could slightly increase the time it takes for the sails to open. Big ships take more man power to operate after all. That would require the sailor to commit more and not stop and go so much - increasing the skill factor.

Also, I've been thinking about the price tag too. It's tricky to decide on a number unless we assume that the gold cap will be increased. I settled on 150k because it seemed suitably high while still having a bit of room to play with for upgrades. Edit: changed the price to 120k and added a material cost to the quest.
 
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WilyJaymes said:
... Aircraft carriers and submarines don't even remotely fit as a comparison pair. ...
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Fair comment. Possibly Frigates vs. Heavy cruisers in navies of today?

Point I am trying to raise is aside from common materials and basic techniques in construction, plank, frame, trenail, a 74 and a frigate (possible 32) are about as alike as chalk and cheese as was their function. To claim otherwise is to denude the role of each kind of vessel is all.

By all means utilise the type casting for the game, but please, do not attempt to pass misinformation of as historical fact.
 
Ok Sven, this the last time I'm going to respond to you. I said nothing about having similar roles. I'm not even focusing on the roles or function. If you look at a drawing of a frigate, and you look at a drawing of a ship of the line, they are shaped almost exactly the same except for one having more gun decks slapped on top of it. I really don't know how to explain that more simply. Stop thinking about roles, and start thinking about shapes, visuals, design elements, what have you.

If you really want to get into the nitty gritty, and use numbers, I've got an argument for that as well. There actually existed 5th and 6th rate ships in the Royal Navy. These slots were occupied by FRIGATES. Remember when I said we should forget about the 4th rate? That is because they were often "demoted" to frigate status for being too small to use in the line. Or in other words, having too few guns.

I will say that my wording in the original post may have been easy to misinterpret. So I changed it to be more clear on what I mean.
 
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WilyJaymes said:
... There actually existed 5th and 6th rate ships in the Royal Navy. These slots were occupied by FRIGATES. Remember when I said we should forget about the 4th rate? That is because they were often "demoted" to frigate status for being too small to use in the line. Or in other words, having too few guns ...
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And there is the point I have been making and you have been resisting. Rate is not SOTL as you have clearly stated above. Thank you.
 
JackieChanMeme.png


*sails away*
 
Now that the gold cap has been raised to 300k, I decided to add a good bit more detail to the quest. Though it's still fairly simple. I think the goal here is to make the initial cost exceptionally high, but have the upgrade costs taper off (materials, not gold) to be moderately higher than brigs. I'll probably update the original post once I've thought of some reasonable numbers for this as well.
 
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OurGangsDarkOath said:
http://piratesonline.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Ships
If you scroll down it'll show you the stats for the SOTL and I have to say its not that impressive except for its armor and speed which could be nerfed, surprisingly it supposedly only has 24 broadsides which a war galleon has, 14 cannons which a war frigate has and could only hold 12 people so I don't see why they shouldn't add it.
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Yeah, the current SOTL really only works as an npc ship. And honestly, I consider it a false bearer of the name. There's so many reasons that make it absolutely horrible for player usage. It sucks. Bad. Refer to Jack Firesteel's post for an elaboration on that.

What I'm talking about though is an entirely new ship based on the real world ships of the line - specifically, the smaller, more versatile ones.
 
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