Suggestion NPC Ships

NPC ship mesh colliders?

  • What's a mesh collider?

    Votes: 2 8.7%

  • Yes! I hate how NPC ships weave in and out of and hide inside each other!

    Votes: 14 60.9%

  • I like the game just the way it is, knowing it's always getting better!

    Votes: 2 8.7%

  • Remove all mesh colliders in-game!

    Votes: 2 8.7%

  • The NPC ships are perfect just the way they are and need to be left alone!

    Votes: 2 8.7%

  • Stop complaining about the game already!!! I hate you!!!

    Votes: 3 13.0%
  • Total voters
    23
So to recap (and someone correct me if I wrong here), the prominent issues with sailing as of today include:
  • Enemy/NPC ships are highly aggressive even when pirates don’t first shoot off a single cannon shot towards their direction
  • Enemy/NPC ships are too congested in one particular area leaving most of the rest of the ocean empty and inhabited more so than seen within POTCO
  • Enemy/NPC ship collisions occur readily to where their “purpose” in-game is adversely affected (much like a group of kindergartens standing in line @ a school waiting to go to the bathroom)
  • Enemy/NPC ships are in close proximity to one another just off and too close to the dock/shore of an island
If the above is true, do we need to list something else?
 
Shamus The Brute said:
So to recap (and someone correct me if I wrong here), the prominent issues with sailing as of today include:
  • Enemy/NPC ships are highly aggressive even when pirates don’t first shoot off a single cannon shot towards their direction
  • Enemy/NPC ships are too congested in one particular area leaving most of the rest of the ocean empty and inhabited more so than seen within POTCO
  • Enemy/NPC ship collisions occur readily to where their “purpose” in-game is adversely affected (much like a group of kindergartens standing in line @ a school waiting to go to the bathroom)
  • Enemy/NPC ships are in close proximity to one another just off and too close to the dock/shore of an island
If the above is true, do we need to list something else?
Click to expand...
I disagree with your first bullet point. It is true that npc ships are faster to react to you closing on them than they did in potco but I am sure that they do aggro in a very similar fashion, it is not true that navy and eitc ships in potco didn't aggro to you when you approached them, this is definitely faulty memory going on.

The density of ships in tlopo is higher than potco.

Ships don't patrol on a set path in tlopo.

Ships don't return to their patrol pattern when they drop aggro.

Ships drop aggro by distance in tlopo but only by the target porting in potco.

Npc ships are faster and react faster in tlopo.

There are probably more differences and many of them are no big deal or are actually better in tlopo depending on your personal preferences.
 
Expanding on what Eric said,
NPC ships are all the same when it comes to the mechanics. A galleon, a light sloop, a frigate, etc, all go at the same speed with the same turning radius, etc, and when aggro-ed, move at instant full speed. This is a TLOPO thing. POTCO had different ships moving at different speeds and radii.
Ships are hidden from view in the game unless you go to the "known" hangouts for NPC ships. In POTCO you could see ships well beyond the ability to read their names or distinguish which ships they were, all across the Caribbean. In TLOPO, the ships are hidden, not sure exactly why, until you come into their "turf".
And recapping what I mentioned earlier in a different thread is that they keep sailing inside each other, where sometimes you can have up to 20 (or more) ships sailing in a circle as you sail around and around, doing the "rodeo roundup" for loot. Mesh colliders needed here, lol.
Now, agreeing with Shamus, there are many a time too many NPC ships are inside or right on shore and it can be a challenge when launching at some islands, such as Raven's Cove, with a Storm Reaper a Phantom and a Death Omen lurking with nothing better to do.
And lastly, too much of the Caribbean has no ships whatsoever, with the density in the known hangouts extreme and over packed.
 
Crashalot said:
Expanding on what Eric said,
NPC ships are all the same when it comes to the mechanics. A galleon, a light sloop, a frigate, etc, all go at the same speed with the same turning radius, etc, and when aggro-ed, move at instant full speed. This is a TLOPO thing. POTCO had different ships moving at different speeds and radii.
Ships are hidden from view in the game unless you go to the "known" hangouts for NPC ships. In POTCO you could see ships well beyond the ability to read their names or distinguish which ships they were, all across the Caribbean. In TLOPO, the ships are hidden, not sure exactly why, until you come into their "turf".
And recapping what I mentioned earlier in a different thread is that they keep sailing inside each other, where sometimes you can have up to 20 (or more) ships sailing in a circle as you sail around and around, doing the "rodeo roundup" for loot. Mesh colliders needed here, lol.
Now, agreeing with Shamus, there are many a time too many NPC ships are inside or right on shore and it can be a challenge when launching at some islands, such as Raven's Cove, with a Storm Reaper a Phantom and a Death Omen lurking with nothing better to do.
And lastly, too much of the Caribbean has no ships whatsoever, with the density in the known hangouts extreme and over packed.
Click to expand...
In TLOPO, the ships are hidden, not sure exactly why, until you come into their "turf". Well, if I still understand my very basic game stuff, hiding polys - ships, people, textures..etc usually allows faster refreshing of visible polys and also not drawing polys that you don't see saves resources. But with such high end systems we have now, perhaps the devs can allow max objects and let the users choose to set visible distance amounts. I guess what I mean is, I think the devs at the game server is limiting objects so as to not strain the servers as well. Ex: Say the server can show every ship on the map real time (1000 just for a number) and you set your view distance at max, you would see all 1000 of them.
But say the devs cut that down to 100 visible in server, now your game setting would only see 100 at max. You only see what they set for poly visibility? I can't pick to see 1000 ships if the server only has it set to 100 on map. I think the devs control this.

I think it's a lag, resource decision by the devs so that the game doesn't labor more than it already does. Letting you see more stuff further away just adds to the work and time per redraw of your game.

At least that's how I remember basic stuff.
Hope this helps and is kinda, sorta, maybe close.
 
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Y’all are missing the point! When they stack up on each other it’s easier to hit all of them! More loot and reputation in a shorter amount of time. For us lazy people it’s a blessing :)
 
Nate II said:
Y’all are missing the point! When they stack up on each other it’s easier to hit all of them! More loot and reputation in a shorter amount of time. For us lazy people it’s a blessing :)
Click to expand...
Not really sure it's a blessing but there are many pluses and minuses in the differences between potco and tlopo and many are a matter of opinion and taste. I do think:
1) ships should patrol a set pattern when not agrro
2) ships should return to their patrol patten when they drop agrro
3) ships should be excluded from the launch areas around islands except when they are agrro
4) overall ship density is too high in tlopo
imo, all other differences are quite debatable. Some are for the better, others are more a matter of taste and some that players claim are just not true. Whether mesh colliders would be an improvement or not is hard to say and whether they were in potco or not is uncertain to me, I suspect that they were not, but I'm all for experimenting with it.
 
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Nate II said:
Please show me the waters you sail, I never see an ocean full of ships :/
Click to expand...
OK, here is what we are talking about:
Screen Shot 2018-11-29 at 9.21.14 PM.png
 
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