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
NPC ships have no real course and lock up way too much , never seen it so congested In one area and so vacant so many other places .
Launching is a challenge to see how much damage you'll take before getting to the helm ...... lol Always love the corsair , Behemoth , Harbringer ....... awaiting at port ! Can't move sometimes you're surrounded by so many at port !!!
Even the Flagships are lost at sea .... seen too often where The Skel flags ( French / Spanish ) are all bunched together or at a Far off island ( Like today One sitting at Port Royal ) .
 
I'm back "new" to the game and noticing a related problem. Some parts of the ocean are empty, while other parts (like near Raven's Cove) are choked with cursed, eitc and navy ships. This is especially a tough on low level players on their first quests in a level 1 sloop. They end up being chased by multiple high level ships.

I'd be surprised if there wasn't already a bug report or similar already on the list. On my way to find out.
 
...Some parts of the ocean are empty, while other parts (like near Raven's Cove) are choked with cursed, eitc and navy ships. This is especially a tough on low level players on their first quests in a level 1 sloop. They end up being chased by multiple high level ships.
Very considerate of you and others (on this thread) to bring such issues to light. *I especially appreciate the point made about “beginning/new” players having to adjust to the difficulty of what is being experienced on the seas as a result of these issues. (It is extremely important for seasoned players to put themselves in the boots of new/inexperienced Captains and cannoneers because essentially it’s about the ‘experience’ itself during sailing which ends up becoming one’s acceptance or not of this particular aspect of the game).

We all have specific parts of this wonderful game to love <3and to enjoy but sailing, I would argue, remains a main artery for any successful remake to master!
 
I'm not sure, I don't want sailing to become easier. My feeling is that you are right; they should be more like a real ship whenever possible. Another thing is that ship density tends to be too high, there were never huge groups of ships in potco the way that there is in tlopo.
I think if you go way back in the forums and discussions, the perceived increase in ship numbers may have been done by the devs to appease and pacify the restless pirate beta natives. Tlopo has taken a few liberties within reason it seems.
 
I think if you go way back in the forums and discussions, the perceived increase in ship numbers may have been done by the devs to appease and pacify the restless pirate beta natives. Tlopo has taken a few liberties within reason it seems.
One thing that I believe is a bug and should be changed is: Ships should move in a patrol pattern and should go back to their patrol area when they are no longer aggro. In tlopo ships just sit there until they become aggro and then sit where they are left when they loose aggro. Another thing that is different but maybe more by design than from a bug is that they are faster to react to attack and player ships in close proximity than they were in potco. I also suspect, but am not super sure, that regular npc ships are faster and more maneuverable than they were in potco and that hunters and sotl are slower and less maneuverable than they were in potco except when they first appear where they zip to their target with blinding speed, lol. Oh, and another thing, hunters and sotl should attack player ships that are not their target when they get within broadside arcs, they should not aggro to the other player ship but should fire when opportunity is there.
 
I think ship density is a bit excessive, but workable. I do prefer the game to be more original, where I could see the ships sailing as far as the eye could see, instead of stumbling on them all at once, as it is now, especially when tracking them for quests.
I just think that pushing pirate ships out of the way and sailing through each other (the NPC ships) is something that could easily be worked out.
Sometimes the hunters doing their swirls, spins and pirouettes just looks silly.
I can't tell you how many times (like 10 times a day +) I have to disable the warship by ripping off its sails, off in a far corner of the Caribbean, to be able to sink Hunters without them hiding in the "skirt" of the Warships.
This is no easy feat when sailing solo mind you, even with an alt at the cannons!
The same goes for the land based NPCs. It's silly how they can actually push you through the wall/rocks when they advance on you. I mean, unless you like that sort of thing, which sometimes serves a useful purpose...
But anyway, simple mesh colliders wouldn't be a hard request, especially since it's already implemented for pirates while sailing (not while on land).
 
While I see why you would think this would be beneficial and add more realism to the game, I strongly disagree on the idea that collision should be enabled for NPC ships.
I've personally had many encounters where my ship has gotten stuck between other players' ships during large scale battles and from experience I can tell you that in these cases the collision boxes cause the ship to become very unstable ultimately causing it to teleport around, jitter between places, and launch itself into places it shouldn't have been in. This happens commonly enough with just players circling each other that I can only imagine that NPC ship AI constantly directing ships to collide would make NPC ships extremely unstable to the point where collision boxes end up serving more as a detriment rather than an improvement.
 
While I see why you would think this would be beneficial and add more realism to the game, I strongly disagree on the idea that collision should be enabled for NPC ships.
I've personally had many encounters where my ship has gotten stuck between other players' ships during large scale battles and from experience I can tell you that in these cases the collision boxes cause the ship to become very unstable ultimately causing it to teleport around, jitter between places, and launch itself into places it shouldn't have been in. This happens commonly enough with just players circling each other that I can only imagine that NPC ship AI constantly directing ships to collide would make NPC ships extremely unstable to the point where collision boxes end up serving more as a detriment rather than an improvement.
Basically, what I'm distilling here is that poor gamesmanship, AKA bad sailing, are a problem for some.
Well, that's true in every game, for better or worse.
I still don't see that as a detractor from my suggestion, and I wholeheartedly thank you for your input.
 
I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately and have come to the conclusion that if mesh colliders can be implemented without adding a bunch of bugs with them then this is a good idea. More realism is better and poor sailing skill is not a reasonable reason to stay with the status quo. I think adding mesh colliders would almost certainly improve the game, of course speculation and logical thought are no substitute for trial testing in game, so, I say it should be tried and tested, then a truely informed decision can be made.
 
Basically, what I'm distilling here is that poor gamesmanship, AKA bad sailing, are a problem for some.
Well, that's true in every game, for better or worse.
I still don't see that as a detractor from my suggestion, and I wholeheartedly thank you for your input.

My post wasn’t to highlight that poor gamesmanship would make this a bad addition, it was to highlight the fact that even with a few ships colliding the game starts to become unstable and that with the currently implimented NPC ship AI that tends to make ships overlap, it will doubtlessly cause large amounts of instability with all the collisions happening between them.
 
Whatever needs to happen, it is apparent that sailing amongst NPC ships does not create the same experience nor engagement as once experienced in-game. *This is a really big deal if you both enjoy and loved the sailing aspect to which the game once offered.

I hope the issue is taken seriously and becomes fixed! If not, the actual “flow” of the experience of sailing would be @ stake.
:boat::raft::boat:

As someone whom used to sail the High Seas...a ship Captain has already enough challenges to overcome when everything is operating normally!
 
Whatever needs to happen, it is apparent that sailing amongst NPC ships does not create the same experience nor engagement as once experienced in-game. *This is a really big deal if you both enjoy and loved the sailing aspect to which the game once offered.

I hope the issue is taken seriously and becomes fixed! If not, the actual “flow” of the experience of sailing would be @ stake.
:boat::raft::boat:

As someone whom used to sail the High Seas...a ship Captain has already enough challenges to overcome when everything is operating normally!
I love the sailing part of this game more than any other part. I also loved it in potco and my love of it is what drew me to tlopo. I find that there are some differences between the two games in sailing and some I like better in tlopo while others I don't. In potco the ship density was generally lower and so there were fewer ship collisions, enough fewer and long enough ago that I don't even remember how the potco npc ships behaved in collisions. Does anyone remember for sure whether they did have mesh colliders or not? Regardless of how it was in potco, I'm a fan of more realism and support giving this a try. Of course, if it turns out to create more trouble than it's worth it should be abandoned but let's not jump to conclusions.
 
Does anyone remember for sure whether they did have mesh colliders or not?

It doesn't seem to me that the collision mechanics are very different now than in the original potco. It's perhaps that the short comings of potco's collision system are just now more pronounced in tlopo with the very increased ship density.
I would agree that if collision meshes were made more realistic now, the high ship density may just add more problems.

In potco, if I wanted to engage multiple navy/eitc ships I pretty much had to shoot at them to get them to chase me.
In tlopo I just have to sail nearby and I'm targeted, and often by more than one ship.
I only recall that behavior for the cursed ships in potco.
It made you intentionally kept your distance until you were a higher level or had an awesome crew.
 
It doesn't seem to me that the collision mechanics are very different now than in the original potco. It's perhaps that the short comings of potco's collision system are just now more pronounced in tlopo with the very increased ship density.
I would agree that if collision meshes were made more realistic now, the high ship density may just add more problems.

In potco, if I wanted to engage multiple navy/eitc ships I pretty much had to shoot at them to get them to chase me.
In tlopo I just have to sail nearby and I'm targeted, and often by more than one ship.
I only recall that behavior for the cursed ships in potco.
It made you intentionally kept your distance until you were a higher level or had an awesome crew.
I do recall potco ships becoming aggro when you sailed too close to them and I am very certain that you are wrong about that being only skeleton type ships but you certainly are right about having to sail across long stretches of sea in order to collect more than a few due to the lower ship density. I remain very uncertain about whether potco had mesh colliders for npc ships or not. You just didn't see that many npc ships collide in the original game.
 
I do recall potco ships becoming aggro when you sailed too close to them

That was definitely true once you were identified as a pirate. Like after shooting at them. "They know we be pirates Captain". After you got that message, I agree all ships might chase you. If just setting out from a port though they seem to let you pass easily enough.
 
Skeletons are always high strung and always looking for a fight, be it here or in POTCO. The Navy and EITC would let you pass until you shot and hit them, on most servers. There was always 1 or 2 servers in POTCO where the ships were more aggressive. I can't remember which, but they'd sometimes just randomly attack if you sailed too close. Then there was Abassa, which would get so congested, code-wise, that you could park right next to a Warship or Hunter and blast away without fear of being sunk on many occasions. Then they'd reset the server and it would take a few days for it to tame down again.
I like sailing and the NPC ships on TLOPO just fine.
And I'm not sure if adding mesh colliders would make the game any harder or more laggy than it can get already. I mean, were not talking 100s of ships at once here. Maybe adding 10 to 15% of NPC ships in play in any action scenario at any given time, like a mat party. The rest of the time it would add no extra lag, say random NPCs sailing along, etc.
But hey, it's just an idea.
 
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