Pub 104 - Cannon Crafting & Firing

Kyronix

Feedback for the cannon crafting & firing

Kyronix

Known Issues:

• When chaining up a pirate it can prevent ship movement

Victim_Of_Siege

I do like the Damage numbers, it let's you know for sure that you are hitting the other vessel.

Garth_Grey

I'm assuming this isnt fully active yet ? I see the crafting still looks the same ?

Kyronix

Garth_Grey said:

I'm assuming this isnt fully active yet ? I see the crafting still looks the same ?

It is active on TC1 - make sure you patch up to get the latest client text.

Mervyn

With regards to last parry chance being displayed on the weapon/shield. Ikeelu pointed out it would make more sense to be displayed in character status.

Also, one of the reasons Kyronix stated that non medible armour doesn’t display the lower mana cost bonus was because they wanted to reduce the number of properties displayed on items. (Even though if an item already had Lower mana cost, it could be added to it so as not to take up another property line)

Petra_Fyde

For the information of others:

Having read this item:
All existing cannons must be dismantled and replaced before use after Publish 104 is deployed.

I decided to remove my cannons on Europa before copying the character to test center. 2 of the cannons would not allow me to dismantle, asking me to empty the magazine - the cannons were not loaded, however I found the cannons were dirty. Cleaning them with a swab allowed me to remove them. 

Mervyn

Shame on you Petra, I expected more of your housekeeping.

Petra_Fyde

Hold of scuttled boat contains, swab and 2 stacks of powder, cannon balls and grapeshot. These will not stack together.  Seems as if they still retain 'light' and 'heavy' designation, though unseen?

Kyronix

Petra_Fyde said:

Hold of scuttled boat contains, swab and 2 stacks of powder, cannon balls and grapeshot. These will not stack together.  Seems as if they still retain 'light' and 'heavy' designation, though unseen?

A 1st pass of scuttled ship cargo is planned for the this publish, and you should see those changes out in the next TC1 release - that will resolve these issues.

Superfrog

curious if you have already, or will be setting up a way to create a macro that will prep the cannon then fire it. i would like to set it up to fire the amount of times it takes to scuttle each ship so i can press the macro and be done til it's scuttled.  I realize this could be considered lazy, but i am old and use a computer for my job all day, the less clicks the better in my opinion. nice changes so far. 

Victim_Of_Siege

Did some extensive testing overnight and i tried all the ships and every one of them gets stuck every time you bind a pirate to the pole.  I did everything i could think of with a ship, including some PvP ship battling.  so far the ship being stuck with a pirate on the pole  is the only issue i can find.

Garth_Grey

I'll admit I haven't done any testing, simply because of what I'm reading. I personally don't think the firing mechanics needed anything done to them, it was perfectly fine the way it was, you could fire cannons at the same speed that Dread Pirates fire theres, I know because I timed it many times. What we needed was for the manufacturing process to be simplified, which it wasn't other than the fact that potash was able to be made in bulk. I haven't actually crafted anything, so unless someone has and can tell me that the same ingredients aren't  still needed, and the same methods aren't used for making them (because the crafting menu requirements still look exactly the same), then nothing has changed. But I'm happy for everyone that needed a "load it up and push play" button, your voices were heard. I do like that cannons will be dyeable...yay me.

Garth_Grey

Superfrog said:

curious if you have already, or will be setting up a way to create a macro that will prep the cannon then fire it. i would like to set it up to fire the amount of times it takes to scuttle each ship so i can press the macro and be done til it's scuttled.  I realize this could be considered lazy, but i am old and use a computer for my job all day, the less clicks the better in my opinion. nice changes so far. 

Looks like you'll be getting your wish, you can put 100 of everything in each of your cannons, and then just ride around hitting one button and killing everything in site..have fun with it.

Victim_Of_Siege

it's not as bad as that @Garth_Grey . you push a button, it goes through the same steps as before, then you press a different button and it fires it.  I do agree that the firing process didn't need changing as much as the crafting process does. I haven't tested that yet, going to do it today and see what happens.

Garth_Grey

If it brings more people out into the waters, then it's a good thing. We can't all be happy about changes, we all know that.

Victim_Of_Siege

testing the crafting, everything is the same except the Potash. that helps a little. @Kyronix could you change all of the items for cannon firing to be "make all" like the potash/charcoal as long as the ingredients are in our pack?

Kyronix

With regard to the mechanics of firing cannons - it was the single largest piece of feedback as to why players didn't participate in HS content.  Beyond that nothing fundamentally has actually changed, all we did was remove an unnecessary step (cleaning) and reduce the amount of button clicks and targeting involved.  The process still takes the same amount of time as it did before

With regard to the crafting - making something a "make all" generally requires to pre-requisites
1. Very low skill to craft
2. A single ingredient

With those two things in mind, making EVERYTHING function this way isn't possible, and with the "make all" option in crafting the amount of button clicking is reduced substantially.  I'm open to making additional changes to making the crafting less cumbersome - but gutting it entirely isn't likely to happen.  What specific crafting changes are we talking about here?  

Kyronix

Garth_Grey said:

I'll admit I haven't done any testing, simply because of what I'm reading.

Come check things out on TC1 today or all weekend - actual testing is imperative! I'll be in and out all day/weekend - come play!

Victim_Of_Siege

Kyronix said:

With regard to the mechanics of firing cannons - it was the single largest piece of feedback as to why players didn't participate in HS content.  Beyond that nothing fundamentally has actually changed, all we did was remove an unnecessary step (cleaning) and reduce the amount of button clicks and targeting involved.  The process still takes the same amount of time as it did before

With regard to the crafting - making something a "make all" generally requires to pre-requisites
1. Very low skill to craft
2. A single ingredient

With those two things in mind, making EVERYTHING function this way isn't possible, and with the "make all" option in crafting the amount of button clicking is reduced substantially.  I'm open to making additional changes to making the crafting less cumbersome - but gutting it entirely isn't likely to happen.  What specific crafting changes are we talking about here?  

If it isn't possible to make a stack of black powder at once from the ingredients in our packs, then about the only thing i would like to see is put all items on the alchemy menu, including the powder charges. The cannons/ammo can stay on the smith and sell the ramrod on provisioners with the torches and take it down to two crafters only needed to make everything. that would help immensely.

Kyronix

I think moving the charges to alchemy is fair, so long as the tailoring skill is still required as a secondary, which we can do. 

I don't see a lot of mileage out of changing the ramrod - it lasts forever and you only need one.  I don't think there's any shortage of ramrods out there.

Victim_Of_Siege

That's why i was saying put them on the provisioner, since you would only ever need one to get started.  as far the charges, i can agree with needing a certain amount of tailoring to make them. make it like blacksmith add-ons for carpentry. 

Petra_Fyde

Kyronix said:

I think moving the charges to alchemy is fair, so long as the tailoring skill is still required as a secondary, which we can do. 

I don't know about anyone else, but my initial reaction to that idea was 'no, please don't'.  So many other skills need tailoring too - I'd have to train it again to put it on my alchemist? She's the only crafter I have that doesn't need armslore included.

Victim_Of_Siege

Petra_Fyde said:

Kyronix said:

I think moving the charges to alchemy is fair, so long as the tailoring skill is still required as a secondary, which we can do. 

I don't know about anyone else, but my initial reaction to that idea was 'no, please don't'.  So many other skills need tailoring too - I'd have to train it again to put it on my alchemist? She's the only crafter I have that doesn't need armslore included.

I'm thinking more along the lines of adding alchemy to my smith/tailor mule, rather than tailor to my cooking/scribe/alchemy mule

Victim_Of_Siege

One other item that i would like to see work like potash and charcoal would be be cannon balls.  they only take ingots, could we get them to be this way?

Petra_Fyde

Under the old methods you could, if you chose to, load the cannon by double clicking the ramrod, fuse cord etc.  Currently on test you get a target cursor from fuse cords, grapeshot and cannonballs but not from the ramrod or powder charge.

Kyronix

Petra_Fyde said:

Under the old methods you could, if you chose to, load the cannon by double clicking the ramrod, fuse cord etc.  Currently on test you get a target cursor from fuse cords, grapeshot and cannonballs but not from the ramrod or powder charge.

Thanks for the report, this will resolved in the next TC1 update

Kyronix

Victim_Of_Siege said:

One other item that i would like to see work like potash and charcoal would be be cannon balls.  they only take ingots, could we get them to be this way?

I'm experimenting internally to see if we can setup all the cannon supplies to make all - stay tuned!

Victim_Of_Siege

Kyronix said:

Victim_Of_Siege said:

One other item that i would like to see work like potash and charcoal would be be cannon balls.  they only take ingots, could we get them to be this way?

I'm experimenting internally to see if we can setup all the cannon supplies to make all - stay tuned!

Awesome!!  Thank you.

Khyro

Feedback on testing so far:

Love the damage numbers on boat combat, it helps a lot!

- Carronade and Culverin appear to do the same damage. Are they just visually different now, or is there any functional difference? Carronade may shoot more Grapeshots, but it may have just been RNG in my tests.

Britainnain Ship, Tokuno Ship, Gargoyle Ship
- Cannonballs do 2500 Damage
- Flame Cannonballs do 2000 Damage, minor splash damage to crew
- Frost Cannonballs do 2000 Damage, minor splash damage to crew
- Grapeshots do ~50 to 100 Damage per hit, have seen them hit as low as 11 times and as high as 40 times. Depends on where you align yourself against your target and how close you are. Will also do minor damage to crew.

Orc Ship
- Cannonballs do 3250 Damage
- Flame Cannonballs to 2600 Damage, minor splash damage to crew
- Frost Cannonballs do 2600 Damage, minor splash damage to crew
- Grapeshots do ~68 to 127 Damage per hit, number of hits vary depending on proximity and alignment to target.

Pirate ships become scuttled around 67000 damage. Using only Cannonballs, this is about 27 shots from a Britannian, Tokuno, or Gargoyle Ship and 20 shots from an Orc Ship.

The time to kill for pirate ships has increased greatly. I am not sure if this is intended or not, but 27 shots in a non-orc ship is quite a lot.

Flame/Frost Cannoballs. I feel these need to be greatly improved or be removed, as they are only acquired by reward and seem worthless to use compared to normal Cannonballs (unless I am missing something).

It could be cool if a Flame Cannonball would set the enemy ship on fire and do significant damage over time, or the Frost Cannonball could force a ship to stop for a period of time by "freezing" it. If nothing else, greatly increasing their damage would be nice.

Grapeshots are pretty cool with the damage numbers. A Britannian ship going broadside with 8 cannons fully loaded and a quick turn around could unleash some serious damage in a short period of time.

Kyronix

Thanks for the feedback!  We are planning a balance pass for damage in a coming TC1 update.  The damage is the same regardless of the cannon type - it’s all cosmetic now.