[Ships] Famous Ship You'd like to play

[Ekarlath]

Map design is getting closer to completing, mechanics are already ready to be set once all the design is done, and I’ve already started working on the questlines.

Right now I’m planning:

• Pure Piracy questline, gathering treasure, capturing ships, nassau, tortuga.
• Mythical questline, with epic things like fountain of youth, monsters, and more.
• Privateer questline, with special gameplay tweaks such as newspapers if the captain learnt to read.

And all that with an overall map evolution based on prestige and investment. The more you spend money on a port, the more that port grow up. The more you plunder a port, the more it become stronger.

Basic mechanics planned:

• Ship customization, speed, armor, survivability, main/secondary batterie type (projectiles)
• Ship skills, dodging (small ships agility), boarding (conversion mechanics), broadsides battery (hussite wagon).
• Tide managment, sometime you will be able to pass shallow water, sometime not, depending on your ship heavyness / on the tide level.
• Regional reputation, if you do too much piracy in Guatemala, all Guatemala spots will hate you, while Jamaican spots won’t cause they’re not linked.
• Letter of Mark, possibility to earn grace to differents factions, becoming privateer for them.
• Careening, regaining structural points (armor) / speed capability, while putting your ship on a beach to do careening of the hull and refitting the rigging.
• Alcohol ! Rum more Rum !
• Supply managment, you’ll have to dock often to avoid having your entire crew dying at sea.
• STORMS.
• Deep / Shallow Water control, depending on your ship you will be forces to stay near the coast.
• Bounty Hunting.
• Treasure Hunting.
• Black Flag raising (changing your current color to grey), other nation flag raising (changing your color to theirs).
• Oh and maybe there will be a dragon somewhere ?

Once the map is ready, I’ll upload the mod directly, it will be a graphical / UI / sound / scenario mod, no datamod requiered to play it but as it convert some non-ships units into ships, it will only be usable correctly on my map using my XS scripts in the scenario.

[Ekarlath]

Hello there.

No new ship model to show, as I’m working on the map for now, but I have something to share with you. I was searching a way to make the chained shot behavior just couple minutes ago and I found a way to do so.

Right now, we can’t “slow down” a unit, or can we ? Infact, we can, using multiplicative Aura affecting only ennemy, impacting their movement speed with under 1 value. I’m gonna use that logic for the boarding mechanics combined with Conversion ability, but for the chained shot it was, let’s say, different.

My first idea was to just give the shot a pass-through effect, but it was not reflecting the slow-down effect, so I searched a way, thinking of spawning a dead-unit after the chained shot projectile vanish that would have a slow down aura. Issue with that idea is that, I’m not sure I can determine, on death, if the shot was hitting let’s say terrain or target, plus it would affect non targeted unit moving on that spot after shot decay start.

I finally found out a pretty simple way to do a slow down effect using the Aura with an under 1 multiplicative value, combined with pass-through projectile style. I still need to test it but I’m 99.99% sure it will work as I hope.

The result wil lbe that the chained shot will have a tiny slow-down aura, that will affect target on approching it, on hitting hit, and after passing through it, so at least 3 step slowing in the process and then vanish forever. That avoid using complexe trigger to detecte stats, targets, location, what so ever, nor spawning invisible unit.

So chained shot slow down effect 99.99% confirmed for the mod release version. All those mechanics will be presented in a tutorial scenario, of course, cause there will be many of them.

[ZestySage992416]

There is an event mod which gives you arquebuiser

[Ekarlath]

Of course I’ve already put them in the project.

I’m waiting for the next DLC to see how many new ships and interesting units they’ll add to the game for the project I’m working on. As they’re changing some mechanics, like conversion, I wait for the update to come before working heavily on the gameplay. But I already got interesting ideas I’ll share once I’m confident enought.

[Ekarlath]

So with today patch, lots of cool thing poped up.

I’m already studying how I can exploit the newly introduced things, and there is a lot of waves on the horizon.
I’ve been waiting for the patch to decide how I’ll do work on my ship project, and I can finally start working on the gameplay.

With that new “hp transformation” thing…I might even be able to … Let’s say … Unmasted ship ? That’s not a promise, but an opportunity I keep in my mind probably for V3 of the project, so for now, back to work on the V1.

I’ll try to work on an “arabic” Dow model too, as Age of Empires 4 inspired me a lot recently for ships. I will also work on crusader style ships someday, so stay tuned for more ships shipping !

[Ekarlath]

So no new model for today.

I’ve been studying the game files, mechanics, tested broadside ideas, and picekd choices for unit reskin into ships.

The broadside is pretty cool, using the Charged-Projectile new addition, this feature is just crazy and will allow me to turn anything into battle ready stomper.

With the Stringers I can go for Chained shots, slowing ennemy ships, red shots to burn the ships, grapshots damage over time, piercing shots reducing armor, active transformation buff for sail deployement to gain a speed boost, conversion mechanics for the boarding fight, invulnerability treshold to prevent ship sinking while capturing them.

I’ll have to test if I can use the stinger system to increase the ennemy ship fire rate delay, and if I can’t, I already have an idea using the HP transformation to turn ships into other ships. Maybe I will even work on demasting system earlier than I thought I would. I’m not sure how I’ll approach that, cause it would restrict a lot the amount of ship models available and requiere a lot of scripting.

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About the ship gameplay, here is the roadmap:

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Tall Ships

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Ship of the Line

(endgame ships, you won’t face them early … or ?)

• bulky monsters, aimed to unleash devastating volley from multiple fire decks with long reloads
• lots of sails, but moving slowly, capable of facing storms and high see, perfect for ocean crossing
• huge cargo load for more rum.
• not meant for shallow water, they won’t access some part of the map due to their waterline level.

Frigate

(lategame ships, you’ll use them, you’ll sink them, you’ll love them, and you’ll hate them.

• sleak, agile, with standard manoeuverability, meant for high sea as well as coastal navigation
• less gundecks than Ship of the Line, but still armed with high amount of guns.
• Boarding possibilities, it’s not their main role, but they can sustain and engage boarding fight side to side
• Cargo hold decent enought to fit either merchant and military purpose, they will be the main wship you’ll encounter

Galleon

(early-midgame ships, a pirate themed project can’t be one without Galleon, why ? Because I said it, isn’t that enought ?)

• Iconical spanish treasure ships, slow, powerfull, and filled with gold
• rigged for high sea navigation, merchant task, and large scale warfare, the’re the ancestor of the Ship of the Line, while beeing the ancestor of the Frigate in the same time, will fit multiple role, and will be perfect to be refitted into pirate monsters of the sea
• Will have access to artillery mortars and broadsides batteries, and will be able to cross shallow water based on Tides, when the sea is not high enought, you’ll have to find other occupations until the windws become favorable once more.

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Small Ships

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Schooner

(early-mid-lategame ships, conqueror of the coast), with fancy sails.

• decend cargo hold, meant for costal merchant trips, or ocean crossing under the right circunstance.
• mono gundeck, with light caliber guns, better at close combat than long range engagment
• perfect for boarding
• Can susain high sea, but not hurricain season in the bermuda triangle

Brig

(early-mid-lategame ships, small and fast, multi purpose, never obsolete.)

• Perfect for coastal and river navigation, and agile mouvement
• Armed with artillery frontal piece, or small guns, but mainly fits for saber to saber combat
• perfect pirate ships style, used to do hit & run style combat, capture ships, refit them, sell them, sink them
• cargo hold pretty small, will have to resupply often, in port or at sea
• won’t survive a storm in the high sea, except if luck is on your side, or maybe dragons.

River Boat

(earlygame ship, situational, you’ll hate them, or sink them)

• Never leave the shoreline if you don’t want to end up shipwrecked.
• Perfect for activities while the tide is not there to let your big ship go where you wwant
• perfect to avoid beeing recognized with your famous ship

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I got lots of idea in my mind, but here you have a basic picture of what you can expect from my first release of the mod. It will be a campaign mod, with graphics, sounds changes but no dataset.

I’ll release a tutorial first, for people to test the ship battle logic, and collect feedback before going too crazy on the main mission story design. The map design is pretty close to completion, but with the new castles…I might add Veracruz to my map…Maybe…I’m not sure yet because big map is hard to work with as the minimap is trash.

Stay tuned for another ship display asap with the new elite ships that I can use as reskin entities <3

[Ekarlath]

So I’ve been working on re-assigning my ship models to the new units, elite unit, etc, and ended with some free slots, so two new models today:

A simple Cutter:

And a War-Flyut, equivalent of a 4th rate ship of the line, model type “Seven Provincien”:

Once more, rigging is not maching names, but it’s more for me to know what is what, rather than accuracy.
And Ship showcase coming soon.

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So here is the actual showcase of all available ship models:

Every ship displayed is a different unit, some are land siege unit that will be turned into ships with scriptings, while the others are regular ships reskinned.

I may add maybe few more models, with the few empty graphic slot I have left, but inspiration isn’t there for now.

[Ekarlath]

New model for today, been working on it for abit of time already, Barquentine style rigging:

[Ekarlath]

Alright time for an update here.

I’m working since couple of days on a renewal of the project, due to all the naval thing that happened.
Sadly, animated sails makes my models obsolete, but I can still eventually use the hulls someday.

However, all the new mechanics we got in the game level up the project like crazy.

So far I’ve tested and validated:

• Flag variation for the ship.
• Boarding / Shooting dual combat style.
• Dock harbour crazy design.

And I decided to pack that project with “more” than ships, but ships will have a big part in it.

Teasing Age of Empires 2.5 - purely in script and trigger, no datamod:

I’m gonna probably start a new thread, as this one was dedicated to ships, but it’s this one’s Legacy anyway.

[Ekarlath]

So here is the pool of ship I selected to be used in my project, with some having fix-riged sails and some with vanilla sails.

Rest of the ships will be vanilla for now.
The modded will be:

• Transport ship small tweak (vanilla rigging)
• Longboat reskinned to Xebec (fix-rigging)
• Elite Longboat reskinned to Ketch (fix-rigging)
• Trade Cog hull swap on demo raft and trade cog reskinned to a small ship hull type (vanilla rigging)
• fire-ship hull reskinned to genoese galley hull (vanilla rigging)
• fast-fire ship hull reskinned to a brig type hull (vanilla rigging)
• war galley hull reskinned to an AoE3 inspired hull shape (vanilla rigging)
• Galleon hull reskined to a Vassa style hull (vanilla rigging)

Now the rest ig going to be showcased on the soon to be created new thread about the mod project itself.

[Ekarlath]

Well well well…

Never say Never.

Here is a preview of a new ship I’m working on, based on already done hulls but with kinda new flavour for the recently mentionned new project.

Galleass Line Preview WIP:

Galleass

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War Galleass

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Heavy Galleass

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Elite Galleass

• 

I also decied to not stop myself using some of my ship models with the sails issue, because I found a way to have some cool sails for some models anyway. It won’t be perfect but they will have idle and wind-blown animations on few of the ships, including the Galleass line I’m just showing !

My project will feature many ship variation line, and also units variations on land, meant to add abit of complexity to the game.

• Galleass : Meditteranean ship type, for high sea speed manoeuveres and dedicated mainly to the late-middle age civ groups of the project such as Crusaders factions and also Ottomans, and also the spanish Armada. (probably with speed charge mechanic, it’s replacing the lembos line for technical and also flame-related reasons)
• Xebec-Galliot: Later variant of Galleas, smaller for some, bigger for others. Fast moving ships, best for boarding and shooting. (replacing the Longboats, using my Xebec and my Genoese Galley models.)
• Gunship : Chasing vessel type, with small caliber front-gun, not designed to destroy buildings but to chase ennemy ships while taking down their sails eventually. (slow down effect using stinger probably, replacing the monorem-line for technical reasons, mainly the amount of ships in the line. Will receive animated sails someday, but now I’m too lazy)
• Warship: Heavy combat ship with tons of guns, meant to rage battle for long. (replacing the Catapult and Onager ships.)
• Frigate: Balanced between warships and fast ships, well kitted with enought guns but not too bulky to avoid it becoming a sea brick. (replacing Thirisidai, using one of my best hull type, the Seven Provincien one)
• Ship of the Line: Late-game core units, slow but deadly, lining heck tons of guns. (replacing the antiquity galley line due to lack of animation file on them, so I decided to use my Ship of the Line models with fix-rigged sails there)
• Flagship: Fleet leader ship with moral boosting effect. (replacing the Leviathan, using my Victory type design)

Those new ships will be mixed with already ingame ship lines, with era variation and equivalent of gameplay, abit like eagle / champi / camels that replace some regular unit purpose without breaking the game balancing.
I’m still at the visual stage of the project yet, and the mechanical testing, so no real gameplay variation done yet. As my main goal is solo content, not everything will eventually be balanced but we’ll see when this part is on the road.

For now, I have Galleas to think about !

[Ekarlath]

Had to change my choice on the oars original, the flagship had too many angles constraint, same for leviathan and for turtle ship, so I took the simple Fire-Galley approach.

Galleass and Heavy Galleass rigged and tested, only the two War Galleass and Elite Galleass are left to be turned into sld files, images are already done.

[Mahazona]

Good stuff as always.

[Ekarlath]

Probably my final pool selection, unless devs add new ships soon:

Ship without name on the screens are just vanilla ships or ships with very little modification such as the transport ship aft-castle addition.

[Ekarlath]

Okay so today, not a ship preview, but it’s tied to the project.

Culverin WIP:

Lot of work but I got a strong base pattern, so stay tuned.

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3 hours later first angle attack ingame testing:

Looks wonderful, now I just got 15 more angles to do, and walk / idle animations too.

[Mahazona]

Your actually editing all these thousands of frams by hand?mind boggling.

[Ekarlath]

@Mahazona

Your actually editing all these thousands of frams by hand?mind boggling.

I am yes, but I’m doing it on a single file, otherwise I would go crazy. Siege are easy enought to be edited, as well as ships, but more complexe things like humans and animals…Noppppppppppppppppp not anymore since DE, before I used to do it but…Now it’s too much time for not enught result.

To be EXCAT the amount of frame on the attack sequence is 961, I already completed about 90 of them.(one angle and an half) So technically…Less than one thousand per file ! xD

It’s also more than 18 years of gimp practice that allows me to do that, but yes currently I’m crazy enought to edit this Houfnice frame by frame to become a Culverin, and the result speaks by itself ahaha. I got 30 more frame to edit and I’ll have 2 angles done for the attack. The longest part was to make the gride-guide-pattern for those angles, I’ll have to do that 7 more times, as each angle can be flipped, at least on the grids I’m making.

The key in is it or not possible is mainly the shapes, if I would have been working on a Bombard Cannon edit, it would takes me ages because some angles totally hide the gun barrel, while the Houfnice got nearly 0 angle where the gun barrel is hidden by the operator, or at least the part I’m duplicating isn’t. So yes, it’s possible.

My old conquistador to arbalest project is also still on the todo, but not sure I can one day reach anything with it due to the horse hiding many part of it…However, I’d just have to edit the crossbow shaft to make it looks like a gun after I’ll have all the bow part of the shaft removed ahaha. (yes I’m mad, and what then ? :D)