Yeah, I think you might have to give a bit more detail about the gameplay if you want a better answer.

Sure, light ships could have a small effect should they be able to ram a larger ship, but as I understand it the problem would be multiple sloops crashing into a dreadnaught (which still wouldn't do assloads of damage, realistically. they could, however, cripple a ship to leave it prey for a larger ally).

I think, in my own humble, disgracefully rated opinion, that this problem needs to be handled by resource management in the game. Create enough of a "time-to-earn-resources" disincentive for ramming and you will keep it as a last resort. Perhaps noobs start out piloting rowboats? I don't know. But I think if you want to keep ramming as a last resort/extremely risky tactical manuver, you need to tie it to a player's time investment. Make it completely ineffective for the smallest ships, until a player gets 20 hours or so into the game. That's the simplest solution, I believe.

Edit: and of course, a kamakaze ship would spend plenty of time in a larger and better equipped ship's cannon range.

Yeah, I'm still working out the details of resource acquisition and expenditure. It's a combat-heavy game, so I don't want every battle to leave all sides at least half-crippled. So there needs to be the opportunity for a moderately quick bounce-back. At the same time, though, each skirmish will take a significant amount of time and I don't want the victorious player to feel that his time has been wasted. (This is, of course, a situation which is common to every PvP MMO out there.) In terms of making kamikaze a bad tactic, I think that weakening the prow such that ramming causes lots of damage to the ramming player should be sufficient. Oblique rams, meanwhile, would be difficult to do at sufficient speed to cause much damage.

I don't want to forcibly segregate players by level, but I do want to have a "newbie island" and to provide strong disincentives to keep higher-level players out of it. I've already thought of a few ways to do this within the game's stylistic conceit. I do also like the honor system, though. And more generally, I like the idea of a player being "rated" on his combat skills by more than just winning or losing.

I am assuming you have played the battleship MMO navyfield?

It covers a lot of what you are looking for.

Quote:Original post by Joviex
I am assuming you have played the battleship MMO navyfield?

It covers a lot of what you are looking for.

I have not. Thanks for the pointer; it'll be very useful to research how they're doing things.

What about implimenting automatic boarding actions, where your crew is experienced/agressive enough to hop on the enemy ship with cudgels and cutlasses and exterminate the hostile sailors? A more experienced crew wil not only be more coordinated about this, but also be more effective at melee combat and boarding action efficiency and tactics.

Just a random two cents.

Quote:Original post by Sta7ic
What about implimenting automatic boarding actions, where your crew is experienced/agressive enough to hop on the enemy ship with cudgels and cutlasses and exterminate the hostile sailors? A more experienced crew wil not only be more coordinated about this, but also be more effective at melee combat and boarding action efficiency and tactics.

I've wondered for quite some time now whether I should implement boarding. Certainly if the aim is to pillage or capture rather than scuttle the enemy ship then it's necessary, but the amount of detail and control is a trickier topic. At this point, I think the benefit of simulating the actual boarding wouldn't provide a good return on the time it would take to implement it. Instead, victory will be the result of the other side conceding. My current thinking is that morale is a factor; ship damage, crew deaths, poor captaining and a perception of hopelessness can cause your crew to surrender right out from under you. Actually, it would be interesting to tie 'honor' into 'morale'.