We also take into account wood type – for example, live oak is much stronger than fir. “We use exact ship shape colliders, thus ships hulls that have curved forms, especially French ship designs, can ricochet more. On hit, we measure the angle of wood planking to calculate the effective armour, which is higher at very low angles of hit. “You have a projectile that flies at certain speed, has gravity drop off and carries certain penetration that drops off based on distance-energy loss. “Cannonballs use custom written ballistics, which just uses basic math,” Zasov explains. If that wasn’t enough, players will be armed to the gills with 18th-century armaments, from short-range carronades to devastating mortars. That is why our water is server-based and has to be the same for all 50 players.” “Roll and pitch can affect ship position and expose vulnerable parts of the vessel, or alternatively block the shot. “Waves affect the gameplay,” confirms Zasov. This is no different for virtual buccaneers, as Naval Action’s wind and physics models affect manoeuvrability, while its dynamic water simulation can often be the deciding factor in ship-on-ship clashes. “Gunplay looks similar to a mix of a sniper gameplay in Battlefield 3 and 4 where you snipe with tracking shot and then unleash the machine gun volley of all guns – up to 69 on a Santisima Trinidad.”Īs any sailor knows (we assume), the greatest danger on the high seas is Mother Nature itself. We give the player options to pick convergence and how guns are fired: from bow to stern or vice versa, or randomly. If a tracking shot hits they can unleash the whole broadside. “They must choose the elevation of the gun using a mouse for a tracking shot – a mechanic we borrowed from Angry Birds. “We consider gunnery very important and give player a wealth of options,” Zasov states. The balance between realism and accessibility extends to Naval Action’s combat, which sees up to 50 players take to the water and attempt to send each other to Davy Jones’ Locker. This allows the player to extract extra performance from their vessel when it is needed.”
Naval action map tools plus#
But we give players two tools to override the automation: turning yards to control side force, backing force and wind power, plus depowering jibs and staysails to control heel. For example, sail management can be fully automated by use of the auto-skipper. “Things that are important but too complex are automated with an option to override the automation. We are not creating a historical photograph – we are creating a photograph of a photograph. “But vehicles just need to match the realistic mental model. “The reality is simple: virtual creations, including ships, will never match the real-life counterparts,” Zasov admits. As they are bombarded by cannon balls, battered by waves and rammed by enemy boats, they spring leaks, splinter, demast and burn like the real thing, too. Naval Action’s ship models are as close to pixel-perfect recreations of their real-life twins as the simulation genre has ever seen. “Sailing ships require a lot of custom things, including custom physics, and there were no solutions that could satisfy our backend requirements so we wrote everything ourselves.” “We used Unity and wrote our own custom server,” he details.
With Game Labs setting out to offer such a high level of attention to detail in Naval Action, Zasov says that the developer essentially started from scratch when it came to design. "We try to build complex mechanics around generally adopted practices, such as WASD." Shooting is built around universally-loved first-person shooter and Angry Birds mechanics.” WASD is used for sailing, using presets to increase the sailĪrea. We try to build complex mechanics around generally adopted practices. “There is one trick that we use a lot to help players uncover the mechanics themselves. “A lot of players enjoy learning complex mechanics themselves and receive immense satisfaction when they find something new that they did not know.
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“It’s easy to stand on the shoulders of giants like Dark Souls, who don’t show everything and expect players to learn complex things by trial and error,” Zasov says. While players are tasked with managing the multifaceted aspects of seafaring, Game Labs took steps to keep its complicated gameplay as accessible as possible – finding inspiration in unexpected places. The result was Naval Action, a nautical warfare title boasting photorealistic recreations of historical vessels, true-to-life physics and weather-afflicted oceans. In addition to that, we wanted to convey the experience the Age of Sail captain could feel at that time, including the sense of danger and loneliness at sea during long journeys.” “We also wanted to experiment with several old school mechanics like a complete lack of handholding and limited markers.
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