New Core Ships - Design and Stats Discussion

[Dalas120]

Can you elaborate? AFAIK id is only mandatory for [unit_type][event], and I don't think my implementation has any risk of event duplication or need to delete events. The current implementation seems to work fine in-game.

[Ravana]

Previously these abilities seemed intended to be given to multiple units, as part of unit type. If you only give them to 1 unit per game its not required.

Anyways, all events should have id for ease of debugging.

[Dalas120]

Previously these abilities seemed intended to be given to multiple units, as part of unit type. If you only give them to 1 unit per game its not required.

Even when the ability is given to multiple units and events aren't given an event id, the events are still not duplicated in-game. I'd thought this was intended behavior of [ability][event], but maybe I'd misunderstood the wiki and it's actually a bug.

Anyways, all events should have id for ease of debugging.

Added ids to all events, and edited my post. Thanks.

[Ravana]

I tested with 1.19.7 and seems that unit_type events do not require id anymore to avoid duplication. I have no idea when it was implemented that way. So id is needed just to understand where event comes from. WML events are somewhat possible to track, but one of core events is

Code: Select all

__quick_lua_event=yes
first_time_only=no
name="side turn end"
nonserializable=yes
priority=0
[lua]
	code="<function>"
[/lua]

Further testing shows that as long as event is used by one unit_type, duplication is avoided, but if same event is on multiple unit types, then multiple of them are registered.

[Bob_The_Mighty]

I'm glad to see more ships being added, I'm sure these will end up being very handy for add-ons like the High Seas and The Altaz Mariners. Just a few thoughts...

- I'm not keen on the self-damage idea for the ram attack. Lots of units already have ram or bash attacks that could theoretically cause harm to the attacker, and I don't think it's needed here. Besides, negative abilities aren't much fun. However, restricting ram to only work against units in water and swamp is a neat idea.

- I think most ships should be neutral, except for the undead ones and possibly the pirates. The merchant works as lawful I guess.

- In general, I think movecosts and resistances should be standardised as much as possible. It's a chore checking units to see which ones have minor
differences. When the ships do have these kind of stat differences they should be significant, thematic and clearly defined.

- On that note - it makes sense that an undead ship should be vulnerable to arcane, but why would a fire ship have fire resistance?

- The main worry is that the transport mechanic is sounding very un-mainline. I agree with Doofus...

The one thing I would say about the transport mechanics, and maybe this was already said and I just missed it, is that maybe it should all be kept separate from the base unit. It's a good idea to have an out-of-the-box solution for UMC, and not making it too complicated would be nice, but the issue with corner cases will always be there.

I suggest putting together a mainline macro which can be inserted in a scenario, so scenario designers can use a standardised transport/passenger system should they want it. Otherwise I think it will just get in the way and limit how people use the ship units.

[ForestDragon]

Making transports tied to an optional macro seems like a decent idea - useful for scenarios that rely on it, but doesn't cause too much headache for scenarios that don't.

I also agree that having only the "only attacking units in water" effect without self-damage may be better for consistency. (Fireship is a bit of a special case as it relies on self-damage as its purpose, but I think that one can be given charge instead to achieve a somewhat similar effect while standing out from other ships)

EDIT: meant to say that naval ram special should only have the water restriction, not that it should be the only special on the attack (so I am not opposed to naval ram + unwieldy)

[Dalas120]

The default AI can handle unloading troops from ships in The High Seas since the ships use [tunnel] (which the default pathfinder knows how to use) to connect their "decks" (separate sections of the map that represent the deck of each ship) to all the tiles adjacent to the ship.

This is a neat idea! Unfortunately I don't think it'll work for this situation, because we'd need separate map sections to handle ships - which means the 'transport' ability would only work on scenarios specifically designed for it.

I won't weigh in too much on transport mechanics or traits/abilities, but maybe some situations can be helped or at least have more options if there are weaker support boats, maybe don't even have much of an attack, not that different from the old fake units. I got a few rough candidates, mostly based on the same hull, so the animations wouldn't be that difficult to apply to more than one of them.

Very nice! I think these look great, and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished animations.

- I'm not keen on the self-damage idea for the ram attack. Lots of units already have ram or bash attacks that could theoretically cause harm to the attacker, and I don't think it's needed here. Besides, negative abilities aren't much fun. However, restricting ram to only work against units in water and swamp is a neat idea.

I also agree that having only the "only attacking units in water" special without self-damage may be better for consistency.

I quite like the self-damage, but I think at this point enough people have disagreed with it that it needs to be axed. I've removed it from the original post, and modified ship stats.

(Fireship is a bit of a special case as it relies on self-damage as its purpose, but I think that one can be given charge instead to achieve a somewhat similar effect while standing out from other ships)

For the Fireship, I would see a special status/ability called burning, where it loses some HP each turn (can kill) and is unhealable, or smth like that

I do wonder, however, if the Fireship should be a kamikaze unit.

Since we're removing the ram self-damage, I'm open to ideas. Does anything sound promising to people?

The one thing I would say about the transport mechanics, and maybe this was already said and I just missed it, is that maybe it should all be kept separate from the base unit. It's a good idea to have an out-of-the-box solution for UMC, and not making it too complicated would be nice, but the issue with corner cases will always be there. Maybe the ongoing GUI work will have some effect on this anyway.

- The main worry is that the transport mechanic is sounding very un-mainline. I agree with Doofus

Making transports tied to an optional macro seems like a decent idea - useful for scenarios that rely on it, but doesn't cause too much headache for scenarios that don't.

I'm fine treating the "transport" ability as optional, but I'd rather have it enabled by default with an easy way to remove/disable. That way 1) more creators will be aware of the ability, 2) we standardize which ships should/shouldn't have it, and 3) it's still guaranteed not to cause headaches for any scenarios that don't want it.

The current implementation has changed a little from my original concept; I think it's pretty smooth and "wesnoth-y". Press T on a unit to load it into an adjacent transport, or press T on an empty hex to unload a unit onto it. Right-click menu can be used for more fine-tuned controls.

Here's a (poor-quality) gif showing usage of T to load/unload. The right-click menu is shown for demonstration, but isn't actually used in the gif:

transport-fullspeed.gif (3.26 MiB) Viewed 5075 times

(I'm not suggesting adding ships to TRoW; this is just a debug ability test)

[Bob_The_Mighty]

Hey, it looks good in the GIF. But have you considered what would happen with more ships? It's theoretically possible that the hex on which you want to disembark is surrounded by six ships. How would you display a full roster of passengers from six ships in the context menu? The wiki says it caps at 7 options. This is a problem I ran into in Galactic Empires in the beaming up feature. My solution there was to have a tiny arrow in the context menu image showing the relative positions of the transport ships, but it also required an extra message menu showing all the passengers on board the selected ship. This in turn, meant a whole load of code to grab and display info about each passenger. Mind you, that code was written a long time ago, so maybe there's a better way to handle this now?

[Dalas120]

Hey, it looks good in the GIF. But have you considered what would happen with more ships? It's theoretically possible that the hex on which you want to disembark is surrounded by six ships. How would you display a full roster of passengers from six ships in the context menu? The wiki says it caps at 7 options.

Still works! I hadn't known this before you brought it up (so thanks for thinking of it), but looks like the 7-option limit got removed at some point:

Fortunately for me, because the workaround you explained sounds clever but painful

[ForestDragon]

Looking at latest stats:

I think Merchant/Pirate carracks'/Ghost Ships' 25-1 is a bit too weak for a lvl3 (and it could be argued that for even the lvl2 derelict it's a bit underwhelming as well), even if art-wise they have the same hull. While in normal wesnoth ranged units get low melee damage to make retaliation not too punishing, I think for unwieldy attacks there's more wiggle room for making them stronger.

If you want to ensure consistency across all four units, then I would suggest at least 30-1 ram damage instead. Right now in my opinion only skiff and the two raider ships have a worthwhile ram attack, while for the other ship it's basically a lower-end lvl2 melee attack with two massive downsides (unwieldy + naval ram).

With the latest ghost ship stats, the significant arcane nerf to it and its' currently kinda underwhelming attacks, I suggest the following buffs to compensate that:

1. lightning 13-2 magical > 15-2 magical
2. lost souls 6-5 plague > 7-5 plague
3. I recommend adding plague to the melee to give it some more use and make it worthwhile to sometimes finish off enemies with ram, and make the ram distinct from other ships' ram attacks.

Having a decent ranged attack will help it stay usable for the "anti-mermaid" niche despite the arcane resistance nerf.

For fire ship, I'd recommend something like 17-2 fire melee charge, naval ram, unwieldy, 14-2 impact melee charge, naval ram unwieldy. Somewhat similar to the initial high-base-damage idea but now the "self-damage" theme is done via retaliation damage instead of directly in the naval ram special.

[Ravana]

In order for charge to compensate for self damage, that attack should also have laststrike special.

[Dalas120]

I think Merchant/Pirate carracks'/Ghost Ships' 25-1 is a bit too weak for a lvl3 (and it could be argued that for even the lvl2 derelict it's a bit underwhelming as well), even if art-wise they have the same hull. While in normal wesnoth ranged units get low melee damage to make retaliation not too punishing, I think for unwieldy attacks there's more wiggle room for making them stronger.

If you want to ensure consistency across all four units, then I would suggest at least 30-1 ram damage instead. Right now in my opinion only skiff and the two raider ships have a worthwhile ram attack, while for the other ship it's basically a lower-end lvl2 melee attack with two massive downsides (unwieldy + naval ram).

That makes sense; I have a hard time evaluating "unwieldy". I've buffed the carracks' rams to 35 (too much?), as well as some other various ship stats.

With the latest ghost ship stats, the significant arcane nerf to it and its' currently kinda underwhelming attacks, I suggest the following buffs to compensate that:

1. lightning 13-2 magical > 15-2 magical
2. lost souls 6-5 plague > 7-5 plague
3. I recommend adding plague to the melee to give it some more use and make it worthwhile to sometimes finish off enemies with ram, and make the ram distinct from other ships' ram attacks.

After thinking about it a little, I'd prefer to keep plague off the ram. 1) the ghost ship already has a lot of specials, 2) ram already has a lot of specials, and 3) ramming plague seems thematically odd to me.

But I'll increase the Lightning and Lost Souls attacks like you suggested, plus a little more to compensate for no plague.

For fire ship, I'd recommend something like 17-2 fire melee charge, naval ram, unwieldy, 14-2 impact melee charge, naval ram unwieldy. Somewhat similar to the initial high-base-damage idea but now the "self-damage" theme is done via retaliation damage instead of directly in the naval ram special.

In order for charge to compensate for self damage, that attack should also have laststrike special.

IRL, fire ships were more-or-less suicide bombers. I'm unsure exactly what's best, but I feel that charge doesn't quite hit the mark.

Realistically you shouldn't be able to park a fire ship in port or keep one hovering around in reserve - they'll burn down in hours whether in combat or not. Perhaps something like the "burning" ability that lhybrideur suggested?

[ForestDragon]

That makes sense; I have a hard time evaluating "unwieldy". I've buffed the carracks' rams to 35 (too much?), as well as some other various ship stats.

yeah, 35 makes sense for testing. If it turns out to be too much it can be nerfed later.

In case of the raiders, I think 25-2 and 35-2 is a bit overkill due to the fact that they also get oars for retaliation, so might be best to reduce them back to 20-2 and 30-2 respectively, or if you don't want the damage per hit to be lower than the carracks, changing the attack to be 1-strike (something like 45-1 for lvl2, 60-1 for lvl3). raider ships can use the oar attack to finish off wounded enemies anyway.

After thinking about it a little, I'd prefer to keep plague off the ram. 1) the ghost ship already has a lot of specials, 2) ram already has a lot of specials, and 3) ramming plague seems thematically odd to me.

But I'll increase the Lightning and Lost Souls attacks like you suggested, plus a little more to compensate for no plague.

Alright, that works.

Realistically you shouldn't be able to park a fire ship in port or keep one hovering around in reserve - they'll burn down in hours whether in combat or not. Perhaps something like the "burning" ability that lhybrideur suggested?

Would it act like poison (cannot go below 1 HP) or able to kill the ship unit?

[Dalas120]

[In case of the raiders, I think 25-2 and 35-2 is a bit overkill due to the fact that they also get oars for retaliation, so might be best to reduce them back to 20-2 and 30-2 respectively, or if you don't want the damage per hit to be lower than the carracks, changing the attack to be 1-strike (something like 45-1 for lvl2, 60-1 for lvl3). raider ships can use the oar attack to finish off wounded enemies anyway.

Agreed; done.

Would it act like poison (cannot go below 1 HP) or able to kill the ship unit?

Yeah, I imagine so. Probably an ability instead of a status. Maybe something like one of these:

Ability "immolate": This unit is burning, and cannot be healed. It loses 10 hitpoints at the end of each of its turns.

Ability "immolate": This unit is burning, and cannot be healed. It loses 5 hitpoints at the end of each of its turns, and loses 10 hitpoints each time it successfully rams an enemy.

Ability "immolate": This unit is burning, and cannot be healed. At the end of each of its turns, it and any adjacent unit takes 20 fire damage. (<- most ships are fire-vulnerable, but the fireship resists fire)

Etc. Just ideas.

[lhybrideur]

I prefer the first version of immolate as it is more KISS. I think the "10" will need to be tuned via testing.