Game proposal: Battle of Vis / Steel Seas

[Ferdinand_Max]

So based on @ArIskandir thread and my own posts therein, I decided to provide few basic ideas for a game based around ironclads and, specifically, Battle of Vis and its ramming ironclads.

First, I will discuss basic combat mechanics.

COMBAT MECHANICS

RAMMING

Ramming is the primary way for ironclads to "deal" with each other. While boarding and gunfire are both an option, they are very slow to take effect and leave ship vulnerable. Ramming on the other hand can easily cause massive damage in a matter of seconds.

Ramming damage to the enemy ship is caused by two mechanics: impact and flooding. Impact causes damage equivalent to percentage of the tonnage of the ramming ship, with exact percentage depending on the area where the collision had happened.

Note that the ramming bow itself receives only 5% of the potential damage.

Second aspect of impact damage is the angle at which the collision had happened, as seen below:

Thus, if we take my namesake ( SMS Erzherzog Ferdinand Max (1865), 3 646 tons, 12,54 knots ) ramming the Italian ironclad Affondatore (1862, 4 070 tons), Ferdinand Max will cause 3646 * 0,5 * 1 = 1823 points of damage by a 90 degree ram amidships while itself receiving 4070 * 0,05 * 1 = 203 points of damage. A 45 degree angle ram at the foresection (second eighth of the ship) will cause 3646 * 0,5 * 0,25 = 456 points of damage to Affondatore while Ferdinand Max itself will receive 4070 * 0,05 * 0,5 = 102 points of damage.

Flooding causes damage equivalent of 1% of tonnage of rammed ship per second and lasts for a maximum of 30 seconds unless damage control has been used. Flooding is caused only by ramming. Thus, using the above scenario again, unless Affondatore uses damage control, it will suffer 4070 * 0,01 * 30 = 1221 points of damage. Flooding will also reduce speed of the ship to 50% until stopped. Some 25% of flooding damage can be healed.

ARTILLERY

Artillery causes three types of damage: impact, fragmentation and fire. Impact damage is caused by the solid shot, armor piercing projectiles. These projectiles are the only ones that can penetrate armored portions of the ship (ship's citadel). If they penetrate, they will cause their full damage - some two or three times the explosive shells. Penetration of ship's citadel can be healed only to 10% of total. Overpenetrations of unarmored sections however only cause 10% of damage, which is fully healable.

Explosive shells cause two types of damage: fragmentation and fire damage. Both types of damage can only be caused by impacts to unarmored sections of the ship; impacting ship's armor will fully negate the effect of the explosive shell. 50% of fragmentation and 100% of fire damage can be healed.

BOARDING

Boarding is done when two ships are static next to each other for more than five seconds. Ships can be immobilized by ramming damage or by grappling them. If two ships have the same deck height, then the "crew" resource of each ship will be depleted at a steady rate of 2,5% per second, and the ship whose crew is depleted first will be forced to surrender and scuttle. For every meter of deck height advantage over the opponent, ship gains 10% advantage in the crew depletion rate. For example, Erherzog Ferdinand Max has hull height of 7,14 meters, while Affondatore has hull height of cca 8 meters above the waterline. Thus, Affondatore would have 8,6% advantage in crew depletion rate. With 565 crew to EFM's 511, Affondatore would win a pure boarding engagement with 98 crew left over, having suffered 467 casualties.

Crew however can take damage from high explosive shells prior to boarding. In general, HE shells will cause 25% of the damage to the crew compared to damage they did to the ship's structure. Further, if ship being boarded had been rammed beforehand, the ship doing the boarding will have 2 - 6 seconds (depending on the place of the impact) during which the defending ship's crew will cause no damage in retaliation.

MAPS

VIS

HAMPTON ROADS

KORNATI

VENICE

[ArIskandir]

Interesting. I'll be back and post an extended opinion later (most likely tomorrow), but I wanted to let You know it didn't fall on deaf ears.

Edited June 10 by ArIskandir

[Wolfswetpaws]

If only there was a way to translate real physics into HP, eh?  🙂 

[Gaelic_knight]

3 hours ago, Ferdinand_Max said:

So based on @ArIskandir thread and my own posts therein, I decided to provide few basic ideas for a game based around ironclads and, specifically, Battle of Vis and its ramming ironclads.

First, I will discuss basic combat mechanics.

COMBAT MECHANICS

RAMMING

Ramming is the primary way for ironclads to "deal" with each other. While boarding and gunfire are both an option, they are very slow to take effect and leave ship vulnerable. Ramming on the other hand can easily cause massive damage in a matter of seconds.

Ramming damage to the enemy ship is caused by two mechanics: impact and flooding. Impact causes damage equivalent to percentage of the tonnage of the ramming ship, with exact percentage depending on the area where the collision had happened.

Note that the ramming bow itself receives only 5% of the potential damage.

Second aspect of impact damage is the angle at which the collision had happened, as seen below:

Thus, if we take my namesake ( SMS Erzherzog Ferdinand Max (1865), 3 646 tons, 12,54 knots ) ramming the Italian ironclad Affondatore (1862, 4 070 tons), Ferdinand Max will cause 3646 * 0,5 * 1 = 1823 points of damage by a 90 degree ram amidships while itself receiving 4070 * 0,05 * 1 = 203 points of damage. A 45 degree angle ram at the foresection (second eighth of the ship) will cause 3646 * 0,5 * 0,25 = 456 points of damage to Affondatore while Ferdinand Max itself will receive 4070 * 0,05 * 0,5 = 102 points of damage.

Flooding causes damage equivalent of 1% of tonnage of rammed ship per second and lasts for a maximum of 30 seconds unless damage control has been used. Flooding is caused only by ramming. Thus, using the above scenario again, unless Affondatore uses damage control, it will suffer 4070 * 0,01 * 30 = 1221 points of damage. Flooding will also reduce speed of the ship to 50% until stopped. Some 25% of flooding damage can be healed.

ARTILLERY

Artillery causes three types of damage: impact, fragmentation and fire. Impact damage is caused by the solid shot, armor piercing projectiles. These projectiles are the only ones that can penetrate armored portions of the ship (ship's citadel). If they penetrate, they will cause their full damage - some two or three times the explosive shells. Penetration of ship's citadel can be healed only to 10% of total. Overpenetrations of unarmored sections however only cause 10% of damage, which is fully healable.

Explosive shells cause two types of damage: fragmentation and fire damage. Both types of damage can only be caused by impacts to unarmored sections of the ship; impacting ship's armor will fully negate the effect of the explosive shell. 50% of fragmentation and 100% of fire damage can be healed.

BOARDING

Boarding is done when two ships are static next to each other for more than five seconds. Ships can be immobilized by ramming damage or by grappling them. If two ships have the same deck height, then the "crew" resource of each ship will be depleted at a steady rate of 2,5% per second, and the ship whose crew is depleted first will be forced to surrender and scuttle. For every meter of deck height advantage over the opponent, ship gains 10% advantage in the crew depletion rate. For example, Erherzog Ferdinand Max has hull height of 7,14 meters, while Affondatore has hull height of cca 8 meters above the waterline. Thus, Affondatore would have 8,6% advantage in crew depletion rate. With 565 crew to EFM's 511, Affondatore would win a pure boarding engagement with 98 crew left over, having suffered 467 casualties.

Crew however can take damage from high explosive shells prior to boarding. In general, HE shells will cause 25% of the damage to the crew compared to damage they did to the ship's structure. Further, if ship being boarded had been rammed beforehand, the ship doing the boarding will have 2 - 6 seconds (depending on the place of the impact) during which the defending ship's crew will cause no damage in retaliation.

MAPS

VIS

HAMPTON ROADS

KORNATI

VENICE

there has been a few games out there for years with iron clads  and there used to be one called iron clads  so its been done before .

but with the game mechanics WG has they could always do an age of sail type game 

Edited June 9 by Gaelic_knight

[Wolfswetpaws]

12 minutes ago, Gaelic_knight said:

there has been a few games out there for years with iron clads  and there used to be one called iron clads  so its been done before .

but with the game mechanics WG has they could always do an age of sail type game 

I imagine it indeed could be done.

I wonder how well it could compete with Sid Meier's "Pirates!" ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Pirates!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3920/Sid_Meiers_Pirates/
 

Edited June 9 by Wolfswetpaws

[Gaelic_knight]

15 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

I imagine it indeed could be done.

I wonder how well it could compete with Sid Meier's "Pirates!" ?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Pirates!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3920/Sid_Meiers_Pirates/
 

i wasnt meaning like that  i was meaning  the same concept of wows  with techtree lines starting with scooners and working up the line  to full blown galeons / man-o-wars

Edited June 9 by Gaelic_knight

[Ferdinand_Max]

4 hours ago, Gaelic_knight said:

there has been a few games out there for years with iron clads  and there used to be one called iron clads  so its been done before .

but with the game mechanics WG has they could always do an age of sail type game 

None multiplayer that I know of, though.

Still, if you know a good ironclad game that includes ramming, I'll take even singleplayer.

7 hours ago, ArIskandir said:

Interesting. I'll be back and post an extended opinion later (most likely tomorrow), but I wanted to let You know it didn't fall on dear ears.

Looking forward to it!

Edited June 10 by Ferdinand_Max

[Gaelic_knight]

2 hours ago, Ferdinand_Max said:

None multiplayer that I know of, though.

Still, if you know a good ironclad game that includes ramming, I'll take even singleplayer.

Looking forward to it!

 

[ArIskandir]

@Ferdinand_Max

I think your ideas on Ramming are well rounded and there's little to add. The damage formula would need to account for the relative speed between both ships and maybe have a special rule for the case of frontal collision (ram-on-ram). 

Artillery basically goes in line with the existing game mechanics plus a tweak or two. 

Boarding is where I have some doubts. I can't recall any major boarding action on this age, tbh I don't know if it makes sense... the size and mechanical propulsion of ironclads make something like 'grappling' to another ship very unlikely. The only realistic way for two ships going into melee is secondary to a ram, and in that situation the ramming ship would like to get 'unstucked' asap or it could get drawn and capsize by the sinking holed enemy ship. 

 

[Ferdinand_Max]

10 hours ago, ArIskandir said:

Boarding is where I have some doubts. I can't recall any major boarding action on this age

Yeah, I recall some close action during Battle of Lissa, but even that I don't think ever developed into actual boarding for the reasons you mention.