Author Topic: How do we improve crewing the Judgement for PvP and PvE?  (Read 7830 times)

Offline Richard LeMoon

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How do we improve crewing the Judgement for PvP and PvE?
« on: September 02, 2017, 11:07:49 am »
As some of you know, we have been testing and tweaking the Judgement for inclusion in pvp for the past few weeks. We have made substantial changes to the stats to bring it in line with the Skirmish ships. It is now substantially slower with double the perma hull. The feedback on these changes is that it is well balanced in every category but one. It is awful to crew on.

The issues are the very wide spread components and difficulty in getting to them. The engines are at the 4 corners of the ship. The hull is mid ship out of any path and far from the engines. The balloon is unreachable from the hull area by any survivable means. And the pilot is not close enough to anything to help.

Have ideas on how to improve this situation that does not require a major art rework? A ladder here and there, move the hull, balloon, or both?

Offline Solidusbucket

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Re: How do we improve crewing the Judgement for PvP and PvE?
« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2017, 01:13:06 pm »
I was dicking around on it just now.

My biggest issue is the two front guns seem too hard to use without sacraficing a lot.

I think moving the balloon down behind the pilot would solve most issues.

An engineer should be able to take care of the hull and three engine from the mid deck decently enough. A dude on top can take care of the top left engine and use the main gun on the right if need be. They can also jump down to help with hull if necessary.

But I have never actually been on the boat so this is coming from 10 minutes of practice mode.

Offline Richard LeMoon

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Re: How do we improve crewing the Judgement for PvP and PvE?
« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2017, 01:45:24 pm »
I have been doing the same. I think a quality of life change would be to move the rear engines like this.

If you run a circuit from hull, engine, balloon jump (should not have to jump), other engine, hull, you quickly realize turning into those engines is time consuming and irritating. Miming engines being in the indicated positions makes a much more fluid run. It looks like the engines may have been intended for placement there at one time, but were moved. Unlike other ships, the engines mounts are modular instead of integrated, so would be easier to move.

As far as the balloon, several options are viable, I feel. If the position has to stay there in general for whatever reason, I would consider moving it back and down so it is mounted between the girders. This would allow it to be hit from above and below without jumping. Moving it straight down would be even better, since it could be hit from the hull, but would lose the ability to be hit from the top deck.

You would end up with one engie maintaining the two main important engines (90%-ish of the force) and both the hull and balloon.

Offline Dantel

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Re: How do we improve crewing the Judgement for PvP and PvE?
« Reply #3 on: September 02, 2017, 06:16:22 pm »
Well, I think that the hull is located on the farest point to reach if you take the distance to it from each possible crewmember's location (including the pilot's one). So maybe consider putting it more closer to the helm like behind the pilot, so in that way the pilot can assist if hull is broken.

Offline Helios.

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Re: How do we improve crewing the Judgement for PvP and PvE?
« Reply #4 on: September 22, 2017, 05:19:01 pm »
honestly with the first addition of the corsair i was really excited for balance changes from the engineering standpoint. just looking at the stats of the corsair, for example, seems to indicate that its a unparalleled powerhouse. gunners can blast away from every angle, often with the heaviest weapons. the pilot has fantastic sightlines and maneuverability. it would seem a completely unbalanced ship, except that when the rubber hits the road, its actually a ship that you would expect to have twice the crew on, maybe even up to ten or so to keep everything ship shape. The acrobatics of the engineers having to repair it is not a result of a ship that is poorly designed, but rather of a ship that would normally have more people.

for the angleans this makes sense because despite their limited population, their raiding parties have to come in on the ships, hence the massive balloon for being able to lift the massive quantities of booty. the heavy hitting weapons to overwhelm the defenders quickly, and the huge open space near the hull repair point is low enough to easily fill with stolen goods quickly. the ship would therefore be easy to crew with a few extra hands, and a masterfully designed ship for raiding.
as a warship its a weird ship, but its not impossible to imagine that when wartime comes, they get all their ships up in the air, even if they have to run a little shorthanded.

the yeshans have similar design parameters we can see justified by the ships design. we are seeing a large open space above decks, and a strong forward facing weapons system. it seems like in a battle the ships would fly in formation (very reasonable considering their more philosophical approach to governance and combat.)  the judgement therefore would likely be more populated with marines, rather than raiders, who would stand on the upper decks shooting down on other ships, or dropping grenades and firebombs. the access to the open spaces in this ship would make combat of this kind very effective. we can presume however that the protracted wars has left the ship somewhat underhanded again. in fact MOST ships seem like a couple extra hands seems like the "recommended crew" for these ships, from the massive galleon on down to the high performance squid, everyone seems understaffed, crewed mainly by a bunch of really tough old sailors who can get the job done come hell or high winds


TL:DR is that it seems like the ship is insanely designed, but i like the balance via engineer skill ships, as we already had balance by pilot skill ships like the squid and balance by gunner skill ships like the galleon or spire. also it's not impossible to imagine that many of the ships were well designed for more people that are crewing them, so from a lore perspective the ships the Judgement make solid sense.