Posted By Hessan at 10:39 PM - Thu Jan 19 2017

Furthermore, could you imagine the development possibilities of canals and other water projects? They have already told us that there will be a dynamic system for water diversion and the like. You could even use water as a weapon of war like the flooding of the Flanders countryside in World War One (see Battle of the Yser, 1914).

They actually said in the biome Q&A that dynamic water would be too complex and at the very least wouldn't be in at launch. Maybe we'll get it once we get terraforming. Who knows though, I just wouldn't expect it for a long time.

Posted By Ranulf at 10:17 PM - Thu Jan 19 2017

Thanks!

It all depends on how much of a naval simulator the developers can/want to construct.

We can have small cutters and sloops that carry 50 or less, that can be beached on any shoreline. We can have canoes, barges and rowboats for coastal, canal, and river traffic. We can have large galleons for bulk trade, which would require a deeper harbor with docks, cranes, and warehouses to unload their cargo.

Warships would likely be rowed Galleys, which also would have sails. They aren't the greatest in deep deep oceans, but they can cross said oceans unless a major storm arrives. The main method of combat would be attempting to ram and sink other galleys, or coming alongside to board another ship. Galleys had enough crew to row the ship, but most of the people on board were soldiers or marines, since early naval combat was just land combat on ships.

You'd have an invasion fleet be sighted by lighthouse operators and watchtowers, then a defense fleet would row out to meet them.

As you can see, its almost like a completely separate game....it would be awesome to have all this in CoE for the pure immersion factor, and broader player opportunity, but it adds a whole nother layer of complexity to the game.

Well met, Ranulf!

Great ideas...thus I must warn you about the harsh and dangerous choices you can make in Elyria; things that can make or break your legacy. It won't be like ArcheAge where you die and spawn at a friendly location; only to get your ship back in the water and go have fun again. PVP won't be as infantile as in The Elder Scrolls where you join a big zerg and run through players, taking down keeps every second. Everything is destructible and anything can be stolen. You will also need food, shelter and fresh water. Also as of now, falling in the ocean is instant permadeath with no way to get your body back.

Things to Consider

• Naval combat would be the more harsh combat, opposed to land, because of the ocean system and how you brutally die in it.

• Respect the fact that people don't want to die. So the responsible thing to do is let your followers know their is a possibility that they will die. And war of any kind will be highly considered, it will be a cost that could determine you and your people making it home alive again.

• If you are on sea and care about your legacy and people, you would be doing the smart thing that falls in line with survival, not your normal naval pvp, where you see someone and cut them down. Remember this is a game of strategy so survival must be our primary goal. This includes, exploration, or looking for resources and rare opportunities on sea. War should be the last resort because of the cost.

• Also you must consider the weather system and how intricate it is. If you are not properly prepared, the cold could freeze you over, and the heat can hurt you. Also there is the risk of going OPC (Offline Playable Character) on sea. If you need to log out for an emergency and your character is stuck on the ocean, this could be tragic for you.

• It would suck to build a fleet of nice ships, which could take a life time only to lose them all forever, over a bad decision.

Positive Encouragements

• The idea of a defensive fleet is brilliant. One must always be ready for people who don't fear death.

• Having sea travel definitely creates more content for us to have in the game. It will be like another game entirely, with the same risk and the same CoE politics.

• Seafarers will develop an invaluable skill. They will be able to travel to other continents where the landlubbers can not get to, so this makes them expensive, valuable and dangerous.

• It gives Architects a great trade. We know that they will draw all of the schematics for houses and structures, and I am sure that for ships, you will need to take your blueprints to one skilled the same way. But yes, being a Carpenter/Architect will have its reward if ships become a viable object.

I hope we see naval content in the future, but I also agree that right now, just to get a game like Chronicles of Elyria will be gutsy and ground breaking

There will be different styles of boat. From the outset, we can quickly expect to see small rowing boats. These have featured on several screenshots. These small boats will be capable of navigating some of the small rivers, as you have probably seen on the screenshots.

However, a rowing boat is not considered ocean worthy. These are dangers in Elyria and potentially storms. Taking a tiny boat into the ocean will likely result in permadeath.

After a period of time, ocean travel may be discovered.

Early on you may wish to cross small, relatively calm seas. At this stage, naval warfare is unlikely to be a big thing so you may be facing dangers in crossing, but there are options.

Posted By Ranulf at 5:40 PM - Fri Jan 20 2017

I'll check it out, but I was planning on playing on NAW

Is anyone planning on getting fishing fleets started? Do we even know anything about sea life yet?

Not yet. SBS have said that there will be no underwater water swimming at the outset because they want more time to give aquatic biomes the attention they deserve then would be managed if they tried to release them the same time as the non-aquatic biomes. So to hide the fact that these biome aren't very fleshed out in these underwater locations there will be no underwater swimming to see this lack. (I have not heard if this only applies to marine/sea/ocean life or it entails rivers/streams/ponds/lakes as well). In which case one would surmise that "sea-life" at Expo/Launch will likely be limited.

I think personally that we won't see ships capable of crossing to new continents until probably well over a year or two after launch. Remember the game is 10 years long, unlocking new continents via researching ocean travel would be like a new expansion in another MMO.

So work towards researching bigger and better boats but I wouldn't expect to be able to visit other continents soon after launch, SBS need to keep that for later in the game to keep things fresh and give kingdoms something new to fight over.

If the information about sea biomes not being complete at launch is correct, we may be forced to wait until they are released in order to start fishing. However, they may make it possible to fish, but not possible to swim. Fishing is going to be an important part of the food supply, or at least it should, especially in the more northern climes.

But with large scale fishing comes cargo transport, and with cargo transport, comes pirates. So I guess its VERY likely you wont have large scale fishing until the sea biomes are finished.

Even if they are not complete, there could still be enough flora and fauna in the water to support early fishing. They've said we won't be able to swim but there's plenty of wildlife that comes near the surface.

Maybe no trawlers or anything like that, so probably no large scale ocean operations like you're saying, but what about whalers or something similar? I could also see small fishing dhows being viable though. Or hell, maybe we will get something along the lines of a salmon run that we can take advantage of by using smaller boats to string nets across rivers.

Even without ocean fishing there's definitely still the possibility of fishing enough to send full cargo ships out, It would just be gathered on smaller scales by more people before it's sent out.

Also Barghest, didn't Caspian say they were aiming for us to be discovering new continents around the 1 year mark? I feel like we'd have some kind of ocean going capabilities by then, even if they are relatively primitive.

Hehe I can see some kind of cork flotation device being a thing, but that would still involve you having it on your person if you fall over board. Not exactly practical during the heat of battle.

When did we move from Permadeath in the ocean to it taking a few deaths to perma die that way? I was still under the impression that if you die at sea that's basically it.

I think Permadeath on the ocean is still a thing

Posted By Ranulf at 10:00 PM - Sun Jan 22 2017

I think Permadeath on the ocean is still a thing

I think they've mentioned that they want to look into doing something different. Obviously they don't want a system that promotes trolling, and where risk doesn't match reward. A fisherman risking perma death for fishing in the open ocean doesn't match the risk/reward system that the game promotes IMO.

Have coast, will sail...

A thought: horse drawn canal boats. An improvement: horse drawn canal boats using rail carts.

We can at least use rail before we get steam and electric motors. Rail was used well before steam power came to be.

If river conditions are right, you could power a cable railway for the canal boats. Just make a dam and spill pond and hook up a spool of cable to the shaft of a water wheel