Naval Combat

[Harry]

When elements are lost, what actually happens to them. I ask this as it doesn't appear that ships are actually sunk only lose men and cohesion. Its a bit depressing to think that when fighting against the British fleet they will just keep coming back even if I win the battle.

Also will it be possible to capture ships through boarding?

[PhilThib]

Elements are individual ships: when lost, there are...lost, i.e. sunk, gone... The thing you must keep in mind is that ship "units" are Squadrons of 3-4 ships, so unless ALL their ships are gone, they are still around (weakened) and if sent to home ports, they will get replacements (= new ships) and then can come back to play in full force.
That's wise to bring a damaged squadron to a home port for repairs..

And no, ships cannot be taken by boarding (engine limitation), although in some rare case some units can be captured (again, the whole unit squadron). Engine limitation too.

[veji1]

Elements are individual ships: when lost, there are...lost, i.e. sunk, gone... The thing you must keep in mind is that ship "units" are Squadrons of 3-4 ships, so unless ALL their ships are gone, they are still around (weakened) and if sent to home ports, they will get replacements (= new ships) and then can come back to play in full force.
That's wise to bring a damaged squadron to a home port for repairs..

And no, ships cannot be taken by boarding (engine limitation), although in some rare case some units can be captured (again, the whole unit squadron). Engine limitation too.

I have noted that even though ship of the line have now a chance of capture, they are never captured as opposed to brigs or sloops or transports. I assume that the way the battle engine works they get sunk before a capture roll even gets a chance to be made as fire focuses on them in priority. Not a massive deal but a bit of a shame. They should reach a point when if the ship has no more hits there is an immediate roll that is for example : 50% outright sunk, 50% dead in the water, in which case they are taken out of the battle and get a roll at the end of the battle depending on which side retreated (lost) with odds such as :
- My ship is dead in the water and I lost the battle : 70% sunk or scuttled, 30% captured (is very damaged and needs to be towed)
- My ship is dead in the water and I won the battle : 40% sunk and 50% still alive and I have to tow him back to port.

This would make it so that on average during a battle my SOL if it reached sinking point wuold have 85% chances of being sunk and 15% chances of capture if I lose the battle, 70% chances of being sunk and 30% chances of being saved if I win. This could be modified by a couple of naval modifiers of course such as "better damage control" or "master ship capturer (!)" or whatever.

But I suppose it really is a matter of engine limitation.

If this can't be done element per element due to the engine, odds of capture or survival should be made bigger for the last ship of the line in a squadron, since basically to get to that roll all other ship of the line should have been sunk. So I would make it just one roll of capture with a 60% chance of capture. One issue would be to make sure that the last surviving ship in tha ship of the line squadron isn't always the frigate, because than ship of the line can never quite be captured...

[Harry]

thanks,

how do I tell which ships were actually lost then. On the results screen it says that I lost 1 element and the enemy 23. But when I look at the detailed screen it doesn't show what ship was actually lost. If a whole squadron is lost it shows that, but not the individual ships. Would it be possible to get more details from the results screen, ie show an icon to show a ship sunk.