Tides of War

[CaptainMurphy]

Doing some stormy seas testing with two different ships to make sure they look and respond realistically.



I have to admit, it looks pretty good so far. You can check out the ocean in motion here:

[CaptainMurphy]

3 clients and the server all in the scene together. Controls are working for rudder, sail settings, and gun elevation right now. All physics, wind, buoyancy are working as well. Time to wire in some of the guns and particles and we may have a game!

[CaptainMurphy]

First multiplayer ship sinking! I would brag about winning except I was only playing myself on the same computer.

[CaptainMurphy]

Quick demo of the networking showing a server and client in a scene and going over some of the features.

[Highbury]

Looking good so far, thanks for posting the video!

[CaptainMurphy]

We've been quiet, but we haven't been lazy! Here is what has been accomplished in the past few weeks. To start, if you want to stay up to date with us, we recommend following us on one of the social media accounts we have set up. We are aiming to get 1,000 twitter followers before the end of the month and would LOVE for everyone to follow us!



Multiplayer!!!
The largest enhancement, and probably the most complex, has been adding networking and multiplayer ability to the game! Players can beat each up over LAN and the Internet in game after game now. The server design is 'authoritative' meaning that the server is doing all of the motion calculations, hit calculations, and other physics. That leaves the client side to simply move the object where the server tells it to and to render things like particles.

Currently, only one game mode is available and that is a simple brawl. Players can choose a nation and jump in and fire away till they sink, choose another nation, and join the fight anew.

Three players in a fight

Three players in a fight

Master Server Browser
We have our own master server system now that allows us to control what games players see when they are looking for something to play.


Nation Skins
In a precursor to our final version of player customization, the nation skins are a quick way to identify a nation by sight. Each nation has a unique color scheme and flies the basic flag(s) and pennants) for that nation (flags will be year specific later, but now it is simply 1 design).

French ship patrolling

New particle effects
All of the cannons, splashes, and smoke are reworked to be lit by light sources in game. This makes the particles look much more natural in game.

Bow splashes are also being added and a temporary particle is in place for the bow so that we can test water height tracking. This allows the splashes to rise and fall with the bow and tracks the velocity of the bow in relation to the water height, allowing us to make the splashes larger/smaller based on velocity forward and up/down.

Simple particles on test probe


Placement trackers

New Textures
The sails and planking are getting reworked to be specific to our shader system and are coming out very nice. They are designed to be tinted in game to any color using a masking system to allow wood to show through the tinted areas without the coloring.

Planking

Sails

Updated Water System
The water system keeps getting better and better. With the addition of new underwater effects (in case your camera goes underwater) and better handling of fog and particles.


Updates and Patching
Players and testers no longer need to download a new version every day! With the new patching system an update can be mere KB instead of being another 60-80 megs.


Smoke, Fire, Flooding
It is now much easier to see what kind of damage you are dealing to your opponent. Smoke will come from multiple places on the vessel as your shots ring home.


When a player is taking hull damage, it is now possible for a fire to randomly start on the ship. It is also possible that shots below the waterline (or near it) can cause some flooding. Flooding will be able to be plugged (slowing the flow) and pumped (removing it from the vessel). As a vessel floods it can sit lower in the water and eventually become subject to downflooding, at which point the damage control teams will have a hard time keeping her afloat.



Fire spreads throughout the ship and can take over the vessel quickly if not checked and doused. With the addition of the crew systems next week we will see the first parts of the fire fighting mechanics. If a fire reaches the maximum limit unchecked, it will result in the ship having a magazine explosion.




Armor
Each quadrant of the ship has a certain 'armor' factor to represent the hull damage taken in that area. Once the armor in a zone is penetrated then more shots will start to damage the hull section and eventually cause the vessel to flood and sink. Also as more shots make it into the interior, crew will be hurt or killed and fires become more likely to break out.


That wraps up this news update. Be sure to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to see more frequent updates!

Also, we are accepting our first round of testers, so head over to our site and check out the requirements:
http://www.lettersofmarquegame.com/F...7/Default.aspx

Until next time, keep your powder dry!

[CaptainMurphy]

Just a quick video showing how armor and hull damage work in Letters of Marque.

[CaptainMurphy]

Expanding the rough weather conditions



Fires should be spreading from boat to boat soon



Camera angles and on deck views are now expanded and reworked to be much more stable



Just a French ship after sinking a pirate



At boarding distances. The damage and noise at this distance is pretty intense.



Collision damage will be added in the next update


Added in some new camera effects and bloom

[CaptainMurphy]

New Substances and textures
Anyone that is following the game scene knows that PBR (Physically Based Rendering) is the hot item in games, and indie games are not excluded from this. As such we have begun to add in new PBR textures and substances to the models to get the lighting and shading right. We are replacing our placeholder basic textures with the more accurate PBR ones, though they may be replaced in the future when we have some more time.

New Deck texture


New copper bottom option for ships

New damage mechanic - Dismasting
The damage model is becoming more accurate and realistic with the sails able to take damage and change the force values they impart and now with the ability for forces to break or remove masts including cannon fire. As a mast takes damage it becomes more susceptible to related forces through wind or momentum. Once those forces exceed the ability of the mast to stand, it snaps and falls, possibly taking other components out in the process. A falling main mast has a lot of mass and can easily damage or break another mast as it falls.

Each mast is independently damageable, so the Main, Top, Topgallant, Royals are all separate pieces and can be separately destroyed or damaged.


Main mast falling after being hit


Falling main mast narrowly missing the mizzen


Fallen main mast slipping overboard


Dutch ketch after losing both top masts

New damage mechanic - Magazine explosion
After a fire burns out of control on the ship for a certain period, the likelihood of a magazine explosion increases until it is inevitable. Once the threshold is reached an explosion will occur that sends flaming debris all directions. It is recommended to be nowhere near a burning ship before it explodes as it could result in your own ship catching fire.


Magazine explosion

[CaptainMurphy]

New PBR Substances





2 Ships collided and were stuck when the bowsprit of one got fouled in the mizzen mast of the other. A close quarters brawl ensued with one ship sunk and the other heavily damaged.





4 ships duking it out










New Telescope view for on-deck




Doh. Run aground... the hard way.

[CaptainMurphy]

Download “Letters of Marque Test Build” Letters-of-Marque.zip – 82 MB

Wha?!?! Did you say the demo was playable by everyone?!?!?!

YES! It is playable and downloadable and free to play. No ‘Early Access’ or fees to pay, just a plain ol’ game in testing that you can play with your friends. Now, there is one limitation, it requires you to sign up on our website for an account, but that is the only stipulation. We are using the login to track some basic metrics and crash reports so it helps us help you! Now, on to some of the details of the latest build.

Installation

Download, extract to your favorite games folder, enjoy. It is just that simple. No installer to worry about. Just put it somewhere that has decent file permissions and you are good to go.

Patcher/Launcher

In order to stay up to date we have included a patcher that will download and install new patches to the game. In your game folder there are two executable files. The one with “launcher” in the name is… well… the launcher. It patches the program and makes sure you are up to date. It is recommended to run it instead of the other executable simply because we release patches constantly.

Multiplayer

In order to host a multiplayer match you will need to forward your chosen port to your computer. By default we are using port 15937 for the game, but you are welcome to host on any port you please. When someone picks your game to join from the master server list, it will pass along what port to use so you don’t have to.

When playing locally with multiple clients on one machine or on LAN, you will need to use the ‘Join IP’ and type in the IP of the hosting machine. We will, one day, make that automatic but that is fairly low priority right now, sorry.

Input and Keys

When in game you can press the Options button from the main menu, or the Exit menu from in a game to get to your settings. On the top right is the Controls button that lets you reassign your keys to your hearts content. Here are some of the defaults:

Camera Type
Change View Type (On-deck or 3rd Person) – F
Change View Point (On-deck Only) – R

Camera 3rd Person
Mouse Right Click – Unlock camera to move
Mouse Left/Right/Up/Down – Orbit around ship (While right clicking)
Mouse Scroll Wheel – Zoom in/out (while right clicking)

Camera 1st Person
Mouse Right Click – Unlock camera to move
Mouse Left/Right/Up/Down – Look (While right clicking)
Mouse Scroll Wheel – Use telescope (while right clicking)

Movement
W/S – Sails raise/lower (double tap to full/douse sails)
A/D – Rudder left/right (double tap to full left/right rudder)

Gunnery
Space – Fire battery that is facing the same direction the camera is
E -Fire one shot from the battery
Shift + W/S – Elevate guns

Other
C – Begin Damage Control
O – Take Screenshot without GUI
P – Take Screenshot with GUI
Enter – focus on text box/send chat message
~ – see your current FPS and memory usage

[Niedowidek]

Hi,

I've just downloaded your game from this link http://www.lettersofmarquegame.com/download/196/
but Windows and 7-Zip cannot open the zip file. Is everything OK with this build?

I would love to try your game.

Art

[CaptainMurphy]

Apparently the last upload got corrupted somehow. We are pushing a new zip file right now, probably be up in about 30 minutes. Thanks for letting me know!

[Niedowidek]

Thanks, it worked but not until I've used Chrome instead of Firefox. With FF I've tried multiple times and always got download interrupted in progress or corrupted file at the end.

Anyway, game looks fine. Your, ehm, UI circle (the one in right upper cornert) is quite ingenious I think I'll have problems with testing it in multiplayer mode as my ISP provider restricts port forwarding but I may try to connect if you host some time

[CaptainMurphy]

We are still having issues with that blasted server hosting the files. We are going to move them to something off-site that has a more stable serving of compressed files. If it comes under even moderate load it causes the zip files to get corrupted like it is missing bytes during the send or something similar.

We are aiming to make the UI as compact, yet as understandable, as possible. Our goal is to allow the UI objects to be skinned, but that is still a few versions away.

As for hosting a game, we allowed the port to be settable which should help with most ISP limitations. I know my ISP will not allow certain ranges to be incoming (which is always a pain) and partially prompted the allowed port changing of a hosted game. We hope to have a form of basic FSM AI in place in the next month so that players unable to host or join MP games can have a decent playing experience on their own.