Subsim's Naval Action Thread

A bunch of threads regarding Naval Action emerge every now and then and since we didn't have a dedicated thread for this beautiful game yet, I figured it is time!

What is Naval Action?
Naval Action is an exciting, realistic, and beautifully detailed naval combat game immersing players into the experience of the most beautiful period of naval history - when sailing ships ruled the seas.
(Stage: Alpha / Early Access!)

Where can I get more information about it?
Official Homepage
Official Subreddit
Steam Store

Enough reading, I want to see some ingame footage!




Personally, I can not recommend this game enough, for it has some unique features.
First of all, it obviously takes place in an era that is under-presented in gaming, especially in this quality and as an MMO game while still being a simulation.
Secondly, it has a fantastic and helpful community, mostly consisting of more mature players, history buffs and naval enthusiasts rather than your regular 13yo yolo-rage-kid that will insult your mother because you sunk his puny boat.

It goes so far that experienced players in better ships do not jump smaller vessels that wouldn't have a chance and if, they usually don't sink it, just damage it to scare the poor fella.
Of course, there are exceptions (mostly Pirate and US faction players for whatever reason) and for this case, there is the "Tribunal", a sub-forum where things can be settled.

There are multiple major clans (20+ members) for each faction or rather nation and the political situations (who's at war with whom) are also mutually respected ingame, although officially "everyone is at war with everyone" (early alpha, remember).
The main focus is on combat and the simulation mechanics, which are fantastic. Sinking ships takes time and skill and the bigger ship isn't necessarily the better one.
Sailing is a huge aspect and can be done manually. Maneuvers like tacking matter and those who master their ship can often have the upper hand against those who solely master their artillery.

Long story short:
Do you like the Age of Sail era?
Like simulations?
Not afraid of early access/alpha titles that are obviously unfinished (UI)?

Grab it - thank me later!

[doctrine]

Came from here

After reading about it a while ago, I decided to buy it yesterday. Gave it a quick try for about 4 hours, and I can say I probably like it already.

Yea, the UI is bad. No guides or tutorials in game, nothing. But it's early access so nothing to complain about that and there are a lot of guides online / youtube.
But for an early access game, the graphics and physics are outstanding. And so far I haven't seen any bugs.

The few hours I played, I liked very much even when I still need to learn the most of the game. But the first small sea battle I did really gave me an epic feeling.

My experience so far:

• Choose nation: Verenigde Provinciën (Dutch)
• Take two quests (Search & Destroy)
• Head out from Willemstad
• Navigating my way along the coast to find battles
• Making sure I don't get lost since no ships are displayed on the map
• Find a battle, enter and unleash the cannons!
• Noticing a red 'leak' in my UI and notice how I slowly sink...
• Restart, try to aim better, manouver better

The aiming part in combat was a bit difficult to me. But what I found out (hopefully i'm right):
You can zoom into the deck with right mouse. Aim horizontally / vertically and press space to fire one cannon.
When you don't see a hit, re-aim, do another single shot.
Hit? Press left mouse and fire all the other cannons. Now that awesome

You can choose in which order to fire the cannons: random, from front to back, from back to front.
I haven't used this yet, but I think this is useful when a enemy ship sails by from the back, or front for example.

To me it's a really complicated game. When I play a game, it's mostly a fast paced one which I play for like 30 minutes and quit, and sometimes with enough time I play Silent Hunter for hours.
You have to give this game time, and take your time. Learning how everything works, controlling and manouvering your ship, tactics, etc. If you don't have patience, this probably isn't a game for you.

Like Nippelspanner said, the community is great. Ingame you have different channels: global, nation and help. My experience is asking a question in the help channel and whitin a few seconds someone answers. Great!

Again, this is all based on a very few hours gameplay. I guess this is the kind of game you have to give a lot of time to get a real good opinion about it.

After learning the basics against NPCs and feeling confident enough, I engaged in my first 1vs1 with a human player, a Cutter I met near Fort Baai, a town the Danish (ingame, but mostly Russians irl) captured a few days ago.

While I had the better ship, an exceptional Yacht, he gave me quite the fight and I learned a lot from just this one encounter.
Even in a gaff-rigged Yacht, it really sucks to lose half your sails to chain-ball fire and then going against the wind and I really underestimated the drastic effect this has to maneuverability (lesson #1 learned).
If he would have continued to immobilize me, heck, he would have won since I wasted my sail and ship repair way too early to have any effect (lesson #2 learned). Lucky for me, my Yacht is build of live-oak, which is sturdy and helps bouncing off cannon balls - he struggled to penetrate my ships hull, while my 6-pounder long guns (more penetration and range, less damage and longer reload) had no problem turning his hull into Swiss cheese.

It was a great first battle and while I feel a tad silly for losing my mobility against him, I'm still proud to have "learned the ropes". (duh! )

Shortly after the battle:

[doctrine]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

my 6-pounder long guns (more penetration and range, less damage and longer reload) had no problem turning his hull into Swiss cheese.

Good job Captain!

I've got two questions:

• If you have a Yacht, are you leveled up already?
• Is a Yacht always made of live-oak, and if not, how did you do that?

The Yacht was a gift because I backed the game ~ 6 months ago. I don't know if that version always comes in exceptional quality or with live oak, but I assume so. What is random are the upgrades like extra speed, higher turn rates etc.

While crafting ships (not sure you can craft Yachts btw, since they seem to be backer-exclusive) you can choose their quality and wood type, so teak, oak, live-oak, ...
Along with that, upgrades like I mentioned above.
All that however is only possible with the respective crafting skill / experience, which is not connected to your combat experience, that one only rises from fighting (doing damage, more precisely).

Right now, I am 2nd Lietnenant, or Sekundlöjtnant in Swedish - but as soon as this new patch arrives that also brings the next wipe, I will switch back to the only nation I find attractive when talking Age of Sail: Britannia!

[jangles]

I bought this last week, I had been keeping an eye on it last year and had been looking forward to trying it.

I am pleased to say I am really enjoying it so far.

Its an alpha build, so its as basic as they come, but it works.

I chose Great Britain to start with and have spent the last three sessions or so capturing lone Npc traders off the coast of Haiti, Im still in a cutter so I cant really take on anything bigger than a cutter, or lynx.

I did go up against a privateer in a mission, but he made a mess of my hull, so had to retreat.

I got lucky with my first capture, it had an upgrade 'extra planking' which I stripped and sold for 20k gold, with that money I hired a lynx to join my fleet.

I am breaking the captured ships down now for parts, as I would like to try my hand at crafting, Im currently in a lynx trader trying to find a port that has oak logs for sale.

I think the potential for this game is huge, It's a game I could spend a lot of time in.

I just hope that they continue in the right direction and it doesnt start getting all dumbed down and arcadey as so many games do these days.