The Fire Ship

[Kimball]

So I was talking to leper (Georg) on IRC earlier today and the topic of programming in ROTE came up. I mentioned that one feature we really wanted to try was implement a functioning fire ship. After explaining the idea to him, he suggested that I post it on the forums to see if the community would be interested in this sort of feature. He was optimistic about its difficulty, suggesting that something simple like this could be included as soon as A13.

The basic idea is that you can train these things relatively cheaply, and when you release them, they'll set fire to anything they come in contact with. At first, we'd have them be manned, and after you click a button, the sailor sets the ship in motion, sets it on fire and then jumps off.

• Fire ships will gradually catch on fire, causing more damage to units within range depending on how long they've been on fire (i.e. how big the fire is).
  
• Any object within one tile of the fire ship will catch fire
  
• Units with which the ship comes into contact with will stay on fire for a variable amount of time depending on how long it has been since the fire ship was ignited. Therefore, the distance from which you launch a fire ship will cause a significant impact on the effectiveness of the attack.
  
• Not only will the attack cause more damage to units within range the farther it is away initially, but the enemy will be able to anticipate the attack and make efforts to prevent it - there are advantages and disadvantages to the distance from which a fire ship is launched.
  
• After a while, the fire ship will sink into a smoldering pile of ashes.
  
• Friendly-fire and damage to the player's own units is possible, and something that they'll need to be aware of and take into account when launching a fire ship.
  

Here's a mockup of what it might look like for the player:

What are your thoughts on this?

[Lion.Kanzen]

I Like that type ideas. that Unconvencional Warfare. put new level to naval gameplay for some factions.

Same Thing can be work with a great ball of Fire (Or Rolling) to destroy a huge group of enemy soldiers.

Edited December 9, 2012 by Lion.Kanzen

[Pureon]

Similar concept to what we did for the Iberian Fire Ship. Except we weren't able to make it visually set fire to nearby units at the time, it just damages them.

[MishFTW]

Love it. Like Lion said, it takes naval warfare to a new level

[leper]

Basically Bob's idea would make the present iberian fire ship more realistic. You don't build a burning ship...

The damaging aspect will probably stay the same, and removing controllability can be done by switching the ownership to gaia.

Setting the ship on fire (using the GUI button) can be combined by rightclicking at a point. The ship will then move in that direction. (So it'll probably look less fancy than in the mockup)

Making other ships burn will probably be the hardest part of this.

[Pedro Falcão]

Cool. This with ramming and the slow turning of ships will make the naval battles much more realistic than the inland ones.