very impressed !

[willchill]

Hi Andrew,

I've been playing the Demo and wanted to say that I am very impressed with the game you have created... It really is the perfect recreation of an 18th century naval wargame. The attention to detail in terms of ship sailing, fighting, boarding, fleet control etc. all look great, and from what I have seen of the campaign elements involving repairs, refit, crew morale etc. this looks like it will be an impressive - and important - element too !

So I'm eager with anticipation for the final release of the product. I agree with comments posted elsewhere that the camera movement is a bit awkward - mostly I didn't like the inability to zoom in an out when a ship has been selected, but i understand you are making some changes to this.

Some minor comments if you are still tweaking the game:

Is there a kind of "fleet morale" factor? It seems a bit odd to have a ship strike its colours when the battle as a whole is being won convincingly... maybe they could just drop out of the line and stop firing instead?

Does the AI attempt to break off action when it is losing? For a campaign I think it would be important that the AI does not fight to the death the whole time... and in a way the biggest decision is how closely to engage at all ! (but too much realism here could be a bit dull I know !)

Will there be RPG elements for Admirals/Captains, as they grow in experience etc. affecting morale of their crews?

I'm curious as to the different difficulty settings available for the AI by the way - and how the AI works generally. It seems to be a key tactic to attack/rally to isolated ships or squadrons. In the 3rd demo battle I played, the French 1st rate Tonnant got totally dismasted, and the AI squadron should have rallied round her, to protect her and benefit from her firepower, but instead they seemed more intent on getting to the victory markers !

Anyway, it looks a great game, so congratulations and I look forward to getting my hands on the finished product.

Will

[Blaque]

Congratulations, Andrew: Salvo! promises to be a very good game. Hopefully you will be able to improve the camera and above all avoid the corruption of saved files (this happened 2 out of 5 times I've played the Bourbon Navy with Mac G5, OS 10.3.9). Besides this, I think it would be great also to introduce fleet morale, as it is utterly unrealistic that a defeated or much weakened AI fleet continue fighting until losing all its ships, instead of trying to disengage and save as many of them as possible. Just think of Trafalgar, where 15 out of 33 Allied ships made good their escape. Villeneuve at Aboukir did something similar; and Cordoba at Cape St. Vincent and Calder at Finisterre also chose to retreat instead of renewing the fighting –it's evident all three failed their morale check!

[Andrew Lonon]

Will:

Somehow I missed this note – probably because it has a reply already. Anyway – Let me get back to you in a few days with a more detailed answer. For now…

Fleet Moral:
You (and Blaque) have raised some important points. The computer side should be disengaging when things get too ugly for it, but I’ll make sure to double check that specific element. <G>

RPG Elements:
In Salvo (this initial version) there are almost no (other than scripted scenario text) RPG elements at all. Interest in PRG elements has been one of the most constant themes of all the feedback and criticism (I mean that in the artistic sense) that I have received. More attention (focus?) on the player’s embodiment in a single captain would be a powerful feature, and you can rest assured that further developments will take that into consideration. (WOW – I just said something that means nothing. Lets try again…)

Salvo II (Working title) will most likely follow one of two path. It will either be a refinement of the current Salvo game that focuses on abstracted strategy – or it will veer drastically toward the Patrick O'Brian
Spectrum of RPG elements. I like to look at as ‘floggings’ or ‘no floggings.’

After Salvo goes gold and before it ships (while the CDs are being burned and shipped) I’ll be starting a discussion on this topic.