Sea Battles?

[Crall_Red]

I was just wondering, are there such things as ship to ship sea battles in Layonara?  I realize that it is a primarily land based system, but I think it would be neat if one could engage in activities not just near the ocean, but on the ocean.

[Nibor21]

There are several issues with sea battles when handled in a non-GMd environment.

1.) Is the attacking force on another ship?

If this is the case that it is easy to have two ships next to each other with a transition between them (to signify jumping onto each others decks).

However that doesn't permit the ranged weapon battle (magic and arrows/bolts) that you would expect as the two ships draw near. Also enemy units would need some serious AI work to get them to cross the transition to board the other boat. IF this wasn't right non-ranged weapon enemies would stand there looking mean but just asking for a fireball or arrow.


2.) Is the attacking force a water creature like a Kraken?

If you wanted a sea based monster attacking a ship and the people on it you run into the no walk-mesh on the sea tiles (so no creatures can stand on it). It would be possible to create a modified tile-set that allows sea based to stand upon it. However as the PCs are all on a boat that is a great deal higher than the sea (monster ground level) then melee attacks are next to impossible so it would end up as a ranged attack (which somehow looses the sense of dread as being attacked by a giant tentacle).

While possible this option would require the addition of a new tile-set and new monsters. This would require considerable time and effort from a skilled custom content builder, and would also have to be levered into our already bursting at the seams module. All this for something that wouldn't probably be used all that often.


3.) The enemy are water breathing creatures that climb the hull and 'appear' on deck.

This one is actually easy to do, but is of limited use within the module. It could be used to spice up sea crossings. And would be a rude awakening to those whoview sea crossings as a safe way of travelling.



The issues with putting exciting and realistic sea battles are really all due to limitations within Neverwinter Nights.

Somewhere within the modules the system is set up so GMs can simulate sea battles and having been on the receiving end of a Dezza started sea battle can tell you that they are exciting indeed, especially as there i no where to run and hide. However after that particular quest was run Dezza alluded to the fact that managing sea battles isn't easy (especially i would guess with the large party we had that day).

So to put it simply - don't expect a sea battle unless there is a GM around who has one planned for you. That said most quests seem to involve sea travel somewhere......

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

This topic seems to come up every now and again... And aye, while it would be great fun to have the occasional skirmish on the high seas, it's just not feasible for Layo right now. *Shrugs.*

[darkstorme]

It might be possible to bring a ship "alongside" the ship (I think it'd be a nice touch if, say, a "Pirate attack" occurred 1% of the time when travelling by ship.)  Rather than area transitions, it need only be a few "jump points" for a character to jump across to the other ship.  AI scripting would be fairly straightforward, I think - just a simple IF statement.  Put the ships a distance apart, and then check the X (or Y, depending on the ship's orientation) distance between Object Pirate and Object NearestEnemy.  If it is greater than a value slightly smaller than the distance between the ships, the pirate "swings across" to the other ship.

The other nice thing is that once this would be written, GMs could employ it as well, for a whole party, rather than an individual in transit, and it would be far easier with precompiled scripts to work with, rather than having to manually control the opposing crew (or the water-breathing Kao-Toa, or whichever...)  I think, in fact, that this might be feasible.  The Kraken, probably not, simply because the walkmesh problems detailed above are pretty much insurmountable.

[Ne'er]

There's already at least one area where two ships are alongside each other and an AT allows you to jump from one boat to the other. But as far as I know you can only get there via a GM jump. But you can always prepare for a pirate, or Kuo-Toa attack when you get on board a boat on a GM-run event. *evil grin*