Naval Warfare Reform

#### Galleys - ramming

These ships will be based on ships which were purposefully rammed into their opponent, equipped with a ram at the front of the ship, a devastating weapon if used right. The ships propulsion will be carried by human strength in combat conditions, with addition of sails, the rowers will be able to take a rest and let the wind take care of movement in out-of-combat scenarios.

#### Troop carriers- boarding

Similar to galley style of combat, they will attempt to ram and board the enemy and use their overwhelming crew power to defeat them. Because these ships will be carrying extra human weight, these typically wont carry additional armaments, such as cannons.

#### Fireships - sabotage

These are purposefully built to be sacrificed and lost. The crew will load it with explosives and set it on fire. Once its course will be determined, the fireship won't be able to make any additional course-corrections, because at that point, the crew has abandoned the ship and it behaves now like a giant torpedo. If the ship manages to make contact with any other vessel, the fireship will be jammed and destroyed, whilst hemorrhaging the opponent, until its disabled and the crew surrendered.

#### Tall ships and Man O' Wars - cannons

In this category, ships equipped with cannons will be rated as it was the standard in Napoleonic Wars. Their propulsion will be based on wind speed, depending on the rigging type, they will handle differently (the topic of rigging will be expanded later). The ammunition that the ship carries may include specialised ammo types to target specific parts of the ships. However these **have to be researched** and put in **technological declarations**.

### Movement on the battle map and rigging attributes

Vessels, which don't depend on wind will have an advantage in battle scenarios. Because they use rowing for propulsions, they will be able to move in any direction by 2 chucks per round and 3 if they sail downwind.

Wind powered ships however will have to take in account the wind direction. Classic square-riggers will have a disadvantage for sailing towards the wind. For sailing upwind, they will only travel by 1 chunk, in crosswind 2 chunks and downwind 3 chunks.

Lateen and junk rigs are optimised for sailing towards the wind. For travelling upwind, you will pass 2 chunks, 2 in crosswind, 2 in downwind.

Movement per chunk
 Square
 Lateen
 Junk

To turn the ship, sail type also has an effect because of wind resistance. The turning will begin by traveling x amount of blocks in the current direction and x in the new direction that the ship will be angled at. All turns will be in a 180 degrees radius from the starting position, with the exception of rowboats, which will be able to turn 360 degrees in an upwind situation. When the ship is turning, they may also fire cannons.

Ships are also allowed to 'drift' 1 chunk per turn to port or starboard.

For any ship that counts as a 3rd rate or higher will add 1 more chunk to the turning radius.

Turning per chunk
 Square
 Lateen
 Junk

### Battle scenario

#### Start of battle

Before any movement is done, all participants will roll a dice to determine who will travel downwind. The person with a higher roll will have the wind more favourably, however if the rolls are reasonably close, a crosswind will be determined between their starting positions.

#### Ship health

Each vessel will have the following structure: 100 health of armour on each broadside, 80 armour at the bow, 50 at the stern. Once the armour on one of the sides reaches 0, any incoming fire from that particular side will deduct hull hit points. Once hull hitpoints reach 0, the ship will sink and won't be able to get boarded.

With specialised ammo such as canister and chain shot, you will be able to target specific parts of a vessel such as masts or crew.

Ship size/ hull hitpoints
 6th - 4th rate
 3rd - 1st rate

Visual damage such as cannonball holes in the hull or sails will be updated if armour drops below 50 or if the mast's health drops to 0. If a mast is fully destroyed, it will be world-edited to look like it has fallen down.

##### Repair kits

Each vessel will carry 2 of these repair kits, which may be used during the battle. When the armour of one segment drops below 50% of its full health, the crew may use a turn to patch up holes with planks for that particular armour segment. Repair kits may not be used on the hull health itself, only armour. Patching up holes after a ram will not make it last 2 more rams, instead it will sink with the next contact.

#### Ranged combat

Cannons will have a limited range of effectiveness, meaning that the farther the target is, it will be harder to hit. Each hit will take away 1 point from the target's health. When you're shooting up to medium range, any natural 20s will also take away 1 crew member. A natural 20 at any range will take away 2 health points at any range.

If using specialised ammo, these will be only effective at mid to close range.

Cannons can only be fired once per turn, they cannot change ammo type once the gun is reloaded, the captain must announce if he will load special ammo after firing the currently loaded cannons.

If you choose to shoot the masts with sail-damaging ammo, you must select, which mast you will target. Each mast will start with 20 health, with each hit, the health will drop by 1 point. When the health reaches 0, the shooter can roll a dice and if he hits a 20, the mast will be fully destroyed and massively decrease the maneuverability of the ship. If they don't succeed, they can fire another salvo of barshot, in which case no health will be deducted, but they may reroll for a 20. When the health of **2 masts reach 0**, a chunk of movement range will be deducted. However, if another mast is incapacitated, the movement range will be locked to minimum 1 chunk. If the health of **all** masts reach 0, then the crew will automatically surrender.

Grapples are used to penetrate through the hull and jam the ships together to allow for boarding.

Required dice roll to hit (chunk distance is calculated excluding the chunks, in which the ships are currently)
 Barshot/Chainshot
 Canister shot
 Grapples

#### Close combat

This segment covers close ranged combat and the initialisation of boarding.

A canister or any other anti-personel charge will kill 1 crew member if it passes the required threshold. an extra crew member will be killed if a natural 20 is rolled.

Grappling an enemy will initialise boarding mechanics, for that, at least 2 grapples must pass the threshold. To be able to actually hit the target, your vessel has to have 1 chunk in between the ships or less. Ramming an enemy will also count as successful grappling.

Ramming-specified vessels like galleys and mono/multiremes will sink the enemy in 2 broadside rams, regardless of the ship's armour or hull health. If the ramming ship manages to contact the enemy, their ship will be unmovable for 2 turns. During the 1st ram, the ramming ship may opt into boarding. If the ramming results in a head-on collision, there is a 25% chance in which the vessels may become stuck, in which case there is no other chance than to board. If the ramming ship rear-ends the enemy, it will require 3 hits to sink it. If rammed from different sides, the damage wont stack, some examples:

ship is hit from the bow and then the broadside ->will not sink

ship is hit from the port and then starboard side -> it will sink

ship is hit twice from the stern and the a broadside -> will not sink

**Ramming mechanics will not apply to tall ships and troop carriers , meaning it will not deal damage like the galleys, so ramming for these ships is only useful for boarding.**

Note: if you ram a ship by its stern, you cannot initiate boarding, unless you manage to hit 2 grapples with your chase cannons.

#### Boarding

There will be 2 ways of boarding:

* Challenging the captain to a pvp 1v1
* Ai crew type rock-paper-scissors

##### 1v1

Both parties must agree to partake in this challenge. If you challenge the enemy captain and he refuses, they will suffer a morale nerf. (morale will not be implemented, it is just for role play)

The captains (players) will engage in combat with their own equipment on the ships. The fight is over when one opponent dies or is pushed in the water.

##### AI Crew

Here the captains will play a rock-paper-scissors-type game. Each turn they will take a stance and reveal their choices at the same time.

Stances
 Fire cannons
 Musket volley
 Sword charge

Player 1 (row) / Player 2 (column)
 Fire cannons
 Musket volley
-15 disadvantage for P1
 Sword charge
-15 disadvantage for P2

###### Crew size

The crew size will be determined from the rating of a ship or better yet from its real-life equivalent reference and sources that state how much people they would carry.

In between normal sailors, which carry only melee weapons, there will be some specified ranged-weapon-wielding marines. The number of these is calculated from the standard trireme ratio of rowers/marines. These would carry 200 men, 170 rowers and 30 marines. This would amount to about 18% of the current crew that remains alive. The ratio will be kept at 18 all of the time, meaning that some marines will die during combat, this also means that less people will shoot when using the musket volley stance.

The pirates are specialist in this stance, they will benefit from 30% range-equipped crew members buff.

The fight concludes when one crew is at 10% of its original strength, at which point, they will surrender. If both crews reach below 10%, both will surrender and the ships remain incapacitated.

### Battle aftermath

If a ship is sunk, the victor may claim 50% of the loot that was onboard the ship, however if they manage to defeat the crew via boarding, or being left incapacitated, they will be able to claim 100% of the cargo + may seize cannons from the opposing vessel.

To commandeer a captured vessel, some crew must be transferred to match the minimum value on the Napoleonic ship rating standard. The captured crew will not count towards this number.

### Buffs and tech

If you have a technology that would help you in a naval battle, special clauses and buffs will be stated here.