1-Player Ship Concept: The Gunboat

  • Update: New Designs

    solo boats side-by-side

    There are three different designs.

    The Gunboat was my first design. Its a short and compact ship, armed with a forward-facing cannon. To find out more about the gunboat, keep reading this post.

    The Longboat is the most conventional design. It is long and narrow, with a bit more space then the gunboat. It has a side-facing cannon. Click here to jump to the Longboat.

    The Dinghy is a minimalist design. Its a bigger rowboat with a mast and nothing but the bare essentials. Click here to jump to the Dinghy.

    My wish/hope is that one solo-boat can find its way into the game. This can be a boat based on one of my designs, but it can be something completly different as well. Just to make this clear: I do not want Rare to add three different solo-boats into the game. That would just be a waste of development resources.

    Gunboat

    ocean animation on imgur
    The Gunboat is a dedicated solo-ship. Its smaller then a sloop, but still has everything thats needed. Take my design as a proof-of-concept, to show that such a vessel is possible, which problems arise when trying to design it and how they could be overcome. (For the emblem on the sail, I copied the Blue Horizon Sails and replaced the galleon with a gunboat.)

    I am certainly not the first one to propose this. And although my design follows the same basic idea, it does differ in execution.

    ch3wiie created a design for a gunboat three years ago: Single Plyer Ship Concept. I took many inspirations from it.

    Eddy_Znarfy shared an alternative solo-ship-concept one year ago: New ship type: the Dhow. I just discovered this one shortly before posting my concept.

    Layout

    fullview on imgur
    The Gunboat is divided into Front, Middle, Back and Cabin sections.
    layout side on imgur
    layout top on imgur
    layout bottom on imgur
    The Back is pretty much the same as on a Sloop and has everything needed to sail the ship.
    helm on imgur
    The Front contains the cannon and harpoons. The Front and Back are connected via a walkway that goes over the Middle section.
    cannon on imgur
    The Middle section contains pretty much everything else you need on a ship. It is just a bit more cramped. The map is conveniently placed in front of the Steering Wheel. (Maybe a bit to convenient. Alternatively, you could place the map in front of the mast and move the mast a bit further to the back.)
    middle on imgur
    The Cabin contains the voyage table, brig, pet cage and a decorative hammock. (I know that the brig is just as pointless as it is on a Sloop. I still added it, partially as a personal challenge and partially because every other ship has it.)
    cabin on imgur

    Sails

    The other renders all show lateen sails, but there are several other options. I tried to achieve three goals when designing the sails:

    Silhouette: Every ship has a distinct silhouette. The Galleon has 3 masts, the Brigantine has 2 masts and the Sloop has 1 mast. Following this pattern, the gunboat would have 0 masts. Since steam engines are not a thing in Sea of Thieves, I went with the next best option and gave it 1 mast with 1 triangular sail.

    Controls: The sails should work just like the other sails in the game: The default position catches wind that comes directly from behind, the sails can be turned up to ~90° to either side.

    Realism: The sails should look and behave like real sails or at the very least be believable.

    None of the designs I am about to show you accomplishes all three of the goals. I will give my personal raking at the end.

    Lateen

    lateen animation on imgur

    • pro: Simple; Short mast; Same controls
    • contra: Top of sail obstructs view from crows nest; Rotation of emblem changes; Turning unrealistic

    Bermuda

    bermuda animation on imgur

    • pro: Realistic
    • contra: Jump in turn; Front/back changes; Tall mast; Ladder at front of mast; Fully turned looks off-balance

    Mirrored Bermuda

    jib animation on imgur

    • contra: Jump in turn; Front/back changes; Tall mast; Ladder overlaps wheel; Fully turned looks off-balance

    Gaff

    gaff animation on imgur

    • pro: Realistic
    • contra: Jump in turn; Front/Back changes; Ladder at front of mast; Silhouette similar to sloop

    Genoa

    (It is not actually a genoa. Genoa is the closest match I know of. If you ignore the crossbeam, it somewhat resembles a genoa.)
    genoa animation on imgur

    • pro: Simple; Same controls
    • contra: Very unrealistic

    My personal ranking from most to least favourite is: Lateen, Genoa, Bermuda, Gaff, Mirrored Bermuda

    I have done my best to research these, but I am no expert. If you find any mistakes or know of any alternative rigs that might work, please tell me.

    Combat

    From Galleon to Brigantine to Sloop, the amount of cannons halves at every step. Following this pattern, the Gunboat should have one cannon. Having a cannon on only one side is to asymmetric for my liking. This is why I went with a forward-facing cannon.

    Its strengths lie mostly in the forward-facing cannon.

    1. Will get the first shot most of the time.
    2. Ideal for chasing.
    3. Easy to repair and bail.
    4. Small target.

    But it also has its share of weaknesses.

    1. No side cannons.
    2. Can not circle. (Due to 1)
    3. Long distance between Front (cannon) and Back (steering, ladders)
    4. Very difficult to keep moving and shooting at the same time. (Due to 2 & 3)
    5. Sinks fast.
    6. Vulnerable to boarding. (Due to 3, 4 & 5)

    And finally, I present to you a render of a gunboat with a broken mast, wrapped by a not-at-all-detailed kraken tentacle.
    kraken on imgur
    I have tried to place the break low enough, so that it can be repaired when standing on the lower deck, but also high enough so that the broken mast can lie mostly flat. The fence at the walkway is shorter to accommodate the broken mast.

    Design Conclusion

    This concludes my Gunboat-concept. You can find the 3D-model and all renders here: Link. I have been tinkering with this design on-and-off since March 2020. You can see a render of an older version from May 2020 below.
    old version on imgur
    Following are some arguments for adding a dedicated one-player-ship. Feel free to skip them if you are only interested in the specific design I have put forth.

    Benefits of a one-player-ship

    Right now, the sloop has to be a vessel for one and two players at the same time. Balancing this is difficult, because there is a big difference between being on you own and having a second sailor onboard.

    I would argue that the difference between one and two players is much larger then between two and three or three and four players. We got a dedicated three-player-ship long ago during cursed sails, so it seems reasonable to add a one-player-ship.

    Dividing the ships into 1-2 players, 2-3 players and 3-4 players may sound good on paper. But in practice you will have either 1 or 2 players on your ship, not 1-2. The amount of players is a distinct amount, not an interval.

    All encounters you face on a sloop have to be balanced so that a single player with limited experience can defeat them. They are trivial for two experienced players. With a dedicated solo-vessel, you could increase the difficulty of these encounters for sloops. And if you are bored with the encounters on a gunboat and looking for a challenge, you could switch back to a sloop.

    In a fight between a solo-sloop and a duo-sloop, the duo-sloop has a clear advantage (given that the players are of equal experience). But if you replace the solo-sloop with a gunboat, the gunboat has the chance to exploit the unique strength and weaknesses of both vessels. The duo-sloop still has the advantage, but it is less certain then before. The same applies for conflicts with other ships.

    The vast majority of the vessels you see are sloops. But if most solo-players are sailing on gunboats, it would bring much more variety to the ships you see. A sloop on the horizon would be much less of a wildcard.

    There is one argument against dedicated solo-vessels which I would like to address directly. One might argue, that Sea of Thieves is a multiplayer game and should therefore not have a solo-vessel and that it would be wrong to encourage playing solo. I do not agree with this statement.

    Being on a solo-vessel does not turn this game into a singleplayer experience. Sailing on your own does not mean you won’t see other players. There are still up to five other crews on your server. You can already sail alone on a sloop and a gunboat would not change this.

    There is nothing wrong with playing Sea of Thieves solo. There are many valid reasons why you might be on your own. Maybe you do not have friends who play this game or they are not available and you do not want to put up with open crews. Maybe you feel pressured when playing in a crew with others and want to relax a bit on your own. For my part, I would not enjoy this game as much as I do right now if I could not sail solo.

    End

    Thank you for your time. I am looking forward to you feedback!

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  • It cant have front cannon though, chasing a ship would be too easy on a gunboat..

  • Peaked my interest seems it could work well.

  • @faceyourdemon giving chase is a bad position for someone to keg or board you.

  • @lastcall313 Not sure I understand what you mean, im saying that a front cannon can do sick damage and pin down a ship.
    I have no peoblem with unique feature to the Gunboat but it must be balanced.

  • @faceyourdemon

    I actually think the front cannon would probably be more of a hindrance than anything. Yes, it would make chasing easy but you can't spiral on another boat or engage in regular naval combat- you basically have to nosedive at ships to have cannon angle which is a weird dynamic, obviously not a good strategy as anyone who's well versed in naval combat knows.

    I like the idea of the ship and wouldn't mind it being added but I actually don't think it would be very viable and most solo PvP players would stick to the sloop. Variety is good though.

  • @moogbeard You just need to get use to it, and since the Gunboat is so nimble compared to the oher ships you can still engage in spiral attacks.
    You just need to set the speed of turning and you are good to go, if anything its more scary.

  • @faceyourdemon said in 1-Player Ship Concept: The Gunboat:

    @moogbeard You just need to get use to it, and since the Gunboat is so nimble compared to the oher ships you can still engage in spiral attacks.
    You just need to set the speed of turning and you are good to go, if anything its more scary.

    If the cannon's range of motion is the same as the other ships it would make it way too hard to actually spiral a ship while keeping it in cannon range. I'm actually not sure it would even be possible to consistently keep said cannon angle while traveling around your target since ships can only move in the direction that the prow is pointed, and the prow is where your cannon is on this thing.

    I think if you actually tried to consistently keep angle you'd end up ramming the target. What you could probably do is fire at the target before passing and then go turn your ship almost 90 degrees (or even 180?) every time you pass it. Essentially you'd be traversing the target in some kind of diamond or square formation (or just traveling back and forth on a line). It'd be really weird though and you wouldn't be able to just set the wheel angle and fire away like you can on any other ship.

  • @moogbeard How so?
    You do it all the time on a ship, reading the speed of your foes and moving accordingly.
    Its like spinning with a car in a circle, after couple times you get it and even if the target is moving you can still do the same.

    Being chased would be more difficult but its not like other ships have anything to do about it other then sending people.
    And if the way is clear you can still do that.

    The only way to give it the the Gunboat an edge is how nimble it would be, and of course sailing against the wind faster then the sloop.

  • Do you know what we're talking about when we refer to a "Spiral"?

    In Sea of Thieves once an enemy ship has been immobilized what most experienced players will do is adjust their wheel & sails so that their ship circles the enemy ship. Because the cannons are on the side of the ship this means you'll have cannon angle 100% of the time without ever having to go back to the wheel to adjust.

    You wouldn't be able to do that on this ship because the cannon is on the front rather than the side. If you set your ship to travel around the enemy in a circle they would end up being just slightly out of cannon angle the entire time, you'd need to travel around the enemy in a less circular and more oblong or diamond shape in order to get angle which means constantly adjusting the wheel & sails (it might even require anchor turns). And even if you did it, you still wouldn't have angle 100% of the time anyways.

  • @danielalex3266

    Splendid concept and presentation matey!

    alt text

  • @moogbeard ill dm you my reply, forum is broken

  • I'm gonna have to upvote just due to the amount of work and effort put in. It looks extremely well made.

    HOWEVER, I don't really see it's place in-game. Most solo players do just fine managing the Sloop, and with the option for a friend to jump in at anytime, I can't see them picking the Gunboat over the Sloop. It also has a few design flaws, which could of course be worked out, but unless Rare plans on considering this, I'll just say really good work on the project, but probably not ideal for the game right now!

  • No words! You have done such an amazing work with that one ! Rare, have a look on that! This guy deserves to see his hard work on your seas. Well done!

  • @DanielAlex3266

    There is one argument against dedicated solo-vessels which I would like to address directly. One might argue, that Sea of Thieves is a multiplayer game and should therefore not have a solo-vessel and that it would be wrong to encourage playing solo. I do not agree with this statement.

    I do agree with it; if the developers wanted you to actively sail solo unhindered, they would have designed their game that way around those concepts - but they clearly didn't because that's not what they had in mind (in fact, when the game 1st released, all we had were galleons).

    It is a good presentation, BTW; it's just an incredibly flawed argument.

    Besides - there's incredible value to be had when sailing with a (group of) friend(s); and I'm not referring to the gold's value here.

  • Top presentation dude, I just don't like the idea of forward facing cannons and have unconditional love for the sloop.

    This is more fitting for solo players who fancy something a bit smaller!

    Jack Sparrow Coracle

  • First of all, I want to thank everyone for their nice words. Even if we may not agree on whether a 1-player-ship should be a thing or not, it is still nice to see you appreciating the work I have put in. Thank you for that.

    Going through the discussion, It seems to revolve mostly around the forward-facing cannon. I would like to explain why I went with this option by going through the alternatives.

    one back-facing cannon

    (Eddy_Znarfys Dhow does this.) The problem with a back-facing cannon is that you can only really use it while being chased. It would be very difficult and intuitive to use in battle. You can only fire after you have passed the enemy ship. All the while they would have plenty of time to blow holes into your ship. When you finally get the opportunity to shoot back, you might be a bit to preoccupied with repairs.

    one side-facing cannon

    Now you have halve the firing arc of a sloop, but with nothing to compensate for it. A forward- or back-facing cannon offers unique strengths and weaknesses, while a single side-facing cannon is just plain worse. Its also unsymmetrical.

    one movable side-facing cannon

    There is an interaction point somewhere near the cannon. If you hold it for some amount of time, it will move the cannon to the other side of the ship. Note that the cannon can not be fired while its being moved and will snap back to the original position if interrupted.
    Just like a non-movable side-facing cannon, this is plain worse then a sloop. And it’s more complicated. There are some opportunities for psychological plays though. Your enemy thinks you cant shoot because your cannon is on the other side, only to be hit with a barrage of cannon balls.

    two side-facing cannons (like a sloop)

    The problem with this is that it offers no real difference to the sloop. The gunboat would be far to similar.

    one forward-facing cannon

    And finally, we come to the option I chose. It has its problems. Its very good at chasing and unable to circle or spiral.
    The problem that its to good for chasing is partially mitigated by the fact that the gunboat is very vulnerable to boarding.
    A forward-facing cannons could have alternative tactics to circles or spirals, like the ones mentioned by @Moogbeard. All of which would involve a lot of running between the cannon, steering wheel and sails though. You could try reducing speed before shooting to get the most out of your chance, but this makes you open to boarding.

  • Nothing but respect for the work the autor put into this.
    Looks clean and legit. Would not be OP as well.

    Gunboats must be fought - simple as that. Sailing away from them will allow them free shots & possible mast-breaks.
    So this would be a boat that must be faced but it only has one Pirate most of the time.
    Do not forget that and bring the battleready Pirate into your Sailor.
    .

    But speaking about sailing away or sailing in general.
    Man - what is this?
    Is this love? https://www.reddit.com/r/Seaofthieves/comments/ki6dor/mostly_out_of_spite_i_made_this_a_sloop_ingame/
    °fan-gasmic noises°

  • I like this idea, nice job on this. I would prefer if the ship had one canon on each side though, otherwise fighting skeleton ships would be really hard.

  • I suggest we put the cannon on a 360° rotating platform up on top of the crow's nest. 😅

  • While I normally pay no attention to posts like this because I think the current ships are good enough, the effort in this post alone is worth a good look by the devs

  • This is amazing, look at my most recent post, this could be added onto my idea

  • @danielalex3266 the only ship you could chase is another gunboat. everyone else would turn to get wind and leave you in your own sea spray. Just like sloops today, they can only chase other sloops.

  • @faceyourdemon being behind a ship when chasing it is and incredibly dangerous spot to be. Dropping kegs and/or boarding enemies are often more dangerous than being on their flank.

  • @lastcall313 Its easy to read a situation with a keg, the only real threat is boarders and solo sloops and others ships suffers from it.

  • @leftypirate99 If you can get in range, you could shoot their masts with a chainshot. Even taking out a single mast on a galleon might slow them down enough.
    Although thats all under the assumption that they let you this close in the first place. And you would be under constant threat of being boarded or kegged.
    I think we can all agree that a forward-facing cannon really isn´t as op in chases as you might first believe. Its still better then not having it, but I would not call it broken.

    @cornelius-ix Fighting skeleton ships on a gunboat would be different, thats for sure. But I do not think it would be to hard. It might even be easier.
    You would want to get behind the skelly ship. With skellies, you dont have to worry about kegs or boardes. If you are behind them, you can shoot at your leisure without risking any damage to your ship.
    Once a skelly-ship spawns on you, the best reaction would be to reduce speed and let it overshoot. Then you only have to worry about staying behind it. And with their limited AI, this shouldn´t be to difficult. You might even be able to manuver with harpoons only.

  • Here are three new sails. These all employ the same mechanics as the sails we have in game. They do not jump like the bermuda or gaff.

    I did have to get creative with the turning animations. As far as I know, they are all completely made up. And two of the sails do distort as they shift from one side to the other. I dont think its to bad though.

    Lugger

    lugger
    I modified the lugger to make it work with the sailing mechanics. And it does work well, but it looks far to similar to a regular square sail.

    Junker

    junker
    This rig looks very good, but it seems somewhat misplaced on the gunboat. A typical junker has 2 or 3 sails, not just one. On top of that, the style does not match. The gunboat looks to european.

    Also, if there are junker rigs in the game, I would prefer to have them available to choose for all ships, and not fixed to one.

    Crabclaw

    crabclaw
    I really like this sail. Unfortunately it does not work with the gunboat. Because its fixed at the front of the ship, it intersects with the cannon.

    I am thinking about designing a completely new hull around this sail. Something like a sakman single outrigger canoe with one side-facing cannon.

    Personal Ranking

    As to my personal ranking, the top remains unchanged. I still think that the lateen achieves the best balance between aesthetics, game mechanics and realism. From best to worst, my personal list goes: Lateen, Genoa, Junker, Bermuda, Lugger, Gaff, Mirrored Bermuda, Crabclaw.

  • Love it! But why the adding the brig? lol

  • I LOVE THIS! As someone who often plays solo, I would love a ship like this.

    I also think that the strengths of a front facing cannon would definitely be balanced out by its weaknesses. The inability to circle another ship, and the susceptibility to boarding are good, especially when considering that the Gunboat would be forced to place itself in a position where it could be boarded.

    Really well thought out (I love the open-ness of the lower deck) and really nice visuals as well. Great job :D

  • why does a 1 man ship need a brig.

  • A lot of work, concept, and idea went into this of that I can clearly tell but I'm going to have to say no.

    Still though, lots of respect to ye.

    The issue I have is that Solo Slooping in the game is not designed to be easy for a single player, it is actually the hardest mode of the game and that is intended to encourage crewing up.

    I understand where the ideas are coming from for sure, but I just think it would make the game way too easy for Solo players with the chasing cannons plus how are you to hit anything on the sides?

  • @danielalex3266 I think a better solo ship would have one mast, two cannons, square sails, and everything else that a sloop has because Sloops are a perfect solo ship. It's a overly manageable ship solo, and the second crewmate is just convenient.

    No solo ship needed. We need a 5 and 6 man ship.

    5 (Frigate - Use the Black Pearl's model)
    6 (Ship o' the Line - Use a model similar to that of the Flying Dutchman)

    These would be much more balanced than you'd think. The Pearl's sail ropes are attached to ledges off the side of the ship, so managing and raising the masts will have a risk of being shot or falling off. The Pearl and Dutchman both have a massive ~1/3 of their ship completely defenseless because of that dumptruck of an aft. They also have lower-deck cannonports, that will flood when the water raises. Almost ALL of the Dutchman's cannons are in ports, so if she floods high enough, you lose ALL your guns. I could go on, and likely will in another post sometime

  • @rauko6910 @matmoesa You have a point, the brig is pointless. Actually, there is quite a lot of wasted space in the cabin. The only functional objects are the voyage board, cage and one latern. Most of the area is taken up by a useless brig and the anchor-shaft.

    My objective when designing the Gunboat was that it should have everything the other ships have. And because all other ships have a brig, the gunboat does too.

    You could try and see this as a good thing though. Wasted space is also space that could be repurposed in future updates. We already saw the addition of harpoons, stoves, pet chests, cages and water barrels. Who is to say there wont come more in the future? Maybe there will even be a new mechanic which utilizes the brig.

    Then again, this hints towards a potential problem with my design. There is some space for future additions, but not a lot of it. The devs risk painting themselves into a corner with it.
    I could try to get a bit more space out of it. Maybe make the hull a bit longer. Or a bit rounder. I'll try and see which works best.

  • @klutchxking518 I don't thinks those are mutually exclusive. You can have both a 1-player-ship and 5/6-player ships.

    The only real debate is see here is one about development time. Time spend on a gunboat is time not spend on a Ship of the line and vice versa.

    Personally, I dont mind Rare spending time to develop features I am not going to use. They are catering to millions of players after all.

    Just one thing: If you are using the Black Pearl model for a 5-player-ship, dont call it a frigate. I am fine with calling the Flying Dutchman a Ship of the Line (it does have two gun decks after all), but the Black Pearl is no frigate.

  • The bow of the ship has to be removed.
    If not... we are going to be shooting ourselves all the time. When the water is rocking that thing will be right infront of the cannon.

    Otherwise its a cool ship.

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