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If we have ship building, how would you like to see it handled?

I will post my view on this topic later. I do believe I heard it somewhere, but not sure where, that we will have ship building as one of the crafting skills in the game.

If  this is true, How would you like to see this handled?

Again I will give my thoughts on this later, just popped in on my lunch hour. lol

So lets hear your ideas on the topic.

Comments

  • It would be cool if they went with a modular approach to ship creation. Have a collection of different ships you can make. Each ship has a number of slots that can be used to attach weapons, storage, etc. Since we don't have gun powder, i'm hoping there are some creative weapon options.
  • Ok this is what I would love to see with ship building.

    1. Different types of wood. With your selection, it would add or take away the weight of the ship. a.k.a making it faster or slower.

    2. Sail types. Is it silk or just plan heavy cloth. This too will make your ship faster or slower. Plus you will pick the amount of masses to place on the deck, as you make the small to larger ships.

    3. Armor. Yes You should be able to add armor to the ships, this will make the ship slower over all, but harder to take out.

    4. Style of ship. We should have 3 basic types to make.  Warship, Merchant, and Fishing.

    5. Make Row Boats for starting out. No one should be making ships at the start, so lets make row boats until we are ready for the bigger class.

    6. I would like to see shipyards, where we can make the ships. As you build it, it takes on its shape for all to see.

    7. Weapons. From rams to whatever will be use to shoot, we can add what is needed, if the customer wants it.

    8. Repairing. We can build it, so we should also repair them too.

    Well anyway, that's some of the things I would like to see as a ship builder in the game.

  • @Granthor I agree with your points above, I too hope there will be a great many options that can be taken into account when building a ship.

    1. The varieties of timber is a great idea, some lighter thus faster, but less resistant to damage while others more dense and resistant to damage but will cause your ship to be slower.

    2. Sails could be made of different materials sure but how about magical sails that could give a buff to speed, more resistant to damage, or give your ship greater manoeuvrability. But just one of the above not all of them.

    3. There should be armour for ships plating for its sides but what about fore and aft defences for those warships, to provide protection for its weapons and crews.

    4. The style of ship would be very important, I would imagine each race/ sub-race will have its own style when it come to ship crafting let alone warships, merchant, and fishing vessels. Could there be small agile sloops rigged for battle, yet other sleek merchant craft for a fast escape. Hulking warships that hope to catch other ships unawares, or large cargo vessels that will not put to see without an escort.
     
    5. It should take sometime to construct a ship and quite an amount of resources and if you desire some of those rarer materials no small amount gold. I think it would be cool if designs for ships and their components were like any other crafted item, the pattern on how to construct them needs to be discovered. Some could be and should be very hard to find and once uncovered by a ship wright their services should not come cheap.

    6. Ship yards I would think should be part of a freehold that is built next to the ocean or a large river where ships can be built then launched.

    7. Weapons is another area that may lend its self to some magic being used to give greater range or hitting power, large and more powerful weapons could only be carried on the larger warships. A modular system where you could decide what type of weapons you desired to carry, catapults for shot to disable sails, or large stones to crack hulls, ballista for piercing hulls or damaging opposing weapons. Rams for when things get truly close and personal, grapnels and winches, then there is the different ammunition for setting fires etc.

    8. Repairing a ship, how simple should it be, pay a fee when you dock to have all damage repaired or will you have to seek out a shipwright?

    Many of my thoughts and ideas come from my days of playing the pen and paper Spelljammer Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I did enjoy flying around in space in a ship decked out with all manner of weapons magical sails etc, you could customize the ship to your taste, according to how large they were.     
  • I like the idea, but given the fact that this is a world of magic, it would be nice to see some magical enchants, barriers, magic cannons, monster wards, magic engines to propel the ship on calm waters.
  • I think it should be handled like crafting a house. Except having a set location. Maybe you should have to do quest or just be lucky to find the blue print for "epic or rare" ships. The epic and rare ships should have like bonus effects like speed, armor or how many people it can hold. There should be a regulations on who can own a ship. Like you must own property in a town close to water. Maybe have different types of ships like cargo, war, passenger or even fishing ships.

    Just some random thoughts. About to read some of the other comments so I'm repeating what someone else said don't flam me lol 
  • @Granthor pretty much said everything id also like to see in regards to ship building and maintenance. Only thing id add that isnt related to building is a ships speed and maneuverability are also affected by the sailors driving the ship as in have sailing be a skill or profession maybe?
     
  • I agree with just about everything above but I dunno if I want different materials persay, but for sure do I want to see different parts to ships that effect it's performance. I'd like to see more of a trade off system than a "ship meta" in designing your craft. 

    I'm in favor of the more modular ship design. Being able to pick and choose what you put in your ship when you build it. Id like to see some aspects of the ship be permanent, so once built, you are committed to it, but also some changeable ones as well. 

    Say you want a fast ship, you need to equip it with the streamlined hull when you build it, reduce it's cargo capacity and fit it with quick sails. 

    Want a dreadnaught? Build a thick hull, fill up the cargo space with weaponry and add a big rudder. 

    Simple repairs can be carried out by your crew, but if your ship is critically damaged, I feel you should need to find a shipwright to repair it and until you do, your ship has a debuff based on what's damaged. (Lower health if it's the hull, slower if sail is damaged, ect...). This requires players to expend resources and money to maintain a ship and activity for a crafter.


  • Karthos said:
    I agree with just about everything above but I dunno if I want different materials persay, but for sure do I want to see different parts to ships that effect it's performance. I'd like to see more of a trade off system than a "ship meta" in designing your craft. 

    I'm in favor of the more modular ship design. Being able to pick and choose what you put in your ship when you build it. Id like to see some aspects of the ship be permanent, so once built, you are committed to it, but also some changeable ones as well. 

    Say you want a fast ship, you need to equip it with the streamlined hull when you build it, reduce it's cargo capacity and fit it with quick sails. 

    Want a dreadnaught? Build a thick hull, fill up the cargo space with weaponry and add a big rudder. 

    Simple repairs can be carried out by your crew, but if your ship is critically damaged, I feel you should need to find a shipwright to repair it and until you do, your ship has a debuff based on what's damaged. (Lower health if it's the hull, slower if sail is damaged, ect...). This requires players to expend resources and money to maintain a ship and activity for a crafter.


    Well said, didn't think about it but now it seems pretty obvious that you can't change ship 'types' you can't build a merchant ship/supply ship and suddenly transform it into a warship, main materials (wood used for hull and other parts) should be chosen at the start with no option to suddenly change.
  • Would be pretty cool if they included some of the historical ships.   Ships from Japan and England and Spain look totally different.

  • They do but ship styles should be kept either on schematics or in harbours in specific locations (japanese style ship schematics drop in the eastern nodes, harbours that let you build these styles would be in the east too)
  • One thing I would like to see is this:

    Say we built a rowboat starting out, but we have now upgraded to a larger boat. Well, historically larger boats have deeper drafts so you need rowboats to get ashore. Let us keep our rowboat and attach it to the ship.

    I think the ability to design our own ships would be awesome. Let us choose the materials we want to use. Be mindful, someone earlier mentioned silk sails. Yeah, you could make sails out of silk but they would be shredded in weeks if not days, and silk is thin and not able to hold the wind very well.  Now, say we take that silk and treat it magically so it holds the wind and is more durable... then we're talking.

    I also like the modular design idea. It would be great if I could choose different ship parts and create my own unique ship. Say I want a caravel with a huge aftcastle, and it's counterbalanced by a massive harpoon on the front. Or perhaps a nice merchant ship with living quarters for myself and my crew and a nice, large hold. 

    Ships and ship design is a big part of my D&D campaign and I absolutely love drafting plans and choosing materials for my ships in that game. Stormwrack is a wonderful book written for 3.5 that I highly recommend browsing through if you want some ideas for what can be done with ship design in an RPG setting.
  • One thing I would add to the great things you all suggested: Guild/City Flags on top! :) And, more expensive: the whole sail with the colours and symbol of the city/guild.
  • Amaze said:
    One thing I would add to the great things you all suggested: Guild/City Flags on top! :) And, more expensive: the whole sail with the colours and symbol of the city/guild.
    Nice idea, custom flags would also be good ! 
  • Amaze said:
    One thing I would add to the great things you all suggested: Guild/City Flags on top! :) And, more expensive: the whole sail with the colours and symbol of the city/guild.
    Nice idea, custom flags would also be good ! 
    Oh yeah! It's pirate time :smiley:
  • Amaze said:
    Amaze said:
    One thing I would add to the great things you all suggested: Guild/City Flags on top! :) And, more expensive: the whole sail with the colours and symbol of the city/guild.
    Nice idea, custom flags would also be good ! 
    Oh yeah! It's pirate time :smiley:
    1. You become a pirate
    2. You pillage a nearby village
    3. Some pissed off mage fires a fireball at the ship
    4. Enjoy a swim at the bottom of the sea

    Related image
    Final result.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited January 2018
    I like most of the ideas above I think it better to not have separate designation for them:
    So instead of having separate types of ships like Fishing, Cargo, Warship.

    You build your ship to how you want based on space ans weight allowance.

    More weapons less room for cargo. You should be able to fish from any ship logically if you want to have a large haul of fish you have to make sure you have enough empty space for them.

    No reason a Warship can't hold Cargo, or a Cargo ship can't hold weapons, and no reason you wouldn't be able to fish on either one of them.

    Function should be based on design.

    I really hope that crafting affects appearance and we have crafting options to change appearance of our ships and not just generic crafted skins.

    I hope the things we build into the ship affects it's appearance as well as the materials we use.


  • I would like to see the ship 'level' to be tied into the node level.
    So villages can produce a certain type of small ship, towns create larger , faster ships and cities and Metro creating even grander ships.  But within the category of village/town/city, the players skill and wood type would determine the stats of the ship for that category and any buffs etc maybe from the material or crafting skill of the specific player would make a good system i think.
  • Mozsta69 said:
    I would like to see the ship 'level' to be tied into the node level.
    So villages can produce a certain type of small ship, towns create larger , faster ships and cities and Metro creating even grander ships.  But within the category of village/town/city, the players skill and wood type would determine the stats of the ship for that category and any buffs etc maybe from the material or crafting skill of the specific player would make a good system i think.
    Personally tying the ships to node level isn't the best idea, at least directly, there is nothing stopping a town to build a huge ship, but if they did do that they would need to give a reasonable excuse (like the harbour is not big enough to accomodate the ship) additionaly ships could only be build in nodes that have sea acess (unless you got some magic to teleport a ship into the sea xD).

    What's more the node is developed by a big amount of players, but ships will probably be something more 'personal' ? that's why limiting people as to what ship type they can have because of others is kind of.....meh.
  • Ship building in ArcheAge was pretty fun, You'd set down a floating dock in the ocean and then carry materials (such as wood, metal etc) to it before putting them down and "building" it which would take a set time. After reaching the final stage the boat would become live, slide down the harbour and into the ocean then it was ready to use. Something like this would make it accessible for individual players and guilds alike without a load of hassle.
  • Narys said:
    Ship building in ArcheAge was pretty fun, You'd set down a floating dock in the ocean and then carry materials (such as wood, metal etc) to it before putting them down and "building" it which would take a set time. After reaching the final stage the boat would become live, slide down the harbour and into the ocean then it was ready to use. Something like this would make it accessible for individual players and guilds alike without a load of hassle.
    I agree that ships should be accessible for everyone. Makes the waters more populated. 
  • Narys said:
    Ship building in ArcheAge was pretty fun, You'd set down a floating dock in the ocean and then carry materials (such as wood, metal etc) to it before putting them down and "building" it which would take a set time. After reaching the final stage the boat would become live, slide down the harbour and into the ocean then it was ready to use. Something like this would make it accessible for individual players and guilds alike without a load of hassle.
    I really love how ships were handled in Archeage. If they could enhance and focus on more customization *cough* and less rng *cough* then I think it will be amazing.
  • With wood....Pooka wants to be a master Wood Worker, and Pooka isn't talking about timber. ;)

    /thread
  • I did enjoy the shipbuilding in ArcheAge, but I really don't feel like any game I have played has really gotten ships and sailing quite right.

    Anyone who has sailed before knows about how to catch the wind, tacking, and the rush you get as your ship tilts to the side and you're half scared you're going to capsize. And also, most of a ship is not on the deck yet most games you can only be on the main deck. There's so much room for fun little details like the captain's quarters, a map room, the mess hall, smuggling holds! Yeah, it's a lot to put together for any game let alone an MMO as complex as this. But I really do hope there is a little more to sailing a ship than having a special vehicle that goes on the water.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited January 2018
    Kitzi said:
    I did enjoy the shipbuilding in ArcheAge, but I really don't feel like any game I have played has really gotten ships and sailing quite right.

    Anyone who has sailed before knows about how to catch the wind, tacking, and the rush you get as your ship tilts to the side and you're half scared you're going to capsize. And also, most of a ship is not on the deck yet most games you can only be on the main deck. There's so much room for fun little details like the captain's quarters, a map room, the mess hall, smuggling holds! Yeah, it's a lot to put together for any game let alone an MMO as complex as this. But I really do hope there is a little more to sailing a ship than having a special vehicle that goes on the water.
    I didn't even think about that.....I want it now  starts singing sea shanties
  • Kitzi said:
    I did enjoy the shipbuilding in ArcheAge, but I really don't feel like any game I have played has really gotten ships and sailing quite right.

    Anyone who has sailed before knows about how to catch the wind, tacking, and the rush you get as your ship tilts to the side and you're half scared you're going to capsize. And also, most of a ship is not on the deck yet most games you can only be on the main deck. There's so much room for fun little details like the captain's quarters, a map room, the mess hall, smuggling holds! Yeah, it's a lot to put together for any game let alone an MMO as complex as this. But I really do hope there is a little more to sailing a ship than having a special vehicle that goes on the water.
    You're thinking of ships designed for gunpowder weapons. Ashes does not have gunpowder. I'm a bit of an ancient history geek, so please excuse the overly detailed explanation.  The main weapon on an ancient warship was a ram mounted on the bow. Ships typically attacked each other by moving at top speed (via rowing, rather than sailing) towards each other, and attempting to outmaneuver each other. Picture a fencing match, where the epee's are ships upwards of twenty feet long. These ships were skinny, which was the best defense against being rammed (because the shock would be absorbed across the whole length of the ship rather than bouncing back and forth inside it). Due to being skinny, they didn't usually have much in the way of quarters. Rowers slept on their benches and ships weren't usually under sail for more than a few days at a time. The officers would sleep in tents erected on the deck. Only on royal ships would these sometimes become more permanent structures, in the form of a small cabin.  While it would be plausible to have magical cannons, honestly that would make the ship combat less tactical and not as interesting. Warships often also carried a ballista (a large crossbow), a trebuchet (a type of catapult), or both. A ballista however would have been used more like a modern gun turret (since it's a precision anti-personnel weapon), while a trebuchet was more like a mortar (except bigger and easier to disable). While a ballista could be put under a roof, it wouldn't be deck: just a protection for the crew from projectiles. The reason why it couldn't be a deck is that the ballista needed a near-360 degree range of motion, so the sides of the building had to be open. A trebuchet was simply too large to be put under a roof. It was highly effective though, since it could be used at extremely long range. We have already seen catapults of a different type in the Predator gameplay video, and we've also seen burning projectiles (just not ship-mounted yet). Hopefully we will see some equivalent of Greek fire to make mounting a trebuchet on a ship worthwhile.
    The reason that most games can't use the inside of a ship, and likely Ashes of Creation can't either, is that typically an object with an interior the player can stand in is considered a building by the game's code. Therefore, it can't move. Instead the game world is moved around it: which means it can only move in a set path.  If the game world has any zone barriers, it is also highly likely to randomly despawn (WoW has an airship like this, not suggested if you can't avoid falling damage).  However, if they manage to pull off the promised siege towers then ships are sure to follow, since they can simply be coded as waterbound siege towers.  The main reasons to have ships would be to more easily attack (or defend) coastal nodes, and to extend the caravan routes into the ocean.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited April 2018
    would love to se some sort of a version of the Roman Scorpion Ballista and old China did hade a typ of  trebuchet on there ships a old Picture of the Chines ship can be found in the book Battel at sea: 3000 years of naval warfare page 53 
  • If they could at least implement the level of details of the 1996 game called Sea Legends, I'd be happy. It wasn't much by today's standards, but that game was awesome. Especially the sea battles.
  • ArchivedUserArchivedUser Guest
    edited April 2018
    looks like a older version of the Sid Meier`s game Pirates from 2005 i think even that it did exist on the old Amiga 500 to but plz plz dont make sea fights be another ArchAge
  • Aiveleen said:
    Kitzi said:
    I did enjoy the shipbuilding in ArcheAge, but I really don't feel like any game I have played has really gotten ships and sailing quite right.

    Anyone who has sailed before knows about how to catch the wind, tacking, and the rush you get as your ship tilts to the side and you're half scared you're going to capsize. And also, most of a ship is not on the deck yet most games you can only be on the main deck. There's so much room for fun little details like the captain's quarters, a map room, the mess hall, smuggling holds! Yeah, it's a lot to put together for any game let alone an MMO as complex as this. But I really do hope there is a little more to sailing a ship than having a special vehicle that goes on the water.
    You're thinking of ships designed for gunpowder weapons. Ashes does not have gunpowder. I'm a bit of an ancient history geek, so please excuse the overly detailed explanation.  The main weapon on an ancient warship was a ram mounted on the bow. Ships typically attacked each other by moving at top speed (via rowing, rather than sailing) towards each other, and attempting to outmaneuver each other. Picture a fencing match, where the epee's are ships upwards of twenty feet long. These ships were skinny, which was the best defense against being rammed (because the shock would be absorbed across the whole length of the ship rather than bouncing back and forth inside it). Due to being skinny, they didn't usually have much in the way of quarters. Rowers slept on their benches and ships weren't usually under sail for more than a few days at a time. The officers would sleep in tents erected on the deck. Only on royal ships would these sometimes become more permanent structures, in the form of a small cabin.  While it would be plausible to have magical cannons, honestly that would make the ship combat less tactical and not as interesting. Warships often also carried a ballista (a large crossbow), a trebuchet (a type of catapult), or both. A ballista however would have been used more like a modern gun turret (since it's a precision anti-personnel weapon), while a trebuchet was more like a mortar (except bigger and easier to disable). While a ballista could be put under a roof, it wouldn't be deck: just a protection for the crew from projectiles. The reason why it couldn't be a deck is that the ballista needed a near-360 degree range of motion, so the sides of the building had to be open. A trebuchet was simply too large to be put under a roof. It was highly effective though, since it could be used at extremely long range. We have already seen catapults of a different type in the Predator gameplay video, and we've also seen burning projectiles (just not ship-mounted yet). Hopefully we will see some equivalent of Greek fire to make mounting a trebuchet on a ship worthwhile.
    The reason that most games can't use the inside of a ship, and likely Ashes of Creation can't either, is that typically an object with an interior the player can stand in is considered a building by the game's code. Therefore, it can't move. Instead the game world is moved around it: which means it can only move in a set path.  If the game world has any zone barriers, it is also highly likely to randomly despawn (WoW has an airship like this, not suggested if you can't avoid falling damage).  However, if they manage to pull off the promised siege towers then ships are sure to follow, since they can simply be coded as waterbound siege towers.  The main reasons to have ships would be to more easily attack (or defend) coastal nodes, and to extend the caravan routes into the ocean.

    I think the devs are going for more of a medieval style for the game and thus will have ships styled from that time period. There would still be similar combat to what you were talking about, but the ships had multiple designs.  Although, most people picture later ships built for cannons from the 17th and 18th centuries.  Most of those designs were based on older ships, some were even refitted for cannons. 

    I really like a lot of the concepts and ideas above.  The compartment style building would be great.  With the idea of not being able to change most of the ships design, I think a master shipwright should be able to adjust designs more than most people.  I would also like to see dynamic combat.  I.e. If you hit a ship above the water line there wouldn't be much damage, but if you hit below it you would cause flooding.  Also, a way to repair during combat would be nice.

  • Granthor said:

    Ok this is what I would love to see with ship building.

    1. Different types of wood. With your selection, it would add or take away the weight of the ship. a.k.a making it faster or slower.

    2. Sail types. Is it silk or just plan heavy cloth. This too will make your ship faster or slower. Plus you will pick the amount of masses to place on the deck, as you make the small to larger ships.

    3. Armor. Yes You should be able to add armor to the ships, this will make the ship slower over all, but harder to take out.

    4. Style of ship. We should have 3 basic types to make.  Warship, Merchant, and Fishing.

    5. Make Row Boats for starting out. No one should be making ships at the start, so lets make row boats until we are ready for the bigger class.

    6. I would like to see shipyards, where we can make the ships. As you build it, it takes on its shape for all to see.

    7. Weapons. From rams to whatever will be use to shoot, we can add what is needed, if the customer wants it.

    8. Repairing. We can build it, so we should also repair them too.

    Well anyway, that's some of the things I would like to see as a ship builder in the game.

    1: 100% agree but perhaps add more parameters other than speed. Maybe it could be a weigh up of speed vs armour. Perhaps a parameter "flexibility" could be added: more flexible would is less likely to break (lower chance of receiving a critical strike) but it will also be lighter (faster) and have reduced armour. 

    2: Sail type is great but the cloth should also have some sort of durability mechanic. I'm not sure how the material of sails affects the sail irl but instead of just being better cloth = faster ship, better cloth could tear more easily and need to be replaced.

    3: Yup no-brainer. There should be realistic weight limits though. Again I'm not a nautical engineer lol but I'm sure if your ship is too heavy (or the hull is too dense or however it works) it will sink. So maybe you'll have to try to min-max the type of wood and armour to get the most out of it. Different armours could be good. And if a metal is really light maybe you can cover your hull in it to provide very low armour but high fire resistance idk. 

    What do you think about giving people the tools to calculate whether their ship will sail or sink and letting the dumbasses sink their brand new warship (like the Vasa lol) or just make a hard weight limit where the game doesn't allow you to add more components?

    4: Seems alright but I'm not sure what these "styles" would mean. I think the modular approach is best: You just give the ships the same number of "slots" for components and fill those slots with whatever you need such as weapons or nets or whatever. You can have different hull sizes for different numbers of slots, more slots = more weight so maybe you want a small, fast glass cannon. Bigger ships require more sailors. 

    5: No, make rafts lol. A shitty little raft with a tiny sail:  https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/wooden-raft-sail-26608530.jpg

    6: Yes ships of a certain size should require shipyards and likely should be a guild effort. If you have a massive warship it should require multiple people to sail it (i.e. I don't want to see a 100 man guild with 100 frigates. They should have 1-3 depending on their size). You could even make "node" ships where players can build military ships to defend the node. Some sort of military general can be in charge of these decisions. 

    7: Greek fire, harpoons, grapples. Remember Pirates of the Caribbean? How about a "ball and chain" type of ammunition that can be fired at masts to try to break them. Magical weapons should be discussed too. I'd like to see real naval combat and magic could work but I don't want it to be broken by someone's polymorph cannon that turns your entire frigate into a sheep. Actually no I'd fucking love to see that please do it Steven.

    8: Yes and there should be repair and maintenance during combat and sailing. If you hit a rock your hull should rupture and it'll be your responsibility to get rid of the water and tar up the hole before you sink. If you're in a PvP fight and your ship is on fire you should have a way to put it out. Bad weather needs to be dealt with.

    My own ideas:

    Firstly, I'd like to see boarding as an integral part of naval combat. It's possible to fight without boarding but you should have the tools to do so. Maybe you don't want to sink the ship you want to plunder it or steal it. If it's an enemy guild's flagship maybe you want to sink it to show dominance, or slaughter everyone onboard and make it your own. Maybe if you're a pirate you don't want to sink those merchants because they'll have to go build more ships, you just want to quickly board, steal the cargo (or tell them to give you x cargo or you sink it?), leave and sell it.

    Secondly, I'd like to see magic somehow incorporated, here's my ideas:

    How about "magical" ships with light armour and a crew of mages with few soldiers. The mages could channel absorb shields around the entire ship to deflect projectiles. The more mages channeling the more absorb per second added to the shield (up to a cap)

    For example: You absorb 50 points of damage per second with 50 mages up to a maximum of 500. So in 10 seconds of taking no damage you will be at 500. 

    If you're taking 35 dps you have a net absorption of +15 which is kinda pointless, why not reallocate some of your crew?

    So you reallocate these 15 mages and they start channeling a tidal wave which will grow to a maximum of 450 damage at +15 per second. In 30 seconds a tidal wave will crash into the enemy boat. Alternatively you conjure a storm cloud above the enemy or throw fireballs or something else.

    This should be a fairly dynamic system. The captain should be yelling orders at the mages. Maybe they're in a 50 man raid group with 5 player groups. The shields are doing fine so the captain yells "groups 1, 3 and 5 start channeling a tidal wave" or "groups 7 and 8 start shooting fireballs".

    What are those summoners doing though? They're hanging out in the hull conjuring a bunch of demons ready to board the enemy vessel. Some of them will be maintaining a portal, the rest will be "piloting" the demons (similar to the monster coin system).

    You might argue that it'll be boring to just sit there channeling and maybe it is. But people played Paladins in Vanilla WoW where all they had to do was buff every 5 min for the entire raid and still willingly play that class today (on pservers). People like boring or simple shit as long as they have a task and they're part of a group. 

    There should probably be a way to make it interesting though. Maybe the magical ships have a font of mana in the centre of the middle deck where the mages go to fill up their mana pools after they deplete them from channeling. The font will be made of enchanted stone and the magical source will be the core of a being of unfathomable power found in a hidden raid in the 5th dimension after the 3 correct nodes of the correct type grow up to levels 7 and there's only 4 of them in existence or something so it'll take a lot of effort to acquire these rare items.

    (Alternatively these could be built in a node or a guild castle depending on who acquires it and what decisions they make just please I don't want to see everyone in these. I want there to be like 4 and every time I see one I shit myself). 

    You could mix it up too and maybe have a couple of mages on standard military vessels or a couple of footsoldiers on the mage ships. As long as it's sort of balanced it should be fine.

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