... now with 35% more arrogance!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Clone Project: Naval Movement

I've been looking over the naval rules next, especially with an eye towards condensing them. I'm working on the assumption that rafts, boats, and galleys are single-masted, while sailing ships are double-masted, because it lets me make two simplifications:
  • single-masted ships get a +5 to movement in a strong breeze, while double-masted ships get a +10;
  • single-masted ships get a -10 to movement when quarter-reaching, while double-masted ships suffer only a -5.
Oared vessels have a standard rowing speed that's a little slower than its single-masted sailing speed, equivalent to Light Breeze -5. Also, we can use the same terminology as aerial maneuvers, assigning a Maneuver of 1 to all ships, with a Response Time of 10 for oared vessels, 12 for sailed vessels. Ship size also affects speeds: -5 to movement for the larger version of the galley and merchant vessels.

Broad-reaching is halfway between full-speed and quarter-reaching. I know nothing about sailing, including its ancient forms, and the Wikipedia article on the points of sail is mostly about modern yachts, but it appears that quarter-reaching is the same as beam reach, occurring when the wind is perpendicular to the ship. I should be able to create a diagram similar to the one in the article that covers the basic sail information in visual form.

The crew of an oared vessel must rest after 10 turns of rowing, or 3 turns at +10 to movement, 15 turns at -5 to movement. Maritime barbarians (like Vikings) are better at operating an oared vessel: they get to add an extra turn of rowing to the fastest speed, 3 turns to standard speed, and 5 turns to the slowest.

River travel is at half sailing speed; oared speed is at full speed +/- 5 movement based on whether travel is downstream or upstream.

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