On Forts fireing at unseen enemy, and into mountains. Thread - PiratesAhoy! Community

Pieter_Boelen wrote: Indeed I don't think forts care about the islands either.

Where can i find the cannon range that forts use? And is it the same ranges that ships use? Maybe we can reduce the ranges a bit, or i can test it out anyway once i find the right files? Is it all in Cannons_init.c ? And if so it seems forts use the same cannons as ships?

we have max ranges(give or take a bit of random i expect) of 2080 yards(meters?) for the CANNON_TYPE_LONG_LBS32.(ships only?)
we have max ranges(give or take a bit of random i expect) of 1940 yards(meters?) for the CANNON_TYPE_LONG_LBS42.(forts only)

So it looks like some range has been taken of Fort Cannons already? 42 pounders should fire further than ships based 32 pounders?

I'm figuring out something based on those new Spyglass ranges, and doing a bit of research in cannon range(which i'm pretty sure has been done already for this, but i'll check to see if ship guns were more powerful than Forts guns in this period and location).

links for later reading:

Mysite.du.edu
En.wikipedia.org

"The demi-cannon had an effective range of 1600ft (490m/535yards)"
"A replica culverin extraordinary has achieved a muzzle velocity of 408 m/s, and a range over 450 m(492 yards) using only minimal elevation"
"Despite the reduced windage, carronades had a much shorter range, typically a third to a half, than the equivalent long gun"
"A long gun had a caliber of perhaps 15 (I do not have accurate
information on this point), and an extreme range of about a mile(1760 yards). An
example of a long 32 is shown at the right. It was preferentially used,
however, at half pistol-shot or 100 yards in broadsides of up to a ton of iron."

I'm thinking our cannon fire too far maybe?

So i'm going on the new range of 1760 yards in place of 2080 for our ship based 32 pounder long-gun. And working down from that in the Cannons_init.c file, using what historic sources i can find, but also keeping the scale that was current in the original file as that seems good to me. I'll update on if i notice anything in game re forts firing often into mountains etc.

Edited by: BlackBart

You really need to visit this site. According to period cannoneers it was possible to shoot over 6,000 yards.

Rob Ossian's Pirate's Cove

On default settings, the forts use CANNON_TYPE_LONG_LBS42 and/or CANNON_TYPE_CARRONADE_LBS68 (not sure what "type 1" and "type 2" does). With Use Real Cannons OFF, they'll use CANNON_TYPE_CULVERINE_LBS24 and/or CANNON_TYPE_CANNON_LBS32. From what I understand, those cannons should be used by the forts only based on the "More big, scary fort guns" and "Even bigger, even scarier fort guns" comments in cannons_init.c .

I think the values in the InitBaseCannons_CalcSpeedV0 line are probably related to the range, but since indeed forts are mounted higher, they'd already get a larger range than ships even when using the same type of cannons. At least, that's how I think it works...

Miklkit wrote: You really need to visit this site. According to period cannoneers it was possible to shoot over 6,000 yards.

Rob Ossian's Pirate's Cove

Nice link - thanks

hmm in the section about cannon of the sixteenth century i got this:

"The Germans under Maximilian I, however, took the armanment leadership away from the French with guns that ranged 1,500 yards" - this was from the early 1500's mind you. And then this a little further down the article:

"The gun of 1600 could throw a shot almost as far as the gun of 1850; not in fire power, but in mobility, organization, and tactics was artillery undeveloped."

And from the section 'Cannon - Naval Deck Cannon':

"Ships of War had improved dramatically by the opening of the 18th Century...............The Naval Artillery had unheard of range of about 2,000 yards (meters) by this time. Of course most engagements were fought at under 1,000 yards and sometimeswithin pistol shot (25 to 50 yards)"

And from the section 'Cannon - Garrison & Ship Guns':

"The worst casualties of the1702 siege came from the bursting of an iron 16-pounder which killedfour and seriously wounded six men. At that periods incidentally,
culverins were the only guns with the range to reach the harbor bar some3,000 yards away." - this is the forts guns firing out to the harbour bar, and lighter 16-pounder culverins at that, seemingly offering better range than heavier poundage cannon in the fort.

--------------------------------

So by the 1700's we have ships cannon of 24-36 poundage able to reach about 2000 yards at sea, but most engagements set around 1000 yards or lower(to make shot and damage tell). I think the new data of 1760 yards for 24 pounders is ok, were are at the end of the 1600's rather than in the maturing 1700's?

And we have forts with medium poundage culverins able to fire out to 3000 yards, but probably not as effect aimed fire i would hazard a guess.

The previous stats used in Cannons_init.c was around those kind of numbers, and i knew they would have been well researched anyway, i'm just looking for a way to reduce the weird effect of forts firing into mountains as often as they do. Forts should be able to fire further than ships, but in terms of our forts in the game shooting into mountain sides, and wasting ammo etc, i'll carry on my experiment with the best fort guns set around the same as the best ships guns.

It's a small decrease in range(of a few hundred yards) for both top end ranges and i'm mostly interested if it will result in less fort fire into mountains or not.

The ideal thing would be to have arcs of fire that each fort only engaged enemy within, then the distance for their cannon could go as far as some of the best historical examples with no side effects in game.

Pieter_Boelen wrote:
On default settings, the forts use CANNON_TYPE_LONG_LBS42 and/or CANNON_TYPE_CARRONADE_LBS68 (not sure what "type 1" and "type 2" does).
With Use Real Cannons OFF, they'll use CANNON_TYPE_CULVERINE_LBS24 and/or CANNON_TYPE_CANNON_LBS32. From what I understand, those cannons should be used by the forts only based on the "More big, scary fort guns" and "Even bigger, even scarier fort guns" comments in cannons_init.c .

I think the values in the InitBaseCannons_CalcSpeedV0 line are probably related to the range, but since indeed forts are mounted
higher, they'd already get a larger range than ships even when using the same type of cannons. At least, that's how I think it works...

Real Cannons ON is the 'Realistic Game Mode' setting isn't it? I think that is good. Why did you have a distinction between cannon types used depending on if Real Cannons was set ON or OFF? The numbers for the ranges....and damages just looking over it quickly, seem comparable, as in using CANNON_TYPE_CULVERINE_LBS24 doesn't seem to suddenly give easier or harder in game problems based on stats etc? Maybe it is because we have more cannon type than the game can use in one go?
So the elevation of Forts helps increase their ranges, in an mathmatical calculation used by the games engine for all that kind of thing? That's good to know in terms of testing fort cannon ranges etc.

Edited by: BlackBart

The Real Cannons switch is unrelated to Realistic Game Mode, but ON is the default game setting.
I'm not sure why there's a toggle, except probably the modder who did the work on it didn't want to force his work onto everyone.

Since we haven't had any complaints, we might as well just remove the toggle and have it always-on. But we may have to do that later as part of some sort of cleaning up and simplifying campaign.