[wipz:Oblivion] The Imperial Navy

[prettyfly]

Well, it went so well with ImpeREAL forts, right?Anyway, I've always been bothered by the lack of ships in Oblivion in general. Better Cities fixed that to a point, but even then, there was only a single ship that was supposedly part of the Imperial Navy, and that was a training ship anyway. And then I got rid of most of Better Cities (the Imperial City excluded) for OCR, which left me with far less ships than before. That's not to say I'm dissatisfied with OCR, but, well, wouldn't it be nice to see some more ships around?More than that, I wanted to see some Imperial Navy ships, with Soldiers on board.So the plan is this; three ships, one on the Gold Coast, one near Weye and one near Bravil. None will actually be within proper docks (for compatibility reasons) but instead a short distance out from the shore. Nothing fancy at this point; simple AI packages, no special dialogue. All in all just a small attempt to breath a little bit more realism into the game. What do people think?

[Arthmoor]

That sounds like a good idea to me. Are you planning to use some of Mr. Siika's ships? He's got a couple that would be suitable as military vessels.I gather your soldiers won't be coming to shore at all? Poor guys, hope you're planning on giving them some nice quarters on board :PNo plans to put one near Leyawiin?

[prettyfly]

I'll have a look at Mr Siika's ships. Generally anything made by him is a winner. :smile:Yeah, they'll be staying on board for now, but I'm sure fixing up some nice quarters shouldn't be to hard. With the miracles of copy and paste and some hand tweaking.As for Leyawiin, I think I'll just see how the first three go. If they come along quick enough i should be able to drop another one of down their. Four forts, four ships, right?

[prettyfly]

Ok, looking at Mr Siika's resources, I'm thinking that use get two corvettes and galleys. The Galleys will be out in the actual ocean and the corvettes will be in Lake Rumare and the Niben area.Oh, and seagulls. I love seagulls.

[prettyfly]

Ok, now that I've got a grip on things and the actual ships have been set out;There's going to be two navy vessels; an Imperial Warship and a Corvette. The warships are larger, while the corvettes are more fast assault style vessels. Both are made using Mr Siika's, though I took the unarmed option for the corvette (no giant crossbows :sad:) as it literally half's the size of the nif file.Also, a few small fishing boats will also be present, acting as supply vessels for the larger ships.The ships will be found at four different spots.1) North of Anvil Harbor; will have an Imperial Warship and two Corvettes2) Just North of Weye; a single Corvette3) East of Bravil; a single Corvette and a supply boat4) South of Leyawiin; an Imperial Warship, a Corvette and three supply ships.The crew will be largely wearing pit gear (a type of armour that exists in Vanilla but does not appear in game; it looks like a form of light leather) with a couple of fully armored soldiers. AI packs will be simple but they will at least sleep in the interiors.

[Conner]

Keep in mind that the modern Navy (at least in the US) does a 4 year ship to shore rotation with most sea tours being conducted in 6 month to 2 year voyages (including ports along the way) for plenty of good reasons. Even back in the 1600s sea voyages rarely lasted longer than a year because of supply problems (and space issues)... those sailors are going to have mighty low moral if they've got no prospect of shore leave in their foreseeable future at all.

[prettyfly]

@Conner; sure, it might be tough on these guys, but at least they get to sleep each night. Unlike the poor suckers in ImpeREAL forts who forever patrol the halls of the fort without relief. :grinning:Anyway, screenshot time (this one is of the ships south of Leyawiin).

[Dwip]

Good idea, this. Ships look neat, too, although the UV on that one dragon sail looks off in the screenshot.Since you're using pit leather, if you decide you dislike the light color stock version, there's a darker version of it floating around the AFK_Weye bsa if you want it.

[prettyfly]

@Dwip; I might use that then. I'm not really a person with artistic senses, but I suppose that the darker leather would look better against the ships wood color.

[Conner]

@prettyfly: Are you sure those guys aren't working in shifts? No one can go indefinitely without sleep...Nice screen shot. I love the purple water.. Aren't those ships a bit undermanned for their size? Or are the people on-board just troops while the actual ship's crew is elsewhere?

[prettyfly]

The ships are undermanned, however, those ships are fairly high poly to begin with and I don't really want to clog them with NPC's or there could be quite a recipe for slowdown for people on lower end rigs. Its the same reason the cities feel like ghost towns in the vanilla game. That said, if things do go smoothly enough it shouldn't be hard to add a few extra NPC's.As for those soldiers in the ImpeREAL, if I was original author I would've had them working shifts, but SilentResisdent decided it wasn't necessary, and I felt that I should keep to his original design as much as possible when I added to more forts to the mod. That and it saved me work, which suits my lazy nature.

[Conner]

I suppose that makes sense, you have to skip some details and some realism for the sake of game engine performance sometimes. :shrug:I hate to sound like a critic when I don't do modding myself, but it's got to be worth adding some times to the scripts for these guys to give the feel that they work in shifts. It can't be so hard that it's not worth doing. That's just one facet of realism that I can't see skimping on.

[prettyfly]

Well, to be honest I've been in those forts a lot and I've never really noticed that the guards never sleep or eat or change shifts etc. It isn't a big job for that matter though, just an extremely tedious one. I may go back and change in the future, but at the moment I'm busy enough with life and my current modding projects (on that note, I have added a fort manned by the imperial legion with full AI schedules who interchange shifts and so in my wipz UL, which has turned out rather cool).

[Sigurð Stormhand]

The crews shouldn't be small and you don't need two whole seperate shifts onboard ship, just assign two marines to take turns on the night watch and you're done.

[prettyfly]

I'm going to play it safe for now in terms of crew size. If my laptop can handle it then I will up the numbers of NPC's but the last thing I want to do is blow everyone's performance.

[Sigurð Stormhand]

Might I suggest axing the Galleys? Such ships are of limited use sat outside harbours, the Corvettes are the sort of ship you station upwind to run down pirates and other outlaws, hence the heavy crossbows.

[prettyfly]

I'll think about it. It may give me that chance to use some of the corvettes with crossbows.

[Conner]

I agree with Sigurd, prettyfly. Increase the crew enough to actually operate the ships if you can, but don't push the performance factor, if you can help it, to do so. As for the galleys vs. corvettes, it's a tough call. Technically corvettes were smaller and faster ships, but any ship that's oar powered could be considered a galley. In fact, the triremes were one of the best and most feared warships of their time and they were galleys. (Take a look at wiki for more about galleys.)

[Kayle]

Since we're making a Navy...I can haz?

[Dwip]

Only if I get one too.Part of me wants to model my very own USS Missouri (and I have no idea how I know that off the top of my head*), and part of me looks at it and wants to flee in terror. All those angles.* - Well, actually I do, but.Also I vote for anything with a ballista on it.

[prettyfly]

I've actually got some corvette models with ballistas on them, but their file size is twice that of the models without corvettes, so I decided to leave them until I find out just what the FPS hit (if any) that this mod gives is.As for the Missouri, mentioning it makes my brain go 'Metal Gear Solid' :grinning:. Good luck if you ever decide to try and model it Dwip...

[Dwip]

One epic model at a time, I'm afraid.How bad IS the file size on the two corvette models? I can't imagine it's going to cause nearly as much of an issue as the NPC AI population, and speaking of which, the no low level processing flag may be of some use to you. Maybe not. Are players even going to be able to get onboard? Are interiors necessary? If given working ballista models, could I shoot Mehrunes Dagon with them? Who would win in a fight between the USS Missouri and Mehrunes Dagon? Would it matter if it was the pre- or post-refit Missouri?

[Arthmoor]

Since we're ordering ships, I'll take one bad-ass carrier please: http://www.battle-fleet.com/pw/his/air-carrier/uss-ronald-reagan.jpgGimmie a cruise missile any day. If that doesn't take down Dagon, we can always nuke him. He'll just come back though because that's a poor substitute for an Akatosh avatar.

[prettyfly]

I'm pretty sure nuking him would work, except of course he'd simply be banished back to Oblivion to return at a later date, and then considering the consequential fallout...so maybe it would be best to stick with cruise missiles. By the time he comes back I'm pretty sure we could have another missile loaded and ready.@Dwip; I'll have to check, but from memory it was quite large. In terms of the NPCs, everyone seems to be giving me different opinions about interiors and how dynamic the crew AI should be. I like NP's with proper schedules, so I'll probably take the 'less NPC's, better AI's and Interiors path'.

[Arthmoor]

Well I haven't weighed in yet on the AI part. The way I see it, if your ships are not intended to be boarded by the player, the NPCs on deck don't need to do much more than wander around. Even if you can see the deck from a hill on the nearby shore. That spares you from also having to make interiors to go with it.If your ships ARE intended to be boarded by the player, then yes, it would probably be a good idea to make interiors and provide your crew somewhere to sleep, and to rotate other crew out when they do.