Ship Damage

Currently working on the ship damage and repair systems, and I thought I would just quickly discuss how they will be implemented.

The use of "hit points" or "health" is a staple in games of all kinds.  This is easy to implement and easy for players to understand.  Games in this genre generally utilize it, even very good games.  World of Warships for example is a very fun game and uses a hit points system for the health of your ship.  When your hit points reach 0, your ship is sunk.  Naval Action uses a similar system, with basically a two tiered health system, where you have armor that you shoot through and then when that reaches 0 you have the inner hull you bring to 0 to sink the ship.

I considered using a similar system for Broadside, but it isn't closely matched with the reality of how a ship actually sinks.  Frankly I was surprised to see that system in Naval Action, where otherwise they have implemented a very realistic combat system.  Ships of this era didn't even utilize armor.

So what really causes a ship to sink?  Water does of course.

Leaks

In Broadside there will be no hit points.  When your ship takes damage it can take damage to various equipment (sails, cannons, bilge pumps, etc), can injure or kill crew, and can create "leaks" in the hull of your ship.

When damage creates a leak, it represents an inflow of water measured in Gallons per Second into the ship hull.  When the total gallons of water that has entered the ship exceeds the maximum amount of water that ship can handle, the ship is sunk.

The player can mitigate these leaks through two mechanics, both by assigning crew.  Crew can be assigned to "Bailing Water", which is literally throwing water overboard.  The efficiency of the crew's ability to bail water can be increased by installing bilge pump equipment on the ship.  Second the player can assign crew to "Repair" which literally assigns them to repair the leaks.

This leads to some fun tactical decision making during combat.  Since a ship generally cannot hold enough crew to fully man every role on the ship at the same time, once the player starts getting leaks in their ship they will have to choose what to do about it.

• Does the player reassign crew from their cannons to bailing water?  This will lead to a slower firing rate of their cannons, and may actually swing the advantage over to the opponent. 
• Does the player ignore the water flowing in, and try to repair the leaks to stop any more water from flowing in?
• Does the player attempt to break off from the fight, fully repair and bail water, and then reengage?
• Does the player just throw all crew over to cannons and sailing in an attempt to finish off the enemy before they are sunk themselves?  This can be a serious gamble, as they may continue to take damage which creates even more leaks. 

Fire

In addition to damaging ship equipment, crew, and causing leaks, ships can also light on fire.  A fire slowly causes all types of damage to the ship until it is put out.  Fires are put out by assigning crew to the Firefighting role, making yet another tactical choice the player will have to make with their crew assignments in the middle of a fight.