Mex

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Ay, Ay, sir! There she blows!

By Mex

Perseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnoo! there’s a member-roll for you! What club but the whaleman’s can head off like that?

Herman Melville

Ahoy there!

If you missed our news or you didn’t notice the banner on the right, this week we have launched our Greenlight campaign. So, before starting this post, I would like to thank all the people who have already voted for us and encourage the rest of you to leave a big YES on our Greenlight Page: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=458343309 !

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Today we are going to get our hands dirty, because it’s time to speak about our combat system. In this first post we are going to speak about hunting (combats against creatures), while next week we will conclude the combat chapter dealing with pirates and indigenous war canoes.

Hunting is a key part of Nantucket, since whale blubber (and oil) will be your most valuable source of income. The game features 9 different sea creatures, each one with its own characteristics and abilities (according to its age), for a total of 38 unique skills to face during your hunts. I can guarantee you few of them will be an easy catch.

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So, you set sail and you finally find a whaling area or migration route. Time to lower your whaleboats. Your ship can have up to 3 whaleboats (according to its size) and each whaleboat has 3 spots to fill with your crew:

  • Rudder: the spot used for defense rolls. Sailors are the best class to use in this spot.
  • Bow: the spot used for attack rolls. Hunters are the best class to use in this spot.
  • Oars: a backup spot that can be used for some passive skill.

Once you have assigned all the crew you think you may need for your next hunt, it’s time to fight. Nantucket’s combat system is turn based. Each turn there is an attack phase and a defense phase and each phase you will be able to assign commands to every whaleboat in the combat area. Some command are always available (Attack and Dodge, for example), while others require to have characters with a specific skill in order to be performed (for example, Fasten and Heal).

Offensive and defensive actions require a roll, using the combat dice of the character placed in the correspondent whaleboat’s spot. So, if you choose to attack a whale, the combat dice of the man in the bow’s spot will be roll: If it beats the whale defensive roll, it’s a hit. In its core, it’s like Risk (tied are win by defense), just with much more variables. There are 3 main elements affecting the results:

  • Skills: skills affect dices behavior and output. For example the “Thinking twice” skill allows you to rolls 2 attack dices, keeping the best result.
  • Conditions cards: represent the combat environmental condition and they can help one side, the other or none of them. For example “Rough waters” gives a -2 to all the whaleboats defensive rolls.
  • Dices evolution: by leveling up, dices’ sides evolve, increasing their values (up to 5 per side) and unlocking special sides like “Evasive maneuver” that, if rolled in defense, represents an automatic success, despite the attacker value and bonuses.

There are also special objects, but they work like Skills, and since they are part of the Quests discussion, I would like to speak about them later.

Finally, if the attacker beats the defender’s value, it deals damage.

The combat system is designed to be quick, and once you’ll get a good grip on the mechanics you are going to experience fast and deadly hunt for loot. You’ll discover soon that the biggest challenge of the combat is a good planning: choosing the right men and developing your captain. Then there is a bit of luck, but as Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”

See you next time to repel a pirate boarding!

Mex




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