New Sailing Equipment - First Impressions and Feedback

[O_Atoba_Azul]

This update was a huge surprise to me, the brand new island, mechanics and items really make sailing feel a lot more whole.
But Enough chit-chat.

BOAT STRUCTURES
More specifically, the Rudder, Cannon (and cannonballs) and Bumpers.
Rudder
Rudder feels awkward to use, but the concept is really cool.
So to remedy this, I had the idea of an upgraded steering wheel (Harder craft, maybe also reduce the cost of the rudder) that enables the old steering mechanics. that were unused
Or, alternatively, make steering wheels turn the boat if you have a rudder.

Here's a demonstration:

 

Cannon & Cannonballs
Cannons feel incredibly underwhelming, although fun to use.
They deal low damage (at least, at the rate you'll be firing them), have low range and cannonballs are rather expensive. Not to mention aiming them with rudders, which as mentioned previously is awkward.

A few suggestions I have are:
- Change cannonball's recipes to use nitre instead of gunpowder;
- Increase the range and/or speed of the projectiles;
- Volley Firing, for dishing out a bunch of damage quickly:

Bumpers

Bumpers are incredible tools for sea exploration giving you a little bit more breathing room for small little accidents.
However, they feel way too expensive for how fragile they are.
Something I'd like to see is make the recipe a bit more expensive but each craft yields 8 bumpers, so you can cover your whole boat.
Additionally, another suggestion I saw from @Hornete was a cookie cutter shell bumper for a bit more progression for the bumpers.

That's it for now! Let me know what you think
 

Spoiler

BTW - A buncha these are already implemented in one of my mods, I've played with them around and it feels pretty good.

 

[DarkPulse91]

9 minutes ago, O_Atoba_Azul said:

Here's a demonstration:

I love this concept. 
Because normally, when i make my boat, its built to face a certain way which is the "front", but as soon as i start going a different direction, im now driving sideways or backwards
Being able to turn like this would be great except for 1 minor issue, and that is having to deal with lowering/raising sails, and the anchor.
it will take some getting used to having to sort of "re-find" those things again since your boat rotated, but its just like rotating the camera, so it shouldnt be too bad

Personally, I think this should happen when you have the rudder on the boat, rather than being a new wheel, since that personally just makes logical sense to me

[Cheggf]

I wouldn't want my boat spinning every time I tried to aim the sails. A new steering wheel option to do it would be cool so you have the choice. 

[. . .]

I agree with darkpulse, if you have a rudder on your boat then steering with the steering wheel should rotate the boat not just in general steering the steering wheel always doing it. maybe you could also turn on/off the rudder too in case you dont want your boat steered at all sometimes that would be best

cookie cutter boat bumper which deal damage to stuff you crash into would be cool too

[ADM]

I overall agree with all the tweaks and buff but the wheel stuff, the Steering Wheel does its job right as ever but the Rudder, while having a clear purpose, has just no utility but getting a new angle for the cannons. If it's just that then it's a little sad having it only as a war-boat structure.
So instead of having upgrades that put both the initial Steering Wheel and the Rudder behind, it could be improved by simply allowing the Rudder to rotate masts as well as the boat, so the Rudder would be the upgrade itself (it cost a little more so seems fair), that's the first thing I verified from using it and I find it so unintuitive that masts keep their angle while the boat is weeeee-ing around. Would be what I look forward to in the first place along the cannon buffs

[Mike23Ua]

My one and only concern is how fun or tedious this is going to be while using an Xbox controller.

Klei is a smaller indie studio yes, but they’ve also been making games since before some bigger studios were ever even a concept.

The thing is- those larger studios know that in order to make a game “fun & enjoyable” that Realism has to at times be forsaken.

And when it comes to dropping anchors, turning masts, rotating rudder- all of that makes for an unpleasant boating experience- there are games that are dedicated entirely to sailing the sea in a ship- yet Realism always takes a back seat for a smoother gameplay experience.

Personally I would love to be able to just add to/upgrade my boat until they do as the OP suggests and Steering Wheels turn the masts AND rotate the boat..

But I’m speaking strictly as an Xbox player- whom fears how these changes will feel on a console controller once the update leaves beta and goes live.

Also- as for the multiple canons firing off in quick succession- I would adore something like how Red Stone circuits work in Minecraft- Aka you lay down a line of Powder and you trigger it- perhaps even allowing us to craft and place this “Red Stone” like trigger where we want it.

Aka if you have Cannons on your boat in a full circle then a rope dropped in a circle around your boat would activate the canons.

It shouldn’t be too hard to program into the game seeing as how the player can plant trees near to one another and then set the first one on fire to trigger a chain fire trail..

I sincerely do NOT want to have to activate each canon manually myself.