Naval

Snapchat Sneakpeak, 2017-11-9.^[2]

Naval content refers to content above and below the sea.^[3]^[4]

Enhanced naval content was unlocked as part of the $1,500,000 Kickstarter stretch goal.^[9]

There will not initially be naval content (such as a Dark Lake) in the Underrealm, but this may be something that gets added in future expansions.^[10]

There won't be class abilities that are specific to naval content, but some utility skills (such as underwater breathing) may be of some benefit.^[11]

Naval schedule

Alpha-1 naval concept art.^[12]

Naval content will be present in Alpha-2.^[13]^[14]

Naval warfare.^[14]
Naval raid bosses.^[13]
Three ship classes will be present in Alpha-2.^[14]^[15]
- Ships will have functioning cannons but the ship building UI may not be complete.^[14]
- Temporary teleportation points were present in Alpha-1 in place of ships.^[16]

Naval NPCs

Naval NPCs exist in and around the oceans.^[3]

Sailing NPCs.^[3]
Fortresses.^[3]
Frigates or galleon ships.^[3]
Raid bosses.^[3]
Quest givers.^[3]
General sea-based NPCs.^[3]

There's an NPC structure that exists out in the oceans. These take the form of sailing NPCs, fortresses, whether that be large frigate or galleon based ships, and they take the form of raid bosses. They take the form of general sea-based NPCs. There's treasures that you can find on land and explore out at sea, as obviously one of the missions is why you would be going out to sea. There's escort missions that you can participate in... Some of those are straightforward and interact but with an NPC to receive a quest for; and some of those have to be discovered at sea. So these are all things that are make that type of area in an MMO exciting. You don't just want to have water for water's sake. You want to have water because it's a different experience from a content perspective than what's on land; and in order to be a different experience you have to have that content.^[3] – Steven Sharif

Mariner classes

Mariner classes (also referred to as boatsmanship classes, boatsman skills or seamanship) contain different skill trees arranged in a similar manner to Classes Artesãs. As a player gains experience in these different skills they become more adept at using them.^[17]^[18]

Interaction with attachments, such as gunnery.^[17]^[18]
Piloting/driving the ship.^[17]^[18]
Ship navigation.^[17]^[18]
Utilizing ship components, such as furling the sails.^[17]^[19]
Ship repair, such as the speed and amount of health restored.^[17]^[18]
Defensive skills.^[18]
Utility based skills.^[18]

The benefits of having Mariner expertise is not just related to activities you can do on the ships, but will also incorporate skills that become available when you're piloting ships as well. There's a few things that Mariner classes provide: interaction with attachments on the ship, driving the ship itself, utilizing the ship's components—like furling the sails or not—as well as repairing ships when damage is taken—the speed at which you can do it, the health you regenerate when you do it.^[17] – Steven Sharif

Navios

Tea transport PAX East 2018 exclusive cosmetic ship skin.^[20]

Sailing will be pretty in-depth and it's going to be based on the size of the ship that you're using. So there will be components for seamanship that other players you will need to have on board if you want to operate a vessel to the best of it's abilities: Let's say in combat or traversing just the world.^[21] – Steven Sharif

Navios are owned by the player who has the ship item in their inventory. Only that player can summon the ship.^[22]

Ship creation is generally delegated to players. There won't be many non-player-owned ships.^[23]
- Quest lines may have NPC driven ships.^[23]
- NPC ships will be present on the ocean that are adversaries or monsters that will be targets for players to try to raid or hunt for treasure.^[23]

For the most part all ship creation will be delegated to the player. You have to build up a ship or find somebody who has one if you want to get across the seas.^[23] – Steven Sharif

There won't be mechanics for players to hire NPCs to carry out tasks on ships.^[24]

Permissions will be present to allow other players to access ship functions who are in the same party or raid, such as weapons, anchors, utility items, and the ship's helm to navigate the ship.^[22]
Players will have quests that navigate them toward creating a personal vessel at around level 10-15.^[25]

Ship classes

Alpha-1 naval concept art.^[26]

Navios are divided into classes of vessel, which relate to their size and capabilities in battle and in transportation.^[14]^[27]^[28]

Size	Type	Usage.^[28]	Crew.^[29]
Small	Personal vessels.^[25]	Solo/personal content.^[14]	1-3
Medium	Frigates.^[3]	Group content.^[14]	Group size (8)
Large	Galleons.^[30]^[31]	Raid content.^[14]	Raid size (40)

The amount of crew required in order for a ship to be effective depends on the ship's class.^[32]

All ship classes minimally require a captain to drive the ship.^[32]

Certain ship classes will have the ability to render Crowd control (CC) effects on other ships, such as a harpoon effects.^[33]

Ships have their own class of vessel and the class that is related to the vessel has a certain purpose both in battle, in PvE raids, in transportation.^[27] – Steven Sharif

Naval caravans

Alpha-1 Niküa naval caravan 3D render.^[34]

Caravans are capable of transitioning from land to naval caravans. So if you start out as a land-based Caravan and you move to the coast and you want to move into the water there's gonna be a little transition period there; it's gonna be a little construction kind of site: You're not gonna have to do anything it's just gonna be a timer right so that you can't quickly move between land and water. It's gonna be probably in the matter of you know a minute to two minutes. There's a little bit of vulnerability in that regard.^[35] – Steven Sharif

Naval caravans (also referred to as raft caravans)^[36] allow the transportation of trading goods.^[37]

Unlike merchant ships, naval caravans are capable of transitioning to and from land caravans at the point of intersection of land and ocean.^[36]^[38]^[35]^[37]
Naval caravans come in varying sizes and capacities.^[35]
By default naval caravans have a racial appearance. Players will be able to apply caravan skins to change this appearance.^[35]

Summoning ships

Only the player who has the ship item in their inventory can summon that ship.^[22]

Ships (excluding Naval caravans) can only be summoned from a port or harbor.^[39]^[40]^[41]
Ships may be able to be summoned in rivers (or other bodies of water) depending on the depth of the water.^[42]
Naval caravans are initiated when a land-based caravan intersects with an ocean.^[40]

You can summon your ships up but you'll need to summon them from land, which means that if something happens to your armada out at sea you won't have backups to just summon immediately in the middle of the fight... They'll have to do so from shore somewhere from some port or harbor.^[41] – Steven Sharif

Ship building

Naval concept art.^[43]

Ships are going to also have classes. Those classes are going to dictate the type of of attachments that can be applied and in what quantity. A military vessel type may have more capacity for weapon based attachments. A transport ship might have more capacity for defensive based attachments. And then you'll have more versatile ships that can share across those types. So in that sense you are constructing a componentized ship for the types of activities you intend to do: Are you a raider? Are you a mover of goods? Are you an adventurer? These types of things are going to inform your decision of what the attachments you're going to have in those three categories.^[44] – Steven Sharif

Ship building can be carried out by any player in possession of the right components, recipes, and an advanced enough node with a harbor.^[45]^[46]

Various professions can craft ship components.^[45] These components can be sold to other players.^[6]
- Previously it was stated that players utilize the ship components that are crafted by ship builders.^[6]^[30]^[7]^[47]

Ships are built in adherence to a recipe. That recipe requires components. Those components adhere to different crafting professions that require a player to intersect and/or craft or purchase those components from the different professions and then once they have those accumulated they can do the construction process through the recipe system at a harbor.^[45]

Ships may only be crafted or upgraded in harbor crafting stations that are unlocked by the advancement of coastal nodes.^[6]^[7]^[48]

Players can choose which "joints" get populated with either offensive weaponry, defensive, or utility attachments they want on their ship prior to construction completion.^[44]^[49]^[50] The types of attachments that are available are dictated by the ship's class.^[44] – Steven Sharif
- Movement, Durability, Speed, Turn rate, Hit points, Defensive and Damage abilities.^[51]^[6]^[30]^[47]
- Weapon slots.^[51]
- Aesthetic customization.^[52]^[47]

There are absolutely attachments that can apply to the ship and some of those are decorative in nature. There are also slots that have utility aspects to them as well but are also decorative.^[52] – Steven Sharif

Ships will likely not have closed spaces or internal compartments such as Captain's quarters.^[53]

We are trying to stay away from internal compartments within the ships because that presents a whole different type of user interface and flow that can be a bit cumbersome and problematic, especially in combat and in closed spaces. So we're trying to stay away from that under deck aspect and keep things all on deck for better readability on the player side.^[54] – Steven Sharif

Naming ships

Navios will be able to be named.^[55]

Ship names may potentially appear on the ship's hull or as floating text above the ship.^[56]^[55]

Combate naval

Alpha-2 Negalith naval raid boss.^[13]

This is one of the Alpha-2 raid bosses that are going to be in the ocean. That'll be interesting when you come across that, what might happen. Good luck. We should have added a scale there because yeah, it's a big boy. The number of ships needed for that one's going to be a lot.^[13] – Steven Sharif

Combate naval involves different types of Navios with varying capabilities, armaments and roles to play out on the high seas. There will be a balance and counterbalance between ships from Pvp and PvE perspectives.^[13]^[28]

Naval PvP is between ships.^[28]
Naval PvE includes open sea raids and sea-based bosses.^[13]^[28]
Certain ship classes and components may support ramming of other vessels or raid bosses.^[57]
Damage done by ship weapons such as potion launchers will generate threat.^[58]
- Characters can also use ranged skills during naval combat. Taunts and other threat generation skills can be utilised for tanking at sea.^[58]
Coastal points of interest, such as harbors, offer objective-based naval gameplay during node sieges.^[59]
There is a castle located on an island that is only able to be affected by naval combat.^[59]^[60]

Battles at sea will be epic. They will have some supreme rewards and/or losses if the battle succeeds or fails.^[29] – Steven Sharif

Naval combat allows ships to be hijacked, destroyed and looted, but it doesn't allow the attackers to permanently keep the ships.^[61]

Q: Will there be a way to produce enough experience for a node for those who want to spend the majority of their time on the open seas?

A: The open seas have have a good amount of content; and that content when completed will give its contribution to a nearby node; and that is something that people who live on the sea, or desire to live on the sea, will be able to um contribute in a way.^[62] – Steven Sharif

Naval PvP

Operators of a ship's weapons platform can initiate naval PvP against another ship in the following three cases.^[63]

Another important change that has occurred is the open seas is now an automatic flagged location. So when you move off of land we have a flagging system that protects and the open seas are international waters where you need to be careful; and there is a lot of opportunity at Sea; and because there's a lot of opportunity that's unique to that content- that's unique to that sea: that's treasure finding; that's NPCs; that's a lot of different stuff there needs to be risk associated with opportunity.^[64] – Steven Sharif

When the ships move into an open sea (open waters/deep ocean) area. This will automatically flag players as Combatants (purple).^[65]^[64]^[63] Corrupted (red) players will remain red while in the open sea.^[66]^[67]
- Players entering an open seas area will be notified by the UI ahead of time.^[68]
- Open sea zones have better resources in more abundance to compensate for the added level of risk.^[69]

We have a very intuitive UI that that as you approach the border between open sea and coastal area you are notified of that. You are warned ahead of time. There's a countdown when approaching. We interpolate the distance travel and speed you're moving and you get to see "I'm entering open waters"; and when you do you have this big trophy call out on screen that says "You have entered the open sea. Territory fraught."^[68] – Steven Sharif

The result of events (such as guild wars or node wars) between the parties.^[63]
As the result of open-world PvP, utilizing the flagging and corruption system.^[63]

Hijacking ships

Certain ships can be hijacked, destroyed and looted, but the ships themselves cannot be permanently captured.^[61]^[70]

Naval caravans can not be hijacked. The cargo on a trade ship will be similar to caravans in that the ship must be destroyed in order to capture the loot from its wreckage.^[70]

Coastal/island nodes

Pre-alpha naval concept.^[71]

There will be healthy amounts of sea content within the coastlines of the continents that does not fall into the "open sea" area.^[72] – Steven Sharif

There will be nodes along the coast and on islands.^[5]

These nodes will have specific water oriented influences and abilities, services, questlines, that relate to the seas.^[5]
- There is a healthy amount of sea content within the coastlines of the continents that does not fall into the open sea area.^[72]
Coastal nodes change the spawn tables of the nearby water content and can also trigger specific events.^[30]
Harbors in coastal nodes will have quest lines that relate to the ocean and nearby islands.^[30]
It may be possible to siege a coastal city by sea.^[73]

Island chains are part of Ashes of Creation naval content.^[4]^[9]

Harbors

Alpha-1 harbor early preview concept.^[74]

Harbors that are located in specific areas around the world along the coast and those are points of interest that get adopted by a node when they reach certain levels in proximity to that harbor, or if the node gets vasseled by a parent or sovereign node in relationship to their vassal owning that harbor.^[75] – Steven Sharif

Harbors appear along the coast as a result of a node being developed on or near to the coast.^[6]^[7] Harbors have a significant amount of influence over the waters.^[3]

Harbors have a disembarkation zone that merchant ships can cross to be guided into the harbor.^[75]
- Merchant ships can only be launched and received at harbors in a similar way that land caravans can only be launched and received at a caravanserai.^[75]
Coastal nodes have hooks to points of interest that take control of harbors.^[3]
Harbors will grant quests that are related to naval content.^[3]^[7]
Harbors will provide a number of services including upgrades to ships.^[6]^[7]
Harbors offer objective-based naval gameplay during node sieges.^[59]

There will be harbors that boats can go inside of those will be present along the coast. Harbors can pop up as a result of a node being developed nearby, if it's near the coast or if a node itself is on the coast it can have a harbor component to it. There will likely be quests that are granted from this harbor, specifically with regards to the sea and sea content; and what you can do in this harbor will be a lot of different things including upgrades to the boats.^[7] – Steven Sharif

Fishing boats

Fishing boat 3D render.^[76]

Fishing boats in Ashes of Creation are utilized in deep sea fishing.^[77]^[78]^[79]^[80]^[81]^[82]^[83]

Winds

High winds, rain, and snow - our dynamic weather system has you covered!^[84]

Wind will influence the speed and direction that ships travel on the open sea (non-coastal areas of the map).^[85]^[86]

Players will need to take wind direction (and strength) into consideration when navigating the open waters.^[86]

Wind is an important component of the open sea- quote-unquote open seas- so that's all non-coastal areas; and that open sea, based on those the composition of wind and the open sea, will influence the speed directionally that a boat is traveling in, and how that speed gets influenced by the winds. That can be an important strategic component when discussing timing for trade runs, or timing for what your location is in relationship to your target out at the open sea; and it just creates a little bit more fluid and dynamic experience when you're at sea that. Like you're not in this cove and you always know how you're going to interact with the open water; and the speed that you have, so you can predict accurately what your intercept rate or distance will look like. If that is a variable and that variable changes, then you have to adapt your strategies for that variable; and I think that is very healthy and keeps things fresh from a perspective of a cat-and-mouse game that usually occurs between ships in the open waters.^[86] – Steven Sharif

Tides

Waves on a beach by Michael Bacon.^[87]

There won't be tidal patterns in the ocean, but the ocean will not be static content all the time. Unique content will be represented at certain times with regards to certain climates.^[88]