Ahoy everyone!
Wow, what a few months it has been. Last time we released a Journal, we were deep in preparation for our Kickstarter campaign. We had no idea what to expect back then, and we had many conversations about all of the possible outcomes and what that might mean for the team, and for Ahoy. To say this is the best outcome we thought of would be incorrect – We hadn’t prepared ourselves for this level of success at all!
We want to take this opportunity, once again, to thank EVERYONE who has supported Ahoy thus far. The team is overjoyed by the response you’ve given us, and now begins (or continues!) the effort to bring Ahoy to life.
This Journal will be quite text heavy, and that’s intentional. There is a lot to go through in regards to the post-Kickstarter project planning, the road ahead to distribute Kickstarter rewards, and of course the work underway towards Sea Trials and beyond.
To begin, we’d like to announce that the music from the Cinematic Trailer, “Welcome Aboard” is now available on streaming services.
We have a couple of other tracks on there as well! Perhaps it’ll give you something to listen to while you read ahead…
Firstly, some important announcements regarding the Kickstarter campaign.
We’re hopeful these next few weeks move more smoothly than our initial VAT hold-up. It has been quite frustrating for the team, especially as we took special care to be fully prepared for the Kickstarter reward process but were caught out by this VAT registration requirement at the last possible moment. Needless to say, we are happy to be able to move forward and begin production of your physical rewards, while ensuring all digital rewards are correctly attributed to your Ahoy accounts.
The process of applying your rewards from the Kickstarter survey to the Ahoy.gg account system (and by extension, the Discord roles) is a manual one, and as such we have to take great care to ensure everyone receives the correct rewards. Unfortunately, we do not have a notification system in place for when your own rewards have been applied, but we will be doing this work in batches as soon as Kickstarter starts sending us your survey replies.
As you will no doubt have seen from our various Kickstarter videos and media, we have a new ship in the fleet! The largest yet – And an experiment for how we might explore larger ships in the future.
Say hello to Artemide!
Launched in 1775, Bristol was a 50-gun fourth-rate ship of the line and one of the Portland class of ships, built at Sheerness Dockyard to a design by John Williams. She was a sizeable vessel for her day, crewed by around 350 men and carrying heavy 6, 12 and 24-pounder guns. Bristol’s career combined frontline action with varied duties across the empire.
She led the British assault on Sullivan’s Island in June of 1776, where she suffered severe damage in the failed attempt to seize Charleston. In the following years she patrolled the West Indies, intercepting privateers off Cuba and securing British shipping. Later, she took part in the Battle of Cuddalore and even rescued the stranded crew of HMS Rattlesnake in 1782 while escorting a convoy.
By the late 1780s Bristol was no longer required for combat and was instead refitted for support functions, first as a church ship, then later assigned as a prison hulk before finally serving as a hospital ship. After three and a half decades of service that spanned pitched battles, convoy escort, and humanitarian work, she was broken up at Sheerness in 1810.
She represents the largest current ship in the Ahoy fleet, and an experiment for how we might approach larger vessels in the future. As those of you who have followed the project for a while will know, we’ve long discussed the size/gun-count cap to new ship additions, and so it might seem like we’ve abandoned those limitations going forward. In fact, that is not the case.
We’re still maintaining that new additions to Ahoy will not exceed the size of Kleos, our next largest ship. This is to ensure we have enough time and space to explore how Artemide fits into the core game mechanics of Ahoy, and she will likely not be playable for quite some time. That being said, we felt the addition of Artemide was justified for a few reasons.
As a result of her later planned use, her interior remains relatively empty at this stage in her creation. However, we’re still excited to show you the interior at this stage of work, and so you can start to imagine the size and complexity difference of ships at this size or larger.
So, what has the rest of the team been up to for the past month or so? Well, as you know, we decided to take a short break on production during the Kickstarter campaign to ensure the team could focus on supporting the campaign effort and to recover from the pretty hectic time that preceded the campaign launch. However, we’re now back in action and will be back at full capacity at the start of September as our budget can now be finalized thanks to the resolved VAT situation.
A lot of preparation work has been undertaken in the meantime to ensure we can hit the ground running. We’ve made some important equipment purchases, we’ve been planning out the work for the next months, and we’ve of course been looking for some additional help in certain areas of the team as well.
One of our biggest investments has been in our own motion capture space. As with everything in Ahoy, we’re always trying to increase our efficiency and quality without breaking the bank. As a result of this, we’re taking a mixed approach to acquiring the equipment and props necessary for Ahoy’s motion capture needs.
Firstly, we’re very excited to say that we’ll have access to optical motion capture, which is the most precise method of motion capture currently available. Optical motion capture will be familiar to many of you through the many behind the scenes videos from other films and games. Everything from Marvel to Madden, Kingdom Come to King Kong.
This system works by using special infrared cameras which track reflective markers placed on a tight-fitting suit worn by the performer. By capturing the exact position of each marker in 3D space, the system will allow us to record highly detailed body movements with accuracy down to the millimetre, and at up to 330 frames per second. This level of precision is critical for Ahoy, where physical interaction with your ship contributes significantly to the authenticity of the experience.
Of course, optical systems come with their own challenges. They require a carefully prepared capture volume, consistent lighting, zero reflective surfaces, and a significant number of cameras to eliminate tracking gaps. To balance cost and efficiency, we’re combining professional-grade optical capture with custom-built rigs and props designed in-house.
While capturing body movement is the priority for Sea Trials and Arena, we’re also developing our own custom head-mounted camera system for capturing accurate facial performances. This allows us to directly synchronise the captured body motion with matching facial performance, ensuring characters in Ahoy feel alive and believable. Not only this, but it will enable us to direct and produce much more intricate performances for any trailers or other promotional content we might want to release alongside Sea Trials and Arena.
The HMC (Head-mounted Camera) is custom-designed and 3d printed. Meaning the cost of production is a fraction of the cost of the industry standard designs. This HMC has two cameras capturing face performance in stereo, meaning we get accurate depth information for the entire performance. Combined with Metahuman Animator, this gives us an incredible amount of detail.
While there are some products which offer single-camera capture for relatively little cost… Off-the-shelf products with stereo cameras cost tens of thousands per headset, meaning a performance with more than one or two performers would become basically inaccessible to us from a cost perspective. Instead, through this in-house design, we’ve brought down the cost significantly. Running on consumer grade webcams, a Raspberry Pi, and hot-swappable storage and battery, this system gives us a lot of flexibility without the price tag. This way, we can capture many more performers at once, perhaps even a officer’s meal or two…
In addition to the capture equipment, we’re also 3d printing props which can be used directly within the capture space. Being able to capture animation while using the exact models for firearms and swords in the game means we have even more precision in our captured result, and far less room for error. We’ll be creating a fair number of interesting props for motion capture over the year to come, so we’ll be sure to share those as they’re created and put to use!
When it comes to Motion Capture, this hybrid approach gives us the best of both worlds. We can benefit from the fidelity of high-end optical motion capture, with the affordability of our own tailored props and equipment. More broadly, motion capture also means we can iterate faster, re-record sequences when needed, and build a library of authentic animations specific to Ahoy’s world.
Over the next few Journals, we’ll be sharing more about our journey into motion capture. We’re eagerly awaiting delivery of our set of twelve cameras, and we’ll be sure to provide you with a preview of it’s results once the space is operational.
As you will know, we don’t announce future ships before they are made. However, we did make a commitment during the Kickstarter campaign to recreate three more ships over the coming months. This process is slow, and we can expect sporadic updates as we progress towards Sea Trials and Arena, but we’re happy to confirm the following:
In addition to these three Kickstarter stretch goal additions, we also have to extend a very special thank you to our two Admiral of the Fleet supporters. We are overjoyed by your support of the project, and we cannot wait to begin the process of discovery for your “Sponsor A Ship” additions.
As we return to the monthly Developer Journal format, we’re going to continue answering your questions at the end of each month’s Journal. We’ve got quite a backlog, especially due to the short break we took during the Kickstarter campaign, but we’ll work through these questions and any new questions you might have in the months to come.
On management & reuse:
– Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.
- How does ship ownership work. Can your ship be stolen outside of combat? ie shot in the back by people you met online and take your ship?
Ship ownership is one of those systems where we have to introduce certain protections to avoid each session being frustrating for all involved. While historically, the ownership would usually be held by an organisation or navy, in Ahoy we provide a certain degree of ownership to the captain which is transferable at the captain's request.
If we're speaking of how ownership can change during combat, it is quite simple. When a ship is captured by an enemy force, the ship is taken from the captain who owned it, and the service history of that particular vessel continues with the new owner. However, the captain has the ability to have that ship re-launched with a fresh service history when they return to port. For captains without ship insurance (those who are operating outside of the navy and choose not to pay in-game currency for insurance), the ship can be relaunched, but at a significant cost.
The original ship will continue in the ownership of the captor, and it's service history will be added to over time, creating for a more notable or desirable ship which comes with a reputation each of it's captains built.
In the case of your own crew turning against you, it will not be possible for players in your crew to take ownership of your vessel unless you transfer the ship into their name at port. NPC crew will mutiny in rare situations, and if they succeed in overthrowing the captain and player crew, the ship will sail off as an NPC vessel. The same relaunch conditions apply here, too.
On management & reuse:
– Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.
- Will there be enforced naming conventions for ships? E.g. when someone tries to name their prize “Boaty McBoatface” or “HMS Gandalf”, will that be allowed?
Any ship names will be chosen from a large database of approved names. These names will usually follow the style of the time, and will provide many different themes or flavours depending on the choice you make. Lots of choices will be derived from the pantheon of Greek and Roman gods, wildlife, plants and trees, mythology, and historical figures.
Through this system, there should be enough flexibility to enable people to choose names they resonate with, without the risk of coming across memes, poor spelling, and offensive names which can spoil immersion.
On management & reuse:
– Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.
- As I understand it, ships in Ahoy are intended to travel at realistic speeds when in combat (such as in chase actions), so how do you intend to prevent chase actions from requiring real time days to conclude?
This is a challenging balance to strike, because full realism often isn’t practical in gameplay. Our approach is to encourage players to either commit to engagement or accept when a chase is lost. For example, successfully fending off a pursuer may grant a reputational bonus that improves future trade opportunities, while persisting in an unfair or hopeless pursuit could harm your reputation or crew morale, thereby reflecting poorly on your judgment as a captain.
To prevent endless stalemates, we’ll introduce systems that resolve chases when progress stalls, such as distance-closure requirements. That said, we won’t eliminate the possibility of longer pursuits entirely; if two players want to engage in an extended chase, that should remain a valid option.
On management & reuse:
– Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.
- In 1745, an artillery flintlock was patented in England, and after a while, naval guns with such locks were launched. Will naval guns with flintlocks be implemented in the game?
Yes. Flintlocks can be fitted to naval guns and will offer both advantages and disadvantages. Their primary benefit is a reduced chance of misfire compared to traditional linstocks. However, they also introduce higher equipment costs and the risk of mechanical failure, so captains will need to weigh reliability against expense and upkeep.
On management & reuse:
– Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.
- I want to ask you about gun port is it possible to create functions gun port open and closed. I played a lot of pirates games and almost every game ship gun ports were open every time. It doesn’t matter battle or not every time guns port were open it was so strange.
Not every gun port will have lids, but where they do, you’ll be able to control whether they’re open or closed. This will function as an order for your gun crew, whether in combat, during drills, while sailing peacefully, or simply for aesthetic presentation.
Please do keep sending in your questions about Ahoy. If you have more questions for the team and would like them answers next month, please submit your questions below.
Submit your questions:
https://forms.gle/1w9MRgU3qrvTNkqn7
Until next time, good day!
Sincerely your most humble servant,
Tyler – Project Lead
Our Journal updates are often discussed at length in the official Ahoy Discord server. Whether you have questions about the topics covered in this update, or you would like to leave your own feedback or suggestions, please join our Discord server to discuss!
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