Ahoy everyone!
Welcome to our November developer journal! This month we’re taking a look at another new ship and giving a progress report on our deep dive into performance capture technology.
Firstly, we just want to take a moment to thank everyone who has wishlisted Ahoy on Steam. As of this month we have crossed over the 100,000 wishlist mark! To be honest, we never anticipated this amount of people would have interest in what we’re doing, but we’re always so grateful to have you along for the voyage.
Many of you have been guessing about the identity of the ship we teased in the last two Journals. As you’ll know, we’ve built up a fair backlog of ships for future inclusion in Ahoy, and that allows us some freedom for expression and exploration when it comes to deciding on new inclusions going forward, especially as we continue to highlight smaller ships in the fleet until our sailing tech matures throughout Sea Trials and Arena.
De Braak (variously “Brak”, “Braak”, or “De Brak” and loosely meaning “Beagle” in Dutch) fits neatly into the realm of a nautical “whodunit”. A puzzle that could very well occupy a maritime Holmes or Poirot. Her origins are so contested, and the evidence so contradictory, that it has been impossible to arrive at a universally accepted lineage.
Howard I. Chapelle believed that Braak was purpose-built for the Admiraliteit van de Maeze in Rotterdam. According to his interpretation, she was a Dutch-designed cutter conceived specifically for naval service in the early 1780s.
However, archaeological investigation conducted during the excavation of her wreck has undermined Chapelle’s position. Most notably, the ship’s bell reads “le Patrocle 1781”. Additionally, no construction records have been located within Dutch archives that support Chapelle’s claim.
In 1964, the then-Chief Naval Historian of the Ministerie van Defensie, Commander J. F. Van Dulm, conducted a detailed inquiry. His conclusion was that the vessel had been purchased by the Dutch Admiralty, not built. This aligns better with the absence of Dutch construction records and with the evidence of non-Dutch timbers in the hull. Yet the question remains: purchased from whom?
The archaeological monitor of the excavation proposed yet another theory. Braak was originally an English-built cutter, captured by the French, and subsequently sold to the Dutch. This interpretation was based on supposed prize testimonies from a later English capture of the ship.
However, the Head of the Inquiry Service at the National Maritime Museum reported that they could not locate these prize-court documents. They may or may not have existed or they may simply be misattributed. Unfortunately, the archives that once may have held the necessary records was heavily damaged by fire during the Second World War, further complicating the picture.
Additionally, naval historian Rif Winfield offered a claim that she had been built at Zwijndrecht, near Rotterdam, however we can’t independently verify it, and he made no note in the text.
Despite the name on her bell, no record has been located of a French cutter or privateer named Le Patrocle in official French naval lists. This absence strongly implies that she may have been a privateer. Perhaps operating from Dunkirk, Saint-Malo, or another Channel port and whose paperwork was never formally entered, or was subsequently lost.
The vessel’s proportions, and profile bear strong similarities to Channel cutters of both French and English design, which further blurs the origins of her identity. Builders across the Channel frequently mirrored each other’s innovations, especially in fast courier and privateer craft.
If forced to hazard a guess, the strongest circumstantial case is that Braak began life as a French Channel privateer cutter, acquired by the Dutch sometime after 1781. But this cannot yet be determined conclusively.
What IS known is that by 1784 she was operating under Dutch colours. She joined Rear Admiral Jan van Kinsbergen’s fleet off Spain that year, before transferring to Captain Pieter Melvill’s squadron at Toulon in December 1784, where she remained active until 1787.
After this deployment, she vanishes from the surviving record until 1793, when she reappears supporting the defence of Willemstad in the Netherlands during the French invasion.
In 1794, while sheltering at Falmouth en route to join a Dutch North Sea squadron, Britain declared war on the newly established Batavian Republic, a French client state. Overnight, Braak found herself trapped in what had now become an enemy port. She was seized along with many other Dutch vessels.
Her captors noted the danger and high manpower cost of her huge cutter rig (the British captain who organised Braak’s capture noted he had to send extra men as she was “very heavily rigged”), not uncommon for the heavy channel privateers, with huge crews; they decided, as was common at the time, to re-rig her as a brig, both safer and more efficient for the limited manpower available for Britain’s wartime navy. Her resultant rig, however, remained outsized and dangerous, according to maritime historian and archaeologist Donald Shomette.
She was first placed in service under Commander James Drew on 13 June 1797. Late that year, a severe storm tore away her masts. She re-entered service in February 1798 After undergoing repairs and was tasked with escorting a convoy bound for the Virginia Capes.
While passing the Azores on 2nd April, she lost contact with the rest of the group. Near the end of the month, she encountered and seized the Spanish vessel Dom Francisco Xavier, yielding around £160,000 in prize money.
Braak took aboard a pilot, Andrew Allen, near Cape Henlopen. Elated by the recent capture, Drew went below deck to fetch a drink so he and Allen could celebrate. As he was gone, Allen spotted darkening skies and, fearing an approaching spring squall, ordered the sails taken in.
When Drew returned, he reprimanded Allen, insisting that Allen should mind the ship’s depth while he handled the rigging. Drew then commanded the crew to set the sails again. Almost immediately, a sudden and powerful gust struck, filling the newly unfurled canvas. The ship heeled sharply, water rushed through open hatches, and within moments Braak overturned.
Drew, thirty five crew members, and twelve Spanish captives drowned in the disaster. Allen managed to escape the sinking vessel and survived.
Almost two centuries later, her wreck later became the centre of controversy. Treasure hunters destroyed large portions of the archaeological site before proper survey work could be undertaken. The limited government protections in place at the time proved inadequate, and much of the context that would have resolved her origin story was irreparably lost. Among the few personal items that survived the wreck was a sea chest preserved by a local family, one of the few surviving links to the vessel’s final crew.
Given the lack of conclusive evidence that Braak ever crossed the Atlantic prior to her British conversion and subsequent wreck, the in-game representation adopts a hybrid approach. The Ahoy depiction of Braak is as a brig, reflecting her British rebuild, but incorporates significant Dutch and French-Channel cutter characteristics drawn from the archaeological remains and historical record. This mixed reconstruction acknowledges the profound ambiguity that defines Braak‘s story.
Perhaps her most significant legacy remains in modern times. Due to the significant mistreatment of her wreck, and of many others like it, we saw the passage of the Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987 which aims to protect shipwrecks from treasure hunters and unauthorised salvagers and hopefully preserve the stories they have to tell for archaeologists of the future to discover.
In conclusion, you may be wondering why we haven’t attributed an “Ahoy name” to Braak, and the reason is simple – Just like her historical origins, her name remains elusive to us. Often times a name becomes clear in the making, but in Braak’s case we’ve been unable to settle on a particular epithet.
As a result, we open the vote to you, the community! Kickstarter supporters are now voting on a shortlist provided by the team, and the final two candidates (first and second place) will be open to a final community-wide vote ahead of our December journal. Keep an eye on our Discord server for notification of that vote taking place.
You may have also noticed that Braak has an awning! Awnings have been a detail we’ve missed in the past due to the focus on broadening the fleet over smaller or less permanent details. Awnings are an important detail to fully represent the hot climate of the Caribbean and how crews may choose to handle it.
Awnings are not a permanent detail, but something that can be enabled or disabled based on the crew requirements. The process of adorning all of our ships (where appropriate) with awnings has begun in the background as the necessary gameplay work takes focus and our shipwright has a little more time to spare!
P.S. We’ll be updating the Kickstarter Wallpapers reward with a wallpaper of Braak very soon!
A recurring topic of Developer Journals of late has been our deep dive into the world of performance capture. While this journey is always evolving throughout our experience with the new technology, we wanted to provide you with an introductory video which hopefully highlights the importance of this technology for Capstan, and of course our depiction of characters in Ahoy.
P.S. Apologies for the audio mistake in the video above.
As you can see, there are many facets of performance capture left to explore for us, but we’re very pleased to be in a position where animation can finally be captured, polished and used within Ahoy. Building out our own capture space has taken a significant amount of time, and far more than we anticipated when deciding to head in this direction.
However, the work done today will pay dividends in the years to come. We are no longer reliant on outside studio spaces or rented equipment. We have the capabilities in-house, which for a team of our size is largely unheard of. We want to thank you all again for this capability via your support on Kickstarter this year.
To close for this month, let’s answer some more of your questions!
On Bumblebee’s Firepower:
– Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.
- If the Bumblebee enters combat will the only weapons be volley fire from the crew or will it at least have a swivel gun?
Bumblebee's armament is an interesting question, and sets the tone for many of the smaller ships in Ahoy's fleet. The truth is that this sits well within the bounds of game balancing. Bumblebee, being the smallest ship in the fleet, is likely always going to be the underdog in any combat scenario, however we do hear from people who want to see her armed with at least the basics in order to hold her ground a little better.
Our current plan will be to trial Bumblebee with swivels as a method of testing her resolve in combat with (relatively) larger ships. We may determine that swivels are too much or too little for her at a later time, but her primary role as a small merchant vessel is certainly solidified, regardless of her future firepower.
On Programming:
– Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.
- How goes the games coding, what have you found challenging and how have you resolved these challenges?
It goes well! As anyone who has followed the project for a while will know, the largest challenge we've discussed has been the complexities of ship's rigging and how to properly represent this within Ahoy. At first, the plan was to follow the path set out by other games in the genre, but we felt compelled to take our rigging implementation a step further.
Through both the challenges of understanding the real terminology, to building the necessary internal tools and in-game representation, this has been the largest challenge of the project thus far.
We're pleased to be on the other side of that challenge now, and we'll be sharing the results of our efforts in that area quite soon.
On VOIP:
– Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.
- Will the game have proximity VOIP?
Ahoy will feature proximity voice chat from the very beginning. We feel that being able to communicate with your crew without needing third-party software is essential, and we do hope people make use of it!
On Gameplay Loops:
– Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.
- What would be the core gameplay loops on the different stages of the game dev?
For Sea Trials, the main loop is simply what you make of it! The idea behind Sea Trials is to provide you with a sandbox to sail in and test out the first ships of Ahoy. There will of course be the Regatta race mode added in an update shortly after the initial release, but outside of this the intention is to have very little impact on your ability to do what you like. The region will be limited, but what you do within it will be up to you.
For Arena, the game loop will be to jump into battles within one of many different battle maps. Each map will present the opportunity for unique tactics, and the variable wind and weather will impact the overall scope of the battle further. Each battle mode will determine the win conditions, but the idea will be that after each battle, you'll review the results and jump into another engagement right after.
For the Open World, we bring the two together. The freedom of choice present in Sea Trials, and the intense combat of Arena, but within a much larger environment and with more of everything added on top. The core loop here is really what you want it to be. A trade mission will be different to one ordered by a navy, and the life of a privateer would be different from that of a merchant. Fitting the Open World into a single game loop ends up limiting that feeling of freedom and discovery that we hope we'll be able to capture.
On Wider Progress:
– Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.
- I know you are all working hard on modelling, sound design, logistics, etc. for Ahoy. I was wondering when development for gameplay mechanics such as maps, player interactions, gamemodes, environment, sailing mechanics, etc, will begin, or if it has already?
Work has certainly began. We've been working on the systems for a long time now, and we've made huge strides in recent months on the question of maps, player interaction and sailing. We really feel that it's best to showcase this work as a package, rather than as disparate elements, so this is why much of that work has sat in the background when it comes to these Journals.
We do look forward to being able to share more of this with you, and we'll have Journals dedicated to certain aspects of the game (the world, sailing, and so on) in the coming months.
On Future Ship Selection:
– Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.
- What’s your vision in terms of ship variety over time? (Not talking size and SotLs and such here, since I know and support your vision to stick to ships more representative of the area.) What are you looking for in ships to determine whether they add something to the game or are worth implementing?
Now that we have a fairly large fleet of ships already reconstructed and ready for implementation, our choices generally begin to focus on areas that wouldn't otherwise be a priority. At first, the necessity was to broaden the types of ship, but now we can look to broaden the origin stories.
Making sure we have a selection of ships from a variety of nations really broadens the representation of naval architecture within the game, and hopefully avoids us focusing on representing ships from only one or two nations more than the others.
On Land Content:
– Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.
- I know that the goal for Sea Trials and Arena is the sailing portion of the game, but down the line, when can we expect land gameplay? What is the vision for the dry side of the game?
You'll need to wait for an upcoming Journal to see more about this, but limited land gameplay will be sooner than you might anticipate!
On Sea Trials:
– Respondent, Journal Questionnaire.
- Now that development has been fully underway for a few months, how does the team feel about being able to fulfil the first deadline goal of the Sea trials in Q1 of next year. Will there be in-engine development videos showing progress on the game?
Cautiously optimistic! As always, it's important to be clear that our estimates during Kickstarter were estimates and not guarantees. We've always said that if we need more time prior to release, we'll make sure to give ourselves the necessary time. That said, we're eager to get the experience into your hands and get feedback and suggestions on what we'll be providing.
At the moment, nothing has changed with our estimates. We're still aiming towards the latter half of the Q1 period, but we'll know more early next year on whether or not we'll need more time. Regardless of all of that, we'll be sharing gameplay footage in the meantime so you can all see where we're at with development. It'll be worth the wait!
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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