Ships I Own and Enjoy

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Snoots Dwagon
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Ships I Own and Enjoy

Post by Snoots Dwagon »

Every Thursday at 12:30 KT (Kitely Time), there are ship battles at Tessin. Sometimes I sail a ship, sometimes I act as a gunner, sometimes I just go along for the ride. The people are all friendly. Sailing a ship is tricky, but they have online tutorial videos so is fun. The battles are always good-natured, with Captains mock-cursing other ships for putting holes in their sails, and bemoaning their fate when their ship catches afire and sinks.

An interesting ship is the Smuggler. I like its style and size. I'm not singling it out above other ships on Kitely... just choosing it as one to review since its one I personally own. Good products deserve the occasional review.

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The things I like: It has cannons all around. I dislike having competition at my back and no aft defenses. But no matter which side you're on with this ship there are cannons aplenty. Some Captains are good enough to sail and man guns at the same time, but since (as of this writing) I can barely get my ship to move (yes, I'm gonna practice more this week, curse THE IRONS)... I like to take a gunner along with me. This is possible because as with ships of this type it includes a gunner HUD that can be given to a shipmate, and them keep an eye out for a viable target.

I like the rustic looks and sleek lines of this ship, and the fact that the sail doesn't get in the way of the Captain's view. There is one improvement I'd like to see made on all SPD ships: I'd love to see the floating text stats moved from the ship to the HUD (where it would be constantly visible). This would allow zooming back on the camera so one can see more of the ship while still showing ship stats on the HUD.

Ship builders are currently discussing universal ship physical layout (the invisible "collision" box surrounding the ship) to unify ship "size" and aiming (regardless of what the ship looks like). Cannonball impact is already consistent. Such improvements are under discussion between the friendly Tessin ship builders, as they're always open to suggestions and tips to make the ships and battles more fun. Updates take time to implement, as such improvements are subject to group and scripter approval. The fact that more than one ship builder is involved and that they cooperate in creating a universal experience is commendable. (Over time Captains will have an increasing-number of ships they can choose from. You get to be a "Captain" by owning your own ship-- an easy promotion!) :mrgreen:

I personally own the Smuggler, as well as the Little Duyfken, which is a ship specifically built for Wee avatars (Wellspring world) yet still competes quite fairly in full-on events (we tested it... and it gave and took shots equally.)

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The Little Dyufken for Wees is about half the size of a full ship, yet is designed to compete fairly in ship games.


The mock-battles work well (emphasis on the mocking as Captains find themselves dodging cannonballs) and are lots of fun, usually with a bit of humor involved. Everyone checks egos and competitive nature at the door. From the sessions I've attended everyone congratulates whomever manages to "win" that week (winning means managing to be the last one stay afloat-- by skill or miracle). I enjoyed a session where the experienced Captains unanimously "took it a bit easy" on the brand new Captains so the new ones could get used to the controls... even though it cost the experienced Captains dearly in the overall game (and not a one complained!). That's the nature of the Tessin people and I found it admirable. I hope to some day be able myself to command a ship well enough to cut some slack to a new Captain while they adjust to the game.

The only downside is they don't hand out cookies and rums to contestants. What are they thinkings? :shock:

You can see more about the games here: https://tessinkitely.wordpress.com/what ... right-now/

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Re: Ships I Own and Enjoy

Post by Trouble Ahead »

Thank you for this wonderful promotion of the ships and the battles. And this is also a huge compliment to the scripters of the ships, Christine Nyn and Kayaker Magic , who spent many many hours on working on ships engine, ranges, physics, reducing lag and many more things I have no knowledge from :)

Cheers and thank you Snoots
( oh and lets not forget also the captains in battle.. and their humor and dwagon fireballs :)
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Re: Ships I Own and Enjoy

Post by Snoots Dwagon »

Trouble Ahead (yesh, that's a real user name) and I spent some time today testing the Duyfken ship on Wellspring always-on megaworld. We were pleased to verify that the ship works with all three physics engines... ODE, Bullet and Ubode. Further, the Duyfken has two modes: sailing and motorized (consider it a "modernized" 17th century ship). The motorized mode is good for new ship owners who haven't yet learned to sail (and believe me, it takes some practice). They can still run their ships around the worlds, full steam ahead so to speak. :)

So the Duyfken, Little Duyfken (for Dinkie-type avatars), and (likely) any Kayaker-scripted ship will work on all three physics engines. This is a terrific discovery for those who've wanted sailing ships but have had difficulty finding them in the Ubode-centric Opensim environment. No matter what physics engine your world employs... we've verified these ships work dandy. : )


PS note: The Smuggler shown above is an SPD ship designed for Ubode, and will not work on ODE. I dunno if it will work on Bullet physics. I'll update this post once I find out for sure.

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Scurvy's JUNK ship

Post by Snoots Dwagon »

I got a JUNK ship from Scurvy Ragu of The Scurvy Dog. No no, the ship isn't junk. It's a... Junk. Ship people understand. ;)

It's small, sleek, and has cannons out of every orifice. (Well it does.) Simply put: no one is gonna sneak up on da dwagon unscathed.

But I had a problem with the fixed camera view. As one can see in the first photo, when you take the helm the camera fixes and stays fixed in that position, which limited visibility.

Experienced captains know that you can enter mouselook and sail the ship, and really experienced captains know you can hold down ALT while in mouselook and even click on HUDs. But for beginners, this ship can be difficult to get used to (as can any sailing ship). But in this case one had to shift out of camera just to see the ship stats. That was all problematic, especially when in a mock battle I couldn't align my ship well enough to see the ship Trouble Ahead was sailing, sneak up on me and shoot me right in da hiney butt.
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Junk Ship Original fixed-camera photo.jpg
Junk Ship Original fixed-camera photo.jpg (141.75 KiB) Viewed 1928 times
A nice ship... but difficult camera angle.

Scurvy was still designing the ship and had already asked me for suggestions. So I thought about it a bit, found a sailing angle that I would like and a position for the ship stats that would be immensely helpful. We got together, him making mods and me testing. Lo and behold, he turned it into quite a fine sailing ship.

Visibility is now excellent. Nobody gonna sneaks up on dwagons again and shoot us in da hiney butt. The ship stats are now constantly visible and sailing this ship is a pleasure. And one can still use the mouselook sailing feature if desired.

So I put this alongside my other ships as a favorite. It will likely soon join the SPD-Battle-Ready line of ships on Kitey, but also serves well as an exploring, cruise, and merchant vessel... especially on the new huge megaworlds that seem to have almost endless oceans.

Scurvy and Trouble both enjoy teaching sailing, and they hold weekly mock-battles on Tessin world which are as much fun due to the shouted taunts of the shipmates as the strategy itself. And there's just something gratifying about going snout-to-snout with an opponent and -- whether one floats or sinks-- still have an enjoyable time, with tale and ale afterward.

(Hey Trouble, dere a name for ya new pub: The Ale and Tale. Don't misspell dat.)

So I have this message for Scurvy and Trouble (both prime ship builders on Kitely and very experienced ship Captains):

Dwagons now have what we need... and we comin' for ya. Mwahahahaa.... :twisted:

Junk Ship Modified Sailing View.jpg
Junk Ship Modified Sailing View.jpg (213.48 KiB) Viewed 1928 times
The Junk with a modified camera view and easily-visible stats. What an improvement!
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P.S. If one looks at the HUD at the top left, far right side, we see that somewhere on the ship there is a Colon. While that function may or may not be useful...
I don't plan on pressing dat button any time soon. :shock:
Last edited by Snoots Dwagon on Fri Mar 12, 2021 7:02 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Ships I Own and Enjoy

Post by Krull Kitty »

Maybe the "Colon" button simply supplies a colon, ":" or perhaps a variation such as a semi colon ";".

But the colon I was thinking of may not be the intended colon. I was going to post a picture of that colon.

But in the spirit of not being an ass I decided not to post a picture of THAT colon since it would most likely
make me seem like an anus.

But I can tell you that if you press the "Colon" button all hell is going to "Break Loose" from the nether regions.
Those canons are going to spew forth a noxious, spherical substance that will leave a smelly splatter residue
sure to drive off even the nastiest of pirates.

I assure you that all of these facts come from the deepest bowels of contemporary knowledge.
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