Naval combat

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.^[1] – Steven Sharif

Naval combat involves different types of Ships 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.^[1]^[2]

Naval PvP is between ships.^[2]
Naval PvE includes open sea raids and sea-based bosses.^[1]^[2]
Certain ship classes and components may support ramming of other vessels or raid bosses.^[3]

Battles at sea will be epic. They will have some supreme rewards and/or losses if the battle succeeds or fails.^[4] – Steven Sharif

Naval schedule

Alpha-1 naval concept art.^[5]

Naval content will be present in Alpha-2.^[1]^[6]

Naval warfare.^[6]
Naval raid bosses.^[1]
Three ship classes will be present in Alpha-2.^[6]^[7]
- Ships will have functioning cannons but the ship building UI may not be complete.^[6]
- Temporary teleportation points were present in Alpha-1 in place of ships.^[8]

Naval PvP

Operators of a ship's weapons platform can initiate naval PvP against another ship in the following three cases.^[9]

The result of events (such as guild wars or node wars) between the parties.^[9]
When the ships move into an area that automatically flags them for combat.^[9]
As the result of open-world PvP, utilizing the flagging and corruption system.^[9]

Guns and gunpowder

The Gilded Galleon pre-order pack cosmetic ship skin.^[10]

The potion launcher idea will be incorporated as part of how cannons operate on ships; and these will be very large potion launchers obviously. The storage of this ammunitions are going to be very important as well... It's not going to be the same potion every time. You can equip the cannon with different types of potions that have different types of effects from a munitions standpoint; and I think that's going to provide a very cool gameplay because as you see the different color of the trail that's coming out of the potion launched, you'll be aware of what your adversary is using and how that affects your ship; and you'll be able to counter based on maneuverability, based on whatever you want to counter that with. I think that's going to present a very interesting dynamic to the attacks with these ships.^[11] – Steven Sharif

Gunpowder (black powder) weapons will not be present in Ashes of Creation.^[12]^[13]

Ships will utilize a larger form of potion launcher in place of canons. These canons will be able to be equipped with different potions that have different effects.^[11]

I previously said there was not going to be gunpowder in Ashes. What there will be is something very similar to gunpowder but has a more arcane nature to it. It's not necessarily going to be explainable through the conventional means of chemistry, metallurgy, and physics and what not, but rather the Essence is the core component of many types of magic, one of which is obviously going to be evocation type magic; and that evocation can have some explosive tendencies.^[12] – Steven Sharif

Weaponry such as Potion launchers, Siege weapons and weapons used in Naval combat are based on the arcane arts.^[11]^[12]^[14]

The elements (evocation magic).^[12]^[14]
The use of radiance and darkness.^[14]

As we said in the past, were not really about that black powder life. Instead it's really going to be focused on the arcane arts: The elements; the use of radiance and darkness; and then those being employed in larger weaponry, such as the type of siege weaponry between ship battles as well as those and sieges. A potion launcher is an example of the arcane energies that can be mastered in order to facilitate these highly destructive alchemical blends that can be created.^[14] – Steven Sharif

Ships

Tea transport PAX East 2018 exclusive cosmetic ship skin.^[15]

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.^[16] – Steven Sharif

Ships are owned by the player who has the ship item in their inventory. Only that player can summon the ship.^[17]

Ship creation is generally delegated to players. There won't be many non-player-owned ships.^[18]
- Quest lines may have NPC driven ships.^[18]
- 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.^[18]

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.^[18] – Steven Sharif

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.^[17]
Players will have quests that navigate them toward creating a personal vessel at around level 10-15.^[19]

Summoning ships

Only the player who has the ship item in their inventory can summon that ship.^[17]

Ships (excluding Naval caravans) can only be summoned from a port or harbor.^[20]^[21]^[22]
Ships may be able to be summoned in rivers (or other bodies of water) depending on the depth of the water.^[23]
Naval caravans are initiated when a land-based caravan intersects with an ocean.^[21]

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.^[22] – Steven Sharif

Ship building

Naval concept art.^[24]

Ship building is a crafting profession that is able to construct ship components based on blueprints that unlock capabilities that scale with their progression within the ship building profession.^[25]^[26]^[27]

Movement, Durability, Speed, Turn rate, Hit points, Defensive and Damage abilities.^[28]^[25]^[26]^[27]
Weapon slots.^[28]
Aesthetic customization.^[27]
Ship components can be sold to other players.^[25]

You can have the base value of a hull. That hull might have certain placements that are available when it comes to utility slots and/or weapon slots for the ship. Essentially you are going to have that hull itself be augmented by constructibles via the ship building profession.^[28] – Steven Sharif

A player does not need to be a ship builder to construct ships. Players utilize the ship components that are crafted by ship builders to upgrade their ships.^[25]^[29]

Anyone with the right schematics, materials and an advanced enough node may construct a ship.^[30]

Ships may only be crafted or upgraded in harbor crafting stations that are unlocked by the advancement of coastal nodes.^[25]^[29]^[31]^[25]^[29]

You will not need to be a ship builder profession to construct ships. The shipbuilder profession particularly they have the ability to craft components of the ships which increases the ship's capabilities, defenses, speeds, turn rate, offense and defense, you know all those types of things and then they can sell those to other players.^[25] – Steven Sharif

Players can choose which "joints" get populated with either offensive (weaponry), defensive, or utility attachments they want on their ship prior to construction completion.^[32]^[33]^[34]
- The types of attachments that are available are dictated by the ship's class.^[32]

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.^[32] – Steven Sharif

Ship destructibility

Ship destruction at sea will leave its crew stranded, since ships (excluding Naval caravans) may only be summoned from a port or harbor.^[20]^[21]^[22]

There is no "recall" (fast-travel) option to return to shore, however death by drowning will respawn the player on shore but will incur experience debt (and other death penalties).^[20]

We don't have a recall... There is consequence for you losing the means of your mobility and if you lost the means of that mobility then those consequences are it's going to take you longer to get to where you need to go, or you're going to have to suffer some experience debt.^[20] – Steven Sharif

Dynamic destructibility of ships is under consideration.^[35]

I mean traditionally if we did not use dynamic destruction, that what we would use is decals to simulate damage on the ship based on an overall hit point value. At certain hit point values we would swap out the mesh to show a more destructive state potentially; and that and you know at that point for a user in regards to immersion you know both are very similar from the immersion factor right?^[35] – Steven Sharif