Linkshot isn't the only one who can bring solid data to the table when talking about stages. (though apparently bobson is the only one who can pictures, as these are his that he PM'd to me. Thanks. XD) All times were taken with the stopwatch in my iPod Nano. >_>
Please note this is my
INITIAL findings about Pirate Ship. I'm still recovering from a virus that has been bugging me since last Wednesday, and left me so sick I slept through most of my long weekend, so I'm not up to 100% yet. I'm going to do some more testings later, such as the different hitboxes on the cannonballs (one is 35% and lower knockback, the other is in the 50s and is much higher knockback, but appears to have a much smaller hitbox compared to the weaker hit as I only saw it in my testings once so far)
These pictures are basic ones of the playing field and it's large boundaries. Very large I should add. Which is neither a negative or a positive. Boundaries should NEVER be a deciding factor in a stage's position on the list. It doesn't matter if the boundaries are Green Greens or Pirate Ship: the ratios for who is flat out KOing who and when stay the exact same when looking at each individual distance. It's flat out foolish to judge a stage based on that. Not even Hyrule Temple and New Pork City are banned on those reasons (they are banned for circling, and tunnels of life)
Moving on pass that rarely mentioned point that some people try to use to get this stage banned, I'll move onto the stage changes.
In total, there are 4 differences besides "Neutral". I shall be calling them "The Rock" (when the ship is beached on the giant rock, from the moment the warning sign appears to the moment the ship is back fully in the water), "The Wind" (From the time the tornado appears in the background, to the time the ship is back in the water), "Cannons" (The pirate platforms fire cannonballs at you, from when the platform is first visible to when it's no longer visible OR it's last cannonball is finished, whichever comes last), and "The King" (Side ship comes to the back. From the time it appears to the time it disappears)
I'll start with the least complained about one first of all, The King. He doesn't do anything to heavily affect gameplay, and lasts 16.5 seconds. People can technically hold someone in a grab as the ship leaves, toss them at the last second, and get the heck off. But you can't really force that event to occur. It's 100% player's choice if a KO occurs in that method.
Next up: The Rock. From sign to off water it lasts roughly 23 seconds. Again, this doesn't do much to affect gameplay. Wall infinities are both limited by time and the shape of the ship's hull. Ike's Fthrow infinity for example only lasts to 60% instead of 100% on most characters. The front of the ship itself is closer to the top blastzone (a non-issue), and the shape of the rock helps to reduce projectile camping. The slant of the ship does the same thing if fighting on there instead of the rock.
The Wind. From the moment the tornado appears in the background to the moment the tornado starts to pick up the ship, players have 5.6 seconds to get out of the water and back onto the ship. The ship rises into the air and hovers in all for 5.8 seconds with no slow fall affect. The pirate ship then falls back into the water, causing slow fall to occur for 4.4 seconds. As in: the slow falling section is the shortest part of the whole wind stage. The wind stage on PS2 is much longer then 4.4 seconds. 4.4 seconds translates into roughly 265 frames to "spam" your aerials moves without touching the ground. Meaning in theory that someone like Ike could preform 5 Bairs during that time, or MK can use.....a heck of a lot of Uairs. That assumes however frame perfect timing on the jump off the stage and on hitting the buttons. This short lived aspect lends itself nicely to CPing, and is far from a bannable aspect otherwise PS2 would be banned.
The last major transformation is The Cannons. Which everyone loves to whine about, yay! The entire gauntlet of cannonballs lasts from 16 seconds to 22 seconds (Depending if it's 3 cannonballs all the way to 5 cannonballs). The cannonballs themselves gives themselves away with a loud, clearly hearable "boom", followed by anywhere between 2.3-3.5 seconds to dodge the large blue, smoke trailing orbs which are clearly visible. Thats 140ish-210ish frames to avoid them. It's quite hard to get "forced" to be hit by once of these, besides the fact that some of them completely miss the fighting area you are in, and about as many hit beside the area you are fighting in as actually in the area you are fighting in. It would have to be ZSS's Neutral B or Dsmash, or someone holding onto you and thus you both get hit by the cannonballs. While the hitbox is fairly large:
You should have more then enough time to move out of the way. It should also be noted that the hitbox doesn't last long at all, so it would be VERY hard to time throws to force the opponent to go through the area where the cannonball is going to hit assuming you could grab them in time, and judge where the cannonball will land.
The catapult is a work in progress as it the time being on the front of the ship before it comes up is random, as is it's time before firing. I did note however that it does not come up if the rock or wind is going to soon. In about 15 seconds I would estimate.
As for frequency of events and how much time you get to play on the neutral stage: I have currently gone through 3 five minute sessions, timing when events occured. The King was not counted, as it does not affect the match enough to worry about it. Times were rounded both in duration and time between, so don't start yelling at me if they are slightly off.
Session 1: Wind 1:05 seconds in. Another Wind 58 seconds after the first one was completely finished. The Rock 58 seconds after the Wind was finished, and then the cannons 47 seconds after the Rock was finished. That's about 53 seconds or less then 1/5 of the time dealing with a different stage then neutral.
Session 2: Rock at 1:14. Another rock 2 minutes after the first one, and a wind 1.04 after the second rock. Meaning that the stage was different for 61 seconds, or about 1/5 of the time.
Session 3: Cannons at 38 seconds in, The Wind 1:22 after, another Wind 1:30 after that one, and the cannons did pop up 1:24 after the second wind, but 5 minutes was up before a cannonball struck the ship, so it's time of occurrence is not counted in full and instead only adds in 2 seconds. Which equals 47 seconds or somewhere between 1/6 and 1/5 of the time on a non-neutral part of the stage.
It should be noted you always have at least 30 seconds of neutral before the stage changes. And that is as far as I have gotten so far. I will be looking more into:
-Events during a 5 minutes period. (More sessions)
-The Cannonballs themselves
-How quickly the water pulls you into the front of the ship (AKA how brain dead you have to be to get hit by the front of the ship of your own accord.)
