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Free towns and docking fees


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With tow to port now working as intended and only taking you to the the nearest deep water port, adding back in the ability to teleport (TP) to a free town (as you can between your own outposts in your nations towns) may not be a bad idea.

My suggestion, would be to make it a separate TP system from your nation outpost TP's. So once your in a free town/port (you actually have to sail to a free port first),you can TP to any other free town/port on the map, regardless of having an outpost there or not. (you wouldn't be able to TP from a nation held town to a free port or vice versa). 

 Building an outpost in a free town would still be needed to allow you to store goods in the warehouse there. However you would not not need a outpost to leave ships at these ports. Instead a docking fee for each ship ( scaled to the ship class) is taken every hour that the ship is sat in the port.

For example for each 5th rate and below in a free port you pay 1000g an hour. For a 1st rate you would pay 4000g an hour (these figures are just rough examples but it needs to be enough to matter but not crippling). This would mean that you can store ships in free ports for going raiding or for launching an attacks/moving goods etc but the cost would limit how many you can store there and for how long. Making free ports, a kind of temporary short term storage port.

If a player was to go down to 0g in his bank then the docking fees would stop so you cant go into a negative, but in order to take that ship out of a free port, you would then have to pay the last hours fees to get it out. Which can easily be done by doing a mission (even in a free cutter).

Just remember you still can't TP ships or goods across the map. You would still have to sail your ships between ports, but it would allow you to sail across the map, leave your ship and TP back home to take part in events instead of sail again for another X hours and miss out.

This would open the map up for people to explore/trade/fight without giving them the ability to use the TP as a shortcut to move goods or use free ports as a free safe haven. As of right now, allot of map is underpopulated due to long travel times, that many people don't have to time or inclination to do and this idea would help to reduce that problem and allow people to play the game without removing the sailing part from the game.

You could also make it so leaving a free port puts a timer on you so cant take part in port battles for X minutes (just like the login timer) if people feared this system would allow people to wait in free ports for PB's in close proximity.

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Remove free ports, or make them only available for traders.

If you want attack enemy waters, make a outpost in the nearest port from their territory.

So can you explain to me with your above suggestion how for example the Americans could attack the French or Spain attack Sweden, etc. Either PB's/grinding hostility or just open world pvp. You seem to be wanting to add to the problem and separating people off from each other and not encouraging people to sail and pvp.

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Not a fan of charging an hourly rate for docking fee, especially if your charged when not online. There are a decent amount of players who don't spend 1/4 to 1/2 of their day playing games.

This is why it would only be in free ports and only smaller amounts. 1000g an hour is 24,000 gold for a day. that is less than one missions gold reward. No one should struggle to pay that. It is also why I suggested you cant go into negative amounts of money from the fees. So players who cant get on to play don't come back weeks later owing a million gold. As for higher fees on bigger ships, if your leaving a 1st rate in a free port you can afford the higher fees no problem.

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Just now, The Red Duke said:

All nations have neighbors at their doorstep.

Attack those.

"But heth, if you're hunting in enemy waters you deserve to get revenge fleeted and sunk in the process" (unless in a schooner or surp)

Mhmm

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All nations have neighbors at their doorstep.

Attack those.

This is the same problem Duke, you are sealing players off from each other, effectively reducing the server population even further. The idea is to encourage people to spread out and interact and not be stuck in a corner of the map.

Edited by Chug
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2 minutes ago, Liquicity said:

"But heth, if you're hunting in enemy waters you deserve to get revenge fleeted and sunk in the process" (unless in a schooner or surp)

Mhmm

you can even be in a snow to escape / outrun a "revenge fleet" true story.

Edited by z4ys
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1 minute ago, Liquicity said:

"But heth, if you're hunting in enemy waters you deserve to get revenge fleeted and sunk in the process" (unless in a schooner or surp)

Mhmm

Yeah, raiding has its quirks... :\  ... but.... assemble the army ! Invade with a full fleet. Let them come.

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44 minutes ago, Chug said:

With tow to port now working as intended and only taking you to the the nearest deep water port, adding back in the ability to teleport (TP) to a free town (as you can between your own outposts in your nations towns) may not be a bad idea.

My suggestion, would be to make it a separate TP system from your nation outpost TP's. So once your in a free town/port (you actually have to sail to a free port first),you can TP to any other free town/port on the map, regardless of having an outpost there or not. (you wouldn't be able to TP from a nation held town to a free port or vice versa). 

 Building an outpost in a free town would still be needed to allow you to store goods in the warehouse there. However you would not not need a outpost to leave ships at these ports. Instead a docking fee for each ship ( scaled to the ship class) is taken every hour that the ship is sat in the port.

For example for each 5th rate and below in a free port you pay 1000g an hour. For a 1st rate you would pay 4000g an hour (these figures are just rough examples but it needs to be enough to matter but not crippling). This would mean that you can store ships in free ports for going raiding or for launching an attacks/moving goods etc but the cost would limit how many you can store there and for how long. Making free ports, a kind of temporary short term storage port.

If a player was to go down to 0g in his bank then the docking fees would stop so you cant go into a negative, but in order to take that ship out of a free port, you would then have to pay the last hours fees to get it out. Which can easily be done by doing a mission (even in a free cutter).

Just remember you still can't TP ships or goods across the map. You would still have to sail your ships between ports, but it would allow you to sail across the map, leave your ship and TP back home to take part in events instead of sail again for another X hours and miss out.

This would open the map up for people to explore/trade/fight without giving them the ability to use the TP as a shortcut to move goods or use free ports as a free safe haven. As of right now, allot of map is underpopulated due to long travel times, that many people don't have to time or inclination to do and this idea would help to reduce that problem and allow people to play the game without removing the sailing part from the game.

You could also make it so leaving a free port puts a timer on you so cant take part in port battles for X minutes (just like the login timer) if people feared this system would allow people to wait in free ports for PB's in close proximity.

to counter your suggestion. take your ships in your fleet. logout in front of the port. no fee. and if someone shows up you still can cancel the logout and pop into port

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1 minute ago, Chug said:

This is the same problem Duke, you are sealing players off from each other, effectively reducing the server population even further. The idea is to encourage people to spread out and interact and not be stuck in a corner of the map.

I am just worried it seals off many opportunities, including and actually killing off enemy ships while they are making the traverse.

It has been happening all the time. 4th rates doing the sailing to a staging area being attacked, production lines being raided and ships killed before they are born, squadrons being intercepted in chance encounters, etc.

 

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9 minutes ago, Chug said:

So can you explain to me with your above suggestion how for example the Americans could attack the French or Spain attack Sweden, etc. Either PB's/grinding hostility or just open world pvp. You seem to be wanting to add to the problem and separating people off from each other and not encouraging people to sail and pvp.

I want not add problems and I answer you with other question. Why Spain would create hostility against Swedes when they are in the other part of the map? In the strange case they want to do that, logistics problems come to play as... real life.

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I am just worried it seals off many opportunities, including and actually killing off enemy ships while they are making the traverse.

It has been happening all the time. 4th rates doing the sailing to a staging area being attacked, production lines being raided and ships killed before they are born, squadrons being intercepted in chance encounters, etc.

That is all still possible. even more so. Just to be clear I made no suggestion about TPing ships, you still have to sail to and from ports. Its just to TP yourself to these free ports where you have ships to take part in pvp/trade etc My suggestion would actually increase opportunities not decrease them.

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I want not add problems and I answer you with other question. Why Spain would create hostility against Swedes when they are in the other part of the map? In the strange case they want to do that, logistics problems come to play as... real life.

Its to have an active game Siegfried. so to use your example. Spain want to take a swede port so they can use it as a base to raid more of Sweden or take more of their ports, open a second front to help an ally, have access to new trade goods or markets or to just have more open world pvp with different people than their usual neighbours.

With my suggestion they can sail to a free port near Swedish waters (take a long time to sail) leave a ship there, paying a fee per hour so it encourages them to use it a s a temporary base or for a limited time. then TP themselves back to a free port near their own water so they don't have hours of sailing back in a cutter so they take part in a port battle closer to home or get back to team up with friends, or do whatever. Think, active game play.

Then, when thy have enough people online and willing with ships in the free port to go raid Swedish traders or raise hostility or do a trade run for a rare resource they don't have another X hours of sailing to get back over to pick up their ship. People who don't live on this game and even many that do, don't want to have to sail a 3 hour round trip all at once to get 30 mins of possible action or none at all.

Removing free ports would make this even worse. A Spanish player would never see a Swedish player or vice versa. So why even bother having them on the same map? Server population at peak time is only just around 1000 players. There is what 400-500 ports on the map? that is 2 people per port (not even taking into account most people will be around capitals allot of time time) and you don't want to make it a little easier for people to meet each other and interact?

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39 minutes ago, The Red Duke said:

All nations have neighbors at their doorstep.

Attack those.

And yet you play British?! 

Freeport offer staging points. 

I'd be more in favour for being able to create an outpost at a free port for 48-72 hrs only

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I mostly do my NA out of free ports. Always did. It was spectacularly easy with TP with half the risk.

Now, we return to no teleports format, I need to plan my actions and cruises.

It was easy when you could TP your ships and ill gotten gains. I agree with you. You cant now and that is a very good thing. With my suggestion, you still would not be able to do this. It doesn't remove any risk. it just makes it so you don't have to sail in a basic cutter for hours to get to a free port to then start your pvp or from one, back to your nations ports to go do something else. Again you are only teleporting yourself, no ships, no goods. No risk is removed just a little time saved so you can do more with your game time.

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31 minutes ago, z4ys said:

to counter your suggestion. take your ships in your fleet. logout in front of the port. no fee. and if someone shows up you still can cancel the logout and pop into port

But u still can dock a ship in freeport far away from your homewaters to jump there and do some pvp whenever u want, you just have to sail to your closest freeport to port there

 

honestly i like that idea so u dont have to sail every day a couple of hours just to reach a region far away from your homewaters

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8 minutes ago, Chug said:

It was easy when you could TP your ships and ill gotten gains. I agree with you. You cant now and that is a very good thing. With my suggestion, you still would not be able to do this. It doesn't remove any risk. it just makes it so you don't have to sail in a basic cutter for hours to get to a free port to then start your pvp or from one, back to your nations ports to go do something else. Again you are only teleporting yourself, no ships, no goods. No risk is removed just a little time saved so you can do more with your game time.

Sail not with a basic cutter take your fighting ship. Out of experience i can say that i had my best encouters while moving a ship to an outpost far away.

Edited by z4ys
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Sail not with a basic cutter take your fighting ship. Out of experience i can say that i had my best encouters while moving a ship to an outpost far away.

so you move your fighting ship to a far away outpost. how do you get back? then, how do you get back to that far away outpost and what do you call "far away"?

and just to say it again for what seems the 100th time. You still have to sail your ships to and from the outposts that you want to use to do stuff in. I made no suggestion about being able to TP ships or goods. Just yourself.

Sail fighting/trade ship to far away free port. TP yourself "home" to take part in a PB (just for example) then you can TP back to free port to go do what you wanted up there, grab a few traders, whatever then you have a choice to sail back with those ships or leave them there TP yourself home so you can do something with your clan without having to say " i'd come help guys but i need to sail for two hours to get back to you".

Edited by Chug
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Okay, let's look in a different perspective. 

A squadron of your buddies sailed to some area near a free port and is harassing enemies, attacking warships, invading missions, interdicting trade. All normal.

Enemy assembles a fleet to bring them into battle and sails to the area and starts a battle.

Your buddies shout for help. You hit teleport and sail out still in time to join the ongoing battle or to setup a post-battle-spawn-camp.

Question: are you there or aren't you there ? I find odd that it can be both.

It turns a planned war situation into a carefree warp jumps galore. ( and the no teleport system does limit to a point alt-ghost-fleet loophole )

Good discussion by the way. 

 

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33 minutes ago, Chug said:

so you move your fighting ship to a far away outpost. how do you get back? then, how do you get back to that far away outpost and what do you call "far away"?

and just to say it again for what seems the 100th time. You still have to sail your ships to and from the outposts that you want to use to do stuff in. I made no suggestion about being able to TP ships or goods. Just yourself.

 

Far away i call 10 day sails or more

How i get back: I stay there as long my repair kit supplies let me or till the cargo hold/dock space is full. Then I assamble a convoy bring the prize ships with escort back where i can sell them. While i took my fighting ship with me I am now free to do whatever. Maybe change location? Dont stay there where your enemy is expecting you. Even more after an successful raid.

Acting like that I have no downtime. Every sail is an adventure. While always sailing with my fighting ship, I am ready for whatever NA throws at me.

 

Its not the game that can bore you. Its mostly the player behavoir how to do things.

Edited by z4ys
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you would have to have a ship in the free port their near to come help them. you would also to have sailed that ship to the free port in the first place. you also then have to sail to a free port to then TP yourself to the free port their near. As mentioned in my suggestion the free port TP is separate to outpost TP. the two can not be combined. so you cant go from say your nation capital to a free port and on top of all that, you would of being paying a minimal but continuous "X" amount of gold per hour to have your ship in the free port.

So, yes you could come to their rescue, or more likely to avenge them as the battle would likely be closed by time you get to them but it would require investing and planning to be able to do so and fair bit of "luck".

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