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John Jacob Astor

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  1. Now I think I finally understand your apparent stance on the baseline economics as regarding doubloons and crafting. The game is advertised as hardcore and realistic. Apparently the realism doesn't include merchant activity. At least not at any levels appropriate to the "beautiful age of sail." You apparently want all players engaging in combat at every sailing. Any economically meaningful level of crafting appears to be dependent on it. Yes, merchants playing on the War server should expect some degree of risk. But not need to regularly sail through the middle of Trafalgar. Well it is your game. Time for me to move on.
  2. Whether the doubloon price is astronomical depends on what they are being used for. If for notes, books, and for the component in the line ships, the prices are probably too low. If to buy extra labor, then yes. The prices are astronomical. Getting labor hours out of the same bucket as notes and books simply does not work. If you are going to insist on using Doubloons for this the labor hour yield from a contract would need to be increased by at least a factor of 10 for this to come close to making any economic sense. Probably a good deal more.
  3. Level 3 production buildings and a level 3 shipyard. Labor hour bonus. Using that yields a slightly more optimistic estimate.
  4. Which is what I was doing last spring before the DLC releases pretty much broke the market sector I selling into. In order for this to happen you need quite a few more folks interested in selling resources and crafted ships. Then the price comes down. But for this to happen the baseline resource and crafting math has to actually work. It currently does not. Resource extraction and ship crafting is currently restricted to free labor. Or it has to be subsidized with doubloons from combat. This is not a recipe for a self-sustaining economy. I am currently able to get Doubloons in the free ports for about 110 Reals each. This appears to result in an L3 labor valuation for a fir/fir T-brig (resources + shipyard) of roughly 80,000 Reals. Which pretty much swamps the straight cost in Reals used for the resources. And makes an Admiralty sale pretty much meaningless. I am really quite curious to know what you consider "el dorado" prices. What would you expect to pay for a fir/fir T-brig?
  5. AI yes. Crafting not so much. Unless you stick to free labor. But the economics blow all to hell if you start buying doubloons to get the labor. Don't have my notes handy but I suspect that 3k is in the neighborhood of the resource costs for a baseline build. With NO meaningful allowance for the labor costs for the resources and ship
  6. Won't be waiting around for that. I'm sure this will be a great game. But it's about done holding my interest.
  7. If you notice this site hasn't exactly kept up with game changes. I don't think he's been playing for some time. If he is still active he is free to chime in.
  8. Nothing. Except the folks that put API data on the web tend to be interested in combat mechanics. Not in economics.
  9. This is not exactly "improved trading." Unless you make the information available in a way that the user does not have to be a coder to access. Except that no merchant of any consequence visits every location they do business in. They have people for that.
  10. Final? So no other changes to the economy? Current trading ranges for Doubloons makes them impractical to use for extra labor if selling resources and crafted ships. This throttles contract market activity. Either 1) extra labor needs to be paid for in Reals or 2) merchants need their own way of obtaining extra labor for Reals that is separate from the Admiralty conversion. Given what else Doubloons are used for I am not seeing how they could possibly be balanced so as to make extra labor a practical option. Except for maybe successful combat players who can simply ignore the trading cost.
  11. I've probably played solo about half my game time since moving over from the PvE server last Spring. I don't have an opinion on the PvP aspect of this. The economy is another matter. Maxing out on outposts is really the only way at present for a single-account player to get around transaction stove-piping caused by not being able to see other players' contract activity without visiting a port. The restriction has the effect of concentrating player-to-player econ inside of populated ports. Reducing the number of outposts WITHOUT providing some sort of global contract visibility will further discourage player dispersion. Incidentally this is a big factor in why folks get bored quickly on the PvE server. Leave the populated areas and you are unlikely to see any other players. I must not have been a real solo player. That I might want zero outposts was news to me.
  12. I'm talking about compared to the old UI. There was no live calculation. But opening the production in the old UI tab displayed what the building produced and what it required. Of course you had to do your own math to get to a per unit cost but at least you could get at something to work with.
  13. Sorting out what stuff actually costs may be unnecessarily difficult for newer players. It used to be possible to tease this out of the old UI without actually having the building in port. The blueprint window calls the resource collection window. It currently shows labor hours available but does not display any calculations unless a building is present. My suggestion: Allow this to display calculations even if collection is not available. This will allow players considering contract offers to readily look up what the resource actually costs in both Reals and labor without having to own the building in the port they are visiting.
  14. Since contracts are what I do this shuts me down almost completely. Not a big deal if it's not very long.
  15. Like I said, the East/West coast US doesn't really matter. The three hour spread really doesn't mean much. But there is at least one Australian in my clan. How does this work for someone in THAT time zone?
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