An end to modules

[Chustler]

I do like the idea of crew lives really mattering. I'm not sure how to do that outside of giving them Xp of some type. I would be happy to see modules account for very small differences in the vessels, and crew to account for another small ammount of difference. If crew could have a max 5% increase in ability, and take some time getting there, (especially when losing men in battle all the time) I think I could enjoy that. These sorts of ideas would probably only add to the "why people don't fight" problem though...

[admin]

I do like the idea of crew lives really mattering. I'm not sure how to do that outside of giving them Xp of some type. I would be happy to see modules account for very small differences in the vessels, and crew to account for another small ammount of difference. If crew could have a max 5% increase in ability, and take some time getting there, (especially when losing men in battle all the time) I think I could enjoy that. These sorts of ideas would probably only add to the "why people don't fight" problem though...

 

During the Glorious First of June multiple british ships were undermanned, and fought with smaller crews. Crew was the major bottleneck for the navy. Manpower shortages are great for the single player game but in the multiplayer game they are very hard to implement to reflect realism. After a certain game time crew will stop being a resource that is limited in supply, (people will level up buildings and such). 

 

In a game environment if we implement crew as a resource to manage 2 things that could happen. 

• You will have to hop into the port after a battle and replenish crew
• You will go to fight undermanned 

If the port does not have crew to hire then most likely the player will just log off. If players will be able to influence crew supply eventually this will stop being a problem and. Then it will mean that you have to make a trip to a port after every battle (if you want to fight effectively). 

 

Officers can partially solve the problems you describe (or cover ideas you propose). But won't solve all of them.

[Laik]

There is no need for having to go to port after every battle to replenish crew. Let them regenerate after battle like it is now, but make them gain/lose XP based on their casualties. Sort of like current XP for damage and -XP for friendly fire. So say you have a crew of 240. You defeated a player and did 200 XP worth of damage. However you did this by boarding and suffered 100 crew casualties in the process. So your Crew XP total gain would be sth like 200 - losses*5, so you would in fact lose 300 crew XP. And let's say, crew XP is capped at 1000 in this ship, which gives a bonus of 5% to everything (too much, but it's nicely scalable). By losing 40% of your crew, by boarding with no advantage, you lose also 30% of their effectiveness and you need to play few decent, victorious battles to regain that. Crew replenishes after the battle, like it does now, but is not as effective.

 

Those numbers and modifiers are obviously hastly made up, but you get the idea. No need for crew replenishement. Let's say it takes 10-20 decent PvP battles to fill your Crew XP to the max. There could also be a very limited resource, called Experienced Crew which you could hire in ports to boost your Crew XP gain a little bit. This also has some ganking preventive measures - by ganking you don't gain much XP and thus not much Crew XP. So if your sole playstyle is ganking, and you happen to sink once, it will take you a long while regaining the Crew XP and getting your ship back to 100% performence.

 

But I myself wouldn't mind crew not recovering 100% after the battles. Recovering most of the crew, yes, but not all. Say you suffered 50 casualties of 240 crew. You lose/gain appropriate amount of Crew XP, and recover 45 of it. So now you have 235, still very managable. But the more casualties you consistently suffer, the more undermanned you are. Also adds another level of strategic importance of ports and reason to contest ports far away from the capital, to gain 'a forward base of operations' (once all the neutral ports are captured, which will inevitably happen).

 

These sorts of ideas would probably only add to the "why people don't fight" problem though...

This is balance issue. Also the loss of Crew XP would happen only when your men die, be it from gunfire, boarding, sinking (100% loss in this instace). Then again if you surrender, you lose nothing crew-wise. Losses of crew through regular gunfire are usually not that significant to outweigh the damage done with the modifier I proposed. So you can fight it out, get some damage from PvP and if you feel like you are going to be sank or decrewed, you can just surrender and still gain both regular and crew XP.

 

 

@EDIT

 

Or what Henry said.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Laik

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

During the Glorious First of June multiple british ships were undermanned, and fought with smaller crews. Crew was the major bottleneck for the navy. Manpower shortages are great for the single player game but in the multiplayer game they are very hard to implement to reflect realism. After a certain game time crew will stop being a resource that is limited in supply, (people will level up buildings and such). 

 

In a game environment if we implement crew as a resource to manage 2 things that could happen. 

• You will have to hop into the port after a battle and replenish crew
• You will go to fight undermanned 

If the port does not have crew to hire then most likely the player will just log off. If players will be able to influence crew supply eventually this will stop being a problem and. Then it will mean that you have to make a trip to a port after every battle (if you want to fight effectively). 

 

Officers can partially solve the problems you describe (or cover ideas you propose). But won't solve all of them.

 

It's not an all or nothing idea though.  For gameplay purposes, a port will always have enough unskilled landsmen (let's just say what every ship has under the current system is completely crewed with landsmen) to fill every ship that arrives - filling a ship unskilled crew will never be a limitation.  Pressing landsmen is free - you pull in, and your crew refills, just like today.  

 

Each port might have a more limited number of better skilled crew available as well.  These crew will cost gold or reputation to purchase - the higher the crew skill level, the more they cost.  

 

While a ship that is now low on crew due to a sinking or a failed boarding will sail short handed to the nearest port, they can always at least fill the ranks with unskilled crew.

 

Crew experience is tracked in "pools" to be nice to the database and programming - you have, say, three pools of crew per ship - one for each crew skill rank.  When crew is lost, they are removed randomly from those pools.  Each battle will apply x% chance that random y crewmen will jump up to the next skill level.  Jumping a Landsman to a Seaman should be fairly easy (higher % chance that crew will advance), Seaman to Able Seaman less so, Able Seaman to Mate even less still.  The percentage could be higher for a win versus a loss, higher for engaging in PvP, and higher still for PvP "honor" kills.  Losing a Mate should be somewhat painful.  The percentage of crew above landsman will provide a small boost to ship performance - reload, turning, boarding, etc.  Skill packs could be sold to boost one of these items, but not more than one at a time (simulating a Captain focusing on a particular aspect, such as Redoubtable's Captain training his entire crew in boarding skills).

 

In the end, there must be incentive to not fight to the death.  Loss of crew and/or ransoming officers is the only way I can immediately think of to do this.  Fighting to the death every time is lame and extremely unrealistic.

[maturin]

I think most of the modules should be replaced with officers.

Officers have lives that need to be protected (no more suicide bombing in Tragalgar), and the Admiralty will only let them transfer between ships if you behave.

They can also be earned with experience rather than purchased with gold. That's newb-friendly.

The modules that remain should bind on equip.

[Blackjack Symons]

I'm of a mind with Henry. At present, I've never lost a ship - that is to say surrendered or been boarded - because it is more convenient and profitable to fight until death. Indeed, I've even sped up my own demise to prevent boarding. 

 

I had enough gold to purchase another ship, but as it stands it's easier to sink and use up one durability than to lose the ship for good. With crew and officers, this would change (though with this, it must also be considered that crews would not necessarily die when a ship sinks - maybe a portion of them survive and get picked up by allies if your side wins or ransomed by enemy if you lose.)

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

I'm of a mind with Henry. At present, I've never lost a ship - that is to say surrendered or been boarded - because it is more convenient and profitable to fight until death. Indeed, I've even sped up my own demise to prevent boarding. 

 

I had enough gold to purchase another ship, but as it stands it's easier to sink and use up one durability than to lose the ship for good. With crew and officers, this would change (though with this, it must also be considered that crews would not necessarily die when a ship sinks - maybe a portion of them survive and get picked up by allies if your side wins or ransomed by enemy if you lose.)

 

Most people at the time didn't know how to swim.  And while they'd tow the boats during combat, a smashed up sinking ship isn't going to provide much opportunity for the crew to bring those boats alongside and make an orderly boarding.  More often the crew broke into the spirits locker and went berserk on a sinking ship.  While I'd agree you shouldn't lose all of your crew, sinking your ship should incur a 75%+ crew loss IMO.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

I think most of the modules should be replaced with officers.

Officers have lives that need to be protected (no more suicide bombing in Tragalgar), and the Admiralty will only let them transfer between ships if you behave.

They can also be earned with experience rather than purchased with gold. That's newb-friendly.

The modules that remain should bind on equip.

 

Another great idea as well Maturin.  Being able to take one's Officers with you, while it was customary, was at the discretion of the Admiralty.  If you were out of favor, you might find yourself alone amongst an entirely new crew when you were transferred.  

[Blackjack Symons]

Most people at the time didn't know how to swim.  And while they'd tow the boats during combat, a smashed up sinking ship isn't going to provide much opportunity for the crew to bring those boats alongside and make an orderly boarding.  More often the crew broke into the spirits locker and went berserk on a sinking ship.  While I'd agree you shouldn't lose all of your crew, sinking your ship should incur a 75%+ crew loss IMO.

 

True, but that's more or less what I meant. If it was much less than 75% (and even at 75%) it might present a trivial loss rather than a true deterrent to firing your cannons until your quarterdeck is a shallow bathing pool.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

I'd be fine with it being near 90%, but obviously we'd have to find the right number for balance if the idea was implemented. Thanks!

[ShiverMyTimber]

I think most of the modules should be replaced with officers.

Officers have lives that need to be protected (no more suicide bombing in Tragalgar), and the Admiralty will only let them transfer between ships if you behave.

They can also be earned with experience rather than purchased with gold. That's newb-friendly.

The modules that remain should bind on equip.

 

Another great idea as well Maturin.  Being able to take one's Officers with you, while it was customary, was at the discretion of the Admiralty.  If you were out of favor, you might find yourself alone amongst an entirely new crew when you were transferred.  

 

I have a thread that covers all of this. It just seems to have slipped through the cracks. I'd really appreciate it if you gave it a look over and maybe some constructive criticism.  It is a bit long winded, but I guess you could skim through it as your ship skims through the waves.

[Puchu]

This thread has nothing to do with having to repelish crew after battles. (it could be a feature, but it was never part of the arguement)

 

This thread was allways about how to make lives valuable and the loss of lives undesireable. 

 

By making crew an actual ressource that you have to restock in port, you make many things happen. One of them being--> ppl will get undercrew-ganked. This seems very undesireable to me. But this was never ever part of this discussion.

 

im very much on the same page with chustler henry and laik. crew should give a very small bonus, but still enough to make me want to keep them alive. (refill my crew magically with lvl 1 sailors, im totally fine with that.)

[Hussar]

I would suggest ships crew perform sub par until they reach veteran rank ...only then your ships sails at 100% efficiency not buff over 100%

Edited September 6, 2015 by Generaljake

[TommyShelby]

I would suggest ships crew perform sub par until they reach veteran rank ...only then your ships sails at 100% efficiency not buff over 100%

Not a bad idea. Reload + dispersion could also be affected by the crew's veterancy, to some extend, while not buffing over 100%. 

[Puchu]

Cpt. Bubbles suggested that higher exp. crew could decrease the time it takes to switch  crew focus. I really like that idea!

[SeamanStaines]

If crew experience is included (I am in favor), then the surrender mode needs to be addressed to prevent players sinking the ship after surrender to disadvantage the other player. I think at present you can still be sunk after surrender although its a long time since I tried surrender and may be mistaken. .

[DazednConfused]

If crew experience is included (I am in favor), then the surrender mode needs to be addressed to prevent players sinking the ship after surrender to disadvantage the other player. I think at present you can still be sunk after surrender although its a long time since I tried surrender and may be mistaken. .

 

lol on the other hand it would sometimes be fun to deny the enemy out of spite by opening the sea cocks and flooding the ship. 

 

Imagine the rage.......mmmmmm