Jon Allen

The essence of my suggestion can go either way. Whether raising one, or lowering the other, or some combo of those things. The point is the same. PC ships have more durability. I offered the 5-7 example just to illustrate my point. It would be up to the Devs to decide exactly how they would handle it.

Right now we have a good mechanism to limit the value of captured ships, they have a durability of 1. But there is an ongoing conversation taking place about how to make player-constructed ships more appealing. Crafters are competing against NPC builders who are selling ships at incredibly low prices. It's hard to make player-made ships marketable, it's hard to compete with the NPC ultra low prices. It's a complex problem, and most of the solutions that have been proposed have also been complex, but I have a suggestion for one relatively simple thing we could do that would give player-constructed ships a worthy edge. Give them more durability than their NPC-constructed equivilant. I'm not going to try to get into how much durability, but enough to make a difference. If the standard NPC ship (of any quality) has a durability of 5, then maybe the player-made equivilant has a durability of 7. (EDIT: To be clear, that is just an example on how this might be handled, not exactly what I'm proposing. Whether its raising the durability of PC ships, or lowering the durability of NPC ships, or some combo of those things, the essence is the same, PC ships have more durability.) It's a simple change, but it will make player-made ships more valuable, more marketable, and perhaps worth the extra cost. Food for thought.

If the idea is to make a profit, this is all math done by hand. Setting up a contract requires you to pay 10% of the value upfront. So if you decide to sell your blocks for 1000 gold total (the whole lot), then it'll cost you 100 gold up front. As for how much you should sell them for, that entirely depends. But start with how much it cost you to buy the basic materials in the first place that were used to create the blocks. Then maybe tack on a little more than that for a profit margin, and maybe a little more to compensate for the 10% I mentioned above. The best case scenario, you sell in a free port or capital, where there is shipbuilding going on, and where blocks (and the basic materials needed to make blocks) cannot be found. To look for signs that shipbuilding is happening, look at the ships for sale there. If you see a lot of ships for sale with people's names on them, odds are there is some shipbuilding going on there and those crafters are keeping an eye on the local stuff for sale at their hub. To really increase the odds, find a specific crafter, arrange a deal. How many blocks for how much gold at which port.

Right now when you buy/sell stuff, there is no mechanism in-game that keeps track of what you bought/sold and at what price and quantity. I'd really like to see the developers of this fine game look for a way to incorporate that into the game. The basic idea I'm having, is that when you buy/sell anything, the game presents an option or check box labeled something like "Memory", "Log Transaction" or so on. If you check that box or say yes to that option, the purchase/selling is noted in a journal or Log (call it what you will, if you can think of a better term), a tab that you can access from the game's main menu. It records when the transaction occurred, which port, what item, at what price and what quantity. This can be useful in at least two different ways that I can think of: 1. Traders can keep track of what they bought/sold items for, and compare prices they are staring at in their current port to past prices at the same or a different port 2. Crafters can use it to create a log of all the purchases (by checking the option with every purchase associated with their current project), so they can accurately add up all the prices and find out how much it cost them to build that ship. Right now doing this requires scraps of paper, spreadsheets and so on. Adding a tool like this, even a very basic one, would really add to the level of gameplay enjoyment on the trading and crafting side of things. Having a check box option would allow the player to decide what gets recorded and what doesn't. But if its easier to implement, I think it would also be acceptable if there were a log generated that simply recorded every transaction and filed it away like your real life bank statements. It could even be very crude. But that data is worth something to us players. If someone else has presented this idea before, great. In that case just consider this another vote in favor of.

Good review/feedback for the devs.

They extended the deadline to the end of the weekend. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/8543-headstart-ships-guide/ If all you are seeing is the Yacht, then you are in the same boat (ha!) as the rest of us. The other redeemable ships they have hinted at haven't appeared yet.

Head start ships guide. Answers some good questions about the redeemable ships. http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/8543-headstart-ships-guide/

No, that character was wiped. You need to start a new character in the headstart time period to get the extra ships.

Welcome to the game. Right now there isn't really a mechanic for exploration unfortunately, but the Devs have talked about one. But there is a great big Open World ocean. At the moment the game is largely focused on PvP combat, PvE combat and crafting. But now is a good time to jump in. The game is fun as-is and they will be adding features and content going forward.

Thanks for the info! If someone wanted to be a good gentleman he could tell us what 18pm Kiev time is in some other time zones.

I didn't know that either. Thanks for asking Wonky Beaver.

Big big fan of this idea. Historically there were "mail packets" ships that just ran mail. In a historical text I was just reading on the Continental Navy mail packet ships come up a few times. During the American Revolution there were mail packet ships running from London to the Royal Navy's North American station. The mail included high level correspondence for Admirals, Generals, Governors and the like.Like merchants they were frequent targets to be taken a "prize." Maybe if you accept the mission, an item for it appears in your warehouse and you can load it onto a ship. Then you sail it there, unload it, and if you right click on it a "deliver" button appears. Once it disappears the mission is complete. Something like that. Or you have to drop and drag it into a slot in the missions screen, thereby delivering it and completing the mission, and this only works if you are at the proper port.

I wanna say "hats for men." These days nothing is socially acceptable but a baseball cap. I would love to see men's hats come back into fashion in a big way.

If you could make a clothing item or accessory from the 18th or19th centuries popular and common again, what would it be? And why?

I actually really like the current setup. Sometimes I just want to jump on the computer and fight a small battle, and I know approximately how long that will take. Sometimes that's all the time I have. I feel if I am doing that I should get gold/XP for it, otherwise it's just a practice session...my 50th practice session. Other times I want to get into the OW, sail around, but that's when I have a long period of time to play, like an hours-long opening. That isn't always the case. If the idea is to lure more people into the OW to play, then my suggestion would be the up the amount of goal and XP you get on the OW, and trim back the amount of gold/XP earned for small battles/large battles. If anyone asks why, it's 1. To encourage people to get on the OW, and 2. Because those rewards sorta factor in the amount of time you are probably spending on the OW, where things tend to take longer. What that will do, is encourage at least some gold/XP grinders (those with immense amounts of play time available) to get on the OW. While the players who really just don't have a choice sometimes (e.g. it's small battle or nothing because they got about an hour to play the game and then they gotta go to work) those folks have an option too. But like I said at the top, I really like the current setup.

I like that idea, each nation having a forum. Then maybe a marketplace sub-forum under each.

I don't know if you'll be able to sell it or not. Anyone got an answer on this? Right now I don't believe you can. Like the basic cutter it's valued at zero gold I believe. I don't know if that will change down the line.

The Yacht makes for a nice visual, it's a pretty ship. But as others have said, it's not statistically that different from the Basic Cutter. Also, you advance out of it pretty quick. It's a ship with 6 guns per side and 40 crew. Very quickly you'll be able to sail ships with 60 crew, 100 crew, etc. You start to scale up. Those bigger ships often bring better returns, in a straight up fight against a similar vessel, you grind more gold and XP out of those larger vessels in small battles. They also tend to carry more cargo. To be honest, knowing what I know now about all that, the Yacht isn't that big a deal to me. I bought this game around Christmas and I'm already sailing around in NavyBrigs and Cerberus frigates and my Yacht barely leaves the dock. I don't want to sound unappreciative. I'm happy to have it, it certainly made for a nice starter ship to sail around in. But to the prospective players out there I'd say don't sweat not having the Yacht, you'll be fine with the cutter.

Well I'm a good instance of the latter scenario. I don't know a lot of people here fairly well, I'm pretty new to the community. But I want to find a particular ship with particular characteristics. I want a way to go "hey, who can build me a X." Today, for example, I'm looking for a Cerberus, either Oak or Live Oak, with as many upgrade slots as the builder can manage. Needs to be at, or a short sail, from WIllemstad (Dutch faction). That actually happens to be true, but the point is, I don't know who is actively building today. I don't know who would be willing, who has the time, the desire. Who isn't already invested in other building projects. Who might be busy in RL. So I'd want to be able to just publicize that message in a place where shipbuilders keep an eye on and then communicate with anyone who responds to find out what they can do for me so we can have a conversation about the ship I want to buy. So like I said, that 2-way communication is very much desired. Buyers and sellers need to be able to talk, that's just business. EDIT: Oh and if anyone actually wants to build me that Cerberus, PM me.

An advertisement for/by shipbuilders, I agree is better than nothing, but I'd prefer it to be something that is 2-way communication, between buyers and builders.

Sweet!

It's quite playable and enjoyable now. I bought it right around Christmas. I've been pleasantly surprised at how satisfying the game play can be, and how addicted I've become. I've also enjoyed how active the community is. There was a bit of a learning curve because tutorials are all unofficial player-made stuff and at times because of some of the quirks of the UI. But I never ran into anything that I couldn't learn past. I have not discovered any bug (or unfinished feature) staring me in the face like a brick wall preventing me from enjoying the game. Here's how I look at it, if putting the game on Steam EA gives the developers the additional financial resources they need to push forward and finish the game, then they should push forward and do that, and the vast majority of the people who buy it at via Steam at the EA stage of development will not be disappointed. I firmly believe that.

I've heard that shipbuilders sometimes have a hard time. They build ships and it seems like no one is buying. At the same time I've experienced situations where there was a ship I really wanted and the primary port(s) I operate from, don't have it. For example for at least a week I was looking for a Snow at WIllemsted, or near it. Never found one to buy. There's a gap here, between what the shipbuilders want to do (build ships that people actually buy) and the players (who want specific ships at specific ports but can't find them). To that end I think we need what I'm going to call a "Made to Order" mechanism. I think we need an easy to navigate/update way for players to post their wants. Like: "Wanted: a Snow at Willemsted (Dutch), preferably Oak or Live Oak built, anytime between now and <insert date here> ." Then one or more shipbuilders can respond and say they are on it, perhaps even offering an estimated completion date. "Made to order" is the point I'm making. Not just "here's a random ship I built, anyone want to buy? Oh and you have no idea it's there unless you sail to that port and look" Again this brings the shipbuilders and the buyers into the same sphere. I recommend a sub-forum dedicated to it here on this site. That's it's sole function, for people to post what they want to buy, and even for shipbuilders to post what they are selling and where. This is obviously the easiest way to achieve this communication process, because it requires no changes to the game itself and creating a new sub-forum here is fairly simple.

Recommendation to the developers: Make a blog post. Doesn't really matter what it says or what it contains. It could even be a simple "We look forward to 2016" message. The reason is, the forums get a sporadic (but fairly continuous) slew of visitors who come in and wonder if this game is dead, based on the fact that the website has seen no new information added since March. The smattering of forum threads with names like "is this game dead?" might give other visitors the wrong gut impressions when they visit. I know the developers probably aren't prepared to answer the big questions, like questions regarding Steam. I'm not suggesting you do that. I'm just suggesting you put up a blog containing any message. So that people visiting the website will see it, spot the date that it was last posted and recognize that the game has a heart beat. Evidently many people don't look closely at the forums to gauge how alive or active the game is, they look to the website to see when it was updated last.

Good video, very helpful, thanks. Feel better!