The Spud

I think they will overhaull the economy and it might give a totaly new life to ship building. When you reduce the dura of ships, people will take less risks in their exceptional frigates or whatever. And the economy would need to pump out more resources to replace all these lost ships. I would like the ability for costum made ships, or ships above "basic" to get their dura replenished. Like they would have hoisted the ship up a dry dock in a harbour and replace and fix parts in the AoS days. But it would take a huge amount of time to do this. Like a week or more for every dura. And a player would have to bring resources to the harbour with the dry dock every 2-3 days. If the day comes we can give our ships names, I would find myself getting a bit attached to a ship. Like all the fights you fought with it, and I would consider putting allot of time and effort in replacing the dura to keep sailing the thing. Nice addition would be to show how old a ship is, how much ships it sank, how much time it has been sank. How much crewkills or something. Give it a bit of a status and reputation...

I do appreciate your fine explanations and effort in replying so well documented, so thanks for that. I like these ships, and in my Cerb, with my manual sailing at point now, it is very satisfying to outmanouver your opponent. And although I would just like to fire off a couple of full broadsides of a victory or a santissima, I am quite aware that these ships are not as versatile as the smaller ships. I am not rushing trough the "grind", I kinda like to test some ships out and see what fits my way of fighting. I am always checking the chat for potential targets, or to aid in some PB, defend, attack, escort. But in the end you just don't get to enter the PB. I entered once, in a PB against spain, where we had no opponents, and we just had to take down the towers. When they add some more mission types or other things, I might not bother so much about not being in PB. Might probably try to join a clan after all, just to chip in on some nice big fights for now. Started server in my opinion would still be a good idea when we get a new big influx of players, as I read here and there some players refunded their game after playing just an hour or so.

Its just that for now a big part of the game is being denied to lower and mid ranked players. Even if you finaly sail a cerberus, you will have to wait in line, and hope whoever started the conquest is a few ships short. While on a starter server it would give a bigger chance to all players to get involved and fight a few PB's now and then.

As I read some comments on the forum, there is alot of discussion about the game mechanics being unbalanced etc... I was just wondering if it might be a good idea towards the full release to have a Starter PvP server for EU and for USA (mind you I have no clue if this is financialy doable). My thought would be to limit a server up to a sertain level (lets say lieutenant commander, not higher), after completing this rank your account could be transferred to a standard PvP server (so it is not for nothing). Gold an ships included, but without the outposts. Because now when you are low to mid level you are actualy of no importance in the bigger picture of nation wars etc. As the PB are fought with high ranked players in high end ships. And all you can actualy do battlewise is just some PvP (but as we all know that has its own problems) and doing some missions. (Small Battles seem to be deserted). I am now lieutenant commander, and I think I would have liked this concept. When the game could draw in alot of new players, it might be a bit more motivating for them to keep playing this game. They could still choose not to join this server and start out on the main PvP servers. You would have players with PB experience to some level. If fewer new players join, you could still up the max level a bit until eventualy you have a new full PvP server. Any thoughts?

I know that is a way for groups to fight, but a friendly battle wouldn't make you lose or gain anything. One could "stage" a certain situation, or just two fiendly clans fighting a friendly match for fun. Your methode is less effective and will cause you to lose dura, or have a guy from an enemy clan observe your tactic etc... but indeed a way to do it right now. So its not a bad comment.

The first idea about needing to go to port to recrew your ship I like alot, as it seems logic that one could repair a ship at sea if needed. One could not just fish up some fresh crew. So going to port would give you a new crew. It would make port battles (with people defending the port in OW) a bit more tactical instead of just attacking people, until your dura or repair kits run out. Defenders might hold the advantage on this one, so I don't know if that is a good plan. The different types of Crew I like too, but it would have to be balanced out with the upgrades. I am not sure about the stats but an exceptional Powder Monkeys and Magazine Acces would give a big reload bonus. If one would add a gunner with say at its best equal value. One might get an unreal fire rate. A nice addition in more or less the same way you intended, and would also be somewhat realistic. Is now that we might start using allocated crew management. Is that a "guncrew" could gain experience calculated on the amount of hits they make. Or the sailingcrew better with every mile sailed in battle (easy to exploit), and the survivalcrew more experienced with every leak fixed, same for the boarding crew with every succefull boarding, etc. The experience is shipbound, as it would seem logical that a new ship would take time to learn all the above again (well not boarding, but oh well). You could have several levels, with all a small advantage. But it would need to take an absolute gigantic amount to increase all levels to max. So for people just grinding towards their ultimate ship would not bother doing a grind to get the max level, only players who stick to "their" favourite ship would in the end get a nice benefit. But I like your idea just as good... so +1.

Well everybody could do it, so everybody could benefit from it. You might get some friendly clan fights from clans in the same nation. Just all round a bit of fun, and just for once you are not constantly thinking about XP, gold and Dura.

In another topic I heard people complain about not being able to find a fair fight, because PvP seemed to end always in Ganking, don't realy know what this is but I assume it is engaging in a fight and one side just has friendlies join so you end up with 5 vs 1 so you are at a disadvantage. So for just a bit of fun amongst friends and friendlies, I thought it might be nice to just do a friendly battle with a friend or a couple of friends, can't gain gold, XP or lose Dura. Just you and your friend finaly setteling who is the best at this game, or testing out your new ship, or just testing some techiques as a clan. To make sure you can't use it as a technique to avoid attacks, you would have to be in a port, maybe not the same port. But all participating parties must be in a port. You could click friendly fight, add people from your friend list who can accept or ignore. And have a good battle... nothing to be lost or gained but expercience and a good bit of fun? What do you guys think?

Haven't done many missions, but the first lieutenant ones have given me these opponents: - 2 Pickles - 1 Snow - 1 Mercury - 1 Brig - 1 NavyBrig A lieutenant commander missions was (not sure): -1 Snow + 1 Brig

The NPC's, just like they do now would just give you a 1 dura ship, no gold.

Well, as much as I like realism, this would probably just result in less PvP action. And only big clans would be able to have a battle and lose some high end ships and buy/craft/cap themselves a new one every now and then. While the lone wolf players, who probably had to put alot of effort in buying/crafting/capping a ship will not engage in PvP and will probably be the first ones to get their ship capped by an enemy nation, as they are easy targets sailing alone most of the time.

I agree you lose a life, and that there is indeed nu duplicating. But you can duplicate the firepower. If an enemy clan sails 5 3rd rates, and you have 5 3rd rates as a pirate, you could produce a 25 ship fleet of 3rd rates all 1 dura. A serious advantage (that won't last long term) but might be good enough to gain a significant advantage. Don't think the current system is flawed, I would considered the above a bit more realistic, and at the same time more fair? I'm not totaly disagreeing with you....

I think alot of these smaller nations might cooperate better, while the bigger nations might have alot of players in bigger nations just aren't bothered with the nations wellbeing?

Hi, So I don't know if "Dura Farming" is considered something "Legal" or not, but as I saw in another post about people complaining about this I think I might have a solution. As to me it seems pirates being able to make a 5 ship 5 dura fleet into a 25 ship 1 dura fleet a bit extreme. I would suggest capping a ship that is above 1 dura will not give you the ship, but instead a gold reward of 1/5th of the ship (Based on basic NPC version price). So essentialy the value of 1 dura would be given to the one capping the ship. 1 Dura ships that are capped would be transferred to the capping player. So no ships get "duplicated". So capping 5 identical ships, would give you gold to buy 4/5th's of a new NPC ship and a 1 dura ship. So when you would add a bit of your cash you could buy a basic 5 dura ship like the one you capped. The guy getting his ship capped, just loses one dura or his ship when his ship only has one dura left. Pro's: No more unrealistic ship multiplying by pirates or others. Still a comparable reward Somewhat more realistic, as a capped ship would probably come under nations command and not the captain, who would probably get just the honour and some gold for doing it. It keeps people encouraged to keep doing PvP Cons: Would put more pressure on the resource market as more ships will need to be produced. Not as satisfying as capping a guys ship and being able to sail it straight away. Don't know if this is a con or a pro, but outposts would not be filled with capped ships as much. For AI ships and trader ships I would keep it as it is, you get the ship you capped. No need to multiply traders i guess. I hope I didn't miss a big flaw in this system... What do you guys think?

I don't mind the grind realy, if it would have a bit more variety it would be nice, some different mission types, 1 - 2 extra ships per class. Now that the prices of snow's etc... have dropped alot, i take a bit more risk in my snow. I think the XP trade will cause exploits, and would be unfair towards players that are not in a clan or don't have a high tier friend. They might just add a bit of spice to the grinding, so it has a bit of diversity to not make it feel like a grind. Like in Dayz you have high tier loot everybody wants, but there is alot of fun to be had with the many lower tier stuff, you don't mind the long hours you put in to get what you want to have. And don't even mind doing it all again when you die...

Make people put down 1k to buy a lisence to take down the guy, this gold could be added to the bounty. Resulting in even higher bounty pay out, bit like a lottery...

Good idea, but once they are killed the bounty needs to be removed, otherwise they could just continiously attack the guy for the bounty. Or the bounty is put only on the top 20 players of that day, the bounty is only for one destroy or cap, and the top 20 changes each day.

Well, this is not arma 3 now is it. I have read about people luring other people in a battle, teammates joining the game, not a fair fight. People using invisibility to sneak up on you, etc.. Just a situation that is not realy a fair fight, you could open up a bounty contract. I think nobody in a cutter or snow will start a contract, as they don't have the money, but some high tier players who just lost one durability on one of their nicely crafted ships might want some revenge. Lets say someone puts up a 50k contract, some nice clans might be intrested and make it a group effort. Don't know if this would work well, but its just a suggestion right...

I was thinking about a system of putting a bounty on someone's head. The way I thought of it is like this: Lets say you get attacked by a player that is better than you, and he plays his game dirty, and your ship gets destroyed or captured, and you are kinda angry about what happened. So you could either track him down yourself and try to regain your honour or put a bounty on this players head. So at the end of the battle you lost you could choose to open a bounty contract against this player, lets say you need to put a minimum of 10k gold in the contract from your own money. The contract gets prompted at your capital, and players get the opportunity to purchase this contract for 1/10th of the price. Like selling ships, the contract is only available for a limited time. The player doing the purchase gets the info on the location and what ship he used in the battle, he could use the info to try and find the player. Upon destroying or capturing his ship, the guy would get the money and the guy who opened the contract gets a message the work is done. I think this would probably be used most by higher tier players against other high tier players, you could only do this after you got attacked by someone so you can't randomly put a bounty on someone. It might be a nice change of pace compared to the missions, and the possible high reward might make it worth a hunt together with some friends. By asking a minimum amount of money, you would prevent people just spamming bounty contracts after each battle, and by asking money to buy the contracts people will think twice before buying a bounty contract. I would enjoy hunting someone down for a bit of gold....What do you guys think?

Don't be harsh now, the only people missing out on good fun are the people not playing this game...

I would just add a sandbox part, where you could choose a ship that is ingame. Arm it with whatever you want, so you kinda get a feel for a ship before buying one or just so you have at least once fired a full broadside from a victory or a santissima. Can't add upgrades, just empty sea no land nobody else, maybe some AI targets or something you could do on demand. It would kinda keep people motivated to play the game until they can finaly get that ship they want. I would love this, so you could test some tactics you wouldn't try when in a bought ship because you wouldn't want to lose durability.

I know nothing about port battles at this moment. But lets say you are "stationed" in the port, so you were in the port when you logged out. Most realistic scenario would be that you would fight to defend the port when it would be attacked (in real life). So (again I know nothing about port battles) but couldn't the dev's make it this way that your ship (under AI control) would help defend the port? So in the exceptional case the AI would win the battle, you would still have your ship? I don't know how this works right now, but for Port Battles. If I would be in a clan on a server, and I would agree with my mates we would attack an important port when the population is at its lowest (when most of us are at work or asleep) and resistanse would be lowest, this mechanic might make this impredicatble as with alot of players logged out it could make a large AI fleet. Don't bash me if I got all of the above wrong, I played Stronghold Kingdoms several years ago, and people would actualy get up at night to cap some stuff...