Musuko42

Firstly, no. I'm part of a clan and work as a team, because I choose to. In any case, what I do personally in the game is not being discussed here. Secondly, don't be pathetic. You know full well I'm saying nothing of the sort. Thirdly, fighting the enemy at all times is the CORRECT way to play the game as it currently stands, as there is no peace mechanic, so the people who choose to do this are only "ruining" the gameplay for people who are themselves misusing the game. RNoN and DRUNK have a much more valid argument for complaining that the Council and their metagaming peace treaties are ruining THEIR game.

I'm sorry, where does it say when you sign into the game that you must work as a team? Green-on-green is disallowed, but co-operation is by no means mandatory. Why are you demanding that other players obey rules that you made up? What on earth is wrong with you people?

Because they/you don't have to if they don't want to, and the people who try to pressure them into doing it are the ones in the wrong. Nobody gets to dictate how anyone else chooses to play their game, provided they're within the rules (which these people are). And it really baffles me that some people are too wrapped up in their Napoleon complexes to see that.

As I've said before; the people who are making the peace deals are the ones who are not playing the game properly, as the current state of the game is that all factions are at war with each-other. You can't moan about clans who are playing the game correctly; fighting the enemy. Until there is a peace mechanic built into the game, you don't have a leg to stand on.

As far as I'm aware, in the game all factions are at war with every other faction. Your "peace treaties" are the exploit and the improper way of playing. Their fighting of the war is the correct way of playing to the current game mechanics.

What the hell is wrong with some people? Clans are OPTIONAL in this game, and anyone who joins one clan is under no obligation whatsoever to obey the demands of any other clan.

I call my Trincomalee "Lily the Trinc". It's most efficacious.

Ah, gotcha. I'm no server tech, so I'll have to take their word for it.

By "player-controlled", I don't mean players actually sailing them personally. I mean that AI traders are created and commanded by players. They'd still be AI pawns, but directed by players and not by the AI. Right now, the AI says "this trader lynx will sail from here to there, back and forth". All that would be changing is that wouldn't happen until a player orders it to happen.

My thoughts on what I would like to see: Crafting. I'm just going to come right out and say it: labour hours stink. I can understand the idea behind the mechanic; to prevent powergamers from grinding 24/7 and dominating the ship-building aspect of the game. The problem is, the game as it stands actively forces you away from it when you're a crafter; it makes you close the game and leave it for days at a time while the hours refresh. There is also little gameplay involved in the process; gameplay is all about making choices, and there aren't many engaging choices involved in crafting. Who has heard of the old adage; "Cheap, fast, good; pick two"? What if this choice were incorporated into the game? Want to build a ship fast and cheaply? Well, it'll be a weak, crappy ship. Want a good ship, fast? Well, it'll cost you! Got time to wait? In that case, you can have a good ship for cheap...eventually. My proposal for crafting is this; scrap labour hours, and replace it instead with something that any player of other economy/resource games will recognise; timers, building-based production, hiring and firing of staff, tools and equipment, and choices, choices, choices! You build a shipyard. You buy tools and machinery for the shipyard; you can buy high-quality, improving the quality or speed of the production, depending on what choices you make later. Or, you can buy cheap and dirty stuff and get what you pay for. You hire shipwrights. Do you choose the cheap, inexperienced men, who'll perform poorly, but will gain experience later? Or pay top-dollar for the grizzled old veteran with skilled fingers and a sharp, honed mind? You pay those shipwrights, and you choose how much to pay them. Maybe you even supply them with rum. The happier they are, the better they work. You feed supplies and money to the shipyard and set them building a ship. You get to set your priority, within the bounds of the quality of tools/machinery/staff: quick, cheap, good. The shipyard then starts a timer, and the ship is completed when the timer runs down. You can do things to change the length of this timer, but you'll still have a minimum length of time to wait, preserving the intention of labour hours, but now involving lots of gameplay choices and tactical decisions. Now, extend that idea further down the supply chain. Build woodworking workshops, blacksmiths, foundries, for making the ship-building materials, all with the same mechanics; buy machinery, buy tools, hire staff, pay them, all affecting the quality, speed, and cost of the materials you produce. Take it further; your mines and forests work the same way, affecting speed and quantity of production. Why would you have different qualities of materials? Well... Abolish crafting notes. Honestly, they're a bit of a clunky mechanism. Instead, why not have the quality of the ship be determined by the quality of the parts that it's made of, and by the result of the cheap/quick/good decisions made in its production? Why not even take it further; divide the ship into different sections and allow each section to differ in quality? Build a ship with super-high-quality canvas and rigging, but shoddy planking and frame parts? Then you'll have a leaky, poorly-armoured tub with brilliantly-fast sail-handling. Build a high-quality ship, but skimp on the carriages? Then you might have a gold-quality ship in all areas, but with a fatal flaw; the cannons tend to break their carriages too often. Potential areas: masts sails rigging armour frame pump carriages rudder Trade ships. Abolish AI traders. At least, as they stand anyway. Replace them with player-driven AI traders. Got one port with a foundry smelting iron, and another port with an iron-ore mine? Want to get the ore from one port to the other? Buy/capture/build a trader ship, hire a crew, give the ship orders to sail back and forth between the two ports to transport the ore, setting certain criteria for when they sail; fill the hold, or sail when they have a specified amount of ore. Choices, choices! Your traders might be captured by the enemy. They might be sunk. You'll have to be careful where you let them sail. Perhaps you can also have AI warships escorting them. The importance of safe areas of the map will be increased. And, if the goods are captured, they remain in the economy, and we don't have the artificial inflation of AI trader goods coming out of thin air when one is captured. But what if they do get captured or sunk? Well... Insurance. Durability seems so artificial. In the real world, sunken ships aren't magically recovered from Davy Jones' Locker to be reused over and over. In the real world, ships and their cargo are insured...if you want them to be. Allow captains to purchase insurance policies on their ships. Offer a range of policies; more expensive ones pay out a greater percentage of the ship's value. Some will even offer an immediate like-for-like replacement. Some might cover the upgrades too. Some will cover the cargo, some not. Choices, choices, choices! Pirates. Should not be a faction. Pirates forging a large empire of ports is just plain silly. They should be an "exile" faction for lone-wolves. No ports, no port battles, no buildings. Consider them "factionless neutrals". But... Pirates can fly a false flag to pretend to be a friendly player, before springing a surprise attack, or to use one of that faction's ports. Pirates can attack ports to raid them, gaining loot and damaging the buildings in the port. Pirates can bury treasure; hide stashes of cargo on otherwise empty stretches of beach (x marks the spot). They have access to upgrades and ships that the regular factions don't have, helping them to specialise in hit-and-run attacks and boarding. Pirates can support larger AI support fleets. In essence, they could offer a very different gameplay style. Teleports. Remove the "teleport to capital" function in the open world. It's so easy to abuse; take your trader to distant ports, load it up with goods, teleport to the capital and sell it all for a huge markup, wait for the timer to reset, outpost-teleport back out to the distant ports, rinse and repeat. That doesn't seem like intended gameplay to me. Keep the outpost-teleport (teleporting without your ship), but make it available at any friendly port, not just the ones where you have an outpost, and remove the timer for it; make it cost money instead, as if you're booking passage as a passenger onboard someone else's ship. The greater the distance, the greater the fee. A possible option for this approach is to not have all routes available at any given time, reflecting the fact that the ships in port might not be going exactly where you want to go. You might need to wait a while for one that's going exactly where you need it, or you might need to make a few stops along the way. Port battles. Remove the flag mechanic. It's just silly. No national ruler ever said "call back the huge assault fleet, because one ship got sunk!" Instead, when a "flag" (or decree?) is purchased, it then sets a 24 hour timer, and creates an open battle outside that port. For the next 24 hours, anyone of the appropriate factions can jump in and out of that battle, and the damage done to either side is tallied. AI ships can be included, so that nobody is left sailing around in circles with nothing to do. As can forts/towers (which won't die so easily). Once the 24 hours is up, the faction that has done the most damage wins the port. No port timer complaints, and everyone from every timezone has a chance to participate. Port defences. Have players craft and construct towers, forts, and AI defence ships, rather than providing them automatically. They would be a collective project in the port, that anyone visiting can donate money/resources/ships to. Factions will then be able to prioritise which ports they want to invest in defending. Importantly, these defences will require regular funding to keep them functioning. If neglected, they will gradually decay in effectiveness. And, of course, the higher level defence buildings and ships will cost more money.

We've already divided up into smaller clans anyway. More nations would give the potential for individual clans to be nations. Plus, if every new player starts as "neutral" and then needs to be invited into a clan/nation by the existing leaders, that could be interesting.

Dear Lobogris, His Majesty has received your letter and wishes to convey his dismay at your treatment of his mother tongue. He advises that you do to our language the same thing he intends you to do with our ports; leave it alone and never befoul it with your touch again. Yours sincerely, Post Captain Musuko of his Britannic Majesty's Royal Navy.

For the third time of asking, Lord Vicious; are any British players defending the ports you're taking?

Vicious, you didn't answer me last time; have any British players been contesting the ports you've been taking?

Have Brit players been defending the Gulf ports you've been taking?

Thank you for clarifying. My original opinion stands then.

An unlocked door does not excuse the thief who walks through it to steal, and faulty mechanics in an early-access game do not excuse players who exploit them.

So they CAN fight each-other? Apologies to everyone if my language choice was confusing; by "green-on-green" I mean "attacking/fighting other members of your faction".

Ah, I was not aware that it had changed. So pirates cannot initiate battles with other pirates now? If that's the case, then my opinion is the same as it would be with any other faction, then; this is green-on-green in intent, and therefore shouldn't be allowed.

Pirates don't make things! They don't build! They don't craft! And they certainly don't have a nation. They steal! Capturing ships, looting, plundering, these should be the things that pirates do.

I was under the impression that pirates are able to attack and fight each-other. Am I in error? I like that proposal!

Buying a flag with no intention of sailing it to the port for the purpose of misleading the enemy is generally accepted gameplay and, more importantly (in my own opinion, and hopefully others'), fun; it's part of the tactical dance of misdirection and planning. But this is different. This is buying a flag with no intention of sailing it to the port for the purpose of interrupting the plans of players on your own team. But... And this is a big but... The pirate faction is unlike other factions, in that it expressly allows members to fight with each-other. And that complicates things. Were this any other faction, this would be an easy case of green-on-green, which isn't allowed. But it's not. It's pirates, where green-on-green is allowed and expected. So, honestly, I can only really say this; what did you expect? If you want faction solidarity, don't be a pirate. And whenever another pirate screws you over, remember these words:

That's actually better than my suggestion. It'd have to not count green-on-green damage, though, to stop two trolling players joining and just denting eachother with a cannon shot every nine minutes.

I've suggested before; there should be two timers in battles. The first is the one we have now, which gives you the option to leave. The second should be a longer timer (10 minutes perhaps) that FORCES you to leave if you've not been tagged or tagged someone else.

Thanks!