John Cavanaugh

I'm pissed off about being mislead by developers, intentional or otherwise. About a game i've spent years in being released in an unfinished state that will probably leave it stillborn. t. - solo freeporter who hello kittys about in a privateer all day.

In regards to leveling up through pvp, sure. if you're quite competent, can get fights quickly, and can (here's the big one) afford the costs that come with outfitting new ships quite frequently. I spend a lot of time in the Help chat, one of the big questions new players ask frequently is how to find a fight. most people dont count among this getting farmed by experienced players. pvp is expensive until you learn how to escape fights you cant win, new players can rarely afford that. make low-reward missions easily obtainable (1 or 2 stars, single ship of equal rate or 2 ships of lower rate) to offset the lack of enemy AI around starter ports - when new players go out to find a fight, they want to get their toes wet before diving in head first. it's that initial hurdle that annoys many.

Years of watching Futurama have taught me that when the Professor says good news, I know something is going tits up. please at least leave the testbed paint chests on a redeemable timer through the great wipes.

I did. Smuggling coal from Pitts Town to KPR, losing trader snows to Pagan Pete or Xemco, hiding behind baracoa waiting for someone to say in nation that they were attacked and using that as a chance to sprint to safety. It was a lot of fun in those early days - trade routes were entirely player driven. The key problem with that specifically is production buildings and trade goods that have no value other than minting money from the AI. Delivery missions might provide something like this, though unlikely. The subject of trade has no easy answer. In so far as providing a baseline for content - location dependent missions. What if 10k north of Atwood there was always a mission available which allowed up to 6 5th rates to join, and contained 2 3rd rates, 4 5th rates, and an Indiaman which had a 30% chance of dropping Instructions aux, or something of similar value. Rather than having players scattered around the map farming Ai fleets for drops, they would congregate around specific locations to fight loosely scripted events for a good chance at a book or module they want. Content for casual or pve players, fighting the mission. Content for pvp players, intercepting groups headed to those locations. Reduction in rarity of rare books combats inflation, and provides Reasonable access for casual or new players.

Increasing gun dispersion as elevation increases would also help with that, or 75 - 100m center mast sniping will still be very viable if as Admin says those hp and thickness values are reduced. More difficult to make a ship dead in the water, but still crippling.

I should be more specific. In your instance of the video provided, both ships were at that point on the verge of sinking. This is why I say an adjustment to thickness and structural HP. Things are under the current state of the patch far too heavily weighted in the one direction, but once brought back under consideration a portion of the increase to crew damage should remain. Please also refer to the points at which crew casualties were suffered Most severely - the rake, and when armor already was broken. We should be wary of grape becoming obsolete, but these specific hot spots of crew damage are good, if in need of tuning.

I’m yugely relieved to see the Devs explicitly working with regard to the “mental model,” Frictional would be proud. A massive broadside weight should indeed devastate smaller vessels, however I do agree with @Teutonic above. An increase to thickness of ships in general, a general increase to structural HP, and an increase to crew casualties from splinter damage. A ship sinking from gun fire should be not quite so quick, but in place of that a ship’s crew should be have its morale broken by the great casualties inflicted by such overwhelming firepower. A general increase to crew damage from splinters while making sinking a bit slower might (possibly) address an issue often raised by @Licinio Chiavari regarding the fact that boarding actions are far less viable between equally weighted vessels, as raking is less of an option than with smaller ships.

Should have been 15, typo. Point is that Requin’s only advantage over prince or privateer is crew number, but that’s an advantage that is insurmountable for the majority of players because so few run with any precautions against boarding or for boarding smaller ships. People put all their eggs in one basket.

Keep names hidden and add a Hail feature. Player A spots player B. A clicks Hail option, B gets a pop up with A’s name, clan, and rank. B has option in pop up to respond or decline. Problem solved.

The changes to the in - battle compass are sometimes confusing, due to the more curved yard icons. when manual sailing it is sometimes difficult to determine from the compass when a yard is positioned correctly due to the overlap of the yards and more rounded shape. The icons for Repair, Sailing, Gunnery, etc. I did not find confusing due to familiarity with/expectations of what should be where, but a new player may have difficulty with this. perhaps a hammer icon instead of a nail for repair, a ships wheel instead of a canvas sheet for sailing, a cannon icon similar to that used for mediums of the pood edinorogs for gunnery. the grappling hook icon for boarding is excellent IMO.

This is a facile argument. They are no longer convertible from doubloons, and the abundance of them in player possession is due to previous ease of access. Still there are players, myself as example, who have none. One might as well argue that there is no longer a need for white oak or Teak, on the basis that some people have enormous stockpiles. Economy tuning is always slow to have a noticeable effect outside of predictions.

What if, for the sake of argument, and this is probably not the best part of the forum but it is on topic to subject at hand, a group of SOL and one privateer with 12lb caronade tagged an AI fleet. The SOLs were tasked with boarding the SOLs while the privateer dealt hull damage. The privateer would in most instances get the kill at minimal risk. An exploit yes but not outside of the rules such as they exist

Ghost of ships ganked in past returns to haunt who sank them 😧

Yesterday I want down to Jamaica in a prince, wound up boarding and swapping to a ship I had badly damaged, and was sunk in that ship. I wound up getting the kill on myself. Probably supports the theory

I might then recommend eliminating either resource production or trading. I for example do not trade, so most of my time in game is spent in a prince or Requin. My income is exclusively through the sale of modules and ships taken near trade hubs, which is enough to comfortably support my little crafting. If you focus on trading and choose to buy your resources, I can recommend a trade route very profitable which I no longer use.