John Cavanaugh

Build, steal, or buy. Build - non option for large majority of players who don’t have access to these now dramatically powerful crafting ports, nor access to rare woods which are dominated by the same powerful few clans( thankfully Admin made a statement that costs of rare woods will go down, hopefully then we’ll see them re enter the market to a degree) Steal - I count myself as a competent player and sail almost exclusively solo. I cap a fair few ships, which does offset my crafting needs. I have yet to capture a gold ship. Why? Because most people sailing those rare vessels either do so in a group (making it very difficult to Capture one of them when solo, though I’ve sunk a few) or are themselves confident enough in their abilities to defend their ships in a 1v1. As many, many people have pointed out, if you don’t want to be boarded, it can be quite easy to deny the boarding all together, and with the addition of broadsides during a boarding, for me to dismast and board a skilled player sailing a Teak/white high quality ship, me in one of my low quality cedar/cedar trincs, my hull is going to be shredded, and frequently I have been finished off or forced to disengage and flee during a boarding I might otherwise have won. Add in the myriad port bonuses, and will this entrench what I anecdotally find to be the common trend, or reverse it? I think we can all answer that quite easily. Buy - you can’t find Teak for sale these days, very rarely Teak/Teak or Teak/white ships, and never t/t t/w ships of high quality. They are hoarded or traded for ships of similar quality, creating an economy of quality vessels which most players cannot access. You propose that being active will result in being given these exceptionally potent ships? I’ve given away ships - to new players, to friends, and to people who lost ships due to my own failures in a battle. I’ve never given away a gold ship, and only once or twice a purple. Nor has anyone given me a free ship outside of old clan mates. If this is the norm as you see it, I’d love a free gold USSUS

What several people have pointed out in this thread is the problem of a gear gap. Powerful clans gain access to crafting modifiers, rare woods, etc which boost the performance of their vessels above that which can be produced by smaller, rival clans or solo players. In this scenario, were the smaller clans/solos to form up into a single fleet and attempt to fight the entrenched powerful clans, they suffer several drawbacks from the very outset - 1) Inferior woods 2) inferior or lack entirely of crafting trims 3) slower logistical apparatus (anyone not using a centralized Investment based crafting hub will still have to move resources, leaving them open to disruption, compared to their enemy who suffers no such vulnerability) and that's all without taking into account individual player's skill gaps, and the problems involved in turning a collection of players into anything resembling an actual cohesive fleet. This system as implemented CAN work, but tweaking is absolutely necessary. Rare woods were already a decisive factor in determining a single ship's effectiveness. Under the current economical system they are almost never available for purchase - they are so exceptionally rare and valuable that almost no one is willing to sell what limited supplies they have. Compounding this will be the crafting hub system - those same powerful clans will control effective crafting. This may be less of an issue if it is simply a port modifier to the ship, and does not require an investment into the crafting of the ship each time it is used (e.g. an additional doubloon cost for each individual ship, in addition to the initial port set up cost), as it might create a situation in which people are willing to buy ships from that port. However, In connection with the problem of rare woods being bottlenecked by the extortionate doubloons cost and unavailability, it will inevitably lead to a situation where powerful clans have reserves of ships of drastically superior woods and drastically superior trims compared to the rest of the population, which will make any offensive action against their monopolized holdings doomed to failure. The problem is not that clans might become strong, nor that RVR clans might get nice things as a result of their engagement in RVR. The problem is that the stage has been set for this to escalate to an absurd degree, with any coalition of small clans having a slim chance of effectively uprooting them. The solution as I see it is to either make the mid-tier woods less rare (Mahogany, Sabicu, Cagurian) so that there can be again some degree of variance in the crafting of smaller clans and solos. Keeping Teak, Live Oak, and White Oak to only a handful of ports is perfectly reasonable given the goal of making them rare, but for those clans and players who do not have access to them, it should be reasonable that they have access to the mid-tier woods. To this effect I would propose keeping the number of teak/live oak/white oak ports as it is, but greatly increasing the number of mid-tier wood ports. Secondly, the doubloon cost is far too high. I base this assertion on the fact that you can scour the shops in game and you will find little to no rare woods for sale. As of my last check, with all of my alts, I was only able to find a grand total of 900 sabicu logs for sale, at a price of over 1200 reales per log. Compare this to rare(RNG) books, permits, etc. You can find them for sale in multiple ports, and asking to buy them in global chat almost always gets results. The only resource in the game for which this is not the case is rare woods, which have an incredibly high demand, and no sellers. Even unique items like Edinorog guns can be found for sale, but not one handful of white oak logs. Doubloon costs should be slashed across the board. when the delivery cost of these woods goes down, they will become an item more readily used to turn a profit in the market, as opposed to being so precious that parting with even a small quantity is unthinkable. If rare woods, or at least mid tier woods, are at least available on the open market, those small clans can stand a chance in a contested port battle against the entrenched powerful clans. Be a lad, make an economy that works

but you still would never run a full live oak fleet whether it is the old pump stacking meta, thickness tanked aggies, or shallow Merc carro fleets, there will always be a meta which forces a meta answer

they would have to play around with the median woods - mahogany/sabicu/cag, etc, and then with costs. nobody will pay 50,000 doubloons (at current drop rates) for 1 centimeter of thickness on a belle poule. if doubloon costs are reduced, and they must be - currently market is so broken that buy contracts are never touched and rare woods are never sold (i find only Sabicu occasionally for 1200+ a log) - then market might recover enough that a proliferation of different wood types might function again. right now I am worried less about percentage points for woods and more about this economy getting fixed again. on a side note, even with cost being a factor, assuming there is now a 10% thickness trim which can be added, would you not swallow the costs involved to field a fleet pood 3rd rates with 90cm+ thickness?

You and I both know that even if difference in thickness between Oak/Oak and Teak/White oak is reduced from 10% to 5%, anyone who can will still go with the better wood and will be justified in doing so. As true in combat as it is in bed, Harder and faster is always better than soft and slow

are you in the spanish clan ROT?

It does not cap at 20%, if it did you would gain no benefit on a Lo/Wo ship from Naval Structure (which is percentage based compared to cartagena/naval planking) i believe the cap for most things is at 30%, which will still make Teak/White and Live/White the desired builds. As far as comparison to stock ships, nobody uses stock ships in any competitive manner, even SALTY back in ye olden tymes only used them as fireships and gank boarders. Now, If the devs confirm that there is a +10% thickness trim which can be added through this investment system (I think this is probably an error in the original post and refers instead to the armor HP of Very Sturdy) this will have the problem of greatly exacerbating the growing divide between small clans/casuals/solo players and big clans. small clans, casuals, and solo players will still be stuck sailing Oak/Oak ships with no or random trim (+0% Thickness), and large clans who can control access to rare woods and who can afford these investments will be sailing Teak/White oak/thickness trim (+20% thickness) before taking into account mods. this is not a good situation, woods simply matter too much in the creation of a usable hull, and they are far too inaccessible for a large portion of the community. this crafting system will make it worse not better.

I edited my previous post. But yes, this also has the problem of top clans having access to Teak/White oak + port trim 10% thickness +6 Navy Planking. tanky as or tankier than live oak and with all the benefits of speed. Dont worry, there are no problems here, and the devs have not dug themselves into a massively deep hole.

so long as people have access to teak/white oak DLC ships, that will remain a pipe dream Edit: The difference between Oak/Oak and Teak/White oak is 10% thickness and 2% speed (+ sundry less important modifiers). Admin's references to bonuses are, unless I am remembering incorrectly, based on a prior statement that under this system crafting would remove RNG trim, and allow that trim to be applied by the crafter. Would you argue under the current system that an Oak/Oak/Very Fast, or Oak/Oak/Very Sturdy bellona has much of a chance against a Teak/White no trim bellona?

No more for kills/assists? that is a large source of combat marks being removed, but since the permits costs in CMs was reduced (in case of bucentaure from 50 to 20) and removed in other cases, probably it is for the best, or CMs might have their value/rarity bottom out. Any comment on re balancing rare woods, or the availability of rare woods in DLC?

I prefer testicular cancer rather than AIDs.

Care to elaborate on how you come to this conclusion? Speaking as someone who has alts in several nations, I cannot purchase teak, white oak, live oak in any national capitol to which I have access, nor in any free port. attempts to purchase these rare woods through chat have been failures outside of a Single purchase of only 500 logs. I have amassed more teak through redeeming and breaking down DLC ships than through any other means. I have watched people sitting in capitol protection zones farming AI traders for woods, as this is the only option remaining for many people. Sabicu and Mahogany, once the accepted budget woods, are fetching prices in excess of 1000 reals per log on the rare occasion that they appear on the market - put up for sale by those same people I have watched farming AI traders. No problem with woods? even under the Fine woods patch, fine woods were at least nominally available for purchase on the open market within days of their addition. we are weeks into this new economy and still nothing available for the vast majority of players. If you are to argue for a trickle down system for these woods, wherein the powerful clans sell off their excess, demonstrate it, then tell me how it's not a problem. Currently there exists no market for these woods. Those who have access have a strangle hold, and the doubloon bottlenecking on these woods has resulted in an inflation of value to the point at which there is no reason to sell. When you have universally high demand and NOBODY able or willing to address the market with sales, there is a problem. I would prefer a market in which those in control of Teak were selling it by contract for 10,000 reals a log, rather than one in which there are no sales whatsoever.

Snow vs Ratt. Got crew down to 150 but not lower. DD is a bitch

This is more true now than during the last damage model, but as always the key when playing a long fitted kiting ship is to split damage. If they rep sails focus hull, if they rep hull focus masts. The ability to deal nearly full structure damage through bow and stern is a boon to long guns though. If anything should be tweaked on the damage model, it is problem of not being able to reduce the last bar of structure through raking. There have been times I’ve been sat on the stern of a larger ship, and simply been unable to finish the fight due to that problem

And what about rare woods? If DLCs are limited to common woods for choices I have no problem with current state of things, but as it stands the DLC are too powerful within their effect on the economy. It isn’t just that people CAN choose to step out of the shipbuilding economy, it’s that the DLC option is BETTER than what most people can build with woods this rare