Kiithnaras

The goal of this is to give greater purpose to Wars (other than just blocking alliances) and to give Pirates a different feel from other nations. My initial thoughts revolve around altering the default Enemy state to a more Neutral state, changing the dynamic of the political climate and increasing the importance of Wars. Neutrality would be the default state of any two nations. Alliances act as presently, mutually determined by voting. War status is treated as a mutual state even though the declaration is not necessarily. Neutral Status - Default state of not allied and neither nation declared war on the other. Pirates consider themselves neutral to Nations, usually: Can enter each others' ports freely without using a smuggler flag (cannot enter within 30 minutes of hostile action to target nation). Cannot construct outposts or craft in each others' ports (existing outposts and structures remain) - Would reverse position if outpost teleports receive a cooldown (again) or go away entirely (still no crafting). Can join either side in a battle as long as they are not allied with/belong to the opposing side or at war with the side they intend on joining. Can freely engage on the OW. Can freely assault each others' ports. War Status - Occurs for both nations when either decides to declare war. Nations consider themselves at War with Pirates: Cannot enter each others' ports without a smuggler flag Gains/Reduces Hostility 20-50% faster Allied Status has no change from present mechanics (Allied ports and fleets essentially treated like own nation ports and fleets). Pirates: Cannot ally with any nation Are treated as being at War by every Nation. ^ Cannot enter Nation ports without Smuggler status ^ Nations receive Hostility gains/reduction against pirates. Pirates must declare war on specific nations to match these gains. Consider themselves Neutral to Nations otherwise ^ Can join either side in any battle unless they've declared war on the side they intend on joining or the opposing side are Pirates. Both alliances and wars should be able to be refreshed during any voting period except the period initially following their signing (presently, alliances and wars must expire and revert to Neutral for one voting period before able to be re-signed. Very silly). Additionally, any two nations at War can, following the initial war-signing period, declare Peace by mutually voting for Alliance with each other. This sacrifices the ability for either nation to create a new alliance during that voting period, and it will not create an alliance between the two but end the current War and return them to Neutral status. I'm on the fence as to whether Alliances can be broken in the reverse of this manner as War declarations only require one voting nation. Perhaps an alliance could be terminated if both parties mutually vote to terminate it. This system would go hand in hand with the fort gun mechanics I proposed over here Dems muh thoughts, thought Ah'd share! Cheerio!

Ah, the Gripe Thread. Thanks for starting this, Admin. 1) Teleport Mechanics. Not fun because whole fleets can appear out of literally nowhere & breaks immersion. 2) Crafting Notes. Not fun due to huge labor hour investment for relatively small return. 3) UI sliders. Not fun due to difficulty of assigning desired numerical value (even with mousewheel fine adjustment). I specifically cited things that I do not have information on being addressed in the near future. Current PBs are also kinda butts, but they're being worked on. I'm all for the capture circles and land-based fort guns and hostility mechanics at the moment. Because I was taught to never gripe about something unless I had a potential solution - How would I fix the above: 1) Basic Cutters receive a 150% speed buff on the OW provided the ship is not within sight of any other ship or port. Capitol teleports remain as-is, inter-outpost teles go away or have a 1-hr cooldown. 2) No more crafting notes. Use coins directly in crafting at a scaling rate, providing diminishing returns for applied labor hours and materials. Rates: Common 1x, Fine 3x, MC 6x, Excep 10x. Modules would require 1/4th the coins that a ship would of the same quality. MC and Exceptional builds might require further additional materials, also. 3) Just add a number box, for pete's sake! Seriously, Pete lost his leg last week due to the ruttin' sliders, and they're threatening to take his other one!

Really like this as an alternative to the current options between single-shot ranging fire and full broadsides. I'd be comfortable keeping the ranging fire delay if this proposed method of operation would not have any cooldown (the next zone would start firing as soon as the player clicks). Maybe call this mode Sectional Broadside or something To really be effective, each ship would need to have their fire zones mapped, though, and it would need a little more work on the dev end of things, especially with heavily-armed ships like the Vic and Santi. The main reason for this is ships like the Surprise and Trinc whose weather decks are not continuous, but separated into fore and aft sections. Middle section gun decks would not have weather deck guns associated, so it wouldn't be as simple as just pairing from front to back on all decks. Ships like the Renommee would even start its sectional broadside with only gundecks, ending with its two weather deck guns with the last section.

I will agree to this one, with a caveat - give the player the option in the post-battle screen. Nearest Outpost or Nearest [enterable] Port.

Definitely a no on this one. The one exception would be a modification to the existing Gunboat - that rear carronade really should be able to traverse around a lot further...but then again, it isn't in a gun port (it's literally on a rotating carriage).

Regarding the fort guns and towers, my initial thoughts on how they should work is this, in order of preference: Forts will always defend themselves if shot at. Forts will always fire on war-declared nations, regardless of side Forts not owned by pirates will always fire on pirates (treated as perpetually "at war") Forts owned by pirates will always assist pirates whether defender or aggressor. Forts will never defend a smuggler. Forts will always defend a member of their nation or allied nation Example 1: A pirate attacks a French Smuggler within range of British guns. British are currently neutral to France. The fort guns will fire only on the pirate. Even though it's a smuggler being attacked, the attacker is a Pirate and takes preference. Example 2: As above, but the British have declared war on France. The fort guns will now fire on both sides of the conflict. Example 3: A US ship has intercepted a Pirate Smuggler within range of US forts. Fort guns will assist and fire on the pirate smuggler because he is first considered a pirate. The smuggler designation is ignored. Example 4: As above, but within range of Pirate forts. These guns will now help the smuggler in defending because he is a pirate. His status as a smuggler is irrelevant in this conflict Example 5: A US ship intercepts a Spanish Smuggler within range of Spanish forts. US and Spain are neutral. The forts here will stay quiet as neither party is at war or a pirate, and the defender is a smuggler. Even in the reverse case, if the smuggler counter-tags the US ship to be the "attacker", the guns will still remain quiet as the nations are neutral and the smuggler is not the "defender"

That is correct at present. The thought process of the devs is to see if 1-dur ships are viable as a gross mechanic. Generally, I would say that if NA transitioned to a 1-dur only mechanic, ships should be less material-intensive and labor-intensive to produce, and dockyards would need to at least be doubled in size.

With this clarification...I...am oddly okay with this. I approve this position and look forward to how it changes the dynamic in the game. +1

Summary - Loving the new PB initiation mechanics with a few proposed additions. New ROE is...different and will be...exciting, at first. Concerns with missions regarding their open state and desire the ability to have non-hostility "traditional" search-and-destroy missions for helping lowbies level up. Would encourage a gentle hand with upgrades, though liking the initial ideas with improved shipbuilding stats - just concerned with exactly what is required for Exceptional builds... Being able to break down upgrades for parts is a good idea, but a better one to go with it would be getting blueprints from breaking up the upgrades! Would prefer being able to have battle position roughly translate to OW position on battle exit instead of battle-exit invisibility.

Mostly agree. Some should be port-produced in specific regions, but anything that can be manufactured should be able to be. Stuff like Powder Monkeys or the various Books should be reliably-produced in certain ports at random (better = rarer) qualities.

Yer shtole mah ideeur! ; ) http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/15506-another-approach-to-officers/#entry288752 Still, I really like this idea. Options are important for engaging gameplay.

I had a little different idea. Individual officers function as-is. Every 3 player ranks, you should be able to recruit another officer (Max of 4 at rank 9) and order your officers by "rank" on your ship. Each officer gives diminishing returns on perks, though, and some perks do not stack but overlap, and some perks that overlap will always provide their full benefit. First officers provide full benefit, Second officers half, third officers one-third, and fourth officers only a quarter. The advantage of the multiple officer system is that each officer would gain XP at the same rate - useful for training up younger officers for different roles. Additionally, the officers a player can have are the maximum active officers. Officers can be sent on shore leave if they aren't useful, but officers on shore-leave will not provide any benefit or gain any XP and be fixed to the port that they were sent on leave at. For instance, Captain Steve hires 3 officers and designates them to specific roles. He can reorder them however he likes when in port, too, so if he needs a more econ-focused officer for a trip or go fishing, he can set that up for a certain focus. Officer A: Light Ship Master (5), Prepared (1), Area Control (3), Carronade Master (1) Officer B: Light Ship Master (5), Foreman (2), Overseer (2) Officer C: Light Ship Master (5); Trimming Expert (1); Fisher (2) In this case, LSM, Carronade Master, Trimming Expert, and Fisher are stacking perks. Prepared, Foreman, and Overseer are non-stacking full-benefit perks. Because Steve has every officer with LSM, his light ships have a total of +0.9 kts and 9% faster reload (!!), but it's taking quite a chunk of all those officers' training to specialize in that. Furthermore, he has to have all three of them active and at risk in order to get those benefits. Since Area Control is in his first-officer, he can prevent ships within 500m from leaving battles. If Officer A were ranked lower, that area would be reduced accordingly. If he had multiple officers with this perk, only the highest-ranked one would apply. Foreman and Overseer give their full benefit at all times because they're intended to only be taken once, no matter which officer has them. Multiple officers with those perks won't give any additional bonus. Similarly, Prepared would give its full benefit regardless of which officer it was given to. It's clear Steve wasn't the brightest when setting these up, either, or goofed up because Officer C really should be swapped with Officer B since both have LSM. Changing that ordering wouldn't change the benefit to sailing performance, and Foreman and Overseer give their full benefit regardless of officer rank. Suggested perk status: Stacking Perks - Ship Masters, Trimming Expert, Carronade Master, Rigging Specialist, Pump Inventor, Expert Carpenter, Admiralty Connections, Fisher, Royal Shipbuilder Overlapping Perks - Coward, Determined Defender, Defense Drill, Area Control, Mortar Officer*, Emergency Master, Pirate/Hunter Full-benefit Perks - Double Charge & Shot, Prepared, Thrifty, Mortar Officer*, Press Gang, Storage Master, Foreman, Overseer, Shipmasters, Gifted, Expert Surgeon (Again, Full-benefit perks do not stack - only the best one applies) Using this idea, Mortar Officer would be a special case - they would always apply double-shot to mortar charges, but only the best bonus to reload and accuracy would apply.