Raekur

1. Self reliant means that the ship does not require another vessel or person in order to do it's intended function. Lineships are more than capable of entering a battle and accomplishing their intended duty without having to wait for someone else. I dont know how many port battles you have attended or what lineship you were protecting the stern of but I have never heard anyone in any battle state that someone's job was to sit behind another vessel and do nothing but keep other ships from being able to shoot at its stern. 2. i dont know that game your are playing but Naval Action does not have Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Much less having someone "report' back. If you are thinking that some other vessel needs to be in above camera view to watch then that is a very poor tactic as it makes that vessel defenseless, even if it is for 5 seconds (which by the way, the round takes 30 seconds to land).

I could see that for hold optimization but not really for the others. You as a fleet commander would be there to load up the ships while in port, but you are not there when it comes to firing the cannons. So it should be included with the purchase of hold optimization and not require a separate perk slot.

Do you have a link where it states that delaying tactics were considered a violation? Historically delay tactics such of this were used when a smaller ship encountered a larger warship and wanted to lead it away from other more vulnerable ships.

Well if you want to make the port bonuses cost more or require more materials then the materials to make them should be reduced as well. How about remove the port point system and make the bonuses at max 4%. Simply put, if you want a ship to match the crafted ships with port bonuses, get on the friendly list of a port that has them. Easy fix. As for removing the alts, this is not going to happen as there are quite a few families that play from the same external ip address. So unless you can figure out a way to isolate these alt accounts AND convince Devs to issue a refund (good luck with that) I would suggest you drop the subject.

If i recall correctly this action is not against the rules even though it is annoying. The same tactic has been used in the past to delay attacking fleets from reaching a port battle. It was allowed then and I have not seen anything disallowing the tactic. If you are being harassed by a shadowing ship then you need to either run to a friendly port or just sail out of the area since it seems that you were in hostile waters to begin with. I can see what he did as a way to persuade you to leave an area that is friendly to him and he is protecting other ships you happen to be raiding. If you were for instance parking your butts outside KPR and he did this in defense of the port, I find no fault with what he was doing. If he sailed to your waters and did it then he is just being an annoyance and you could just dock and wait 30 min or so (go grab lunch).

When i did the final exam shortly after release I hit the mast over 80 times and it would not drop and that was hitting either from bow and stern mostly at close range. Maybe it has changed since I did it.

Before that may well have been true but for at least the last few years the circle has been white. Upon release though the mortar brig is more effected by wave effects and I have been sitting still and watched the circle sweep a couple hundred meters from side to side so without the circle being colored it will be very difficult to center back in on a target now. My main argument is that the mortar brig needs to be self reliant just like any other ship. While the concept of dedicating another ship to act as a spotter may seem to be a viable solution it does in fact remove a combat vessel from the fight until the mortar brig can reacquire targeting. Keep in mind my reference is towards a mortar brig that is not fully experienced out to have all the boxes open. Considering that most all captains will start off this way is the reason I use this as a point of perspective. I know that the perk and knowledge book help quite a bit but it can not be a solid answer to "fixing" the issue.

Still would be easier if the circle did not blend in with the sand in front of the fort. With every other ship it is easy to see where the shots are going all the way to the target, with the mortar brig you do not have this perspective since you only see the shells landing for a split second if your lucky. Some changes are needed to improve the mortar brig if it is to be considered on equal footing as far as usefulness in battle. Failing to get these improvements there is little need to have a mortar brig in a port battle instead of just taking in another warship and just sinking the defending ships and stay out of range of the towers thus making them a zero threat item that the port owner spent a large amount of time on.

The issue is that when you are aiming at a land based target, the circle you use for aiming does not stay on top of the graphic for land, it slides underneath it so the MB operator has to guess on where it is and can only rely on the little "poofs" of dirt when they miss. This ONLY works if the shots land to either side of the target, not if it lands behind it. If you are very lucky you will see the shots hit the top of the target and then hope that the movement of the ship does not screw that up. Also, the circle should be a different color than white as it blends in with the land far too much when viewed at maximum distance.

The biggest issues I have with the new MB is that the accuracy is complete crap. As far as the notion of having to have a "spotter" ship there is also garbage. EVERY ship in a port battle should be able to contribute to the battle without having to depend on another ship. Otherwise what is the point of the MB. You could simply being in a different vessel and ignore the forts entirely. And for the idea of a spotter, they are always located at the same location as the artillery piece due to communication limitations. Looking at some of the data from the civil war era mortars they do have a flight time of 30-42 seconds, but they also had a range in excess of 9100 yards not the 3000 that they have in game (assuming that each square is 1000 meters). At this point even a fully outfitted mortar brig will have a very difficult time taking out a tower and the notion of firing while being chased and still achieving hits is BS at best with the current capabilities of the ship. Even sitting still I have watched the rounds land on opposite sides of the targeting circle. And I do agree that the targeting circle needs to be changed for easier viewing on land as all it does right now is slide below the graphics for the land and the best you can do is guess.

A few observations of the MB post release. 1. The accuracy went to crap to the point that I saw one round hit the far left of the target circle and the other one landed at the far right. That is more then the entire ship length of a L'Ocean. 2. The guns still rotate at the same speed which most should already be used to. 3. The flight time of the rounds is still massively unrealistic. For the distance being covered it should be a lot less ( like no more than 5 or 6 seconds not this 30 crap) 4. With certain builds and perks the MB can still be a effective anti ship weapon, once you get through the painful process of getting your first 2 boxes open. About the best way to level up the ship is with another person in a light ship to act as bait when fighting a lineship. Expect to miss a lot and adjust your aim.

Pirates of the Caribbean perhaps ?

I agree that the idea that crafting ships is the only way to increase craft experience is severally lacking in foresight when you consider how many things use labor hours. Any logic that could be used to shoot down the idea of getting craft experience from producing items other than ships could easily go the other way to argue for getting experience for crafting non ship items. So I would offer that if no experience is going to be given for crafting guns or gathering resources then labor hours should not be a limiting factor for those items.

it has NOT changed. The only thing now is that the second fleet ship costs 4 (the combination of the first and second) instead of 3 like it used to. End results is that it STILL costs 10 points to have 4 ships total in your fleet. That was present in the old system as well.

The cost is the same as it used to be for having up to 3 additional ships. Before getting the Fleet +1 for free it was 1 point, plus 3 points for the Fleet +2 and then 6 for the Fleet +3. So the end result has not changed at all. It is a trade off for being able to move more trade goods on a single trip. This is not anything new and has been this way for quite some time. The only thing that changed is that the cost for the Fleet +1 and Fleet +2 were merged together. When you spend your perk points you have many options, full on warship, full on trade ship, or hybrid of the two.

Because what was purchased no longer exists. Minor changes and balances are ok but when the entire reason you purchased something becomes extinct than a refund applies. Take a look at what happened to the Hercules. Originally it was a fairly decent ship, now it is the weakest 5th rate in the game, even a live oak/white oak version is still weaker hull wise than any other 5th rate. While I may dislike the whole PTW concept it does exist in a multitude of games. But when what was purchased is suddenly ripped to pieces to the point that redeemable ship is worth nothing more than minor parts or a few coins than it is no longer fulfilling the reason for it's purchase.

So you're saying that players should be excused from consequences for questionable actions because of ignorance? Last time I checked, if a player wants to avoid punishment they need to stay informed of changes in the game. Unless they have a mutant ability to read minds from a great distance, they need to read the forums. Ignorance is not a defense and since there has been no communication from the accused, there is no proof that they did not know exactly what they were doing.

I think it is an acceptable bet that if they have been around long enough to know they can join both sides, they would know about the forum. I think that the aspect of in order to become a pirate you had to start off in a nation and then attack an AI of that nation should have remained though I would have added 1 additional step in that once you attack the AI your flagged as a traitor, then if you attack another AI of your nation then you become Pirate. Pirates used to represent the upper echelon of pvp players, too bad that now since it is so easy to join the pirates the group has been reduced down to being (for the most part) the worst characteristics of the player base in the game. While there are some pirates that are noble players who just like to walk on the dark side, there are a lot of others that prefer to use cheats and exploits in a any mean possible way to play the game. The whole attitude of "because I can" really needs to be curbed - Hard.

And yet no comments from the accused regarding their actions. This suggests that the action taken by the pirates is deemed malicious intent. While I understand stumbling upon an exploitable aspect of a program, but to willfully use said exploit is worthy of a tribunal judgement. Pirates have since the beginning had more options available to them then the nations. This is one thing that makes no sense to me considering the mechanics of the game as a whole. The pirates for a while were constantly complaining that they wanted the same abilities as nations (during the alliance phase of the game). On the same note nations have complained that they wanted the pirates ability to attack their own nation due to rogue elements or alts causing grief for the purpose of undermining nation activities. So an easy fix for this is to convert the pirates into a single "nation" so that they do not have any ability that is not shared with every other playable side in the game. The only other option would be to introduce some penalty to the pirates as a whole to balance out the unique ability they have (perhaps limit them to nothing larger than 5th rates).

Add to the difficulty of this is the sheer mammoth amount of money now required to build any production building. I am not sure what the devs were thinking for for someone to even craft guns now requires an initial investment of 500,000 real and 10,000 gold. This kind of restrictions only promotes the DLC ships and hinders the production of any other kind of ships. Not really supporting the idea of helping new players to the degree that was the excuse for wiping out all xp from the veteran players. The concern that vets would "steamroll" the new players and now new players have to spend a massive amount of time just to even get a glimpse of a ship that is marginally better than the basic cutter. Hopefully the prices will be brought down to a more reasonable amount but not really expecting it. Until then you can expect the new players to have to fight and claw their way around for at least a couple of months to just get close to being able to survive. There may be a good influx of players upon release but how long until the struggle gets too much?

Just had a thought, if the idea to remove the ability to tow is to get people out into OW more, then shouldn't the ability to hop from outpost to outpost also be removed for the same reason? If the end goal is to get ships moving across the water then being able to avoid combat simply by switching to a different port would follow the same lines of thought.

With the ability to tow ships comes the ability to respond to an enemy presence. Take away the ability to respond to reported enemy activity you will have less people willing to leave port. It is simple math. Enemy is sighted at a port that is 100k away. With the tow option players can respond and leave port to drive the intruder away. If they have to sail for 20 min to get to the area the enemy will be long gone or in battle with someone and little chance for the swords to still be visible. So, take away tow and you remove a chance for some pvp. So the question is, do you want it removed because you think it is hurting the game or is it because of the exact situation i mentioned above and you were the "intruder" who suddenly found several ships in pursuit to drive you out of an area? Also take into account that there are several players who do not have massive amounts of time to sail from port to port so their play is limited to fast response not long sail to look for someone who has already sailed out of the area. Suggestions are good but there are many factors that need to be weighed against to determine the overall effect they will have on the different types of players here. Removing fast response aids the pvp/raider and no one else. Port battle groups know well in advance what is going on, Nation defenders responding to hostility may already have ships in the area but not a guarantee so a quick redeployment is usually needed. For traders the tow option is not of significant importance unless they find a very good amount of goods to move, but even then the smart ones will figure out a way to sail the needed ships to the area and carry some goods while they are at it to make some money for the trip.

Bringing a friend, same results as bringing a fleet ship. The only advantage is that the friend option gives you a captain who hopefully is not a complete moron and can actually aim.

This is a known aspect of missions for quite some time now. Some even use this to their advantage by bringing in a fleet ship and telling it to instantly escape so that it leaves more xp and money for the player.

Funny coming from someone who said my points were invalid. So I provided you with an example of what one person who is a small clan is doing to earn the right to get access to the port bonuses. So if all you want to do is purchase some piece of paper to get access to the port, then I will vote hell no on that. It takes a massive amount of time and resources to build up a port and all you want to do is toss pennies at it (with no indication that the owning clan gets any of that other than taxes).