Raekur

Do I think the port assets should be open to all members of a nation, NO. For more than just the reasons provided here but mainly due to several small or individual players who wish to sit back and do nothing and reap from the hard work of the other clans. If you want access to the port, show that you have some value to the clan that runs the port. I have a friend who operates a single person clan that does 90% trading and about 10% combat (primarily being a holy terror in a mortar brig to even rattlesnakes). She does not play often but when she is around she contributes and does not complain. Hell, she even produced and delivered over 10,000 stone to one of our ports to help build the defenses. What have you provided to the port you are wanting access to? Have you helped that clan with generating money or helped in transporting materials? Have you sailed along side them in combat and proven your worth? Or are you just wanting to build better ships without ever getting off your ass to earn it? If you have proven yourself to a clan, I seriously doubt they would charge you for being on their friends list because you have proven that your value is far beyond the minuscule amount of CM or reals you could give them.

Before you decide to eviscerate the large clans for being a little restrictive on who they permit into their ports I would suggest you take a look at the massive amount of resources needed to get those bonuses and defenses set up. Moderately sized clans can take up to a month just to get 3 or 4 bonuses actually activated, then on top of that with the new marking system on the ship info card it now shows Exactly where the ship was built making that port a target if that ship is captured by the enemy. On top of that is the nice little 254,000 real PER DAY cost to maintain a timer for the port. So if you are wondering why some clans are getting a little over the top as far as picky, that is only part of the reason. The other part may be that many clans within the same nation act like total a-holes towards each other in the area of assisting when they call for help. I used to be part of britain and I swear besides using a cattle prod it was near impossible to get anyone to help if I got ganked near kpr. Your best bet is to try to align with one of the smaller clans and help them build up a port. Doing so (if they are honorable) should get your clan a permanent spot to access the port for building. Beyond that, there is little you can do and forcing the players to release control of who gets access to the port will not solve anything. What you are suggesting could be turned around and used by alts to get ships built at a certain port that has all the bonuses and then smuggle the ship to an enemy nation. Do you really want to spend the time to build up a port just to have to face off against an enemy that is using it against you?

You notice he did not mention Spain. (snicker)

Got to love the 2 sided crap from some people. You know the ones that will say "if you don't want to be attacked outside your prime time put on a timer" ... shortly followed by the comment "People who use timers are cowards just trying to avoid a fight" So it seems that some players can't even make up their minds how they want to insult people.

it actually worked just fine, guess either you don't remember or were not part of PVP2. Before the merger there was over 300 players online at a given time and it worked just fine. The merger is what hello kittyed everything up for those players that were from PVP2. At least on that server when maintenance happened most of the players were asleep. Now maintenance happens and the us based players get to wake up to a long list of port battles that they could not do an damn thing to stop. Then to make matters worse, lets add the frontline mechanics into the mix thus reducing the number of available targets a nation can go for. And lets not forget VCO's little bullshit move of taking Saint Marys. But I guess ever since VCO got booted from the US they have had a major hard on for trying to be a thorn in the US's side ever since. Hell you jokers even tried to pull Britain into it at one point until the British council told you to jog on. So as far as the player base not being large enough for 2 servers and that is the reason to keep one server, that is complete bullshit as PVP2 had plenty of players. But then again, I dont think you were there so how exactly does your uninformed opinion justify you calling my statement bullshit?

The only way that the player base will not feel they are getting screwed over and avoid the start that occurred last time is to bring back the US server. The devs need to realize one very solid fact. If the game continues on a single server than it will continue to lose players from the american side of the globe as those players are getting a little fed up with waking up and seeing the map filled by the soviet side of the globe. There will be no way for the US side to ever get a fair shot at it just due to time mechanics. The game may get some new players upon release but their willingness to remain will be short lived as the game will be "complete" with little indication of any major changes to equalize the time differences. The only other way to stop the blitz of neutral ports upon launch is to limit the number of ports a nation can attack to 3 or less. While this may upset a few people it will in fact be good in that nations will have to be more selective on where they are going to attack. Plus it will ensure that ALL nations have something to go after from the start instead of just having to watch port after port fall to enemy nations sitting at your front door and not being able to do a damn thing about it.

You know full well that will never happen. There will be disagreements over who should own particular ports (trade hub, location for raiding etc).

Does it really take 90 min to get to 1000 points with all 3 circles capped? Last I checked it was about 40 to 45. So where is the 90 coming from? If you want the port, you tolerate what is needed to get it. Sorry, I dont mean to sound like I am attacking you but the plain fact is both PVP and Traders have activities that demand a large amount of time. For the PVP/RVR it is the hostility mission and then the port battle (which amounts to usually one to four times a week). For the traders it is one to three hours (at least) on a daily basis (longer if you are part of a nation that will not assist in ridding raiders from the area). With the increased cost of keeping a port and now building up the defenses for a port there has been a heavy burden placed on the traders to now help support a clan (cost involved in both gathering/producing/purchasing materials as well as upkeep). So every aspect of this game requires a commitment of an extended period of time that will include sitting on your thumbs.

The only issue with this idea is that 2 coalition groups could in fact just keep going back and forth over a single port for the sole purpose of generating victory marks. With the settings you are asking for (no outside influence) there would be no way to prevent this from occurring on nearly a daily basis (using 3 ports instead of 1). It is exactly the same as someone using an alt account for generating combat marks. I think this is going to be the biggest hurdle to overcome with getting this idea to actually have a place. While the idea of a group being able to self regulate it's members it does come with a bit of a price in what method is best used to achieve the desired goal without that same mechanic being able to be used in ways it was never intended.

1. The Game needs more Free Towns - No it does not. Freetowns allowed nations who are not even remotely close to an area to invade and set up bases without having work their way to the area. The last thing this game needs is more freetowns. Freetowns aid raiders and no one else. Neither traders or nation defenders need freetowns, so why add 50 more of these enemy FOB's to the map? 5. Balancing the player count on nations - Offering incentives to get people to join one of the lower populated nations will lead to the system being exploited or players just using alts to hop from nation to nation to gather the compensation that is being offered. There is no way to ensure even numbers across the 11 nations that are in play. If you want more balance between the nations, reduce the number of nations starting with removing the Prussian, Russian, and Polish groups. 6. No Alts or Twinks - There is no acceptable way to eliminate alts. To restrict connections to only 1 per IP address would eliminate families that play together (and believe it or not there are a few). With the exception of spying there is little that alts can really that disrupts things. If a player can actually operate 2 accounts at the same time (a rare skill) than i applaud them. I have tried to operate 2 ships in Freelancer at the same time and it is not as easy as some would think and near impossible if either or both get engaged in combat. Devs already stated a long time ago that spying was acceptable. If the players can not follow basic security protocols than they have no excuse when bad things happen because they refused to keep their mouths shut.

So how will the raid work if there are other clans at a particular port who have warehouses? Does winning the pb mean that you can immediately open a outpost in order to transfer the spoils to or are you limited to move stuff out in the ships that participated in the battle? Being able to raid a port and then send in a transport is a little goofy and will cause a lot of grief. More so if you can raid the port and then return at a later time to more out more resources. Also being able to instantly attack a port without generating hostility (thus giving the defenders a chance to respond) is nothing more than reintroducing "night flipping". TheLoneWolf - if you wanted to attack GB / USA / PR then maybe (since you would have known where the french start at) you should have chosen a different nation. Picking a nation that begins on the far side of the map from your desired enemies was a fault of your own making and not the game mechanics.

Just curious, why do we need the impossible nations at this time? Are we really going to have the player base to support 11 "nations"? This game could do just fine with 5 nations and the frontline mechanics. Having a group that can bypass the intent of the frontline idea makes the concept of a frontline rather worthless. If you want the frontline concept to actually work as intended then freeports being able to give hostility missions need to be removed. Empires expand from their capital, not from the other side of the planet.

No The only way to have an alternate (aka Alt) is to use a different steam login and purchase the game under that account.

What you are looking for is the last icon on the far right - Port Management. This will open a window with 4 areas to chose from - Investments / Port Features / Shipbuilding / Defense. I believe you are looking for the third option. Under that you will find the following bonuses that can be applied to a ship crafted at that port. These bonuses are Gunnery, Sailing, Hull, Mast and Rig, and lastly Crew. There are 4 levels to each of these categories and all will require a specified amount of Combat Marks, Victory Marks, and Doubloons. Each of these will use up a certain amounts of points that the port has. Some ports have up to 55 points while others have considerably less. These points (i think) are used up with each improvement that is purchased for a port from any of the 4 main investment areas. The shipbuilding at maximum in all areas would use up 20 points alone. So spend wisely, I do now know if there is any other way to remove the investments other than losing the port (at which case all investments are removed (i think).

More like chopped up his pickle.

Here is a bit of a problem. Chances are that either way he would have destroyed your pickle. Even if you won the 1v1 he could have just waited until you were done and then reengage you once you left the battle. End results are the same. During the battle it would have been an honorable action for the captain that was on the same side as he was to block him until you had a chance to leave. If he fired through the captain in an attempt to engage you then he would have been in violation of the rules and starting this thread would have been justified. As mentioned prior though, he was not in violation of any rules and is guilty of nothing other than being a prick. He saw an easy kill (based on BR) and decided to take it. Sorry for your loss.

Hell, being able to "pack it up" and transport it would be better than losing all the money spent building it.

I still do not see a valid reason for the whole if the attacker has a lower br then they should not get reinforcements but the defender should...The only person I see benefiting from this is the lone raider who wiped out a trader in his fir/fir hunter and is worried about a hunter fleet coming after him since only a specialty built interceptor would have a chance to catch him and hold him for the rest of the fleet. Is there another reason for the aforementioned position?

So along those lines add another option to ports, we have available to all and nation. Add Allies only to the mix seems to be the direction that this thread is headed. Keep in mind though, there will need to be a way for clans who are not allied to be able to gain access to the port. This can be done in a couple of ways, enable clan vs clan combat or allow traders to still gain access to the port (granted then you will need a way to restrict access or interdict those traders to prevent smuggling). So unless I missed something this can become rather complicated. If you go with the clan vs clan option than small clans will get wiped out entirely by large clans who wish to bully others. What is to prevent this from occurring? Small clans will need to become either a single large clan or have it where allies can assist each other even in cases where they are fighting with clans of their own nation. Again, can get a bit complicated and tough to prevent it from being abused in a way that is outside the intent of the system. As far as votes, the only way to get alts from making small clans and causing problems with the votes is that each clan gets a number of votes based on the number of ports they own. While this may exclude small honest clans, it will prevent abuse of the system by alt clans created by other nations.

I cant really accept that a hard core pvp player would be ok with this as it would deny you the entire reason why you play, player vs player and thus would remove a large number of possible combat marks. Also think of it this way, if the person sending the cargo actually sees the ship leave port he could in fact escort the ship and engage any raider that approaches. This would be a good thing for the trader as he could ensure that even if he loses the battle, his cargo will be about 30 min sail time away from the raider and thus is safe. It reduces his risk to a minimal level and the trade only loses a low price ship in the process. Either way, the trader wins. This is about the only scenario where I could be both sides winning with this option.

The hard core pvp players wont let it happen as it could be used by traders to move cargo over great distances. This would deny them easy pray for their combat marks.

First I am not feeling sorry for myself, I am getting tired of hearing the pvp community whine like little children because they want to go gankfest all over new players right outside the capital. Attacks in this area make it a little difficult to avoid as you seem to think when you have new players in weak or slow ships going against 15 kt boarding vessels. I have no issues with pvp, I have issues with a select few twats who want the entire game altered to their singular play style. And since the pvp players have made it such a wide spread occurrence of them going after low level players along with one pvp player being bold/brash/idiotic enough to actually threaten to do just that upon game release I find little merit in what you say.

Different option from the original question. You have one selection for Range and one for Order of fire. Random is part of Bow, Stern, Random selection which is for where to begin firing from (bow to stern, stern to bow, or random) The other selection (Distance) is 100 meters, 250 meters, Parallel, and Waterline. Which is for where the shots converge.

So what is the difference between a joke and a veiled threat...A joke is one made to and about the person you are talking to (for the most part). A veiled threat is one that is made against someone who is not even involved in the situation or conversation. If someone made that kind of comment to me about my family I would do everything in my power to ensure that they could never do it again. Attacking someones family is NEVER acceptable, joking or otherwise.

If you guys are so into getting your pvp fix, post on the forum a time and place and then meet and duke it out..simple way of accomplishing that aspect without permitting the few a holes who are attacking the capital area for no reason other then to beat new players to death. I guess the only other way to do it is that players under a certain rank can not be attacked in those zones. The only downside to this approach is that a high ranked player with all the boxes open will still eat a new player alive with there being little to no chance for the new player to actually win.