Raekur

Hmm, using marks to purchase the right to build a 1st rate. That will take the game from nation vs nation to clan vs clan as i seriously doubt that clans will trade marks to other clans instead of hording them for production themselves. So what ever clan is the most active will rapidly produce 1st rates and a clear advantage over the rest of the server. I can see a LOT of people turning to brush up on their boarding skills.

The other issue with the current system in regards to upgrades was the dependency on silver. There are 8 silver mines in the game and, as the pirates displayed on PVP2 with their operation Lone Ranger, controlling all 8 could disable everyone other then pirates from crafting upgrades of any kind above basic. This I think is the one main driving force behind the players wanting the proposed system which eliminates upgrades. The current system makes it way to easy to cripple production. If upgrades were crafting using Notes that could have been crafted using copper, silver, and/or gold then the ability to eliminate production would be nearly impossible. Fine woods did not force players to build lower quality ships, it made them avoid combat using a ship that was difficult to replace. It barely slowed down production of gold ships as even non crafters could farm for fine woods and trade them to the crafters for "payment" towards building the ship.

The thing that would help sort it out would be for the devs to actually think on where they place the starting locations. Placing hostile forces within 5 min of each other is a really bad concept. So either flat out hard set the starting locations to the rookie area and non-rookie players can easily sail out of the area to where ever they like.

My apologies, I have not created a pirate character and kidds seemed like a logical place to start. Mortimar and Marsh harbor are your starting locations...but why you have new players cruising around Mortimar is about as smart as new british players sailing around KPR

As i am sure the mechanics prevent one British Heavy Rattlesnake attacking a Pirate Heavy Ratt and then THREE more Pirate's joined in (single pirates with no fleet). So I dont care what the Mechanics are SUPPOSED to do, I am saying what DID happen. And if you are calling La Tortue a newb zone, you must be from PVP1 because on PVP2 a newb would be stupid to sail around in those waters as that area was heavily contested all the time and patrolled by pirates and british heavy frigates all the time. I am fairly certain that Kidds is offered as a starting point so the claim that it is 'unknown' is impossible. Pirate newb area should be around Marsh Harbor not Jamacia.

Well not that long ago I was sailing out of La Tortue in a constitution and was jumped by a pirate in a Santisma who in turn called for help from another pirate to cut me off. He said about the same thing to me about not wanting to fight even though he had a pirate AI fleet there with him while I was trying to sail out of the area. So the BR was 250 on my side vs 1600 on his AND then another pirate joined in adding another 140. So I agree with you in laughing every time I hear a pirate whining like a 2 year old about fair fights. So far to date I have met only ONE pirate that fights fair, that was Koltes. Oh and by the way, I doubt you will see pirate noobs at La Tortue, most of the new ones will be near Kidds or Marsh harbour. Moderate to heavy pirates hang out near La Tortue to intercept british that got past La Nevasse.

If you truly believe that if the opponent has live oak you will always lose then you are limiting yourself to only a single approach to combat. There are other ways to win besides he who puts the most holes in the other wins.

Doing my impression of Sir Texas - 'Don't want to lose, travel with friends"

So I will ask again, since there is no alliance what purpose would there be for someone to actually want to fill a bounty? As long as the target is harassing and destroying your enemy why would you want to stop them and possibly wind up with your faction becoming his target if he is not a pirate (since his own nation is unable to attack him) For example, Say I am French, there is a bounty of 1 million placed upon a British player for destroying multiple Spanish trade ships. If he is destroying more then 1 million in goods each week than he is of more use to me continuing his current activities instead of my sinking him to collect a bounty that would end up costing my nation more if he chooses to focus his attacks on us. So for gaining a 1 million bounty my nation stands to lose untold amounts of goods until we place a 1 million bounty on him. End results is that we lost more then we gained by taking on the bounty. That is the flaw with your suggestion, there is no incentive that outweighs the potential cost. So say there is the loss of XP to being sunk after a bounty is placed on you and collected. This would be the only reason to actually go after a bounty as it would cause the target to have to withdraw for a little while to regain the XP he lost and therefor, how long until that approach is used to beat some player down to a 1st Lt.? If a bounty is placed on someone, how long until it expires from not being fulfilled? A week, a month, 6 months??? In conclusion, I am not saying to not go with a bounty board, I have seen it work very well in Freelancer. Just need to look at the outcome from both sides instead of just one.

So let me see if I have this correct.... For 60 million you can inflict fairly heavy damage upon a player and take them all the way down to a 1st lt in just 6 weeks. If it is a casual player it may take him longer then a week to make up the lost experience, this presents a problem if a bounty is placed on him again. If the situation continues until a person who was once a rear admiral with 1100 crew down 6 ranks to a 1st Lt with 150 crew. Something that could be accomplished in 6 weeks and could take months to recover from. If you still think this is fair, imagine being on the receiving end and someone focusing attacks on you over a 6 week period.

So your bounty system is only of use in providing gold to a select few who want to hunt and no other reason. Using it as a tool to hunt down traitors is completely worthless because the damage they are causing is to the benefit to anyone who would be able to hunt the traitor down. So I guess your bounty idea is for nothing more then entertainment for a select few. I look at it this way, if I am being harassed by a hostile, I would not turn to a bounty system when a hunting party to deal with them directly is much more efficient. Why supply money to a hostile faction since alliances are gone?

1. Creating Rear Admiral missions while sailing a basic cutter and then leaving the mission and letting the AI kill each other thus creating hostility towards the mission creators nation. 2. Informing hostiles of same nation players position or intent.

My point is in agreement with you provided a certain current system is removed. If I delete a character and create it under a different nation i still retain Rear Admiral rank. Reputation means absolutely nothing. If the only way to switch from nation to nation or nation to pirate or pirate to nation AND retain rank was the reputation system then it becomes a very useful system. SO, I was not arguing against your idea, merely pointing out what needed to be in place to make it work.

The reason I keep bringing it up is because so far there is still no way to deal with traitors within a nation. The only "Nation" that can is pirates who still complain about wanting to be treated like a nation whereas the only difference now will be the ability to attack your own. By your idea, if the US had a US player committing treasonous actions then they now have to call upon other nations that they are NOT allied with to come deal with their 'dirty' laundry. Why the hell would the Danes step up to assist if the turncoat is in fact helping them undermine the US? For up to 10 million gold? Since gold is by your comments alone very EASY to come by then the traitor is of more value then the gold is. So yes, I keep bringing it up because so far thee has been NO usable solution presented. And I guess you forgot that Yes he was reported and NO there was nothing done. Same with the guy that was harassing my wife both in and out of game. NOTHING done.

The thing is, if the resources are equally spread out, why attack other ports? To deny another nation of the resource would be the only gain and holding on the the resource loses impact if you already have one. Each faction having a "unique" resource that is valued would introduce a reason to trade or focus upon certain locations.

And how is adding random extra attributes to a ship going to increase cost of building? And, if you introduce something that causes an increase in ship building costs then you yes have created a money sink as those costs will be passed on to the consumers. Same would be true from what I said with randomizing the 6 current ship trims that exist. Adding 3 new possible items to a ship actually accomplishes nothing beyond that except a few extra "freebies" with the ship. If the "freebies" are not part of the building process of what kind of ship is ordered, then there is no increase in cost of building a ship and no increase in price to cover the cost of "random" builds that do not match the original order. So which way do you want it? Extra goodies on each build or a way to increase costs to create a money sink?

The only way to really make the reputation system work would be to make any character created start of at 0Xp/0CXp. With this in place then anyone could switch factions at will but would have to devote time to actually switch. If the Xp is retained is in place then there is no use for the reputation system in regards to changing faction. So in order to argue for your reputation system, I suggest presenting something that is as much of a benefit as the current retention of XP system.

So for the OP that wants random elements in crafting, how about answering this...If a PVP no crafter wants a specific ship built, say Live Oak, Build strength, Strong Hull who will pay for the resources for the ships that do not match that build? You will wind up with an increase in ship prices to cover the possibility of a ship being built not matching the desired build. So for instance, if it costs 112411 in materials to build a constitution and there are 6 possible options then instead of charging 200,000 for a single ship now the price will increase to around 600,000 to cover the chance of a ship not matching the desired outcome this allows for 2 failures to occur before actually building the desired vessel. Production cost increases are always passed on to the consumer.

Sir Texas, I can think of 2 specific occurances that did actually happen. 1. SkyHG of DD clan placed a 1 million bounty per kill for the first 5 kills against another US clan IGG. 2. Charles Hunter a british turncoat who was caught red handed running counter hostility missions against the flag he sailed under. Both of these individuals should be able to he hunted by everyone equally.

So with no alliances, it looks like nations will have to work out trade agreements. So if Pirates want to be a nation, does that mean that they will be under the same restrictions as nations and now be unable to attack other pirates? I constantly hear pirates whine about wanting to be treated as a nation. When the alliances were in place I see where they wanted the politics, now that is no longer present and thus the "we are a nation" should end as now the pirates have an ability that NO ONE else has, the ability to attack at will against ANY target.

One thing that would have to occur to make this work is that friendly fire needs to be shut off. Otherwise one group will be unable to gain from the bounty.

And don't forget the wonderful aspect of a NON crafter wanting someone to build a ship with specific elements. How many resources do you want a crafter to waste to get that, who should cover the costs of the ships that were built that did not match what the purchaser wanted?

Well regarding alliances you can have it one way or another not both so please stop with the constant complaining. You either have the option for US/British or you have the Pirate/Dane way of doing things. No matter what way you want to approach this SOMEONE is going to have an issue if alliances are able to be formed and forced upon a nation making it where EVERYONE in that nation has to follow the same decision even if it was not one they wanted. There are going to be many things that have 2 sides and no matter what they will always be pro's and con's to each. Alliances, Friendly fire, Alts, After battle options, Open world speed....etc etc etc... What needs to happen is simply deciding if you want a feature in or out, not tweaked like crazy towards a specific agenda. If someone moves one of these things towards a specific idea then it will be moving away from another that may be just as valid from a different perspective. So how about we begin summarizing the items instead of arguing about them and DISCUSS the items instead of rant about them (Yes I know I am guilty of it as well but I will try to take a step back and have an open mind). To start things off here is a little of what i know of each so far. Alliances: Pro - allows other nation to assist in port battles and missions. Sharing ports and resources. Con - Can cause an imbalance in the number of players that are united against the rest of the populace. Friendly Fire: Pro Allows a faction to intercept and destroy spies / saboteurs. Con - Opens up for griefing where one player can hunt new players (granted, but see Pro side of same item) Alts: No real argument here as there is no real solution / problem actually with someone having more than one account. A person can do the same with the single account they have as well and get labeled as an alt even though it would be inaccurate. After Battle options: Return to Friendly port: Pro - prevents griefing and "camping a location" Con - allows a player to escape battle and "warp" some distance away from pursuit. Open world speed increase: Pro takes less time to get from one location to another. (I have not seen anything that suggests that this applied towards one class of ship only. Therefor this is a topic that should not be argued about as every ship received the boost. Without the boost the situation would have been the same just taking a lot longer.) Please refrain from flaming.

Switching nations after can be possibly abused if someone wants to replace lost starter ships. All it would do is provide a endless durability ship in effect if it was always available just by rerolling (which can be done to the original nation either directly or indirectly after waiting 10 min.

I have mentioned needing something to show current number of accounts per nation for a while now. I even suggested removing the top faction from the list to prevent "band wagon" mentality.