Remus

A bug (I have F11'd it), but others might like to know. When you capture a trader, I think I've only ever found one item of cargo - in this case Red Wood Logs. Move to hold. Trader hold is empty. Distribute Crew. Press Confirm. Now press x again and some more cargo has miraculously appeared. This has now happened to me on all three occasions I've tried it. Pressing x a third (or fourth or fifth) time has never given me a third cargo.

I got 2 marks for Mercury v Cutter, much to my surprise. I think the number of marks rewarded needs looking at. btw, currently 10 PvE for 1 PvP.

I've now captured quiter a few traders, usually deliberately targetting ones just leaving port (so I know where they've come from). I am dissapointed to see no correlation between the cargoes carried and what the port produces. My latest capture, a Spanish Snow leaving Placentia (a dead end in the south east corner of the Yucatan peninsula) was carrying Burgundian Wine and Fine Fabrics, neither of which are either available cheaply nor consumed anywhere within 500k. Agree with other comments that cargoe values seem a little miserly now, but I don't yet have all the pieces of the gold supply picture, so it might well be fine.

My experience is the same. But I don't think its turning itself off, just that there aren't many fish - or perhaps not away from coasts (it's the long journeys I don't catch anything on). Most of my fishless trips have been without fleet, so I don't think that's a factor. Some players have sent bottles to chat, so they do exist. Last Testbed build had fish and bottles more or less like Live servers from what I could tell, so this looks to be a new change. On the other hand, I no longer have Fisher.

I totally agree. For PvP to exist there must be a supply of ships that PvP players can afford to buy, In essence, the entire purpose of the economy is to make ships for PvPers to sink. As things stand, I don't think it does require the degree of dedication you suggest, simply because a single player without alts doesn't have enough labour hours. However, if they remove outpost to outpost teleporting without allowing remote control of outpost resource production, crafting and sell/buy contracts in the shop then this will tip it so far over the edge I'll probably never play again. The time-consuming bit of crafting ought to be hauling goods. A good crafter will of course get other people to haul for him, but hauling will still be needed. But since it takes about a day's worth of LH to make a Cerberus but the weight of raw materials is only about 1000 (and surely you'll build the ship in one of your resource ports, the iron maker will move coal to the iron port and ship ingots from there and so on), this means only 1 LGV-full twice a week. Even if I only do the ship crafting and everyone else makes all the components, I could still only make 2 Cerberuses a day (a fleet of two LGVs twice a week, then). Okay, so no one really needs a Cerberus, but the resource requirements scale reasonably linearly, so even making first rates, every crafting player only needs to ship two LGVs a week, Personally I reckon LH hours need to be far less restrictive so I do actually need to spend time hauling. But I most certainly don't want to have to sail round empty between outposts every day just so I can click some buttons.

I found a 22k purchase / 48k reward / 380 weight / 380 km single journey one in the Belize area (50 Cuban Tobacco to Cayman Bray - the goods are apparently available at Santanillas which is pretty much on the direct route). Is this small enough for your liking? I only took delivery orders on Live to see what they were like. Personally I have no love for them; I'd rather find my own trade routes, just like I'd rather find my own OW PvE battles than use combat missions, so I'm maybe not the best person to comment. But if they gave Trading Manifests, that might be a different story ...

Lots of catch up in one post. All econ related There are only 21 crafting resources (excluding compass wood and food supplies which as far as I know cannot be harvested directly, and extra labour which isn't a materal). I find P in the map Trader Tool perfect for the job. But for Trade Goods I sometimes want to see what is available or consumed in a port so I can load my hold for profit on a return trip, for example, and here it would indeed be useful if at least the A and C columns were included when you type in a port rather than the resource - and why not the P column as well for those who want it? Ships aren't meant to be craftable by single players. 5 from 11 is pretty generous from my point of view - and as I just said, there are only 21 in total. Players must be encouraged to harvest and sell, so that crafters like me can buy. I'm not quite sure I agree with your logic here. Money does indeed appear to be in short supply on Testbed, which means crafters won't be able to pay good money for the resources they cannot make themselves. Oh, they'll pay, but perhaps not generously enough for harvesters to think it worthwhile. Early PotBS had cash starvation, up till patch 1.12 when, rather than make the tweaks the game needed they threw the whole economy plan overboard with incredibly lucrative repeatable missions and inflation went crazy. A little while later they replaced the Dread Saints missions with rather more controlled dailies, but by then the servers were awash with gold and without the ability to wipe the damage was done. But that early cash-starved game put a severe stranglehold on ship production, because players simply couldn't make money out of it. Personally I reckon a key feature of a PvP ship combat game is having a ready supply of suitable PvP ships. This means opening up the gold supply a little. Also I am increasingly thinking you should seed gold following the Live server wipe so the economy at least has some life in it from the beginning. The 1 million we have on Testbed seems a little miserly (it was 10 million in the last build, which was OTT), but I suppose that's because we are all using it for trying new stuff out. I have so far spent 350k setting up production and I'm still quite a long way from producing a sellable ship. I am all in favour of co-operate, trade and steal for getting hold of resources. Ports woont consume resources if you place a sell contract at a higher price than the port is buying at. Seeing as NPC buying prices (by which I mean the 'sell' column in the shop) are usually less than the cost of production - and other players should be willing to pay significantly more because building slots are in relatively short supply - this is unlikely to be a problem. But yes, it still encourages multiple accounts. Even worse, multiple accounts across different nations. Which is why I have been saying for some time now there has to be easy ways of cross-nation trading. I'd rather not see NPC-produced goods sold in shops, but loaded as cargo into AI traders leaving ports that produce the item (and only here), strikes me as one possible workaround. Whatever happens, single port nations will be severely hampered. It depends what you are doing. Shipbluilders pretty much have to take foreman, royal shipbuilder and fleet 1 which only leaves 2 slots. I'd quite like to do some combat as well, you know. I'm sure I've seen you post before that this was staying, because of the different speeds/timescales used on OW and battle instances. I don't like auto-teleport to safety either, but being dumped on OW immediately below the crossed swords would probably be a game kliller for me. So please think of a different solution - teleport to the nearest bit of empty sea, for example.

I haven't had any gold or XP for attacking traders in the last Testbed build either. I had assumed it was due to difference in BR rather than because they were traders. But they usually carry something I can sell for gold. Interesting comment about pirate v contraband trader being FFA. Are nat v contraband battles FFA as well?

I don't know why two, but I had two too. I don't know how many xp the one I used was for but it got me to max rank, and I still have one unused for 200000. I see loads of traders, especially now I'm back in my 'home' of Belize. More than on the live servers, and greater range of nationalities as well. On PvP1 the area's all British and I only ever see British ships. On Testbed there's Spnish ports either side so lots of Spanish ships of course, but I also see quite a few French and US.

Nope. I reckoned the stock grew over time in the last Testbed build, and now that I've got to Belize - almost certainly the first player to do so since the wipe - I find 159 copper ore in the shop. I reckon 159 is the maintenance increment and 2500 (what I found a few weeks ago) is the maximum stock. I didn't redeem the 200000 XP one but just using the other got me to max rank. I had two crafting XP redeemables. One got me to level 17 (which might match my crafting level just before the wipe) and the second got me to level 50. I don't think everyone gets two crafting XP redeemables though.

As far as I can tell, you are half right, but it is different from the last Testbed build which only had one type of mark, exchangeable for a crafting token or a combat token. This build appears to have separate PvP, PvE and Conquest Marks, exchangeable for different things in the store. PvE Marks are exchangeable for PvP marks (10 for 1), but oddly, there is no exchange the other way round. Conquest marks (needed for some upgrades) cannot be obtained through the shop. Trading Manifests are still in the shop (for PvE Marks) but may be available as a reward in their own right.

Seems like some big AI fleets remain. This was about 20 km south of Carlisle.

I think I had four redeemables and I redeemed one. Pretty sure I'd been staring at 3 redeemables at the top of the screen for the past few eeeks.

So was I but I got no ships. Got level 50 crafting xp though.

Some observations on crafting, so far. I dare say the devs know about these and it's more information for other players: Free Ship blueprints per crafting XP level appear to be the same as Live, so presumably there are still BP drops from crafting ships in this build Ship quality levels are removed. Ship trims require the same resources as a quality level 5 (gold) ship on Live Coins are craftable and also on sale in the Admiralty shop. Crafting notes are also craftable, but I cannot see a use for either coins or notes. The Cutter and TCutter blueprint labour hours are too high in relation to both what the ships are and the XP reward (unchanged from last Testbed build) So far it looks like resources are not seeded in shops (but I did find Copper Ore being seeded in one port the last Testbed build - I'll go and take a look if it still is). Edit: There were 60 mahogany logs on sale in Carlisle (there aren't now ) - so it's not toally barren Buildings provide very different quantities of resources from Live (I cannot remember if they are the same as last Testbed build or not), but costs appear to be the same There are no craftable upgrades Craftable repairs are easy to make (Medkit: 8 Food Supplies, 3 Rum, 3 Tobacco, 1 LH; Hull Repairs: 5 Planks, 4 Iron Ingots, 1 LH; Rig Repairs:3 Canvas Rolls, 1 Pine Log, 1 LH) - but I don't yet know what each does Other recipes I've not mentioned appear the same as Live, but I've only made curosry checks.

As someone who does play on Testbed - if only to increase my crafting level for when the new patch arrives - I'd say there's nothing for 90% of the players to do. The patch we are all writing about here isn't yet on Testbed and we don't really know which features currently on Testbed will make it onto Live. Sure, the AI fleets look better - and it looks like they will stay - but that's hardly a reason to play there. Incidentally, regarding AI fleets, there seems to be a lot more random nation ships sailing around. My crafting operation is all in Belize which is British surrounded by Spain, but there are often French ships to be seen which I've never seen on a live server. This of course provides a potential exit route for players being chased by an enemy - one which I don't recall being discussed.

Why? The problem of obtaining resources from enemies is probably even more important in PvP, and I for one am very interested in seeing what the devs come up with to overcome it. Yes, we can fight port battles win the ports for our nation, but with Live Oak confined to two ports and Cedar in just one, most nations will be missing some critical resources. I would have thought there were plenty of players who want to craft on PvE and their biggest problem is not obtaining resources but finding people in need of ships. But I rarely spend time on PvE myself and I don't want to appear as one of those PvP players who think everyone should play the game their way. Do you play as a pirate? PotBS had different ship capture rules and crafting for pirates. As far as I am aware, NA does not. Perhaps it should?

I hope you won't stop posting your own opinions on these threads, Hethwill. They are well-informed, interesting to read and - where they agree with our own - make us feel like we have a champion feeding our own views to the dev team. Can we have an official Hethwill and an unofficial one as well, so we know whether you are posting on behalf of Game Labs or as a fan of the game.

I don't understand the problem. You can still capture ships, combat is unchanged and so, I would think, would be the feeling of satisfaction. I haven't seen anything suggesting that NPC ships will stop carrying valuable cargo, so you still get a financial reward from capturing traders, even if the ship itself is useless. Ships ought to be easy enough to craft on PvE so you should not need to rely on capturing a ship to get your next vessel to sail in - but here I am making a number of assumptions as we don't yet know how players will obtain resources from other nations, and on PvE all those resource-rich Spanish ports will remain Spanish.

Well, you could always return to port and put it in the shop for some unsuspecting buyer

I thought I had this all understood, but now I feel hopelessly confused. There are several different teleports in the game, with different things happening to each. Here are the ones I can think of: Teleport to capital. Free. 2 minute delay(?). 3 hour timer. Ship with guns and upgrades but nothing in the hold apart from fish you caught after hitting the button. As I understand, this one stays till the devs figure out a way of coping with all eventualities of being stuck, but it is expected to be removed at some point. Teleport between outposts. Free. Instant. No timer. No ship, no cargo, but you carry upgrades and marks with you. Needs a slot to leave your ship (if you are in one) at your starting outpost. I think this one stays, but I am really not sure. Teleport between freeports. Goods only, 1000 weight and 4 slots max per transfer. Costs gold. Takes hours. Max limit of concurrent transfers. This one is disappearing Teleport out of battle. Ship, fleet and all cargo to unspecified nearest friendly port. Free. Instant. I think this one stays. Teleport another ship out of battle to chosen outpost. Free. Instant. No cargo. This one disappears. Ship tow between outposts. Ship with upgrades and guns only. Costs gold. Implemented daily. Max number of concurrent tows. This one is disappearing. Ship duel teleport. I've no idea how this works as I've never used it, but since ship duels are going this will disappear too. Have I got these right? Are there any I've missed?

Agree almost entirely except I don't feel that remote buying fits in with the direction the game is going in. Since it is likely that resources and crafted materials will cease being seeded in the shop, it ought to be possible to guess where goods might be put on the market by other players. If it's something you expect to need regularly you may need to set up an outpost there or nearby. But there may be a case for seeing remote buy/sell orders (a postal service?), but you'd have to sail to the port and hope it hadn't yet been filled. However, I'm open to trying out whatever the devs come up with, and if they adopt your suggestion of remote buying and selling I'll not complain. Definitely agree with any moves towards dedicated crafters. I look forward to seeing what happens to resource production. Right now on Testbed most buildings make far more than on Live, and even on Live you can make far more resources - even compass wood - than you can ever use with the labour hours available. But with no shop seeding, crafters will have to get some of their materials from someone else. I wonder what will happen with the rare resources like Live Oak, whether some players just will farm and sell in the shop (or St Marys free town), and whether they will get ostracised by their nations for helping the enemy.

Current Testbed Admiralty Shop sort of has both - Blueprints for some ships and Ship Notes for others - but I suspect (and hope) the final patch will have neither. Okay, so I don't mind Admiralty Shop blueprints, but I'd much rather see crafted ships requiring an Admiralty Shop item as one of the ingredients rather than simply selling ship notes. Possibly something like the PotBS Writ that you needed to convert the crafted item into a ship (in NA terms, this would probably mean crafting a ship note rather than a ship, and you needed the Admiralty thingy to use it). Once only, surely. Nothing else makes the remotest sense to me if rarity is the objective.

I had in mind a system where meters would be visible - you would know in advance what your output was likely to be if you opened a silver mine in this port, for example - and this would be the driver for players to choose whether to set up here or somewhere else instead. Obviously for a dynamic system the output next week won't be the same as the output this week, but I had thought of giving players some clues to guide their decision before they invested in infrastructure. But you reckon start producing first and then find out by looking at how much you produce? Means a lot more trial and error on the part of players that I'm not entirely sure I like. Favours large clans too, who will have players in several ports reporting back yields. And of course if you include this sort of thing in an API, players like me who can read the files get an enormous advantage over those who cannot. But I'm all in favour of trying things out and seeing what they look like in game. Don't get too carried away with reality though. With all the ships built in NA over the past couple of years I don't think any of the islands can have any wood left by now.

None, from what I can tell. Sir Peter Parker just seemed to like him, appointing him both Master and Commander and Post Captain. After becoming Post Captain he merely had to stay alive.