Cetric de Cornusiac

By the way, is there any effect on crew or ship when a fire breaks out other than a few sailors jump to extinguish the flames? Did ever someone witness a whole ship catching fire in game and burning down completely? Fire should be the fear no.1 on a completely wooden ship, besides sea water rushing in. -- So far fire seem to me only a visual and accoustic effect triggered sometime and having no game play effect...

That's why no women are allowed on ships. They bring bad luck, as you have experienced.

Yes, the differences being asked for here could very well be done on an individual basis when we had more upgrade slots and the appropriate refits which change the nature of a given basic ship design to the desired specification, together with the existing ones. As some refits in reality would take weeks of work to accomplish, I would suggest to make it rather expensive in terms of labor contracts necessary for any changes which are heavy on changing the characteristics of the original design.

Sorry, I was not aware someone had proposed this already.

Today I want to propose another idea, about an improvement for your accompanying fleet. Sometimes I want to distribute ships, like ordering one to part from me and sail to port X, while I continue voyage with another to port Y. Since we have Captains under our command (in battle) on those fleet ships, wouldn't it be natural they could do limited actions on their own even on the Open World map? Nothing sophisticated like following trade routes buying/selling stuff automatically (as I remember as feature in 'Port Royale' game), just an order to sail on his own to a certain destination after you dispatch him. While the fleet ship is on route, it would be a NPC ship and you could not command it until it reaches port. There you can take it over again. Your risk: if attacked/intercepted on the way, the ship would have to survive battle like any NPC ship, if you lose it this way, you just get a notice about the result. In case the ship would win a fight, it would carry on towards destination afterwards.

I know. I would only suggest no 'auto-battle calculation' runs on when a player is disconnected. Either you find yourself respawn into OW with the exact damage situation when you were disconnected, or the game would be able to let you continue inside battle instance when you reconnect. Maybe a series of auto saves during battle would be an idea for this, so you will join at the last one before getting thrown out. Let's say - one minute intervalls, so they don't let you change the course of the battle too much by setting in much earlier (and avoiding mistakes you may have done).

Mini-game or your longboat is leaving your vessel right in the battle instance, just has to spawn next to the ship. Once manned and maneuverable, you give orders to it (like looting a defeated ship). Other purposes I described somewhere else, like ordering the manned boat to assist you in boarding, from another side, which would give you a bonus for melee. Thanks to the roars it would not depend on wind, but stay slow at all times. However, it would become a target in its own right once in the water and not immune against enemy fire.

Yes. I often get frustrated of not reaching a sinking ship for looting because it always seems to be unreachable in time. If we think of longboats being put into the water for a visit, that alone makes our depending on wind to reach the booty ridiculous. Great reason to implement boats to the game, by the way. Purpose does not stop with this.

Think of it as an extra. You would still be able to work as before with standard crews. You would just be missing the top people on your ship. Some Captains could develop a desire to assemble the best crew possible, others could neglect the aspect. Some get the impression to live among individuals on ships (this always has been a roleplay factor in games, to identify with your character and other characters around him in interaction), some others can ignore and concentrate on ships alone as before. I don't say there has to be tedious work for everyone, and unavoidable...

I am convinced the game would greatly increase in gameplay attraction if we would feel our ships being manned by PEOPLE and profiting from their personal talents, as they come or can get developed. This is a major suggestion with a great deal of changes, but with little expectation this gets accepted, it still should get heard, for some inspiration, parts of it or just a single idea for the minds of our developers. And it's all for free. Let's start dreaming: I wish I would find taverns in ports where to find and valuate seamen for my ships. Not a single mass of sailors, but categories of different abilities and some specialists alike. The idea mainly is, you are hiring crews with different qualities for different pay for different tasks on board and in buildings - which allows you to further shift priorities, in addition to the static ones your upgraded ship provides. Your ship will get influenced in performance in the known categories - sail handling (speed of increase, decrease of sails, turning speed) - cannon loading speed and accuracy of shooting - boarding efficiency in various tactics On land you get engineers who influence your production in buildings, add some more warehouse space or add quality in your merchandise crafting (maybe needs grades of quality - like standard/high/deluxe of anything which is fabricated and has effect on prices). Your purser maximizes your hold as storeroom because of his organization talent and finds for you better profit margins when dealing in ports with merchants. -- You hire ordinary sailors in groups in a tavern in every port you visit. Seamen groups are generated by game engine in qualification types, for a specialization field they provide a boost in. The better the group, the more you need to pay them. The lowest quality sort is crew which is pressed into service and thus the cheapest. This method of using press gangs you may have only in your own national ports, not neutral ones, and it is not available to Pirates. No wonder the pressed seamen are worst because you catch unskilled people and who resent to what is done to them. You may still forge them to something better during the trip, in crew training. -- Which brings me to the next point of my suggestion, the possibility of training crews during the trip in various disciplines so they gain in value. As a side effect, individual specialists may origin from those trainings (or ordinary service, battle instances) and you may promote them into your leadership group on board your ship. Training, drills and practising on board cost you silver coins. Losses in battle reduce your skilled crew just like the unskilled, so you will be more careful not to lose the professional ones. Generic losses come from illness and accidents during work on the ship, but not very often. As I already mentioned, above the crew groups of certain capabilities are a class of experts which are generated with names and individual statistics about what they have to offer to you. You may hire them as boatswains, mates, midshipmen, pursers, officers for battery decks, boarding commanders, master carpenders etc. They can get killed (will get removed finally from game) or injured (temporarily become unavailable or suffer from drawbacks in their skills for some time) in battle - or rarely during accidents on board - so you may want to order them to abstain from battle while the rest goes into boarding. Hiring those individual specialists and officers costs gold coins. So does promotion from lower ranks if a talent shows up (you are given a choice to accept or decline). Needless to say: top notch talents would be very rare. Another type of those specialists can serve you on land, to boost the fabrication of goods and get higher output for your mines, plantations, forests. -- The game would have a distribution system of crew groups and individuals which show up in ports and move on to another after some time, making it impossible for you to predict where you find whom (fun to search the port taverns for talent, therefore). I think it does not need great graphics to depict the taverns, just show crew rosters for each place who is actually there and what his specification is, the price and any conditions. From that roster you pick your men. Maybe 100 to 200 personalities would be created for the game and given generic names, who keep wandering from port to port until you or another captain finds them. A similar roster you will have for the ship you command and where you distribute men according to their talents. So you see where you can concentrate the benefits as you see fit, where the vacancies are and need replacements. A ship will still 'function' if you don't look at the roster at all and just hire standard sailors as you do now, but this way you miss fine-tuning your crew and their perks for the ship. Because a ship can only be as good as the crew on it. To give another personal touch to the whole thing, let some specialists need certain requirements for exposing their full quality (visible in same crew roster). For example, they may hate certain other guys and refuse to work if the other is on the same ship. Or they ask more money because they don't like the company. Or quarrels between sworn enemies reduce their qualities, or increase risk of one of them getting injured when they fight it out. - In fact all this what produces vivid scenery in our heads would just be mathematics in the background to determine what will occur. Maybe a morale system (outside boarding situations) would make sense in the context, as a more general performance factor. You increase morale by your successes in your voyage and by giving out grants to your crew altogether, or sending them to whores in ports (which lets me think of different whore qualities, but that is another topic and goes too far here ). -- Here some ideas for how to give a feeling of having human beings under your command. Make them as individual as personal, for instance: - person will only accept jobs on ship of certain size (he is thinking a small craft is below his honor) - artisans will only join you if you have a workshop or a shipyard (of certain size = equipment) where to employ them - person will only accept job if you sail to certain region of the Caribbean where he plans to leave you again - person has great luck in fishing and brings for you the best catches out of the sea - person is very skilled in finding hiding places in captured ships and thus reveals to you booty you would otherwise not find - especially blueprints, books, coins, permits. - carpenters work much better if you provide them with the best tools (by existing upgrade), same goes for engineers taking care of your production buildings. Hired specialists on land get installed like an upgrade with an outpost - any of your specialists may leave you again after a period due to personal reasons. Others may require another investment of silver coins to convince them to stay - some specialists may get killed during battle or (lesser risk) by accidents in the service. When wounded they are disabled while recovering and may still have a handicap after returning into service. Think of a lost leg or something like that. You have the choice of commanding them to stay away from fight to reduce such risks - but still they may object to that - you may find crew and specialists among surviving crews of captured ships and offer them to join your ranks. This could be a privilege for the Pirate faction. -- Not necessarily connected with the concept above, but added as an extra: [Finally, the system I just proposed could use a 'headquarters' or 'Mansion' building in your home port where you can keep personnel currently not assigned to ships and train them meanwhile there. If we take into account a headquarter would be the place where all your wealth is stored (instead of carrying it around all the time in your pockets and even staying at all times in your posession even when you lose your ship and everything), the people you station there provide protection to your belongings. If I develop this idea one step further, it becomes an interesting factor in the PvP world of port battles and taking over ports, because the personnel stationed in mansions of captains could get involved in the defense of the port and add resistance potential. You would be interested to serve the protection of your home port (via manning your mansion) because once it fell into the hands of the enemy, your wealth will also fall prey to the looters.]

Happens also on PvE server and I lost a row of good ships due to that (against AI). It should get solved by making ships 'invulnerable' when the program notices a player gets disconnected. So, the battle instance ends for both and ships are found on Open World again, not more damaged as they were at the time the battle got discontinued. However, that opens ways of abuse, because players who feel they succumb will simply disconnect just to solve the situation for them.

Just lost another frigate, my favorite one equipped with permanent upgrades, in battle (PvE). -- Nothing unusual, you may think? I would not whine, but it is happening because I get disconnected and 'client.exe' stopped working. I should not dare going into battle any more. Not because of the opponent, but because it sucks losing ships due to connectivity problems. Ships are too precious for that. Lost an Indiaman first, then a Cerberus, a Heavy Rattlesnake, couple of days ago a freshly manufactured frigate with her fleet companion, a Mercury. And this noon the frigate I mentioned first. Sent a connection report at 13:16h GMT+1, afterwards, just in case someone at the studio wants to look. Now all of this asks for player ships staying safe if the game notices connection got lost. Don't punish players for it by rendering their ships helpless to further damage and destruction.

Ich glaube, ich habe gelesen, dass man nur Erfahrung mitnimmt, wenn man von PvE auf PvP wechselt. Wie sieht das nun aus, wenn ich von PvP dann wieder auf PvE zurückwechsle, etwa weil ich mich als unglücklicher Carebear und der permanenten gegenseitigen Killerei nicht gewachsen fühle - würde ich bei Rückkehr in die PvE Existenz meine zurückgelassenen Sachen wiederfinden? Schiffe, Außenposten, Gold, Waren? Hat das schon mal jemand gemacht und kann das aus Erfahrung beantworten?

This has not been addressed yet in the answers. I figure you had ships with you with too high class for the fleet combat mission, so they were automatically omitted. Happened to me once when I had an Indiaman with me for support and this ship simply did not show up when going into battle. Also it can happen with merchantman type ships they will flee instantly when faced with purebred war ships. No reliable assistance.

I imagine the AI fleets or single ships will have a couple of preset behaviors, some of them chosen by chance (so it does not become too predictable). -1- First and most important, they compare your strength against theirs. They won't attack when you are stronger. Or there is a very small chance (this simulates a stupid captain or over-ambitious zealot), they will attack anyway. After all, history is full of mistakes. -2- I imagine AI fleet will not chase you all over the whole map as you indicated. Parameters will determine how long the chase run will last (simulating patience of that NPC captain or his resolution, his other plans he has to pursue and don't allow him to play with an opportunity target like your ship for too long). They could try to overtake you for a certain distance like a dozen km only, for half a day, or whole day, or (rarely) endlessly. Depends what the program choses as behavior pattern for this singular event. Of course every chase would stop under the gun nozzles of your nation's port defenses. And there you'd be safe. I am not thinking of more elaborate behavior like waiting in an ambush until you come out again of that port. That goes too far. -3- So that limits the calculation efforts for AI. No calculation as long as you don't get into range for identification and battle rating comparison. Limited calculation for the time the AI captain keeps interested in running after you. Ceases with calculation the moment he gives up. -4- All other calculation, about the behavior inside battle instance itself, is already present as it is used when you attack NPC fleets all the time.

Some of us grow fond of their favorite ship. Especially when built on your own shipyard and upgraded with permanent extras. Like your car etc in real life, we should have an opportunity to give names to our ships. So there are not dozens of Cerberus'es, but dozens and uniquely your 'XXXXX' - which makes a difference.

Suppose I have to knock on your cabin door and announce my presence on PVE server each time, as you see yourself as the king of PVE? Otherwise I am not participating rightfully on your holy realm? Sorry but I have to laugh at your funny presumption. Even more so as you have not been "insulted" anywhere, just shown you missed the crucial point. But relax, even when my suggestion becomes true, you are still safe from me on PVE, as I don't see how I could disguise myself as a NPC ship.

So you speak for the whole PVE server? Of whom I am a member as well, and I assure you, you don't speak for me. Actually your chain shot goes straight into the water, because you missed the fact I spoke about an option for PVE players. Meaning, who wants to stay safe in a disney-kind of fluffy pinky parallel world where "enemy" fleets wave friendly at you and look on while you pass right before the nozzles of their gun decks with an inferior vessel, can do so all the time to his liking. You switch AI attacking you on and off, also to your liking. That's my vision and I like it. You evade stronger fleets or risk getting chased. It's simply essential for the credibility of such open world where every other nation is your enemy except the 'neutral' ports. You learn even better to survive this way for the day you want to fight human players on PVP.

I don't think pessimism is a solution. We should always speak out our ideas, no matter if they sound too hard to come true or not. It's one of the 'raisons d'etre' for a forum - a think tank for ideas concerning the game in developing process. You never know if you initiate a spark or not. When an idea does not get inserted in a game, you at least can say you did your part in making it heard.

I understand the value of the PVE server for beginners to feel safe and make their experiences with everything. However, once you feel a bit advanced and still don't want to move over to PVP, you should be given an option which teaches you more respect of NPC fleets nearby. As it is now, you can completely ignore them and crossing course with them with no fear whatsoever, no matter how strong the task group is and how weak you are. I wish I would have to avoid them. Make it so, that when starting a game or when organizing the game options, players can chose if NPC ships can attack them or not. I don't think this is much of a programming effort, as there is already an AI directing NPC ships in battle when you attack them. However, the feeling of a real open world is much better if you have to watch out for stronger opponents and avoid them if possible. This does not mean ALL NPC ships will ALWAYS attack you. AI needs to compare strengths and battle ratings and decide on those grounds if it should dare fight or not. So you won't get attacked with your frigate all the time by tiny Lynxes seeking suicide. No frustration potential, because if you find it too hard to sail in an open world with aggressive superior NPC fleets, you simply uncheck their battle initiation capability in your options and you are safe as before.

In the present state, we don't have to take shallows serious. They just slow you down and when you run onto one ahead, you just make a standstill. Turn around and continue voyage. -- Dear captains, this is ridiculous. Shallows, cliffs, rocks, unchartered submaritime objects close to surface were dangerous, very dangerous in the age of wooden ships. They could rip off your underbody or you could get stuck and had to wait if you get free with retreating flood. Or had to get towed by another ship from a sandbank. Sometimes even longboats could do that. -- So shallows need to be dangerous, you learn to better avoid them if you don't want to get damaged or even sunk! (how many ships were lost historically because of running on undersea rocks or the coast? Probably more than were lost in storms or battles) The game could tell you if the shallow found close to your ship is massive rock (more dangerous) or sand (this means less damage but risk of getting stuck with your keel), maybe this is determined by chance, or else by gathered local infos from Caribbean waterway charts. I am aware my suggestion gives new importance to vessels of little draft which have to fear shallows less. With dangerous shallows, a slide over the ground could result in: - 1 - you are getting stuck. Means a loss of time. If you are sailing in company, with a fleet, less time is needed to get free because you get help by another ship towing you. Otherwise you have to wait for the flood, simulated by, let's say, one 360 degree turn of the wind around the full circle until you are set free. You may find your hull damaged in addition and need to repair, especially when running with high speed on it. When you are lucky, you get free without damage. - 2 - you are getting underwater leaks. Could start a mini game where you do some emergency tasking. Outcome determines how fast and effective you can repair the holes. If you fail, you lose your ship and have to continue voyage on one of your fleet ships. If you have none, then you find yourself in the next harbor like after lost battle. Maybe game could differ between large damage and fast sinking or smaller damages and slow sinking - in this case you have the opportunity to move cargo from your hold to another ship in your fleet, if there is space enough. Having with you hull repair material, planks, gives you an advantage in your attempts to close leaks after running on shallows. - 3 - A small chance however remains that you run on a shallow and nothing happens, as it is now. The chance for that event increases when you sail with low speed. You may get away just by changing course, as you are used to.

In my time on the PVE server I have not ever witnessed an opponent (and there are only NPC opponents) surrender in battle. This needs to get changed. I mean, people have the desire to survive and even simulated people should have it. When a ship is shot to pieces and hopelessly damaged, preferably when having lost masts and it is no more maneuvrable - they should surrender for god's sake. No matter how many crew they lost, no surrender ever. It's not only not understandable from human side, it's totally unhistorical. Battles were only fought until you knew who prevailed and who lost. Then galantry set in and the loser set his white flag and delivered his sword. Except maybe for pirates, who had a motive for killing off everybody for not leaving behind witnesses who could later testify against them at courts. Here resistance to the last man is more reasonable, because you would know you'd face no mercy as a survivor.

Very well, Sir. It's beyond our powers anyway what will get attention and what will not. Until then, the suggestions remain at their place and certainly do not belong to the "perishable" goods in your hold.

I will add my suggestions to the game: (1) Introduce a longitude/latitude measuring with related instrument into the game. The map may receive an invisible grid of such degrees. Players use a sextant for determining position on the map, the quality of that instrument may vary with some sorts you may buy in ports or loot after battle from ships you boarded. it does not give "automatic readings", you seriously have to learn how to use it like a navigator did. This just adds to realism, together with using the protractor on the map as we do now. Maybe on the map we may also get navigational instruments for determining day-distances with a given speed in knots. (2) Insert an upgrade for any ship which lets you mount swivel guns. Those have a rather limited caliber of 1 or 2 pounds, but they can aim in wide angles on the side where they are mounted on the railing. Primarily for short range and as boarding cannons. Could be fired independently from batteries and preferably with different ammunition type. So you would have balls in your batteries and grain in your swivels. (3) Insert an upgrade to add chaser guns to ship types where they are not standard. And an upgrade to increase the number of chasers from 2 to 4. Maybe with connected sacrifice in crew space or cargo space, just a little. It is not a big project to position additional guns in bow or stern positions on a sufficiently wide deck. (4) Some goods should have a perishable character, so you need to deliver them as fast as possible before their value drops dramatically. Especially fish meat! But also pork or food supplies. This makes it important to use fast vessels in order to provide timely transportation (and get higher sale prices). So here is where the use of 'navigational instruments' for determing E.T.A's comes in. (5) To add something on the 'perishable character' thing, insert an upgrade which allows the use of ice blocks for cooling merchandise. Will take space and thus reduce your cargo compartment but should pay off by speedy delivery of perishable and highly sought after goods. (6) Introduce anchors, which help in shallow waters or within a distance to closest shallows to make sharp turns or move a ship versus wind direction by pulling in the anchor chain. (7) Introduce dinghies on board of ships of certain size (snow or brig as a minimum) which can be lowered into water for two tactical purposes: helping during boarding combat (like attacking from another side or sneak in for a bonus in melee) or for pulling a ship away from laying dead in a lull/contrary windsituation by force of their rowing. The existence of dinghies could depend on an upgrade as well, quality of the boat could depend on wood sort being used just like ships. A larger long-boat gives you some advantage for named purposes (more crew, more oars, maybe even gets a swivel gun installed on it).

Glad to have finally found a good description. I already missed capturing two Trader Snows just because there was no 'x' keystroke visible to me. I knew of its existence from other info, but just hammering 'x' without seeing 'x' on the screen does you no good.