Bull Hull

The real point is that nobody should have to join a clan to get access to any benefits or advantages. Small clans should not have to merge with larger clans or other small clans to make a large clan large enough to get access to benefits and advantages. EVERY player - REGARDLESS of clan membership - should have equal access to the SAME benefits and advantages of every other player. EVERY player should be able to set up their OP production buildings and shipyard however they want REGARDLESS of whether or not they just happen to belong to a clan large enough to take and hold a particular port. The developers need to stop with the incessant efforts to manipulate us into hard core PvP and joining large clans or forever relegate Naval Action to an insignificant niche game that appeals to only a few hundred players.

In other words, the developers are concentrating more and more power into the hands of a relatively few large clans in each nation and so smaller clans will be thoroughly screwed.

Displacement alone is a terribly simplistic and arbitrary way to determine HP. HP should be a function of displacement AND how much of that displacement comes from its armor and its guns (i.e. how much of its displacement is due to its actual combat ability). Two ships with identical displacement should not have the same HP when one of those two ships has three feet of armor from its thick hull while the other has no armor because it is only a cargo ship so it doesn't have any more hull than what it needs to keep out the water. Not all displace is qualitatively the same. The ship with no armor can easily be sunk with just a few holes below its waterline and nearly all of its hull/structure (i.e. HP) still intact.

HP should be totally irrelevant to the rating a ship gets. In every rate some ship have the most HP. So, according to the poor logic of this HP standard, that ship should be promoted to the next higher rating. Using the number guns as the overwhelming consideration for how to rate a ship was good enough for history and so it should be good enough for this game. Making the Connie and her sister ships a 3rd Rate was stupid. The United States class FRIGATES were designed to be super frigates, or "Great Frigates" as the Brits called frigates with more than 40 guns. They were designed to be able to out fight everything they could not outrun, and to out run everything they could not out fight. All Ships of the Line had at least two gun decks below the weather decks for their main batteries and secondary heavy batteries with supplemental guns on the weather decks. All frigates had ONE gun deck, either below the weather decks or on the main weather deck, and they essentially had from 30-59 guns. Sloops of War (unrated) and Corvettes (rated) had less than 30 guns. Ships of the Line had more than 60 guns. The funniest thing I've noticed since this issue popped up is how the developers are trying to count EVERY gun, including bow and stern guns, to artificially inflate how many guns ships have. But the only guns that matter for a ship's rating are its broadside guns.

Kill (i.e. cap) an LGV in less than 10 minutes with a Basic Cutter? Preposterous. After 30-45 minutes of stern camping sure. But less than 10 minutes? Not possible; unless the new damage model now makes that possible. Haven't tried it since the change. Please post a video doing that within 10 minutes with a Basic Cutter because I would love to learn how to do that.

And your RATIONAL explanation for exactly how my comment is supposedly impolite is? ? ? You do recognize and can realize/understand that I am complementing most players, right?

We are way beyond the time for the game to keep treating our player character identity as someone who can magically move from port to port instantly while every "skipper" we have is functionally identical unless we change our perks for a specific ship or mission. We are way beyond the time for the game to keep treating our skill development as purely dependent upon the magical whims of the RNG gods. We have gone far too long without the game providing our alter-ego character with an actual staff officer corps to whom we can delegate operations. We have gone far too long without the game providing a decent RPG style of character development with which we develop skills through experience and the CHOICES we make rather than the pure dumb luck of the skill books we acquire. The perk system has been a great appetizer that permits us to simulate having staff officers we can delegate functions to when we need to briefly focus on doing something, but that system is woefully inadequate. To be bluntly and frankly honest, making skill development purely a function of the whims of the RNG gods and the books they whimsically choose to bestow upon us, unless we get lucky enough to stumble upon a book we want and need for sale in some port that we just happen to have luckily chosen to visit, is grossly unrealistic. Some might even say that is a little dumb considering what is possible by following the examples of many RPGs. What we need and should have by now is a character development system that treats our main character as the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) for a fleet who then has a staff of ships' captains to command our vessels for us. What we need and should have is the freedom to CHOOSE what skills our main character has and what each ship's captain has by earning experience. The pure luck of the skill book drop should a nice reward to speed up our choices, but not a substitute for real skill and character development. Far too often this game feels like the developers have never played an RPG and so they don't have a clue how to empower us to CHOOSE how we develop our characters or skippers who command our ships. What we need is/are the following: - NPC Officers we can assign to some specific ships to command those ships, but not necessarily one for every ship. Maybe 1 NPC skipper/player-rank-level +1. Through experience we could earn the choice to assign skills from skill trees so we can have skippers who are a master of a particular class of ship and/or style of fighting or be a jack of all styles. This way we could have skippers who are competent at all sailing and fighting skills (at least as competent as we are) but specialists/masters in a particular skill branch, such as branches for: Boarding; Sailing; Gunnery; Carronade Gunnery; Mortar Gunnery; Survival. While each skipper could eventually learn/select all skills with enough experience, we could choose to focus different skippers on different skills sets to use different ships for different tasks/missions. - NPC staff officers earn their own experience and promotions and have their own skill sets. All could command any ship smaller than their rank, but not a ship larger than their rank. Specializing in a particular class or rating is another possibility. - Naturally, each staff officer could also die (small chance when losing a ship they command) and then be replaceable. So, not only would we have to choose which ships we are willing to risk losing, we would need to choose whether we are willing to risk losing specific skippers. - Skills we can choose from a skill tree after we earn enough experience. These skill choices would be for both our main character who is the CNO and whichever NPC staff officer we assign to command a given ship. This way, if a staff officer dies when a ship gets sunk, we the player character is not losing the skills that skipper had. But just like real admirals we would have to train and develop any replacement staff officers to fill those specialist gaps when we lose a ship's captain. - Making skill development almost entirely a function of experience and player choice would naturally mean skill books should become a treat that is more rare, but a pleasant treat none-the-less. Finally, I have never been able to figure out why the developers seem to LOVE pure dumb luck and the whimsical benevolence of the RNG gods so much. Skill development and crafting, things that should be purely a function of experience and player choice, still depend way too much on pure dumb luck; dumb luck that is tedious and frustrating at best. Okay now, begin the brain storming because I have no doubt that more than few players are smart enough and objective enough to improve upon my foundational suggestion. So please, turn my acorns into whatever is your favorite species of giant tree. And yeah, I know not all trees grow from acorns.

That is a false dilemma. Having the option to do hostility missions doesn't necessarily have to mean keeping a port. Hostility missions can simply be nothing more than a way for players to set up opportunities for fleet operations to earn rewards. Win the hostility missions and get a reasonable reward. Win a port battle against a determined ai defender and earn decent rewards. Basically, port battles can provide a chance for players to raid ports to loot them. We don't have to keep anything other than the loot we earned by winning a port battle. Then there can be a significant cooldown of days to weeks before we can raid the same port because each port will need time to recover. So then players would have to raid a different port a little farther away, etc. etc. etc. If players from other countries can't interfere with our hostility missions or port battles then how could there possibly be an "unwanted competition"? There are soooooooooo many neutral ports on the map there are more than enough to go around to provide raiding opportunities for all nations and all players. The only meaningful competition would be against the ai defending a port. If that ai is as capable and competent as the ai in Epic Missions I have seen then that would be a decent fight. In other words, hostility missions and port battles can simply be a variation on Epic Battles except in a know location with more options on what we could bring to the fight within the BR limits of each port.

That rationalization about "forcing another player into a PvP Instance against his wishes" is a lame fear mongering straw man and false dichotomy. The developers can easily implement something like the smugglers flag that would allow players to freely CHOOSE whether or not any other player can attack them. Pure and simple with ZERO forcing of anything onto anyone. All we need is the OPTION to CHOOSE to fly a battle pennant. If I freely CHOOSE to fly a battle pennant then another player who has also CHOSEN to fly a battle pennant gets the CHOICE to attack me and that other player has freely chosen to permit to attack them. If I don't want to be able to attack other players or to permit other players to attack me then I just CHOOSE to not fly a battle pennant. Simple and easy. No forcing of anything onto anyone. Period. The PvP area ALREADY does this but limits the CHOICE to a relatively small circle - unless of course a player in the right class of ship just happens to accidentally sail through a PvP zone without realizing it. The bottom line is there is no rational reason to limit that PvP choice to such a relatively small circle. It wouldn't even be necessary to make the entire OW open to this PvP CHOICE. The developers could distribute a few large PvP circles and a few medium size circles and some smaller circles all over the map to facilitate the easy CHOICE to do PvP and do it ONLY with other players who want to proactively CHOOSE to seek out other players who have made the same CHOICE. Most of the Gulf could be a big PvP circle. Most of the Atlantic can be a big PvP circle or two or three. Other places for circles of various sizes are easy to see just by looking at the friggin map. But the sad reality is that the developers don't want to empower players with reasonable choices because they really don't care about satisfying as many players as they can satisfy. They want to manipulate us into an artificial and arbitrary false dichotomy of either hard core PvE or PvP with little room for any other styles in between that continuum of player styles and player preferences.

One of the bottom lines I get out of this is that large clans will totally dominate nations and smaller clans and solo/lone wolf players who have no interest in joining a clan are pretty much totally SOL.

LOL Yeah, right, creating my own game development company is the only option. Nice try with the lame false dilemma and preposterous red herring. And naturally the best you can manage is to resort to making a childish ad hominem attack to fabricate a lame genetic fallacy. The only non-adult here is the person who is resorting to the pathetic tactic of making childish ad hominem attacks. Get back to me if you figure out how to produce a rational explanation for exactly how I am supposedly not an adult and how I am supposedly throwing a tantrum. Get back to me if you figure out how to produce a cogent counterargument. When you people put all of your effort into attacking the messenger instead of the message you only prove that you have nothing. Your bottom line is patently false and laughably poor circular reasoning. Nice try with another ridiculous false dilemma.

That would definitely be the better option. But he developers are bound and determined to manipulate us into playing how they think we should play instead of empowering us with the freedom and choices to play how we prefer to play. And by we I mean ALL players who fall onto a wide continuum of many play-style preferences. But instead of respecting that reality and thus instead of respecting us the develops are trying to pigeon hole us into a false dichotomy of only two options - either full on unrestricted PVP or totally safe PVE with very little variety in between.

EXACTLY That is precisely why I submitted a bug report when I discovered that is indeed a bug. Ditto for the same bug on the Indiaman.

WOW Do you really not understand how circular and thus how incredibly lame that reasoning is? Those rules are a purely, solely, and totally the CHOICE of the developers. Consequently, the developers can also choose to tweak those rules in a way that would empower the players with MORE choices and thus possibly provide more players with more satisfaction. The developers can learn a lot, the developers need to learn a lot, about highly effective leadership and customer satisfaction.

WOW Talk about ridiculous rationalizing to produce some utter nonsense to rationalize some ridiculous red herrings. According to your preposterous logic a player who successfully runs instead of engaging when you chase them to try and tag them is interfering with your choice. According to your preposterous logic a player who sails on a part of the map where you are not sailing so you can't attack them is interfering with your choices. NOBODY is interfering with YOUR choices. You are perfectly free to make whatever choices you want to make within the set of possible choices, and everyone else has exactly the same freedom. Whether or not your choices and their choices succeed is a totally different issue. THAT success is NOT a right we have. The FACT is that per the process the OP suggests and which I explain further you would still be perfectly free to choose to try to attack anyone you want to try to attack. Whether or not that attempt succeeds would depend upon a variety of factors. LOL Where in the world do I say anything about anyone being special? That is YOUR distortion to fabricate a lame straw man and red herring. Whether or not anyone is special is totally IRRELEVANT to the issues I am addressing. FTR I'm not any more or less special than anyone else. LOL Nice try with the preposterous stereotyping and yet another lame red herring about me needing to grow a pair. Nearly all of my 4,499 hours of play are on the PVP server. I would be surprised if I have 20 hours on the PVE server (although that is likely to change if the developers keep trying to manipulate us as much as they are). So, I grew a pair a LONG time ago. I also have enough self-esteem and self-worth to find it insulting when the developers treat us like we are stupid children who they have to manipulate into playing the game the way THEY think we should play the game instead of empowering us with the ability to play the game how WE prefer to play it. LOL And your rational explanation for exactly how I am supposedly a greedy bastard is what? Me thinks thou doth project too much. LOL Your highly subjective and self-serving opinions/beliefs are not authentic facts nor authentic truths nor objective realities. Learn to understand the distinctions because there is a huge difference between justifying a belief by using authentic facts and independent RATIONAL thought to justify a reasonable and thus probably true belief verses rationalizing what you wish to believe merely because that feels better than the cognitive dissonance that would result from the alternative. Here are some inconvenient facts/truths/realities for you to try to wrap your brain around: Belief =/= Fact & Belief =/= Truth & Believing =/= Knowing P.S. - - I have more than enough XP to open the 4th slot on the LGV Refit (which per the name on mine is not the "Pirate Refit LGV") AND according to the 5th box I know how many more XP I need to unlock the 5th box. But despite the FACT that the boxes still stupidly IMPLY that we can unlock the 4th and 5th boxes they are still locked. The 4th box on my 7th and 6th Rate traders do not and never have implied that we can unlock them. P.S.S. - - Have you figured out yet how to understand the concept of implicit meaning?

Actually, the OP can't be more wrong. The fact/truth/reality is that ships from way farther away than 2-3 minutes could provide help to any friendly ship that needed help. Line of sight to the horizon is purely a function of height. Thus line of sight to another ship over the horizon is also purely a function of height. Thus: - From standing in a sloop six feet above the water visual range to another sloop with both sails down would be approx. 5.98 nautical miles (i.e. about 2.99 miles to the horizon). That means help is around one hour away if the help has an average speed of 12 knots. - A lookout 100 feet above the water has a line of sight to the horizon of 12.2 nautical miles (19.6 km), or about 24.4 nautical miles (39.2 km) to another ship of similar height. That means help is around 3.2-4 hours away with an average speed of around 10-12 knots. - Our visual range in OW of something around 12-15 km, and thus the visual range to friendly ships who might need help, is actually considerably less than it would be in the real world for most of the ships we use. Thus, when considering the time compression we have in OW where our speeds can easily be 2-3 times normal it is actually quite reasonable to get help from ships within 20-30 minutes of OW sailing time or more depending upon the class of ship. Consequently, an open battle window of only 2-3 minutes is grossly unrealistic even for the smallest ships that have a visual range of way more then 2-3 minutes of sailing time.

Uh oh. Time for some bluntly truthful honesty. Let's see how well it goes over. . . Nonsense. As in not if the ONLY way to get attacked by another player is if and ONLY if a player proactively CHOOSES to become a target to other players by turning on a simple yes/no toggle that permits them to opt into being an eligible target to other players. As in not if the ONLY way to get attacked by the ai is if and ONLY if a player proactively CHOOSES to become a target to the ai by turning on a simple yes/no toggle that permits them to be a target to the ai. You are willfully ignoring the relevant facts, truths and realities of the suggestion to rationalize the position you prefer. Nice try with that straw man and red herring. The inconvenient fact/truth/reality you are willfully ignoring is that permitting players to freely and proactively make this CHOICE necessarily means it would be IMPOSSIBLE to ruin the relaxing and tranquil experience of those players who want a relaxing and tranquil experience because they will leave those toggles off and thus it would be IMPOSSIBLE for another player or ai to attack them. Thus the ONLY players who could or would get attacked by other players and/or the ai would be the players who want that to happen by freely choosing to opt into that possibility. Personally, I would gladly opt into being a target to foreign ai IF I had the FREEDOM to make that proactive CHOICE verses being manipulated into that kind of semi-hostile environment. Personally, I would gladly opt into being a target to other players I had the FREEDOM to make that proactive CHOICE verses being manipulated into that kind of overtly hostile environment. Don't insult our intelligence with such transparent rationalizations that ignore inconvenient facts, truths, and realities.

Good grief, don't be so literal to fabricate a red herring. The chance of capping a ship that was built the way I want it build are slim. That is just a different and harder way to do RNG, which is just go out and keep capping ships until I get lucky enough to cap the one I really want. The TIME I would waste doing that is a resource I am wasting to get the ship I really want but can't craft. I know some of you people hate reality and any mention of reality, but in the real world that functions according to the realities of human behavior human beings - including players - tend to prefer more choices rather than being manipulated into fewer choices. In the real world and real economics of building things something built with less quality than is less expensive than the same something built with better quality. Again, some of us prefer to play Naval Action - a tactical and strategic war game simulation - instead of playing Fantasy Naval Action.

If you dislike modules and books so much then how would you effectively and reasonably simulate the fact that ships can be taken into a shipyard for modifications, and so those mod boxes simply simulate the necessary yard time for an overhaul that modifies the ship? How would you simulate the fact that a skipper doesn't sail a ship alone who skill books are an effective and easy way to simulate and represent the experience of the crew and the officers who lead that crew? Without a great core of great Officers and Petty Officers leading great crew a great skipper would only be average or mediocre. I wish we could have elite officers and legendary officers like is possible in Starfleet Battles and many of the other table top and PC tactical war games I have played. I have no doubt that I am in the minority on this because many players obviously prefer shooters to be as arcadey and unrealistic as possible, but I have zero interest in playing a tactical and strategic simulation that totally ignores the Officers, Petty Officers, and crew that make a great skipper and great ship possible.

While I agree in principle, crafters and players should still have the choice to build significantly less capable and thus less expensive ships if they want when something less expensive is sufficient. For example, why waste money and resources on a top of the line 5/5 quality ship that we fleet when all mods except for speed mods magically stop working when we fleet a ship? I prefer more choices rather than fewer choices, but your suggestion is better than the current stupid way of having to rely solely upon the benevolent whims of the RNG gods.

This is a fascinating variation on several ideas, which I don't think I have seen before, and it seems mostly reasonable and so it might be a reasonable compromise. My issues with this approach is that the permanent modifications the boxes represent and take are more about how the ship is built or modified than it is about the skill and experience of the skipper. Consequently, for those of us who strongly prefer realism when it is possible to do realism in a reasonable way, how about an experienced skipper having to also have to pay a hefty tax to for a permit/license/blueprint that represents the time and cost of putting the ship into a drydock for a major overhaul that changes the physical capabilities of the ship. I mean, it isn't like the skipper wakes up one morning after crossing an XP threshold and the ship magically has new and different masts, or a few inches of new armor. But yeah, your way of simply unlocking another box is the easy but less immersive way to do the same thing.

Because the benchmark the Admiralty's shipbuilders are building to is the ceiling rather than floor because that is the most efficient and economical way for the Admiralty to produce ships for the government's navy. Because master shipbuilders who don't want to work for the Admiralty can build a better product than the ordinary shipbuilders who work for the Admiralty. Basic economics and how the science of Economics accurately describes human behavior.

Then you were sailing with different people than the ones I was sailing with back then because the vast majority of the people I knew were NOT always sailing in 5/5 gold ships. Did most people have at least one? Sure. Was that the only thing they were sailing? Not even close. And I was one of those people who routinely sailed in something other than the 5/5 gold ships I had in SOME of the classes I sailed in. I have ZERO problem with people who are willing to bear any grind to EARN the privilege to have a 5/5 gold ship or even a few 5/5 gold ships. Such people who bear the grind DESERVE the reward because they put in the necessary work to afford their Precious. I am not underestimating anyone. Indeed, my comments have pretty said exactly the opposite. Maybe you didn't read all of my comments to fully understand my position. My issue is making that privilege purely a function of dumb luck. EVERYONE should have to endure the same grind to earn the same privilege. If someone is willing to put in the work then fine, I solute such people. I reject your variation on a perfect solution fallacy because it is impossible to have a system that some people will not exploit in some way. So, rather than throw in the towel to such people I say ignore them because REGARDLESS of what the system is the same people will figure out some way, some loophole, that will permit them to game the system to collect a horde of whatever it is they covet. So, if they covet docks full of many 5/5 gold ships then well, that is what they have by any means necessary. Keeping a stupid RNG system because of those outliers is not the best approach to take. EXACTLY how is pure dumb luck fair? That is a sad way to define fair. There is nothing fair about valuing pure dumb luck over a willingness to put in the necessary effort to EARN a specific privilege. Finally, the insistence that the only way to provide higher quality ships is through the whims of the benevolent RNG crafting gods is a lame false dilemma because that is not the only way and it is far from the best way. If people love the RNG chance of getting a better ship then fine, make that possible through some means OTHER than crafting. You like to talk about fair, okay, let's talk about fair. How is it fair for a player who has no interest in crafting and so he or she can never receive the benevolence of the RNG crafting gods who decide to bestow the gift of a better ship? Players who don't craft are thus locked out from the chance of getting a gold ship UNLESS they can afford the inflated price that a greedy crafter might charge, or UNLESS they happen to have a friend or clanmate who is willing to share for a fair price. So, what about solo players who have no interest in belonging to a clan? EVERY player should know up front EXACTLY what they will have to do at a minimum to get the ship they want. If I want to build my own and pay a hefty certification fee/tax to the Admiralty of 1M or 3M or 5M or 10M reals plus thousands of daubloons to get the ship I want then THAT is perfectly fair to everyone who wants to craft their own. And if everyone knows what that certification fee/tax the crafter paid is, and if they can figure out what it cost for a crafter to crafter to craft the ship a player prefers to buy instead of craft, then THAT is perfectly fair because then everyone can determine if the sellers price is a fair reflection of the production cost. So, how about this as a fair compromise: - Eliminate RNG for ship quality - period. EVERY ship players build should/will have exactly however many boxes the player chooses to build into it, and the cost to for the Admiralty to certify ships of superior quality can reflect the quality of the ship. - Eliminate RNG for getting a regional trim. EVERY crafter should be able to craft a ship according to the availability (i.e. cost) of the necessary skills, materials, and blueprints. The farther away the source of necessary skills and materials and blueprints are the more expensive they are - period. Perfectly fair/equal for everyone. - Keep RNG for a 2nd and unknown regional trim as icing on the cake the crafter bakes. This can and should satisfy those who adore RNG. - Make superior quality ships available as a blueprint drop or redeemable drop for the same class ship whenever a player sinks a ship at EXACTLY the same chance that crafters have to craft a ship. Why are crafters the only people with a shot at superior quality ships? In other words, if the RNG gods currently deem that I have a 1:50 chance of crafting a purple ship when I craft a ship, or 1:200 chance of crafting a gold ship, then EVERY player - i.e. not only crafters - should have a 1:50 chance of getting a blueprint or redeemable for a purple when I sink or capture an NPC ship. Now, if the data shows that people sink ships in OW 10X faster or 50X faster than crafters craft ships then change the drop rate to 1:500, or 1:2,500, or 1:5,000, or whatever frequency the developers deem appropriate. Ditto for a 1:2,000 or 1:10,000 or 1:25,000 chance of getting a gold ship. This can and should satisfy those who adore RNG. And we know who will not find this approach satisfactory, right? Those who don't want anyone else to have the Precious they covet, and those who want only crafters to be the source for each Precious.

Nice try with the lame line drawing fallacy that tries to avoid the real point. Besides, I have already given an answer to this. A random and hidden regional refit in addition to the choice we make can be an easy way to provide a marginal difference. Getting another mod box is more than a marginal difference. So, I guess that is your answer - mod boxes are more than a marginal difference, trims are a marginal difference. There, you insisted that I draw a line, so I drew a line.

What is my point, exactly? Seriously? I can't explain it any more thoroughly, and your interpretation can't be much more wrong. I NEVER say anything about no RNG of any kind for ship crafting. I NEVER say anything about blue 3/5 for everyone. Some crafting RNG can be done in a way that isn't stupid. The current way of doing ship crafting RNG is stupid. Many, I bet most players, want to play Naval Action, not Fantasy Naval Action, not Whims of the RNG Gods Naval Action.