surfimp

Are ship inventories and prices available on a per-port basis via the API yet?

I made this image for people like that:

One addition to this, that I think is an essential component of "awareness": Being aware of the way the wind will shift in counterclockwise rotation, and planning your departure time accordingly. When I'm hunting player traders on the US East Coast, I've noticed that players will plan their routes such that they're always sailing with favorable wind. For example, they'll depart Charleston when the wind is out of the NE, putting them on a run or broad reach, and sail down to a port south of Sunbury, arriving with the wind on their beam out of the NW or W. They'll conduct their business, and then depart and return the direction from which they came, taking advantage of the wind's shift - which, having shifted close to 180*, is now once again putting them on a broad reach or run. One advantage to coasting in a setting like this (US East Coast) as opposed to sailing offshore is that there are numerous friendly NPC fleets that can be sucked into a battle circle for reinforcement (or to cause a "BR difference too high" attack failure), as well as many friendly ports that can often be gotten into before the attacker gets close, especially if a defensive tag is used. So it's really a bit more of an "it depends" type of situation when it comes to coasting versus sailing offshore, just on the edge of visibility to shore. There can be good reasons to do each.

I would love to see storms return, as well as seeing OW weather conditions carried over to the battle instance. Nothing worse than being in a heavy sea and rain shower when entering battle, and then having clear skies and flat water in the instance.

I am happy to see wind speed implemented and am very interested in how it will effect the combat instance: - If I fail to reef my sails in strong conditions, will there be a risk of rigging & spar damage, as well as the possibility of broaching and capsize? - In strong conditions, assuming I reef my sails appropriately, will I still be able to achieve my ship's maximum speed while avoiding damage to my rigging? - Will there be a relationship between wind strength and sea state? As for the chasers discussion - the Privateer & Lynx have gunports in their stern for chasers but these cannot be fitted. Not sure if that is by design or accidental, but I would love to see the option of equipping guns there (with associated performance impacts).

Agree with this (I am myself a player who mostly cares about privateering). However, the one thing I'm concerned about, and for which I haven't seen an answer from admin: Can the Lord Protector's control of port entry be enforced at the individual player level? If so, what is to stop Lord Protectors from demanding that I play the way they want me to play, or risk not being able to play at all (due to no access to ports / resources / etc)? Would appreciate a response from Admin / the Devs on the subject.

Question: will entry rights be defined on a national basis, clan basis, and/or individual player basis?

I think the AI autopilot idea should work regardless of whether or not the player is online. Somebody suggested the ability to "Agent Smith" into an auto piloted ship if it comes under attack... assuming you're in an outpost. That's a good idea. I have advocated for a greatly reduced player teleport cool down. I think the bigger problem for the game is around ship teleports (both back to capital and after capturing) but I feel like player teleport - without the ship, between outposts - is not only not bad, but desirable on many levels. Sure, it allows people to quickly gather to defend a port (assuming they have an outpost and a suitable ship nearby), but so long as it's not possible to teleport ships themselves, I think there'd be no more, and possibly less, threat of Zerg rushes than currently. And it might help reduce the frequency of undefended port battles. To say nothing of what I feel is the most important aspect of the autopilot solution, which is getting ships out of hyperspace and back into the open world where they can be interdicted. That would open up whole new meaningful avenues of gameplay for small ships that the current port battle meta X teleport mechanic had made largely irrelevant in an RVR sense.

But I *like* sailing the Basic Cutter! It's a fun ship. I'm with the camp who feels that this is an imaginary problem. I've got > 300hrs in game and never seen anything even close to a Basic Cutter swarm.

I've been asking for exactly this for a while now. I think it's a good idea.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-pastafarian-wedding-new-zealand-20160419-story.html

I will add that I picked up Osprey's Fighting Sail and wasn't too impressed. It's more oriented to fleet actions, so maybe it shines there, but coming from a Sails of Glory / Naval Action perspective (focus on single or just a few ships per player), it just seems to make all the ships too much alike one another in performance / etc. I've still never played WSIM or Close Action, both of those are classics and I'd like to play them if for no other reason that completeness's sake.

You've somehow not heard of Sails of Glory? http://www.aresgames.eu/games/sails-of-glory-line Uses a nice card-based maneuver mechanic, similar to X-Wing's cardboard template (in fact, X-Wing based their template on the Wings of Glory / Sails of Glory model). The ships look nice and come premade and ready to use out of the box. They are plastic, very durable, look good and are easy to fix. The rules have a variety of levels of complexity from basic to standard to advanced, with additional optional rules which can be added to taste. There are a variety of ships on offer from small Sloops of War (similar to NA's 5th and 6th rates) up to 1st rates, including the Victory, L'Ocean, etc. Basic starter set comes with 4 ships and is a great way to get going. Lots of cool accessories available. Lots of fun to play, with easy learning curve. It's very much Naval Action on the tabletop.

The devs made a hotfix and the AI traders are back in plenitude, including those carrying contraband. It was a bug.

I've done at least half a dozen duels via the Ship Duels feature, and I love it. The Ship Duels room is one of my favorite things from the 9.7 patch. Here are some suggestions for improving it further: 1) When on the Ship Duel screen, show the type of ship(s) in queue, in addition to the number. That will help the matchmaking significantly - right now it's guess & hope. 2) Add the ability to right click a user's name in chat and provide the option "Challenge to Duel" It would work similar to the "Invite to Trade" feature: if both players agree, are in port, and are in appropriately matched ships, then the duel instance will start. It would be really neat if a menu popped up showing the player's list of ships, and the ship the opponent had selected (similar to trade screen). Once both players had selected matched ships, and both clicked "Begin Duel", then the duel instance would begin. This would also allow the duel room to be a great training room to allow more experienced players to help newbies get up to speed. I'm already using it for the purpose, if I see my opponent is a Midshipman and having trouble getting out of irons, etc. 3) Add the ability to "Send to Chat" the duel result. It would work similar to how the Ships Letters work. In lieu of a leaderboard, it would give some public bragging rights. "Captain So-And-So defeated Captain Such-and-Such in single combat" or whatever. Could be fun and provide some meta-entertainment for those in chat, especially if the duel was called to settle an argument that started in chat.

Sounds like the lesser of two weevils.

Last night, in a quest to test land-in battles, I sailed from Habana to Tumbado to Bensalem to Bonacca. Was online approximately 7pm - 11:45pm PDT on PVP1, username 'Sanson Carrasco' for Spain. Along the north coast of Cuba, there were lots of Spanish AI fleets and some escorted traders but no solo traders, and no contraband traders that I recall seeing. Between Tumbado and Bensalem I saw very few ships, literally just a couple AI British warships and one Brit player in a Surprise. I sailed the narrow straights from Congrios > Salamanca > Ambergrease Caye, thinking it would be an awesome place to test land in battles, but I didn't see a single ship anywhere. Was a near total deadzone between Xpu Ha and Bensalem. Once I got down to the coast near Morro Chico / Bonacca, I saw more British fleets spawning, but as was the case off Cuba, most were the large fleets of SOL squadrons, along with smaller 2-3 ships fleets. There were some traders, but none with contraband, and all had escorts. One British trader Lynx had 3x Privateer escort... must've been transporting the Queen herself! Global chat was full of people reporting the same thing concerning traders. The above made it difficult to test land-in battles as, near Cuba, I couldn't find something to attack that wouldn't make me turn Pirate, and when I got down to Bonacca area, it was hard to find something that wouldn't totally overhwhelm me. Eventually I took on a Trader Lynx / Lynx combo. Was able to capture the Trader Lynx but then got wrecked by the newly much more accurate shooting of the AI Lynx... which also sank the captured Trader Lynx for good measure. LOL!

FYI, this map link is broken (doesn't redirect properly). I hope it comes back!

Yo creo que este cambio (de pillar a los navios de IA) va a hacer muy importante que les soportamos - con nuestras horas laborales - a nuestros crafters que estan construyendo nuestros navios de 1st, 2nd y 3rd rate. Normalmente estoy muy contento en ir a mi bola pero ahorita puedo ver que si quiero tener puertos para mis edificios de produccion, tengo que asistir a mis companeros. Disculpa, soy americano y no puedo hablar ni escribir muy bien el espanol.

Oh, I'd give them reasons to sail manually, let there be no doubt about that However, right now they don't sail them anyways, they teleport them. Which keeps the resources & goods out of the OW, for the most part, and prevents privateering/piracy from being a viable gameplay mode (as there is little to no ability to interdict enemy trade, certainly not in a meaningful RVR sense). It also makes trading a nearly zero risk activity - one of the few such activities in the game. Changing that - while still allowing ships to be sailed "automatically" (i.e. not requiring people to sail long hauling journeys through the OW if they don't find that fun) - would be a nice improvement for the game.

Presumably more would be intercepted if there was an actual RVR/PVP aspect to capturing them, but even then, I suspect many would get through just fine. Especially if they are not on trade routes that go into or out of a national capital while carrying "contraband" cargo

That's terrible, and to me, says that the Small/Large Battles should maybe be no-loss and no-reward.

Yes, this is what I was trying to get at. I feel the same way you do - I'd like it so your player character can teleport all over the place between outposts (per currently), but the ships themselves have to be sent through the OW - in all instances, whether it's "send to capital" or "send to outpost" (i.e. after capturing a ship).

I've thought about something similar and think it could be cool. If you had a bunch of ships moving through the OW, it would almost become like a RTS... you'd "beam" into whatever ship was in trouble, fight the fight, then go back to your command overview screen. You'd still have the option to sail per current practice, too, but it would let you have more stuff going on. I think it could be interesting and exciting!

I should clarify that I had people jump into my battles, but not cap the ships I was after - so, other than the oddity of seeing someone join a battle that was BR 40 (me in Privateer) vs BR 10 (obviously a trader), there was "no harm, no foul" as we say in English. And, for the most part, having played on PVE, PVP1 and PVP2, the people playing for Spain on PVP1 have been amazingly welcoming and supportive. I personally prefer to play as a solo, focusing on my privateering vocation, but for the average player coming to PVP1, there is a welcome home among the Spanish, for sure. Lastly, having players in the non-European timezones is really good for Spain on PVP1, and lack of that demographic has been holding the faction back from being able to be competitive 24/7. It's nice to see it changing. Oh, and thanks for capping those ports last night. I'm working on crafting a Privateer and I got a sweet deal on some coal in one of them... o7 Hasta la victoria siempre, amigos!