Hotfix 7 for testbed patch 9.99

[NavalActionPlayer]

Maybe it's cos I is Danish,  innit

[Jeheil]

I sailed for 90 minutes off the heel of cuba Sant Iago and the 4 ports along there, now of course you can miss fleets etc...but in that time ONE spanish Trader Snow...lots of other stuff, american ai fleets etc....but I don't see how we could raise hostility there.

Annnd I no, no conquest marks if no attackers (for defenders) is it the same if you attack and no defenders ?

[Hethwill]

Yes. That makes sense. No defenders to shoot at, no marks

[balticsailor]

I had a wreak near Islomodara when i sail there i found a single pirate fleet and a snow/navy brig fleet. After i killed those i waited for over 1h in front of that port to see if they respawn or any other pirate npc come along, but nothing. At the moment some regions are basicly invulnerable, due to low npc spawn rate or them beening to scattered over the map. Are some maybe sailing out of their home regions and wander around in enemy regions (you see a lot of us fleets in the french waters for exsample)

[Dharus]

9 hours ago, Davos Seasworth said:

I searched through crafting, admiralty, and the trader tool to see if there is any means on getting precise parts for war supplies. I did not find anything. I will take another look once I get back to port from my 2hrs effort of raising hostilities to .8%

It was missing in hotpatch 6 after they removed copper.  I had f11ed it then as well.  Given they patched Monday they probably hadn't gotten to it.  It's pretty necessary for war supplies.

I suggest if people want to test npc movements, get a few friends and place one per port in region.  Then one at a time hit a npc.  The pathing isn't port A to port B sometimes.  They sometimes roam far.  Either way, perhaps contention should be increased per BR sunk a bit or maybe a pass on home region ship BR mobiles.  From what i saw with Bach they seemed good for windward islands.

[Ratline]

11 hours ago, Kaos said:

It's because hostility generation is restricted to the desired region so the best way to avoid getting your port flipped was to not show up to not feed points to enemies as it was anticipated before implemented, it ends up with 2 rvr fleets avoiding each other but grinding pve when the other fleet is not there threatening them : )

I think I proposed like a year ago an idea to unlock pb's with pvp marks (instead of some war supplies) that are not tied to specific region and also access to pb's through marks as well to avoid alts and randoms who did nothing to help joining it but knowing this games playerbase then that would probably lead to fixed matches just to farm marks off of each other secretly in some quiet corner instead of promoting any actual pvp activity on OS. I wasn't sure how to prevent mark farming off of alts and friendly enemy teams so I left it at that. Maybe someone picks it up and manages to exploit-proof this idea or it might be worthless and open up more can of worms.

It would also require the port actually being more valuable than marks themselves (in the long run) otherwise why bother other than for 25vs25 pew pew if you can get more bang for your buck by just selling the marks on the market. I think you need to give land/production buildings in lucrative spots to people to lure them into war.

 

Not sure we'd need to go down the route of using marks, in essence it just means more grinding and as you say is potentially open to gaming (although almost anything is), It also makes the strongest tactic vs your enemy be to never engage, back to the original problem.

Unless there are technical reasons, which only Admin could tell us, I really think the idea of ships in the water + kills (attackers) vs kills (defenders) is worth exploring. It's simple, which is always good and forces engagement. Yes the defenders can sit it out until the PB (they can do that with npc grinds) but that PB is guaranteed to happen if they do. Make hostility decay significant enough and attackers can't just play hide and seek.

[ironhammer500]

On 5/8/2017 at 4:13 PM, admin said:

why is it a problem? Build a iron mine and you have iron for yourself and maybe others. 

Because there is no NPC supply players will be forced to build them. And supply will appear

Your hoping this game will get a lot of players, the old max online for the pve server was around 100-150 from before the wipe was announced, for a pure player driven economy that is not enough.

Eve works because it has a seeded market where resources are put into it to make sure supply is never to low. You will see the supply will be very low and the prices will be so high new players wont be able to do anything.

[Challenge]

People are already setting prices at inflationary levels. 400 for a unit of silver, 200 for one of hemp. And they're offering to buy at prices below the cost of production. So even now the economy is unable to be tested due to lack of people and understanding of cost/gain.

[maturin]

34 minutes ago, Challenge said:

People are already setting prices at inflationary levels. 400 for a unit of silver, 200 for one of hemp. And they're offering to buy at prices below the cost of production. So even now the economy is unable to be tested due to lack of people and understanding of cost/gain.

But are those the lowest and the highest prices, respectively? And are there multiple contracts in play?

[Hethwill]

Sold all my stone in less than hours at 55 a piece. Small profit but surely welcome by the buyers. Guess some greedy fellows could ask for way more.

[Remus]

1 hour ago, Challenge said:

People are already setting prices at inflationary levels. 400 for a unit of silver, 200 for one of hemp. And they're offering to buy at prices below the cost of production. So even now the economy is unable to be tested due to lack of people and understanding of cost/gain.

Depends what you call inflationary. I'd willingly pay 400 for silver it was available locally, same for gold. They are both awkward to get resources but only needed in low quantities, so high prices make up for low volume and lack of availability.

200 for Hemp, well, what's to stop you making your own? But if players are buying ...

NPCs on live servers usually buy below cost so no problem with players making similar offers. Though I thought we were limited on the number of buy contracts we can place. Seems rather a waste using them like this but, hey, if players are foolish enough to sell at these prices...  You can always put up your own contract if you don't like the prices offered.

@The Red Duke is being generous selling stone at 55, though I suppose it depends where he's selling. I'd probably charge 100 myself (and willingly buy at 100 I might add), but if I carted it to a capital or an iron port which didn't have stone (I think ... but I haven't got round to checking in hotfix 7 that making guns in your iron port means the least hauling - stone is needed for the workshop iirc) I might charge 200 for my time spent hauling and my guess of what players are willing to pay.

Edit: If anyone does mine gold or silver, could you let me know the daily output and building level you are using. Thanks,

Edited May 9, 2017 by Remus

[Challenge]

I'm selling at about 20% profi margin to keep everything available for people ready to craft. I'm working on crafting mats such as provisions and producing some basics like hemp and oak. I want to see some crafted ships coming out so...

But yeah, I see your point about the silver prices.

Edited May 9, 2017 by Challenge

[Sir Texas Sir]

9 hours ago, The Red Duke said:

Been selling out all the contracts I put out, from the Antilles to San Domingo, bermuda cedar, stone enough for a lot of workshops and some copper, side production of the mines.

No idea if other players just hoarde stuff, but the small margin of profit is profit.

When resources are low folks tend to hoarde.   Though remember we are only dealing with an average of 30-90 players online on testbed.  It would be a bit diffrent say if it was 300-900 being the daily average.   That reminds me I had some buy orders out from a bit ago I should prob go check in.  I haven't done anything since the new patches cause I knew what would happen.  Tons of buy orders and ever thing is out.  Exactly what we did with Fine Woods to get it.

8 hours ago, Jeheil said:

I sailed for 90 minutes off the heel of cuba Sant Iago and the 4 ports along there, now of course you can miss fleets etc...but in that time ONE spanish Trader Snow...lots of other stuff, american ai fleets etc....but I don't see how we could raise hostility there.

Annnd I no, no conquest marks if no attackers (for defenders) is it the same if you attack and no defenders ?

I did a circle around grand turk and all I found was traders until I found one 5/6th rate fleet.   Being a pirate I expected a lot more ships to pick. I think some areas still have issues with number of fleets. IF we are having issues with 30-90 players think how it would be with 300-900 players, but than I would assume they expect us to do more PvP, but that means we still need to be able to replace our ships cause most the time some one is going to loose a ship.

1 hour ago, ironhammer500 said:

Your hoping this game will get a lot of players, the old max online for the pve server was around 100-150 from before the wipe was announced, for a pure player driven economy that is not enough.

Eve works because it has a seeded market where resources are put into it to make sure supply is never to low. You will see the supply will be very low and the prices will be so high new players wont be able to do anything.

PvE server is always going to have the smallest numbers.  I would pick the best Nation for the best resources if I was to play on there but remember you got smuggler flag and ports produce.  So you shouldn't be having any shortages there.  Though I do think there is way to much shortage on the testbed that only has 30-90 players compared to one of the PvP servers that might average 300-900 players during prime times.  They need to seed the market at first and than let the players take over.  

4 minutes ago, Challenge said:

I'm selling at about 20% profi margin to keep everything available for people ready to craft. I'm working on crafting mats such as provisions and producing some basics like hemp and oak. I want to see some crafted ships coming out so...

some folks think 20% is way to low. That is what I do in my home ports, but it seems more the norm for folks to jack it way the hell up in price.  A lot of that problem was the gold was so cheap to make on live. I'm hoping folks don't do the same on the new patch when it goes to live.  Though you will always have those willing to pay that much or who jack up buy orders to get every thing.

@admin  I brought this up before, is there any way to pick what buy orders you want to fill?  If an enemy comes into my port and puts up a buy order I will want to fill friendlies over his even if he puts up the bigger buy order price.  We should be able to pick which contracts we want to fill.

[Blackbrook]

1 hour ago, Challenge said:

People are already setting prices at inflationary levels. 400 for a unit of silver, 200 for one of hemp. And they're offering to buy at prices below the cost of production. So even now the economy is unable to be tested due to lack of people and understanding of cost/gain.

I can calculate production costs, but it would be handy to have simple price calculator in the final UI (or in the net, at first). It is quite easy to calculate the price for raw materials, but not so easy when you want to decide the price of ship parts or ships.

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

8 hours ago, Jeheil said:

I sailed for 90 minutes off the heel of cuba Sant Iago and the 4 ports along there, now of course you can miss fleets etc...but in that time ONE spanish Trader Snow...lots of other stuff, american ai fleets etc....but I don't see how we could raise hostility there.

Last night spent an ~2 hours looking to raise hostilities in Caracas again since my last progress was wiped by update. In that two hours I found two 5th rates, a two traders, and two to three sixth rates. I went out and sunk about five of those ships. Ended the night with 2.4% hostility on the region. Felt like I was wasting my time. 

[Remus]

2 hours ago, ironhammer500 said:

Your hoping this game will get a lot of players, the old max online for the pve server was around 100-150 from before the wipe was announced, for a pure player driven economy that is not enough.

Eve works because it has a seeded market where resources are put into it to make sure supply is never to low. You will see the supply will be very low and the prices will be so high new players wont be able to do anything.

You have a point for PvE server (but not PvP). Since you cannot capture ports you are entirly reliant on players from other nations harvesting and selling rare resources such as silver and gold.

I'd like to think that buy contracts placed by smugglers in producing ports would be enough (I don't even know if this is possible, but Sir Texas Sir's post above implies it is and he knows these things better than me), but perhaps this is something to bring up on a PvE server thread. There probably ought to be one since your needs are different from PvP and we already know the devs have plans for the PvE server different from PvP.

[victor]

Just a question for the devs: doing my crafting tests on PVP server I realized that - while fish meat is not a problem - salt is going to be one of (if not) the more difficult resource to gather for ship crafting. Is it work as intended?

Moreover, will gold, silver and coopper coins have a use when patch goes live (or in the future)?

Edited May 9, 2017 by victor

[Bubba Smith]

It seems with this latest update the resources and materials section in the OP shop aren't registering. If I exit the game and come back they re-appear including everything in the hold. A small bug, I will F11 it for more information.

 

[Sir Texas Sir]

24 minutes ago, Remus said:

You have a point for PvE server (but not PvP). Since you cannot capture ports you are entirly reliant on players from other nations harvesting and selling rare resources such as silver and gold.

I'd like to think that buy contracts placed by smugglers in producing ports would be enough (I don't even know if this is possible, but Sir Texas Sir's post above implies it is and he knows these things better than me), but perhaps this is something to bring up on a PvE server thread. There probably ought to be one since your needs are different from PvP and we already know the devs have plans for the PvE server different from PvP.

I was more talking about the ports producing the woods and trade goods.  You still have to produce your own common resources at your own ports by the way.  Which all nations pretty much have every thing you need other than the rare stuff.   Unless your going to pick a nation that starts with only one region on PvE server you shouldn't be that limited on resources.  If I was to ever play on testbed I'll go Spain, it's what I played on POTBS any way.  But than that is cause I would never run out of port options, but since I think PvE only is boring I would not be playing over there.  Though I might make a char and set him up in certain ports to produce and sale stuff.   That way I just have to pop in ever couple of days, produce it and put it up on the market for other players and than go back to playing my main server.  I'm going to bet we see a lot of folks doing this with there labor hours.  Offer them up on the other servers for trade on the main one they play on.

[Challenge]

46 minutes ago, Blackbrook said:

I can calculate production costs, but it would be handy to have simple price calculator in the final UI (or in the net, at first). It is quite easy to calculate the price for raw materials, but not so easy when you want to decide the price of ship parts or ships.

I'd say it's more tedious than hard. A single barrel used to make provisions, for example takes .6 oak log (for the plank), 1 Iron ore + .25 coal (for the ingot), 1 fir log (for the tar). My production cost is 128.8 Gold for each barrel -- but I bought the ingots from another player so I don't know what the resources for that would cost if I make them myself. To turn that into provisions takes .5 barrel and 1 food supply per unit (which the fish and salt cost 40/unit in the shop, but can be had for free fishing.). So production cost for one provision is 65 rounded up to the nearest whole gp.

As I said, tedious if you're doing that for everything you craft.

Edited May 9, 2017 by Challenge

[Blackbrook]

40 minutes ago, Challenge said:

I'd say it's more tedious than hard. A single barrel used to make provisions, for example takes .6 oak log (for the plank), 1 Iron ore + .25 coal (for the ingot), 1 fir log (for the tar). My production cost is 128.8 Gold for each barrel -- but I bought the ingots from another player so I don't know what the resources for that would cost if I make them myself. To turn that into provisions takes .5 barrel and 1 food supply per unit (which the fish and salt cost 40/unit in the shop, but can be had for free fishing.). So production cost for one provision is 65 rounded up to the nearest whole gp.

As I said, tedious if you're doing that for everything you craft.

Simple, when presented like that. But if you produce large number of barrels, you might have materials from different sources and also different prices. Then there are some leftovers (from crafting) which you can sell (with or without profit). And you should include labour hours, because they do have value. If you use sell contracts, there is small overhead. 

The difficult part is the price of labour hours. You can use fixed price for labour hours, but that does not take into account labour hour shortage. I would pay almost anything for some materials, if I need to save labour hours for a ship. I prefer building a ship today instead of tomorrow or day after tomorrow, because I can't play every day.

And then there is your time. If you must transport materials, you can't pvp at the same time. This is practically impossible calculate.

That's why a simple price calculator in the final UI would be nice to have. Not necessary, but still nice.

Edit: Sorry, this is not the right place for this discussion.

Edited May 9, 2017 by Blackbrook

[Challenge]

2 hours ago, Blackbrook said:

Edit: Sorry, this is not the right place for this discussion.

Probly right, but this seem to have turned into the basic almost everything test bed thread.

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

3 hours ago, victor said:

Just a question for the devs: doing my crafting tests on PVP server I realized that - while fish meat is not a problem - salt is going to be one of (if not) the more difficult resource to gather for ship crafting. Is it work as intended?

I have no problem getting either. In fact I am having the opposite results. I need more fish than I do salt currently. The current system in the Testbed is fine when concerning food supplies and provisions.

[GreasyMnky]

3 hours ago, victor said:

Just a question for the devs: doing my crafting tests on PVP server I realized that - while fish meat is not a problem - salt is going to be one of (if not) the more difficult resource to gather for ship crafting. Is it work as intended?

Moreover, will gold, silver and coopper coins have a use when patch goes live (or in the future)?

33 minutes ago, Davos Seasworth said:

I have no problem getting either. In fact I am having the opposite results. I need more fish than I do salt currently. The current system in the Testbed is fine when concerning food supplies and provisions.

I guess it will depend if people go sail in OW, I gather a lot more fish/salt when I go and harrass npc in enemy waters and look for other players than if I were to just go do a mission or two and go back to dock.

[VirtuallyIdiotic]

On 5/8/2017 at 10:37 AM, admin said:

Port battle capture of zones can only begin 10 mins after start of the battle 

I think this needs a bit more testing before being implemented. The issue is timing. Now I am not saying 46 hours was wonderful. It was too much time between a setting up a port battle and the port battle itself. Ten minutes however is too short. The Swedes recently took Bovenwinds (Oranjestad) and even though Dutch players were on, we were no where in the area to defend the port. Swedes were asking us Dutch to join the port battle in fact. Looking for a good time and to test out the port battles themselves. We did have quite a few players on at that time too but we were all down near our Capital. The ones that did have ships in that area were not getting off work or simply getting on the server till hours later that day. With one dura ships, expensive to build ships, and no towing (which I approve by the way) this is also a drawback to having such a short period of time between the port battle being set up and the port battle itself. This hurts a lot of individuals who wish to participate in port battles yet are not considered and do not consider themselves to be hardcore players, these said casuals are the individuals that tend to make up the foundation of games similar to yours.  There needs to be a period of time long enough for players to get online and to transport a ship to where a port battle is going to take place. For testbed though this will work well but maybe 30 minutes rather than 10.

Edited May 10, 2017 by Davos Seasworth