Free ship(s)! Details inside! Call now!

[Rikard Frederiksen]

Now, this may have been suggested elsewhere, but as I've not the time nor interest to trawl through every single thread and read every single post, I'm going to throw this out here as a suggestion and gauge the reaction to it; there may be flaws in it that I've not seen. The problem below is what I've gathered from reading threads about the forum recently (I can't be in-game currently), that the grind and access to ships is an issue, particularly progression from 7th Rates to 6th Rates. This is not an answer to solve the problem entirely, but it could help. On to the issue at hand...

Free ships for all!

Problem: This appears to be two-fold but centered around the 'grind'. Firstly, it is difficult for new players, unaffiliated to a clan and lacking knowledge of the game, to progress from the fore-and-aft ships to square-riggers. Secondly, replacing ships can be difficult, which makes PvP unattractive due to low rewards and the difficulties from losing a valuable asset.
Frederiksen's Answer: Free ships. Alright, more detail below.

Now, I'm not advocating everyone having access to every ship for free. That is ludicrous. However, what if, what if the game gives you access to a free ship depending upon your rank. It is a simple concept. Currently we have the Basic Cutter. Brilliant, a free ship with free crew and repairs and is not for PvP, but gets new players started and can be used as a barge to get around for ranked up players.

What if, once you reached the relevant rank for the crew numbers, the game gave you access to an Oak/Oak Sixth Rate, perhaps the Brig. The ship is free, purchased just like the Basic Cutter, but you must pay to arm it, crew it, repair it, same as a normal ship, but it is free for you to get hold of. You don't get a choice in wood types of which Sixth Rate, maybe you can't mount permanent upgrades on it and its 'knowledge' upgrades are restricted to, say, 3 boxes. That makes the free Brig viable in a basic sense as a ship to take to PvP or PvE, you can waste it in PvP without issue and get another. Yay! Taking this further, it could be done as well for Fifth Rates, maybe the Cerberus is available as a free ship, or the Renommee. It would also follow the same procedure; you pay for the crew and repairs but to get it it is free, but you lack choice in wood types, etc.

Now, where this falls down is the potential for 'spam', as we saw with Basic Cutters; using a free ship to attack ships with no loss for the people using the free ship. How do we counter this? A cooldown? You can only have one free Sixth Rate per 24 hours, one free 5th Rate every 48 hours? It still gives a leg up but means that if you lose it you will need to buy a replacement ship.

In short:
Positives

• When you rank up you can 'buy' a Sixth (and maybe Fifth) Rate for free at the relevant rank (when you'd have enough men to crew it) in port, same as the Basic Cutter.
• This free ship has a set wood/wood type, perhaps no permanent upgrades and limited knowledge upgrades.
• Repairs, crew, cannon etc. are paid for as usual but the ship itself is free.
• Combined with other ways of incentivising PvP (decent rewards) it gives a fallback option for PvP/PvE that isn't back to square one in the Basic Cutter.
• Can treat it as the ship issued to you by your nation's navy (goodness knows what excuse the pirates would have, but hey).
• Leaves player-made ships being worthwhile as they can be customised by wood types, will have all of the upgrade/knowledge slots available to you (if you have the knowledge) and can be an investment, but if you need a free ship for some PvP, boom! You have an option.
• Perhaps this could be introduced for a free 7th Rate ship beyond the Basic Cutter to give new players a sense of progression.
• These ships cannot be traded or captured (suggested by @The Wren).

Negatives

• Would need a means of preventing spam (my suggestion being a cooldown).
• It is giving stuff away for free.
• Anyone think of anything else that would be a problem with this?

As always, thoughts on a postcard, address being the reply box below.

Edited August 9, 2017 by Rikard Frederiksen

[The Wren]

How about making these free ships untradable and also uncappable to prevent them being spammed everywhere?

[Rikard Frederiksen]

Good point! Treated like an NPC ship in that you can loot it but not capture it.

[Captain Lust]

So basically what we have NPC ship capture for already? If someone want to put 15min effort into capping some AI surprise then the game definitely isn't for them anyways... captured NPC ships are basically free...

[Rikard Frederiksen]

The three things I'd say to that are this:

• Firstly, it has been that long (several weeks) since I've last been able to log into the game and play (hurrah for work and my current situation) and I had not seen the hotfix-update-patch that made NPC ships capturable again. Some people would argue that I shouldn't be making suggestions without very recent in-game experience, but when you've an idea...
• Secondly, even with that change, with this suggestion you don't have to faff about finding an NPC ship, chasing it, dealing with anything interfering with your attempt to capture an NPC ship, or anything else that would get in the way when you're trying to get out there and PvP. Of course, if you did want to go out and find whichever ship it is you want to capture you can go off and do that, but if not you've a basic ship available to you.
• Thirdly, the additional intent of the idea is to aid newer players in feeling as though they're progressing. They get up to whichever rank it is and boom, they've immediate access to a Sixth Rate. Hurrah! They're not having to go and buy a crafted ship which they might lose and be unable to replace, nor hunt down an NPC one to get started in square-riggers. This is why I suggested that perhaps it could be extended to include a Seventh Rate as a leg-up from the Basic Cutter. I would imagine people want to be in a 'proper' square-rigged ship as soon as possible than a fore-and-aft ship (although I love 'em personally).

Edited August 9, 2017 by Rikard Frederiksen