A different look at Upgrading and Stacking Ones Ship...

[Norfolk nChance]

Adding to the Mod, Stack, Perm, Skill debate...

 

Mix and Matching upgrades is all part of a Captains skill in NA-OW. If the Dev’s just nerf the mods or just used plain vanilla craft like in NA-L. This would seem unfair to a crafter of a pre-planned purpose-built ship for a specific task. However, what we’ve all seen develop is some very excessive outcomes with boats having super abilities beyond reason through using the stack.

This I believe is because the skill knowledge or permanent upgrade mod is over powered in relation to its placement within the ship as a whole. Magnifying when stacked. This the Game in my opinion gives too much emphasis on the upgrades and skills to the detriment of the beautiful models created

 

Question

I place two Agamemnon’s next to each other. What is the FIRST and FOREMOST thing you look at to tell which is better?   

It’s NOT whether one has a Superior Copper Plating and the other hasn’t. It’s the Wood Build and Trim First. The Upgrades and Skill knowledge you have are second place at best.

 

Re-Invent wheel...

We need to look at the whole upgrade system in a different way. All inputs that give a bonus to an area of a ships performance must be included and in direct proportion as it represents in the ship as a whole. So, below is the priority list the game will treat ship bonuses.

 

1.      Wood Type Build & Trim

2.      Permanent Upgrade 1, 2, 3

3.      Officer Perk

4.      Skill Slot 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

 

We’ve explained above how wood build is the first order of business and the largest magnitude of direct influence on performance. If we saw a Fir/Fir Agamemnon build we’d see speed bonuses at the expense of a hull’s integrity.  White Oak/ White Oak a very different profile of exactly the same ship.

The Second Order of magnitude listed is the permanent fixed upgrade modules in number order. How has this ship been tweaked above the build? Adding a Bow Figure “Elephant” and then a Cartagena Refit as a second perm mod are giving extra Armor HP values. These physical changes to the BASE ship stay with it and is unrelated to any PCs influence.

Third order is the Officer Perks. These are still buffs and when combined properly add stacking values. For instance, the Mortar-Brig PERK stacks perfectly with other bonuses. Then the final area in number order is your own Skill knowledge influence.

 

Stacking Penalties to Bonuses...

Stacking Penalty refers to the game mechanic in which the effectiveness of modules, wood, skills or upgrades are reduced if more than one item is fitted on a ship which effects the same statistic. With this idea you can stack as many same influence inputs as you like. Also, no need for a bonus limiter.

 

The Stack Penalty Multiplier on Same Upgraded area...

					Adjusted
Upgrade	Multiplier		Upgrade	Bonus	Bonus
1	100%		WO/WO	18%	18.0%
2	75%		Bow Fig Elephant	10%	7.5%
3	50%		Cartagena Refit	7%	3.5%
4	20%		Planking	5%	1.0%
5	5%

 

This stacking now penalizes additional same upgrades giving little benefit after the third mod. In our above example if the Wood type was Fir/Fir then the Bow Fig Elephant would get the 100% multiplier and so on down the ordered list.

 

Easy to Implement...

Originally thought this would be quite complicated to implement but its already in place. The Adjusted Bonus overlays like Speed, HP, Reload times, and so on...  would just be added already to the current BASE effect area.

This type of system is much fairer than just the calculated fixed value bonus which inflates when stacked. Stack as much as you want with no upper limit will not produced any better results. This would then re-align our focus back onto the ships themselves allowing for individual tweaking...

 

Thanks for reading

 

Norfolk

 

This is the EvE Online stack penalty multiplier. However, this model cannot differentiate Orders of magnitude each area has. Instead it works by granting the highest mod modifier 100% then the next. My proposed modifier I believer works in a more realistic way in order of influence.

 

First: 100% effective

Second: 86.9% effective

Third: 57.1% effective

Fourth: 28.3% effective

Fifth: 10.6% effective

 

[maturin]

Explain why the ship skills should have the lowest priority?

Surely the skills are the most friendly to casuals and PvPers alike because they cannot be lost with each ship. You obtain them once, and retain them even if sunk three times in a night. No time sink burden or perceived entry barrier to PvP.

[Norfolk nChance]

@maturin

 

Thanks for the reply. I absolutely agree with you the skills are the most “friendly” from the players point view. This is the heart of the problem. If you go back to the Stack Multiplier Table. The 4^th Upgrade was the Players skills Knowledge Planking.

Reverse the order of Magnitude or influence so 1 is Player skill slot while 4 is Wood type and build. The player knowledge skill of planking would have a 100% multiplier giving a 5% bonus to our Agamemnon’s Armor HP.

The Ship wood build type of WO/WO gives a 18% Armor HP bonus would through order of influence now give only 3.6% bonus (20% multiplier) above the ordinary stock standard Aggie. This casual or hardcore PvPer you’d feel under whelmed here.

 

Importance of Influence...

The Wood Type has a higher Importance level than the Players Skills Knowledge on the underlying performance of the ship as a whole unit. This is why it must be first. The second order using Perm Mods again like woods have no player influence. This is important, as the two Agamemnon’s in our example YOU have NO influence on until you actual get onboard one.

The first two ORDERs are the same for whoever PvPer or Casual Player gets into the ship. Once either a PvPer or Causal is in the boat then and only then will your Officer Perks and Skill Knowledge have any direct influence on the boat. So, they are placed third and fourth.

 

No stack penalty then...

This means you are giving the same importance in value to every single positive mod on a specific statistic. PLANKING the same Importance as WO/WO. This is why the mods inflate in value when stacked in relation to the ship as a whole.

This is also true with a FIXED PENELTY. Same reason putting the same value of importance...

 

Norfolk.

 

[vazco]

I don't think we still have a problem with stacking, last patches fixed this. I think this might be a neat and complex solution for a non existent problem. I would much rather want devs fix other issues now. 

[NavalActionPlayer]

I like the concept. I think the order of precedence make sense in many ways.....the best (skilled) captain can drive his ship better than a poor (unskilled) captain but the major influence on ship performance (speed/turning/strength etc) is how well it is designed/built and out of what materials.

Maybe swap officer perks and skill slots. A captain with a lot of sea time on a particular ship should be a bit more effective than a captain sailing it for the first time, even if the latter is a good captain. That would sort of address Maturin's point.

In any case, I like the idea and commend it to the Devs.

Edited February 21, 2018 by NavalActionPlayer

[GrubbyZebra]

I would also say give the first add-on mod the 100% bonus and ignore the wood types build in buffs for calculating stacking penalty. This way people will still be inclined to use high-buff mods for ships specialization, and then use the officers and skills to balance out the deficiencies.