Add additional basic starting ship "HMS Surprise"

[z4ys]

Suggestion:

Introduce "basic surprise" as starting ship beside "basic cutter"

 

Background:

"Basic cutter" is kind of outdated due to tutorial rewards. Necomers can start as Master and Commander if they pass the final exam.

I believe most newcomers know about the HMS Victory, and many may have seen the movie "Master and Commander"  which makes the HMS Surprise kind of famous as well. I would lie when I would deny that one of the reasons I bought Naval Action was to feel like Jack while sailing the surprise.

Details:

• "Basic surprise" is a ship every NPC ship store offers
• same rules RoE like baisc cutter
• reduced repair count compared to normal surprise - makes equiping for new players easier and they get used to the repair system
• NPC shops sells basic 6pd + 9pd meds for 1gold each - makes equiping for new players easier and they get used to the cannon equip window
• Basic ships get new RoE in friendly carezones. - Battles vs AI close instant like missions (to avoid ganking by vets)
• basic surprise offers no reward expect money (like baisc cutter)

 

 

Pros:

• up to date change regarding tutorial
• keeps people hooked to master the tutorial and set a foot on the first milestone surprise
• makes starting and acquisition of Naval Action environment easier for new players (loss can be replaced in a few clicks)

Cons:

• More Database needed
• same drawbacks as the basic cutter has

[Teutonic]

Biggest complaint I hear when someone loses a ship (or all there ships for some reason) is that they get shot to hell back into the basic cutter.

Now I know vets and smart players can make some good cash with a basic cutter, but the majority of players who are new, or generally less skilled, find it hard to swallow. I believe this addition would probably be geared more toward longer term players, but it also benefits newer players as well once they reach that level.

I honestly don't see any drawbacks to adding something like this. It would be inferior to a normal NPC surprise or a player crafted one, but would still give players a 5th rate ship to work from after losing something big. A jump start back into the game if you will.

[BlueEagleGER]

I'm afraid that the "real" newcomers won't make the endurance, let alone the final exam. What rank would you get when you do the 4 tutorials and the 3 exams?

In the tutorials you  play as a brig, so I think that the Basic Brig would be more appropriate.

[z4ys]

10 minutes ago, BlueEagleGER said:

I'm afraid that the "real" newcomers won't make the endurance, let alone the final exam. What rank would you get when you do the 4 tutorials and the 3 exams?

In the tutorials you  play as a brig, so I think that the Basic Brig would be more appropriate.

first tutorial milestone = 155 crew

2nd tutorial milestone = 250 crew

I dont think a basic brig would be the better choice. The Suprise in the other hand can act as motivator to pass the final exam. If it would be more clear what are the rewards for the tutorial.

 

 

Edited June 13, 2018 by z4ys

[AeRoTR]

I think it can be final exam reward, a default lo/wo ordinary Suprise fitted with medium canons. I say lo/wo, because new players will select stupid builds like crew/fir ?

But I am not sure, if it should be a npc shop ship, there is already frigate for 112k. And most of the time it is a random build, which is really useless.

 

[Nelsons Barrel]

11 minutes ago, z4ys said:

first tutorial milestone = 155 crew

2nd tutorial milestone = 250 crew

I dont think a basic brig would be the better choice. The Suprise in the other hand can act as motivator to pass the final exam. If it would be more clear what are the rewards for the tutorial.

Not true, they raised crewcount per rank. So a 'Master and Commander' ends up with a max crew of 400. Makes it possible for him to min-crew a Wasa from start.

[z4ys]

3 minutes ago, AeRoTR said:

I think it can be final exam reward, a default lo/wo ordinary Suprise fitted with medium canons. I say lo/wo, because new players will select stupid builds like crew/fir ?

But I am not sure, if it should be a npc shop ship, there is already frigate for 112k. And most of the time it is a random build, which is really useless.

 

the thing is the reward ship will be lost in no time. To ganking, to player mistakes, because the newcomer learns the game. A ship like the basic cutter allows new players to try stuff out. But regarding the rank and tutorial a basic cutter is outdated.

[Angus MacDuff]

I don't think this is a good idea and I am against a new player attaining M&C rank at the start.  As a recent new player myself, I found it incredibly valuable to do the grind and learn as I advanced.  Making new players start on the PVE server and achieving some basic milestones there would be far more valuable.  Yes it sucks to lose your new ship that you finally managed to get the money for, but its better than just being given a ship you have no chance of handling well and have invested nothing into it's acquisition.

[z4ys]

5 minutes ago, Oberon74 said:

I don't think this is a good idea and I am against a new player attaining M&C rank at the start.  As a recent new player myself, I found it incredibly valuable to do the grind and learn as I advanced.  Making new players start on the PVE server and achieving some basic milestones there would be far more valuable.  Yes it sucks to lose your new ship that you finally managed to get the money for, but its better than just being given a ship you have no chance of handling well and have invested nothing into it's acquisition.

the ship is only given/usable because of crew count when you finish the current available tutorial + exams. like some said before the final exam still needs some kind of skill in order to pass it. If you decide to skip the tutorial like you did you still have the basic cutter. That are 2 ways.

[RaimundoJoe]

Add a PVP mission in the tutorial, plz!

[Juan Navarre]

2 hours ago, Nelsons Barrel said:

Not true, they raised crewcount per rank. So a 'Master and Commander' ends up with a max crew of 400. Makes it possible for him to min-crew a Wasa from start.

Not true. M&C can have a max of 280. 400 is post captain.

I think a better route than having basic ships to buy for free like the cutter, would be missions where you captain someone else's ship.

So, for example, a M&C without a ship of their own could take a mission in a Surprise, which they would be unable to sell. They would only be able to attack the target of the mission, and would not be able to place anything in the hold, or remove the supplies provided from the ship. If they have the fleet perk, they can keep any ship that they capture during the mission, and by completing the mission, they will receive enough reals to afford to buy their own ship.

[Nelsons Barrel]

13 minutes ago, Juan Navarre said:

Not true. M&C can have a max of 280. 400 is post captain.
 

Just checked, you are right here. My bad.

13 minutes ago, Juan Navarre said:

I think a better route than having basic ships to buy for free like the cutter, would be missions where you captain someone else's ship.

So, for example, a M&C without a ship of their own could take a mission in a Surprise, which they would be unable to sell. They would only be able to attack the target of the mission, and would not be able to place anything in the hold, or remove the supplies provided from the ship. If they have the fleet perk, they can keep any ship that they capture during the mission, and by completing the mission, they will receive enough reals to afford to buy their own ship.

I think instead of someone else ship to control I prefer the solution for a PvP-Event where the needed ship is provided to you for that specific event and nothing else for. As we have seen, free ships are used for trolling and we only got rid of it by making basic cutter unable to pvp at all. So new players can actually learn how to pvp for no costs but you don't destroy some of the crafting-economy by giving out free ships in 5th rate size.

[Juan Navarre]

6 minutes ago, Nelsons Barrel said:

Just checked, you are right here. My bad.

I think instead of someone else ship to control I prefer the solution for a PvP-Event where the needed ship is provided to you for that specific event and nothing else for. As we have seen, free ships are used for trolling and we only got rid of it by making basic cutter unable to pvp at all. So new players can actually learn how to pvp for no costs but you don't destroy some of the crafting-economy by giving out free ships in 5th rate size.

I am not quite sure how you distinguish between captaining someone else's ship, and being provided with a ship for a specific event and nothing else.

Is it your ship that you own and can do whatever you want with, or is it a ship that you are captaining, but do not own?

[Nelsons Barrel]

Just now, Juan Navarre said:

I am not quite sure how you distinguish between captaining someone else's ship, and being provided with a ship for a specific event and nothing else.

Is it your ship that you own and can do whatever you want with, or is it a ship that you are captaining, but do not own?

Ship is only capable to enter/initiate battles inside the pvp-zone.

Your suggestion is basically a free card for the pve-crowd to do pve in 5th rate size for zero cost and that is what I don't like. The pve-crowd should at least buy/capture for a bigger sized ships to have any impact in the game economy. 5ths are pretty cheap to get still, so why make it easier?

While that players don't get any reason to do pvp right now. It's expensive and if you are not that great or just a beginner, you just get smashed too many times and loose your stuff and you will get back to your safezone and hope for some to come to you so you at least get inside a battle with other players even its a big gank where you only shoot once or twice and only chase  them for 90mins. As it is right now.

[Capn Rocko]

It would be fun for friendly duels, but I can already see players joining battles and offering no PvP marks (trolling) in this ship.

As long as basic cutter RoE stays the same, I say no thanks. 

[Juan Navarre]

4 hours ago, Nelsons Barrel said:

Ship is only capable to enter/initiate battles inside the pvp-zone.

Your suggestion is basically a free card for the pve-crowd to do pve in 5th rate size for zero cost and that is what I don't like. The pve-crowd should at least buy/capture for a bigger sized ships to have any impact in the game economy. 5ths are pretty cheap to get still, so why make it easier?

While that players don't get any reason to do pvp right now. It's expensive and if you are not that great or just a beginner, you just get smashed too many times and loose your stuff and you will get back to your safezone and hope for some to come to you so you at least get inside a battle with other players even its a big gank where you only shoot once or twice and only chase  them for 90mins. As it is right now.

As I mentioned in another thread, missions on the PvP server should play matchmaker. French players getting a mission in a 5th rate at no cost will defend their nations weapons shipment against British players whose mission is to capture said French weapons shipment, etc...

If you have no control over what ship and upgrades you are using, it would be a way to create balanced encounters in which people's objective will be to accomplish their mission, rather than to preserve their irreplacable Hercules, so that they don't get stuck in a cutter.

Letting people run missions without having to use their cutter to capture a snow, and then using their Snow to capture a Cerberus, and then using their Cerberus to capture a Belle Poule, just to get back to where they were each time they lose their ship, won't ruin the game economy.

It would in fact be less disastrous than the current setup, where deleting and starting a new character is extremely lucrative. I've seen those naval clocks going for 10Mil, and a Hercules note going for 4Mil + 800 combat marks + an Agamemnon. 

Even aside from all the nonsense that can be done with alts, if I were inclined to join a clan, what would keep me from outfitting my whole clan with all the Hercules notes and Naval Clocks they want, and then getting a few quid pro quo from my clan afterwards?

Seems to me that if you get no starting cash, no ships, and the reward for passing the exam is just the rank, and the missions that go along with that rank, it would eliminate a lot of those types of shenanigans, and be better for the game economy all around.

 

Edited June 14, 2018 by Juan Navarre

[Sir Texas Sir]

If your going to do something like this than do it like how POTBS did it. You had fallback ships.  As you level up your fallback ship is bump up in level as to what you get.  Starting players the cutter (think it was a sloop of some kind) up to a certain level. I would say in this game the Cerberus would make a better fallback ship than the Surpise.   The only way to get a fallback ship though is you have to die and have no other ships in your inventory (I think it was limited to only combat ships so you could still have trade ships).   The ship is a reduces stat version of the normal ship so it's pretty much like our Oak/Crew Space shop ships.   This will do two things.  It will give folks a ship to fallback on if all there other combat ships are sunk and the other is it will limit folks to only using them when they have no other ships (stops basic cutter abuse by RA"s and such as you have to have no other combat ships to use them).

Change when folks sink/die to send them back to the closest owned ports only.   There is no reason for some one to be sent to closest friend ports if they don't have an outpost in it.  If they are doing something like PvP zone missions they would still have an outpost in that port close by any way.  There is really no reason to be sending folks back to a closets friendly port other than abused by folks with fleets.  Than if they have a fleet they go to closet freindly port since they have ships, only when you have no other ships does it send you to your outpost only.

[Juan Navarre]

2 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

If your going to do something like this than do it like how POTBS did it. You had fallback ships.  As you level up your fallback ship is bump up in level as to what you get.  Starting players the cutter (think it was a sloop of some kind) up to a certain level. I would say in this game the Cerberus would make a better fallback ship than the Surpise.   The only way to get a fallback ship though is you have to die and have no other ships in your inventory (I think it was limited to only combat ships so you could still have trade ships).   The ship is a reduces stat version of the normal ship so it's pretty much like our Oak/Crew Space shop ships.   This will do two things.  It will give folks a ship to fallback on if all there other combat ships are sunk and the other is it will limit folks to only using them when they have no other ships (stops basic cutter abuse by RA"s and such as you have to have no other combat ships to use them).

Change when folks sink/die to send them back to the closest owned ports only.   There is no reason for some one to be sent to closest friend ports if they don't have an outpost in it.  If they are doing something like PvP zone missions they would still have an outpost in that port close by any way.  There is really no reason to be sending folks back to a closets friendly port other than abused by folks with fleets.  Than if they have a fleet they go to closet freindly port since they have ships, only when you have no other ships does it send you to your outpost only.

This seems complex, contrived and like it would require a completely new mechanism.

Missions in an assigned ship dedicated to that mission would be simple, intuitive, and the mechanism is already in place for the tutorials.

As the OP observed, the appeal of the game for many is to be in an interactive Jack Aubrey story. Jack got assigned to the Sophie, and told what his mission was. He didn't have to purchase her, outfit her with mods and upgrades and then wander around looking for something to do.

It is just intuitive that if you have the skills, but don't have the capital, you sail someone else's ship until you can afford one of your own.