Small boat (AI) encounters, with some meanings

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

Some people ask the open world to be more lively. Here is one way to add life to the sea and even connect a gameplay purpose with it:

Generate small boats which appear randomly on the ocean, preferably closer to islands and shorelines, less so on distant waters.

Upon sighting, you would need to close in and investigate further about the nature of that boat. Or ignore it completely and treat it as 'decoration' - your choice.

When investigating, you find the boat to be one of three sorts:

(1) fishing boat

(2) smuggler boat

(3) longboat with rescued crew of some sunk ship

How you do interact with them?

First of all, there is no battle instance with them, because they are too insignificant to enter fight with a big ship.

They all get spawned in OW like AI fleets, but stationary and without a route for them. After ten minutes or something they vanish again. You just see them floating on a spot, waiting for you to contact or to ignore them. They don't show national flags, you have to get close to find out whose nationality they have.

Fishing boats act as local 'memory' of the game, who store for a time a recording of who came across them and into which direction, within a certain diameter of their view. So you make halt at the fisher boat and interrogate them when you suspect an enemy was passing by. They will tell you size of ship (large, medium, small) and direction he took, roughly (West, Nordwest, Southeast etc). So when you are pursuing an enemy, the fishing boats, if there are any, give you clue where to head while chasing a disappeared enemy. This can be very helpful tracking a hiding opponent. Foreign fishing boats may give you deliberately wrong info or refuse to give any info at all if they have the same nationality as the chased enemy. You may now threaten to sink them if they don't tell. Chance will show if they do or still refuse. Upon refusing they get sunk. This hurts your reputation counter (I mention this here only in case we ever get a sort of 'honorable conduct counter' which measures actions according to honor of the captain). A cooperating fishing boat of your own nationality may even offer you information upon sight without you having to ask first, you will see them signalizing for you to come closer and get the message.

Smuggler boats look just like fishing boats (they like to disguise) but serve criminal purposes along the shores and between islands. They give you some loot if you stop by and confiscate their illegal cargo. Cutters, Lynxes, Pickles and Privateers are far more efficient in arresting smuggler boats, so the loot will be bigger if you use small ships of this type to hunt smuggler boats (make small craft great again...). After arresting, smuggler boats disappear from waters, you don't capture a boat for use by yourself, as they are no ships in the sense of game mechanics, but local spawn tokens. To spice smuggler boats up a bit, let's have them carry sometimes permits from Admiralty they have stolen somewhere. Bringing up smuggler boats is honorable in the eyes of your government and thus brings you positive reputation too. You act as law enforcement  (again, last remark refers to a honorable conduct counter we don't have yet).

Longboat with rescued crew you may interpret as leftovers of any battles happening around you in open world. They head for the next shore to safety. If they share your own nationality, you may help them by giving some of your 'fishmeat' as provisions and thus get a positive impulse for your honor counter. Or you take them aboard and add crew this way to yours. In case they belong to an enemy nation, you may take them prisoner and receive a reward from Admiralty for it. Sometimes a famous person may be on board of that longboat, which will significantly increase the respective effect. You earn the gratitude of that celebrity, the gratefulness of your government - or the wrath of the enemy nation. As with the other boat types, you may simply ignore them and pass by, taking them for open world decoration and you won't be bothered.

--

And before someone tells in the comments "we have other things to address now", I tell you suggestions don't have a "best consumed before XXX" date, but can be used any time and resurface from a drawer when they suit. Don't choke the flow of imagination. C'est même gratuit.

[Percival Merewether]

Before anyone starts bashing this idea, I just want to say.

I really like it! Especially the "fishing boats" idea. It will make an otherwise dead world feel much more alive. 👍

[Macjimm]

Very good ideas.  Add detail and activity to the waters of NA.

[Nelsons Barrel]

Content is good.

[Hethwill]

On 8/29/2018 at 8:43 AM, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

Fishing boats act as local 'memory' of the game, who store for a time a recording of who came across them and into which direction

Now this is interesting and a credible OW life system to bring back the old sighting letters - "player X passed Y 30 minutes ago"

Regarding the smuggler/longboats... can only see the suggestion as a "free cash". Not sure if I understand their purpose. At least the Fishing Boats have a proper ACTIVE presence regarding OW activities other than being just "there to be picked up".

Ideas are never lost   

[Angus MacDuff]

30 minutes ago, Hethwill the Harmless said:

Now this is interesting and a credible OW life system to bring back the old sighting letters - "player X passed Y 30 minutes ago"

Regarding the smuggler/longboats... can only see the suggestion as a "free cash". Not sure if I understand their purpose. At least the Fishing Boats have a proper ACTIVE presence regarding OW activities other than being just "there to be picked up".

Ideas are never lost   

As a Sealed Bottle is free cash.   There are all sorts of goodies a smuggler could give up (including the odd Sealed Bottle).  I also like the rescued VIP aspect.  Could be a great reward in that. 

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

The hunt for smuggler boats (which you cannot distinguish from fishing boats unless you close in and search them) gives some new meaning to small craft, 7th rates, as they would be most efficient in doing that, and a new profession for some of you, playing 'coast guard vs smugglers'.

Fact that a small boat sighting can mean any of three possibilities (and sub-possibilities) adds to the mystery.

[Bluetooth]

7 minutes ago, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

The hunt for smuggler boats (which you cannot distinguish from fishing boats unless you close in and search them) gives some new meaning to small craft, 7th rates, as they would be most efficient in doing that, and a new profession for some of you, playing 'coast guard vs smugglers'.

Fact that a small boat sighting can mean any of three possibilities (and sub-possibilities) adds to the mystery.

@Cetric de Cornusiac you come up with a lot of ideas.......this one I like !

 

@admin this is a credible idea for more content which would help flesh out the open world and has to be a good thing.

[Angus MacDuff]

37 minutes ago, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

The hunt for smuggler boats (which you cannot distinguish from fishing boats unless you close in and search them) gives some new meaning to small craft, 7th rates, as they would be most efficient in doing that, and a new profession for some of you, playing 'coast guard vs smugglers'.

Fact that a small boat sighting can mean any of three possibilities (and sub-possibilities) adds to the mystery.

On that note, shouldn't there be a fourth option?  Something more dangerous....

[Hethwill]

Yeah, not a fan of bottles in the present incarnation anyway so hard to be sympathetic with the comparison of "free cash".This is how i see bottles http://forum.game-labs.net/topic/25900-suggestion-not-so-empty-bottles-change/

What those little boats could do is give breadcrumbs to events - like the shipwrecked treasure fleet locations - as opposed to have a server wide announcement. So it would work like "storyline", a piece here and a piece there, until you could figure out a location, or how many wrecks are there, etc.

 

 

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

On 8/31/2018 at 12:40 PM, Oberon74 said:

On that note, shouldn't there be a fourth option?  Something more dangerous....

Hmm, how about that;

Contageous disease boat people

One of the possible results when you close in for investigation is, you find a boat full of people who were exiled from some colony because they all have a contageous disease. Your crew was too eager to fraternize while you were still in your cabin checking on a map of the Caribbean from where this boat may have come from...

Too late. Your crew got the disease from the exiled sick. Use your rum supplies to stop the spreading, for desinfection inside and out. If you don't have enough rum, watch your crew dying within the next half day (Caribbean time) unless you reach a port and consult competent medics in time.

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

Or another idea for a 'dangerous' variation of a small boat encounter (reaches five sorts by now):

The infested boat

Upon examining a small boat, you find it empty but with some usable materials on board. So you take over the cargo and leave the abandoned boat alone (disappears). What you don't know is, the boat and its cargo are infested by a very dangerous beetle which perforates wood in no time. So your ship receives new blind passengers, a colony of nasty beetles which devours your hull and planking. At a certain rate the insects, by the name "Scolytus Gamelabiensis", keep damaging your ship as long as it is made of Fir (fast detoriation), Bermuda Cedar, Teak, Oak, White Oak, Caguiran (slowest detoriation) or Live Oak. The bug dislikes Mahagony and Sabicu, so these two sorts are not affected.

With the ship being infested, you need to do repairs from time to time (in port) to keep it afloat. Exterminators however don't know how to get the beasts out of the wood without destroying the ship.

The only solution for extinguishing the pest is getting a new resource introduced to NA with this idea getting implemented - a rare wasp species "Dolichomitus Darienus" which only lives in Dariena (south-american coast) and is the only natural enemy of "Scolytus Gamelabiensis". So this resource only spawns in Dariena and can be traded around like anything else. You need a certain amount of this resource, depending on the size of the ship (measured in BR) and upon using it the insects vanish; the ship is clean and no continuous repairing necessary.

(all mentioned species are my invention, don't look them up in Google...)

Edited September 2, 2018 by Cetric de Cornusiac

[Bluetooth]

1 hour ago, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

Or another idea for a 'dangerous' variation of a small boat encounter (reaches five sorts by now):

The infested boat

Upon examining a small boat, you find it empty but with some usable materials on board. So you take over the cargo and leave the abandoned boat alone (disappears). What you don't know is, the boat and its cargo are infested by a very dangerous beetle which perforates wood in no time. So your ship receives new blind passengers, a colony of nasty beetles which devours your hull and planking. At a certain rate the insects, by the name "Scolytus Gamelabiensis", keep damaging your ship as long as it is made of Fir (fast detoriation), Bermuda Cedar, Teak, Oak, White Oak, Caguiran (slowest detoriation) or Live Oak. The bug dislikes Mahagony and Sabicu, so these two sorts are not affected.

With the ship being infested, you need to do repairs from time to time (in port) to keep it afloat. Exterminators however don't know how to get the beasts out of the wood without destroying the ship.

The only solution for extinguishing the pest is getting a new resource introduced to NA with this idea getting implemented - a rare wasp species "Dolichomitus Darienus" which only lives in Dariena (south-american coast) and is the only natural enemy of "Scolytus Gamelabiensis". So this resource only spawns in Dariena and can be traded around like anything else. You need a certain amount of this resource, depending on the size of the ship (measured in BR) and upon using it the insects vanish; the ship is clean and no continuous repairing necessary.

(all mentioned species are my invention, don't look them up in Google...)

Now that I like!!!!

Excellent content.

😁

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

On 8/31/2018 at 11:01 AM, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

The hunt for smuggler boats (which you cannot distinguish from fishing boats unless you close in and search them) gives some new meaning to small craft, 7th rates, as they would be most efficient in doing that, and a new profession for some of you, playing 'coast guard vs smugglers'.

Fact that a small boat sighting can mean any of three possibilities (and sub-possibilities) adds to the mystery.

Also if the boat gives you good intelligence, then, that can be passed on for others to use as well.

[Macjimm]

4 hours ago, Cetric de Cornusiac said:

"all mentioned species are my invention, don't look them up in Google..

I'm fairly sure Scolytus Gamelabiensis is a disease, not an infestation.  Are you sure you made it up?

Good ideas.  This kind of detail is what makes the game interesting.

Edited September 3, 2018 by Macjimm

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

I can imagine people will rather sell their ship on the 'used ship market' than keep fixing it or get the egg-pincing wasp species.

New talk on the market:

"Sir, can you assure me this ship is perfectly bug-free?"

"By the virginity of my mother, she certainly is clean and not infested. How can you even suspect this, when you look in my deep blue trustworthy eyes?? I am a well reputed ship dealer!"

[Admiral Olsen]

Survivors from a longboat must be delivered to a port of their nationality and that gives a reward like a passenger mission. That would make sense to me...