The logic behind permanent upgrades and knowledge books

[Havelock]

As you know, some upgrades like Rum Rations moved to the permanent upgrades group. Some of them make perfect sense, for example Winged out Ballast is now a refit you can apply to your ship once. I understand the logic about it not being learnable by your captain, but others make no sense. Rum rations is not a knowledge (the skill of drinking rum? art of rum distilling?), but it shouldnt be a permanent upgrade either. You move the rum onto your ship and it gets consumed, but why does it stay there forever? Or if you decide to use hold for more muskets, why cant you move them back to your warehouse if you decide to take something different with you?

For such items, i suggest a 3rd group of upgrades called "consumables", which, who wouldve guessed, get consumed after some time. Eg muskets get consumed after using musket volley in boarding 10 times, or extra chain gets consumed after having fired 200 shots of chain shot. Since they would create ongoing demand, they could become one of the moneysinks many ask for.

I know this is by far not a top priority, but the devs have invested work in moving around upgrades to make game logic more coherent but imo just replaced it with another illogical system. This also leads to the problem that we have WAY too much permanent upgrades which are NEVER gonna get used (fake feature/dead content).

 

What do you think? Would this make ship modding more diverse? Would it benefit game logic? Gimme yer thougts.

[Aster]

Simplicity's sake, and balance. Or at least thats what I assume admin would say.

[Rabman]

The above example would just add to the power creep that 5/5 gold ships made. Back when gold ships were removed the first time, the Devs set the expectation that during the construction of the ship, all of the boni would be set, and not be based upon perms and knowledge slots. That idea must've died a quiet death because its been ever expanding power creep since then.

Add new diversity in ship construction and not more power creep in mods. For instance, you pick your wood frames and trim and you pick a refit style during construction and that ship will always have that attribute. So if you wanted to rig her for more hammocks you would, and you would lose say hold space and speed as you carried more men, muskets, and provisions to sustain said hammocks. Or refit her with light carriages, she needs less men on the gun crew and she runs a bit faster, etc. There could be a hundred options available which would add diversity and eliminate the power creep that goes with mod/knowledge and or consumable stacking. You could get very detailed and blend refits perhaps with a slider so allow more customization on each ship. Perhaps up to three refit options could be available on player crafted ships, each customization with benefits and weakness associated.

I know its a tangent, but rather than add a new layer to what i consider a poor system(mods and perms), redesign it to the vision once pitched about having each ship being purpose built.

Edited November 19, 2018 by Rabman

[Christendom]

I like Rabs approach.  Would rather build in mods/trims into the ship building process through certain goods or whatever.  Make ships more unique and worth taking rather than just sinking for marks or dubs.  

Another thought would be to have crafters specialize into ship types.  Boarding / gunning / speed   Whatever.  

[Sir Loorkon]

I do not like the idea of a third group of upgrades („consumables“). I think it is complex enough atm. 

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

5 hours ago, Christendom said:

I like Rabs approach.  Would rather build in mods/trims into the ship building process through certain goods or whatever.  Make ships more unique and worth taking rather than just sinking for marks or dubs.  

Another thought would be to have crafters specialize into ship types.  Boarding / gunning / speed   Whatever.  

I too like the idea, particular;y where specialised shipbuilders or shipwrights are concerned, for this to be truly effective the RNG would have to go. Crafter's cannot be expected to design/craft ships in a specialised field if they hampered by random drops in the process, to build 4 or 5 ships to get what the customer wants is pure folly.

 

[Cmdr RideZ]

In the end it does not matter what is the system. Just make it balanced and support competitive PvP.

I am also dead tired to read when nubs with +10000% damage come to explain how gear does not matter.

[Angus MacDuff]

13 hours ago, Havelock said:

i suggest a 3rd group of upgrades called "consumables",

An issue I've always had with mods is that some are true refits (Navy Hull, copper, etc) and others are what I would term "portable".  Rum or muskets would fall into this but also Naval Clock.  In essence, anything that can be loaded aboard or removed by a work party in a couple of hours should be available to the player to take off of the ship.  No chance of stripping the copper off, though.  How many of us would have liked to switch the naval clock over to another vessel?