Ideas for more realistic Ships - by simply changing the Rewarding System

[Wolfram Harms]

IDEA ABOUT THE REWARDING SYSTEM
(A Proposal from a true Fan - not a negative Criticism - I hope it will not get closed after 1 Page?)

Every Multiplayer-Game has a REWARDING SYSTEM, with UPGRADES, PERKS, BONUSES etc.
The Players want their rewards to struggle for with their activities.
So far so good.

But - most often, these special UPGRADES, PERKS, BONUSES etc. create a growing difference 
between for example "average ships" and "ELITE SHIPS". This difference is even more amplified by the fact, 
that it will be rather the good and excellent players, who have these BONUSES.

I fought a ship recently which still looked like an INGERMANLAND. But it could follow my NIAGARA
even hard into the wind, without losing contact. And that wasn't realistic for me at all.

For the really good players, these BONUSES are not even very satisfactoy - they'd even prefer to show,
that they could also do it with standard ships, and they only use the BONUS PERKS, cause their oponent
top players also have them.

But how can we get away from unfair BONUSES and PERKS, and still give the Players their well-deserved REWARDS?

Well, how about this? 
The players receive CRAFTING PERMIT POINTS for their actions (depending on the difficulty).
Now, the ship classes 3rdRATE, 2ndRATE and 1stRATE could only get built with enough of those CRAFTING PERMIT POINTS.

Example: 
- 3rdRATE needs 30.000 CRAFTING PERMIT POINTS
- 2ndRATE needs 60.000 CRAFTING PERMIT POINTS
- 1stRATE needs 100.000 CRAFTING PERMIT POINTS

Just an example, the Devs would surely sort out how it should be balanced.
We would still need all the MATERIALS for those ships - but we could only build them with these CRAFTING PERMIT POINTS in addition.

Every NATION needs those ships for their bigger battles and PBs - so that should be enough "drive" for every player
to struggle for these points. No other UPGRADES, PERKS or ELITE stuff - all would fight in "normal" ships again.

Another thought, about the woods:
To avoid unrealistic speedy SHIPS, it would be great if the SHIPS of RANK 5 and higher could only be built of woods,
which would have really been used in real life: OAK, TEAK, MAHOGANY, WHITE OAK and LIVE OAK.
Bigger ships could not be built of FIR or BERMUDA CEDAR - those woods were to light and would have warped, if their decks
had carried 18pounders or even bigger cannons.

If only small ships (Rank 7 and 6) could have these woods, the smaller ships would have some advantages back which
they really had: speed and agility.

With all this installed, we could get a more realistic sim of the age of sail. Without dropping the REWARDING SYSTEM.
What do you think about this?

[James Thomson]

I like the point that those big ships really cannot be build on those woods, that is very inacurate.

And your concept is interesting. +1

[Archaos]

The flaw with such a system, if I understand it correctly, is that you end up with almost the same situation as you have now with the current bonuses.

Currently, because of the bonuses, the people who are more successful in PvP end up with their ships kitted out with the most powerful upgrades and bonuses which helps to make them even more successful. With what you propose only people who are successful will get the crafting permit points and as such will be able to craft the bigger ships and become unbeatable.

[Wolfram Harms]

1 hour ago, Archaos said:

...only people who are successful will get the crafting permit points and as such will be able to craft the bigger ships and become unbeatable.

Archaos, I don't think so - they could have the "big ships" but couldn't do as much against frigates or 4thRates, as they could do now.
And for conquering Ports, they could not work alone - they would have to give the big ships to their Clan members also, or at least those BUILD POINTS.

Without a Clan, they wouldn't get very far with the big ships.
So, those CRAFTING PERMIT POINTS would be needed for the whole Clan.

[Jan van Santen]

An interesting idea, but all plain vanilla ships wouldnt work on PvE. 

Having the best ship is part of endgame there.

Edited May 26, 2019 by Jan van Santen

[Percival Merewether]

10 hours ago, Wolfram Harms said:

Another thought, about the woods:
To avoid unrealistic speedy SHIPS, it would be great if the SHIPS of RANK 5 and higher could only be built of woods, which would have really been used in real life: OAK, TEAK, MAHOGANY, WHITE OAK and LIVE OAK.
Bigger ships could not be built of FIR or BERMUDA CEDAR - those woods were to light and would have warped, if their decks had carried 18pounders or even bigger cannons. 

I’m sorry to break it to you but that’s just not true.. though it was not the preferred material, frigates were routinely built of fir by multiple nations and carried 18lb cannons and bigger, you need not look further than the Endymion-class ships.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endymion-class_frigate

What would be interesting to see though is a simulation of real life maintenance costs. Since there is no maintenance on ships ingame, this could be done by greatly increasing repair costs on light ships and making repairs cheaper on oak based ships. This could potentially simulate the increased maintenance that comes at the cost of building vessels on the cheap.

This will also greatly decrease the speed bonuses achieved with light woods since they’d have to carry 2x more repairs.

I can agree to limit 3rd to 1st rates to non fir/cedar type woods, but there is no historical basis for not allowing the use of fir on frigates.

Edited May 26, 2019 by Percival Merewether

[Sir Loorkon]

I am waiting for the nerv of the portbonus system and the books and upgrades. In the current state, the game is barely playable for me. In the past I loved to sail those 3/5 blue ships because they where cheap and easy to replace. Actually I have only a very low chance to stay afloat with them and I have to use those bonus monster ships, too. Yesterday a friend of mine and me got slaughtered by a boarding fitted super speed Bellona and it is hard for me to find motivation to play this game as long as the bonus system is not fixed. I like Wolframs idea. Maybe individual speed caps for ship rates might be achievable easier coding wise. Anyway, something has to be done - fast.

Edited May 27, 2019 by Sir Loorkon

[Dalai Lama]

Big boats are to fast. Noticable if a 12kn t/w ocean sails past you in your fir/fir aga downwind.