[Proposal] Real Time Hauling System on OS

[Brogsitter]

All hauling MUST be done on the open sea.

At least thats my opinion. Therefor it does not matter if stuff is hauled by NPC or PPL.

 

I am aware of the impact a fully AI driven real time hauling system can have on the server, so I recommend to limit NPC hauling ships to a fixed amount, i.e. 10 or 20 for each port (it really depends on the server load). Those hauling NPCs should not have a specific base harbor, they will do the hauling as it is scheduled by the players. To prevent players stacking hauling contracts, each player can place one hauling contract every 30 minutes.

 

Example:

A player places a hauling contract from Port A to B wich will be placed in the schedule. The server looks if there is a hauler available. If all haulers are in use. If a hauler is available, a ship will be generated by the server and starts to travel from A to B, having exactly the cargo on board, that was ordered for delivery. If the hauler reaches its destination, the server will "delete" the ship and proceeds with the next hauling contract in the schedule. While this is gonna happen, the player might get notified, once the procedure starts and once it arrived or - in worst case - once it was lost on the OS.

 

[optional] Escorts:

The player should also have the possibility to decide whether he wants to add an escort to the hauler or not. Escort should cost an extra fee.

 

[optional] Insurance:

The player should also have the possibility to decide whether he wants to have his haul insured or not. Insurance should cost an extra fee.

 

So instead of having all the NPC ships sailing around without having anything to do and beeing just there for the grind, make an AI with a job. If you can do so - and I bet you can - you will solve 2 issues at the same time: Having NPCs sailing around acting as a target for player and having a proper "real time hauling system". For the player this system will be easy to use, so i cant see any game design issues. If i missed something feel free to show me.

 

Cheers and happy dicussing.

Brog

Edited December 23, 2015 by Brogsitter

[dynd]

This sounds very much like Eve: Online to me, which is a good thing.

[Brogsitter]

Havent ever played EVE, but it a pretty simple so get this issues solved. I think it will pretty much please everyone and it should not be to hard to code.

[jodgi]

Why is this so important?

[CommodoreWesley]

A system suggested in the original post would be greatly beneficial in the game.  

 

First off, a system like this with the resources transported over the open world map would be vital in the importance of having control of strategic areas. Controlling the ports near where the transports are passing will greatly reduce the risk of them being attacked, thus providing an incentive for fleets to control ports.   

The transports would be an easy and profitable enterprise for the smaller ships, making them more important to the game's affairs.

It would also discourage people from having outposts far away and in the middle of enemy territory to transport goods as those trade ships can be attacked.

 

The final reason is that this game is called Naval Action, therefore, I honestly believe that the majority of players will prefer to sail in warships rather than merchants, so with having the AI transport the goods, players can sail in their war ships to protect their own merchants.

 

There are probably many more reasons to add a system like this to the game, but in my opinion, adding a feature like this could be possibly be more important to the game than even port battles.

[jodgi]

Maybe it would work.

But they have stated it would be resource hogging and introduce a new source of bugs. But even if they turned away from more important things to concentrate on AI (T_T) and made it work, I would do my darndest to avoid risk to my resources. Just click out haulers in the EU low pop hours and make sure the americans are busy somewhere else. Not hard to do with the size of the OW and we would in effect be back to square one.

Hauling goods is one of the most boring things to do in NA, why force players to do boring stuff? Does escorting haulers for a few hours sound like fun to any of you?

[Kaos]

Maybe it would work.

But they have stated it would be resource hogging and introduce a new source of bugs. But even if they turned away from more important things to concentrate on AI (T_T) and made it work, I would do my darndest to avoid risk to my resources. Just click out haulers in the EU low pop hours and make sure the americans are busy somewhere else. Not hard to do with the size of the OW and we would in effect be back to square one.

Hauling goods is one of the most boring things to do in NA, why force players to do boring stuff? Does escorting haulers for a few hours sound like fun to any of you?

There are people nowadays who pay money to do things that you consider boring - ''Warehouse and Logistics Simulator'' and ''Euro Truck Simulator'' and there probably is no highway pvp in this game either.

If hauling goods was not automated by the system somehow, people who hate hauling would start making macros to do the hauling for them while they sleep or afk since there are no unpredictable hazards on OS at the moment.  There is no 100% full cargo looting upon capture so what would motivate anyone to even run down traders?

[akd]

Well, fixing the loot system would surely be the first step. You should be able to pick want you want out of captured ship, but the rest of the cargo should be sent along with the ship back to port, or if we switch to system that doesn't have us take physical possesion of captures, then the ship and its remaining cargo should be sent to a prize court to be sold, and money (or portion for shared captures) returned to the player.

[Brogsitter]

Well, fixing the loot system would surely be the first step. You should be able to pick want you want out of captured ship, but the rest of the cargo should be sent along with the ship back to port, or if we switch to system that doesn't have us take physical possesion of captures, then the ship and its remaining cargo should be sent to a prize court to be sold, and money (or portion for shared captures) returned to the player.

 

Thats a good point, but not the solution for the original issue

[Brogsitter]

Question to the devs:

Would it even be possible to realize a system like in the proposal?

[Xoosch]

Seems a nice and sound system.

[Darkbaron]

 

All hauling MUST be done on the open sea.

At least thats my opinion. Therefor it does not matter if stuff is hauled by NPC or PPL.

 

I am aware of the impact a fully AI driven real time hauling system can have on the server, so I recommend to limit NPC hauling ships to a fixed amount, i.e. 10 or 20 for each port (it really depends on the server load). Those hauling NPCs should not have a specific base harbor, they will do the hauling as it is scheduled by the players. To prevent players stacking hauling contracts, each player can place one hauling contract every 30 minutes.

 

Example:

A player places a hauling contract from Port A to B wich will be placed in the schedule. The server looks if there is a hauler available. If all haulers are in use. If a hauler is available, a ship will be generated by the server and starts to travel from A to B, having exactly the cargo on board, that was ordered for delivery. If the hauler reaches its destination, the server will "delete" the ship and proceeds with the next hauling contract in the schedule. While this is gonna happen, the player might get notified, once the procedure starts and once it arrived or - in worst case - once it was lost on the OS.

 

So instead of having all the NPC ships sailing around without having anything to do and beeing just there for the grind, make an AI with a job. If you can do so - and I bet you can - you will solve 2 issues at the same time: Having NPCs sailing around acting as a target for player and having a proper "real time hauling system". For the player this system will be easy to use, so i cant see any game design issues. If i missed something feel free to show me.

 

 

Its a nice idea, but sorry, gives you the worst of all worlds. First you implement a resource hog on the server with managing all AI transportation in OW for every port with player queues, the managing of the sailing onroute and then maybe handing it over to battle instances and back (if lucky) while simulanously giving the players another waiting-game to play in a game thats already very time consuming. Although I do see what you were trying to do, this would make other factors even worse.

[Kair]

Good afternoon ladies and gents.

The past few months have been very exciting in Naval Action with all theses great patches, changes and Pvp fun ! A few days ago we were asked what we thought about the delivery system. After thinking about it quite a lot, my conclusion on the matter are as follow :

 

If the delivery system was implemented, I'm guessing it was necessary to do so. A few reasons can explain that need :

• Small nations that cant hold more then a few ports cant craft otherwise (I'm thinking about our friends the Swedes there *Salute*).
• Players playing the game to haul or trade goods may be less in numbers then required to provide guild crafters...
• ... And Not enough crafting means not enough ships to wage war with, so less PVP.

I have no idea if this is the case, but let's say it is, and lets say the delivery systeme will stay.
If trading does not imply the hauling anymore, it "limits" the "naval" part of it. I'm afraid that Port Battle and SOL fighting become the only pvp out there. Dont get me wrong, I love the Port Battles we have with The Dutch and the open sea encounters with the Danes, but I would also love to be able to get my Privateer or Frigate class ships out again.
Harassing trading lines would be (and was) a great way to use these ships. Fast and maneuverable, they could hit the traders deep into enemy territory before the main fleet could retaliate.

So some of us asked the Devs "why not get the boats used for the deliveries in the OW ?", and the devs answered : "That would make too many boats". Witch is true. Think about it : 5*(number of players) boats randomly going from ports to ports.

 

So after talking and thinking about it a bit, a few solutions could solve that :

• Able fewer deliveries but let them haul more ? (like each delivery is in fact a small "fleet" of NPC traders). Exemple : 2*(2500 hauling cap) or 1*(5000 hauling cap) deliveries at the time, and take out every other trader NPC.
• Group up in fleets every delivery of one port to another, and make them leave ports 2 times a day ? like 12h AM and 12h PM ? You could make "convoys" of ships that way. Again, every other NPC should be taken out of the game.
• Buff slitly the number of NPCs in game and use them to "Haul" the deliveries. That one is a bit triky... But let's say one nation has 100 NPC traders at all time on the OW, and that same nation has 10k hauling space worth of deliveries at a time. Taking down 1 trader would loose everyone 1% of their delivery (1% of 1000 hauling cap for exemple). It may seem verry little, but if you dont do anything, it could easily get out of controle if you dont start defending the traders. Loosing 15%-30% can be a pain on a long terme basis.

Each and every one of these propositions implement the risk of losing all/part of the goods, and that's the point. At the moment, frigate class ships are mostly used by players that dont have the rank to sail bigger ships (I said "mostly" !). I know the Devs got a lot of work in modeling and balancing all the ships, and they would love to see more people sail all of them, not only the "main stream" ones. Well, getting trading (hauling in fact) back "in" the open world would give purpose back to some great ships.
I can already taste the flavor of small privateer fleets gathering to hunt enemy trading lines, and the other side trying to solve the "Pirate" problem in there waters.

 

Shouldn't Waging war also imply economy ?

 

I understand that theses ideas may not be possible at all, I'm just trying to think about ways to put back the pvp part of trading into the game. I wanted to take more time to think about it, but with the hard wipe on the way, I figured I had to post that.

Edit : If this has already been pointed out, sorry I'missed it. Moderators feel free to move and/or delete this topic

 

Cya all on the seas !

Edited January 14, 2016 by Kair

[Brogsitter]

I agree to this before you made the post

 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/7903-proposal-real-time-hauling-system-on-os/

[Xoosch]

Its a nice idea, but sorry, gives you the worst of all worlds. First you implement a resource hog on the server with managing all AI transportation in OW for every port with player queues, the managing of the sailing onroute and then maybe handing it over to battle instances and back (if lucky) while simulanously giving the players another waiting-game to play in a game thats already very time consuming. Although I do see what you were trying to do, this would make other factors even worse.

But deliveries need plenty time already with the system in place. And can you please explain how npc fleets actually hauling the deliveries would make matters worse for some factions?

[jodgi]

But deliveries need plenty time already with the system in place. And can you please explain how npc fleets actually hauling the deliveries would make matters worse for some factions?

Imagine a swedish crafter waiting in Gustavia for NPCs from his outposts with the Dutch camping outside hitting traders out of boredom. Even if he crafts in a freetown, and those are almost always busy, it would be easy to single out Swedish haulers and cripple Swedish crafting.

It would be effective economic warfare, but would it be fun?

[Toothless Jack]

Is there a PvP in game?

My game style in all these games is PvP. I hate sinking bots, hate crafting/buying/selling. I am a pirate.

In all games my income was from plundering/ganking ,call what ever you want, traders and economy players who trying to get rich fast.

And it is a fair play. If you want to get rich quick you have to risk. Now with goods being sent risk free you taking this opportunity from me.

Do you want to make pvp players go sink bots or start crafting to be able pvp? That is a wrong approach.

I believe no need to coding some extra haulers AI and waste time. Let trader work for his profit. There will be people with ' safe ' routes only they know who can do hauling for extra money.

Traders should be trading, pirates should be pirating. With current system this doesn't work.

With the same luck you may as well get rid of all this open world and just make button ' Port Battle 25x25 ' and you in.. do a fight log off. ( Sort of Call of Duty isn't it? )

Now for these who don't want trading but have big groups and needs a lot of resources. you would be able to hire some1 who will deliver your good for reward. Ofc he must give some collateral  in case he loses cargo.

Every organised clan/group always have their crafters and haulers. No excuses there.

[Kair]

I agree to this before you made the post

 

http://forum.game-labs.net/index.php?/topic/7903-proposal-real-time-hauling-system-on-os/

 

Indeed you did Brogsitter ! Thanks for pointing it out (Maybe we could merge both topics ?)

After reading your own post and thinking about it all over (our propositions are slightly different in some ways), I realised that it may still be too "server heavy" : Too many calculations to make theses kind of system work efficiently.

Overall in my opinion, the main thing to keep in mind is to find a way to link open world traders and national economy.

 

Another solution, probably a lot less heavy on the servers, could be to link NPC traders and main stocks in the shops in a region ? Deliveries would stay, and this system would not impact small nations neither would "complicate" the system of trading. The only difference would be that attacking NPC traders in enemy territory lessens their stocks. This could create the pvp around trading lines.

[Taco_Salad]

I agree with this, the current system is horrible in my opinion

[Taco_Salad]

Another option would be to have it where each port has a cap on how many trade ships it sends out an hour to prevent server loads.  but this is the #1 thing that is needed in the game, without it, the open world is almost useless.

[Darkbaron]

Another option would be to have it where each port has a cap on how many trade ships it sends out an hour to prevent server loads.  but this is the #1 thing that is needed in the game, without it, the open world is almost useless.

Great ... gives you players camping queues to get their mats.

[Barberouge]

Merged the 2 topics about NPC hauling.