Rethinking modules

[Laik]

Right now modules work very much like gear. If you want to be competitive, you need to have the 'must haves' like the Reinforced masts and reload mods or else you are severly handicapped. Therefore I want to suggest a slight rework to what we already have. The basic principle is to have every module come with a downside. On top of that every module should be permanent and a captured ship should come with the modules it had installed.

 

So onto the first part: No module should grant 'clean' bonus. Every module comes with a downside. This provides two advantages for the gameplay. You have a choice - either specialize towards one playstyle (say speed at the expense of hull hp) or remain a jack of all trades without modules. Both approaches become viable and a ship with 1 module slot is just as useful as the one with 5. It also makes nerfing overpowered mods easier (because you can reduce the bonus/increase the penalty) and makes the unmodded ships viable. 

 

Captured ships should be captured with modules and thus all modules should be permanent. This effectively means that captured one dura ships are just as viable as multiple dura ships. When you cannot remove the modules from the ship, the primary fear of sailing a one-dura ship (that is losing modules) goes away. This, coupled with the above mechanic makes captured ships perfectly viable and allows players to live solely off captured ships (instead of crafting).

 

Good example of what I have in mind is the current Speed trim, Turning trim, Extra planking. Here are also some examples of how the current modules could be reworked.

 

Reinforced masts: +mast hp/+sail raising time, yard turning time, (possibly speed)

 

Lightweight ropes and blocks: -sail raising time, yard turning time/-sail hp

 

Magazine access: -reload/+chance of fire, +crew casualties, -hp

 

Rum rations: -reload/+dispersion, -sail raising speed, yard turning

 

Pellew sights: -dispersion/+reload

 

So for example you have a 3 slot ship. You want to make it reload based so you choose to install Rum rations and Magazine access which come at their respective expenses. You can use the third slot to nullify some of the penalties, for example nullifying hp penalty from Magazine access with Extra planking if you think you don't need the speed. 

 

The tiering of modules remains but now it represents the extent of the modification not the quality of it. Same for ships, their tier represents how much the ship can be modified (instead of how much better it is).

 

(Edit) One additional mechanic is necessary to make it all work: A captured ship can be taken command of only if it was captured from a player. This serves two purposes. First, to make what was mentioned above work. Secondly and more importantly, to make crafting and economy even more fundamental part of gameplay. It would also allow NPC like 1st rates to come back on the OS without hurting the economy.

 

And importantly pretty much all of the changes which I propose here are within the framework of currently existing game mechanics.

 

As for the clean bonuses...

They should come from the upcoming Officers. However this needs to be balanced out, for example by risk of losing them in every battle. You sink - you lose all of the officers. You strike colours - you keep them. This way we finally get a decent incentive for surrender. Also officers could have a corresponding hit-box on the damage model so that they can be killed by cannon-fire. During the boarding the chance of losing officers should rise with the % of crew lost, so one player can strike-colours mid-boarding if he is clearly losing to prevent losing his officers.

Edited December 29, 2015 by Laik

[Prater]

Why would Grog rations, powder monkeys, marines, etc be permanent?  I agree more of the mods need to be permanent, but there are several that should not.

 

I don't know that I quite agree with every mod having a downside.  Why would reinforced masts lower sail raising speed or the speed of the vessel?  Perhaps give it a negative to yard turning.

 

Why would lightweight ropes and blocks increase yard turning time?  I could see it giving a negative to sail hp though.

 

Pellew's sights.  Negative reload.  I can see that.

 

Marines giving negative reload needs to be removed.  I could see marines giving a higher repair cost though for higher pay, more muskets, training, etc.

 

 

Otherwise on all the rest I think I agree.

[OlavDeng2]

This is a great suggestion, it nerfs the modules in a sense, a reasonable way as well and it gives people insentive to surrender to keep the future officers(although in my opinion they should not give in battle bonuses, just open world ones such as cheaper shop prices etc.)

 

Some of these will need balancing but i like most of the idea, except one, some modules like grog rations shouldnt be permenent imho

[akd]

A comprehensive, viable and much better system. I have only one concern:

This, coupled with the above mechanic makes captured ships perfectly viable and allows players to live solely off captured ships (instead of crafting).

Capture from AI provides a constant stream of very easy to obtain viable ships that are magicked into the world. This makes crafted ships unessential, and would be exaccerbated by the above. The difference in effort involved between capturing and crafting the same, or nearly the same ship, is just huge.

I would strongly suggest that we not be able to take command of AI captures. Instead we can send them to a prize court to be converted into cash or we can have the ship condemned for salvage. Only ships captured from players should work as you describe.

[OlavDeng2]

A comprehensive, viable and much better system. I have only one concern:

Capture from AI provides a constant stream of very easy to obtain viable ships that are magicked into the world. This makes crafted ships unessential, and would be exaccerbated by the above. The difference in effort involved between capturing and crafting the same, or nearly the same ship, is just huge.

I would strongly suggest that we not be able to take command of AI captures. Instead we can send them to a prize court to be converted into cash or we can have the ship condemned for salvage. Only ships captured from players should work as you describe.

Personally, id like to still be able to comandeer ships i capture, but you bring a valid point, so possibly you can still comandeer AI ships but they dont come with any modules(they do during the fight, but loose it when captured) while player ships the modules are still on when captured? capturing and sailing captured ships in my opinion is a crucial part of the lower levels.

[Puchu]

I like the whole suggestion.

 

Yes, make ai ships have 0 modslots would work well for me.

 

This way of treating modules will actually help crafters, because their 2-3 ships are actually valuable and not just pure trash, like they are now.

[Laik]

Why would Grog rations, powder monkeys, marines, etc be permanent?  I agree more of the mods need to be permanent, but there are several that should not.

 

I don't know that I quite agree with every mod having a downside.  Why would reinforced masts lower sail raising speed or the speed of the vessel?  Perhaps give it a negative to yard turning.

 

Why would lightweight ropes and blocks increase yard turning time?  I could see it giving a negative to sail hp though.

 

Pellew's sights.  Negative reload.  I can see that.

 

Marines giving negative reload needs to be removed.  I could see marines giving a higher repair cost though for higher pay, more muskets, training, etc.

 

 

Otherwise on all the rest I think I agree.

 

As for the not all mods making 'sense' being permanent like the ones you named. I realize that and for me there are some ways around it. Making them permanent regardless (which I don't mind at all). Renaming them/ditching 'clone mods' (for example no need for powder monkeys which give the same bonus as mag access). Basically having strategic mods like powder monkeys non-permanent undermines entire idea of wholly-permanent modules. Things like rum/grog rations could alternatively be made into some sort of consumable (though that would require more coding I suppose).

 

As for Marines - I think they should be gone altogether. For one - because I think marines are (or should be) included in the complement of the warship. I the future, when we get hinted career paths like navy captain/privateer having Marine complement could be an exclusive perk for Navy captains (at the cost of cons somewhere else).

 

As for the Ropes and blocks, that was my mistake. Idea was to have them like they are now but with -sail hp. I will fix it.

 

These are just hastily thought examples to illustrate the point, if the idea gathers some support I invite you to post your own ideas for modules. If we are ever to have a system like this, then we will need much more mods in general to make it work (and much more specialized).

 

EDIT: Also think of it other way, for example Marines. Making them permanent may seem unrealistic. But if we have them as regulars then the very same Marines complement can be moved from a Lynx to a Santisima and magically multiply by 30. Likewise a 1st rate would need many more Powder monkeys as well as much bigger stack of Rum or Grog rations. So having it all represented as one module with exactly the same cost is not realistic either .

 

Capture from AI provides a constant stream of very easy to obtain viable ships that are magicked into the world. This makes crafted ships unessential, and would be exaccerbated by the above. The difference in effort involved between capturing and crafting the same, or nearly the same ship, is just huge.

I would strongly suggest that we not be able to take command of AI captures. Instead we can send them to a prize court to be converted into cash or we can have the ship condemned for salvage. Only ships captured from players should work as you describe.

 

Yes this is the idea which I have long supported. It should be mentioned in the opening post, I will add this. Only ships captured from players should be able to be taken comand of. It is necessary if this modules thing is to work but it is, in my opnion, even more necessary from the crafting and economy perspective.

Edited December 29, 2015 by Laik

[akd]

capturing and sailing captured ships in my opinion is a crucial part of the lower levels.

Only because of the way crafting and capture (and damage-based XP against AI / low crew size penalties to a degree) are currently working together. No one is producing desirable low-level ships for sale, because there is no demand and it is more efficient to just get rid of them. Low-level players don't buy ships, they just capture free ones. Low-level crafters don't sell cheap ships (or nice ones) to low-level players. They just destroy them or sell them to the port. There are huge numbers of Lt level players running around in undercrewed, captured Frigates (that their friends helped them obtain) who should be sailing player-crafted ships appropriate to their level if everything was working together properly.

[OlavDeng2]

Only because of the way crafting and capture (and damage-based XP against AI / low crew size penalties to a degree) are currently working together. No one is producing desirable low-level ships for sale, because there is no demand and it is more efficient to just get rid of them. Low-level players don't buy ships, they just capture free ones. Low-level crafters don't sell cheap ships (or nice ones) to low-level players. They just destroy them or sell them to the port. There are huge numbers of Lt level players running around in undercrewed, captured Frigates (that their friends helped them obtain) who should be sailing player-crafted ships appropriate to their level if everything was working together properly.

You are correct, and honestly, i would be dissepointed in seeing captured AI ships not being able to be sailed, i would say they should be objectivly worse(no modules, maybe only grey etc.), but i would still want to see them.

 

also, lets be clear, i used pretty much only captured ships, i since the wipe have only owned 4 player made ships, which are the following:

 

1. a constitution

 

2. a victory

 

3. a pavel

 

4. bellepoule(only due to the honour kill system)

 

other than that i have captured ships, captured a frigate to sail, then i got the connie, captured a few third rates, and then sailed third rates until i could crew a victory.

Edited December 29, 2015 by OlavDeng2

[akd]

You are correct, and honestly, i would be dissepointed in seeing captured AI ships not being able to be sailed, i would say they should be objectivly worse(no modules, maybe only grey etc.), but i would still want to see them.

Of course! They are huge exploit built into the game system (free ships and free ship teleports), so very desirable. Even with the modules currently somewhat out of control / unbalanced, the game is still tilted more towards skill than gear, so the existence of ships or modules that are obtained for free (save small time investment) from AI will significantly undermine player economy, even if they are worse than player-crafted equivalents. For this not to be the case, they would have to be so much worse that it would tilt the balance of play from skill-based to gear-based, which we are trying to avoid.

IMO, AI should only be a source of cash (payment for your time investment) or basic materials (that could otherwise be obtained from NPC ports).

What I do think could be allowed is to add an AI capture as a "consort" to your fleet (or in place of a hired fleet), sacrificing part of your crew to man it until such point as you decide to sell it as a prize or condemn it for salvage. Having to give up some of your crew would make this self-balancing to a degree.

[maturin]

 

 

I don't know that I quite agree with every mod having a downside.  Why would reinforced masts lower sail raising speed or the speed of the vessel?  Perhaps give it a negative to yard turning.

Hmmn...

 

Very taught standing rigging can get in the way of yard traverse, and make it difficult to sail upwind.

[B24LIBERATOR]

Modules help tailor the ship to your fighting style.

 

Giving them all a downside is a silly arcade-ish thing to do. Obviously some would have realistic downsides, but there's really no point to try and "even things out". Each ship is already slightly different, would you want to make them all sail exactly the same and have the same guns? Probably not. Just as a captain picks a ship that they like, they pick modules to make their favorite ship sail the way they want to. The modules should have the pros and cons that the real equipment would have had, if there aren't any cons, good for whoever wants to use the mod.

[AKPyrate]

Right now modules work very much like gear. If you want to be competitive, you need to have the 'must haves' like the Reinforced masts and reload mods or else you are severly handicapped. Therefore I want to suggest a slight rework to what we already have. The basic principle is to have every module come with a downside. On top of that every module should be permanent and a captured ship should come with the modules it had installed.

 

So onto the first part: No module should grant 'clean' bonus. Every module comes with a downside. This provides two advantages for the gameplay. You have a choice - either specialize towards one playstyle (say speed at the expense of hull hp) or remain a jack of all trades without modules. Both approaches become viable and a ship with 1 module slot is just as useful as the one with 5. It also makes nerfing overpowered mods easier (because you can reduce the bonus/increase the penalty) and makes the unmodded ships viable. 

 

Captured ships should be captured with modules and thus all modules should be permanent. This effectively means that captured one dura ships are just as viable as multiple dura ships. When you cannot remove the modules from the ship, the primary fear of sailing a one-dura ship (that is losing modules) goes away. This, coupled with the above mechanic makes captured ships perfectly viable and allows players to live solely off captured ships (instead of crafting).

 

Good example of what I have in mind is the current Speed trim, Turning trim, Extra planking. Here are also some examples of how the current modules could be reworked.

 

Reinforced masts: +mast hp/+sail raising time, yard turning time, (possibly speed)

 

Lightweight ropes and blocks: -sail raising time, yard turning time/-sail hp

 

Magazine access: -reload/+chance of fire, +crew casualties, -hp

 

Rum rations: -reload/+dispersion, -sail raising speed, yard turning

 

Pellew sights: -dispersion/+reload

 

So for example you have a 3 slot ship. You want to make it reload based so you choose to install Rum rations and Magazine access which come at their respective expenses. You can use the third slot to nullify some of the penalties, for example nullifying hp penalty from Magazine access with Extra planking if you think you don't need the speed. 

 

The tiering of modules remains but now it represents the extent of the modification not the quality of it. Same for ships, their tier represents how much the ship can be modified (instead of how much better it is).

 

(Edit) One additional mechanic is necessary to make it all work: A captured ship can be taken command of only if it was captured from a player. This serves two purposes. First, to make what was mentioned above work. Secondly and more importantly, to make crafting and economy even more fundamental part of gameplay. It would also allow NPC like 1st rates to come back on the OS without hurting the economy.

 

And importantly pretty much all of the changes which I propose here are within the framework of currently existing game mechanics.

 

As for the clean bonuses...

They should come from the upcoming Officers. However this needs to be balanced out, for example by risk of losing them in every battle. You sink - you lose all of the officers. You strike colours - you keep them. This way we finally get a decent incentive for surrender. Also officers could have a corresponding hit-box on the damage model so that they can be killed by cannon-fire. During the boarding the chance of losing officers should rise with the % of crew lost, so one player can strike-colours mid-boarding if he is clearly losing to prevent losing his officers.

 

I really like the idea, though it obviously needs a little polishing.  I'm not sure all should be permanent modifications, though it would be better than the current way of doing things.  Additionally, I do like the current way of building ships with unique, inherent traits as well as being able to modify them.  Ships were often modified throughout their life to keep up with new technology and serve the style of their captains.

 

Why would Grog rations, powder monkeys, marines, etc be permanent?  I agree more of the mods need to be permanent, but there are several that should not.

 

I don't know that I quite agree with every mod having a downside.  Why would reinforced masts lower sail raising speed or the speed of the vessel?  Perhaps give it a negative to yard turning.

 

Why would lightweight ropes and blocks increase yard turning time?  I could see it giving a negative to sail hp though.

 

Pellew's sights.  Negative reload.  I can see that.

 

Marines giving negative reload needs to be removed.  I could see marines giving a higher repair cost though for higher pay, more muskets, training, etc.

 

 

Otherwise on all the rest I think I agree.

 

Reinforced masts/rigging would easily have a speed and sail raising downside.  There are a number of historical practices that can be grouped together that would give you 'reinforced rigging', such as having backup braces to the yards.  That means that a few extra hands and coordination would be needed for trimming sails (generally just letting out and taking up slack, but it also increases the friction while moving those yards).  This extra gear would make the yards heavier, thus slower to raise.  Another historical practice would be to use chains to ensure that if a yard was damaged or the halyard shot away, that it would stay aloft and usable, as well as not fall on crew on deck.  Thus, when raising and lowering sails attaching or disconnecting the chain would increase the time it takes.  All these extra lines aloft, and potentially extra standing rigging (fans of the Aubrey/Maturin series will be intimately familiar with using hawsers to increase the sail load that the masts can take) increases windage, which increases leeway and breaks up laminar flow of the wind across the sails; it slows down the boat.  As for Marines, I could agree with the higher repair costs, as well as possibly a negative to crew capacity, as they'd be taking up berthing space that sailors would normally have used.  Not sure how to make this work with boarding as well though, as Marines would obviously fill out the ranks of any boarding party.  Maybe count Marines separately from crew and make the bonus just an increased compliment of Marines (at the expense of crew)?

 

As for the not all mods making 'sense' being permanent like the ones you named. I realize that and for me there are some ways around it. Making them permanent regardless (which I don't mind at all). Renaming them/ditching 'clone mods' (for example no need for powder monkeys which give the same bonus as mag access). Basically having strategic mods like powder monkeys non-permanent undermines entire idea of wholly-permanent modules. Things like rum/grog rations could alternatively be made into some sort of consumable (though that would require more coding I suppose).

 

As for Marines - I think they should be gone altogether. For one - because I think marines are (or should be) included in the complement of the warship. I the future, when we get hinted career paths like navy captain/privateer having Marine complement could be an exclusive perk for Navy captains (at the cost of cons somewhere else).

 

As for the Ropes and blocks, that was my mistake. Idea was to have them like they are now but with -sail hp. I will fix it.

 

These are just hastily thought examples to illustrate the point, if the idea gathers some support I invite you to post your own ideas for modules. If we are ever to have a system like this, then we will need much more mods in general to make it work (and much more specialized).

 

EDIT: Also think of it other way, for example Marines. Making them permanent may seem unrealistic. But if we have them as regulars then the very same Marines complement can be moved from a Lynx to a Santisima and magically multiply by 30. Likewise a 1st rate would need many more Powder monkeys as well as much bigger stack of Rum or Grog rations. So having it all represented as one module with exactly the same cost is not realistic either .

 

 

Yes this is the idea which I have long supported. It should be mentioned in the opening post, I will add this. Only ships captured from players should be able to be taken comand of. It is necessary if this modules thing is to work but it is, in my opnion, even more necessary from the crafting and economy perspective.

 

I like the idea of grog ration being a usable commodity instead of a permanent upgrade.  The same kind of thing might be done later for better food supplies, etc.  Maybe make it like using a repair, but it needs to be done while a battle is loading?

[Laik]

I really like the idea, though it obviously needs a little polishing.  I'm not sure all should be permanent modifications, though it would be better than the current way of doing things.  Additionally, I do like the current way of building ships with unique, inherent traits as well as being able to modify them.  Ships were often modified throughout their life to keep up with new technology and serve the style of their captains.

 

When I say permanent I mean the way permanent modules are handled right now. So you can destroy a module and put another in it's place. You still retain ability to replace the modules if you find that you don't need/want them anymore. I also don't mind the inherent characteristics that are applied during crafting process. The idea is simply to remove the fear of losing modules from the game in two ways. Firstly - by making them modifications rather than upgrades - which makes them less vital to success. Secondly to take away fear of losing them by simply making it impossible to save them. I don't hear anyone comlplaining about losing their inherent golden build strength. This is because they can't move it to the other ship anyway so they don't care.

[Puchu]

About the realism in modules:

 

Here we have a serious issue, a serious difference between gameplay and history, as so often in the discussion about this game.

 

E.g.:

 

Powder monkeys:

 

Gameplay view: The module is "called" powder monkeys. It gives -5% reload. Pretty simple.
                         It could be called "reload mod" or "huglhagldagldeng", what matters is: -5% reload. 

 

 

Realism view: If you add "powder monkeys" you add little children to the ship. That run around carrying powder from the magazine to the guncrews. The ppl responsable for carrying the powder were grown men at the stairs, sometimes older men, sometimes even women. The victory had 31 boys on board to do the job (i have no knowledge about how many men were responsable for the whole gunpowder fetching in total, since for a 3 reck ship you would need around 90ppl to fetch the gunpowder) These powdermonkeys were usually about 10-14years old and were often forced or sold to do that job. Those powder monkeys would make sure, that you allways have powder for 2 shots ready behind your cannon. 

So what do you add, by adding powdermonkeys to a ship? Realistically? A ship would allways have enough men onboard to have the powder ready. By adding powder monkeys, you would either add the little boys to make the powderfetchers exhaust less and thus, would maybe influence the availability of gunpowder after a 1h fight, or you would replace the men who would do the fetching with little boys which would basically not affect the reload at all, they would just get tired quicker then the men and you might run out of powder in very long fights. But it would certainly reduce the food and upkeep cost of a ship. 

To conclude this little part: historically speaking, adding powder monkeys would do nothing to the guns reload speed at all!  It would only affect ships upkeep and the availability of gunpowder. If you replace men with boys, it would actually lessen the ships crewcount. 

 

I think we could have endless debates about how and what would be correct historically, about how stuff should be named and what exact effects it should have because of its name. If we would discuss the effects of "rum rations" on a ship, we would get into some serious trouble explaining the current modules. Also the module restrictions and so on would need to be deleted, because ofc you would be able to add 3 marines + 2 more sailors + 3 powder monkeys + a little heavyer ropes+ a little more planking + a bit more rum + a bit less stone + + + + + onto a ship. 

 

To me, the games mechanics need to provide the basics for historically correct behavior. The modules are there to tailor your ship towards your playstyle, like any captain would do. Imo the modules need to have downsides to make lesser modded ships viable. i think it's important to give highly modded, expensively tiered ships, downsides, so they can be beaten if you eploit their weaknesses, or if the captain doesnt apply its strengths correctly. To me this adds a whole new layer of gameplay and i think it would become wonderfull to figure out how manuva or freddy modded their ships to find the best way to fight that ship. Captureing one of their ships would give me huge intel on their preferred fighting style (untill they totally change it for the next battle, surprise me and mess me up ) 

 

Gameplay view:

I think all modules permanent and modules being sidegrades, rather than straight upgrades would greatly benefit the game!
(If you watch totalbisquits game critiques, which are highly popular on youtube, he also promotes sidegrades rather than straight upgrades all the time.)

 

(Also, historically speaking: if you capture a ship that had reinforced masts, they would actually still be on the ship if you capture it. They wouldn't just disappear. Same goes for the amount of rum and grog and powder monkeys.)