Travel and combat expenses, morale... also helps to balance ships

[Azzak]

Hello,

 

For both realism and balance, I think it would be great to introduce more expenses during travel on the open world and during combat

These are related to :

 

- The number of crew on the ship

You have to pay for the food, wages of your crew.

Losing crew means you have to hire new ones. Same as repair fees after a battle.

 

The cost would be exponential : the bigger the ship, the more number of sailors aboard, and the more specialized and better sailors you need. Example : officers, surgeons, quartermasters etc...  

So a line ship would have to bear very high cost to travel around the carribean. This is reduced to an acceptable level for frigates, and it would cost nearly nothing for 6th rates.

For wages, if you missed the previous pay check it gets added to the next one.

 

As for food, it also means you need to dock to replenish rations from time to time (it can be done automatically at port).

 

- Repairs due to travels

Ships need to anchor and repair from time to time due to the sea impact on hulls and sails, it is well known they can't stay afloat forever... Once again, the larger the ship and the longer it stayed travelling the more expensive it is to repair it at port. Travelling far from coast would have a bigger impact.

 

- Ammunition

A ship can't fight forever, it needs to dock again and resplenish its ammunition. The cost depends of the number and kind of cannons. Now you can feel that shooting 134 bigass canons at once is going to be relatively expensive on the long run....

Again this can be done automatically at port.

 

Why all these costs ? To make small ships useful

 

If you can take your 1st rate and wander around in the carribean oneshotting people without any great expenses... the balance isn't right.  The biggest ships should be taken for conquest and big fleet engagement, and should be incredible money sinks for the players manning them. I can't imagine a solo player manning a 1st rate like it was nothing.

So to make money you have to keep playing your frigates for example. And in an open PVP world, that kind of constraints is necessary.

 

Note that for the cutter these should be always free, and for 6th rate these should be very small.

 

Now, another interesting thing would be to add...

 

- Morale

 

If you can't pay your crew, can't feed them, or if you stay too long without docking... your morale gets lower. Below a certain treshold there is a risk of munity, that goes to 100% when morale is 0. You don't want that to happen. So to be sure you better keep the morale high.

The OW morale can also impact the morale in boarding actions.

 

These 2 morales can also be linked more deeply. In combat it decreases slightly when your crew takes hit, and rises when you damage critically an opponent (fires, crew shocks)

If morale gets to 0 during combat then the crew decides to surrender rather than face death (anyway the crew would mutiny in the open world at this point).

 

What if I'm back at 0 gold ? I won't be able to set sail !

Well thanks to the teleport ability there is this lovely free cutter also free of travel and combat expenses waiting for you at capital... or you can sell some of the stuff you've put in your warehouse. Simple !

 

And most of all : these elements will make for a more immersive experience.

 

Thoughts ?

Edited January 27, 2016 by Azzak

[maturin]

 

 

if you stay too long without docking... your morale gets lower.

Naval Action crew are spoiled rotten.

 

No blue water mariner will bat an eyelash at two months afloat, but most players don't leave port for more than 3 days.

[Thomas Goodman]

A like a lot of the ideas in here.

[Azzak]

Naval Action crew are spoiled rotten.

 

No blue water mariner will bat an eyelash at two months afloat, but most players don't leave port for more than 3 days.

Haha true, well minus this then.

[Ned Loe]

This simply means micro economy on board of your ship. 

 

Players sell goods

Players Purchase goods (food, ammo and ship parts)

Players hire crew (crew skill level can be implemented, but will cost more to maintain)

Player has to pay crew after each battle (% deducted from final win price, GTAV style)

 

Problems

 

-Players will need to resupply food, ammo and ship parts.

-Players will need to hire crew after each battle and replace those killed. This means sail to nearest port and visit tavern.

-Players who do not do enough damage do not get enough gold to pay the crew/repair the ship or resupply the ship and will go bankrupt. 

-Players who do not feed the crew start to loose people and get penalties. 

 

If sailors are not responsible they will loose everything. This means sailing without food and loosing crew eventually will result in ship loss when attacked by stronger enemy. Players who forgot to get ammo or repairs will sink as well. If players won't be able to manage this ship micro managing system they will end up with 0. 

 

Do we need this?

[Dwerth]

I think that if there were no malus given from not feeding your crew, that would be better.  Or perhaps, a better way to say it is that the base game is you providing basic hardtack to the crew.

 

Let us then steal a page from other MMOs, and have a player crafted consumable going from good: (slightly better grog, improved broth, hardtack that only has 1 worm in it), to better ("this is actually mead!", broth with vegetables, hardtack without worms) to best ("I say, this is some fine brandy", stew with meat and vegetables, freshly buttered bread).  These consumables would provide small, but measurable increases in morale and combat ability for boarding actions, slight improvement in ship handling (better food = better fuel for the human body to react well under stress = quicker response times, greater endurance), and possibly to the speed at which you can switch between modes - gunnery, survival, boarding.

[Azzak]

 

 

 

Problems

 

-Players will need to resupply food, ammo and ship parts.

-Players will need to hire crew after each battle and replace those killed. This means sail to nearest port and visit tavern.

-Players who do not do enough damage do not get enough gold to pay the crew/repair the ship or resupply the ship and will go bankrupt. 

-Players who do not feed the crew start to loose people and get penalties. 

 

If sailors are not responsible they will loose everything. This means sailing without food and loosing crew eventually will result in ship loss when attacked by stronger enemy. Players who forgot to get ammo or repairs will sink as well. If players won't be able to manage this ship micro managing system they will end up with 0. 

 

Do we need this?

 

 

These cost have to be adjusted finely of course, they are going to be nearly inexistant for 6th rates. If players don't have enough money, they simply have to play lower rank ships

 

Additionaly, these micro actions can be made automatically : you check that upon entering port you repair, recrew and buy food automatically. Voilà, no problem forgetting doing that.

 

The idea behind these expenses is to make every ship worthwile.

 

The big problem is : unless you lose your ship, money sinks are very few for players that have 1sr rates ships right ? And they aren't going to lose a ship like that on the opposite of a player who can lose its frigate much more easily. So the bigger ship you have, the more money you can get, and the more money you can get the bigger ship you can have.

Result ? Everyone with 1st rates. And you don't want that for open PVP, as it will be a game for veterans and not new players.

 

Thus it needs to be balanced. And having some exponential expenses for ships is one solution. People who want to play the biggest ship of the game have to save for it. Nations didn't build 1st rates because it will make money, they did it because it can bring them victory. 

Edited January 27, 2016 by Azzak