Sir Texas Sir

Looks like we got an update on testbed.....

And no AI allowed in raids for sure so it should keep the same rules at PB. The ports are raided on what the port size is. If it's a shallow port you have to raid it with shallow water ships. If it's a 4th rate than 4th rate or below. Though I think no port should be line ship other than capital ports. Those are the only ones and not all the regions capital either only a small percentage of them. Now if I had my way and pirate was removed from the conquest RvR and they had raids than they would get to keep that port (not the region) for three days and than it reverts back to the original owner. So gives you three days to get what you want out of that port and get the hell out of there. During the three days the port stops production for the original nation that owned it.

It's PvP that is your reward and stopping the port battle that you might not want for the region to happen. If you don't want it to happen than you don't show. If you don't show to stop the raid than why would you show to stop the port battle? I don't know about others, but if some one pulls a flag and raided one of my regions I used I would if on and have a ship there try to stop them. Remember flags have to be pulled from there home port so they can only raid in that 1 hour sail distance from there Nations ports. So we stop them on the way. This is to encourage PvP more than anything. I'm not getting why some one would not show if they are rewarded. Last I checked this was a PvP server right, the reward is your PvP.

One thing you can do is keep the mechanics as they are but bring TRUE RAIDS. Make them like the old flag system and against the ports. It's only 12 vs 12 and it's instant that happen when flag is dropped. Make it one circle that you have to control or sink all ships. If the attacker wins auto 25% agro on that region. If they loose it removes 25% agro. You can raid a region as many times as it has ports. Though only one flag can be pulled at a time. With the 12 vs 12 it means more chance of a group being able to fill it. Than once you hit 100% agro you have the current port battle set for control over the region. Still allow us to get agro from other means like PvP and AI ship kills, but this can be the biggest way since fleet ships mission have been removed. By making them 12 vs 12 it will make raids more about the clans that do them and the port battles about the nations. There can be more than one raid at one time if you have several clans of one nation hitting a port at the same time. I figure 12 is the max number you can have in a group so that works out and it's about half the numbers of a full port battle. These way it's only the group pulling the flag involved in the raid. 1. One hour would work great with the flag raid system. 2. Regions can be limited of one raid per port it has (not counting capital). Port battles really never saw a problem with the 2 per nation but I was on PvP2 with low pop. Maybe make it 2 per day per nation instead of two scheduled period. This will allow more battles but only allow two big port battles a day per nation attacking. 3. I never liked 46 hours cause where screwed with the bad port battle timers that locked out most of the US prime time poplation from fighting. It should of been exactly 48 hours from when 100% was reached. I would say if it's shorten make it 24 hours for the port battle for the whole regions. Though if you have a raid system for the ports you can prob keep the 48 hours thing. Don't do the 46 hours cause that was so much a paint to get the battle set when you want it cause the grind can make it move past that time real fast. 4. Keep them just need to tweek the system a bit and add more to it.

The only time anything been mention about the Admiralty or the Pirates Den was by me when I was arguing why we should be able to capture ships even AI fleets and why we should get paid for the ships we capture in xp. I have never seen them mention anything other in that argument and it was me that said it. That since I'm not a National and I don't have an Admiralty that is why I don't get paid and kill every thing. The problem is ever time this topic comes up the Devs go silent and won't speak about it. Cause your ship isn't what I want to be in. I want to be in a ship crafted to the means I want the ship to be crafted in. Until we have our own mechanics and aren't apart of the RvR system we need to have Aggy and SOL's too. And being able to capture ships isn't anything special. All 8 nations can do that (us until thing are changed pirates in game are still a nation).

And give us some things to goof with while we wait. I have never been in a Santa Cecilia....give every one on test one and I bet you find more guys on test than we have right now. Even if it's for a week would be nice to say, "Hay I been in one." I know you PvP1 guys got them, but no one other than the lucky few that crafted them the 4 hours the BP was in game got one, so they are super rare for us. Give out a bunch of firesip fittings on live to help people burn there ships up before the wipe. I still plan to do one night of fireship small battles before the wipe lol You know do stuff like that to give us something to do and not feel like we are just getting let down over and over. I"ll be honest I stop playing on Testbed and the game all around the last week or so cause I want to save some of that fun of the new stuff for when it goes to the live server. I'm planing to pop back on when the last testbed patch hits and check things out one last time, but really I would like to save some of the content for the fun of playing on the live server. I tested a lot of stuff the first bit of the patches being dropped and hotfix so time to get it to completion and live.

Isn't that a 1st rate region too? So it should have higher BR ships in that region compared to a 4th rate region or a shallow water one by my understanding of the ships spawned in the region Not to mention flipping a region should never be a solo thing, it should be a group thing. You want to flip a port/region you need bigger ships/fleets to hit the bigger fleets.

Some one that only spent a few hours leveling there crafting can't build a 1st rate. They still need to level to what is it 45 now? I don't have any of the BP's on testbed and I'm pirate so I can't look it up fast, but 45 takes a long time to level up to crafting wise. That solo player is still going to take a very very very very long time to get all the mats and level up to craft such a ship. Believe me I have three level 50 crafters, The fastest I leveled up was the last one with a tons of labor contracts from the first two chars. It still took me a month or so but that wis with two Curse Pirates with tons of mats to feed the last char to keep him producing. Mats I got easily during broken past econ mechanics. You need to look at it as the new patch game with the wipe not the current live version where every one has tons of money and mats. I'm going to be honest it's going to be killer to keep three chars furnieshed. I all ready plan to make one nothing but a ship builder econ char that sits in port. That is what I think is funny folks think Alts are easy road. You still have to come up with three times the money to produce and keep three times the chars in working order all along while playing them and leveling them up on the side from your main. My first two chars made RA/CURSE way before they hit level 50 crafter. My third is only a flag captain and i only pushed it to level 50 crafter cause of the patch coming and wipe. I knew it would be harder to level up crafter after the wipe so better to do it now before hand. Before some one says but your getting it easy cause you have alts. Well I also have 4.5K hours in this game. I'm not a casual player either. That isn't even counting the hours I have in the other two chars. One I know is around 2-3K and the last is around 1K hours. That is a lot of game time cause I'm currently unemployed and semi retired right now so I have had a lot of free time to play.

The problem with a sandbox game is they promised no classes. Well by making us pick perks to be either one or the other for the most part and making it cost a lot to switch than they are basically making us pick classes. That is why I said split the perks. Other games allow you to have crafting professions on the side that have nothing to do with your main char. Though they take time to level up. Like we spent time doing our crafting rank. What is the point of crafting level 50 now? Nothing really cause unless you plan to craft SOL's you pretty much can stop crafting leveling at 35 ( most 5th and all 4th rates need this level). So there is no incentive to raise you crafting level up higher if you never plan to have a Level Three Shipyard. Though if you get crafting perks for the your leveling than it will give folks reason to max out there crafting levels. As rank 35 would mean you only have. 7 perk points to use. If some one doesn't want to be master of both they just don't have to level one or the other. You can have guys still 1st Lt and a level 50 crafter. Or you can have a Rear Admiral that has never crafted a day in his life. Those folks won't be master of one or the other, but a player that takes his time to max out both levels should be the master of both. Remember new crafting you only get crafting XP from actually crafting ships. You no longer get it from the mats so it's not as easy to rank up your crafting. Remember if that one player wants to build stuff they can, but it's still going to take them ages. Even in the other games you mentioned. I can eventionally craft the bigger ships if I take time. Though it takes a lot of time over some clan of a bunch of players that can give each person duties of what to craft. A clan will prob have that 1st rate out in a month or two. A solo player might take 6 months to a year, but he will eventually be able to make it if he wants to do it all alone.

Leader boards can be abused too, every heard of baby seal clubbing to pad your stats? Oh and if your using you alts to pad your number that is against the rules and if you get caught and/or reported simply demote both chars to zero xp. That will stop folks fast in the tracks for alt farming. Not to mention you can't get any rewards for an hour every time you kill them. That pretty easy for some one to check if your rep goes way up fast and it's the same guy your killing over and over your abusing the system. This is why I think a reputation system would be better. Make one for Naval Actions and one for trade. Your econ char has to get out and do stuff to get trade reputation or he won't be able to trade and do things. If they are not in the same nation than they can't trade with each other specially if you have a bad standing with that nation. It locks out alt farming your econ alts in other nations. Why would any one trade with some one known for sinking ships in there own nation? @Duncan McFail great work man you must be getting bored waiting on this patch, but I really think we need to stop trying to change current stuff until we get all the mechanics worked out, though I do think we need a reputation system in game between nations and players. This would be a good way to replace the alliance system and make it more about the player and Clans (clans can have there own reputation too). That way you can some US players that want to be carebears with there British Buddies and not fight each other. Or you can have a few clans in US that hate the Brits and want to fight them. There reputation will allow them to war with the other nation even though some players might not want to. Thoughts that don't want to can keep good trade standings with the other nation to use there ports (without smuggler flag but still only in trader ships) for trading. If you have a bad reputation with a nation the smuggler flag will allow you to trade in those ports. Though if you have the smuggler flag on your basically should be treated as a pirate and can be attacked by any one.

Just make sure you release Jesus by the weekend. I need him to do my yard work it's getting a little rugged out there. I take it a Spanish first name got mixed in with the french names lol

And that is exactly why there is solo mission up to the first few ranks, cause you won't find a bunch of small ships around the capital so they are allowing new players to do the missions. Though once you get past that level you should be out on the OW player the game. Not to be rude, but if you don't have time to play the open world sandbox game than the battle arena thing might be for those type of players. I did a lot of 2 hours play when I first started and just popped in around patches and did fine. I didn't level any where faster and you shouldn't be able to if your not going to be active in the game. Many other games are like this too that are MMO's. You can pop on and do a quick missions fight and than log out, but your not going to level any time fast doing that.

Are you can log into testbed and find out yourself. Not much changed other than they removed a few and added the fleet perks. Every thing else is pretty much the same.

You mean BLOOD wasn't your first PvP kill? You should of saw me how happy I was when I killed BLOOD in a small battles. I didn't know he was NPC, even thought this guy must had no life he's all ways doing these small battles. Than some one had to burst my bubble and tell me he was an NPC AI after the fight. I would say one of mine was my frist out number PvP win. It was 2 (me and my ai) vs 5 guys (2 players and 3 AI). I was in a 4th rate but they where in a mix of 4th rates and 5th. At the start I sent my AI after the AI to slow them down and distract them as one player was to far away to get to me yet. I fought and tossed balls back and forth with the two players. I was able to hurt the suprise bad to get him off my stern but I had to duck it out with the Connie (I was in a connie). I think he was speed fit so way softer than me. I sunk him just about the time the suprise and the other guy got caught up to use. Knowing the surprise was out of repairs I pounded on him. Well all this time I was thinking my AI is a complete retard over there pretty much beaching it self and the two AI's. Than I get Enemy AI sunk and than Enemy AI sunk. By this time I was torn up really bad and while the suprise was about to sink the other guy (can't remember his ship) was going to beat me for sure being in a fresh ship. I"m trying my hardest to get the surprise to sink and just as he does my AI shows up. While I"m running I have it pound on the last ships sails. I get most my repairs done as I held them off to the last moment and turned. Between the both of us we sink the last ship. the 2 vs 5 and no lost on my side. This was special cause I normally suck at 1 vs 1 or any time I"m out numbered. I'm ore an average player so I work best with team mates. After that fight I started to get my confidence up about doing 1 vs 1 and even some 1 vs 2 fights where I was out number. Now most recent funny moment. We where grinding agro out side of Cap Frans and I didn't have any Pirate ships big close by. So I brought out my baby Dan to get some level experience in the missions since I can join after they start. I'm just in a basic cutter and was going to do a little stern camping and get a little xp. That way I could exit first and make sure things where clear for my Pirate clan mates. Well we where in a fight and @Duncan McFail was boarding this AI ship. So I'm like wow that is an easy target and I start slugging 12 lb carros balls into it''s stern. I see he wins the board so I get the hell out of there. Well so it seems I lit the ship on fire. Since he didn't put crew on it other than a few they were not able to control the fire. It than blew up and I think killed another capture AI ship along with it self and damaged one of our team mates pretty bad @Jean Pual Vilvenue i think it was. Well every one was like what the hell just happen and how did they blow up. I'm all on TS being uber silent as it clicks in my head that I set it on fire. Well the reason it clicked cause my battle screen results was -1765 xp. Now remember this was a baby Danish char. That was more xp than he need to level up to the next level. So it affectedly put me at where I needed over 3K xp to get out of the hole and make my next rank. We all laughed about it but I for sure as hell wasn't going to be stern camping in a basic cutter any time soon while some one boarded lol Though I got to say it's not every day you take out three SOL's with a basic cutter.

There was a great solution for that back in the day....15 min open windows. The problem was when they dropped that to 5 mins we couldn't hunt them down and they would always pick a mission over PvP to get hostility cause it was safer, but boy when we caught them with there pants down (around Kidds Island trying to flip it). I was a blast and only took once to send them packing cause they could just exit to friendly and go home with there SOl's we didn't sink. Now they are forced back into OW which means they better have a good plan if they plan to flip a region far from home and bring a good fleet with supplies to back them lol

I have to agree with most of this, but I'll add a few things to it in my own views. Did you not read this one line before they listed the dates: Timeline (timelines are not final) Every time they mention a date they say subject to change.

That is why I suggested the 1 tier off that you can do with a ship one tier higher than the mission. Though to be honest you see the part I highlighted? They are fleet missions. As Admin said bring friends, or your own AI fleet. They are meant for fleets not to solo. Even one tier off they are going to be hard to solo. The solo missions are meant to help a new lower level player level up since in a lot of regions you won't find around the capital low level ships. That gives them ships to grind on to level up until they are in bigger ships that are more abundant on the OW. So if you past those ranks you should be in a larger ship. If you want to grind on lower level/shallow water ships than go into the shallows. Sounds like if some one wants to only do these after the first few levels they are better off with the arena game. Every thing is wipe, many of us exploited to test out the ship knowledge stuff (I did befoe the last little wipe on testbed but haven't since). So that knowledge isn't exactly gained the legit way by many. So why would we keep it and remember the testbed has no ties to any of the live servers. That is why they wipe it and gives every one crafting and rank redeemable to max out. Right now we need to be working on the game mechanics. more PvE content can come after release or say even while we are in beta stage iron out all the kinks. To many people forget (even myself) that this is an Alpha Stage of a game in development. I see no issues with the system you put in place other than making the one tier higher ship allowed part. That would be the only change I would make cause I would when leveling up a lot of times took missions one level lower to make it more easy so I wouldn't have as high a chance to be sunk. As I said above cause they are meant for new lower level players to rank up with ships of there tier in the area of there capital that might not have many ships around for them to kill. Once they get to the 4-5 ranks there should be plenty ships in the OW for them to grind or as Admin said get some friends and do the fleets.

They where never a nation? You sure about that? That a good long 12 years which is longer than some other upstart nations lasted over the years. Though I do agree with you on the SOL's. They should be only capturedable by pirates which in turn means Nationals have to turn them into Admiralty since they can craft them.. See that is a pirate perk I'm talking about in exchange for not having the BP's and permits in the Pirates Den. If it was up to me Kidds would be the capital, all other ports are pirate havens (freetowns and some hidden to nationals). Make Mort like Pitt's was neutral to all so it's a big trade hub and than give them a raid mechanic. Though until than and they are not treated like a bastard child nation we have to still compete in RvR to keep what we own and not be one ported and wiped from the map. Though Devs still have yet to answer every time I ask why pirates get one 5th rates and the other 7 nations get a 4th rate and all the SOL's in there shops. Than pirates get nothing in return. Hard mode shouldn't mean they have tons of nagitive penalties and no perks. There needs to be a balance. So we can't easily craft SOL's, than give us more than one freaking refit than. I mean it's only a balance stat change as they can use the same ship models and don't even have to change the paint (like the pirate frigate has different color than the frigate). Hell this can be easly done with one perk that all pirates has that adjust there ships states. Something like the Pirate Perk that gave them a little speed and turn rate boost. Since they are suppose to be master of the smaller ships make it only work on 4th rates and below. or even limit it to 5th rates. And allow them to capture /ALL/ ships since they don't have an Admiralty to send prize ships back to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Pirates

What I understand is to get marks of conquest you have to win and do some damage to register an assist or kill to get the marks. You should be getting PvP marks for those kills any way. Looser will get those too if they sink any one, but if you do no damage or kills than you get nothing no matter if your team wins or not. I think it's to encourage folks to actually fight it out and not just sit in the circles. Though I think every one should get one Conquest points for showing up to the port battle. Maybe keep the same restrictions as the kills/damage thing though, but this encourages more folks to show up and fight. Than the winner gets the 1, 3, 5 for the type of port battle. So every one that fought still walks away with 1 conquest points or showing up as long as they did damage and got into the fight. Devs said the 3 slots is suppose to be the norm average ship. So I wouldn't say thee is inferior, but I should have to unlock 20 other ships three slots just to unlock the three on the Surprise. Instead of a tree you have to follow just make the pools per level you have to gain in that ship bigger. Enough said than you can master one ship if that is all you want to sail. I agree, but until they give us a mechanic to make us anything other than a Nation, we are still one of the 8 nations in game and should be treated as something other than a bastard child. First off it's testbed and you have only a few guys on. Wait until your live and you have all the PvP1 and PvP2 Dutch and I bet you have better luck. It's not meant for one or two guys to flip a port, you need a good size group. That and if you can't even muster the guy to flip a port I"ll be honest you won't be able to keep those ports either if some on wants to take them back. I haven't even been worried about PB's cause they still haven't gotten all the last content into testbed. Just like crafting it sounds like things are still missing.

Yah that is why I stated one tier level off. I do a lot of testing with the fleet missions cause it's a pain to find a OW ships they rank you want to test your ship on. So I take a mission. Since the Fleet missions give you no AI support your going to want one a level or two lower. Even than it might be harder than Live cause you have no AI support at all. It's not that they can kill you out right, it's when they out number you. One of the ships i lost on test was a missoin 1-2 level below, but it was 7 5/6th rates vs my 5th rate. I got 4 of them, but I was just out gun and running out of reparis and got cocky on the 5th one that was sinking when I took on water and went under. But I did push myself in that fight cause I wanted to see how hard it was to bounce back since I just spent most my gold doing econ.

But hay atleast you have your chat forum privs back. Welcome back. I figured I take a week off any way and play something else. Yah I'm thinking they are just avoiding my one question over and over why the Pirates get one 5th rate in the shop and 7 other nations (pirates is still a nation) get 8 ships, the Aggy and all the SOL's. They effectively taking out Pirates in 1/3 rd of the RvR for the most part. Yah we can still pay for them and get our alts to get the BP's and permits for us, but not every one has alts to do that. But i feel like I'm beating on a dead horse as they apparently aren't ever going to answer to why Pirates get all these penalities and no perks, but you want us to ack like a nation too.

So you did a fleet missions of your level solo and got sunk? You do know it's a fleet mission so suppose be a fleet/group.

I'm going to laugh at folks when I bring a Mortar Brig to these empty port battle, kill a tower/fort and will be the only one getting conquest points....lol Though the problem is folks still think we have to have the Meta. I for one going to enjoy the first battles for a few weeks that is going to be a mix of ships so we can actually see who can sail and who just has to have the super meta to win. And remember you get PvP marks for your sinks/kills too in port battles so you get more than just the conquest marks. Sounds like a bunch of cry babies that just want things easy and not fight for it. I'll be sitting in my nice ship soon enough even though pirates don't get BP's or the Permits for all these shisp, but there will be a way and I'm sure some one is willing to earn the money I'll offer (or just use my alts) to get those. Yah ya'll act like you got it hard. Remember Pirates don't get the Aggy/SOL BOPs or Permits in there shop.

Yah I also get what there doing and it keeps folks from taking easy missions to farm PvE Marks too. I figure the one off would still do the same job and allow folks to not have to take same level or above only.

You get an award, the region and it's resources.