Pirate Mechanics: Surrender, Insurance and Raising the Black.

[Captain Marell]

Greetings, pirate player here looking to post some interesting suggestions to help make the open world more fun.

 

As a veteran player of many games that have piracy mechanics; Freelancer, Elite Dangerous, and more.  I'm thinking a few things from my experiences there could make for some fun mechanics here.

 

Surrendering to Pirates: Currently the only options traders have are to run or fight, but historically a lot of traders had their cargo insured and rather than risk life and death they would allow the pirates to have their cargo and let them go.  Instead let's give traders the options to Insure their cargo so that should the worst happen and their ship be engaged they have the option of letting their cargo go at a reduced loss compared to a total loss.  While insurance would cover the cargo, it wouldn't cover the ship so there would be preferable for traders to adhere to pirates request for them to stop and give the pirates their cargo in exchange for their life.   If the trader is adamant about keeping his/hers cargo he can also offer the pirates a gold payoff.

 

Raising the Black: So I've seen it mentioned in chat a few times and the idea of pirates being able to hide among the many other ships out there makes historic sense.  The hard part is figuring out how best to implement this idea without making it easy to grief and troll.  Brainstorming on teamspeak my mates and I came up with a couple ideas from:

 

1. Using an item to disguise as a NPC Fleet of X Nation.

2. Take a page out of space station 13 and be able to use an item to pick and choose a false identity.

 

The reason for this only makes more sense if pirate mechanics get more piratey in the sense that we are more port raiders rather than port captures.  If we are not allowed to craft the higher tier ships, this kind of mechanic would balance out the firepower by giving us the stealth of being true raiders. 

 

These are just some basic concepts that I've been thinking about over the last few days, feel free to post your thoughts, suggestions and additions.

[Pugwis]

Surrendering to Pirates: Currently the only options traders have are to run or fight, but historically a lot of traders had their cargo insured and rather than risk life and death they would allow the pirates to have their cargo and let them go.  Instead let's give traders the options to Insure their cargo so that should the worst happen and their ship be engaged they have the option of letting their cargo go at a reduced loss compared to a total loss.  While insurance would cover the cargo, it wouldn't cover the ship so there would be preferable for traders to adhere to pirates request for them to stop and give the pirates their cargo in exchange for their life.   If the trader is adamant about keeping his/hers cargo he can also offer the pirates a gold payoff.

 

From what i have heard, Naval Action is happening late, which is unfortunately the reason why there are no galleon or such trading ships (but, i'm still expecting to see indiaman, flute, bark and other dedicated trader ship, to replace the actual stripped ship)

So i think it was already the end of the "golden age" of piracy, and trader was forced to fight pirate instead of surrendering without resisting.

So if we keep on historically accurate thing, i doubt that this is compatible with insured cargo.

But more than being against historical accuracy, this will lead for sure to many exploits...

Edited February 12, 2016 by Pugwis

[Sea Nettle]

Greetings, pirate player here looking to post some interesting suggestions to help make the open world more fun.

 

As a veteran player of many games that have piracy mechanics; Freelancer, Elite Dangerous, and more.  I'm thinking a few things from my experiences there could make for some fun mechanics here.

 

Surrendering to Pirates: Currently the only options traders have are to run or fight, but historically a lot of traders had their cargo insured and rather than risk life and death they would allow the pirates to have their cargo and let them go.  Instead let's give traders the options to Insure their cargo so that should the worst happen and their ship be engaged they have the option of letting their cargo go at a reduced loss compared to a total loss.  While insurance would cover the cargo, it wouldn't cover the ship so there would be preferable for traders to adhere to pirates request for them to stop and give the pirates their cargo in exchange for their life.   If the trader is adamant about keeping his/hers cargo he can also offer the pirates a gold payoff.

 

Raising the Black: So I've seen it mentioned in chat a few times and the idea of pirates being able to hide among the many other ships out there makes historic sense.  The hard part is figuring out how best to implement this idea without making it easy to grief and troll.  Brainstorming on teamspeak my mates and I came up with a couple ideas from:

 

1. Using an item to disguise as a NPC Fleet of X Nation.

2. Take a page out of space station 13 and be able to use an item to pick and choose a false identity.

 

The reason for this only makes more sense if pirate mechanics get more piratey in the sense that we are more port raiders rather than port captures.  If we are not allowed to craft the higher tier ships, this kind of mechanic would balance out the firepower by giving us the stealth of being true raiders. 

 

These are just some basic concepts that I've been thinking about over the last few days, feel free to post your thoughts, suggestions and additions.

 

#1 Insurance would be exploitable.

#2 False flags would be exploitable, and quite frankly undeserved. If you want to hunt traders take the risk like everyone else.

 

Piracy should be a option of desperation for hard economic times in a nation, not a chosen path full of overpowered gimmicks.

Edited February 15, 2016 by Sea Nettle

[Captain Marell]

#1 Insurance would be exploitable.

#2 False Flags would be exploitable, and quite frankly undeserved. If you want to hunt traders take the risk like everyone else.

 

Piracy should be a option of desperation for hard economic times in a nation, not a chosen path full of overpowered gimmicks.

 

Lol? No offense but calling something exploitable without giving any reason for it isn't really constructive criticism or really bringing anything to forward a conversation.  

 

Since I'm forced to read your mind, I would suspect the danger comes from one player buying insurance and giving his cargo to a second player.  While this could indeed be a problem, it would be easy to solve by adding reputation losses of some sort for buying goods. 

 

As for the False Flags, and your opinion that we should have to risk things like everyone else?  I say that since this is a game that's aim is to be a historical one then certain things will be overpowered depending on your side.  I would like to see Pirates be a bit more limited in the sense that it should be harder for them to get bigger ships, but on the other side they did hide among other ships and "raise the black" when they found a target they liked.  

 

Since again I can't read your mind I'm not sure what you think will be exploited by "overpowered gimmicks". 

 

As for Pugwis comment, I would agree that since we aren't in the golden age then it makes more sense that there would be less surrendering and a lot more forced defense against piracy.