Expansion of Crew system to include varying quality (expensive) crew members

[Will Collister]

Ahoy,

 

Just a brief suggestion regarding the current crew mechanics. It strikes me as odd that they should be quite as expensive as they are. Of course I can see the point in making crew member valuable and to stop them being a magically replenishable resource like they were before. However, the cost of crew now does raise some issues which have been mentioned elsewhere; namely that it can sometimes be prohibitively expensive to engage in battle - many Captains are saying that they must PvE to fund their PvP, which is presumably not a desired effect of the change.

 

For this reason my suggestion would be to separate crew into tiers, which are variably effective and variably expensive. This is both historically accurate as well as useful for the game mechanics. For example you could have three tiers of crew; landsmen, seamen and able seamen. My suggestion would be something like this:

 

Tier          Efficiency          Cost

Landsmen      0.5                0? Minimal

Seaman         0.75             200

Able Seaman   1                500

 

These crew members represent historically accurate ranking of sailors.

 

Landsmen were the essentially untrained hands pressed into the service forcefully or who chose to join the Navy for lack of better options - many unskilled labourers joined the Navy as it provided steady rations and income. These could be available from ports for no cost or at least next to nothing.

 

Seamen were crew members who had spent at least a year at sea and who had learned how to perform operations abord the ship. They were basically useful crew members rather than the often confused and disoriented Landsemen.

 

Able Seamen were those Seamen who had spent a long time aboard a ship and could "hand, reef and steer", i.e. perform essentially any function aboard the ship. Such skilled hands were valued most highly and for this reason there was competition between Captains for the best hands as well as the ever present temptation to press men out of merchant or indeed American ships to serve in the Navy, as these men were essentially Able Seamen (even though they weren't always granted this rank due to the accompanying pay bump!).

 

In any case, the way I see them working is simple mathematics. If you have a crew of 100 Landsmen, your crew efficiency is 50%. So all operations aboard your ship are 50% as effective. You reload more slowly. You turn your yards more slowly. You raise and lower sails more slowly, etc. If you have a crew of 100 Able Seamen then you are operating at 100% efficiency and there is no delay. When you mix different crew members, you will get an average efficiency at which your ship operates.

 

So, for example, a ship with 20 Landsmen and 80 Able Seamen will sail at 90% efficiency (unless I screwed up the arithmetic), etc.

 

The good thing about this system is that it allows anyone to quickly fill their crew with unskilled hands if they don't have much money. Equally, they can splash out on a good crew which then becomes the valuable asset that the developers are striving for them to become.

 

Finally, there could be a system of experience gain and progression for crew. Maybe no bars or XP bonuses or anything like that but simply that a Landsmen will become a Seaman after e.g. 60 days at sea, or something. 

 

There is also room for synergy between this system and the officer system. Maybe some officers make Landsmen less useless. Maybe some officers are better at training Landsmen to Seamen more quickly, etc.

 

Anyway, that is the general idea - of course all the numbers would have to be tweaked and balanced.

 

What do you guys think?

 

[Tief N Tote]

well their are mods to adjust your lvl of crew to a degree. marines, boarding parties, muskets and rifles and so on. I think the goal is you just get a generic lot and then use mods and officers to tweak.

[Will Collister]

Yes, and this system could of course remain, the suggestion outlined above is intended to address the issue of crew cost limiting Captains perhaps too harshly. Personally I also think it is fun for the historical reasons as well!

[squedage]

only problem i can see with this idea of crew lvls with cost is that the more wealthy players can keep the high lvl crew. Were the less able to keep a high  income is going to suffer from not being able to keep up. As an example you get enough money to get yourself a crew of able seaman. You end up getting into a fight and get sunk/captured. Now all  that money is go. (some think well ok so what) You now have to try to grind out the money t get the "good" crew again but now you get ganked when you are trying to do missions or trade to make the money you need to get the better crew. You are now at a MUCH greater disadvantage wit hthe low grade crew if the enemy has top lvl crew. Now you get sunk and are set back EVEN more and the next thing you know you are stuck with 50% effective crew b.c you had a bad fight or 2 and couldnt keep up.

 

i think if it was more like

landsman 90%

seaman 95%

able seaman 100%

 

that way the player still has a chance to overcome the odds with skill.

Edited July 5, 2016 by squedage

[Will Collister]

Indeed so, perhaps for this reason it would make sense to have smaller differences between the tiers' efficiency? 

 

Even as it stands, however, this same problem exists. Instead of having the option to recruit a weaker crew, however, you are stuck with essentially no crew until you can afford them. This means that you need to PvE or in some other way gain funds to afford more PvP. At least with the method outlined above, the task of gaining more money is possible, just that your ship will be slightly less efficient while you do it. 

 

In other words, the aim is to make the option to have a full crew to have a full slightly less good crew, rather than no crew at all, as it is now.

[squedage]

Indeed so, perhaps for this reason it would make sense to have smaller differences between the tiers' efficiency? 

 

Even as it stands, however, this same problem exists. Instead of having the option to recruit a weaker crew, however, you are stuck with essentially no crew until you can afford them. This means that you need to PvE or in some other way gain funds to afford more PvP. At least with the method outlined above, the task of gaining more money is possible, just that your ship will be slightly less efficient while you do it. 

 

In other words, the aim is to make the option to have a full crew to have a full slightly less good crew, rather than no crew at all, as it is now.

 

you know that with each rank you get a min number of crew for free as it is now. It just takes some time for them to "repopulate"