I suggest giving XP and gold for formally grouping to escort a merchant.

[Destraex]

This would work by pinging the merchant when close enough with a loud hailer asking him\her to accept escort. If they accept then you get added to a special escort group and as long as you stay within 500m of the merchant you accumulate coin and XP. You also get points towards renown of some kind. Some sort of escort badge on your in game profile shown next to your name I guess.

 

I would also suggest that merchants get XP for being escorted and each time they escape the enemy.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

How do we prevent people from botting?

 

Take two machines, one gets into a trader, the other into an escort, ping, accept escort, sail for hours and hours in the middle of nowhere...profit.  

[Eishen]

Seems quite tricky to track/implement ...and quite  open to abuse...

 

Add to that that is quite unnatural that a travel generating more income with a greater group seems strange... 

IMHO this escorts shold be left to players social skills

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

If trade run is a success awesome for both. The materials are safe.

 

If trade run gets intercepted, awesome for escort as there will be a fight !

 

In both cases it is a gentlemen pact if there's payment involved or not.

 

Does it warrant a coded machine based mechanic ?.... maybe.

[Ragor]

Seems quite tricky to track/implement ...and quite  open to abuse...

 

(...)

IMHO this escorts shold be left to players social skills

This.

 

But I'd love to see a ingame system for 'creating missions'.

A system where player can set up a contract for other players incl. the insurance of game mechanics.

 

In this case: (trader escort)

Want to go from KPR -> Barataria (system automatically displays the range and the expected travel time)

At date: set by player

I offer: set by player (incl. 10% fees to drain the gold on the server)

The trader pays the system before they head off (start automatically validated by both parties when exiting port) and the escort will be paid by the system when mission goal is met (end automatically validated by both parties when reaching defined target port)

 

 

-> The system can handle the security for both sides that the money is paid & the escort is delivered via a simple voting system and a mission tracker both players update automatically depending on actual status

-> AI could be hired as well (or send -> AI fleets actually have a job besides 'being there')

-> convoys can be formed

 

"....but but but pirates with an alt account can easily set ambushes then and could even be disguised as escorts"

And? Cheesy fuckers abusing alt accounts will always be there.

And for the disguised pirates as escorts: Therefor the rating system, when you smell something fishy -> rate accordingly.

"...but but but then I already got raped by the." Right. No way around it. But he won't pull this off to often since ratings -> tendency over time.

 

These (lack of) characters will always be around in any MP game and they will always see it as 'a valid tactic since the system allows it' -> no use bitching about it, no use talking to them, they are just that handicapped, they will never get it and will always think it is fine what they do.

 

Still a system like outlined above could help 80% of the time.

Edited September 29, 2016 by Ragor