Ship Building

[Duncan McFail]

I've noticed as of late there is a lot of changes coming to how ships are to be built. We now have regional bonuses and fine wood needed for making top of the line ships. It's planned to have grey and gold ships only down the line. This is due to players only wanting the easiest to obtain or the best of the best. We currently have a decent number of historical ships in game. People tend to gravitate toward certain ships that fit their play style or situational ships. Many ships are passed over because they are not top of the line for that tier or another ship fits a role better that another ship. The current crafting system allows you to make ships with a decision on what kind of regional bonus and one "trim" to put on your ship along with a wood type. The players then decide what kind of mods they want to put on the ship and what officer perks to go with. Players gravitate towards certain mods/perks in the same way they do for ships. This makes for stale decisions on load outs. Sandbox games need more variety.

 

In my opinion sandbox games needs to allow you to go anywhere you want, give many options for players to enjoy the game, allow players not to be cornered into one class/role, and most importantly to become famous/infamous. The game lets you go anywhere and there are no classes. You can fight AI, trade, craft, look for solo/group pvp, or take ports in pvp. The problem comes with making a name for yourself. The game already has great battle mechanics that can set one player apart from others. As far as the crafting system they currently get their name on a cookie cutter ship that many people could make. Since the game seems like it's going for a semi-realistic set up maybe it's a good time to back away from these historical ships and look towards unique ships. Especially considering there was only one of these ships in existence and not hundreds.

 

How about spend the time to make a ship blueprint system based off of the type of ship. So instead of having a ship from history we have a sloop of war, brig, corvette, frigate, or ship of the line base that people build on. They would all have lengths, widths, and heights within parameters based on historical ships of that class. You can include many different designs based on features from historical ships. Decks would have a defined poundage they could hold for guns. Crafters would have to allocate space for guns, provisions, crew, cargo, and the like. They could choose size/mix of sails. They could choose thickness for armor and wood type for different parts of the ship. Spacing of cannons would be up to the crafter to make many small or fewer large. This could be in the form of sliders and check boxes. All settings would give you a color based on the average for that ship type showing positives/negatives to speed/armor/cargo/crew/turning/roll/guns/wind angles. You could then save and name that ship subclass kind of like the Trinc was a Leda class frigate. It would then tell you the materials needed and you could start it if you have the mats. The player can then decide the paint and name the ship which all could see. This would pretty much do away with most upgrades and make them permanently in the ship. The ship should only have crew based upgrades or a system that allows crew to level to pick up perks or maybe in officer perks. All ships should be 1 dura and since there's no ship mods everything would transfer over to any player that caps that ship. If a player chooses to they can refit a ship to change anything on it, but it will take real time and ingame cash/materials to complete it. Maybe in port the player can choose division of regular crew to marines to see how it would affect the ship's performance(would be nice if marines did something besides play cards until boarding starts).

 

The actual sub-component crafting can use a little help. Maybe a system where all resources aren't the same. Give them some stats like weight and resilience. Make them port specific or dynamic. Also some kind of skill system. Someone who has made 100+ rigging parts or even first rates should make better quality than the guy that makes their first ones. I don't mind RNG rolls as long as there's modifiers like skill modifiers or bonuses for notes or something to push that number more towards where you want it.  Definitely keep AI store bought ships at the lowest end of ships.

 

In the end this will allow crafters to make something unique. Players can change their ships later if they want. No unrealistic multi-dura ships. Capping that ship truly gives you everything on it. Before only capped 1st rates were useful. Not having to have a small chance of getting fine wood and cornering you into having to produce or search for that wood. There won't be a color difference between ships. Premium ships will become ships people travel all over the map to get the highest quality resources to make.

 

This post is based on a comment from Admin that players don't know what they like till it's given to them. I'm not even close to the brightest guy on these forums, but I do know what I like and I know that I want to see this game succeed.

[Sea Archer]

I like the idea of totally customized ship, though for the devs it might be difficult to code. Choose what you want and live with the consequences, a good approach.

Still I do not agree with 1 dura for all ships, that would kill PvP, I like the dura system we have now.

[themule08]

Sounds like a coding nightmare

Edited November 6, 2016 by themule08

[Rebel Witch]

I like the idea of totally customized ship, though for the devs it might be difficult to code. Choose what you want and live with the consequences, a good approach.

Still I do not agree with 1 dura for all ships, that would kill PvP, I like the dura system we have now.

 

Getting rid of this games odd devotion to the durability mechanic will NOT kill PVP. Just look at how much EVE Online thrives partly because the PVP is intense. 

 

Pirates of the burning sea used this exact kind of ship durability system and it did not save that game. I never understood why this games developers use the durability mechanic if they want a realistic game, allowing for a players ship to SINK and respawn is so world of warcraft like, it kills intensity and realism. If that is what you like good for you. However there are many of us who strongly believe this game will be more realistic and much more fun and exciting if every ship had just one durability.

 

Remember, we are in the age of sail, wooden ships and iron men, the only thing in this game that should have durability points is the crew right?

 

The Devs still have time to test out using 1 durability for all ships, will they do it? I dont know, i certainly hope so. 

[Duncan McFail]

Still I do not agree with 1 dura for all ships, that would kill PvP, I like the dura system we have now.

The devs seem to be going for a high level of realism and 1 dura ships would definitely be an easy one. They are somewhat testing it now with the 2 newest ships as cap only. But players still won't use them to there fullest because many mods aren't craftable, it takes a load of time to make up new sets of mods, silver is scarce, and it's so rare to get a new ship above blue let alone with a decent setup(regional bonuses, trim, and wood type). With the current system they could make up for 1 duras by decreasing labor costs, increasing sub-component output, or having more crafting perks(note maker, carriage efficiency, etc.).

 

Even better imo would be to ditch the hour accrual system and replace it with real time construction times. Have a number of workers limited by crafting level and perks. Make the worker increments per level much much higher than crafting hours currently are. I mean 1000 at level 0 and 2000 at level 50. Allow work contracts that can be put up in the shop allowing players to include their materials for another player to use their workers to craft components for them or let players whore out their workers by putting them up on the shop to be rented for a price. Hell even allow players to put up orders for a whole ship or create their own blueprint to contract a shipbuilder to make it. 

 

Even with having 5 dura ships now the system isn't healthy. Not everyone wants to craft or gather mats to craft. There's so many crafters hurting for hours in a port with so many other players not making (or not wanting to make) use of their hours. There's so many people wanting specific ships staring at a shop full of crafting rejects or obsolete ships. 1 dura capped ships are nearly useless unless it's a 1st rate. Even when your 2-5 dura ship gets down to it's last dura it's nearly useless. It might get more expensive with 1 dura ships, but it's easy enough to make cash unless you're new then all you need is 1 dura ships to bridge your levels.

 

 

Sounds like a coding nightmare

 

Probably, but Id still love to see this in game

[stormridersp]

On 11/4/2016 at 11:04 AM, Duncan McFail said:

I've noticed as of late there is a lot of changes coming to how ships are to be built. We now have regional bonuses and fine wood needed for making top of the line ships. It's planned to have grey and gold ships only down the line. This is due to players only wanting the easiest to obtain or the best of the best. We currently have a decent number of historical ships in game. People tend to gravitate toward certain ships that fit their play style or situational ships. Many ships are passed over because they are not top of the line for that tier or another ship fits a role better that another ship. The current crafting system allows you to make ships with a decision on what kind of regional bonus and one "trim" to put on your ship along with a wood type. The players then decide what kind of mods they want to put on the ship and what officer perks to go with. Players gravitate towards certain mods/perks in the same way they do for ships. This makes for stale decisions on load outs. Sandbox games need more variety.

 

In my opinion sandbox games needs to allow you to go anywhere you want, give many options for players to enjoy the game, allow players not to be cornered into one class/role, and most importantly to become famous/infamous. The game lets you go anywhere and there are no classes. You can fight AI, trade, craft, look for solo/group pvp, or take ports in pvp. The problem comes with making a name for yourself. The game already has great battle mechanics that can set one player apart from others. As far as the crafting system they currently get their name on a cookie cutter ship that many people could make. Since the game seems like it's going for a semi-realistic set up maybe it's a good time to back away from these historical ships and look towards unique ships. Especially considering there was only one of these ships in existence and not hundreds.

 

How about spend the time to make a ship blueprint system based off of the type of ship. So instead of having a ship from history we have a sloop of war, brig, corvette, frigate, or ship of the line base that people build on. They would all have lengths, widths, and heights within parameters based on historical ships of that class. You can include many different designs based on features from historical ships. Decks would have a defined poundage they could hold for guns. Crafters would have to allocate space for guns, provisions, crew, cargo, and the like. They could choose size/mix of sails. They could choose thickness for armor and wood type for different parts of the ship. Spacing of cannons would be up to the crafter to make many small or fewer large. This could be in the form of sliders and check boxes. All settings would give you a color based on the average for that ship type showing positives/negatives to speed/armor/cargo/crew/turning/roll/guns/wind angles. You could then save and name that ship subclass kind of like the Trinc was a Leda class frigate. It would then tell you the materials needed and you could start it if you have the mats. The player can then decide the paint and name the ship which all could see. This would pretty much do away with most upgrades and make them permanently in the ship. The ship should only have crew based upgrades or a system that allows crew to level to pick up perks or maybe in officer perks. All ships should be 1 dura and since there's no ship mods everything would transfer over to any player that caps that ship. If a player chooses to they can refit a ship to change anything on it, but it will take real time and ingame cash/materials to complete it. Maybe in port the player can choose division of regular crew to marines to see how it would affect the ship's performance(would be nice if marines did something besides play cards until boarding starts).

 

The actual sub-component crafting can use a little help. Maybe a system where all resources aren't the same. Give them some stats like weight and resilience. Make them port specific or dynamic. Also some kind of skill system. Someone who has made 100+ rigging parts or even first rates should make better quality than the guy that makes their first ones. I don't mind RNG rolls as long as there's modifiers like skill modifiers or bonuses for notes or something to push that number more towards where you want it.  Definitely keep AI store bought ships at the lowest end of ships.

 

In the end this will allow crafters to make something unique. Players can change their ships later if they want. No unrealistic multi-dura ships. Capping that ship truly gives you everything on it. Before only capped 1st rates were useful. Not having to have a small chance of getting fine wood and cornering you into having to produce or search for that wood. There won't be a color difference between ships. Premium ships will become ships people travel all over the map to get the highest quality resources to make.

 

This post is based on a comment from Admin that players don't know what they like till it's given to them. I'm not even close to the brightest guy on these forums, but I do know what I like and I know that I want to see this game succeed.

100% agreed!

[Rebel Witch]

Great idea Duncan, I hope they are listening.