Capture, Prizes and Crews

[The Fox]

Most ships were boarded and not sunk. especially traders..

What we need is some way to have crew quality increase as you keep them alive then their is an incentive to surrender. Let's say you've gotten your crew to an elite status giving X amount of bonuses. If you loose half of your 1400 crew in a battle the average quality would maybe go down do a good crew. But if you surrender those crew members are actually saved so you keep an elite status (if you pay the ransom amount... see last paragraph). I'm talking in general terms here the math and mechanics would have to be figured out. Also a captured merchantman is MUCH more valuable as a prize than this game makes it out. So the capturer should still probably get some PvP for its surrender and sold at port. If it is sunk after a surrender no PvP should be received What do you guys think....?.

My point is that crew members are much more valuable than this game makes them. And a crew that survives grow with experience making them much better at doing all things... you guys get my point.... there would be a vested interest in improving and keeping your crew alive....

 

Also a mechanism to the surrendered crew would be that the money that normally is used to purchase a new crew is now paid in ransom to the capturing captain...

Also lets say your captured crew is elite then the ransom paid is 5 time that of buying a new green crew.  Obviously the numbers I throw out are for example purposes so you can see my point.  It would change the game so you have two main goals in battle save the ship and your crew... Kind of like real life. Lastly to avoid massive easy surrenders if the surrendering player has PvP some of his personal PvP would go to the capturing captain in addition to normal PvP he would get. Another incentive for the capturer to take the prize. The victorious captain wins all the way around. The loosing captain looses yet has an incentive to live.

 

Comments please...

Q& A  1.  What happens if a captain cannot afford the ransom for all his lost crew?  He would receive that portion that he can afford.  If he chooses not pay the ransom he would be buying new crew members as new inexperience crew.

2.  Can a surrendering ship escape   Historically yes.  If the winning captain travels away from the surrendering ship.  This should be time and distance dependent.  But the ship can only escape and not re-enter the battle nor continue to fight.

3. Shooting into a ship being boarded should effect both crews since they are in a melee status regardless which side the ships are on.

4.  How do crews accrue experience? Both by time at sea and by battles survived.

5.I  Giving the problem on coding some thought. Crew experience would work on average crew as a whole. No individual member would be elite or any level but some sort of numerical average. Much simpler to code.  Your available crew with( time at sea experience # + battle survival #)  would give you a threshold for your crew so on average your crew would be a good crew.... something along those lines.

6.  One more thing the rum.  I do believe that about 10% of your crew losses should not be able to return regardless of the rum.  Someone generally gets hit with a cannon ball in the head. 

Edited September 26, 2018 by The Fox
adding forseen questions and answers

[EdWatchmaker]

Hello,

Awesome idea. You mirror my own thoughts on this matter. Darn! Too bad I'm working and don't have the time to more fully answer. I truly hope that Admin will look at this and do it.

Fair sailing all.  

[Michael Sharp]

I think there are some good points made here. Maybe if a ship taken as a prize and sold, it will get more pvp points than if it is sunk outright? You would have the added complexity of trying to safely bring the ship back to a port and sell it without being attacked with your skeleton crew... that definitely deserves more points!

[Old Crusty]

I think that this idea is well thought out and definitely a good one. Have seen different aspects of this suggested all over the Forum. This brings it all together into a workable game component 

[Angus MacDuff]

I read the "surrender your crew and not lose them" discussion before and have wondered why it's assumed that you get the crew back.  They should be sent to the prison hulks and still be lost to the losing nation, shouldn't they?

As far as PVP points are concerned, you should get them regardless if you sink or capture the ship.  It is still lost to the losing nation.  That gives a nice big reward if you bring the captured ship home and will maybe make the hunters think about whether they want to stay out hunting.  I don't know why we are trying to save the crew.  They're not real people...Fight to the death.  Better yet, give PVP marks to those who fight hard and lose.  Maybe then we will see traders arming their ships...(I cant believe I said that...)

[Old Crusty]

8 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

 

I read the "surrender your crew and not lose them" discussion before and have wondered why it's assumed that you get the crew back.  They should be sent to the prison hulks and still be lost to the losing nation, shouldn't they?

 

Did you skip the part about ransoming the crew back to the owner? How about crew quality?

I encourage you to go back and read the entire post.

[Eyesore]

@Angus MacDuff What if you only get a prize (money, pvp-marks, etc.), or a substantially bigger return for a tradeship if you bring that captured tradeship to port?

[Bluetooth]

Yes great idea.

Also as a pirate I should get a small percentage join me for free. 😁

 

[Angus MacDuff]

8 hours ago, Eyesore said:

@Angus MacDuff What if you only get a prize (money, pvp-marks, etc.), or a substantially bigger return for a tradeship if you bring that captured tradeship to port?

I think you should get more for bringing  ships back to port, but I also believe in PVP marks whether you sink or capture it.  That's the way the game is set up now to reward victory over other players.  The crew experience thing is a very interesting idea and I remember from one of the "Silent Hunter" games when you had it for individual members of the crew.  If you had a successful patrol, you gave experience/promotions/medals to crew members and it marginally increased your performance.  That was not a PVP game.  The danger with that in this game is that it would make the better players more powerful...much like the best mods/books are doing now.  As I'm typing this I'm thinking the crew experience idea should just die for that reason.  Anything that moves us away from a more level playing field would hurt player retention (I'm not normally this much of a socialist!).  

[The Fox]

I've had people remark that the crew quality issue would be hard to accomplish.  To that end I would mention that these are the same developers of Ultimate General Civil War and interestingly enough they use pretty much the system I describe but for each and every regiment for moral, training and experience levels so the coding already exists with very minor alterations and purchasing replacements.

Edited November 11, 2018 by The Fox
spelling error!

[LIONOFWALES]

I am in favor of forced service.

 

[Baptiste Gallouédec]

Exactly, but sadly i think devs up to recently were not in favor of keeping ships afloat as they think players get more satisfaction  from seeing his opponent sink + sinking increase the crafting demand. 

This seems to have changed a bit as now you loot better stuff by boarding than by sinking, so i think that can be pushed a little bit further as you suggest.

 

I think in fact, players would be less reluctant in pvp if they knew they could surrender in case of imminent loss & no escape, to be able to go back at sea without having to restart from zero. Crafted ship insurance is not enough considering the time & price neccessary to fit even a basic ship for pvp. 

 

Maybe a ransom would be too complex to code so it  could be an admiralty thing: pay something to your admiralty to recover your loss, on his side the capturer got a similar reward from admiralty for capturing your ship.

 

I don't really see in your post how crew experience could work? Is it a %a speed/accuracy gained for everything a crewman can do ?  (reload, accuracy, turn masts, raise sails, repairs?) If that's so, this can be complex to tune & balance, as if too low, the feature will be nonexistent, too powerfull, could be overpowered.

 

Maybe it would be easier to make the crew experience tie with the ship knowledge xp: Let's say i have a Surprise, i use it for one in game month, having win 3 ow battles with no loss, i now have 3 knowledges slots unlocked, if during my 4th battle, i face a superior enemy  i can't escape, after few broadsides i lose a mast with no fast repair possible and an already weak side +  raked multiple times, i surrender. The winner get a good reward for his victory + rewards for capture, on my side i can use any ship i have in dock as usual, but if i buy a new Surprise, either i buy a new crew like now but zero knowledge slot, or i pay the reward for capture amount, then my new Surprise can go in out with the previous 3 slots i had until then, and if later i get a larger ship, i can transfer my vet crew to it, but it will only be a % of my total crewmens aboard my 3rd Rate, so crew xp will be lowered by the % amount of the new crew recruited.

 

[The Fox]

Quote

Maybe it would be easier to make the crew experience tie with the ship knowledge

Sir Baptiste Gallouédec,

 

I do see experience as a factor but not entirely as you suggest  First I see it used as an overall factor for your entire cadre.  So if you have an available crew of 1400 it would be factored in slowly utilizing and gaining experience for a crew up to some maximum amount.  First the easiest way to do this as I see it is to have a factor which combines at least 2 separate factors.  lets say "sail_time  + "battle_ survival".  My idea is to make it a long tedious but valuable factor to increase.  This makes a well trained crew valuable.  Here is my perception.  As an example I have 1400 sailors under my command of those I have a ship which  goes out  to sea with a crew of 200.  (Theses numbers are for explanation only so you can get an idea from where I am coming from').  Sailors gain experience from sailing.  Those 200 onboard are  out for 10 game days so that crew would gain something like  10* 1. for every day the crew gains 1 factor value. So they each have a factor of 10 as long as THEY remain on the ship.  So lets assume for argument that for ever 10 points they gain .01 speed increase open word up to some max and some sort of ship handling benefit in combat such as sails, turning for instance..  So far so good.  Now when you enter port as long as that crew/ship remains the same we can assume its the same crew.  That is simple enough but what if you change ships.  Then we don't know where all those guys shacked up or with whom.... but we do know they are part of the 1400.  So that crew was 200 we use the 10  for the days out to sea we get a factor of 2000.    So 2000 /1400 gives you a crew average factor of 1.4.  So when you load a Vic the crew members for those 800 are each worth 1.4 to start and every day at sea those 800 are increased and remain with the ship and crew being diluted when the crew is relieved in port or with new crew additions due to losses.

Obviously a crew of 20 in  trader lynx adds almost nothing to your entire cadre of 1400  but as long as they stay onboard those 20 gain experience.

 

The other factor that comes into play is essentially the same math.  Crew gain experience by being in battles and surviving.  If they win, sink or assist they could gain an additional increase if they loose the still gain experience but lets say at half rate.

 

So sailing and time at sea help your crew and a blue water ship obviously gain more experience than a  "green water" one that always returns to port. With  more battles that a crew survives it experience also increases.  Possibly giving a better reload experience etc.  This makes training your crew a value you may consider keeping.  Now what about purchasing new sailors.  Well they enter your sailor cadre diluting its average crew value.  Before we had a value of 1.4 per sailor for our 1400. Now lets say we lost a Vic and all onboard.... 800 digital souls.  Now I replenish with 800 chagrined new land lovers, fishmongers, and scallywags  Well I have 600 remaining at 1.4 crew average + 800 at zero.  Well that gives me with a little math , simple  multiplication  addition and division [ (600 x 1.4) /1400] {purchased crew and those remaining 1400}  giving us an average value of only .6 crew.  Greatly diminishing their effectiveness. I believe something like this is already done in this developers game Ultimate General: Civil War when it comes to unit qualities.  Unlike in that game I personally believe a captain should not be able to purchase higher quality crews. As this removes the incentive of wealthy players to put much stock in saving crews.  The process  of training/ experience should be slowly earned and husbanded.  Don't get your men killed if it can be helped.

Obviously if you purchase your crew back from a player at whatever price is negotiated then those crew average remain the same.  You should be able to negotiate a purchase of all or any part of your surviving crew with the other player.  If a ship is sunk prior to surrender all hands are presumed lost.  Captured surrendered vessels should also be allowed to be negotiated. soon after the finally of a battle.  A time limit should be set for these negotiations.  If a new crew is purchased crew negotiations are considered ended.

 

The real questions is how much benefit you give to these values.  Well like perks their needs to be a limit but valuable enough to create incentives to survive at sea and a player trying to ransom back its crew and maybe even its ships. Pirates were in the business if making loot. Not of sinking ships for no real reason.  

 

I see this as an incentive to keep your ships out to sea for training as in real navies.  Better trained sailors always had a distinct advantage and not just a minor impact in battles.  It could also effect things like the compass in the game a less trained crew may have a more general idea of its location while a better one could be more exact.

Look at history the crew of the Java was well treated when it was defeated by the Constitution.  So much so that the British Officers and men whence paroled gave captain Bainbridge a gift for fair treatment when paroled.  This could add a very life giving force to your crew and game.

It sounds complicated but it really isn't and I am open to ideas and modifications.  I believe that the developers could add this without too much of a problem.  The hard issues are what benefits at what levels etc. keeping a decent balance in mechanics..  Any positive  and negative thoughts would be greatly appreciated.  Also having others see these post would be beneficial.  

Thanks for your post.

 

aka  The Virginian

Edited March 20, 2019 by The Fox
prefered phrase and added clarifying information