Privateers/Letters of Marque: Should we have them in NA and how should it work?

[PaladinFX]

Since this topic has come up in the new Alliance poll thread i thought may be a good time to have a fuller discussion about  whether we'd like to see Privateers/Letters of Marque in game and how that might be made to work well.

 

Some ideas to get us started .....

 

Privateers would need to be limited in what ships they could sail; maybe 5th rates as a maximum, but certain 5th rates(???). Certainly Privateers shouldn't be sailing around in suped up Endymions, unless the ship was capped off a player! Which means maybe a cap on what privateers can capture; here again maybe 5th rates. I think its unrealistic and not historical to think a Privateer would capture a 4th rate or higher.

As a Privateer, if you bring in a prize of a captured player ship to say a Nation capital or County capital then you receive prize money for the ship plus any goods on board. There would need to be a window menu that only activated if you hold a Letter of Marque, that would then allow prize to be claimed. There needs also to be some way of tracking kills of enemy players so a reward could be paid for that too.

The Letter of Marque could have a term on it that binds the player for a set time to the issuing nation, say 30 days (?) to stop abuse of the Marque system.

Privateers could also enter PB's for the nation issuing the Marque.

Privateers should be a separate thing to Pirates. Pirates are outlaws of the seas not privateers!

 

[Kloothommel]

I envision it as a kind of combat contract, where you set a reward as player to sink x amount of y rate (or better) ships of nation z to recieve that reward on completion. Has to be completed within the set deadline or the contract will be voided and offered anew.

 

Edited May 5, 2019 by Kloothommel

[Aquillas]

This kind of mission should be fun.

Historically, privateers could attack only some nations, on behalf of the king of a nation, the letter duration was limitied to a war duration. This later item being the most difficult to implement in NA.

[PaladinFX]

I envisage that Privateering would be mostly about commerce raiding but i think there needs to be scope to fight warships too.

[Severus Snape]

PLEASE

[Slim McSauce]

I reckon it would be you start as a privateer, unable to pvp without contract, then from there you may choose a nation like you would before entering the server. That way people can get a look of the map and what's going on before comitting a whole character to a single nation.

[Sir Lancelot Holland]

Privateering at least in the beginning was something of a grey area legally speaking especially where the British were concerned. The likes of Raleigh, Drake,  Hawkins, and Frobisher were Officers of the very new Royal Navy in time of war, in times of peace they were known to have operated under letters of Marque signed by Queen Elizabeth I, when it is considered that Pirates were outlaws operating without Letters of Marque and the fact that Queen Elizabeth maintained that they were Royal Navy Officers the claims of Piracy by His Most Catholic Majesty King Philip of Spain may well have credibility for as RN officers they would have been committing an act of war, or, an act of piracy if they did not have letters of Marque!

For game purposes however, if you accept that the nations are permanently at war with each other (or all trying to beat GB, depending on your viewpoint lol)  then  Naval Captains cannot hold a letter of Marque,  the Pirates, who in truth should not be a nation per se, (I think a number of Pirates may well prefer a form of Bretheren of the sea, with it's own rules, and, with Letters of Marque as well they could become a unique faction as opposed to a 'Nation'),  however, should be able operate under Letters of marque from any nation who chooses to hire them giving them a veneer of legitimacy. There should I think be a time limit  on Letters of Marque, perhaps a month with an option to renegotiate a re-issuance of the Letter. This allows the Pirates to change allegiances should they desire to do so.

As far as I can tell, under the current Mechanics players under Letters of Marque would be ineligible to enter PB's on behalf of their sponsors, but, nothing restricts them from Screening operations or any other mission that they could legitimately carry out as Pirates.

[PaladinFX]

Privateers i guess would need to be a new "nation/faction" that one could choose to make this work. 

Suggested starter ships for Privateers:

Any 6th/7th rate with a BR of 100 or less for definite (except Le Requin!).

 

Edited May 6, 2019 by PaladinFX
adding details