A possible solution for more accurate merchant hunting?

[James Cornelius]

The current model where you effectively fight a tradeship in order to board it is extremely historically inaccurate. If a merchantman couldn't outrun his pursuer, he surrendered. No solution to this problem of balancing that against it so it is not too easy in the game to raid trade ships is fully satisfactory.

 

In Naval Action, hunting tradeships is limited by 1) the time it takes to do it and 2) the need to either fit its cargo into your own hold or add the ship to your "fleet". You are therefore limited in what how many you can take. Historically, captured merchant men rarely continued to accompany their capturer. A prize crew was put aboard to sail it back to a friendly port. Eventually, the limit to how many you could take was therefore how reduced your crew eventually became. 

 

My proposal (which now that I have thought of this I might post elsewhere) is that when you capture a trade ship you have the option of assigning a prize crew and sending it back to one of your outposts. In doing so, you have a malus of x number of crew your ship can hold (regardless of how many total you still have available through replenishment) until you go to that outpost to "claim it" from the Admiralty and do with as you will. This  makes it possible to have a profitable cruise as many frigate captains did. Eventually your effective crew count will dwindle to the point you are forced to return to port - and woe to you if you encounter an enemy in your reduced state.

 

Finally, in addition to that, when entering battle with an NPC merchant ship, there would be RNG to the effect that it will take into account speeds of relative ships, condition of your ship (damaged, etc, but only the kinds of things the captain of an opposing ship could physically see to influence a decision), size, and so on for a chance that the NPC ship would surrender rather than fight. 

[Farrago]

I don’t want hunting traders to be easy. I want a game where hunting (and protecting) traders matters.

[You]

8 hours ago, Despe said:

nope.. Only for make easy pvp kills and take easy pvp rewards, which is a shame. 99 percent of times, all players knows that traders carry traders goods or crafting ones, and they got sunk, because this is not valuable when you are in open sea. And easy pvp versus a player who can not defend of that, and easy kill in your PvP mission. You wanna sink a trader because carry something valuable? Ok, you have enough reward with cargo, zero pvp rewards for players who plays in this way.

What is your point? If you do a trade run grab an escort with you, considering its PvP server you should allways expect to find engagement.

Your argument is on the same level as why you should/shouldnt drive a car with insurance because in theory other drivers shouldnt crash into you or the other way around, so its a waste of money. 

Edited August 10, 2020 by You

[Macjimm]

9 hours ago, Farrago said:

I don’t want hunting traders to be easy. I want a game where hunting (and protecting) traders matters.

Too bad that NA is not designed that way.

Trade should be the blood of a functioning nation.  

I'm a trader.  The risk from gankers adds excitement and makes the War server more interesting than the Peace server.  It is unfortunate that trade is not important.

[Thonys]

a solution will be the indiaman "Rotterdam" in the game soon  ..... a trader who can defend himself

the solution and a answer on that  question only @admin knows...

 

flag of the Rotterdam merchant

 

text : stronger through combat.

 big enough

plain flag in proposal already

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by Thonys

[Farrago]

Many captains have long asked for prize crews or some other option which would make capture of enemy ships and cargo more profitable than just sinking them for the doubloons, xp, and mission fulfillment. 

[Archaos]

The problem is that it is so open to abuse and not just by alts. All people would need to do is load up their trader and sail to be attacked by their friend from another nation, surrender instantly and then their friend can teleport the ship and cargo all the way across the map to their outpost with no risk.

It had been suggested that maybe to combat this that the captured ship could be set to sail to its destination under the control of AI so it appeared in OW and could be attacked by other players, but I think they said this was not possible due to load on the server or something like that.

The surrender issue is also difficult especially where PVP is concerned, because some players would rather sink than let their enemies have their cargo  and also some people rig their traders to be able to board as a trap for raiders. For PvE I guess they could do something like this for AI traders but it takes away some of the effort. You also have to remember that many warships also surrendered after receiving a broadside against a heavier opponent, so it that was in the game then people would be upset when their ship suddenly surrendered while they were still in a position to fight.

I do like the idea of reducing crew as they are sent off on prizes and maybe a way to counter abuse is allow the captured ship to be teleported back to port but it goes to the admiralty and you get the purchase value of the goods that were onboard and the insurance value of the ship. At least that way the system could not be abused to teleport ships and goods across the map for huge profit.

[Sir Texas Sir]

A better way to do prize crew/cargo would be to have AI ships around capitals have special cargo that can drop some times.  This wieghes a lot so wouldn't fit on most raider ships.  So you would have to sail the trade ship (assume in fleet) back to a safe port to get rewarded for your capture.  But to many folks complained that it wouldn't be fair so the rewards for PvP was made so that just sinking the ship was more reward than most cargo ships..    I have suggested in the past having it drop loot box's that are worth a good penny to encourage being brought back to port.   Just make it so you can only redeem them back in a friendly port (none nuetral actually nation owned port).    Than I bet you will see a lot more of the raiders not just sinking trade ships but actually trying to capture them.

[Macjimm]

11 hours ago, Archaos said:

All people would need to do is load up their trader and sail to be attacked by their friend from another nation, surrender instantly and then their friend can teleport the ship and cargo all the way across the map to their outpost with no risk

We could have mechanics where the prize ship must be sailed by the capturer.  Leave battle in the chosen ship, and upon arrival at any port there is a popup option to take control of the ship remaining in the battle instance.  If the option is rejected the ship and crew, at the instance, are forfeit.

We could have a requirement for a minimum crew size to sail each prize ship.

[Sir Texas Sir]

12 hours ago, Despe said:

If it were my decision, I would demote to midshipman anyone who ganks traders, and i delete all rewards.

Might as well go play on PvE server than, trade ships is part of war and the game.   It's a risk you take.  

[You]

6 minutes ago, Despe said:

For me it is a question for make game more funny and equilibrated. We have here a lot of mechanics in game that probably need a fix or an open discussion, and some guys are making questions about how make more easy ganking, because trade hunting is ganking, when the goal must be the opposite, put ganking more difficult. And if you sinks with a trinco an indianman ( very easy kill) you have the same reward that a guy that kill one trinco in cerberus, (much more harder kill): you got one kill in 4-5 pvp misions. Totally unfair, so i guess that all rewards in this game for ganking should be deleted, because i respect players that sinks trincos with cerberus.

we all know the reason why people actually kill traders, its because they might carry something valuable (usually the reason), trade ships should have the choice to make a request to the enemy side to inspect their cargo, then the warship could choose to inspect the ship, take whatever cargo and let it go, or sink it and get a smaller amount of doubloons, its a win win if we use your example since you're considering all warship vs trade ship to be a gank.

[Sir Texas Sir]

2 hours ago, Thonys said:

a solution will be the indiaman "Rotterdam" in the game soon  ..... a trader who can defend himself

...remove lovely other stuff cause it was biggggggg.....

 

We all know they will still run with no guns and 4 ships and most of them at min crew and still cry when they get tagged and tagged and tagged.   Every one of my trader has guns on them.  Last time I was tagged a Dane player help me sink the russian.  Than he tagged me after the fight and sunk my main ship.   Letting the rest go.   If the Russsian player didn't disengage I would of beat his Trinc in boarding.    This was vs my main indy, which all had guns but it carried 18 lbs while I keep only 9's on fleet to shoot sales.  I have two slots open with barricades and marines on my ships, trying for a third so I can add more marines. and I have board mods.   Maybe stop making ships to flight and make thing to fight too....your not going to get any where on the OW faster with that extra knot of fir fir.    The things are slow enough it would be best to get some movablitly and HP in them.

Though I'm really really wanting this ship, been watting the Rotterdam for a long time, even longer than the De Ruyter......I just hope it's craftable or DLC, and not some hiden private ship only a few will get.

[Despe]

9 minutes ago, You said:

we all know the reason why people actually kill traders, its because they might carry something valuable

nope.. Only for make easy pvp kills and take easy pvp rewards, which is a shame. 99 percent of times, all players knows that traders carry traders goods or crafting ones, and they got sunk, because this is not valuable when you are in open sea. And easy pvp versus a player who can not defend of that, and easy kill in your PvP mission. You wanna sink a trader because carry something valuable? Ok, you have enough reward with cargo, zero pvp rewards for players who plays in this way.

Edited August 10, 2020 by Despe

[Despe]

13 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

Might as well go play on PvE server than, trade ships is part of war and the game.   It's a risk you take.  

I dont say you in what server you must play, so your opinions on that are not interesting for me...

For me it is a question for make game more funny and equilibrated. We have here a lot of mechanics in game that probably need a fix or an open discussion, and some guys are making questions about how make more easy ganking, because trade hunting is ganking, when the goal must be the oposite, put ganking more difficult. And if you sinks with a trinco an indianman ( very easy kill) you have the same reward that a guy that kill one trinco in cerberus, (much more harder kill): you got one kill in 4-5 pvp misions. Totally unfair, so i guess that all rewards in this game for ganking should be deleted, because i respect players who sinks trincos with cerberus, and i have zero respect for gankers who sinks indianmans with trincos (or whatever ship)

Edited August 10, 2020 by Despe

[Despe]

If it were my decision, I would demote to midshipman anyone who ganks traders, and i delete all rewards.