Cost of being a merhcant

[Mass]

ive tried to say this before but when your working for a nation i think that i would be cool to pay a fee to nation and that could be 25 % of what u make and u can make illegal money, and somthing else is that it cost money to moor up at ports as a merchant but not when u have a warship or works for the navy.

 

And ur required to write down your visitation at the port for not get the nation suspicious to your actions and illegal money can get u to jail, and a pirate town can be free to moor up at but if you buy somthing illegal you can get jailtime.

 

The idea i got from Potc when he has to moor at tortuga becuase of elisabeth and they made illegal money and didnt note in the logbook and that could get them jailtime and thats a nice plan but jailtime doesnt need to be long.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Mass

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

Ok, let's back this up a little.

 

How would you put a player character in "jail"?  What alternative, game friendly mechanics can you think of instead of "jail"?  Players need to be able to play the game, and sitting in jail isn't fun.  

[Mass]

Make money illegal can be a great profit and could get get u to jail to but no longer than 20 min

[Mass]

And u havr to be online to sone the punishment and u can walk in the prison wouldnt it to be fun to see ships sail away while being behind bars?

[DontTreadOnMe]

Jail sounds silly to me, and it also sounds like a whole lot of work for the devs to do. if you want to see ships sail then go sail on the open sea yourself!  This sounds like something that if it were to be added, it would be on the very last page of the devs to do list anyways. Just my two cents.

[Galileus]

And u havr to be online to sone the punishment and u can walk in the prison wouldnt it to be fun to see ships sail away while being behind bars?

 

No.

 

Next up will be "wait 20 min or pay 200 dilethium crystals (only 5.99, you get 2 dilethium crystals free!)" button :/

[Mass]

Ok but consided the cost of mooring idea atleast.

[OTMatt]

Ok, let's back this up a little.

 

How would you put a player character in "jail"?  What alternative, game friendly mechanics can you think of instead of "jail"?  Players need to be able to play the game, and sitting in jail isn't fun.  

 

Could always go with hanging, either that or the punishment is the ship is seized and all funds taken from the bank. Perhaps there will be emphasis to hide your wealth. 

[Mass]

Funds can be taken away yes but not youre whole wealth

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

There has to be a risk/reward to smuggling.  The risk to smuggling in real life was imprisonment and likely the loss of your ship.  In game, I could see having uncustomed cargo, but the penalty should also be severe as a risk.  Possibly loss of ship and all her cargo, or perhaps a fine of 10 times the value of the illegal cargo, with the ship impounded and sold if you can't meet that fine.

[Mass]

That is what i want to that u can make 4x times the money and illegal money should be found at coast where there are no ports or beaches.

[Galileus]

There has to be a risk/reward to smuggling.  The risk to smuggling in real life was imprisonment and likely the loss of your ship.  In game, I could see having uncustomed cargo, but the penalty should also be severe as a risk.  Possibly loss of ship and all her cargo, or perhaps a fine of 10 times the value of the illegal cargo, with the ship impounded and sold if you can't meet that fine.

 

That, I like. A progressively worsening "penalty system" that works over time, e.g. a fine that you have a set time to pay off or can pay off in rates. Every time a fine is due, you would have to find a port of said nation to make the payment, missing the payment would result in fines, again, working over time (as in adding to the total amount, not adding another clock). With big enough fine not accounted for you get severely worse circumstances in said nation - a forceful requisition of a % of your good in nation's ports to cover the fines, direct requisitions of money on player, requisitions of ships if it gets real bad and even "attack/capture on sight" for national navy, advancing into open bounties for your head.

 

Obviously this would work as a joined system for all crimes, one "black log" for each nation. It would be great fun to have to balance your "bad standing" with each nation if you're playing an opportunist character, so that the risk never outplays the reward.

[Chase]

To add to the OP's original suggestion,

 

I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with the TV show "Black Sails", I'd be suprised if none of you have anyway. But the main business plan for the pirates was that they would 'hunt' and then move all the goods to a pirate island that is controlled by a wealthy familiy with connections all around the Americas. With their connections they are able to buy the pirate's loot at discounted rates then ship them through customs and into civilization.

 

I think it was an interesting business plan that adds a bit of realism to the flow of trade for those who wish to be illegitimate merchants.

[Galileus]

To add to the OP's original suggestion,

 

I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with the TV show "Black Sails", I'd be suprised if none of you have anyway. But the main business plan for the pirates was that they would 'hunt' and then move all the goods to a pirate island that is controlled by a wealthy familiy with connections all around the Americas. With their connections they are able to buy the pirate's loot at discounted rates then ship them through customs and into civilization.

 

I think it was an interesting business plan that adds a bit of realism to the flow of trade for those who wish to be illegitimate merchants.

 

From gameplay standpoint, wouldn't that be just selling your illegal goods at a pirate heaven?

 

To make it work you would need to allow - or rather force - a player to be the "wealthy family". Accounting for wealth obviously and connections - prestige with a nation. A sort of pact would then need to be made between a group of pirates establishing the heaven and said player. There are a few interesting mechanics that can arise from that, like ability for both sides to cheat on the other for personal gains.

 

The problem still is the gameplay from wealthy player standpoint. This would need to have some meat on it, other than just "click ok to prosper". All in all, I don't know if the gain of implementing a system that's... well... worthy would outweight the cost of it. Would need a better implementation plan to judge.

[Henry d'Esterre Darby]

From gameplay standpoint, wouldn't that be just selling your illegal goods at a pirate heaven?

 

To make it work you would need to allow - or rather force - a player to be the "wealthy family". Accounting for wealth obviously and connections - prestige with a nation. A sort of pact would then need to be made between a group of pirates establishing the heaven and said player. There are a few interesting mechanics that can arise from that, like ability for both sides to cheat on the other for personal gains.

 

The problem still is the gameplay from wealthy player standpoint. This would need to have some meat on it, other than just "click ok to prosper". All in all, I don't know if the gain of implementing a system that's... well... worthy would outweight the cost of it. Would need a better implementation plan to judge.

 

I've suggested exactly that model, without forcing a family to be the fence, you just have a computer fence.  No need to mess with the cargo after it's sold at the discount.  Similarly, purchasing goods at the haven would cost more than doing so at a national port.

[Mass]

The thing that would be cool if its like Age of Pirates where you go to the tavern he he tells you that there is illegal merhcandise at the beach somwhere and you go there to get top dollar for things u sell but if you busted yooo ships gotta goo

[OTMatt]

The thing that would be cool if its like Age of Pirates where you go to the tavern he he tells you that there is illegal merhcandise at the beach somwhere and you go there to get top dollar for things u sell but if you busted yooo ships gotta goo

 

It would be interesting to have the admiralty on the hunt for illegal trading spots and ships full of stolen goods. Everyone has a little Commodore Norrington inside when it comes to pirates and smugglers... well except for the pirates and smugglers.

[5KnuckleChuckle]

Ok, let's back this up a little.

 

How would you put a player character in "jail"?  What alternative, game friendly mechanics can you think of instead of "jail"?  Players need to be able to play the game, and sitting in jail isn't fun.  

 

How to manage this has been bothering me as well, the thought that if you are the captain and you are doing something illegal how do you dole out punishment in the game, how do you implement an adequet risk to the amount of reward. One idea I have been tossing around is to look at the player as the ship rather than the captain.

 

To discuss that in relation to some other ideas I have seen tossed around, please keep in mind I'm writing much of this as I think of it so I apologise if it seems ill-thought out or jumbled.

 

Ship crew attirbutes: The Captain would be just like other crew of note who's stats may end up affecting how your ship handles etc. In regards to this maybe there is a crew recruitment page for a port and this would contain random low level possible crew member types. Maybe when you take over a ship you have the option of pressing certian crew members of the captured ship into service. Maybe you can slowly turn your crew into an elite sailing machine by increasing thier stats. Maybe crew age can be tracked so you can't train up a crack crew with all top attributes and have them forever...they slowly age and die off and the player has to have a trainee ready to take the place of a retiring crew member. Maybe a trainee can learn a bit faster with a mentor rather than if they are thrown in fresh which would basically be a penalty for the player who ignores planning. Maybe crew randomly need to leave the crew for a short period or forever based on random reasons. This would offer a realistic environment as crews changed all the time.

 

Criminal activity: With the view that the player is simply a controller the punishment can be historically accurate to the crime. If you are caught smuggling and the punishment was jail time then you lose your captain during that time with maybe a "calendar entry" for when he is to get out...you could even add jail mechanics as many who were jailed in this period of history died from illness or malnutritian, etc. At this point the player would suffer because they would now have to hire a captain from the low end pool or promote someone within the current crew ranks. If you are caught pirating your captain and a good portion of your crew could be hanged and you would lose them forever. Within this model there would be true high risk/high reward mechanics...you can capture that merchant ship and have a great pay day but if a warship happens along and captures you, you could lose a large portion of your crew which you have been training for the last month or so of game time...

 

In my opinion, this approach of player being the vessel or even looked upon as the invisible hand that contols it all allows for more realistic game play. If you end up adding some first person aspects to the game then maybe the player would see the world through the eyes of the appropriate crew member for the given task whether that would be the captain or quarter-master etc.

Edited February 19, 2015 by 5KnuckleChuckle