Build 13 bugs

[LarryHookins]

Petros, I *do* keep reminding them, but they don't seem to be listening.

JA: The most likely reason you get a lot of experience at higher levels is because the enemy captains are generated with insanely high character levels. I've seen levels over 100 when I was around level 30. This affects the number of hit points the boarders have, and thus the amount of experience you get for killing them.

I'm already adjusting the enemy captain level to try to get a bit of sanity into the equation. Sometimes it's not enough.

How many experience points do you need to go from level 1 to level 2? How many from level 31 to level 32? Leveling up is already harder at higher levels.

I think I've already discussed money in another thread. And another, and another and another and I'm getting pretty tired of it. Why not just put a cap on the amount a character can have, and make it small, like 200,000. Maybe then people will shut the hell up about having too much money.

If you're going to screw around with the play balance, make DAMNED sure there's a toggle on it, and that toggle is defaulted to OFF.

Hook

 

[BelThorne]

<!--quoteo(post=173282:date=Nov 25 2006, 11:06 AM:name=Hook)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Hook @ Nov 25 2006, 11:06 AM) [snapback]173282[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
JA: The most likely reason you get a lot of experience at higher levels is because the enemy captains are generated with insanely high character levels. I've seen levels over 100 when I was around level 30. This affects the number of hit points the boarders have, and thus the amount of experience you get for killing them.

I'm already adjusting the enemy captain level to try to get a bit of sanity into the equation. Sometimes it's not enough.
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Yes fixing the enemy captain level would probably fix most of the issues with too much gold and experience.
Can you post the change you're making? I'd love to include that in my game.

<!--quoteo(post=173282:date=Nov 25 2006, 11:06 AM:name=Hook)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Hook @ Nov 25 2006, 11:06 AM) [snapback]173282[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
How many experience points do you need to go from level 1 to level 2? How many from level 31 to level 32? Levelling up is already harder at higher levels.
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While it's true that you need way more experience points to go up a level at 30 then at 1, I'm getting way <b>way </b> more experience in combat at that level, leaving no real difference. Thus my foray into modding the xp you get in combat.

<!--quoteo(post=173282:date=Nov 25 2006, 11:06 AM:name=Hook)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Hook @ Nov 25 2006, 11:06 AM) [snapback]173282[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
I think I've already discussed money in another thread. And another, and another and another and I'm getting pretty tired of it. Why not just put a cap on the amount a character can have, and make it small, like 200,000. Maybe then people will shut the hell up about having too much money.
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I can see that you're completely sick of the issue coming up over and over again, but the fact that it keeps coming up means that people still think it's a problem. I'm just making a few mods for my own use to see if I can get the game into a balance I like to play. I put them up on the FTP site so others can have a play with them if they want.

<!--quoteo(post=173282:date=Nov 25 2006, 11:06 AM:name=Hook)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Hook @ Nov 25 2006, 11:06 AM) [snapback]173282[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
If you're going to screw around with the play balance, make DAMNED sure there's a toggle on it, and that toggle is defaulted to OFF.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Hmm, good point. At the moment I'm relying on, if you don't want 'em, don't install 'em, method of turning them off, but I'll look into doing it properly.

 

[LarryHookins]

The enemy captain/hit point adjustment has been in the code for a while. It's part of the rewritten boarding code.

Two things to look at in LAi_boarding.c

<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->// Make the enemy rank closer to the player so enemy boarder HP won't be too different.  Used only for enemy boarder HP
int old_boarding_erank = boarding_erank;
boarding_erank = makeint((2.0*sti(mchr.rank) + boarding_erank)/3.0+0.5);
SDLogIt("boarding_erank changed from " + old_boarding_erank + " to " + boarding_erank + ", player rank = " + mchr.rank);<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->

... and ...

<!--c1--><div class='codetop'>CODE</div><div class='codemain'><!--ec1-->boarding_erank = sti(echr.rank);    // used to calculate enemy HP
if (GetDifficulty() < 4 && boarding_erank > 2*sti(mchr.rank))    // LDH 06Sep06 put a limit on this thing to prevent insanely high enemy ranks
{
    int new_boarding_erank = sti(mchr.rank) * 2;
    SDLogIt("boarding_erank changed from " + boarding_erank + " to " + new_boarding_erank);
    boarding_erank = new_boarding_erank;
}<!--c2--></div><!--ec2-->

If you change:

int new_boarding_erank = sti(mchr.rank) * 2;

... to something like...

int new_boarding_erank = makeint(stf(mchr.rank) * 1.5);

... it might be better. At least you'd face less powerful enemies, and get fewer experience points. You'll need to change the IF test as well. I'm not entirely sure it needs to be changed.

A better fix might be to change where the characters are generated, to make them closer to your own character level. This should give more powerful lowlife enemies in town, and less powerful enemy captains for high level encounters. But I'm not in any hurry to try to change something that has such far-reaching effects on the game.

The reason people keep bringing up the money thing is that they have absolutely no idea what to do with the excess money. And no matter what you do, at some point your character will have more money than he needs. The only way to keep this from happening is to limit the amount of money the player can have, which is the worst possible solution.

Currently if your character has too much gold, he has only a few options. One, deposit it at a moneylender at interest. Two, donate to the church to raise his reputation. Three, pay the crew shares and periodically divide the loot. This will raise your personal wealth which will raise your fame. Both of these latter options are quite expensive.

If you are concerned about the amount of gold a player can easily make, then find or make more options on what to do with that gold; don't try to limit the gold, which is pretty much impossible.

Hook

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I personally would like it if in Build 14 the player would hardly be able to keep up sailing his ship, let alone get gold in a short time and be able to buy a Battleship. I would like it if running a ship is simply extremely expensive and the profits you can make by having a ship only be pretty small. That would make the game challenging, because the player will keep needing to gain more money just to cover his expenses. The player should only be able to gain money very slowly, so the player would need to play for quite a long while before being able to afford a Battleship. And once the player finally did get his Battleship, the expenses would be so great, that he can hardly keep his Battleship.

 

[morgan terror]

that's not fun. it's damned annoying and frustrating! i would quit the game very fast if that would be the case. the game would be getting to hard to be fun anymore.

 

[Black Bart]

<!--quoteo(post=173257:date=Nov 24 2006, 08:49 PM:name=Hook)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Hook @ Nov 24 2006, 08:49 PM) [snapback]173257[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
I think most instances of people complaining about how parts of the game appear to be unbalanced are because they haven't run across some part of the game where the balance is shifted in the other direction.

..........

My advice is, before people go making changes that affect game balance, make sure you've played enough different parts of the game so you know what the overall balance really is. Instead of saying, "The game is broken because toughness (for example) is way overpowered," ask, "Is there some reason toughness is so powerful?" Same with money, same with cannon damage, same with reputation changes, same with everything in the game.

Hook
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Well shouldn't be the aim of a game to ensure that neither one section compared to another is either too easy or too hard? After all you dont play the game in isolation - only doing boardings or only doing land exploring? I would much rather we had a global difficulty level that made ALL sections equally challanging for the player. If some added mods have created a 'divide' in the overall game balance this should be addressed imho. Its not saying 'that mod is rubbish - take it out' it more along the lines of seeing a problem and working out a solution <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/yes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="yes.gif" />

In reference to the toughness perk - what makes boardings so challanging that you need to artificialy boost the player just so they survive? If we could find that cause and try to adjust that, then maybe we would end up with a game where by both boarding and land envounters are more or less as equally challanging?

As it is i dont believe you can think that being able to stand unarmed against a few land enemies and NOT die while they hack at you with swords is a good effect for normal play? So the question becomes what can be done? and i see some possible ideas are being worked on here <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/me.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="me.gif" />


<!--quoteo(post=173332:date=Nov 25 2006, 11:44 AM:name=morgan terror)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(morgan terror @ Nov 25 2006, 11:44 AM) [snapback]173332[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
that's not fun. it's damned annoying and frustrating! i would quit the game very fast if that would be the case. the game would be getting to hard to be fun anymore.
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Morgan....morgan - look its ok to want cheats and such, and you CAN have as much money as you like by simply changing some numbers in buildsettings.h etc. Still the idea of a challanging game makes the game much more rewarding when you are succesfull at it. Having no challange, or no sense of reward makes the game experience much more shallow - and short lived.

If you have eveything given to you on a plate at the begining of the game, whats the incentive to play on?

You will always be able to give yourself what you want in this game, but the standard format or goal should be to make it much more challanging imho - as it is some parts are way to easy to be exploited.

 

[LarryHookins]

What you've described is exactly the way it is for a new player who hasn't learned how to make money yet. It's hard enough to maintain even a small ship if you only do the main quest line without a few money making activities on the side. Buying goods at one port and selling them at another barely covers expenses with a single small ship, and that's if you know what to buy and sell.

People with battleships already have problems replacing lost crew. Unless they know the tricks.

I make most of my money by boarding and capturing ships. The chests on the ships have a lot of stuff in them that can be sold, and the ships can be sold as well. Even with the current limitations on selling captured ships, it's quite profitable. You'll have to severely limit the money merchants have to buy stuff, and also limit the money a shipyard has.

In the early parts of the game, going into the dungeons nets quite a bit of loot. Just killing the bad guys and looting their corpses makes a tidy profit, certainly enough that you don't ever need to get money from the loan shark. Then there are the chests in the houses. If you're not up to dungeon crawling, it's a relatively safe way to pick up extra stuff to sell.

A recent pirate quest from the governor got me 70K from the governor (it was a 74 gun SOL) plus loot from corpses plus loot from chests, and eventually I sold the ship. You'll have to limit pirate quests to one a week instead of multiple quests in a day.

If I couldn't get pirate quests, I'd just sail out and look for inviting targets on the open sea. If I had to, I'd take the captured ships around to various islands until I had a buyer. If a captured ship was too expensive to maintain until I could get it to port, I'd take the cargo and let the ship sink, then shop the cargo around however many islands was necessary.

Cargo missions make a lot of gold plus experience. You'd have to cut that way back. And contraband is worth a lot of money.

You can make it harder, but you can't make it impossible. At some point, making it harder will just make it boring, like attempting to make money hauling linen in a lugger. And what will the new player do? He's already having problems getting enough to be able to afford to sleep in the tavern.

Hook

 

[morgan terror]

hook's point is exactly what i mean. i never cheat. i know and use a lot of ways to make money in the game, but if you don't use smuggling, you don't make that much money at all. it would be very annoying for people who are not that patient.

 

[Black Bart]

<!--quoteo(post=173335:date=Nov 25 2006, 11:58 AM:name=Hook)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Hook @ Nov 25 2006, 11:58 AM) [snapback]173335[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
What you've described is exactly the way it is for a new player who hasn't learned how to make money yet. It's hard enough to maintain even a small ship if you only do the main quest line without a few money making activities on the side. Buying goods at one port and selling them at another barely covers expenses with a single small ship, and that's if you know what to buy and sell.

Hook
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Actualy i was just going to add a comment like this - to better 'qualify' my agreement on Pieters plan <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

So yes i would say that at game start upto around level 9(where i'm at), the balance of money by mainly just following the mainquest line, and doing tradeing on the side when you can fit it in to your plans - is good.

I've gone from a cutter at game start, to a life boat(cutter sunk in a twister strom event!), to a war tartane(its all i could afford at that point), to my current Lugget CT2.

I'm not swimming in cash, but then i dont do boarding or ship captures at this early stage in my game usualy. But i'm seeing a slow and gradual progress. I could just take time out and do an endless section fo trading to boost my gold to be high enough to afford a battleship(but its not available to me at my level yet) - but i'd have to make a concerted effort to get there.

So overall my impression on the money/rpg style available items+ships balance is that we are pretty much on an even keel right now.

When elements of increasing officer involvement comes into play we will have to try hard to maintain this balance i would suggest. We dont want to punish the player(like forced gold cap!(yuk) - or forced subsistance living) but neither do we want the player to have everything there is to be had in the game after 30mins-1hr of playing....imho

<!--quoteo(post=173335:date=Nov 25 2006, 11:58 AM:name=Morgan Terror)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Morgan Terror @ Nov 25 2006, 11:58 AM) [snapback]173335[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
hook's point is exactly what i mean. i never cheat. i know and use a lot of ways to make money in the game, but if you don't use smuggling, you don't make that much money at all. it would be very annoying for people who are not that patient.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

so what about those people who are paitent? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/whistling.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="whistling.gif" /> Is this game an fps shooter? or an arcade racer? you dont usualy need patience to play those kind of games.

Still i always got the impression PotC was a different game, kinda like a cross between Sid Miere's Pirates!(origonal) and a game like Elite, with a Morrowind-esqe rpg element and a good dolop of history thrown in for good measure? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" />

'patience' is a virtue <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

 

[LarryHookins]

The boarding code was tested through about 750 boardings until I was happy with the balance. It was also tested at various difficulty levels.

The problem isn't boardings, but the fact that the land encounters are normally with level 1 characters with 80 hit points. This does not change as your character levels up. These guys are a challenge early in the game, but later nothing more than a nuisance. We need to make the enemies tougher when you get to higher levels.

The guys who come to take the chest aren't supposed to kill you anyway. That would be really pointless. They're supposed to demonstrate that you can't hurt them.

And Morgan is right. It would be boring. Toughness isn't a cheat. If you believe is it, for gosh sakes don't use it! You do have that choice, you know. And you don't have to change numbers in BuildSettings.h to get all the money you'll ever need and more. All you have to know is how to play the game. And if you know what to do with that money, then having it isn't boring. For some people, money is a way of keeping score. For others, it's a way to raise their reputation by giving to the church, or raise their fame by dividing the loot. And 10 million doesn't go very far in either case.

Hook

 

[Black Bart]

<!--quoteo(post=173339:date=Nov 25 2006, 12:14 PM:name=Hook)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Hook @ Nov 25 2006, 12:14 PM) [snapback]173339[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
The boarding code was tested through about 750 boardings until I was happy with the balance. It was also tested at various difficulty levels.

The problem isn't boardings, <i>but the fact that the land encounters are normally with level 1 characters with 80 hit points. This does not change as your character levels up.</i> These guys are a challenge early in the game, but later nothing more than a nuisance. We need to make the enemies tougher when you get to higher levels.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I know you of all people know all about the boarding balance! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" /> So i'm happy thats fine and i agree that the itallic part is where the issue probaly lies - so that is fixable.


<!--quoteo(post=173339:date=Nov 25 2006, 12:14 PM:name=Hook)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Hook @ Nov 25 2006, 12:14 PM) [snapback]173339[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
....... And if you know what to do with that money, then having it isn't boring. For some people, money is a way of keeping score. For others, it's a way to raise their reputation by giving to the church, or raise their fame by dividing the loot. And 10 million doesn't go very far in either case.

Hook
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Having more 'stuff' to do with your money is one very good way of keeping money 'valuable'. Morrowind suffered from this problem also - whats the point of having lots of money if you have nothing to spend it on? So yes tick the box on 'more things to spend money on'.

I have some nice ideas for better involving the church - the way i see it its a much underused aspect of the game, form the game point of view as well as historicaly speaking.

 

[morgan terror]

<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/poet.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":hmm" border="0" alt="poet.gif" /> something to spend all that cash on...

what about that mod where you could build your own settlement? i know i doesn't work, but work has started again making it work properly. you could invest a lot of money in that. and what if you could hire officers in the tavern of your own city and let them function as city guards? eventually, you could become extremely powerful and give loans to governors of other countries! you could start your own complete pirate nation and blackmail the other nations threatening to sack their towns. after which you could sack them anyway of course. this would bring in a lot of cash, but running a pirate city is pretty expensive. it would be a bit like tropico2 but with much more freedom. it would be interesting to appoint a steward if you go out looting and find that he seized the town while you where away.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

<!--quoteo(post=173321:date=Nov 25 2006, 12:25 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Nov 25 2006, 12:25 PM) [snapback]173321[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
I personally would like it if in Build 14 the player would hardly be able to keep up sailing his ship, let alone get gold in a short time and be able to buy a Battleship. I would like it if running a ship is simply extremely expensive and the profits you can make by having a ship only be pretty small. That would make the game challenging, because the player will keep needing to gain more money just to cover his expenses. The player should only be able to gain money very slowly, so the player would need to play for quite a long while before being able to afford a Battleship. And once the player finally did get his Battleship, the expenses would be so great, that he can hardly keep his Battleship.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I don't intend to make the game unplayable or too hard for the beginning players. My idea is to have different challenges based on how far you are into the game. When you first begin your game, the challenge should be to stay alive and be able to stay out of trouble. At one point, the player will have mastered that and the player will seek a new challenge. So he'll be doing some missions, going into the dungeons and perhaps he'll even start attacking some ships. That way the player will start to get some money. At one point the player will move on to bigger ships. At the moment in the game, with bigger ships you can get money more quickly. I want to make it so that with bigger ships, the expenses are bigger and it will still be hard, but not impossible, to make money. That way the player will really have to work hard to get that Manowar. And once he does, he'll have to keep working hard to cover the expenses of having to run such a ship AND keeping his crew and officers happy. Basically, no matter how far you get into the game, it should remain challenging. Whether the challenge is to "stay alive", "keep the crew happy", "be the worst possible pirate" or "get the biggest ship". It should all be hard, challenging and it should take a while. But it should never be impossible.

 

[Black Bart]

<!--quoteo(post=173353:date=Nov 25 2006, 02:23 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Nov 25 2006, 02:23 PM) [snapback]173353[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
.......
I don't intend to make the game unplayable or too hard for the beginning players. <i>My idea is to have different challenges based on how far you are into the game.</i> When you first begin your game, the challenge should be to stay alive and be able to stay out of trouble. At one point, the player will have mastered that and the player will seek a new challenge. So he'll be doing some missions, going into the dungeons and perhaps he'll even start attacking some ships. That way the player will start to get some money. At one point the player will move on to bigger ships.<i> At the moment in the game, with bigger ships you can get money more quickly. I want to make it so that with bigger ships, the expenses are bigger and it will still be hard, but not impossible, to make money.</i> That way the player will really have to work hard to get that Manowar. And once he does, he'll have to keep working hard to cover the expenses of having to run such a ship AND keeping his crew and officers happy. <i>Basically, no matter how far you get into the game, it should remain challenging.</i> Whether the challenge is to "stay alive", "keep the crew happy", "be the worst possible pirate" or "get the biggest ship". It should all be hard, challenging and it should take a while. But it should never be impossible.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/yes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="yes.gif" /> its what all the 'great' games manage to balance well(and thats not many in case anyone wonders!), that progressive balance as the player developes in the game world. Its also difficult to get right, often it comes down to a game not being ready before shipping, and the publishers pushing it out due to their comitments(ala PotC origonal etc).

Still we dont have the pressures of release dates as such - so i think it is just helpfull if we can except that this game can be better than it is. Better in content and stuff for the player to do, but also better in its feature balance and how all sections work in the whole game experience.

As players(some of us very experienced) all we can do is voice issues of balance when we see something that just doesnt look right. I know from my point of view i'm never going to critise someone else's work, i may have an opinion on it however and thats what here for - to voice opinions and see if anyone else agrees. If so great, look at ways around the problem.

 

[LarryHookins]

<!--quoteo(post=173353:date=Nov 25 2006, 08:23 AM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Nov 25 2006, 08:23 AM) [snapback]173353[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->At one point the player will move on to bigger ships. At the moment in the game, with bigger ships you can get money more quickly. I want to make it so that with bigger ships, the expenses are bigger and it will still be hard, but not impossible, to make money.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I'm not entirely sure what you mean here.

Say a player has his lugger, trades goods between islands, the profit is barely enough to maintain the ship.
The player plays for a few weeks (real time), finally has a fleet of 4 galleons. Trades goods between islands, but the profit is barely enough to maintain the 4 larger ships. How did you envision this being balanced, because you probably didn't mean what I just described.

As far as boarding and capturing ships, I can board more ships faster with a schooner, sloop or cutter than I could with a man of war, which couldn't catch half the ships it encounters. Even a corvette has problems with the fore and aft rigged ships.

For those people who sail men of war: what are you doing with them?

For me, getting a large ship generally means heading off to Oxbay to take the three French ships and sacking the fort. Once that's done, I sell the large ship.

Hook

 

[Petros]

<!--quoteo(post=173107:date=Nov 23 2006, 02:11 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Nov 23 2006, 02:11 PM) [snapback]173107[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
<!--quoteo(post=172781:date=Nov 20 2006, 10:18 PM:name=Black Bart)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Black Bart @ Nov 20 2006, 10:18 PM) [snapback]172781[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
<b>6. Documentation:</b>

The "About 13.0.0.2" section of the game menu - i thought all this info was going to include all the Beta-tester/modder update info? As we have in the build13 info doc? Plus there are a few typos in this in-game document(spelling/grammer). So what file holds all this info - i'm happy to update it for inclusion in 13.1 etc
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
RESOURCE\INI\TEXTS\ENGLISH\about_build.txt. I forgot to update that one. The interface still contains the text from the very original first Build 13 ReadMe version.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

So then don't forget to change the "Characters" section.

It starts listing individual contributions and then lumps everyone else in.
I thought that had been discussed on the MB and corrected.

 

[BelThorne]

<!--quoteo(post=173353:date=Nov 26 2006, 01:23 AM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Nov 26 2006, 01:23 AM) [snapback]173353[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
That way the player will really have to work hard to get that Manowar. And once he does, he'll have to keep working hard to cover the expenses of having to run such a ship AND keeping his crew and officers happy. Basically, no matter how far you get into the game, it should remain challenging.
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One thing I'm playing with is simply increasing the crew pay from 12 per crew per month to 60 or 120. It makes having a couple of class 1 ships MUCH more expensive.

 

[LarryHookins]

<!--quoteo(post=173403:date=Nov 25 2006, 07:30 PM:name=Jonathan Aldridge)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Jonathan Aldridge @ Nov 25 2006, 07:30 PM) [snapback]173403[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->One thing I'm playing with is simply increasing the crew pay from 12 per crew per month to 60 or 120. It makes having a couple of class 1 ships MUCH more expensive.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Great idea! Maybe that would get more people trying paying the crew shares instead. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

Hook

 

[Petros]

Back to real bugs:

1. Forget this one! Player error <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/modding.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="modding.gif" />

2. If you have a grapeshot pistol with no ammo and a short pistol with ammo, the "2" and "F" quick equip keys still default to the empty grapeshot pistol.

3. In a Gov. pirate mission, I found a Cutter with 12 guns only they list as Zero caliber on transfer screen, with no ability to transfer from one ship to another.
Ship screen also shows 12, but no breakdown as in 2,2,4,4
Shipyard shows no price per gun to replace but price for entire set, but also shows 12 existing guns on ship.
Note: You can buy the set and then all the numbers on all screens are right.


4. Not a bug, but a departure from previous builds, I noted months ago.

I checked one instance now and found selling a full ship at shipyard gave about 10% less than selling goods first and then selling empty ship at yard.

 

[LarryHookins]

I've seen many instances of 0 caliber guns on ships. I'm assuming they don't have any guns mounted.

I've also noticed that you don't get full price for the cargo when you sell a ship at a shipyard.

I assume both are intentional.

Hook