Fixed Correct Financial Situation for Naval Officers

[Grey Roger]

True. Only a problem if you start "hoarding" your money though.
And "Divide the Plunder" mode can make for some additional interest too, so not necessarily a bad thing.

I wasn't complaining about "Divide the Plunder". Apart from the positive aspects you mention, it limits how much money you can build up in the ship's kitty. By contrast, naval officers have no such limit.

That doesn't get offset by the fact you still have to buy provisions then?
Seems a bit silly for naval officers to be able to get rich quick and easy.
But how to prevent that?

For one thing, privateers and pirates also need to obtain supplies for their ships, so that isn't a penalty specific to naval commanders. For another, you don't have to buy most of your provisions because you can get them from the ships you capture. Though for some reason merchant ships don't seem to need rum, they almost never have any in their holds when I capture them, but pirates and warships can supply free rum as well as ammo. The only supplies I need to buy regularly are planks and sailcloth, and that's because when I have a carpenter with good "Repair" skill (or have it in person), I never pay shipyards to repair the ship's damage.

From the Wikipedia article on Prize money, prize money on naval ships was divided into eighths: two to the ship's captain, one to the admiral who signed the ship's orders, the rest divided between various grades of officers and crew. Of the two eighths allocated to the captain, i.e. you, one eighth could go into the ship's kitty and the other eighth into your personal money, which would have the side effect that since Fame is tied to your personal money, Hornblower would finally get some. All your officers should get a portion of the prize money into their personal accounts, especially if the idea to have them buy stuff for themselves is ever implemented. And one eighth should disappear entirely as the admiral above you pockets it. The proportions might need to be changed so that naval ships can actually sustain themselves, but the basic principle is that since naval captains don't divide plunder the usual way, it can be divided for them at the time of auction.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

For one thing, privateers and pirates also need to obtain supplies for their ships, so that isn't a penalty specific to naval commanders. For another, you don't have to buy most of your provisions because you can get them from the ships you capture. Though for some reason merchant ships don't seem to need rum, they almost never have any in their holds when I capture them, but pirates and warships can supply free rum as well as ammo. The only supplies I need to buy regularly are planks and sailcloth, and that's because when I have a carpenter with good "Repair" skill (or have it in person), I never pay shipyards to repair the ship's damage.

Would Naval Officers in real history also take their supplies from captured ships? It seems a bit odd that you hardly need to resupply.
Wouldn't the supplies be part of the value of the prize? And wouldn't the prize need to keep their own supplies to make it back to port?

My first thought would be to simply lock the cargo on any ship captured as a Naval Officer. That way you MUST sell it as part of the prize.
But let me guess.... you and other people would object to that change....

From the Wikipedia article on Prize money, prize money on naval ships was divided into eighths: two to the ship's captain, one to the admiral who signed the ship's orders, the rest divided between various grades of officers and crew. Of the two eighths allocated to the captain, i.e. you, one eighth could go into the ship's kitty and the other eighth into your personal money, which would have the side effect that since Fame is tied to your personal money, Hornblower would finally get some. All your officers should get a portion of the prize money into their personal accounts, especially if the idea to have them buy stuff for themselves is ever implemented. And one eighth should disappear entirely as the admiral above you pockets it. The proportions might need to be changed so that naval ships can actually sustain themselves, but the basic principle is that since naval captains don't divide plunder the usual way, it can be divided for them at the time of auction.

That does sound like it would make sense. Would also add a DISADVANTAGE to getting more officers, because the prize money would get split multiple ways.

Not sure if we should make any tweaks to it at the moment, but definitely once Beta 4 has been released, we should look into this.
From the Hornblower books, I figure that the financial status of a Naval Officer was NOT one where you would get rich easy.
Would be nice to replicate that in the game as well.

Actually, should Naval Officers be able to do any sort of trading at all?
What if we lock the Trade Interface altogether, leave only the "Auto Trade" button active and make it cost zero gold?

So to sum up:
- Lock cargo of Prize Ships so you cannot steal it and MUST sell
- Disable all trading options, leaving only a "Free Auto Trade" available
- Vastly reduce the prize money for Naval Officers as per that Wiki article, because they don't need to pay for supplies
- For every prize, put a bit into the ship money for regular expenses and another bit into personal wealth
- Remove the need to pay salary, because the Admiralty handles that (?)
- Make ship repair free, because the Admiralty handles that (?)

Would any of that make sense?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I moved the above out of the Features Archive | PiratesAhoy! .

Now I find myself wondering if we actually SHOULD do this for Beta 4 still.
For now, you end up being something halfway between a privateer and a naval officer, which doesn't seem quite right.

Technically, I think all the above should not be excessively difficult to implement in the game.
But I'd appreciate some feedback and brainstorming before actually making the changes required.

 

[basher1]

leave it as is,it does not want to get to complicated

 

[Grey Roger]

Would Naval Officers in real history also take their supplies from captured ships? It seems a bit odd that you hardly need to resupply.
Wouldn't the supplies be part of the value of the prize? And wouldn't the prize need to keep their own supplies to make it back to port?

I've no idea what happened in the age of sail, but certainly naval officers took supplies from captured ships in WW1 and WW2. For a German ship operating as a commerce raider, a tanker with fuel suitable for its engines was a very useful prize, and the refrigerator ship Duquesa kept the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer supplied with eggs for ages.

My first thought would be to simply lock the cargo on any ship captured as a Naval Officer. That way you MUST sell it as part of the prize.
But let me guess.... you and other people would object to that change....

If you can figure out a way to separate pure trade good from useful supplies, it could work. Otherwise, as mentioned above, supplies certainly were taken from captured ships, and that's in modern times when the rules were probably even tighter than in the 19th century.

Not sure if we should make any tweaks to it at the moment, but definitely once Beta 4 has been released, we should look into this.
From the Hornblower books, I figure that the financial status of a Naval Officer was NOT one where you would get rich easy.
Would be nice to replicate that in the game as well.

Indeed, this was why prize ships were so important - salaries weren't all that high, especially among the lower ranks, and a rich prize ship was a major boost to a sailor's income even if he only got his share of the two eighths allocated to crew.

Actually, should Naval Officers be able to do any sort of trading at all?
What if we lock the Trade Interface altogether, leave only the "Auto Trade" button active and make it cost zero gold?

Then they're stuffed if there isn't a friendly port nearby and they're running short of food. Even in friendly ports, they'd presumably need to arrange for provisions - that's why the ship had a quartermaster.

So to sum up:
- Lock cargo of Prize Ships so you cannot steal it and MUST sell
- Disable all trading options, leaving only a "Free Auto Trade" available
- Vastly reduce the prize money for Naval Officers as per that Wiki article, because they don't need to pay for supplies
- For every prize, put a bit into the ship money for regular expenses and another bit into personal wealth
- Remove the need to pay salary, because the Admiralty handles that (?)
- Make ship repair free, because the Admiralty handles that (?)

I'd leave the cargo of prize ships alone - remember, any cargo you take onto your own ship won't be available for sale and won't make you money.

Leave trading alone. I've never used "Auto Trade" in my life and don't intend to start now.

Salary, ship repairs and provisions might very well be handled by the Admiralty, in which case you may as well do away with the ship's kitty entirely and just figure out how much the player and officers get added to their personal money as a result of salaries and shares of prize money. That will only work if you then buy personal equipment using personal money instead of ship's kitty.

The other thing to note is that we're thinking of what happened in relatively modern times, i.e. "Napoleonic" period for Hornblower. The rules probably changed over the centuries. Apart from tweaking the percentages that privateers and naval officers receive for selling prize ships, what we have now is probably fairly reasonable for earlier periods.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I've no idea what happened in the age of sail, but certainly naval officers took supplies from captured ships in WW1 and WW2. For a German ship operating as a commerce raider, a tanker with fuel suitable for its engines was a very useful prize, and the refrigerator ship Duquesa kept the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer supplied with eggs for ages.

Based on my reading of Hornblower, I don't remember references to taking provisions from captured ships.
But I think Hornblower may have been out to sea longer than you might be in the game. And he never was very lucky when it came to prizes.

If you can figure out a way to separate pure trade good from useful supplies, it could work. Otherwise, as mentioned above, supplies certainly were taken from captured ships, and that's in modern times when the rules were probably even tighter than in the 19th century.

That separation may need doing at some point. Though that would probably be a more long-term goal.

Then they're stuffed if there isn't a friendly port nearby and they're running short of food. Even in friendly ports, they'd presumably need to arrange for provisions - that's why the ship had a quartermaster.

Not stuffed at all, since Auto Trade gives you the supplies you need anyway.

I'd leave the cargo of prize ships alone - remember, any cargo you take onto your own ship won't be available for sale and won't make you money.

Not personal money, no. But (at least until now), I think nobody ever cared about getting personal money.

Leave trading alone. I've never used "Auto Trade" in my life and don't intend to start now.

Why not? Especially for navy ships, it makes a LOT of sense to me that you would be supplied with what the Admiralty says you get, rather than choosing your own stuff.

Salary, ship repairs and provisions might very well be handled by the Admiralty, in which case you may as well do away with the ship's kitty entirely and just figure out how much the player and officers get added to their personal money as a result of salaries and shares of prize money. That will only work if you then buy personal equipment using personal money instead of ship's kitty.

That would indeed seem what the Hornblower books would steer us towards.
As captain, you hardly got to handle all the Admiralty's finances, from what I understand.

The other thing to note is that we're thinking of what happened in relatively modern times, i.e. "Napoleonic" period for Hornblower. The rules probably changed over the centuries. Apart from tweaking the percentages that privateers and naval officers receive for selling prize ships, what we have now is probably fairly reasonable for earlier periods.

As I probably said before, loosening up the differences in earlier periods is relatively easy once the "strictest" version of the requirements have been established.

At the moment, it seems a bit unfortunate that the balancing for Naval Officers sounds to be quite messed up.
It should be rather difficult to make ends meet for quite a while. But then... that would affect mainly your personal money.
And your personal money does very little. You've got nothing to spend that on and why would you? You HAVE no life outside the navy.

So as expected, you don't approve of my suggestions on this. So how about swapping it around? What do you think WOULD make sense?
Feel free to describe an "ideal situation", but try to think of simple ways to handle it wherever possible.

 

[Grey Roger]

Not stuffed at all, since Auto Trade gives you the supplies you need anyway.

Based on how long it thinks you're going to be at sea, assuming none of it gets washed overboard in heavy seas and you aren't delayed because the wind is blowing the wrong way.

Why not? Especially for navy ships, it makes a LOT of sense to me that you would be supplied with what the Admiralty says you get, rather than choosing your own stuff.

That might be true if you've been given a specific order to go there, do this and return back by this date. Whereas our naval officers, like any other captains in the game, have a lot more freedom of action. To quote Admiral Pellew:

Your orders are to engage the enemy wherever he may be found. If you can't find him, one of our governors will probably have work for you, or there are always ships at Antigua needing an escort.

So it's your choice where you're going, and your responsibility to order up sufficient supplies for the job, or obtain replacements along the way.

That would indeed seem what the Hornblower books would steer us towards.
As captain, you hardly got to handle all the Admiralty's finances, from what I understand.

Perhaps not - I'd imagine that you'd requisition what you thought you needed, then the Admiralty would send it to your ship. So as a long term solution you could perhaps have a restricted version of the store interface somewhere in Naval HQ, which is fine for Britain as it has several of them and not fine for anyone else. Or just let the officer buy the supplies as normal. One possibility might be to allow you to buy stuff but not sell it, so you can get your supplies from the store as usual but you can't trade for profit if you can't sell it. Problem 1 is if someone doesn't realise this, buys a load of cotton, then can't get rid of it. Problem 2 is if the player miscalculates, buys a load of food, then can't fit in any rum. Problem 3 is if you pick up cargo from a ship you just sank.

At the moment, it seems a bit unfortunate that the balancing for Naval Officers sounds to be quite messed up.
It should be rather difficult to make ends meet for quite a while. But then... that would affect mainly your personal money.
And your personal money does very little. You've got nothing to spend that on and why would you? You HAVE no life outside the navy.

In reality, yes you do - it's called leave. In game, nobody has much of a life outside their ship. (Though Hornblower does find time to go off and get married. )

More importantly, as things stand your fame is tied to your personal wealth. Privateers become famous by dividing plunder, some of which goes into their personal wealth. Naval officers can't do that.

So as expected, you don't approve of my suggestions on this. So how about swapping it around? What do you think WOULD make sense?
Feel free to describe an "ideal situation", but try to think of simple ways to handle it wherever possible.

My suggestion is about as simple as it gets. Reduce the percentage of prize money that naval officers get. That's it.

If you want to complicate it a bit, put some of the money into the officer's personal account, so that he can become famous. Beyond that, leave cargo, trading and particularly buying supplies and paying salaries alone. They're the naval officer's expenses. Without those, the naval officer sees plenty of money coming in and none of it going out - so much for being difficult to make ends meet.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Based on how long it thinks you're going to be at sea, assuming none of it gets washed overboard in heavy seas and you aren't delayed because the wind is blowing the wrong way.

There is an InternalSettings.h toggle on how long you want to have that. By default it is set to 30 days.

What I am suggesting is that you can get goods from ANY merchant and it will cost zero gold.
Of course you may have a hard time getting supplies in enemy ports and if you're far from any friendly base, that could become tricky with the limitations I suggested.

Perhaps not - I'd imagine that you'd requisition what you thought you needed, then the Admiralty would send it to your ship. So as a long term solution you could perhaps have a restricted version of the store interface somewhere in Naval HQ, which is fine for Britain as it has several of them and not fine for anyone else. Or just let the officer buy the supplies as normal. One possibility might be to allow you to buy stuff but not sell it, so you can get your supplies from the store as usual but you can't trade for profit if you can't sell it. Problem 1 is if someone doesn't realise this, buys a load of cotton, then can't get rid of it. Problem 2 is if the player miscalculates, buys a load of food, then can't fit in any rum. Problem 3 is if you pick up cargo from a ship you just sank.

Enforcing "Auto Buy" for Naval Officers could solve all those problems. You get what you need and nothing else.
You cannot buy goods "by accident" and any prize cargo you might be carrying will be sold as part of the process.

In reality, yes you do - it's called leave. In game, nobody has much of a life outside their ship. (Though Hornblower does find time to go off and get married. )

My point is that there is no such thing as "leave" in the game. So with half of reality missing, requiring personal wealth to just make ends meet ends up making no sense.

More importantly, as things stand your fame is tied to your personal wealth. Privateers become famous by dividing plunder, some of which goes into their personal wealth. Naval officers can't do that.

Privateers get land upon promotion, which generates wealth. Naval Officers do too, but only once they reach the rank of Commodore.
So they CAN get it. But much less easily. Some of the monthly salary ends up in your personal wealth too; that should already be the case.

My suggestion is about as simple as it gets. Reduce the percentage of prize money that naval officers get. That's it.

If you want to complicate it a bit, put some of the money into the officer's personal account, so that he can become famous.

Fair enough, I suppose.

Beyond that, leave cargo, trading and particularly buying supplies and paying salaries alone. They're the naval officer's expenses. Without those, the naval officer sees plenty of money coming in and none of it going out - so much for being difficult to make ends meet.

I was thinking of also not having the money going in. But that might cut out a substantial part of the game and probably isn't quite worth it.

Consider the opportunity for Auto Buy though; that would probably make for the simplest way to prevent Naval Officers from building a little merchant empire on the side.

 

[Grey Roger]

There is an InternalSettings.h toggle on how long you want to have that. By default it is set to 30 days.

What I am suggesting is that you can get goods from ANY merchant and it will cost zero gold.
Of course you may have a hard time getting supplies in enemy ports and if you're far from any friendly base, that could become tricky with the limitations I suggested.

Your Admiralty might be able to supply you for free in your own port, could conceivably have an arrangement to do it in an allied port, and certainly wouldn't be able to do it in a neutral port, let alone a hostile one.

Enforcing "Auto Buy" for Naval Officers could solve all those problems. You get what you need and nothing else.
You cannot buy goods "by accident" and any prize cargo you might be carrying will be sold as part of the process.

You can pick up goods by accident. You're only able to take a maximum of three prize ships, so the fourth one you boarded gets sunk, and then you automatically pick up its cargo of cotton just by sailing too close to the sinking ship. For that matter, you might have transferred some of its cargo onto your ship before leaving it.

My point is that there is no such thing as "leave" in the game. So with half of reality missing, requiring personal wealth to just make ends meet ends up making no sense.

Privateers get land upon promotion, which generates wealth. Naval Officers do too, but only once they reach the rank of Commodore.
So they CAN get it. But much less easily. Some of the monthly salary ends up in your personal wealth too; that should already be the case.

Land generates a small but continuous source of money. But if you capture an enemy merchant ship stuffed with silver and sell the lot, then divide plunder, your fame will be the equivalent of being headline news for the next few months. Naval officers can't do that, which means when Horatio Nelson has finished capturing and selling the entire French fleet, nobody will have heard of him. Of course, if naval officers' fame were tied to ships sunk/captured rather than personal wealth...

I was thinking of also not having the money going in. But that might cut out a substantial part of the game and probably isn't quite worth it.

No trading, no prize money, and probably no selling of personal equipment either, otherwise without any expenses the naval officer will get quite rich merely by selling the weapons looted from dead enemies. Yes, that would wipe out quite a lot of the gameplay!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Your Admiralty might be able to supply you for free in your own port, could conceivably have an arrangement to do it in an allied port, and certainly wouldn't be able to do it in a neutral port, let alone a hostile one.

Very true. But at the moment, you can also sell your prize ships in hostile ports. It was your suggestion to keep it like that for now, if I recall.
All simplifications, but necessary for now to avoid annoying people too much.

Eventually I'd like to have more realistic limitations imposed, of course.
But that would require a bit more development time.

You can pick up goods by accident. You're only able to take a maximum of three prize ships, so the fourth one you boarded gets sunk, and then you automatically pick up its cargo of cotton just by sailing too close to the sinking ship. For that matter, you might have transferred some of its cargo onto your ship before leaving it.

True. And Auto Trade sells that extra cargo for you. So no problem, right?

Land generates a small but continuous source of money. But if you capture an enemy merchant ship stuffed with silver and sell the lot, then divide plunder, your fame will be the equivalent of being headline news for the next few months. Naval officers can't do that, which means when Horatio Nelson has finished capturing and selling the entire French fleet, nobody will have heard of him. Of course, if naval officers' fame were tied to ships sunk/captured rather than personal wealth...

The whole "Fame" system is due for a rewrite anyway once Beta 4 has been released. I intend to combine that with my ideas for improving Reputation too.
For the time being, having prize money go into Naval Officers' wealth does make sense to me.

No trading, no prize money, and probably no selling of personal equipment either, otherwise without any expenses the naval officer will get quite rich merely by selling the weapons looted from dead enemies. Yes, that would wipe out quite a lot of the gameplay!

Prize money would stay and go only into personal wealth. But then how would you buy personal items? From wealth a well?
The Admiralty might need to provide improved navigational equipment on promotions then.
And supplying the Weaponslocker would need to be automated, because you can't be expected to pay for your crew's and officers' swords and pistols.

As I said, probably not quite worth it.

 

[Talisman]

The other thing to note is that we're thinking of what happened in relatively modern times, i.e. "Napoleonic" period for Hornblower. The rules probably changed over the centuries. Apart from tweaking the percentages that privateers and naval officers receive for selling prize ships, what we have now is probably fairly reasonable for earlier periods.

@Grey Roger has in his original post missed an important part of the Wiki page he quoted - the quote should began -

Distribution

The following scheme for distribution of prize money was used for much of the Napoleonic wars, the heyday of prize warfare. Allocation was by eighths. Two eighths of the prize money went to the captain or commander, generally propelling him upwards in political and financial circles. One eighth of the money went to the admiral or commander-in-chief who signed the ship's written orders (unless the orders came directly from the Admiralty in London, in which case this eighth also went to the captain). One eighth was ........

In other words it does not apply to the early periods in the game. And should only be used for the Revolutionary & Napoleonic and later periods.

Actually, should Naval Officers be able to do any sort of trading at all?

Yes, they should be able to trade if they (the player) want(s) to - in earlier periods in the game it was a constant problem for the governors of the Caribbean islands that Navy Captains were more interested in getting rich, than protecting the colonies or chasing pirates.

From The Pirate Wars by Peter Earle ( ISBN 0-413-75880-X )page 140 :-

The Royal Navy captains as well as the governors had their private agenda. Many feared a West Indian posting, for service in
these pestilential waters was rightly seen as a potential death warrant and many of the captains engaged in the war against the
pirates did indeed die of disease, as did many of the royal sailors and pirates. It was, however, also seen as a potentially profitable
posting with numerous opportunities for illegal convoy fees, freight fees for carrying bullion for the merchants or outrageous fares
for carrying passengers. Such perquisites could almost be condoned, so common were they, but ships of the Royal Navy were
also carrying cargoes for their captains and for the merchants, a totally illegal activity which was exposed for all to see when the
overloaded HMS Norwich ran aground and wrecked near Port Royal in 1682 with a large cargo of merchants' goods, much of it
indigo which was only too visible as it stained the sea. Her captain, Peter Heywood, wisely decided to stay in Jamaica rather
than go home to face the music, and his loss of one of His Majesty's ships was conveniently forgotten when he became a wealthy
planter, so much so that he was later to be appointed governor of the island. The Admiralty naturally strongly objected to these
abuses by its captains, whose lust for gain often diverted them from their duty ....

leave it as is,it does not want to get to complicated

Agreed - but if you want to make changes they should be left until Beta 5.

 

[Jack Rackham]

they should be left till Beta 5.

Swedish?

 

[Talisman]

Swedish?

Spelling corrected - ( translated back into English ) - I hope




Here is another quote from The Pirate Wars by Peter Earle ( ISBN 0-413-75880-X ) page 188-9 -- for anyone who is interested


The campaign was also undermined by the greed of the naval captains ‘who, by dear experience, we know, love trading better
than fighting’, as the New England Courant put it in 1722. Captains had always been notorious for putting their lust for private gain
before their duty, as has been seen, but in this campaign they seem to have surpassed themselves. They traded on the Spanish Main
instead of chasing pirates and, even when this had been absolutely banned, they were accused of hiring sloops to trade which they
manned out of their own crews and convoyed to market with their own ships. They went out of their way to seek passengers wealthy
enough to pay exorbitant fares, hired out their own men as labourers, charged merchant captains illegal convoy money,
bought unnecessary equipment and took backhanders from merchants in doing so and had a host of other tricks up their
sleeves.The captains on the Jamaican station were the worst offenders, so much so that the governor of the island claimed in
1718 that, as a result of naval trading, the local seafaring men ‘have not bread for want of employment which is the chief occasion of
so many of them going a pirating’. But captains anywhere had a keen eye for potential profit, sometimes with disastrous con-
sequences as when Captain Waldron of the Greyhound, the New York station ship, was murdered by Spaniards while trading on the
coast of Cuba. Chasing pirates was likely to be a low priority for such mercenary captains for, as one observer pointed out, ‘the
taking of pyrates ... is but a dry business, unless they catch ‘em by extraordinary good fortune, with a prize fresh in their mouths’.

While it would be unfair to say that all captains all the time were chasing profits instead of pirates, there does seem to have- been a
dilatoriness and lack of determination among the Royal Navy captains in the early years of the campaign, which is reflected in
their lack of success. However, matters were to improve. Complaints about captains became less common and indeed one
later finds considerable praise from colonial authorities for the devotion to duty of particular captains. This improvement in
attitude owed something to much stricter directions from the Admiralty, but probably more to the determination of the more
active colonial governors, such as Alexander Spotswood of Virginia or General Hamilton in the Leeward Islands, who often sailed in
person with the cruising naval vessels, and to the enthusiasm and success of individual captains whose example inspired the rest.
Performance naturally varied from captain to captain, but overall they seem to have become more focused on doing their duty in the
later years of the campaign and this was to be reflected in an improvement in their success rate from 1718 onwards.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

As a start on this, how about reducing the sale value of prize ships for Naval Officers only?

      case "taken":
         if (ProfessionalNavyNation() == UNKNOWN_NATION)                           // FOR PRIVATEERS:
           sellMult = makefloat(((SHIPYARD_PIRATEDSHIP_SELL_MULT+SHIPYARD_BOUGHTSHIP_SELL_MULT)/2));   // 0.50 for legal prize ship
         else                                               // FOR NAVAL OFFICERS:
           sellMult = makefloat(2*SHIPYARD_PIRATEDSHIP_SELL_MULT);                     // 0.20 for legal prize ship
         Charmod  = 1.0;                                           // Levis: Professional Navy and LoM pay commission, but are not affected by skills
         break;

That still gives you twice the money than if you had pirated, but it is at least less.
Going even lower than that, you might as well pirate the ship instead, which is probably not the general idea.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

As a start on this, how about reducing the sale value of prize ships for Naval Officers only?

      case "taken":
         if (ProfessionalNavyNation() == UNKNOWN_NATION)                           // FOR PRIVATEERS:
           sellMult = makefloat(((SHIPYARD_PIRATEDSHIP_SELL_MULT+SHIPYARD_BOUGHTSHIP_SELL_MULT)/2));   // 0.50 for legal prize ship
         else                                               // FOR NAVAL OFFICERS:
           sellMult = makefloat(2*SHIPYARD_PIRATEDSHIP_SELL_MULT);                     // 0.20 for legal prize ship
         Charmod  = 1.0;                                           // Levis: Professional Navy and LoM pay commission, but are not affected by skills
         break;

That still gives you twice the money than if you had pirated, but it is at least less.
Going even lower than that, you might as well pirate the ship instead, which is probably not the general idea.

^ That sound OK to everyone then?

 

[Grey Roger]

Perhaps it would be better to define another variable for naval sales, e.g. SHIPYARD_NAVAL_SELL_MULT, so that naval sale value isn't permanently tied to pirate sale value. Likewise, perhaps define one for privateers so that their value also is not tied to pirate ship value.

Remember that capturing or sinking enemy ships brings additional rewards to naval officers besides the prize money. You earn relation points with your nation, leading to promotions and bigger ships - in fact, until you reach flag rank, that's the only way you're getting a better ship. On the other hand, pirates get to divide plunder, earn personal cash, and become famous. Any chance of adding in a bit of code to put a similar amount of cash into the officer's personal account so he earns some fame as well?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Perhaps it would be better to define another variable for naval sales, e.g. SHIPYARD_NAVAL_SELL_MULT, so that naval sale value isn't permanently tied to pirate sale value. Likewise, perhaps define one for privateers so that their value also is not tied to pirate ship value.

Can do. That isn't very hard.
In fact, you could probably do it yourself; the only spots that need editing are:
- The section of PROGRAM\INTERFACE\shipyard.c that I quoted above
- PROGRAM\InternalSettings.h where those other #defines already are

Any chance of adding in a bit of code to put a similar amount of cash into the officer's personal account so he earns some fame as well?

For Naval Officers only then? Would need to go at the actual time of selling and then it would be a percentage of the FULL sale value (including hull/upgrades/cargo).
Does that sound about right?

It is certainly possible, but I will need to find where best to put it.
Somewhere in PROGRAM\INTERFACE\shipyard.c as well, but I don't know the exact line by the top of my head.
Should not be excessively difficult either, I reckon.

 

[Grey Roger]

Yes, the diversion of some of the prize money to personal account is only needed for naval officers. Everyone else gets a personal share of the prize money when plunder is divided, but naval officers never do that.

 

[pedrwyth]

I relented so here are two new defines in internal settings and a 1/8th payment to navy personal wealth for prizes - untested in play just by console manipulation so you can review the change on winmerging - it's all fairly simple). In my view privateers should get the same good deal (which I think this does for those with only 1 LOM?) but no doubt this can be reviewed when fame and personal wealth purpose gets reviewed but since I have currently little desire to play this style am pretty indifferent anyway. Hope it works without breaking anything this close to a new release!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

In my view privateers should get the same good deal (which I think this does for those with only 1 LOM?)

You mean having the addition to personal wealth for Privateers as well?
That would indeed be possible, but as @Grey Roger mentioned before, privateers can already get their share of personal wealth when using Divide the Plunder mode.
Naval Officers don't have that choice.

I have currently little desire to play this style

Can you remind me again what style you would like to play?
If possible, I do want to cater to as many wishes and people as I can.
Though it can admittedly be hard to work into every desire in such a way that it still makes internal sense.
But hey, we can always try, right?