Included in Build Different Shipyard Sale Prices for Naval Officers/Privateers

[Grey Roger]

Another thought - make various restrictions dependent on time period. "Early Explorers" should have almost no restrictions because the only law west of the Atlantic was Spain's law, which didn't distinguish between privateers and pirates. "Napoleonic" should be the most restrictive of the lot - privateers still existed but were falling out of favour, at least partly because nations didn't need to hire them any more as they had sufficient size official navies to do what they needed.

Be careful of restricting privateers too much, especially in "Colonial Powers". That's when the "Standard" storyline is set, and you have to be able to capture and use ships without selling and re-buying them then. You won't get far with the little lugger which is your default starting ship, and you won't take Bridgetown fort unless you're acquired a battleship of some sort. As for Sovereign of the Seas and Black Pearl, good luck raising enough money by the end of the game to afford to sell and re-buy those! If you're going to impose this restriction of only allowing you to take over a ship after you've sold and re-bought it, perhaps do it only in "Napoleonic" and maybe "Revolutions" periods, which was when prize law was fully developed.

 

[pedrwyth]

Yes, I had sort of come to that conclusion as I read the threads! However I haven't found where you have put the code for that yet. The in shipyard cargo prices don't mention it directly (Am I looking for an alteration to PRICE_TYPE_SELL somewhere?)

It is in that CharPriceMod thing.

Well that's what had me confused - I looked at that when checking ship prices however forgot there was a 50% element that would apply everywhere but in the shipyard (because I wasn't chasing that at the time). BUT when I started looking at cargo prices I started in the shipyard and couldn't see any 50%. I looked for PRICE_TYPE_SELL instances to see if it was there but it doesn't appear in that function (it uses if PRICE_TYPE_BUY and an else to hide away). However it still doesn't catch cargo left on the ship as apparently you are aware

At the moment, that 50% isn't technically factored in on the shipyard side, but that is what I intend to add. That'll be the easy part.

However as far as the cargo goes there might be a neater solution. The plunder is already recorded in the ransack_main interface solely to list in the log what you took I think. But (as long as the plunder attribute isn't wiped somewhere) it could be re-used on sale of the ship to charge you 50% of its value (based on the inventory you drew up upon its capture). This is then taken off the prize money. Thus if you've left it all on board the two sums would be offset you get added 100% for the goods onboard (since you haven't yet taken the 50% off the in shipyard disposal of cargo) and you get your 50% for the goods. Any you utilized (or sold) you get 0 for onboard for them (since they are not!) and effectively have to make up the 50% to the nation for their share of the prize cargo.

So you can utilize (or sell) or even smuggle away all or some of the cargo but will in the end have to make up the nations share when you sell the ship. - which however far you go in capturing bigger ships you will presumably want to do with the surplus ones eventually.

So allow cannon swap at ransack to replace any you have lost as is now - but that should be a trivial difference as long as the others cannot be sold off after. AND remove that 50% hit on prices everywhere else.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Another thought - make various restrictions dependent on time period. "Early Explorers" should have almost no restrictions because the only law west of the Atlantic was Spain's law, which didn't distinguish between privateers and pirates. "Napoleonic" should be the most restrictive of the lot - privateers still existed but were falling out of favour, at least partly because nations didn't need to hire them any more as they had sufficient size official navies to do what they needed.

Not until we've figured out what restrictions we should use and what works for the game.
Adding exceptions later should be relatively easy.

Be careful of restricting privateers too much, especially in "Colonial Powers". That's when the "Standard" storyline is set, and you have to be able to capture and use ships without selling and re-buying them then. You won't get far with the little lugger which is your default starting ship, and you won't take Bridgetown fort unless you're acquired a battleship of some sort.

I wonder how much the Standard Storyline should be REAL Privateering or if I need to revert to my original idea of having a "half-LoM" functionality for more "agent" type characters.
That may be needed for @Bartolomeu o Portugues' storylines as well. What exactly do you need to do in the Bartolomeu and Assassin ones, for examples?

In any case, we should not base the system on the quests. The system should be based on general gameplay.
If quests require special exceptions, that can be arranged if need be. Or the quest logic can be changed so that it works WITH these new systems.
Should all be possible.

As for Sovereign of the Seas and Black Pearl, good luck raising enough money by the end of the game to afford to sell and re-buy those! If you're going to impose this restriction of only allowing you to take over a ship after you've sold and re-bought it, perhaps do it only in "Napoleonic" and maybe "Revolutions" periods, which was when prize law was fully developed.

That is a non-issue. You aren't a privateer at that point as your hostile to your own nation.
Of course you could be if you had multiple LoMs to begin with.
But even then, the same exception that prevents you getting negative (or positive) relation points for those ships can be checked to allow you to freely take those.
Not even sure about the Sovereign; I could imagine governor Brin would like that one back if you accept his offer and join as a Privateer.
The Black Pearl for absolute certain though.

Well that's what had me confused - I looked at that when checking ship prices however forgot there was a 50% element that would apply everywhere but in the shipyard (because I wasn't chasing that at the time). BUT when I started looking at cargo prices I started in the shipyard and couldn't see any 50%. I looked for PRICE_TYPE_SELL instances to see if it was there but it doesn't appear in that function (it uses if PRICE_TYPE_BUY and an else to hide away). However it still doesn't catch cargo left on the ship as apparently you are aware

The CharPriceMod functionality currently has a 50% commission for navy officers and privateers.
That applies for anything that isn't considered a shipyard transaction and therefore should include any cargo left on the ship as right now it applies to all cargo equally.

However as far as the cargo goes there might be a neater solution. The plunder is already recorded in the ransack_main interface solely to list in the log what you took I think. But (as long as the plunder attribute isn't wiped somewhere) it could be re-used on sale of the ship to charge you 50% of its value (based on the inventory you drew up upon its capture). This is then taken off the prize money. Thus if you've left it all on board the two sums would be offset you get added 100% for the goods onboard (since you haven't yet taken the 50% off the in shipyard disposal of cargo) and you get your 50% for the goods. Any you utilized (or sold) you get 0 for onboard for them (since they are not!) and effectively have to make up the 50% to the nation for their share of the prize cargo.

So you can utilize (or sell) or even smuggle away all or some of the cargo but will in the end have to make up the nations share when you sell the ship. - which however far you go in capturing bigger ships you will presumably want to do with the surplus ones eventually.

I think at the moment that is logged ONLY to the Ship's Log and it won't be easy to extract it from that again.
But indeed that DOES happen after you've taken the ship and I should be able to store that in an easier to access spot to use when you sell the ship.
Definitely a very interesting idea! That may indeed be a better solution than the ones that have been proposed so far.

So allow cannon swap at ransack to replace any you have lost as is now - but that should be a trivial difference as long as the others cannot be sold off after. AND remove that 50% hit on prices everywhere else.

That can be arranged.

Then the only other thing I wonder about: Should Privateers be able to swap with legal prize ships at all or MUST they be kept as companions (hard to prevent) or sold off (encouraged)?

 

[pedrwyth]

The CharPriceMod functionality currently has a 50% commission for navy officers and privateers.
That applies for anything that isn't considered a shipyard transaction and therefore should include any cargo left on the ship as right now it applies to all cargo equally.

Yes but it isn't called in the shipyard interface when pricing cargo on board as you sell (done after the reduction for "acquired") and neither is there a multiplier in there (so the general set 50% won't be applied)- unless I'm being stupid (quite common these days).

I think at the moment that is logged ONLY to the Ship's Log and it won't be easy to extract it from that again.

Actually it's put into an attribute array (plunder) attached to the ship in ransack_main and re-read in AIship to create the list. So it should be available.

Then the only other thing I wonder about: Should Privateers be able to swap with legal prize ships at all or MUST they be kept as companions (hard to prevent) or sold off (encouraged)?

Well since we don't have a definitive answer on what was legal (or common practice) at what period I think it is harsh to block whatever use the privateer player wants to make of it - it makes another good deviation from straight Navy gameplay.

I am concerned about @Grey Roger 's mention of the "need" for ships for the privateer to proceed in the standard storyline. I think anyone playing without a LoM can't buy Navy ships (can they capture them from an enemy as "only" a disreputable act?) and may have difficulty in getting the firepower required. [Don't tell me I can always get a LoM or multiple LoM - that's NOT how I want to play].

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Yes but it isn't called in the shipyard interface when pricing cargo on board as you sell (done after the reduction for "acquired") and neither is there a multiplier in there (so the general set 50% won't be applied)- unless I'm being stupid (quite common these days).

It is called again within the GetStoreGoodsPrice function; that is actually the main reason why I started messing around with that one....

Actually it's put into an attribute array (plunder) attached to the ship in ransack_main and re-read in AIship to create the list. So it should be available.

Indeed, I was looking at it just now as well and I think you're really onto something!
Did a simple DumpAttribute on my "legal prize test ship" that I used before and indeed it is already there:

  plunder =
  plunder0 = 117
  plunder1 = 30
  plunder2 = 611
  plunder3 = 337
  plunder4 = 202
  plunder6 = 4395
  plunder7 = 6
  plunder8 = 5
  plunder12 = 10
  acquired = taken

So now all I need to do is adapt the code to make use of it! That will mean NO restriction on taking goods from your prize ships.
You'll just end up effectively getting half the price for prize cargo, which is of course what we want.

One extra note here: Between you capturing the ship and selling her as a prize, there will be at least a few days that pass.
In those days, the crew will eat supplies, repairs may be affected with the planks and sailcloth and there may need to be some cannons fired in self-defence as well.
So even if you don't deliberately take supplies for your own, you'll still arrive with less than when you captured her.
You'll still get only HALF the value for also that part.

I am concerned about @Grey Roger 's mention of the "need" for ships for the privateer to proceed in the standard storyline. I think anyone playing without a LoM can't buy Navy ships (can they capture them from an enemy as "only" a disreputable act?) and may have difficulty in getting the firepower required. [Don't tell me I can always get a LoM or multiple LoM - that's NOT how I want to play].

Indeed you can't buy navy ships if you don't have a LoM and the needed rank.
But as long as you capture them from an actual enemy of yours, it can indeed be done under merely a "disreputable act".

One way or another, you CAN do it. You'll just be treading a thin line between being an honest character and being a pirate.
If you keep that up without compensating, eventually you could be considered an actual pirate.
I reckon that is actually a nice feature to develop into the game so that you actually CAN walk that line.

Same applies to Privateers: If you want a ship for yourself, hoist a PIRATE flag before capturing her.
Then it counts as a "disreputable act" rather than a "legal prize".

 

[pedrwyth]

OK - I thought I must be missing something (you'll be taking it back out anyway)!

All good news then

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I'm thinking of keeping the "commerce skills don't affect sales" for Naval Officersoand characters carrying a Merchant License.

But I should be able to get rid of it again for selling non-prize cargo as Privateer, which is indeed fairer and better.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So the latest idea is as follows.

Privateers:
- Prize ships sell for 50% of the total price, taking into account cannons, upgrades and the cargo that was on board at the time of capture
- Cannot swap ships with legal prizes
- Cannot remove cannons and upgrades from legal prize ships after the initial capture
- You can buy the ship back after sale to gain full ownership of her
- Player commerce does not affect shipyard pricing

Naval Officer:
- Same as above
- Item trader and store transactions also not affected by player commerce

Holders of Merchant License:
- Item trader and store transactions also not affected by player commerce

Pirated ships:
- Free to do with as you please
- Hull sells for 10% of new price
- This increases to 90% if you join the Pirates
- Cannons, upgrades and cargo sales not affected

Query: 10% of Sale Price plus full value for cannons, Cargo and upgrades probably works out as more than 50% of total value.
That may make Piracy more profitable than it is meant to be without joining the Pirates.
How to prevent this?

You can pirate ships even if you aren't a pirate, simply by doing it under a pirate flag.
You won't gain nation relation points with your served nation(s) and will gain some points with the Pirates.

Do that often enough and eventually you'll actually turn pirate.
You can compensate for that though by attacking pirate ships as well.

Query: Does it then become too easy to compensate for "Piracy"?
Does become rather similar to stock game behaviour that way, doesn't it?

I won't do anything on this until next week, so please think about this and share your thoughts before Monday.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Some of my random ideas on the above, some of which are mutually exclusive:

- Only allow selling of pirated ships in PIRATE shipyards
They normally trade only with those who are friendly to the pirates or don't have a LoM, though you can probably fool them with a false flag.
That would make it at least a bit harder to get rid of pirated ships, but not much and won't really change your profit margins.

- Have any business transactions in pirate towns take a TINY profit margin until you actually join the pirates.
So if you sell your pirated ship in a pirate shipyard, you won't get all that much money for it.

- How about locking the cargo of pirated ships? So you can only sell it in pirate shipyards (for that tiny profit margin) OR sell it to the Smugglers?
That would also involve smuggling into the whole combined system.

- At the moment you start the game at -89 points with the pirates; they'll turn neutral at -59 but YOU won't turn to pirate until 0.
Maybe speed that up so you turn pirate at Wary with them instead (-45)? You still have to manage to bring them all the way from -89 to -59 (neutral) and then to -45.
That is quite a way to go.

- Maybe you should ONLY lose relation points with the pirates when attacking the pirates IF you actually joined them.
So as long as you aren't officially a pirate, you can only become MORE friendly with them and cannot compensate.
That means that while you can get away with some "disrespectable acts" without any true adverse effects, you cannot keep doing so indefinitely.

- At the moment the points you gain/lose upon capturing/sinking ships are related to the cargo capacity so that bigger ships give more points.
Pirates always use small ones and therefore normally count for 1 point each, while large navy and merchant ships can count for many, many points in one go.
In effect, this already makes it relatively hard to LOSE points with the pirates, because it only goes in steps of 1.

How to make "disrespectable acts" something that a non-pirate player should NOT want to do too often?
And how to make it truly worthwhile to have the player join the pirates? Anyone else got any ideas?

 

[Grey Roger]

Privateers should be able to swap ship and take over a captured ship, without needing to sell and rebuy and without it being disreputable. The law can become more restrictive in the "Revolutions" and "Napoleonic" periods, by which time historically the law was fully developed. Commerce skill and perks shouldn't affect sale of prize ships but should still apply to buying ships (including rebuying a previously sold prize ship, reflecting your skill in the subsequent auction). This has always been my choice of playstyle, and I've always been very proud of getting all my ships from defeated enemies rather than buying them - I will not be happy if I'm forced to start buying ships or hoist a pirate flag in order to keep what I've captured.

Naval officers below flag rank can't swap ship anyway. This is one of the ways in which playing as a naval officer is distinct from playing as a privateer; it's not due to prize law, but due to naval discipline requiring you to remain in command of the ship to which you were assigned, at least until you're high enough rank to command a fleet and do the assigning yourself. Commerce skill shouldn't affect sale of prize ships and, at least until flag rank, you can't buy ships anyway so commerce skill is irrelevant there. Item and store trade should be affected by commerce skill and perks - why wouldn't they? Disallowing commerce skill and perks seriously devalues the quartermaster.

Merchant licence: unrealistic, originally designed as a way to make people pay to avoid having to switch to payment by division of plunder instead of editing a toggle in "InternalSettings.h". Presumably supposed to represent a merchant career, in which case commerce skills and perks should apply, though perhaps improve their rate of increase with experience or allow a third level of commerce perk to give the merchant a trading advantage. But as I've no intention of getting one then, unless its implementation negatively affects other forms of gameplay, I'll leave further comment to those who do intend to use it.

Pirated ships: Maybe reduce the difference in ship sale price between independent pirates and those who have joined Pirate nation. As for how to prevent piracy from becoming too profitable, observe the table of comparative shares of prize money in the Wikipedia article on Piracy; pirate crews got a much higher share of the loot than privateer crews (and presumably naval crews). Since pirates have to pay by division of plunder, a pirate captain should get a much lower share of the total. Possibly also increase the frequency that pirate crews demand division of plunder. So pirates can make more money short term but don't get to keep it for very long. Again, though, this isn't my choice of play style, so more weight should be given to comments from people who want to play as pirates.

Historical note on pirate flags: from the Wikipedia article Jolly Roger:

Flying a Jolly Roger was a reliable way of proving oneself a pirate. Just possessing or using a Jolly Roger was considered proof that one was a criminal pirate rather than something more legitimate; only a pirate would dare fly the Jolly Roger, as he was already under threat of execution.

So perhaps hoisting a pirate flag should not be required for a privateer to take over and use a prize ship; instead, it could be considered a major act of piracy, since you don't need to wait for governments to denounce you as a pirate, you're effectively telling the world that you're a pirate. Attacking while under a pirate flag certainly means the captured ship is a pirated vessel, and could perhaps involve significant changes of relations with nations (negative) and Pirates (positive).

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Privateers should be able to swap ship and take over a captured ship, without needing to sell and rebuy and without it being disreputable.
[...]
This has always been my choice of playstyle, and I've always been very proud of getting all my ships from defeated enemies rather than buying them - I will not be happy if I'm forced to start buying ships or hoist a pirate flag in order to keep what I've captured.

Would you agree it makes sense for privateers to give their nation(s) part of the prize money?
Then if you take a ship for your own instead, how does that work for them getting their share?
At the moment, you CAN get the freedom you want; just use a pirate flag and make it a "disrespectable act" instead.

To make this clearer: At the moment I am interested in figuring out the MAXIMUM limits to impose.
Once that is done, it will be easy to include period-based exceptions.
That also further distinguishes the periods, which I see as an additional bonus.

Commerce skill and perks shouldn't affect sale of prize ships but should still apply to buying ships (including rebuying a previously sold prize ship, reflecting your skill in the subsequent auction).

So for privateers at least, the ONLY thing that shouldn't be affected by Commerce is the sale of Prize Ships. Makes sense.

Naval officers below flag rank can't swap ship anyway. This is one of the ways in which playing as a naval officer is distinct from playing as a privateer; it's not due to prize law, but due to naval discipline requiring you to remain in command of the ship to which you were assigned, at least until you're high enough rank to command a fleet and do the assigning yourself. Commerce skill shouldn't affect sale of prize ships and, at least until flag rank, you can't buy ships anyway so commerce skill is irrelevant there. Item and store trade should be affected by commerce skill and perks - why wouldn't they? Disallowing commerce skill and perks seriously devalues the quartermaster.

Isn't the Admiralty in charge of supplies for naval officers?

Merchant licence: unrealistic, originally designed as a way to make people pay to avoid having to switch to payment by division of plunder instead of editing a toggle in "InternalSettings.h". Presumably supposed to represent a merchant career, in which case commerce skills and perks should apply, though perhaps improve their rate of increase with experience or allow a third level of commerce perk to give the merchant a trading advantage. But as I've no intention of getting one then, unless its implementation negatively affects other forms of gameplay, I'll leave further comment to those who do intend to use it.

While not a fully-developed idea nor execution at the moment, eventually I would want players to be able to officially join a "merchant guild" like the EITC or WIC or so.
The "Merchant License" is the first step in that direction.

While originally born from moving the InternalSettings.h toggle into actual gameplay,
the main reason for me doing that is because I want that toggle to make sense from a gameplay point of view.
Which means that the Merchant License does not need to remain limited to just that.

Pirated ships: Maybe reduce the difference in ship sale price between independent pirates and those who have joined Pirate nation. As for how to prevent piracy from becoming too profitable, observe the table of comparative shares of prize money in the Wikipedia article on Piracy; pirate crews got a much higher share of the loot than privateer crews (and presumably naval crews). Since pirates have to pay by division of plunder, a pirate captain should get a much lower share of the total. Possibly also increase the frequency that pirate crews demand division of plunder. So pirates can make more money short term but don't get to keep it for very long. Again, though, this isn't my choice of play style, so more weight should be given to comments from people who want to play as pirates.

At the moment at least, pirates aren't forced to pay through Divide the Plunder. The crew will just start asking about it and get grumpy when you hoard a lot of money.
Should it be enforced?

If we decrease the share you get as an official pirate captain, that has the opposite effect of what I'm after....
Basically what I'm hoping to accomplish:
- Player without any national allegiances: Very low profit from selling captured ships (which would be obtained through "disrepectable acts" because you don't have a LoM)
Any such player should probably be an honest merchant, making money from store transactions rather than sea battles.
- Privateer: Medium profit from selling captured ships as you ARE allowed to take them and get 50% of the prize money
- Navy: Probably the same as Privateer, with perhaps some minor changes
- Player who has officially joined the pirates: Huge profit from selling captured ships

In other words, I would want "Pirate" to actually be a valid and profitable profession, rather than just being inconvenience to the point that it is just a lot better to be a Privateer instead.
That has always been the case in the game, which doesn't make sense for a game called "PIRATES of the Caribbean" and if privateering is so much nicer, why did people ever turn pirate in real life in the first place?
Might as well be a privateer and get all the bonuses and none of the disadvantages.

Historical note on pirate flags: from the Wikipedia article Jolly Roger: So perhaps hoisting a pirate flag should not be required for a privateer to take over and use a prize ship; instead, it could be considered a major act of piracy, since you don't need to wait for governments to denounce you as a pirate, you're effectively telling the world that you're a pirate. Attacking while under a pirate flag certainly means the captured ship is a pirated vessel, and could perhaps involve significant changes of relations with nations (negative) and Pirates (positive).

We could shift any act under a pirate flag to be considered a major betrayal. My main concern there is if that is not perhaps too harsh for the players?
Though it does admittedly make quite a bit of sense.

 

[Grey Roger]

Would you agree it makes sense for privateers to give their nation(s) part of the prize money?
Then if you take a ship for your own instead, how does that work for them getting their share?

Same way that a pirate's crew gets shares of a ship which you take over rather than selling at a Pirate shipyard. They don't. What they get is improved profits in the future due to your better ability to take on larger enemies.

At the moment, you CAN get the freedom you want; just use a pirate flag and make it a "disrespectable act" instead.

This is exactly what I don't want to have to do.

To make this clearer: At the moment I am interested in figuring out the MAXIMUM limits to impose.
Once that is done, it will be easy to include period-based exceptions.
That also further distinguishes the periods, which I see as an additional bonus.

Isn't the Admiralty in charge of supplies for naval officers?

So perhaps disregard perks when buying essential supplies from your own nation's stores. Essential supplies being food, rum, ammo, planks, sailcloth and medical supplies. Buying them anywhere else, or buying any other goods (for a bit of trading on the side, for fetch quests, or for whatever other reason you can imagine) isn't handled by the Admiralty.

At the moment at least, pirates aren't forced to pay through Divide the Plunder. The crew will just start asking about it and get grumpy when you hoard a lot of money.
Should it be enforced?

It's enforced in as much as morale will drop, leading at best to poorer performance in battle and at worst to mutiny.

In other words, I would want "Pirate" to actually be a valid and profitable profession, rather than just being inconvenience to the point that it is just a lot better to be a Privateer instead.
That has always been the case in the game, which doesn't make sense for a game called "PIRATES of the Caribbean" and if privateering is so much nicer, why did people ever turn pirate in real life in the first place?
Might as well be a privateer and get all the bonuses and none of the disadvantages.

Which is exactly what they did during the "Spanish Main" period. The real Brethren of the Coast were privateers.

The main problem with privateering was that you could only attack targets belonging to nations which were at war with your nation, so when a series of treaties in 1713 and 1714 ended the War of Spanish Succession (which went a lot further than Spain), the privateers (and a lot of naval sailors) found themselves out of a job. That's when pirating as we know it, i.e. outright criminality with no allegiance to any nation, became more attractive. People turned to piracy when they couldn't be privateers.

We could shift any act under a pirate flag to be considered a major betrayal. My main concern there is if that is not perhaps too harsh for the players?
Though it does admittedly make quite a bit of sense.

I'd make a distinction between betrayal and act of piracy. Betrayal is something dishonourable, e.g. firing while under a friendly flag or double-crossing a ship you're supposed to be escorting. Piracy is attacking something while under a pirate flag. It should be entirely possible to be an honourable pirate. This concept is not limited to Hollywood - Laurens de Graaf, one of our playable characters, easily qualifies as such.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Same way that a pirate's crew gets shares of a ship which you take over rather than selling at a Pirate shipyard. They don't. What they get is improved profits in the future due to your better ability to take on larger enemies.

That may create an exploit: ALWAYS take the prize ships for your own!
Then you're free to sell off the goods without giving a penny to your goverment. Then sell off the ship you originally had.
OR, since this is still a "captured" ship, your OWN cargo will be locked. That'll be SUPER annoying.

If you have any ideas how to avoid that one, I'd definitely welcome it.

This is exactly what I don't want to have to do.

You don't want to because you don't want to.

So perhaps disregard perks when buying essential supplies from your own nation's stores. Essential supplies being food, rum, ammo, planks, sailcloth and medical supplies. Buying them anywhere else, or buying any other goods (for a bit of trading on the side, for fetch quests, or for whatever other reason you can imagine) isn't handled by the Admiralty.

Indeed theoretically it should be good-dependent and only apply to the basic ones. Might be tricky to implement. Definitely more development time required again.
To what extent should navy officers even be meant to be trading on the side at all?

It's enforced in as much as morale will drop, leading at best to poorer performance in battle and at worst to mutiny.

True, if you hoard excessive amounts of money.

The main problem with privateering was that you could only attack targets belonging to nations which were at war with your nation, so when a series of treaties in 1713 and 1714 ended the War of Spanish Succession (which went a lot further than Spain), the privateers (and a lot of naval sailors) found themselves out of a job. That's when pirating as we know it, i.e. outright criminality with no allegiance to any nation, became more attractive. People turned to piracy when they couldn't be privateers.

Evil peace! But in the game, of course, there are an infinite number of ships. So this would only become a factor if your served nation is at peace with ALL other nations except the pirates.
That is extremely unlikely to ever happen. So unless we tweak things so that CAN happen, that real mechanism to drive people to piracy isn't going to work in the game.
Which means that there should be other reasons why piracy is NOT actually useless.

I'd make a distinction between betrayal and act of piracy. Betrayal is something dishonourable, e.g. firing while under a friendly flag or double-crossing a ship you're supposed to be escorting. Piracy is attacking something while under a pirate flag. It should be entirely possible to be an honourable pirate. This concept is not limited to Hollywood - Laurens de Graaf, one of our playable characters, easily qualifies as such.

At the moment we have two levels of "piracy":
- "Disrecpectable act"; regular acts of piracy fall in this category
- "Major act of treason", which mainly gets triggered through betrayal one way or another

So what you describe IS possible right now. But if I change "any act under a pirate flag" to "major act of treason", that becomes different.
Another reason to NOT do that then?

Of course I also haven't added any reputation loss from your betrayal just yet, though I do intend to add that to the "Major act of treason" some time.

 

[Grey Roger]

That may create an exploit: ALWAYS take the prize ships for your own!
Then you're free to sell off the goods without giving a penny to your goverment. Then sell off the ship you originally had.

You mean a worse exploit than the intentional one of gaining a massive boost to commerce if you get a merchant licence? Or, what about the player who never captures a ship - he keeps four ships, then sinks and plunders any enemy ship he encounters. All four ships are his own, so is any cargo transferred to them, so the government never sees a penny of prize money.

Is there a mechanism for marking cargo as plundered or bought? If not, perhaps have two cargo lists for a ship, bought and plundered cargo. Ship's supplies (food, rum, ammo, sailcloth, planks, medicines) should always go to the bought list so that you can transfer and use them as needed. Everything else which came from an enemy ship goes to the plundered list. Anything sold from the plundered list is at 50%. That way the government also gets a share of anything you brought aboard from a ship which you looted and sank.

You don't want to because you don't want to.

I don't want to hoist a pirate flag because I've never done so before and don't intend to start now. The same applies to buying ships.

Indeed theoretically it should be good-dependent and only apply to the basic ones. Might be tricky to implement. Definitely more development time required again.
To what extent should navy officers even be meant to be trading on the side at all?

Realistically: I've no idea, since I don't know naval regulations. In game: as much as they like, though if they use too much hold space for trade goods then they might not have enough space for food, rum and ammo to carry out their naval activity. Besides, they'll have to be able to pick up and deliver cargo unless they disable locked perks in "InternalSettings.h", since several perk unlocks depend on fetch quests.

Evil peace! But in the game, of course, there are an infinite number of ships. So this would only become a factor if your served nation is at peace with ALL other nations except the pirates.
That is extremely unlikely to ever happen. So unless we tweak things so that CAN happen, that real mechanism to drive people to piracy isn't going to work in the game.
Which means that there should be other reasons why piracy is NOT actually useless.

The first is that pirates don't get LoM's. I gather there are some players who don't want to align themselves to nations and so don't want LoM's. Also, pirates don't split their loot with governments. And some people might simply want to be pirates because, well, PIRATE!

At the moment we have two levels of "piracy":
- "Disrecpectable act"; regular acts of piracy fall in this category
- "Major act of treason", which mainly gets triggered through betrayal one way or another

So what you describe IS possible right now. But if I change "any act under a pirate flag" to "major act of treason", that becomes different.
Another reason to NOT do that then?

Of course I also haven't added any reputation loss from your betrayal just yet, though I do intend to add that to the "Major act of treason" some time.

If I understand correctly, being an English ship without a LoM and attacking a French merchant which hasn't fired on you first would count as a disrespectable act. You earn a few points with Pirates, lose a few points with France, and don't gain points with England because you have no LoM, and as it's a minor act then you don't lose reputation. Attacking the French ship while flying a French flag is a betrayal, loses you lots of points with all nations, earns you points with Pirates and does cost you reputation. My suggestion is to have a third level - hoisting a Pirate flag and then attacking the French ship earns you more points with Pirates than attacking with the English flag, costs you less points with all nations than attacking with the French flag, and doesn't cost you reputation.

So, three categories instead of two:
- Disrespectable act / minor piracy
- Major piracy
- Major betrayal / treason.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The Merchant License isn't that much of an exploit as it costs a million gold so you can't get it so easily.
Might be a bit of an excessive bonus that you get one at game start if you start as Merchant.
But it is also now easily lost through Piracy as you suggested before.

If you capture a ship, there is indeed a list stored of the cargo plundered.
But that works only when capturing I think, not when looting.

From what I understand, the players who don't want a LoM also don't intend to be full blown Pirates.
They just want to be "nothing".

If we don't truly need more levels of Piracy, I'd definitely prefer that.
I certainly recommend you have a look at the UpdateRMRelation function to look at its current state.
It can be made as complex as you want, but I've got to wonder how much complexity is fancy enough.

 

[Talisman]

From what I understand, the players who don't want a LoM also don't intend to be full blown Pirates.
They just want to be "nothing".

I think that is a fair description of me.

I have never been into the whole "promotion" thing. Since I don't play as an officer or with fixed loyalty to a nation.

I just like to play the quests - if I get these things given to me as part of the quest - fine otherwise I am not bothered.

That is the beauty of PotC - New Horizons - because there is so much of it - it enables players to play the game in so many different ways - which gives the game a very high replayability factor - it is one of the best things about it.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So am I to understand that nobody actually appreciates any efforts to distinguish between the various ways of lasting the game?
The whole "anything goes" logic in the game so far makes really very little sense.

You can sink and capture ships all you like and nobody really cares and there are no consequences.
You can take whatever you like and nobody bats an eye.
Actually joining the Pirates becomes completely pointless because you already HAVE all the freedom you could possibly want.
Joining the Pirates just makes everyone hostile. While being a Privateer only gives you benefits.

Does that truly make for good gameplay?

What I would hope for is for each choice to have both positive and negative consequences.
Play the game without allegiance and you won't be able to take ships without the nations getting upset and you won't make all that much money from it.
Become a Privateer and then you can, but you'll get still limited money and will be bound by certain rules that indicate what you can and can't do.
Join the Pirates and you'll be free from those rules, but you'll be hostile to all nations and non-pirate towns can become dangerous places.

In other words: pros and cons all around.
There won't be ideal situations anymore.
Definitely not as easy as it once was.

I always imagined there is MORE gameplay to be gained from that, not less.
Is that not what true role playing is all about?
To actually place you in the shoes of a real character whose difficult choices are yours to make.

And then there is the extra replay value.
Rather than always playing the game in the same way, you could play as a pirate one time and a Privateer the next.
Or play a Privateer who becomes a pirate or the other way around?

Am I being completely off my rocker with there thoughts?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

As for the original query about profit from privateering, one thing is very clear: it becomes very complicated very quickly.
It is a match between what people like, what matches with real history, what makes for interesting gameplay and what can actually be done with the code, ideally without spending a ridiculous amount of time and effort on it.
A tough balancing act if ever there was one!
And also not something that can possibly make for a final perfect solution that everyone can always be happy with.
That is just impossible, even though I try my hardest.

It seems to me that preventing players from doing what they want our penalising then for it in our examples is tricky at best.
It may be a lot easier to reward them for doing "the right thing" instead.

That could mean allowing players to do whatever the hell the want to do with prize ships.
But give nice bonuses to those who auction them off including cargo.
There are two things I can think of here: Add nation relation points as @Levis once suggested or have your share of the prize money go directly to your personal wealth instead of the crew fund.
I know that isn't such a positive thing right now because it only adversely affects the false flag detection chance, but it IS my intention to thoroughly change that later.

Does that provide any potential?

Alternatively, we should keep track of all cargo you loot from prize ships and subtract 50% of the value of that from your next sale prices.
I won't say that is impossible, but it is complicated for sure and would probably end up taking a good few weeks in the end to get right.

Just locking prize ships until you rebuy them for yourself is so much simpler.
Did I mention just how much I like simple solutions? Because I most certainly do!!!

 

[pedrwyth]

Just a side thought -Why are upgrades removable at all? or at least why can you sell them? I can understand cannons being easily transferable but a few of the others most certainly aren't and much of their value could go in the work of removing them. It would only be if you were desperate for cash and surely that is loan shark territory - who wants to downgrade their ship performance? I can see them adding to the overall value but not selling them off - which would solve some of the quandary

Incidentally internal settings already has a 75% value on sale of cannons -if that's still applied

 

[Talisman]

So am I to understand that nobody actually appreciates any efforts to distinguish between the various ways of lasting the game?

- All I was saying is this is the way I like to play the game - it is just one individual's opinion.

The only way we will know if these things are appreciated and worthwhile is when Beta 4 has a public release and a lot more people play it so that you get much more feedback - at the moment you are only getting feedback from 4-5 players who are unlikely to be representative of those who play the "public" versions of Build 14.

So I don't think you can truly asses the value of any of the improvements & changes that have been made until after Beta 4 has been publicly released.

And I personally would not want to make any judgements as to the value of any of the work done until after Beta 4 has been publicly available for a couple of months. So that we see what people think.


@Pieter Boelen -- you should not think that all the effort & hard work you put into Build 14 is unappreciated. It is appreciated a very great deal