Help with editing

[chappers0001]

I find that the wages for the crew and the officers is ridiculously large. Was inquiring as to wether anyone knows how to edit the files so that I can reduce the amount of money they extort out of me every month?

 

[Luke159]

Hey bud, normally the wages aren't a problem in fact most people moan because they have so much money they don't know what to do with it.

How are you making money?
Do you run with a maximum crew?
Do you have many officer's?
Do you have companions?

You can make money in all types of way's, running merchant missions for store owner's is where i start from, but you can do missions for the port controller, citizens, shipyard owner, govener, the tevern owner will sometimes hook you up with someone looking for a ship, almost everyone in town has missions you can do for them.

If doing merchant missions for the store owner save before asking about work, then if the place he's asking you deliver the goods to is too far away you can reload and try again. This gets you into the saving often roll aswell which you'll want to do just in case the game crashes or you get a currupt save/load.

Maximum crew, if your ship say's it can carry 100 crew and you have over 100 crew the total amount of crew will be in red, this means you are squeezing people onboard and that effects moral and also increases your monthly costs. If doing merchant missision you'll not need to have more than the maximum crew the ship say's it can hold. Depending on the ship you might not even need maximum crew, example carrying 300 crew onboard a Heavy Galleon is pointless so i will have 150 at most, it cuts costs buts i'm normally making more than i know what to do with it anyway.

Hiring officer's is a good way to increase your ships abilities, but hiring to many to soon will increase your costs which in the first 2 months of gameplay you will want to keep as low as you can. The main roles to fill is trade and navigation, cannon skill can be seen as important by some but to me its not, not in the first month at least.

Having companions is a good way to increase your income, however it will also increase your monthly outgoings, try not to have companions too early on.

Ship type will drastically effect the monthly costs, if your sailing a class 3 it will cost you more upkeep than a class 4 ship with similar stats, try not to move up the ladder to soon, build your money up before moving up that ladder.

So in short what can you do to make money. Well start by doing trade missions for the store owner, you'll make some money for each run you do and you'll easily cover the ships monthly upkeep. Only hire 2 officer's at the start, treasurer and navigator, with these you should have better speed and your trade ability will hopefully be good enough to buy goods and trade them yourself. Now press F2 and go to trade, you will get a list of all stores you have visited. With this imformation you can start looking for goods that you can buy cheap and sell at a profit, the best ones to compare are. Ebony, Mahogany, Gold, Silver and Sandalwood. Try to find a town that exports one of these goods as they should be cheap (depends on how many they have in stock) now look for a town that imports that good, compare the purchase price from the town you will buy it from to the selling price at the town you will sell it to. If there is a profit then do it.

The other way is same as above but rather than searching for a town that imports it look for a town that see's it contraband then sell it to a smuggler at that town (this can lead to massive money early on for Sandalwood, Ebony and Mahogany) the bad news is it can lead to you been listed as enemy by the nation who catches you selling the goods to the smugglers.

What you should look for in a trade ship, well every ship will have its key points but speed and cargo space are key for any trade ship. Speed not so much but if you want to aviod getting involved in battles or your doing smuggling runs then speed will be important. Cargo space is very important and you should alway's pay close attention to cargo space because this will allow you to carry more goods to sell.

If your playing as a pirate then cargo space doesn't really matter too much but is still important, speed and agility are important, amount of guns mounted can be seen as important but if your playing the way a true pirate was then guns make little difference as pirates tried to aviod using them since there job was getting the goods off the ships not sinking the ships.

If playing as a military type of person then cargo space is not important but should be looked at as you'll need space to carry the goods like rum, food, ammo etc. Speed isn't that important either since you'll not be looking to catch your enemy to board them straight away. Amount of guns you can mount is important as is what there max calibure is too, the higher the max calibure the better. Hull strength, this is very important because you won't want to be sunk that easily.

So it depends on how your playing the game, example if i'm playing as a merchant and i capture a Frigate, i will use the Frigate for a while because most of the time the ship i was using had a smaller cargohold, once i purchaase or capture a Fleut or Galleon, i will put the Frigate in storage to cut the monthly costs. I most often capture ships rather than purchase them (i don't like spending money). I will only spend money on ships i will keep like the Constitution, Surprise, Victory or other MOW etc etc. A Fleut i will end up selling because i will find a ship with a bigger cargohold, a MOW has a large cargohold which makes trade ships no good in the end. Upkeep costs a furtune but the amount you can make from a single smuggling run will cover you for a few months at least.