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WIP Merchant passport should not negate the influence of commerce skill on prices

Discount for Privateers then at their own nation stores?
That doesn't actually help to give a bonus to Merchants though. :wp
 
Personally I see no compelling gameplay or realistic reason to offer anyone discounts, except for naval officers. They are the only ones who truly should be exempted from much of the economic considerations, and where it makes sense for a nation to supply them.

I think Gre Roger's ideas work for the license for now, and later, we just need to develop ways for merchants to manipulate commodity prices and invest. :)
 
I think we're pretty much all agreed then on the right course of action.
So I marked this now as "Planned Feature" and included the to-do list in the opening post.

Now it's just a matter for somebody to make it happen. :cheeky
 
Pieter Boelen said:
So then....:
- Merchant License unlocks proper large merchant ships for purchase
- Allows you to do business with merchants in hostile towns (provided you have no hostile LoM), NOTE: It would be tricky (but not impossible) to distinguish here between merchants and other characters!
- DO NOT: Affect skill/perk influence on pricing
- DO NOT: Limit trading in any way
Click to expand...
Sounds good to me. :onya As for distinguishing between merchants and other characters - this doesn't matter. I've never been all that happy with trying to pigeon-hole characters into specific types anyway. Basically, if you've paid the price and bought the merchant licence then you get the benefits and it doesn't matter what else you do, other than certain activities will cause the lience to be removed.

Don't forget the number 1 benefit of a merchant licence, presumably not on the above list because it's already implemented - you can accumulate huge wealth without having to share it with the crew.

Pieter Boelen said:
Discount for Privateers then at their own nation stores?
That doesn't actually help to give a bonus to Merchants though. :wp
Click to expand...
Privateers don't need a discount. They're making loads of money from privateering. They're not official navy and they're not in any merchant guild so why would stores give them a discount? It's the player who tries to live purely by peaceful, honest trading who may need a bit of help.
 
Grey Roger said:
As for distinguishing between merchants and other characters - this doesn't matter.
Click to expand...
To clarify, I meant "distinguishing between store owners and shipyard/tavern owners".
The TradeCheck function is called for all of them, so an update to that function depending on the Merchant License would affect all of them.
A "solution" would be to check the current location ID and, if it doesn't contain the word "store", then skip the effect of the License.

Grey Roger said:
I've never been all that happy with trying to pigeon-hole characters into specific types anyway.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Actually, I'm quite proud that in PotC that is indeed not the case.
You actually can be a Merchant and a Privateer at the same time. Or a Pirate and a Privateer.
Which I find really cool. :woot

Grey Roger said:
Don't forget the number 1 benefit of a merchant licence, presumably not on the above list because it's already implemented - you can accumulate huge wealth without having to share it with the crew.
Click to expand...
Indeed the only reason I didn't mention that is because it is already the case, so it doesn't need to be changed. :cheeky

Grey Roger said:
Privateers don't need a discount. They're making loads of money from privateering. They're not official navy and they're not in any merchant guild so why would stores give them a discount?
Click to expand...
I didn't actually think that was a particular good idea anyway. ;)
 
So this is ready to be implemented right?
Could someone give a final recap? Or is the post of @Pieter Boelen still the recap?
Well I guess he will be the one implementing it so it doesn't matter that much :p.
 
Levis said:
So this is ready to be implemented right?
Could someone give a final recap? Or is the post of @Pieter Boelen still the recap?
Click to expand...
As far as I can tell, everyone is agreed on what it says in the opening post.

Levis said:
Well I guess he will be the one implementing it so it doesn't matter that much :p.
Click to expand...
I am? Good luck with waiting until I finally get round to it! :shock
 
Technically the removal of the commerce skill negation is already "implemented" in the file I posted. Commenting out a couple of lines. ;)

Jokes aside, we should probably implement the file I posted to remove the commerce negation now, and then slowly add the other benefit. Noone seemed to think the merchant license would be weak and worthless without it (it was generally observed to still have a worthwhile benefit), and the commerce negation is bad gameplay.

Basiclaly, no reason to wait to implement the file I posted (just remember not to use the salary changes in the same file unless we are doing that as well).

As for the longer term merchant passport dialogue to allow trading even if hostile, I can look at modding that in myself. I think I could probably figure it out with some help, I get the basic way checks are done and such. I'll look at that part in a week or so.

The ship upgrade one I don't want to tackle though, too far outside what I understand.

So, in other words, I think:

1) the commenting out of commerce negation is ready to go, and isn't dependent on anything

2) i will look at the merchant passport/hostile relation thing, to save time for Pieter

3) if noone wants to do the ship thing right now, just leave it alone for now and let's do the other things and get them implemented first. No part of this is so delicately balanced that all pieces have to be in place first.
 
Tingyun said:
As for the longer term merchant passport dialogue to allow trading even if hostile, I can look at modding that in myself. I think I could probably figure it out with some help, I get the basic way checks are done and such. I'll look at that part in a week or so.
Click to expand...
PROGRAM\Characters\CharacterUtilite.c, function 'TradeCheck' .

Tingyun said:
The ship upgrade one I don't want to tackle though, too far outside what I understand.
Click to expand...
PROGRAM\INTERFACE\shipyard.c
I think it should actually be that hard. The main delaying factor there is me trying to find the time to do it.
Once I get to it, I'd imagine it should be quite quickly arranged.

What ships are to be excluded though? Tier 5 and above ships that are "Trade" only? Or also the "Trade"/"War" combinations?

Tingyun said:
the commenting out of commerce negation is ready to go, and isn't dependent on anything
Click to expand...
Very true. Hopefully sometime in the next two weeks or so, we can combine all the currently scattered code changes so that I'll be on the same page as everyone else again. :cheeky
 
Pieter, I think we shouldn't limit all the biggest trade ships (as realistically many might be sold outside the control of any trading licenses, and we don't want to completely mirror the military situation).

Grey Roger suggested two particular ships that made sense to him, and provided convincing reasons for his choices. I'd say go with those two. I can dig his post up for you, will edit it in.

Here are Grey Roger's suggestions, quoting his earlier post:

"If you're going to have ship types only available for sale if you have a Merchant Licence then I recommend the Heavy East Indiaman and the Fast Merchantman. The former is a "versatile" ship, a good fighter and a good trader, as likely to be used by a navy as by a merchant, and as capable as some purely naval ships which can't be bought except at high enough rank. The Fast Merchantman is basically a converted frigate, perhaps converted to the merchant company's specification and at the company's expense, for use by its own people. (The Fast Merchantman is not currently available to America. We'd either need to restrict some other, America-specific, ship, or make it available to America just so we can prevent American characters from buying it without a licence. xD)"
 
Pieter Boelen said:
What ships are to be excluded though? Tier 5 and above ships that are "Trade" only? Or also the "Trade"/"War" combinations?
Click to expand...
Nothing that widespread. Two specific types - Heavy East Indiaman (all variants, bearing in mind every nation has its own) for "Spanish Main" and "Golden Age", and Fast Merchantman (two variants) for "Colonial Powers" onwards. Merchant guilds shouldn't really even exist in "Early Explorers" but we can probably find something suitable for them to claim if they do need to exist, and need to restrict access to a ship type, in that period.
 
So only those two then? Would require a bit more coding, because either:
- We refer to specific IDs in the code, which is a bit of a messy way to handle it
or
- We add a new attribute to ships that are restricted by the merchant license

Totally doable though. Just wanted to make sure I've got the right approach in mind. :doff
 
The attribute sounds good, especially if it's easier. That way, if someone adds a new ship and decides it ought to be available to merchant licence holders only, it's easily arranged. It also means anyone who can find his way around "shipsInit.c" can restrict or unrestrict ships to suit himself. :onya
 
Grey Roger said:
The attribute sounds good, especially if it's easier. That way, if someone adds a new ship and decides it ought to be available to merchant licence holders only, it's easily arranged. It also means anyone who can find his way around "shipsInit.c" can restrict or unrestrict ships to suit himself. :onya
Click to expand...
It's a little bit harder to code. But only a little bit.
And it adds the flexibility you mention. So I do believe that's the way to go. :yes
 
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