Ship Specialization: Special Crew and First Mate (Large)

[Stan Rogers]

Experienced Riggers- Ability to increase maneuvering ability and increase turning speed. Slight speed increase ( if ship ran alone).
How about camo paint to ensure 1st plunder attack ?

Of course then there is all the types of shot a cannon may use, Some more effective on certain types of ships More research maybe needed for sticky phospher shot ? just throwing out silly ideas ,,

[Shadowood]

Bump - For those that are newer to see and discuss an upcoming feature.

[Maha]

]

Powder Monkey: Increases the damage done by the cannon ball.
Master Gunner or Gunner: Increases accuracy
Carpenter or Boatswain: Repairs the ship on a hourly basis/ decreases upkeep costs.
Sailing Master or Navigator: Increases ship speed.
Musician: Increases morale/ decreases upkeep costs
Cook: Makes food/ Decreases upkeep costs/ Heal wounded soldiers ( when foot battles are implemented )

Experienced Riggers- Ability to increase maneuvering ability and increase turning speed. Slight speed increase ( if ship ran alone

voodoomaster: increased chance to escape voodoo
diplomat: gain trade advantages
lookout: increases skirmish range (other fleets in the same port are longer on the skirmishboard)
Bottelier: +1 on rumtrader
alt salt: increased fishing
landlubber: decreases all aspects of the ship by 15% (oh the fun to be had with landlubbers)
boarding specialist: more chance to gain an enemy ship
captain of the marines: buff on port raids
sergeant-major of the marines: repel boarders (counter of boarding tech)

[Mugiwara]

First Mate:
-He will gain battle experience and will improve over time (time experience).

Experience should change due to battle's difficulty. there is no point to get same amount of exp for both winning against howker fleet or winning against sotl fleet. Exp amount can be calculated based on total hp of losing fleet/ total hp of winning team. stronger opponent more valuable.

[Shadowood]

In RL I agree that crew, first mates, captains get better as time goes on. Then learn how best to handle their ships, how best to defend, how best to attack, Safest Routes, Places to Hide, etc...

I sort of get the "Time Experience", but think it should be more action based.

For traders: Each "Safe" port movement earns "experience", if you happen to get skirmished/attacked and lose, you lose experience.
For pirates/privateers: Each winning battle earns you experience and each loss, you lose experience.

For some reason I really like JessicaA "CP" model for Flagship and I would lean toward applying that system here for First Mates. Call them "EP" (Experience Points).

Then the Merchant or Pirate can spend "EP" on certain abilities that are determined.

Traders:
- Evasion
- Better Defend Roll
- Faster Sailing Ships (Route Knowledge)
- Sink Chance is more in traders favor
- Etc

Pirates:
- Faster Sailing Ships
- Decreased turns or danger points per attack
- Increased Plunder from victims purse
- Increased Maneuverability (copper plating)
- Etc

Or this could be an area to introduce Tech Trees. And use "EP" points to unlock certain tech before advancing to the next...

[Shadowood]

Bump for current discussion... 2/15/18

[Qwerty00172]

I've been thinking about this a bit. Unusual for me, lol.

First observation. The value of specialised crew would become more important if some global changes were done in future. Tweaks that steer a few things closer to RL situations. For example-
If random weather events (either global or port vicinity based) created damage to sails or masts while at sea, having a sailmaster or ship's carpenter aboard could be used to limit the effect or carry out repairs. They could also play a limited role in repairing battle damage.

Second observation. If wealthy players can just put one of each specialised crew on a capital ship, there is no skill involved in choosing the right mix to get the best outcome. There would need to be a mechanism which forces you to make choices.
The closest thing we currently have is ship attributes. There are six, with a maximum of 10 points for each ship attribute.
Imagine we had six specialised crew types, with a maximum of 10 points for each crew type, BUT, you could only allocate 30 points across all six crew types. You would be forced to make some choices. Depending on the purpose of the fleet, you might set one fleet crew up differently to another. I'm not saying this would be the best mechanism, but if everyone eventually just maxed out to maximum levels on all specialisations, whats the point?