The Avonmora Study Guide

[Vane]

These do not allow much customization. The most one can customize currently is through attributes and for half the player base they have it down and every war ship is on par. The techs do not give customization where one beats another, it remains equal across the board if purchased and many seeking new options have these complete.

The hideout is meant to be a large sink for long term and wealthy players, I don't even believe it was foreseen that newer players would build hideouts and advance this quickly.

[Sir Thalius Hayle]

I can see that, and agree. By customization though, I am not thinking per fleet or per ship.

Research I had in mind would be such that allows for stronger hulls, or longer range guns, or increased mastery of the sail, or advanced trade skills. I could think of a few others.

Each tech could give a small boost to stats such as over-all fleet speed or maneuverability. Benefits would be slightly faster fleets or slightly greater chance to evade an enemy's cannons. Possibly an increased chance of escape when being skirmished by player with lesser research level, and greater chance of catching your prey in a skirmish if your target has lesser research level in this area. Maybe even a chance the player could avoid attack when showing up on the plunder screen. (I could suggest a setting for the player to set a fleet as aggressive or defensive. Defensive fleets try to flee when attacked, others stay for the fight. That would be a different discussion than the current one though...).

Thicker hulls mean ships can take more damage. Longer range guns mean greater chance to hit (or maybe just increase the chance of the player firing first regardless of ship speed in any engagement against an opponent without similar research). Advance trade skills lend a boost to profit from trade fleets. These benefits would apply to all of the ships you build after tech is acquired.

The cost and time to research each should be significant, and since each person only has so much time and can only research one tech at a time, there would be no way any one player could max all the skills short of investing time in the game for years. Through the academy, a player could customize his or her over-all game play strategy.

One player might invest all his research resources in greater mastery of the sail and be a difficult one to catch- but no time to invest much in better guns or stronger hulls. Easy target to take down once caught.

Another player has stronger ships. Deals out normal damage, but can take a pounding. Another has stronger, longer range cannons and usually has the advantage of firing first when going into a fight.

Yet another has increased trade profit. His ships are nothing much one way or the other, but he can afford to replace them.

The stat improvement should not be over powered of course, but the analysis offered at the start of this forum post suggests that the bonuses should be a bit more significant for the player that has invested the time and resources. I would not reduce the cost in time or gold at all, just the payout, assuming the assessment is correct, and offer research that allows the player to customize his over-all experience.

And it would not be the new players that had these research opportunities. They would need to grow, learn, and invest in order to get to the point where they could invest in a hideout and related infrastructure. If the benefits of acquiring and investing in these things were clearly seen in the game without being over-bearing, it would give newer players something exciting to pursue in order to take their game to the next level.

Individual fleet and ship customization is a different subject than what I had in mind, and something that I agree would be an improvement to the game as well.

[Vane]

Aye, I see where your going with this and agree it would be a form of customization. My issue lies to the point when multiple players have all of these maxed out. Then what? Its back to even.

We need a form of customization where you have choices and can not pick them all. This would mean every choice counts and a build/strategy is needed to be thought up for your specific craft in order to make it better. It will do well in some areas but lack in others. Perhaps technologies like you suggest in some form of tech tree line. Certain ones unlock others and your only ever allowed a specific number of points to spend never equaling the maxed potential. Allow players to refund their points and re-allocate once per 15 days. Then you can try different combinations and pick what you like best but again never have it all.


The tree lines could be anything, maybe one that starts with sails and works up to bow chasers and bar shot. One could begin with hull strength and work towards better powder or etc.

If we have 5 choices per line and 5 lines that's 25 total, so only allow 10 points. Some skills might make use of 3 points if maxed for better potential.

All just simple ideas but allow a very wide array of combinations where choice matters and one cant simply own it all.

[Meliva]

Is this guide still viable or have there been changes to the techs?

After double checking this great guide I noticed that the only info that is no longer completely accurate is whats written on piracy- since it was buffed slightly to also give gold when an enemy ship loses a level. Shame he isn't around to update it but ill give it a try. The boost unfortunately for math nerds like me is actually more or less impossible to give an estimate on considering you generally don't know how often a tail loses a level and the amount gained depends on what was damaged and what level it was I believe- And since most experienced players use proper tails this profit would be pretty low. However if you raid someone with a ton of ships-501 or more they have a 100% sink chance so each win will damage a ship and give you some gold but not many players have that many. But what he wrote Is still mostly relevant- its still only good for those who do tons of plundering. And the amount of battles to break even would still be rather high. Hope that helps you Caladan.

[Sir Thalius Hayle]

Aye, I see where your going with this and agree it would be a form of customization. My issue lies to the point when multiple players have all of these maxed out. Then what? Its back to even.

We need a form of customization where you have choices and can not pick them all. This would mean every choice counts and a build/strategy is needed to be thought up for your specific craft in order to make it better. It will do well in some areas but lack in others. Perhaps technologies like you suggest in some form of tech tree line. Certain ones unlock others and your only ever allowed a specific number of points to spend never equaling the maxed potential. Allow players to refund their points and re-allocate once per 15 days. Then you can try different combinations and pick what you like best but again never have it all.


The tree lines could be anything, maybe one that starts with sails and works up to bow chasers and bar shot. One could begin with hull strength and work towards better powder or etc.

If we have 5 choices per line and 5 lines that's 25 total, so only allow 10 points. Some skills might make use of 3 points if maxed for better potential.

All just simple ideas but allow a very wide array of combinations where choice matters and one cant simply own it all.

Agreed.

Perhaps the research opens up the tech tree options, and so time and investment are still required and only the players that earn the knowledge have the use of them.

Once the knowledge is acquired you can apply points in the tech tree as you desire, and the greater the level of research in a given area, the greater the bonus received in the tech where points are placed. Thus the academy and the customization of fleets and ships would be connected, as they should be in my mind.

[Shadowood]

Tech tree has been suggested before and I really like the idea. Vane is on the right track. Each ship should be able to be customized and it can be completely different from the next guy.

That is why we are so excited for Flagship. We will be able to upgrade what we think is of value to us.

[PFH]

Shadowood, I have a proposal with this tree.

Maybe the tech tree can have branches? like you can have a branch that increases plunder gains, a branch with higher damage, a branch with speeds and invasion, and a branch with durability.

You can only take one path at a time and if you complete the path, you ship gets a new ability that is permanent.

If you decide to leave a path, you lose all previous abilities and perks from the previous path except the one if you gain the last ability in the path.

What do you think of this brainstorm?

It's like leaving a nation. That was my idea's core.


EDIT 1: maybe with gaining all of the final perks is when you get a final legendary perk ( a choice between 3) such as:

-Deal 15% of target ship's health in addition to normal cannon fire every round.

-Consume (sink) target tail of fleet if this ship is the last ship plundering at end of assault. If above level 1, reduce level by 1. Consuming repairs ship by 25% of the base health of the tail's ship. Cannot consume Sotl's or MoWs.

Every shot fired at this ship has an additional 45% chance of missing. This ship has 35% faster speeds if alone in fleet and adds 15% speed to fleet if not alone.

[Shadowood]

Not sure about abandoning something and having to start from scratch. I think with any tech tree you have a choice with what branches you want to research. You can max 1 branch or slowly build all branches together.

Like Flagship there should be construction points. Each branch upgrade you do the next one would cost more. You could decide to bank points to max a branch or again slowly level each branch together

[PFH]

Not sure about abandoning something and having to start from scratch. I think with any tech tree you have a choice with what branches you want to research. You can max 1 branch or slowly build all branches together.

Like Flagship there should be construction points. Each branch upgrade you do the next one would cost more. You could decide to bank points to max a branch or again slowly level each branch together

I was thinking about that as well...maybe research one at a time and when you want to research another, you keep the previous and work on another...

[Vane]

Leads me back to.... what happens when many players have all maxed? back to on par. Needs a system that does not allow one player to take advantage of every research/tech/ability at one time.