Okay.. so traits are now with us and they are a great addition to the game : so many new ways to add value and to finesse our fleet strategies.

But the ship market doesnt show traits and having given it some thought... I think we are missing a great opportunity to add value and variety (and thus new tactics and potential surprises) to the game.

Examples : I am Capt PhatTrader : I got lots of LMM fleets with howker tails : them pirates want my gold. Traits give me potential but which ones? Extra cargo? Oh yes.. but maybe levi assault has value.. a nasty kick in the tail for pirates! Loyal crew? Nope.. not for my trade fleets but for my war fleet.. yes please!.

So off to market I go... mmm... lots of LMM but which do I want for my strategy... these are priced higher.. might have a good trait..but which one? Pot luck, Ronnie, cos nobody knows.

Same applies to the pirate and privateer... each will want, and pay for, specific traits on specific ship types. But Reggie... nobody knows...

Consider the ship builder... howkers with loyal crew or extra level.. meh.. howkers with extra cargo.. or levi assault.. or fire assault.. mmm... some-one might want those but how do I tell them?

Forum posts and link to market! Well.. yes.. lot of work cos its not one-off.. create post and keep it up-dated yep.. but watch it drop down and off the tavern pages within a few hours.. so.. bump it back up.. and watch 6 suggestion reviews knock it back off-page again.. ooops. So, is half-a-dozen ship builders bumping posts twice-daily an ideal solution?

Sellers reputations mean nothing if you cant see who is selling until you have bought the ship. If I over-price and you buy and get a ship you dont think is worth the extra cos you thought it might be good cos of the price well.. how can you avoid my over-priced ships in future? You cant.. cos you dont know which are Rotten Reggies rip-offs .. and which are Reasonable Rons wonderfully under-priced bargains.

What it comes down to is this : you wouldnt buy a car if you couldnt be told what engine it had or how many seats or even who made it. 'Its a car, mate! Thats all you need to know!'.

If we want a maket that truly reflects sellers reputation, value and realistic pricing.. for both buyer and seller.. then traits and seller need to be displayed.

If we just want a lottery where buyers gamble they will get want they want and sellers have to price at basic and never benefit from having built it (with cost paid in turns coin and materials) without they spam the forums daily with linking posts... then leave it as it is and waste the chance to do better.

Oh.. and change the name of the page to Casino.. cos thats what it will be.

This is an unpaid endorsement of Danik's post

The ability to see traits in the ship market was a point of discussion. The intentions are that once all traits are active and completed, visibility of the traits could be set forth in Ship Markets. This hasn't been set in stone, but is a consideration as there is still substantial work and testing that needs to take place on traits before we move to the next step.

Why wait? Sure the traits themselves may need work but they are already allocated and we know enough to be aware if we want ships, and which ships, that have them : I know which ones I want to meet my needs : what we all dont know is which ships on the market meet that criteria and thus which we should be bidding on and what price will obtain them for us. As a seller we dont know what to set as a basic price because as a market.. it just doesnt work unless both sides meet at the optimum price for both sides. For that process to work both sides need to know and agree on what precisely is being sold.
I have already stood back from the market for almost a month while traits were announced then introduced : now I have to stand back until some vague point in the future when the above mentioned discussion bears fruit. Thats not good enough for me or for any notion of having a vibrant ship market that benefits both sides of the transaction.
Its a simple thing : display the traits and we can all figure it out. If future discussion leads to a different POV.. then it can be changed along with any others changes the new format may require.

I would say issues found in the traits. There are a few traits that aren't active and are still being coded. This is time consuming.

Additionally, I wouldn't want to have a buying frenzy on a specific trait that isn't currently active just to have the trait not function as originally designed or be removed due to unforeseen considerations. It's a legitimate reason as at least one trait has been updated on functionality as a realization occurred to how powerfully devastating the trait would be in the original intended implementation. The trait almost went completely to the way side and the trait would have been re cast for any ship that had it to a different trait.

Fair enough.. but folk may still be buying ships with those un-activated traits.. they just wont know until they collect it from the market. Thats the issue.. its all very well saying buyer beware it may not work as intended but the buyers arent aware enough to beware.
Currently we do know which traits are active and thus working as intended : thats the majority of them and enough to start forming a market around tjose traited ships.

Fair point.

The flip side, would be build your own ships.

If you are in need of large number of ships quickly, then you aren't really looking for traits, you looking for just a lot of ships. The trait would be secondary.

If your focus is traits, build your own until the market is updated, or take the risk on the market. Worst case, you can just put it back on the market.

Thats what I am doing until this gets sorted out. Its just a waste as I am scrapping ships which others may want. Why put them into a market where nobody can see what they are? Who is gonna buy a random Howker for 1 cr? It may have extra cargo but who is to know? Shall every shipbuilder run a forum page to tell us? Then why bother with the market.. lets just have dozens of forum threads instead and run auctions in them. Which is insane as we do have a market auction system already in place. It worked well enough when all we needed to know was type and attribute score but now every type has a bonus attached which changes its value and one LMM at 40 atts is not the same as the one above or below it in the listings.

As a youngster, back in the day, it was considered foolish to buy a "'pig in a blanket" or in realistic terms, livestock without visually inspecting them before the cash was exchanged so one knew what they were buying.

Personally, I think that lesson carries over to this application as well and soon as I decide what type of traits I want to assign to specific fleets, the ole shipwright is going to be busy.
It's a balancing act I am sure that only the admins can figure out to their reasons, both pro and con to more ship transparency on the market.
For the mass merchant, it's not going to make a real big difference when they want to scoop up a couple hundred trade ships but for the discriminating pirate or minimalist players, it makes a huge difference IMO.

Edit- The following statement says volumes as there are work-around's to get the info/ships you want but it would take a fair amount of to and frowing between buyer and seller via forum or PM.

" Who is gonna buy a random Howker for 1 cr? It may have extra cargo but who is to know? Shall every shipbuilder run a forum page to tell us? Then why bother with the market.. lets just have dozens of forum threads instead and run auctions in them. Which is insane as we do have a market auction system already in place"


Therein lies the danger to the ship market as it currently sits. Again...jmho

I agree with Danik.

Show the traits, and show them now. No need in waiting for them to be fully implemented.

We can see the ATT points and how they are distributed. The buyer knows before hand if they are going to need to cast a "remodel" on such ship and they take the into account when buying certain ships. Traits should be no different.

#MSMGA