Ships Market and Hideout Shipwright

[Captain Jack]

Ahoy everyone,

Here is the version 1.0 suggestion for Ships Market. The suggestion is based in the discussion that took place earlier and can be found here.

We hope for a quick finalization of the details in order to move to the implementation phase. Ideally, we would like to finish this feature in early October as we have many more features waiting in line.

New Expansion: Ships Market

Description:
A new market is created where all players are able to buy and sell ships for credits or gold.

Market Details:

In short:
1)Put a ship on sale
2)Ship remains there for as long as it needs (ie 63 days).
3)Once it receives a bid, it enters an auction before it is delivered. The auction timeframe is relevant to the ship type.

In detail:
-Sell ship option as we know it, will be maintained but instead of returning 100% of the building cost in gold coins, it will return a lower amount. (Currently set at 70%)

Ships Market will work as following:

1)It will have a storage where players will be able to put their ships on sale.
2)The storage will be 5 slots for every player + Additional slots at 20 credits (currently 5) per slot (one-time fee)
3)It will cost 2 turns to put a ship on sale. (Curently, it costs no turns to use the market)
4)The ship will not be removed from the market till it is sold.
5)Players will not be able to remove a ship from sale.

Sales will work as below:
-Anyone will be able to bid on a ship on sale.
-While a ship has no bid, the seller will be able to adjust price.
-Once a bidding arrives for a ship,a 2 days (48 hours) countdown (Countdown is relevant to ship type). During this countdown, everyone will be able to place further bids. Bids will work just like in voodoo market.
-Once a ship is sold, it will enter a 24hours (Currently 72 hours) protection at the market where the winner will be able to pick it up from the market. If the protection ends and the winner has yet to pick it up, it will be delivered to the winner where it will remain as a ship outside fleet. All ships will be delivered to the Home port (When ship is picked up, player will be able to choose which port he wants the ship delivered to) -everyone has a home port - for those that have a hideout, this is your home port - of the winning player.


New Hideout Building: Shipwright
-To further enhance the feature, we will allow players to construct ships in their own shipwright instead of the market shipwright.
-The prices will be different in the player shipwright in both gold coins and resources. However,there will be no turn cost and ships will be constructed in real time.

Shipwright, as all hideout buildings, will be upgradeable. It's philosophy will be similar to Goldsmiths. In order to have a successful and profitable shipwright you will need to invest a respectable amount of gold coins. The total value of investments required will be very high as we look to promote more loaning from the banks.

Levels will affect the following:
-Ship cost in resources
-Construction Time
-Internal Dock

The internal dock is something that all shipwrights will have. This will help producers to keep the ships they produce safe. It will work exactly like the internal warehouse of Goldsmiths. Players will be able to choose where ships are stored: Into their internal dock or at their hand.

Captains will be required when undocking ships from the internal dock to your hand but we will give an option to put them on sale immediately, where a captain will not be needed at this ocassion.

Constructed SoLs will also require an empty Private Marina slot when docked in the internal dock.

We seek feedback on the idea and suggestions on the number of slots available in the Internal dock (ie, 10 per level).

Shipping costs will be tuned in a way that ship building in your own shipwright will cost less than the shipwright after a specific level (ie level 5). Which means that if you have a shipwright of level 4, it should be more cost-effective to build them in the market's shipwright.

Gold bars will be used in all ship constructions. Most probably, a shipwright will have an upkeep in Gold Bars which will be relevant to the shipwright level. Upkeep will be paid only when the shipwright is constructing ships.

Shipwrights will also have a workforce, in the standards of Goldsmith. The workforce will consume Tobacco, Rum, Food and goldcoins and it will affect production speed.

Ships produced from player shipwrights will not have any difference with ships produced from market shipwrights. The only difference will be in ship value when selling back to the market which will be relevant to gold coins spent for the ship to be constructed.


Feedback/suggestions are mostly welcome.

[Warrior]

+1 to ship market.

The idea about hideout building shipwright is really great. But, right now it is obvious that the big traders have the most gold. Which means they are the ones who are going to do all this. Which just adds to their already huge pile of income. So -1 from a pirate's point of view. For a pirate or just some normal player, I think its no fun unless you've got a voodoo arsenal at hand. I see no way in which this can improve a player's play.

[Grapefruit]

I agree that this will give traders another source of income, but this can only be a good thing for pirates as the more gold traders make the more gold pirates can steal. If merchants are struggling to make profits then there will be no gold for pirates to steal.
If you want to build ships and trade goods you are a merchant.
If you want to rob, plunder and steal you are a pirate.
Or you can do both.

[Warrior]

I agree that this will give traders another source of income, but this can only be a good thing for pirates as the more gold traders make the more gold pirates can steal. If merchants are struggling to make profits then there will be no gold for pirates to steal.
If you want to build ships and trade goods you are a merchant.
If you want to rob, plunder and steal you are a pirate.
Or you can do both.

How'll you steal if all their gold goes into some bank ? And there are another class of players from whom its very very hard to steal unless you have a big stash of voodoo cards. And those players are the rich persons in here. Lots of complexities imo, its a lot to explain. To keep it simple the profit goes straight to a bank where you can never touch it. Or somewhere else... I think its hard to make new implementations without supporting more just to one side. I can't think of how this can be tweaked to make even pirates and other lower players profit from this. But there might be something...

[Captain Jack]

Pirates will earn from this in long term. With fleeting becoming easier, players will start having larger fleets once again.

Most importantly however, it will make fleet loss less of an issue. With fleet loss being less of an issue, there will be more offensive initiatives which will create more opportunities for all warlike avonmorans.

[Sir Henry Morgan]

+1

The ship market and ship builder is a great addition, as it takes one of the necessary functions (building, buying and selling ships) beyond a standard game function and provides opportunity for players to take part in it.

My question is currently, nation titles get a pretty hefty discount on the building and upgrading of their ships - how is that going to come into play in the new ship market?

I do like the idea of 25% of resource value on selling ships back (as we currently do it), as it will encourage the use of the ship market to sell ships. Perhaps the 25%-75% range may be variable according to the national title held by the seller?

[Captain Jack]

Excellent idea to use titles on the percentage when selling back to the market.

I think that we should maintain the bonus similarly in the shipwright. Upgrade is not an issue as shipwrights will play no role in this. But ship building, it will put perhaps an extra spice in port control.

[Dozer]

I like the basic idea of the shipwright in hide out. Like someone else said it will be more of a sport for the wealthiest of us. and like real life the rich get richer. There should be away to level the playing field somewhat, but I'm not sure how. I had thought eliminating the Free slots/captains would help, but ive already thought of a way round that lol.

It was mentioned that this would help invigarate the loan industry. The problem there is that the very people who have several hundred million laying around to loan out, are the ones that will be easily building and improving the shipwrights the fastest and thus getting a choke hold on it earliest. Thus flooding the market and making it nearly impossible for the little, mid sized, and slower/later to build little chance, because they will be stuck at that point where it wont be profitable for them to forge forwards for so long that it becomes nearly impossible for them to continue. It could be done, but you will have to take a very long view, and a bunch of patience.

I really wish i had more answers and less issues with this, because i do thing it is a really interesting addition to the game.

Oh forgot to say that the pirate issue should be no problem. All they have to do is organize there hits better and maybe work together with others. Knock some one around till they run out of gold and then take the ships and sell them. At least for now there is a decent value if you can catch a higher level ship to sell. many millions if you can get a lvl 10 SotL lol

[Captain Jack]

First of all, WELCOME to the forums

A determined and experienced player, not necessarily a pirate, can devastate anyone (steal mountains of gold along the way) in short time. If the target player has a cheap fleet, the loss might be less overall but still, the attacker can take away all ships.

With no ships, only banks can work. This is why banks are so expensive after all. The goldsmith needs ships and the shipwright will be no exception.

What shipwright mainly adds in the strategic warfare of the game, is that players will be able to buy a fleet instead of building it. This will be a bit more expensive but it will be instant. In the other hand, we expect 1 major change in the game and that has to do with the moral burden.

Nowadays, it can take a lot of time to rebuild a fleet from scrach. This is harsh and many people are not too offensive in order to avoid creating harsh feelings. With shipwright, fleet loss will not be a burden to lift therefore we expect an increase in voodoo attacks and out of the blue assaults. This will help the game overall. As for the gap between the really rich and the poor, in my opinion, it is not that great as you might think.

[Roberts]

First of all, WELCOME to the forums


Nowadays, it can take a lot of time to rebuild a fleet from scrach. This is harsh and many people are not too offensive in order to avoid creating harsh feelings. With shipwright, fleet loss will not be a burden to lift therefore we expect an increase in voodoo attacks and out of the blue assaults. This will help the game overall. As for the gap between the really rich and the poor, in my opinion, it is not that great as you might think.

No offence , i built 250 ships within a week... I do not think it takes that long... Oh no, its only that the rich traders have 1b whilst the pirates have 100 m... not that great...