Plunder Formula tweak discussion

[Captain Jack]

I like SHM break down into pieces.

Regarding turn cost, let us not forget that for the "trader" to make a worthy income,he needs to keep investing turns into buildings ships and buying captains and this process is ultimately a lot slower than the start the "pirate" has.

The ideas for skirmish are nice I must say.

[not a pirate]

SHM's idea is a start, but I believe it needs a little tweaking. If one has no research into Skirmish Tactics, they get 3 a day. This means that if I plundered Lana's fleet for 20k 3 times, I could make 60k a day off of this. This is not that much, however, the idea of not costing turns kinda balances it out..

[Captain Jack]

Hideout initial cost can be lowered from 10M to 1M virtually at anytime.

[Admiral Nelson]

I like SHM break down into pieces.

Regarding turn cost, let us not forget that for the "trader" to make a worthy income,he needs to keep investing turns into buildings ships and buying captains and this process is ultimately a lot slower than the start the "pirate" has.

The ideas for skirmish are nice I must say.

I do like SHM post too.

Let us not forget though , they can build it up ; once its complete they do not have to build the ships again.

But the pirate has to attack constantly, costing turns. Continuously

[Hawk]

Naw, three cutters and 2 sotls, you have a higher then a 50% chance to lose next to nothing. But you still run risk of losing more gold from having the sotls. Not a bad thing in my book

Regarding Influence. If you gained influence by battling at that port, trading at that port, and donating to that port, rather then just casting voodoo cards. I think battle rates between traders would skyrocket.

+1 Sir Morgan

[Captain Jack]

The "trader" still has a sizeable risk whereas the "pirate" does not. Its very balanced. It's mostly up to player styles. What we want is more tools for everyone so everyone can adjust the game to his style.

[Admiral Nelson]

The "trader" still has a sizeable risk whereas the "pirate" does not. Its very balanced. It's mostly up to player styles. What we want is more tools for everyone so everyone can adjust the game to his style.

You know, just as I do, Pirates have more to lose then some players think turns, stocks and more. I think Skirmish needs changing before this is implemented, can we start a discussion about it?

Yes, they do but I normally try to avoid hitting the same player ; Giving them a two week break ( A example of this is Damn the Torpedos )

[Captain Jack]

The thing we could implement right away for skirmish is to remove the turns cost. The other two articles (+1 DR and skirmish limit) can wait.

[Admiral Nelson]

The thing we could implement right away for skirmish is to remove the turns cost. The other two articles (+1 DR and skirmish limit) can wait.

+1 to that, maybe a additional bonus if you are in the port and skirmish?

Or as I said a extra 2.5% that the player holds ( Paid by game )

As when a new player starts pirating, he needs to build profit somehow; Either seeking a advanced player who be a pirate, or start skirmishing..

20,000 x 100= 2 Million, which is 3 FoJ, the profit margin needs improving I believe.

[Haron]

Oh, lots to comment here. I'll start with the latest part - skirmish.

I have researched the skirmish technology a little, and think that anyone who has studied skirmish to level 20 is either stupid or has too much gold and nothing to do with it. That woulg give you 23 skirmish points every day. Meaning you have to spend 92 turns every day to benefit from it, and gain a total of 138 danger, possibly spread out over several fleets. If you spend less, then studying it to level 20 makes no sense; better to study it to a lower level.

Removing the turn cost and/or danger is one possibility to make skirmish better. I think it should be linked to skirmish tech level, though - perhaps make the cost 3 turns at level 5, 2 turns at level 10, 1 turn at level 15 and 0 turns at level 20. But there are others, as well. For instance, the "skirmish point storage" is currently 72 points - whatever your level. For level 0, that's 24 days of skirmish points you can store. For level 20, it's not even 3 days. Increasing this along with the skirmish level would be nice. Perhaps make it equal to 24 days of skirmish points, whatever your level.

Another thing would be the option to hit targets more than 5 times each day. The proposed "3 times each hour" would remedy that a little. I'm tempted to suggest some tweaks to this, but fear that it might be too detrimental to traders to remove the limit altogether, and too complex to set a limit based on the attackers skirmish level, since it's the defender who has a limit. I would personally suggest max 5 skirmishes pr target PR ATTACKER, so that a target might be attacked a lot, but only by different players, and have the 5 skirmishes increase with skirmish tech level.

Another powerful addition to skirmish would be to steal a portion of gold from the target in addition to the cargo. For instance 1% pr skirmish tech level, so that maximum of 20% of the cargo value could be stolen in extra gold. For a "typical" fleet of LMMs trading in tools, that would be about 20% of 20k, which is 4k stolen in gold. If the max 5 attacks pr target stays, then a target may lose maximum 20k gold pr day this way. It might sound little, but it might add a new strategy when stealing ships.

It all depends on how strong skirmishes should be, and what their effect should be. Personally, I think at least reducing the turn cost with increased skirmish tech level, and increased storage, should be implemented. More attacks might be too hard on the merchants, but I think think I like the idea of stealing an additional portion of gold from the target.