I have been reading over some of the comments around the subject of customizable shipwrights being added to the game to provide a means of building ships with somewhat customized ship stats. This has been on my mind as I've been spending some time (when I have it) thinking over the subject of ship tech/ship customization/combat mechanics.
I am posting this to bring up the subject and work through some thoughts.
I have seen it offered that each player be allowed to build their own shipwright that they customize at their hideout. They would be able to produce unique ships that would have permanent attribute modifications that could then be sold to other players.
My initial thoughts on this are that if that is done, then a shipwright needs to be very expensive to set up and operate. This could limit the number of shipwrights in the game as they would be hard to set up. Only the wealthy would participate, much like with large banks and goldsmithing operations.
A suggestion I wanted to put feelers out for is the idea that GUILDS be the ones allowed to establish shipwrights.
The guild would research the various modifications they wanted to add to ships, stock for the building, and then sell the ships. Ships would/could be commissioned by other players ahead of time and the guild could build and deliver them, or build them and offer for sale on the ship credit market.
This would give guilds something to work together on, and provide a means of income to the guild. Guild leadership would contract the material shipping out to guild members or other players in return for compensation (I guess this means we need SHIPPING CONTRACTS as well...). The guild would also have to negotiate with a nation for a license to operate a guild shipwright at a port. This would be one factor that would add a beginning guild/nation diplomacy aspect to the game.
Not to tie in another subject here, but if this were implemented, I would put forth the idea of a GUILD SHOP (in conjunction with the guild shipwright) where guild members could sell their foundry tech products, assuming a foundry and related tech were implemented as well. https://www.piratesglory.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3073).
Humbly submitted for consideration..
~TH~