Two of the many thing Maha likes about this game is that the players have so many choices to make and that they can operate banks etc.

this suggestion proposes to change a game based feature, the shipwright, into the hands of players.

it would be a building in the hide-out system, higher levels open up more ship types. eg.
level 1:hawker, cutter, sloop & fluyt (Doggerwhen implemented)
level 5:Sloop of war, galleon, Large Fluyt, Merchant man and trade galleon
level 10: Brigantine, large merchant man, brig, brig of war and war galleon
level 15 : Frigate, flag galleon and large frigate
level 20: Ship of the line

the in between levels lower the construction costs of the ships in that level.

each shipwright can only operate in one port! for security reasons Maha thinks that it should not come automatically in the port connected with the hideout.

the shipwright tab on the market page will show all available shipwrights of that port in a similar way as the bank pages work. but instead of showing interest and credit rates, the shipwrights can put their cutting edge prices (buying and selling) for the ships they produce.
the client still has to provide the supplies, the shipwright provides the construction side and workforce. (maha has heard that goldsmith are employing laborers, should the shipwright have the same requirement? since Maha regrets that he has no goldsmith, he has to leave that part for the wise and kind goldsmith

so essentially make it to where players can run their own ship building services, and have their services be shown in the shipwright screen? I am not sure if such a building would be a worthy investment. for starters you say it would be restricted to one port, which could lead to serious competition. what if 10+ people all have one in one port, while another port has no shipwrights in it? the former would be too much competition and the latter would have no way of building ships. not to mention certain ports are better to use for ship building. I believe the most common is Aiora due to it being a wood port that is close to all the other resources needed. so it could end up crammed with so many shipwrights its not even funny.

Maybe make it different from making them from the npc, like when the ship is made it can be already at a higher level, or maybe a ship which have a (Handmade) next to it which allows the player to upgrade it to level 20 and all the stats to max 20. That would be epic. Special ships.

maha put up the one port suggestion to allow for more shipwrights.
like the banks, more banks come into play all the time and with that the profit marge goes down. (not sure Maha uses the right terminology) too many providers spoil the market. it is the same with the goldsmith i understand.

the one port only restriction helps to spread the competition. such a shipwright is of course of lesser value than a avonmora wide consortium. the investment of building/ developing the shipwright should represent this.

Aiora is a favorite port for shipwright, but not everybody gets a discount in that port only the select honorable few Other players may get discount in another port and are thus able to get a larger profit.

and, oh the joy or despair when a port changes hands
Aiora will be a favorite port to have a shipwright, especially by those who rule there. it will be a much more coveted port though. With Vietnam on the warpath, who dares to invest in such an obvious target?

Grimrock Litless wrote:Maybe make it different from making them from the npc, like when the ship is made it can be already at a higher level,

+1 this could be done

Grimrock Litless wrote:or maybe a ship which have a (Handmade) next to it which allows the player to upgrade it to level 20 and all the stats to max 20. That would be epic. Special ships.

-1 this would not add real value to the game, it just makes the older ships obsolete, lacking those levels. Also, when it is implemented all over the board, there won't be a real difference from the present system, only more levels to pay for. but where we now level up to 10 we just do it to 20 and that's it. the stat spread will basically look the same since that is doubled as well.

Maha wrote:

Grimrock Litless wrote:Maybe make it different from making them from the npc, like when the ship is made it can be already at a higher level,

+1 this could be done

just a quick brainstorm
could the shipwright replace the auction? if the shipyard offers a double payment system, one as the npc shipwright as we have it now, paying partly in resources AND payment in credits for upgraded vessels.

ships that are bought by the shipwright are turned into supplies and gc. (a conversion formula should be based on base price and attribute points)

however, to be able to sell ships for credits only, the shipwright needs to provide the resources himself and needs to have a warehouse stocked with the supplies. Maha suggest a waiting period like the auction has. not that others can overbid on the vessel, but to prevent instant and temporary use of ships (it should not be a ship rental for pirates). the delivery time for upgraded is relative to influx of extra credits. working overtime should be rewarded after all!

ships sold are demolished and the resources return in the warehouse or when that is full are sold on the market.

But a self made ship would have to be different from those from the npc. Or not I think people would just buy from the npc, because its cheaper and easier.

the idea is to replace the npc altogether.
just like there is no npc bank.
a player controlled system creates more opportunities and possibilities in gameplay

think about blocking players, guilds or nations from your shipwright, or providing discounts to them
eg. the master of doom ticks of too many players who own shipwrights, where can he restock his fleets?

true pirates are lean and mean, hard to hurt them in a significant way. but when they cannot easily get new ships? Live becomes a bit harder for them.
on the other hand, selling a plundered ship to the shipyard would pay instantly, no more waiting for aspirant buyers. MOW will become even more rare since selling them to the shipyard makes them disappear. (or the shipwright gets the option to resell ships that are sold to him.)

a big -1 from me. replacing the npc shipwright would be a terrible idea. this would make it to where NO ONE could get ships without either
A.- having another players shipwright build it for them
or
B.- plunder ships for yourself.
or
C.- build your own shipwright.
and each of these have SERIOUS flaws. A makes you completely reliant on other players. B will make you enemies, and you still NEED ships in the first place to plunder them. and C would be incredibly costly to do. this idea will not be creating more opportunities at all, it will literally cripple just about everyone.

Point 1)
Moving shipwrights entirely to player hands is too risky of a business for the game well being. We speak of one of the most important elements in the game. Due to this, whatever actions are related to ship building, will be slowly integrated into the game.

Point 2)
We got a feature called ships market. We have no intention to create another way of player to player ship trading. First and foremost because this would cost us precious dev time which can be used elsewhere.

However, we share the view that things need to be done in ship building. Technologies were a good step towards this direction. Currently, to get the full discount on ship building, you need the following:
-Colonel Rank of a country that holds a port for 15% discount on building price
-Count Rank of a country that holds a port for a 30% discount on building price
-Marquess rank for 10% discount on upgrades
-Warehouse Tycoon technology can get you discount on ship building materials. As well as voodoo cards (West India Company).
-Shipwright Management technology can get you further discounts.

So, we already have concepts that diversify ship building costs from one player to another.

Our plan is to further enhance this, rather than add a dedicated building for this purpose. It is truth that we once had the same idea, of a dedicated building but we ended up that it would not worth the trouble.

So, here are some of our ideas that could be used in the future:

Shipwright Tax
-All nations get to tax ships built in shipwrights by the ports they own. The governor of each port will decide the amount of tax. This feature must come with or after Nation Control Expansion: Governor

The tax should be as high as 20% perhaps. This will help in great diversification and perhaps it can push the usage of ships market as existing ships will be now more competitive to newly built ones.

Master Craftmanship Technology
We could have a technology that would add extra attribute points at ships produced by the player who possess it. It could give 1 point per level right at level 1 or it could increase percentage to gain more attribute points on upgrade.

Specialization Technologies
Since we will soon have a lot of new skills for every ships, we can make this skills installed by specific research technologies. Since this skills will need attribute points, these technologies should also add extra attribute points to their respective skills.

An alternative to this, would be to make these technologies country or port or guild specific. Which means that in order to get these extra skills per ship your guild or your country or the port must have done the research prior to this. This is currently the leading idea. We only need to decide which entity gets what. Perhaps guilds is the way to go here.

Ships Market

Currently, ships market requires credits to run. But there is a specific issue with whole credits that kill the competition. Some have rightfully requested a solution to this. The truth is that we need to resolve this issue to enhance ships market. However, the current leading ideas of adding subdivisions of credits or devaluing credits do not seem like the perfect solution for us. Perhaps the best solution would be to make ships more expensive and the best way to achieve this without unbalancing, is to add gold bars cost to every ship offered at the shipwright. Nothing solid.