General Objectives

[Captain dungeness]

Booty Master Math:
(I used excel to generate five hundred 30x BM casts and averaged them)



remaining gold:
10 casts = 60%±5%
15 casts = 46%±4%
20 casts = 36%±3%
30 casts = 21%±2%

Here's 1 more graph:

Spoiler: show

-Captain D

[Sir Henry Morgan]

If we can establish a necessity for SoTLs and MoWs, they will come back.

The only necessity to be established is the value to be stolen. And that's what got us here.....

The issue is simple - the SotL and the MoW are valued more for what they can be sold for more than what one can do with them.

The financial rewards of using these ships must justify the risk of using them, for both the trader and the pirate.

That's not easy when one can defeat a Man of War with a cutter and a collection of voodooo cards. The risk is simply too high.

That said, if the booty master was removed, it will be difficult to capture any ship, if not impossible.

Or as Tom suggested, the financial value is the issue. Adjusting the price of the ship - not the buillding of the ship, but the re-sale value. Then, to take a SotL or MoW or even the Large Frigate or Flag Galleon would be done not for financial gain, but for what the ship can do.

[Captain dungeness]

Adjusting the price of the ship - not the buillding of the ship, but the re-sale value.

Just to clarify: are you proposing to change the resale value from 70% of the building cost down to a lower %? Maybe 50% for sotls/LgFrigs?

[Sir Henry Morgan]

50% of a SotL is about 7 million gold coin - still a worthy prize.

What would the ramifications be if the resale value were it's base price, just as the bounty is on the tail of a fleet? The purpose for capturing the ship would change, from the profit motive to the glory motive. If nothing else, additional fame should go to those who capture a ship. A ship would be captured for what that action would do to one's adversary,, or for what it would do for your enterprise, not simply to create a profit.

The new features of ship abilities and the flag ship are going to bring the same issues - and ship prices of all the classes of ship will be astronmical. It will be the same issue there as it is here.

I don't know the solution to encouraging more capital ships to sail Avonmmora. I don't feel this is truly viable.

I am just exploring an idea to help move the motivation for capturing capital ships more for what they can do and the glory that brings rather than simply for the financial gain.

[Haron]

Making ship stealing harder OR less profitable is, in my opinion, a very, very bad idea.

To all those who believe that stealing ships is lucrative: Try it. You don't necessarily have to do it, but take a look at some SoL fleets, and do a simulated attack. Calculate the cost of voodoo and turns necessary to steal the ships. You'll find that the cost almost always is higher than the profit. I know, as I actually DO a simulated attack against almost every SoL fleet I see.

Another thing is that there is a complex connection between the various aspects of the game. Stealing ship, skirmishng, plunder, gold bar trading, trading, and retaliation all play together. I think if I were to explain my views on this, the post would be far too long, but let me say that the threat of having your ships stolen is a necessity for other aspects of being a "non-trader" as well.

Also, I see plenty of SoLs around as it is. Lots and lots, actually. I don't see any need for a 2 MoW 3 SoL fleet. In fact, anyone using such fleets deserves to lose them. SoLs have several purposes, but they have to be used right. Combined with the right fleet setup, and for the right role. There is a balance to the game with the risk of having your ships stolen. It's not about having the "strongest fleet", as that can make your ships stolen, rather, it's about havingn a "good fleet setup". This is a very good thing, as I see it.

Also, most SoLs are sold on the ship market, not to the shipwright. I think the goal you are trying to reach by lowering the selling price is a very bad one, and that is my main objection against it, but I also think this suggestion would not do much to reach that goal, as it's not the shipwright price that matters, but how much other players are willing to pay in the players market.

Anyone who thinks stealing ships is too easy needs to start doing it. Not just to prove that they can, or as retaliation, but for profit. Stealing ships for profit is very difficult. It is usually done to players who make serious mistakes in their setup. We look for such opportunities every day, and we very seldom find fleets we can steal and make a profit from it.

[Maha]

Spoiler: show

If we can establish a necessity for SoTLs and MoWs, they will come back.

The only necessity to be established is the value to be stolen. And that's what got us here.....

The issue is simple - the SotL and the MoW are valued more for what they can be sold for more than what one can do with them.

The financial rewards of using these ships must justify the risk of using them, for both the trader and the pirate.

That's not easy when one can defeat a Man of War with a cutter and a collection of voodooo cards. The risk is simply too high.

That said, if the booty master was removed, it will be difficult to capture any ship, if not impossible.

Or as Tom suggested, the financial value is the issue. Adjusting the price of the ship - not the buillding of the ship, but the re-sale value. Then, to take a SotL or MoW or even the Large Frigate or Flag Galleon would be done not for financial gain, but for what the ship can do.

"
the marketprice in combi with the shipwright reflects the value of the ship. it's based on real (building) cost and perceived value. SOL's are already often below 70% building cost! i have scrapped sol's to maximize profit. never used booties in shipstealing yet. the gc defense is never high enough to make that a profitable effort. lower the real cost and the perceived value will go down further. which will be the end of shipstealing for the sake of getting a few specific ships. which will lead to a huge readjustment of lot's of voodoo prices.

there are a few good uses for capital ships. merchants use them fulltime and the creative merchants far less so. they have no real need of them unless they specifically target those merchants who have these ships deployed.

lower the building cost and these ships will replace the frigate as the ship of choice. but is that really beneficial? all pirates will now be able to beat all trade fleets.

lowering the shipwright will probably lower the perceived value as well. this would be beneficial for the merchants (like the building price adjustment is for pirates) since pirates abstain from possessing costly ships. sinking a SOL hurts the bottom-line and serves as a nice determent to those merchants who don't shy away to waste 10 call lev's.

we have a balance now! merchants can protect specific fleets with capital ships while pirates can at great cost and the right opportunity make a profit by going after them. imo the balance is found in the limited use of these capital ships.

[Most Lee Harmless]

There is a danger of a vicious circle developing once you start messing with ship values : we have seen that with voodoo turn costs, which, over the last few years, have been steadily reduced thus more voodoo was cast, too much we cried! Its too easy to steal ships! Now we have a turn cap : 2 years of effing about to get back to, basically, where we were before.
I see far too many capital ships about : i see players with barely a month in the game running sotl fleets to hit howkers : time was, getting your first sotl was a right of passage, an achievement, a moment which said you were on your way : now, its no more exciting or greater occasion than getting your first BoW : to my mind, ship values are already damaged by the ease of acquisition and the even more worrying ease of loss due to players not having gathered the experience to keep their high-value ships safe.
I do wonder if the advent of the player-to-player ship market has lost the game a vital aspect of player development : getting your first capital ships took time, and effort : and that meant by the time you could manage to build them, you had learnt some of the important aspects of the game, such as logistics to gather resources and build your fleets and battle tactics, how each class of war ship worked, and what they could bring to your fleets. Now, meh, just buy another sotl...

[Vane]

Haron is right in that stealing ships for profit is difficult. I have always seen ship stealing as a glory / fame earner. This is an action that has been held as the primary focal point of pirates in the past and this is wrong.

Why are most pirates poor, and give up, leave, take breaks? Because they try to earn by stealing ships and that their only motive for raiding. Coin raids and skirmish actions are were a pirates primary focus should be for daily or routine income. Increase the benefits of skirmish to a pirate and more will spend time there, teach them how to earn a profit and abandon the ship stealing focus.

Ship stealing is important and it shouldn't become harder, it's already quite difficult for most). But it is done far to often today, and that needs to change.

(This is actually part of my goals and something I am working on )

[Haron]

I agree with you on this, Vane!