Dev Team - Flagships

[DezNutz]

Somehow I suspect that the game will magically be filled with a bunch of fleets where all 5 ships have 4 attributes.

[Most Lee Harmless]

Four traits... by heck thats maybe one too many?
Think on it and yep.. I have a fair idea which four I would choose... but do you really fancy facing a ship holding those four? Levi assault.. extra cannon.. extra level.. loyal crew... plus exp bonuses.. plus voodoo bonuses (Bless and drums).. 60atts... levi immune tails and if you take it.. loyal crew kicks in and the job aint done even then.
Nope.. I would just love to own such a beast but maybe a bit OTT?

My fear would thst the only way to approach such a challenge is with two fleets of howkers to sacrifice as fire-ships then bomb whats left with Call the Krakens.. which isnt quite what we want from PVP..

Mind you.. if I could select 4 traits to put on old 'Daisy'..I would be out and about smacking MoWs with her..

[Redish]

It seems everyone has a different aim with Flagships depending on their style of play.

Having a super ship will be counter productive. If the Flagship is too strong, traders will most likely just stick them in front of a gold trading fleet making it immune to attack. Simple gold raiders will not be able to use them as a having a fleet that is weak enough to be beaten is essential to keeping the danger points down. It will not really add to the excitement of the game.

Flagships need to have a specific purpose in the game and have to add to to player interaction. Just designing a new ship will not do the trick.

This might be another take on it:

Perhaps we could have each player designate a ship as a Flagship which is clearly marked for everyone to see. This ship gets no extra attributes or battle functionality other than what is available through normal in game mechanics. The recent changes in terms of ship traits have made this possible.

If the Flagship gets captured the player who captures it is able to hold it for ransom until such time that a specific mission is completed (Example:20 BD cards on Psaral). This could function similar to the current bounty system. Once that is done the original owner gets the Flagship back.

Unfortunately this idea leaves the player who is held to ransom with no incentive to get the ship back as owning Flagship is effectively a liability unless there are penalties for not doing the mission (Example: 1% loss in daily trading income or less 25% in gold plunder until the mission is completed) Undertaking the mission has to be worthwhile. So we need to find a balance between the cost of the Flagship and its upgrades, loss of perks and/or penalties until the mission is done and the cost of doing the mission to retrieve the ship. The mission also needs to be achievable with reasonable ease or a player will be trapped in a penalty situations without the ability to complete the mission.

This may just give us our Flagship without all sorts of intricate designs, bells and whistles and still increase player interaction.

[Most Lee Harmless]

Some interesting thoughts there Redish : One issue is that lacking any bonus elements what is the point of nominating any ship as Flag only to be stuck with expensive penalties if lost. Thats more of a millstone than a flag-ship. But your comments on superships are spot-on.

[Redish]

Some interesting thoughts there Redish : One issue is that lacking any bonus elements what is the point of nominating any ship as Flag only to be stuck with expensive penalties if lost. Thats more of a millstone than a flag-ship. But your comments on superships are spot-on.

Thanks Danik

To answer your question. It seems that the current line of thought is "How can one benefit from owning a Flagship?" Perhaps what we should be thinking is "What are the consequences of losing my Flagship?" and "What can I gain by capturing one?".

Each player should have a Flagship (this is not optional) and as the flag bearer of your Pirates Glory enterprise losing it should have consequences. A Flagship should be seen as an extension of your identity which needs to be defended.

This opens up many more possibilities than simply adding another ship with perks. We have many players just doing their normal thing earning tons of gold through Port Taxes, Royalties, Trading, Pirating etc. How is it spent? A larger Voodoo stash that never gets used, upgrading buildings, more SOTL escort ships, maintaining ports? If we can use the Flagships to increase player interaction, increase the use of voodoo and thereby the credit spend in the game we are all going to score especially the game developers.

To use an example, in this discussion there has has been some talk about using Flagships in blockades. Rather than using your own ship to blast everything else out of the water what about using the penalties assigned to losing a flagship against your opponent?

Scenario:
(Assuming a penalty of slower trade fleets or 1% loss of income on loss of Flagship)
Lets say Isle of Man wants to blockade a port owned by Spain. One way of doing so would be to capture the Flagship of a major Spanish player trading out of Neapolis. The daily loss of income could effectively be considered a blockade. If they are really nasty they could even force that player as part of the required ransom mission to BD his/her own port.

or

Your nation is interested in owning a specific port defended by a player with a stash of Charity donation cards or Transport Immigrant cards. Capture the Flagship and force that player to use those those cards thereby reducing their ability to defend that port.

These are only two examples and I'm sure with some thought more experienced players could come up with more interesting ways of using this. Everything revolves around defending your Flagship. I'm sure not all players will use it this way, rather opting to get their name on some Top 10 Flagship winner list but that is perfect too. As long as it increases the interaction between players, guilds and nations.

I think this suggestion is a simple approach as it only requires one Flagship per player without the extra details of crew experience, keeping track of number of days as a pirate, trader or whatever else. It also provides the game with a ship that is actually useful and has a specific function rather than something that sits as a trophy in someones fleet or Hideout.

[Hawk]

Added Man of War and Ship of the Line flagships to the proposal. Updated ship abilities.

[Vane]

What a shame it was to go back to the original concept and post of the flagship by JessyA only to find it moved to the archives without the ability to comment or post on it..

Guess i post It here,

Its all fine and dandy to want to switch the ability over for all to have a flagship and not just pirates,but to water it down and away from what it was meant to be and do only to make it functional for a trader is ludacris. This ship by purpose was for a pirates battle involvement, edge etc. Sure many merchants wont find it useful as it was given they are not in the same line of work, but they have other features that fill their pockets which pirates have no need for.

The one f***ing feature pirates have looked forward to and for near 3 years or more and it gets twisted so badly it becomes pointless to hold as a pirate. You think the flagship will make pirates have less to lose if designed as we wanted or close to it? On the contrary, if i had a ship worth having and defending thatd be a target to get me back for sure, as it stands though, this ship now has no point in being built by even a pirate so why would I? May as well stick to a sloop.

Hope you merchants enjoy your “Floating magical coin sh***ing box of wood that happens to float in a port protecting all of your other fleets that have said port on their trade route”

[PFH]

What a shame it was to go back to the original concept and post of the flagship by JessyA only to find it moved to the archives without the ability to comment or post on it..

This^

[Shadowood]

Hope you merchants enjoy your “Floating magical coin sh***ing box of wood that happens to float in a port protecting all of your other fleets that have said port on their trade route”

So.. Tell me how you really feel.

[Vane]

Thought i did