Merchant/Pirate discussion

[The Lamb]

As a former wipee, I dont think padre is talking about any issue with the ability to be hit, just the speed, frequency and intensity.

But I digress, in the origional post cj was looking for ways to tame down the effects a bit of those voodoo in particular as well as increase earnings for smaller attackers... thst the reason I was putting in my thoughts.

Unless people are being ...... I find most still follow the unwritten 3 attacks per day on larger traders... it's a cost of doing business for me... ask silvershadow, he would hit me with 6, 7, 8 hits in a day and get a message from me... his responce... I've been off a few days with a smiley... how can I argue with that logic lol

[Meliva]

I am ok with escalating things as you put it. What I don't like is selective targeting as xxpro has done in this case. The point is if someone attacks me, I will escalate it, never mind the costs as that is the gameplay. And if they intend to do so, and so on.

However, when a third person jumps into it, it becomes selective targeting at the same time. Allow it to be a two player game, not multiple players attacking one player. That is when a player feels targeted.

Does that mean if you are struggling to survive in a full scale attack, you wouldn't want an ally or guildie to step up alongside you???


***Also...

Does anyone know what the daily totals or averages are for pirates daily/weekly income is v merchants income?
I think it could show there is a great deal more money being made from trade than piracy on a day to day basis and the % loss overall would be minimal...
If I could see those figures I might better understand if all this need for 'protection' for merchies from all the bad, scary pirates is necessary or imagined.

You can be targeted on or off the water. You can defend that. You can be targeted with voodoo. You can learn to defend that as well.
You can also be targeted by players who run their own dirty, grubby agenda and who set out to deliberately hurt others...to me that's far more dangerous than a pirate out for a daily run....

Part of the problem is that for traders, those numbers are fairly easy to pull up, and remain largely static and consistent. Which is the easy part. But for pirates? Well their income can range from 0-as they have not raided that day, to millions upon millions of gold and ships if they ran a good raid. Now I have never pirated, but I do know that typically, pirates will have days where they do little to no raiding/skirmishing as they build turns. Then when they got enough turns they raid. Course some pirates may survive entirely off skirmishing. Just like with trading, not every pirate does the same thing. I will say this however. A good pirate, with a bit of luck, some good planning, and prep work can make enough in a single raid to compete with any trader.

[Argo]

Not sure I agree with that fully...

You should try it Mel

[Meliva]

Not sure I agree with that fully...

You should try it Mel

Yet another trying to tempt me to go pirate. Is there some conspiracy I be unaware of . But no, piracy involves a lot more work that i'd rather not put in. I got enough on me hands as it is without adding more

Edit-I will say though, that any pirates who wanna share their biggest haul to see whether I be right nor not, feel free to show off if ye wish

[Haron]

I am SURE I don't agree with Mel on that. If you are an experienced trader, and make less than a pirate, you're doing something very wrong.

But traders SHOULD make more than pirates, so that's fine. I think the scales are a bit too tipped in the traders favor, but I certainly think that traders should earn more than pirates. One thing is that they take a higher risk. Another thing is that I think the game is better with more traders than pirates.

[Meliva]

I may have misspoke a little. When I say that a single raid can compete with a trader, I meant in a daily profit scenario-not a full time one. As that is the great advantage that trading has. It's a decent profit over time, while raids are occasional bursts of profit if done right.

Apologies for the confusion

[Argo]

I may have misspoke a little. When I say that a single raid can compete with a trader, I meant in a daily profit scenario-not a full time one. As that is the great advantage that trading has. It's a decent profit over time, while raids are occasional bursts of profit if done right.

Apologies for the confusion

Is all good Mel...trouble with that scenario is turns...the amount of turns needed for merchant to draw income v amt of turns for pirate who cannot raid every day ? Merchies trade non-stop and as Haron said...we want more merchies…

lots of them..big fat ones...er sorry...
got distracted..

[Meliva]

Yeah. Of course, merchants need to invest turns themselves-to build their ships, or invest credits to buy them. And the bigger a merchant wants to be, the more they need to invest. So it makes sense why some merchants dislike how the bigger they get the more vulnerable they become. The more they have to lose. And the more expensive it becomes to grow bigger. Frankly, I never aimed to go above 300 ships. I never even reached that many. My peak was about 250. (not including the 500 ship quest).

Ultimately when it comes down to it, a merchant get's a constant drip of profit, while a pirate gets occasional hauls of it. So comparing the 2 isn't easy to do. Pirates will have down times where they build turns or voodoo, so those times will skew things heavily toward merchants, while the occasional raid they do might skew it to where they look to be more profitable.

[Shadowood]

On the topic of "How much a Trader makes vs. a Pirate"

Simple math. I am going to not include some extra voodoo for now, and there will be some assumptions made (players already own ships).

Traders:
Let's say a trader has a double ended party card route. Psaral to Akro (rum and tobacco). For this example the trader has a 400,000 capacity at each end. To fill both of these in a 24 hour span, you would need 56 Fleets or 280 LMM's to do this.

Trader casts a Rum Party and a Tobacco Party card. 800,000 cargo x 20 gc now becomes $16,000,000. But don't forget the trader had to pay 10 gc to pick it up. So really the profit is half. $8,000,000. Each card is 1 credit each. $275,000 per credit. 8,000,000 - 550,000 = $7,450,000 NET in 24 hours

Pirates:
Pirate gets lucky cast a single Spy Network and finds the Trader listed above. This Trader has 56 Fleets, all LMM's, sailing between Psaral and Akro. The Pirate moves his 1 Frig with a Cutter tail into position.
The pirate is capped at 200 turns. He casts 3 Fugi of Justice just before the hour and sees all 56 fleets light up in port.
Now, the pirate has spent 24 turns on FFJ and only has 176 turns left. This will give him 44 Hits!
Now, assuming this is a fat cat trader and he had Millions on hand and EACH HIT WAS WORTH $250,000. 44 x $250,000 = $11,000,000.
We need to back out cost of 1 Spy Network (1 credit) and 3 FFJ's (13.8 credits). Total 14.8 credits x $275,000 = $4,070,000
Total NET PROFIT is $6,930,000

Now there are a lot of different things that will change the numbers above. But this is a very simple math example of who makes more money. The trader does.

Sure, East and West India voodoo could pad the traders numbers, but it cost voodoo.
Sure the pirate is going to make money off of Sink Chance, but he is also not going to make $250,000 each hit. Hardly.

You can't include buying extra turns for 25 credits as 25 credits is $6,875,000 and would eat all the profits.

A pirate only gets 144 turns in a 24 hour window. A trader doesn't need but a few turns every day.

Its expensive to be a pirate. The margins are not good. Voodoo and Turns are expensive. Only a few are smart enough to be a pirate. The rest become traders

[DezNutz]

I suggest than...

THE PURGE

Twice a year, all players are given 3000 turns for 24 hours. All ships in hideouts are removed and must be fleeted. All players have 24 hours prior to event to prepare as best you can for the purge. After the purge is done, there will be 30 days of no FFJ or HN's only Skirmishes.

Subtle.

Why not call it Man-of-Warpalooza? That is the actual purpose.