Flagships Rebuild

[DezNutz]

Ahoy Mateys,

I know this is going to be an interesting topic solely based on the topic at hand. There is a long history on this topic to include several variations and topics of discussion as well as a suggestion that was approved by the Dev Team a little over a year ago.

To say the last time we ran through this was a fiasco, would be an understatement. We had a major push to get Flagships done and updated to fit a defined requirement. We rushed through it and ended up approving a stripped down baseline. At the time, I supported the baseline push mostly due to the need to get something approved, but time and considerable thought has given me pause into the suggestion that we approved. I know now that even though there was frustration from the bickering on how it should be laid out, we should have weathered the storm, examined different approaches, and provided a suggestion that is worthy of being implemented.

So once again we will look at Flagships. The requirements set forth from the last push is still the same: Flagships must be available to all players. It can’t be Pirates Only Flagships.

The interpretation of how to address this was a major problem last time around. This led the Dev away from the Pirate Flagship suggestion, an idea that was supported by many players, and down a path that made flagship perked to all playing styles. In retrospect, what we should have done in my opinion was looked to, embraced, and tweaked the Pirate Flagships. To garner the full abilities of a Flagship, one must fly the Jolly Roger. All other players can construct one but the abilities and perks available to them would be limited. This meets the requirement of being available to all while still providing a benefit and keeping it more inline to a Pirate Flagship.

-Dez



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Now onto the suggestion rebuild.

References

Pirate Flagship
Flagship Baseline

Contributors & Reviewers

Jessy's Dream (Captain Jack's Alter Ego)
Charles Vane
Skyhawk
Shadowood
Feniks
William One Eye
Sir Henry Morgan
Clockwork
DezNutz

Overview
Basic overview and keypoints. Detailed Sections will follow as below.

- Any player may upgrade any ship (except Ship of the Line and Man o War) they own to be a Flagship.
- Flagship receives a name that cannot be changed.
- The creator is the original owner. If it changes hands via plunder, the player who receives it becomes the controller but not the owner.
- Flagships by default will come with 3 Traits
- All players will have access to a set of baseline upgradeable bonuses
- Pirates will have access to additional Pirate Specific Bonuses
- Bonuses will be upgradeable via experience
- Only owners can dock a flagship in their Marina
- Special Achievements

Page & Link Location
This is up for debate but there should be two link locations:

- Fleet/Ships Page
- Court Page

Creation Cost

- 100 Credits

Creator, Owner, & Controller

- The creator is the player that creates the Flagship. The creator never changes.
- The creator is the default owner of the Flagship.
- The owner holds the upgrade rights of the Flagship.
- The controller is the player that currently possesses the Flagship.
- The creator, owner, and controller can be the same player, but can also be different players.
- Only when the Flagship is controlled by the owner can the Flagship gain experience and be upgraded.

Details Applicable to All Flagships

- Cannot be sold back to Shipwright.
- Only 1 Flagship can be in a single fleet.
- Permanent Unique Name designated at creation.
- Inappropriate Names will be changed by Game Admin to a name of their discretion.
- Inappropriate Named flagships depending on the level of inappropriateness can result in a game ban, and/or the forced decommissioning of the flagship
- Immune to Commandeer
- Immune to Tidal Wave
- Special Marking on Plunderboard and Spy Network signifying Flagship
- Special Marking on Spy Network signifying owner.
- Each Flagship will have 3 Ship Traits.
- Each Flagship will have 5 bonus skill slots

Details Applicable to Pirate Flagships

- Additional 2 bonus skill slots

Ship Trait Details

- Each Flagship will have Leviathan Protection, 1 randomly generated Ship Trait, and 1 player selected Ship Trait

Player Ship Market

- Flagships can be sold on the player ship market.
- Maximum Starting Bid is 1 Credit.
- There are 2 types of Ship Market Sales: Control & Ownership
- The type of sale is noted on the Ship Market

Player Ship Market - Control Sale

- Occurs when a non-owner places the Flagship on the Ship Market
- No changes in ownership, just who possesses the Flagship.

Player Ship Market - Ownership Sale

- Occurs when the owner places the Flagship on the Ship Market
- Changes Flagship Owner
- Purchaser gains ownership of the Flagship and can make upgrades.

Nation Change Fame Costs

- For every Flagship that a player controls, a transition fee of 1M Fame is required to change nations. This applies to Nation to Nation and Pirate to Nation. If you control 3 Flagships, you will need to pay 3M Fame to change nations.
- There is no Fame Cost for moving from Nation to Pirate.

Nation Change Experience Cost

- For every flagship that a player owns and controls, any unallocated experience for that Flagship reduced by 25% when changing flags

Private Marina
To address an issue brought forth in the original suggestion, the use of the Private Marina is allowed for the owner of the flagship. The reason for this is if a player chooses to take a break from the game such as a vacation, they can store their flagship without risk of losing their ship due to inability to play. To prevent abuse of this, a costly fee has to be applied.

- Only the owner can store a flagship.
- Flagship takes up 5 Marina Slots
- 1st Time Docking Cost: 200 Turns
- All Subsequent Docking Costs: 300 Turns, 50 credits

Decommission

- Players can decommission any Flagship that they are both the owner and controller
- All bonuses are removed and lost.
- Ship Traits are rerolled for base traits.
- Name is retained and history records note that this was a previous Flagship.
- Ship cannot be sold to a shipwright.
- Cannot recover any previous costs associated.
- Private Marina usage returns to normal
- Ship functions as a normal ship unless noted within this section.

Experience

- Experience is gained via battles
- Experience is only gained when the Flagship is controlled by the owner.
- Experience is collected independently for each Flagship. (No Experience Pool... You can’t use the experience from one flagship to level up another)
- Experience is used to upgrade Bonus Skills.
- Experience can only be applied to Bonus Skills by the owner.

Experience Gains

- 30 Exp Plunder Win vs Flagship Fleet
- 20 Exp Plunder Attack Win vs Normal Fleet
- 5 Exp Plunder Loss
- 10 Exp Skirmish Win
- 2 Exp NPC Win

Spending Experience Points

- The owner of the flagship can buy and upgrade bonus skills using experience points.
- The owner must control the flagship to buy upgrades.
- Each purchase subtracts the required experience from the un-allocated gained experience.

Bonus Skills
There are 3 types of Bonus Skills, specifically in how they are applied.

All
---- Bonuses whose effects if set always apply.
Pirate Only
---- Bonuses that can only be set and upgraded by Pirates.
---- Effects do not apply if controlled by non-pirates.
---- Can only be set in additional Bonus Skill slots.
Upgrade By Pirate Only
---- Bonuses that can only be set and upgraded by Pirates
---- Effects still apply if controlled by non-pirate.

Bonus Skills Levels

- Unless specified, each bonus skill has 10 levels.
- Unless specified, level 1 requires 550 EXP to enable the bonus skill
- Unless specified, each level is 1.5x EXP (Rounded up no decimals) of the previous level
- Not all Bonus Skills may require 10 levels.

Changing Bonus Skills

- Bonus Skills once applied can be swapped with other bonus skills.
- Swapping bonus skills costs 50 credits each change
- The swapped skill retains any leveling but is no longer applied to the flagship.

Bonus Skills - ALL

1) Improved Shells - Provides a 5% damage bonus per level.
2) Smoke Screen - Provides a 5% bonus to the armor class per level.
3) Ghost Ship - Provides a 10% chance to negate Fire Assault & Leviathan Assault per level.
4) Improved Gun Sights - Provides a 5% accuracy bonus per level.

Bonus Skills - Upgrade By Pirate Only

1) Bow Chasers - Provides 2% damage to ship before start of round per level.
2) Careening - Provides a 1% speed bonus to Flagship during battle per level.
3) Legacy - Every level decreases total plunder bounty that would otherwise be paid on loss by X% (Cannot go below 1k)
4) Dead Men Tell No Tales - 7.5% chance per level that flagship fleet will incur half the normal danger points per plunder
5) Master Skirmisher - 7.5% chance per level to prevent a skirmish escape
6) Double Ransom - 10% chance per level to double ransom (Cannot Exceed Max Plunder Amount)

Bonus Skills - Pirate Only

1) Gunner - Provides 2 extra cannon slots per level.
2) Fear the Black - Any fleet that attacks you gains 1 additional danger point per level (Max 6)
---- 6 Levels - Level 1 Exp is 3000
---- Each Level increase by standard 1.5x of previous level (Rounded Up)
3) Lookout - 2% chance to escape plunder attack per level
4) Personal Witch Doctor - 5% chance per level to block any voodoo cast against fleet to include the individual ships within it.
5) Danger Reduction - Danger Reduction of target fleet is reduced by 1 for each level. (18 Danger Reduction - Level#)
---- Reduction occurs prior to any voodoo effects such as Disfavor
----
6) Ransom Master - Ransom is increased by 2k gold coin per level. (Added post calculation)

Achievements

- Plundering a Pirate’s Flagship while being a non-pirate, earns a Pirate Hunter Achievement
- Plundering a non-Pirate’s Flagship, earns a “Where’s the Commodore?” Achievement
- Plundering a Pirate’s Flagship while being a Pirate, earns the “No One is Safe” Achievement.

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This completes the suggestion. I know this is a very long read, but please read the suggestion through in its entirety. Please provide any and all feedback or questions.

[DezNutz]

Revisions & Edits

1) Added Bonus Skills (Mel and Haron)

- Danger Reduction (Pirate Only)
- Ransom Master (Pirate Only)
- Master Skirmisher (Upgrade By Pirate Only)
- Double Ransom (Upgrade By Pirate Only)

2) Danger Reduction Levels Update (Haron)

[Argo]

(...that's a big yes from me..)

[Shadowood]

Plus 1 for Me

[Anne_bonny]

I love this I really hope to see this up and going, thank you to the Dev team and everyone who has ever posted on this topic in order to help it become the suggestion it is today. Fingers crossed or swords drawn

[Haron]

Read through it all, including the two "original" posts.

I like the concept of the Flagship. I like the way this is supposed to work. I do have some issues with the available bonus skills, though.

What do I do as a pirate? I plunder for gold, I skirmish for gold, and I plunder for ships. So what would I like from my flagship? Obviously something that helps me do this. What do I NOT need? A "stronger" ship. I generally skirmish and plunder trade fleets with no problem. And when I steal ships, the enemy fleet will be so strong that I'm gonna need a lot of voodoo anyway. A "stronger" ships doesn't help me much.

And these traits simply make a ship stronger in combat:
Improved Shells
Smoke Screen
Ghost Ship
Improved Gun Sights
Bow Chasers
Careening
Gunner

So these are left and may be of interest:

A) Legacy. Really, though, what I lose from plunders are always just peanuts. With maxed piracy tech, I can lose a bunch of battles for every one I win. It DOES make it slightly harder to steal the fleet where the flagship is, though. So this could be of some slight use to me if I were to change may setup to start using valuable ships instead of my beloved Frigates. Yet, except for special cases, this would be of little value.

B) Dead Men Tell No Tales. OK, this can be useful. I DO get a lot of danger on my fleets. Getting a little bit less might be nice. Still, it would primarily be useful if I changed out my Frigates for some Big Ships. And the downside to that is still significant. So I say yes, this trait is somewhat useful. A true pirate don't fear high danger, though, so it is hardly VERY useful.

C) Fear the Black. Yes, I like this. Having others get more danger is nice. But it only helps me if people actually attack my flagship fleet. A lot. Using valuable ships which I can later steal. So maybe it will act more like a deterrent against attacking my Flagship fleet. Which may lead to me accumulating a lot of danger, as no one attacks it to get it back down. So I say slightly useful. Maybe still the least useless of all the options.

D) Lookout. I lose little when being plundered, so again, this doesn't help me much. I say hardly any value at all.

E) Personal Witch Doctor. Now, this is interesting - but again, primarily if I swap out my Frigates for something valuable that I actually care about not losing. A 50% chance to avoid Levis and, more importantly, Ambush, sure would be useful for such a fleet. I'm very glad this is for "Pirates Only", as a Flagship fleet with this trait sure would be expensive to steal. So I say very useful if you use it with a strong fleet. However, not useful at all if you use Frigates. This trait may make the type of pirates using strong, but very few, ships more common.


What would I like? Something that gives me more gold or makes it easier for me to steal ships when I use the flagship.

I know a skill that increases the gold you get from plunder has been discussed. I think perhaps it was Danik who suggested it. In my opinion, such a skill is what a pirate REALLY needs. 10% more gold stolen from target per level, for a maximum of double plunder payout at level 10.

Another nice thing would be a skill that reduces the amount of danger the target fleet loses when you plunder it. Say 1 point less per level, for a max reduction of 10 points at level 10. This would mean that the target only loses 8 danger points when you plunder him - only 4 if combined with disfavor. This would really make Flagships useful for stealing ships.


I at least think that SOME skill which increases a pirate's gold payout during plunder, or increases his ability to steal ships, should be among the skill set. After all, this is what pirates need. Stronger ships don't really help pirates much. And the existing skills either creates a stronger ship, or makes it easier for pirates to use other strong ships in combination with the Flagship.

[Meliva]

Looks good, here's a couple more ideas for upgrades that I thought of.

Savage Attack-a chance for the tail ship to lose 2 levels instead of one.
Master Skirmisher-decreases chance for a fleet to get away.
Clever Ransomer-get more gold from ransom-paid by player.

The 3 I mentioned each relates to a different aspect of piracy. The first is useful for stealing ships, as you can get rid of tail ships easier. The 2nd for skirmish and the third for just plain plunder. I feel like the flag ship should have several options that help with each of these methods. That way, if a pirate wanted to really maximize their skirmishing, they could focus on that alone to really give them a boost, or they could spread it out to try to be good, but not great at every area.

Combat abilities could be another path, if you want to focus on making a fleet that's just strong.

[DezNutz]

Haron,

I understand. Most of the skills were pulled from the original pirate flagship topic. The skills sections is the one part that I definitely want additional thoughts and ideas on. In effort to keep this on the down low until the suggestion was completed, only a small handful of players knew that I was working on this. As such I expected that the bonuses would be in need of additional thoughts and ideas.

Theses are just a couple of ideas:

1) Intrinsic value - Ransom is increased by 2k for each level (Added post ransom calculation.)

2) Double Ransom - 10% chance per level to double the ransom (Cannot exceed Ransom Maximum)


I do like the DR drop idea and Mel's Skirmish Idea.

[Lockreed]

...
Bonus Skills - Pirate Only

...
2) Fear the Black - Any fleet that attacks you gains 1 additional danger point per level (Max 6)
---- 6 Levels - Level 1 Exp is 3000
---- Each Level increase by standard 1.5x of previous level (Rounded Up)
...
5) Danger Reduction - Danger Reduction of target is reduced by 2 for each level. (18 Danger Reduction - 2xLevel#)
---- 5 Levels - Level 1 Exp is 4700
---- Each Level increases by standard 1.5x previous level (Rounded Up)
---- Reduction occurs prior to any voodoo effects such as Disfavor

I think fear the black should apply the danger after any voodoo effects as well

I also don't see why either skill could function like the rest of the skills - as in, 10 levels at 1/level each with the standard exp table. Good skills in the right hands, yes, but both are pirate-only limited which is a very real mitigation factor

[Lockreed]

Other Skill ideas:
All
Passenger Bunks - Increase the number of immigrants that can be transported by 500/level

Pirate Upgrade only -
Smuggler Holds - Reduce the number of goods lost from the flagship's fleet when losing a skirmish by 7.5%/level (including gold bars)
False Flags - 10% chance/level to ignore nation hostility gain from plundering

Pirate only-
Gunpoint Haggling - increase the base value of goods in cargo for skirmish calculation by 1/level. Increase the value of gold bars by 0.5%/level