Included in Build Different Shipyard Sale Prices for Naval Officers/Privateers

[Pieter Boelen]

Yes, it WAS something I broke. Extract attached to PROGRAM\INTERFACE to fix.

EDIT: This now included in here: Mod Release - Build 14 Beta 4 Internal WIP For Testing | PiratesAhoy!

 

[pedrwyth]

Done a few price comparisons and a bought ship is more or less spot on pricewise if you give it different attributes, owned ship slightly less so but OK give or take. In fact given no-one will be able to do the sort of "what would I have got if it had been ..." comparisons I'm throwing at it I'd say it's fine. You do notice the difference if you sell the cannons first (because you don't get the acquired hit to the transaction which you do if you leave them onboard) but again no-one can do it both ways. So I'll give it the thumbs up

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Any ideas about the "50% commission" on all trade goods and item transactions?
That's quite a new thing as well and affects mostly privateers (and can benefit honest characters with a Merchant License).
But is it a good idea to keep or am I off my rocker for adding that?

You do notice the difference if you sell the cannons first (because you don't get the acquired hit to the transaction which you do if you leave them onboard) but again no-one can do it both ways.

True, that. I admit it wasn't an ideal solution there as ideally you would want the "acquired" check to apply EVERYWHERE inside the shipyard.
Then I could apply it to only cannons installed on a pirated/captured ship, for example.
But that require a fair bit of complicating the code and I'm not sure that is worth it....

Alternate solutions:

- Not include it in the direct "sell ship" price for cannons and upgrades at all; that would mean that "acquired" only affects the bare hull.
But that means that there is very little difference between the whole 20% vs. 80% of the sale price, because the bare hull is at most perhaps half of the total sale price?

Since the game saves "acquired" for the ship and doesn't treat each cannon and upgrade individually,
it becomes quite hard to distinguish between how you got the ship.

- Simply NOT allow removing cannons or upgrades from a ship you did not buy, pirate or get given.
That to simulate that if you capture a ship as navy officer or privateer, it is a PRIZE and you're REQUIRED to sell her in one go.

Of course that already affects navy officers in a way, but would be something new for privateers.
Actually, that could give more of a reason to BUY ships, rather than capture them as people often do.
Plus an extra bonus to pirating your ships: Those you CAN keep as your own without getting into difficulties.
Could be another spot where to distinguish the different play styles?

Food for thought....

 

[pedrwyth]

In reality, you'd put a junior officer in command of the prize ship and then send it off to a friendly port, where it would be disposed of by the admiralty and in due time you'd get your share of the prize money. Good luck implementing that!

I remember the same thing, which is why I thought I'd ask. Based on that, I figured allow selling ships at any port that is friendly or neutral to you.
Selling ships to your enemies does seem rather weird to me.

Sending an officer away with the prize ship does not sound impossible, though I'd prefer looking at that after setting up the "personal selling part" the way we want it.

If you do manage to arrange for a junior officer to take the ship to a friendly port, then you get your prize money and your officer back when you visit that port, it would then make sense to disable selling taken ships at hostile or neutral ports.

Perhaps by visiting the other ship cabin and (if a "taken" vessel) through dialogue tell the new "captain" to try and get the prize home. Detatch the companion ship and do whatever calcs are deemed necessary to determine its fate.

Maybe simpler if the money (given a successful return) awaits with the Governor in your home port and the officer (s) are in the tavern (or naval academy if that is ever implemented for each nation) rather than trying to store prize money and officers all over the Caribbean . They gradually found passage back to HQ. Of course with some players you might find it hard to get in the door for Officers awaiting your return to port. Navy it's easy they've been re-assigned, Privateer they signed on with someone else after waiting a given period?

There should probably be a chance % success boosted if you put more than one officer and how much crew you also transfer - but it frees your companion ship slot straight away.

Maybe this could be put on a feature request thread for the next build, if it isn't already?

Any ideas about the "50% commission" on all trade goods and item transactions?
That's quite a new thing as well and affects mostly privateers (and can benefit honest characters with a Merchant License).
But is it a good idea to keep or am I off my rocker for adding that?

I can see why merchants would get a boost (although 50% sounds a lot) but I'm not sure why Privateers would - I'll look for the thread concerned.

I think I remember Navy get free rations which is fine. However for me, rather than a trading bonus, the "gameplay" difference for privateers (in due course?) is they can always go where they want whilst Navy may get to be ordered on escort quests, boring "patrol these waters for x days", take these papers, this person to.... or even exciting "intercept these enemy ships" , . If and when that sort of Navy functionality can be added.

- Simply NOT allow removing cannons or upgrades from a ship you did not buy, pirate or get given.
That to simulate that if you capture a ship as navy officer or privateer, it is a PRIZE and you're REQUIRED to sell her in one go.

Of course that already affects navy officers in a way, but would be something new for privateers.
Actually, that could give more of a reason to BUY ships, rather than capture them as people often do.
Plus an extra bonus to pirating your ships: Those you CAN keep as your own without getting into difficulties.
Could be another spot where to distinguish the different play styles?

Food for thought....

I suspect it would lock up the options when keeping the ship ie restrict your options in changing her with different cannons and other upgrades, - maybe as long as you can still add them (to deal with lost cannons). I'm not sure to what extent in real life you had to give up your prize if you were a privateer (any thoughts @Grey Roger?). However I guess it could be possible to add an option for the player to buy her at the prize auction thus changing the acquired status to bought for effectively foregoing the prize money (although it actually ought to be twice the prize value) since you only get half what the auction raised. In fact if the ship once sold is available at the shipyard (can't remember if all sale types are) then that effectively already exists as an option since you just have to meet the higher "buy" price??

Either way lots of room for "improvement" for the future then, just not any time soon for the complex stuff.

 

[Grey Roger]

It occurs to me that this whole idea of different percentages of prize money for privateers and naval officers is wrong. Prize ships were disposed of the same way and percentage of prize money was probably the same, mainly because for legal purposes privateers were auxiliary naval officers. That share varied across time - Drake, for example, split his loot 50/50 with the Queen, which still brought in more money to the Crown than anything else that year. And in 1708 the "Cruizers and Convoys" Act gave the entire prize money to the officers and crew of a capturing ship belonging to the British navy. (Source: the Wikipedia article on Piracy, which also contains a chart of example shares given to some pirate crews and a privateer as well as the wages paid by the Navy.)

The idea of locking up the prize ship and requiring you to buy ships is really bad. It may or may not be realistic; it certainly fouls up gameplay. In reality, there seem to have been two different processes. In some places I've read about how the prize ship became the subject of a court case which could either condemn the ship to be sold at auction or rule that it wasn't a proper prize and had to be returned to its owner. On the other hand, warships were often captured and used by the other side; the Minerve, HMS Minerve, Canonnière and HMS Confiance were all the same ship, having been captured, re-captured and captured again. In game, I really don't want to be forced to buy ships if I can capture warships from an enemy. Once again, we're into the problem that if you make things too realistic and too confining, it ruins the fun of the game. Besides, the exact law varied between time periods and probably between nations as well. Perhaps make later time periods more restrictive than earlier? Or lock down merchant ships but allow you to keep warships? (The former belong to a private owner, the latter belong to the enemy nation's government.)

I also really dislike the idea that you lose any officer(s) which you put onto the prize ship - they should gain some experience as a result of their own voyage, then you should get them back when you get your prize money. Can the 'StorePassengers' and 'RestorePassengers' commands be used to hide them away, then return them to you when you claim your prize money? What happens if you call 'StorePassengers' several times before 'RestorePassengers' - are the officers stored by the first call lost, pushed down a stack so that several 'RestorePassengers' commands are needed, or all stored in one place so that one 'RestorePassengers' restores them all? (Possible snag - what happens if you do this when 'StorePassengers' has already been used during a quest, e.g. "Standard" storyline when you're washed overboard at Bonaire, or during "The Duchess and the Devil" in "Hornblower"?)

One problem I can see with sending a prize ship off to a friendly port is, where does it go if you have multiple LoM's? Do you specify where it will go when you send it off?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Perhaps by visiting the other ship cabin and (if a "taken" vessel) through dialogue tell the new "captain" to try and get the prize home. Detatch the companion ship and do whatever calcs are deemed necessary to determine its fate.

Maybe simpler if the money (given a successful return) awaits with the Governor in your home port and the officer (s) are in the tavern (or naval academy if that is ever implemented for each nation) rather than trying to store prize money and officers all over the Caribbean . They gradually found passage back to HQ. Of course with some players you might find it hard to get in the door for Officers awaiting your return to port. Navy it's easy they've been re-assigned, Privateer they signed on with someone else after waiting a given period?

There should probably be a chance % success boosted if you put more than one officer and how much crew you also transfer - but it frees your companion ship slot straight away.

Maybe this could be put on a feature request thread for the next build, if it isn't already?

We definitely have the wish to add that, but never did post it as a separate feature request.
Should be done though! Feel free to take care of it.

I can see why merchants would get a boost (although 50% sounds a lot) but I'm not sure why Privateers would - I'll look for the thread concerned.

I think you misunderstand me; "commission" here means "the governor keeps 50% of the sale value of ALL goods you sell".
So that means that as soon a syou turn Privateer, your profit margins on selling cargo will DECREASE. Though you can restore that by getting a Merchant License.
Both for merchants and for navy/privateers, your skills are taken out of the equation. But merchants get 100% of the sale price and privateers/navy officers get 50%.

I think I remember Navy get free rations which is fine. However for me, rather than a trading bonus, the "gameplay" difference for privateers (in due course?) is they can always go where they want whilst Navy may get to be ordered on escort quests, boring "patrol these waters for x days", take these papers, this person to.... or even exciting "intercept these enemy ships" , . If and when that sort of Navy functionality can be added.

I removed the "free rations for navy officers" feature quite a while ago. Now you DO have to buy them.
The only exception is Hornblower during the storyline itself; but not because he is a naval officer, but because he is NOT the captain and therefore should not need to pay the crew's rations and salaries.

I suspect it would lock up the options when keeping the ship ie restrict your options in changing her with different cannons and other upgrades, - maybe as long as you can still add them (to deal with lost cannons). I'm not sure to what extent in real life you had to give up your prize if you were a privateer (any thoughts @Grey Roger?). However I guess it could be possible to add an option for the player to buy her at the prize auction thus changing the acquired status to bought for effectively foregoing the prize money (although it actually ought to be twice the prize value) since you only get half what the auction raised. In fact if the ship once sold is available at the shipyard (can't remember if all sale types are) then that effectively already exists as an option since you just have to meet the higher "buy" price??

That's a good call, that is. Pretty much "lock" any legal prize ships to ensure the prices DO take into account the "acquired" modifier,
but have it reset to "bought" if you sell her first as prize ship and then buy her right back again.

Would be one more thing for people to get used to and would make it a tad bit harder to keep captured ships if you're a privateer, but it matches with the rest of our logic and is not actually impossible.
You'll just have to be prepared to actually pay something for your new ship.

And I like that giving an extra advantage to actually pirating your ships.
Until now, there has pretty much never been any point or purpose to playing as a pirate as you pretty much just make things difficult on yourself if you do.
With all the recent changes, it should become a thing you might actually want to do on purpose because of the various benefits you get.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It occurs to me that this whole idea of different percentages of prize money for privateers and naval officers is wrong. Prize ships were disposed of the same way and percentage of prize money was probably the same, mainly because for legal purposes privateers were auxiliary naval officers. That share varied across time - Drake, for example, split his loot 50/50 with the Queen, which still brought in more money to the Crown than anything else that year. And in 1708 the "Cruizers and Convoys" Act gave the entire prize money to the officers and crew of a capturing ship belonging to the British navy. (Source: the Wikipedia article on Piracy, which also contains a chart of example shares given to some pirate crews and a privateer as well as the wages paid by the Navy.)

There IS no difference in percentage between privateers and naval officers; legal prize ships are legal prize ships, no matter what.

The idea of locking up the prize ship and requiring you to buy ships is really bad. It may or may not be realistic; it certainly fouls up gameplay. In reality, there seem to have been two different processes. In some places I've read about how the prize ship became the subject of a court case which could either condemn the ship to be sold at auction or rule that it wasn't a proper prize and had to be returned to its owner. On the other hand, warships were often captured and used by the other side; the Minerve, HMS Minerve, Canonnière and HMS Confiance were all the same ship, having been captured, re-captured and captured again. In game, I really don't want to be forced to buy ships if I can capture warships from an enemy. Once again, we're into the problem that if you make things too realistic and too confining, it ruins the fun of the game. Besides, the exact law varied between time periods and probably between nations as well. Perhaps make later time periods more restrictive than earlier? Or lock down merchant ships but allow you to keep warships? (The former belong to a private owner, the latter belong to the enemy nation's government.)

Since we're just laying a foundation here, I won't complicate it just yet by making exceptions per period.

The original idea for this was born out of necessity. To actually make the difference between bought/legal prize/pirated something worth considering, it should apply to cannons and ship upgrades as well.
But while it is easy to do that under the general "Sell" function, it is NOT easy to implement it also for selling individual cannons and upgrades.
Not addressing this though would introduce a really stupid exploit into the game.

Skipping it altogether means that a difference between 20% or 80% becomes virtually a non-issue as it affects only the bare hull which is only a fraction of the ship's total value.
Which means that "prize ship" or "bought ship" becomes more of a technicality than something that actually affects gameplay.

For "ships being used by the other side", it seems you are referring exclusively to navy ships.
The way I would imagine that working in the game is:
1. You capture the ship and sell her as a prize
2. You CANNOT take the ship for your own because you are a navy officer and are stuck with commanding the ship you are assigned to
3. The admiralty then later would assign that ship back to you, completely outside your own personal control

That #3 is of course not currently implemented and I don't think it is quite worth the trouble.

This is mainly an issue for privateers as they DO have a choice over their own ships.
But how to handle those sale prices in such a way that we don't introduce exploits?

I like @pedrwyth's suggestion:
- You HAVE to sell any ships taken as a legal prize; you cannot keep them for your own
- Since the ship will now be available at the shipyard, you can buy her back and then she'll be considered your own property
- So you CAN keep the ship that you captured; you just have to sell her and then buy her back
- Effectively that means you can only keep the prize ships if you can actually afford them, which could slow down your ship progression througout the game

I realise that is somewhat different from the current state and means you get a bit less freedom as a privateer; freedom that you DO have if you're being a pirate.
Which makes me thing that this could actually work and is not necessarily a bad thing; just not the same.

I also really dislike the idea that you lose any officer(s) which you put onto the prize ship - they should gain some experience as a result of their own voyage, then you should get them back when you get your prize money. Can the 'StorePassengers' and 'RestorePassengers' commands be used to hide them away, then return them to you when you claim your prize money? What happens if you call 'StorePassengers' several times before 'RestorePassengers' - are the officers stored by the first call lost, pushed down a stack so that several 'RestorePassengers' commands are needed, or all stored in one place so that one 'RestorePassengers' restores them all? (Possible snag - what happens if you do this when 'StorePassengers' has already been used during a quest, e.g. "Standard" storyline when you're washed overboard at Bonaire, or during "The Duchess and the Devil" in "Hornblower"?)

There should be no need for any of that. As long as the officer isn't completely cleared, I'm sure we can arrange for the officer being returned to your crew at some later state.

One problem I can see with sending a prize ship off to a friendly port is, where does it go if you have multiple LoM's? Do you specify where it will go when you send it off?

Yeah, that'll be a fun one to figure out! Good reason to NOT implement this feature yet for Beta 4 as that could become quite a bit of additional work to think through.
If you lose your officer, then it is easy. But if you want to keep the officer, you need some spot for the officer to return to you.

For now at least you don't need to send of prize ships because you can sell your ships wherever you want.

 

[pedrwyth]

It occurs to me that this whole idea of different percentages of prize money for privateers and naval officers is wrong.

I don't think there has been any suggestion of different prize money Navy/Privateer %. It's just a question of how the game goes on to handle what you can and can't do with a "taken" ship

The idea of locking up the prize ship and requiring you to buy ships is really bad. It may or may not be realistic; it certainly fouls up gameplay. In reality, there seem to have been two different processes. In some places I've read about how the prize ship became the subject of a court case which could either condemn the ship to be sold at auction or rule that it wasn't a proper prize and had to be returned to its owner. On the other hand, warships were often captured and used by the other side; the Minerve, HMS Minerve, Canonnière and HMS Confiance were all the same ship, having been captured, re-captured and captured again. In game, I really don't want to be forced to buy ships if I can capture warships from an enemy. Once again, we're into the problem that if you make things too realistic and too confining, it ruins the fun of the game. Besides, the exact law varied between time periods and probably between nations as well. Perhaps make later time periods more restrictive than earlier? Or lock down merchant ships but allow you to keep warships? (The former belong to a private owner, the latter belong to the enemy nation's government.)

I could say "well mine's already been fouled up (gameplay that is) by this whole scenario of what I can and can't attack and its consequences existing at all" but..... Fine by me either way, the only reason for even considering what you might be allowed to do with a prize is a) reality, and from the above it's either not too clear what that was at different times or you're more concerned with gameplay (as am I) - and b) stopping an exploit of selling off bits of the ship before you turn over your prize. That's the sole locking involved ie you can't sell it off piecemeal, but you can keep it in your squadron, swap to it (if "allowed" at your rank), add upgrades and replace lost cannons etc. Again for me if that's part of the gameplay I don't actually care - every player can do it.

I also really dislike the idea that you lose any officer(s) which you put onto the prize ship - they should gain some experience as a result of their own voyage, then you should get them back when you get your prize money.

I think there must always be a risk that they (and the ship) don't survive the experience - which should depend on state of the vessel, their experience and skill etc If you want to manage that risk keep them in your fleet until you can sell the prize (at a friendly , or perhaps neutral port).

Can the 'StorePassengers' and 'RestorePassengers' commands be used to hide them away, then return them to you when you claim your prize money? What happens if you call 'StorePassengers' several times before 'RestorePassengers' - are the officers stored by the first call lost, pushed down a stack so that several 'RestorePassengers' commands are needed, or all stored in one place so that one 'RestorePassengers' restores them all? (Possible snag - what happens if you do this when 'StorePassengers' has already been used during a quest, e.g. "Standard" storyline when you're washed overboard at Bonaire, or during "The Duchess and the Devil" in "Hornblower"?)

I would guess that to avoid the interference snag the function could be adapted to put "prize commanders" in a different storage space which may also be able to deal with a (limited) number of parallel/serial cases. It's certainly a better alternative than having dozens hanging round waiting for you.

One problem I can see with sending a prize ship off to a friendly port is, where does it go if you have multiple LoM's? Do you specify where it will go when you send it off?

My initial thought was you don't specify where and , as I said before you eventually find them back at your home port - however since you often have multiple LoM I guess you would need to specify something like "X nation, her allies or a neutral port" with a choice per LoM appearing in dialogue as an option if you had multiple LoM otherwise taken for granted (and the option skipped).

However this would all be for the future build (if at all) as far as I am concerned. If it finds a place in a brainstorming thread it might be worth further consideration (and no doubt much debate)

 

[pedrwyth]

I wish I could get my reply in first for once instead of being Ninja'd all the time

I like @pedrwyth's suggestion:
- You HAVE to sell any ships taken as a legal prize; you cannot keep them for your own
- Since the ship will now be available at the shipyard, you can buy her back and then she'll be considered your own property
- So you CAN keep the ship that you captured; you just have to sell her and then buy her back
- Effectively that means you can only keep the prize ships if you can actually afford them, which could slow down your ship progression througout the game

Not quite I would allow the player to keep the ship and add to it if they wanted - but not strip it out before sale (if they ever want to sell it). The only thing I think this would need to lock would be changing cannons - NEW THOUGHT unless you get the acquired hit on the old ones at trade in - so the new ones would prove real expensive. This would mean that if you sold the ship later you would get a reduction on your cannon price again - but it's your choice to keep the prize ship and upgrade them.

Not sure how you force the sale on the player unless you just prevent any ship repair to that one ship so eventually they risk it sinking or sell it

However it's not my style of play so I don't have any axes to take to the blacksmith either way.

 

[pedrwyth]

I think you misunderstand me; "commission" here means "the governor keeps 50% of the sale value of ALL goods you sell".
So that means that as soon a syou turn Privateer, your profit margins on selling cargo will DECREASE. Though you can restore that by getting a Merchant License.
Both for merchants and for navy/privateers, your skills are taken out of the equation. But merchants get 100% of the sale price and privateers/navy officers get 50%.

Yes, I had sort of come to that conclusion as I read the threads! However I haven't found where you have put the code for that yet. The in shipyard cargo prices don't mention it directly (Am I looking for an alteration to PRICE_TYPE_SELL somewhere?)

So Navy/Privateer lose 50% of any trading (or looting). Merchants licence restores that if you have Privateer LoM (or are Navy? can you be a Navy officer and merchant - should probably be no - another difference Privateer/navy?).

Does that restore you to the position (in profit terms only) of a trader with neither LOM or licence? (eg my previous role style).

A couple of thoughts - can you go and sell the stuff to the pirates without the loss (sorry "commission") brings them back into play for goods other than contraband. It would be much harder to track what happened to the cargo than an obvious item like the ship, so maybe the commission should be somewhat lower. However I could never make any worthwhile money just trading which is where smuggling came in, but if LoM players lose 50% they are certainly not going to do any trading - they will just be selling off what happened their way. So if your aim is to further differentiate play style then this is another step.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

you eventually find them back at your home port

I think the main question there is: What is your home port and how do you define that?

Not quite I would allow the player to keep the ship and add to it if they wanted - but not strip it out before sale (if they ever want to sell it).

Sounds OK to me.

NEW THOUGHT unless you get the acquired hit on the old ones at trade in - so the new ones would prove real expensive. This would mean that if you sold the ship later you would get a reduction on your cannon price again - but it's your choice to keep the prize ship and upgrade them.

Not sure how that would work. Getting a headache just thinking about this and all my real work sutff at the same time.

Not sure how you force the sale on the player unless you just prevent any ship repair to that one ship so eventually they risk it sinking or sell it

Maybe we don't need to force the sale? As long as you're somewhat limited, at least the sale is being encouraged.

Yes, I had sort of come to that conclusion as I read the threads! However I haven't found where you have put the code for that yet. The in shipyard cargo prices don't mention it directly (Am I looking for an alteration to PRICE_TYPE_SELL somewhere?)

It is in that CharPriceMod thing.

Does that restore you to the position (in profit terms only) of a trader with neither LOM or licence? (eg my previous role style).

No LoM or Merchant Licence = skills affect your buy/sell prices everywhere, no commission
LoM = skills don't affect your buy/sell prices, but 50% commission
Trade Licence = skills don't affect your buy/sell prices and NO commission

So not exactly the same. This is meant to give an additional purpose to the Merchant License.

A couple of thoughts - can you go and sell the stuff to the pirates without the loss (sorry "commission") brings them back into play for goods other than contraband. It would be much harder to track what happened to the cargo than an obvious item like the ship, so maybe the commission should be somewhat lower. However I could never make any worthwhile money just trading which is where smuggling came in, but if LoM players lose 50% they are certainly not going to do any trading - they will just be selling off what happened their way. So if your aim is to further differentiate play style then this is another step.

At the moment the location where you sell either ships or cargo isn't affected by any of this.
So technically you pay commission when selling to the pirates same as when you'd sell it in a normal port.

While we're still experimenting with this, I think we should keep it like that;
otherwise we'd have to add consequences to selling to the pirates rather than in a legal port, which will probably end up quite time consuming to set up.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

So as for what to do, here are my current thoughts:
- Disable removing upgrades and cannons from "legal prizes" only (doing anything else will remain OK)
- Ensure that you CAN buy a sold prize back and that its status then turns to "purchased" so she becomes yours to do with as you please
- Possibly change the percentage of commission on item/goods trading for navy officers and privateers (suggestions welcome)

Everything else that has been suggested here sound like good ideas, but for a later date; Beta 5 or maybe even Build 15 for some.

Does that sound fair enough? Or would anything else need doing as well?
I'm not going to actually do anything just yet....

 

[Grey Roger]

OK, let me see if I understand this correctly. I hope not.

No LoM or merchant licence: you get full price for buying/selling trade goods, affected by your (or your quartermaster's) commerce skill and perks.
LoM: you lose 50% from all trade of goods, whether or not they came from prizes, and your (and your quartermaster's) commerce skill and perks no longer apply.
LoM plus merchant licence: you get full price for buying/selling trade goods, whether or not they came from prizes, and your (and your quartermaster's) commerce skill and perks still don't apply.

Privateers shouldn't lose anything on regular trade. It's reasonable that they lose commission on goods from prize ships, though unless you block transfers of goods between ships after boarding, you won't be able to separate prize goods from normal goods. Commerce skill and perks should not apply to your sale of prize ships (or their cargo, if you can keep it separate) but should apply to everything else.

I'm not sure what basis the merchant licence has in reality. Its original function was to make people pay a fee to continue paying crew by salary rather than simply change a value in "InternalSettings.h". Now, if I understand correctly, you need to have the licence or you're going to be ripped off in normal trade, and you're going to be ripped off anyway since you can't use your commerce skills and perks, plus you may as well fire your quartermaster.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

No LoM or merchant licence: you get full price for buying/selling trade goods, affected by your (or your quartermaster's) commerce skill and perks.
LoM: you lose 50% from all trade of goods, whether or not they came from prizes, and your (and your quartermaster's) commerce skill and perks no longer apply.
LoM plus merchant licence: you get full price for buying/selling trade goods, whether or not they came from prizes, and your (and your quartermaster's) commerce skill and perks still don't apply.

All correct. Note that skills not applying in these spots is a GOOD thing as with skills you can only ever get up to 99% of the sale price and by skipping it you go straight to 100%.

Privateers shouldn't lose anything on regular trade. It's reasonable that they lose commission on goods from prize ships, though unless you block transfers of goods between ships after boarding, you won't be able to separate prize goods from normal goods.

Indeed that is a tricky one, though indeed perhaps it is better to lock the goods on a prize ship altogether.
Applying that 50% commission across the board is admittedly not ideal.

Commerce skill and perks should not apply to your sale of prize ships (or their cargo, if you can keep it separate) but should apply to everything else.

This is the code I have for it at the moment:

    bool bCheckSkills = true;
     if ( IsMainCharacter(ch) )
     {
       if (IsInAnyService())    // Levis: Professional Navy and LoM pay commission, but are not affected by skills
       {
         bCheckSkills = false;
         if (bShipyard)     skillModify = SHIPYARD_SHIP_SELL_MULT;                               // skills don't affect shipyard transactions
         else         skillModify = makefloat(((SHIPYARD_PIRATEDSHIP_SELL_MULT+SHIPYARD_BOUGHTSHIP_SELL_MULT)/2));   // 50% commission
       }
       if (!bShipyard && HasMerchantPassport(ch))   // PB: Honest merchants don't pay commission outside the shipyard
       {
         bCheckSkills = false;
         skillModify  = SHIPYARD_SHIP_SELL_MULT;                                         // skills don't affect store transactions
       }
     }
     if (bCheckSkills)
     {
       skillModify = 0.75 + skillDelta*0.019;
       if(CheckOfficersPerk(&ch,"AdvancedCommerce"))   skillModify += 0.05;
     }

I'm not sure what basis the merchant licence has in reality. Its original function was to make people pay a fee to continue paying crew by salary rather than simply change a value in "InternalSettings.h". Now, if I understand correctly, you need to have the licence or you're going to be ripped off in normal trade, and you're going to be ripped off anyway since you can't use your commerce skills and perks, plus you may as well fire your quartermaster.

This is only one change in one function at the moment; Commerce skill is checked in many other spots as well, where the quartermaster still helps.
You'll be, as you say, "ripped off in normal trade" only if you're a privateer or navy officer.
Pirates, merchants and anyone not fitting in any category won't be.

I do think the "Merchant License gives you 100% sale price regardless of skills/abilities" does make sense and is something we may want to keep.
After all, it adds a purpose to it for characters who don't have a LoM; otherwise it is a half pointless feature.

As for the 50% commission, I'm not too happy about that myself. I'll see about locking legal prize ships instead.
Then you MUST sell the ship with upgrades, cannons and cargo. And you can buy her back as a normal ship.
That simulates that the ship was auctioned to you. That does admittedly sound better.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

HA! New function to determine if a hypothetical act would result in a legal prize ship or not:

bool IsPrizeShip(ref char)
{
   int curFlag  = GetCurrentFlag();
   int iNation  = GetAttribute(char, "nation");
   if (iNation < 0 && iNation >= NATIONS_QUANTITY)    return false;                   // Just in case
   
   if (GetCurrentFlag() == PIRATE)             return false;                   // Any act under a pirate flag is an act of piracy
   if (CheckAttribute(char, "betrayed"))         return false;                   // You deliberately betrayed them
   if (GetFlagRMRelation(iNation) != RELATION_ENEMY)   return false;                   // You were flying a friendly flag

   // Loop through nations to determine if this was an act of piracy
   for(int i = 0; i < NATIONS_QUANTITY; i++)
   {
     if (i == PIRATE) continue;                                     // The pirates don't count
     if (GetNationRelation(i, iNation) == RELATION_ENEMY && IsInServiceOf(i)) return true;       // You are in the service of a nation hostile to the one you attacked
   }
   return false;                                             // No legal reason for the attack, so not a legal prize
}

Now I'll be able to call that function as part of the "ransack" interface".
That way I can lock the ship's cargo for legal prize ships before UpdateRMRelation is actually called to add/remove points.

The only way to get a legal prize ship is by:
- Having a LoM
- Capturing a ship enemy to the nation you have a LoM with
- Do so in such a way that it isn't a betrayal (pirate flag, friendly flag, fired on them while they were friendly, etc.)

That should make sense, no?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

And the applicable code in the "Ransack" Interface:

    // PB: Legal Prize Ships -->
     if (GetSelectable("CHARACTERS_BUTTON")) // You CAN assign a captain
     {
       int TotalMinCrew = GetMinCrewQuantity(xi_refCharacter) + GetMinCrewQuantity(refEnemyCharacter);
       int TotalCrew  = MakeInt(xi_refCharacter.ship.Crew.Quantity) + makeint(refEnemyCharacter.ship.Crew.Quantity);
       if (IsPrizeShip(refEnemyCharacter) && TotalCrew >= TotalMinCrew) // Will be a prize ship AND you have enough crew to sail both ships
       {
         SetSelectable("GOODS_BUTTON", false);
         SetSelectable("CANNONS_BUTTON", false);
         SetSelectable("SWAP_BUTTON", false);
         SendMessage(&GameInterface, "lsls", MSG_INTERFACE_MSG_TO_NODE, "GOODS_BUTTON", 0, "Cannot plunder");
         SendMessage(&GameInterface, "lsls", MSG_INTERFACE_MSG_TO_NODE, "CREW_BUTTON", 0, "Assign prize crew");
         SendMessage(&GameInterface, "lsls", MSG_INTERFACE_MSG_TO_NODE, "CANNONS_BUTTON", 0, "Cannot take cannons");
         SendMessage(&GameInterface, "lsls", MSG_INTERFACE_MSG_TO_NODE, "SWAP_BUTTON", 0, "Cannot take ship");
       }
     }
     // PB: Legal Prize Ships <--

So you will NOT be prevented from looting if:
- You cannot assign a captain (either because you have no officers, have no spot left in your squadron or let them go)
- You aren't taking her as a legal prize (so you are getting this ship through an Unrespectable Act or Major Act of Piracy)
- You don't have enough crew between both ships to sail them both

If you are indeed taking a prize, then the interface texts are changed to explain the situation:

I'll do something similar for the "Sell Cargo", "Ship Transfer" and "Sell Cannons/Upgrades" functionalities.
Since then you CAN'T sell the goods anymore separately from the ship, I can remove the 50% commission from regular good transactions.
I think that makes for a better alternative to the current version.

 

[Grey Roger]

'if (iNation < 0 && iNation >= NATIONS_QUANTITY) return false;' seems to make no sense. It returns false if the nation you're looking at is negative and greater than or equal to "NATIONS_QUANTITY", which I'd think will only happen if "NATIONS_QUANTITY" is even more negative. Should it not be 'if (iNation < 0 || iNation >= NATIONS_QUANTITY) return false;'?

Does 'CheckAttribute(char, "betrayed")' only return positive if you've betrayed this ship, or does the attribute stick with you if you betrayed another ship in the past? (I thought the attribute stuck so that some random citizen can then accuse you of being a traitor when you visit a port later.)

What does 'IsInServiceOf(i)' detect? That you have a LoM with nation i or that your served nation is i? If you have multiple LoM's then it's a legal prize so long as your target is hostile to any of them, but your served nation won't be any of them, it will be Personal.

 

[Grey Roger]

I don't know the law in the 16th- 19th centuries, but I do know that commerce raiders in WW1 and WW2 did take some cargo from captured ships. They sometimes even put the captured ships directly into service - a tanker loaded with fuel oil was a very useful prize! (On one occasion, so was a refrigerator ship loaded with eggs and meat.) So you ought to at least be able to resupply food, rum and ammo from a captured ship. If that means opening up the whole cargo hold, so be it. I'd also say that you ought to be able to take cannons to replace your own ship's guns, either to replace destroyed guns or because your ship isn't carrying its maximum calibre and the captured ship has bigger guns which will fit your ship.

Perhaps, rather than changing the ransack interface, go for the store and shipyard interfaces instead. You can't sell the cargo of a prize ship in a store and you can't sell bits of the ship at the shipyard. All you can do is sell the entire ship at the shipyard, where if I recall correctly the value of the ship's cargo is factored into its sale price, so that's where you'll lose your 50% commission.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

'if (iNation < 0 && iNation >= NATIONS_QUANTITY) return false;' seems to make no sense. It returns false if the nation you're looking at is negative and greater than or equal to "NATIONS_QUANTITY", which I'd think will only happen if "NATIONS_QUANTITY" is even more negative. Should it not be 'if (iNation < 0 || iNation >= NATIONS_QUANTITY) return false;'?

Ah, good catch! You're absolutely right.
That affects UpdateRMRelation as well, so I'll correct it there too.

Does 'CheckAttribute(char, "betrayed")' only return positive if you've betrayed this ship, or does the attribute stick with you if you betrayed another ship in the past?

"Betrayed" is added to enemy captains (not the player) exclusively when you fire on them while they are actually not hostile in 3D sailing mode (so major act of piracy).
For the purposes of UpdateRMRelation, that is translated into a "traitor" attribute for the player, but that is added only temporarily and should stick with the player for less than a second.
So it is purely linked to the specific ship.

I thought the attribute stuck so that some random citizen can then accuse you of being a traitor when you visit a port later.

While that used to be the case in that past, that feature doesn't exist like that anymore.
Instead, that just looks for ServedNation = PIRATE instead.

What does 'IsInServiceOf(i)' detect? That you have a LoM with nation i or that your served nation is i? If you have multiple LoM's then it's a legal prize so long as your target is hostile to any of them, but your served nation won't be any of them, it will be Personal.

It checks if you have a LoM with that nation OR are a professional navy officer in their service.
I have to check it like that because indeed using ServedNation wouldn't work.

I don't know the law in the 16th- 19th centuries, but I do know that commerce raiders in WW1 and WW2 did take some cargo from captured ships. They sometimes even put the captured ships directly into service - a tanker loaded with fuel oil was a very useful prize! (On one occasion, so was a refrigerator ship loaded with eggs and meat.) So you ought to at least be able to resupply food, rum and ammo from a captured ship. If that means opening up the whole cargo hold, so be it. I'd also say that you ought to be able to take cannons to replace your own ship's guns, either to replace destroyed guns

That will make it near impossible to distinguish between stuff you "steal" from a prize ship and things that are OK.
The nation you serve will want to see their share of that part of the prize as well, won't they?

I could allow transferring cannons and cargo ONLY at this time.
That way you could restore your cannons and resupply in mid-battle, but once you have actually captured the ship as a prize, you can't take anything else anymore.
If I set it up like that, then the only thing you CAN'T do at that point is to swap ships and take the prize as your flagship.
Almost defeats the purpose of doing this in the first place.

If you can take cannons from the ship and sell those for full prize, you can just transfer them to your own ship first and then sell them.
Though I admit that is a bit of a long shot, so we may not need to bother with that one.

But for cargo it definitely does apply; it isn't so hard to transfer cargo to your own ship and then sell it from there.
And then you bypass the legal commission you're meant to pay on the cargo.
Then to offset that, we'd have to make sure the game detects you stealing like that and then put a consequence on that.
And before we know it, this whole thing has taken another month of development time because it went crazy complicated.

The main question remains: How do you ensure that you DO pay commission on prize cargo, but NOT on other cargo.
You cannot store it with the cargo itself. And it needs to be at least a somewhat simple solution!

....or because your ship isn't carrying its maximum calibre and the captured ship has bigger guns which will fit your ship.

That has never been possible; you can only downgrade your cannons that way, never upgrade.
Otherwise if you install ONE of their cannons, you upgrade ALL of yours, which would make for an incredible cheat!

Perhaps, rather than changing the ransack interface, go for the store and shipyard interfaces instead. You can't sell the cargo of a prize ship in a store and you can't sell bits of the ship at the shipyard.

That is exactly what I intend to do next. But I have to start out with preventing loopholes that would allow you to get past that.

All you can do is sell the entire ship at the shipyard, where if I recall correctly the value of the ship's cargo is factored into its sale price, so that's where you'll lose your 50% commission.

At the moment, that 50% isn't technically factored in on the shipyard side, but that is what I intend to add.
That'll be the easy part.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I did some more thinking on this one and there are several possible solutions, though none that are both easy and perfect.
In the end, the main thing we want to accomplish is that there is a notable difference in selling prize ships/cargo or doing the same with pirated/owned ones.
Here are some options:

A: Use the system from the current ZIP as-is, trade goods ALWAYS affected by navy/privateer status
- Sale price of the hull is correctly affected
- Sale price of the cannons and upgrades is correct ONLY if you sell the whole ship, but not when you do it separately
- 50% commission on selling trade goods for privateers applies to ALL sold goods, not just the goods from prize ships as it is pretty much impossible to distinguish between the two

At the very least, this system should disallow selling cannons and ship upgrades individually. Then you can purchase the ship anew for it to go back to normal.
If that is done too, then you may get "ripped off" as a privateer, but the system does distinguish between owned/prize/pirate as originally intended and may work for gameplay.
Especially when combined with the increased Trade Licence functionality that allows you to get rid of the "ripping off" aspect again.

B: Use the system as proposed by the screenshot above, where you CANNOT touch prize ship cargo and cannons
- Need to disable taking cannons and cargo from prize ships in all interfaces (ransack/transfer/store/shipyard)
- Apply the 50% commission/prize money exclusively to selling Prize Ships and not any other ships
- Possibly DO allow transfer of cannons, but only right upon taking the ship and not afterwards

Currently already half-prepared and could be made to work completely.
Possibly annoying that you cannot any cargo from the prize, not even regular supplies.

Problem is that since you didn't actually capture the ship yet when you Ransack her, we have to figure out in advance what is/isn't allowed.
The "Take cargo" interface is separate from the main "Ransack" menu, so what is known in one of these interfaces isn't necessarily known by the other.
That would require more figuring out....

C: Adapted version from B above, where you cannot loot cargo DURING "Ransack", but do allow a limited transfer afterwards
- Pretty much the same as the above
- Do NOT allow taking ANY cargo through the "Ransack" interface
- DO allow taking only regular supplies through the "Transfer" interface afterwards

After you capture the ship, we DO know it is a legal prize.
That makes it much easier to allow transfer of certain goods, but not others.

D: Don't disallow ANYTHING, but do provide relation points only when the nations you serve actually benefit
- "Sell Prize Ship" would give extra relation points; higher sell price = more relation points.

This is actually something @Levis suggested months ago, but was dismissed at the time.
If I recall this was because relation points should be based on the act of removing an enemy ship, not based on economic gain.
But this could allow complete freedom and give players the choice between OR more money (strip the ship manually first) OR more relation points (sell the ship all-in).

-----------------------------------------------

So those are the ideas I can think of right now. Not entirely sure which approach would be the best.
Comments and suggestions would be welcome. Maybe there are some other options I haven't thought of yet?