WIP Merchant passport should not negate the influence of commerce skill on prices

[Levis]

To be done:
- Merchant License unlocks proper large merchant ships for purchase:

Nothing that widespread. Two specific types - Heavy East Indiaman (all variants, bearing in mind every nation has its own) for "Spanish Main" and "Golden Age", and Fast Merchantman (two variants) for "Colonial Powers" onwards. Merchant guilds shouldn't really even exist in "Early Explorers" but we can probably find something suitable for them to claim if they do need to exist, and need to restrict access to a ship type, in that period.

To be handled through a new attribute in ships_init.c, which is checked in PROGRAM\INTERFACE\shipyard.c
- Allows you to do business with merchants in hostile towns (provided you have no hostile LoM), NOTE: It would be tricky (but not impossible) to distinguish here between store owners and tavern/shipyard owners!
This is to be done in the 'TradeCheck' function in PROGRAM\Characters\CharacterUtilite.c
- DO NOT: Affect skill/perk influence on pricing [DONE]
- DO NOT: Limit trading in any way

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Interesting.

Though of course a Merchant License is a simple "yes/no" at the moment,
so while you could restrict merchant vessels altogether if you don't have one, you couldn't restrict larger ones to higher level merchants because there is no such thing for now.

Plus a player who isn't a pirate, navy officer or privateer is pretty much considered a merchant already.
Even without having the License. You only really need the License for increased profits and/or especially when you're a Privateer who doesn't want to share the loot.

 

[Grey Roger]

That just means if you don't have a trade licence then you'll have to acquire the ship second-hand, so to speak. Mind you, that's how I get my warships as well.

Besides, the only really big trade ships I can think of are the large Spanish galleons, which are only valid in early periods and probably wouldn't interest the EITC or Dutch West India Company.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

probably wouldn't interest the EITC or Dutch West India Company.

The only reason why those two offices are the only ones in the game is because they were already there and I just appropriated them for general use.
I would be quite happy if similar offices are added for the other nations, including Spain.

 

[Tingyun]

To be done:
- Merchant License unlocks proper large merchant ships for purchase:

Nothing that widespread. Two specific types - Heavy East Indiaman (all variants, bearing in mind every nation has its own) for "Spanish Main" and "Golden Age", and Fast Merchantman (two variants) for "Colonial Powers" onwards. Merchant guilds shouldn't really even exist in "Early Explorers" but we can probably find something suitable for them to claim if they do need to exist, and need to restrict access to a ship type, in that period.

To be handled through a new attribute in ships_init.c, which is checked in PROGRAM\INTERFACE\shipyard.c
- Allows you to do business with merchants in hostile towns (provided you have no hostile LoM), NOTE: It would be tricky (but not impossible) to distinguish here between store owners and tavern/shipyard owners!
This is to be done in the 'TradeCheck' function in PROGRAM\Characters\CharacterUtilite.c
- DO NOT: Affect skill/perk influence on pricing
- DO NOT: Limit trading in any way

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

ORIGINAL OPENING POST:

Currently, if you have a merchant passport, then the effects of your commerce skill is negated in the buying and selling prices of goods and equipment (everything but the shipyard).

This makes no sense--merchants need to be able to negotiate themselves to get good prices. No other merchant is going to say "Oh, you're a merchant too, let me give you a price where I give up all my profit..." Not how the commercial world realistically works, and also not good gameplay (the commerce skill should not be irrelevant to merchant characters, that is their primary trait!).

Here's the part that currently does that:

if (!bShipyard && HasMerchantPassport(ch)) // PB: Honest merchants don't pay commission outside the shipyard
{
bCheckSkills = false;
skillModify = 1.0; // skills don't affect store transactions
}

I've attached a file with this section and the if ( IsMainCharacter(ch) ) check right above it commented out, but it also has the iron will/leadership influence on price removed (half of the suggested salary change I posted, just missing the increase in base crew salary), so care is needed if we only want to do one of those changes.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If you remove that, then what DOES the Merchant Passport do?
Only thing left then is to keep a Privateer crew happy on Salary mode.

Of course the best thing would be if there were actual merchant companies in the game that you can work for.
But that just isn't the case and wouldn't be a five-minute job to implement either.

 

[Tingyun]

Pieter, yep, all that would be left then is keeping salaried crews happy, but that is a pretty significant bonus for rich established merchants, the intended users anyway. It should be irrelevant to divide the plunder privateers and such.

Either way, making it negate the effect of commerce skill entirely is bad gameplay, as the merchants should be focused on that as their primary skill to develop and grow in.

If we wanted another placeholder bonus in the meantime, we could give it a small boost to the commerce skill, +2 or something. Anything but entirely removing the relevance of the skill.



EDIT: longer term it might be worth considering making it required for the purchase of the largest merchant ships, a bonus that would be important for people actually role playing honest merchants who buy their ships, but not really useful for privateers purchasing the passport but not really being a merchant, as it should be.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I wonder what could be done for proper Merchant gameplay without actually fully developing that side of the game as "career progression".

How easy do you find it to get and keep a Merchant License? They're quite expensive (unless you get it for free at the start of the game).
And basically any piratey transgression will cost you your license.

 

[Tingyun]

Good point--they are pretty damn expensive. Of course they are also pretty critical as well--by the time you can afford one, you kind of need one, so I think the benefit scales with the cost. Someone who has a million to spend needs one at that point, and won't think the benefit is small when it means keeping his crew from mutinying.

Though if you think the benefit is too small still, I think a small commerce skill boost, or a reduction in salary cost, or some other bonus could make sense, I think we just have to avoid having it remove commerce skill relevance entirely. Otherwise, someone starts a freeplay as a merchant, and they have no reason to ever develop their commerce skill, nor will they see a progression in their trading ability. And for an established player, a merchant's license becomes a 10 commerce quatermaster, when they should still need to hire one.

Side Question: There currently is no reduction in price for the sale of privateered goods? I know ships gets the 0.5 modifier, and I think cannons run through the same modifier to reduce their sale price after first getting a .75 modifier, so .375 for cannons or something, so those get reduced. But I can't find anything doing the same for cargo goods? Probably too hard to enforce I expect, tracking where the goods came from?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Good point--they are pretty damn expensive. Of course they are also pretty critical as well--by the time you can afford one, you kind of need one, so I think the benefit scales with the cost. Someone who has a million to spend needs one at that point, and won't think the benefit is small when it means keeping his crew from mutinying.

That's indeed the reason for the exorbitantly high price.

Though if you think the benefit is too small still, I think a small commerce skill boost, or a reduction in salary cost, or some other bonus could make sense, I think we just have to avoid having it remove commerce skill relevance entirely. Otherwise, someone starts a freeplay as a merchant, and they have no reason to ever develop their commerce skill, nor will they see a progression in their trading ability. And for an established player, a merchant's license becomes a 10 commerce quatermaster, when they should still need to hire one.

You do have a point. Of course it was me as who originally set it up like it is, but the reason for it was more as experiment than anything else.

Side Question: There currently is no reduction in price for the sale of privateered goods? I know ships gets the 0.5 modifier, and I think cannons run through the same modifier, so those get reduced. But I can't find anything doing the same for cargo goods? Probably too hard to enforce I expect, tracking where the goods came from?

You pretty much answered your own question.
We thought about it and I tried some stuff to sort-of kind-of make that work,
but anything I tried that was simple and doable was also very controversial, so eventually we did away with it again.
Actually, that "Merchant License bypasses skill modifiers" code is a left-over from those earlier experiments on Privateer-vs-Navy-vs-Merchant sale prices.

 

[Levis]

I might be mistaking but I believe the skillmodify is set to max if you have the merchant passport.
the skillmodify will be a number between 0 and 1 depending on your skill. so it doesn't negate your commerce so much as it just boosts it to 10 when doing transactions.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It negates your Commerce skill during transactions (as it simulates you having 10 plus all needed Commerce perks).
But indeed Commerce is still used in other instances too, so it isn't negated all across the board.

 

[Levis]

It negates your Commerce skill during transactions (as it simulates you having 10 plus all needed Commerce perks).
But indeed Commerce is still used in other instances too, so it isn't negated all across the board.

so is this either good or bad?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

so is this either good or bad?

If it were completely bad, I never would have added it to the mod.

It is definitely debatable though. So if somebody has any better ideas of what the Merchant Passport should actually do, feel free to suggest them.
Ideally simple tweaks.

 

[Levis]

If it were completely bad, I never would have added it to the mod.

It is definitely debatable though. So if somebody has any better ideas of what the Merchant Passport should actually do, feel free to suggest them.
Ideally simple tweaks.

Like I said before a relative simple tweak might be to have some merchant ships only aviable in the shipyard if you have the merchant passport.

Besides that for now I can't think off very much. But when I'm going to rework the trading system I could take this into account and make the merchant passport way more intresting (like the ability to invest in stuff or something like that).

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Like I said before a relative simple tweak might be to have some merchant ships only aviable in the shipyard if you have the merchant passport.

True.
Would people appreciate that change? Would they even notice?
Would it be a problem that the Merchant Passport doesn't actually have "levels" so it's either all or nothing?
What realistic logic would there be to support it?

 

[Levis]

True.
Would people appreciate that change? Would they even notice?
Would it be a problem that the Merchant Passport doesn't actually have "levels" so it's either all or nothing?
What realistic logic would there be to support it?

well you could say something like the ships are "designed" by the trade compagny so you can only get them if you are part of that compagny.

We could have different passports for differente trade compagnies (just like LOM) so it becomes a bit more interesting already, you would need to get the passport for each nation if you want to trade cheaply everywhere.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

We could have different passports for differente trade compagnies (just like LOM) so it becomes a bit more interesting already, you would need to get the passport for each nation if you want to trade cheaply everywhere.

That sort-of is already the case, because there is a separate EITC Passport that also allows you to make use of the facilities at Antigua.
I think at the moment that one is for Jack Sparrow quest use only though.
Actually, I went back and forth on that one a bit and at some point that one was sold instead of the "regular" one for double the price at Jamaica.
But if I remember correctly, I removed that so that it is always the same one you get now.

There would need to be a character selling the licenses for all nations somewhere.

 

[Levis]

That sort-of is already the case, because there is a separate EITC Passport that also allows you to make use of the facilities at Antigua.
I think at the moment that one is for Jack Sparrow quest use only though.
Actually, I went back and forth on that one a bit and at some point that one was sold instead of the "regular" one for double the price at Jamaica.
But if I remember correctly, I removed that so that it is always the same one you get now.

There would need to be a character selling the licenses for all nations somewhere.

We could just use the shop owners untill we have an officer for each trading party somewhere at least.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

True.