Captain Finn
Landlubber
Thanks for everyone for making the build mod happen. It is fun and adds many great features, and makes the game better. It's great that many things can be easily changed to your personal liking.
Thanks for the good work! With the help of this community, the game will get better every day.
What this post is about though is that I have a question. I like to hire officers (and thanks for that now you can get more than 10 officers, than was the limit in the original game), but the way their abilities get generated gets me frustrated quite often. I would love to hire high-level officers, but when I interview an officer and he says he is a good navigator, and has good sailing/defence skills but no abilities related to sailing/handling a ship, my interest in hiring him collapses quite totally. Many of the officers I meet seem to spend quite much time honing their close-combat abilities, even the navigators, at the expense of their "professional" abilities, which for a navigator, I would define as abilities related to sailing and evading enemy fire in ship combat, ie tasks related to sailing a ship. I see the other officers having the same problems, with gunners being land-owners and advanced commercialists, maybe with no abilities related to handling cannons.
I can understand that it is good for an officer to be able with a sword and a gun, but do they so much have to pride that sort of professionalism over their "professional" abilities? The abilities like defence, advanced defence, critical hit, professional fencer, rush, gunman, and master gunman seem to be the abilities many officers take as a priority, no matter what they claim to be good at. Even if the 10th level navigator is a poor fencer (has melee skill of 2) he is likely to have taken many if not all of the melee related abilities, and has only a few abilities that are quite randomly tossed around, maybe with luck he has got some sailing related abilities.
So, my question is, can I change how the new officers' skills/abilities get allocated when their skills/abilities are first generated? I would be happy if a navigator, for example, put something like 50% of his abilities in sailing-related areas, and spent maybe 25% of the remaining in close combat, and the rest 25% randomly, for a rough estimate. That would guarantee, that a level 10 navigator would have 5 abilities related to sailing, and maybe 2 or 3 abilities related to melee, and 2 or 3 random abilities. Of course, at higher levels, the officers would that way get all their "professional" abilities, and would have no choice but to place their remaining abilities elsewhere. A level 20 navigator would be guaranteed to get 10 sailing related abilities, maybe surpassing the number available. A boatswain of course would have melee and grappling as "professional" skills and abilities. Of course this approach tends to make characters very similar to each other, so maybe the ranges could be varied, like for example, a navigator getting maybe 30-50% of his abilities related to sailing, and the rest 50-70% divided between melee and random abilities. I think all officers should get some melee training, but a navigator does not need (and probably does not have) the same level of expertise as a boatswain. If you want lots of melee fights, you ought to be a boatswain. Boatswains should be the tough guys who want to melee (and grapple the enemy so they can board and get a fight) guys, cannoneers are also aggressive but from afar and should be good with cannons, navigators are more defense/support oriented and should be good with handling a ship, quartermaster good with repairs and supplies (including getting new supplies, trading), a first mate should have good overall leadership and influence skills (like leadership and "streetsmart"/luck). One of the great aspects of this game is that you can have specialist officers, so you don't need to do all yourself.
This is just my opinion and an estimate of what I would like, and maybe does not suit everybody's interests. Doing it like this would make "professional" officers, who are guaranteed to be good specialists on their choosen profession. If I have to trust my life, the life of my ship and the life of my crew to my officers hands, those hands should be able to do the job satisfyinglyl That way the officers would be happier also as they would be better prepared for the challenges ahead and would live longer in these dangerous times.
When I played the original game the solution was to stay as low level as possible in the beginning, and hire all the officers when they were low-level, so when they leveled up their abilities and skills could be chosen freely. But the downside with that approach is that it is no fun, and if your officer dies in combat (like his ship being sunk), you can not get a good replacement. Besides, always having the same faces in passenger list all your life is rather booring. If I could change the way the officers get generated, it would not be a great deal if an officer dies in combat, because I could get a professional replacement easily.
It would be great if in some future build would be the possibility to fine-tune the way the new officers get their skills/abilities allocated. That way everyone could get what they most liked. The officers currently get their skill points allocated quite nicely, but the abilities seem to be more random. If they also would be more concentrated around those skills that they are good at, I would be happy. A gunner with gunnery skill of 10 would be more likely to have abilities related to gunnery than a gunner with skill of 5 I think. So maybe the allocation of abilities should be tied to skills? The higher the skill, the higher the change that you have an ability related to that skill. If you are good at sailing, you would more likely have abilities related to sailing. If you are good at defence, you would be more likely to have abilities related to defence etc. If you're good at commerce, you would be more likely to have learned the secrets of advanced commerce etc.
So maybe this would work better (than the rough method I suggested above): officers get abilities in relation to how high their skills are in relation to their total amount of skills. Say, the new officer at level 5 has 10 available skill points and 5 ability points, and allocates 6 skill points in melee, and 3 skill points in grappling, and 1 skillpoint in sailing. If there are 10 different skills, and all skills start at 1, now the officer has 20 points of skills in total. 7/20 skill points (1+6 allocated points) are in melee, thus the change that an ability point is allocated to melee related ability is 7/20. For grappling related ability the chance would be 4/20 (1+3 allocated skill points). Maybe in this case the program would generate a random number between 1 and 20, and if the result was 1-7, the ability would be related to melee, if 8-11, the ability would be related to grappling etc. This would make officers get (on average) abilities in direct relation to their skills. So, if the officer was a navigator and good in sailing, he would on average have most ability points in sailing related abilities (like speed, maneuver, storm helsman etc). If the officer had all abilities related to sailing already, the remaining abilities would get allocated elsewhere in similar manner.
Ok I know this post has gotten pretty lengthy. I have no abilities at programming, so I don't have a clue if a mod like this is even possible. But I would be happy to hear your thoughts. Would something like this work as an idea how the officers' abilities would get allocated? This would make the chance to have an ability depend on the related skill (if any). Officers would be more interesting and as their skills vary quite much, also their abilities would vary so officers would not be like each other, but at the same time abilities would get concentrated somewhat to give some sense and an useful role for the character. And I think it would be quite realistic also, what you are good at (or where you have the most experience), that is where you excel.
Thanks for everyone who had the patience to read through all this!
<span style='color:yellow'>One more quick question here:</span>
<span style='color:blue'>Can I change the skills/abilities/hitpoints of my current officers? How do I do it?</span>
<span style='color:yellow'>Thanks for any help!</span>
ps. Do your officers benefit from having "rush" and land-owner abilities? Do they use rush in combat? And how about the land? Can they own land and get money from it? And if someone can make/mod the officers to parry more in combat, they would survive better in melee (hint hint).
Thanks for the good work! With the help of this community, the game will get better every day.
What this post is about though is that I have a question. I like to hire officers (and thanks for that now you can get more than 10 officers, than was the limit in the original game), but the way their abilities get generated gets me frustrated quite often. I would love to hire high-level officers, but when I interview an officer and he says he is a good navigator, and has good sailing/defence skills but no abilities related to sailing/handling a ship, my interest in hiring him collapses quite totally. Many of the officers I meet seem to spend quite much time honing their close-combat abilities, even the navigators, at the expense of their "professional" abilities, which for a navigator, I would define as abilities related to sailing and evading enemy fire in ship combat, ie tasks related to sailing a ship. I see the other officers having the same problems, with gunners being land-owners and advanced commercialists, maybe with no abilities related to handling cannons.
I can understand that it is good for an officer to be able with a sword and a gun, but do they so much have to pride that sort of professionalism over their "professional" abilities? The abilities like defence, advanced defence, critical hit, professional fencer, rush, gunman, and master gunman seem to be the abilities many officers take as a priority, no matter what they claim to be good at. Even if the 10th level navigator is a poor fencer (has melee skill of 2) he is likely to have taken many if not all of the melee related abilities, and has only a few abilities that are quite randomly tossed around, maybe with luck he has got some sailing related abilities.
So, my question is, can I change how the new officers' skills/abilities get allocated when their skills/abilities are first generated? I would be happy if a navigator, for example, put something like 50% of his abilities in sailing-related areas, and spent maybe 25% of the remaining in close combat, and the rest 25% randomly, for a rough estimate. That would guarantee, that a level 10 navigator would have 5 abilities related to sailing, and maybe 2 or 3 abilities related to melee, and 2 or 3 random abilities. Of course, at higher levels, the officers would that way get all their "professional" abilities, and would have no choice but to place their remaining abilities elsewhere. A level 20 navigator would be guaranteed to get 10 sailing related abilities, maybe surpassing the number available. A boatswain of course would have melee and grappling as "professional" skills and abilities. Of course this approach tends to make characters very similar to each other, so maybe the ranges could be varied, like for example, a navigator getting maybe 30-50% of his abilities related to sailing, and the rest 50-70% divided between melee and random abilities. I think all officers should get some melee training, but a navigator does not need (and probably does not have) the same level of expertise as a boatswain. If you want lots of melee fights, you ought to be a boatswain. Boatswains should be the tough guys who want to melee (and grapple the enemy so they can board and get a fight) guys, cannoneers are also aggressive but from afar and should be good with cannons, navigators are more defense/support oriented and should be good with handling a ship, quartermaster good with repairs and supplies (including getting new supplies, trading), a first mate should have good overall leadership and influence skills (like leadership and "streetsmart"/luck). One of the great aspects of this game is that you can have specialist officers, so you don't need to do all yourself.
This is just my opinion and an estimate of what I would like, and maybe does not suit everybody's interests. Doing it like this would make "professional" officers, who are guaranteed to be good specialists on their choosen profession. If I have to trust my life, the life of my ship and the life of my crew to my officers hands, those hands should be able to do the job satisfyinglyl That way the officers would be happier also as they would be better prepared for the challenges ahead and would live longer in these dangerous times.
When I played the original game the solution was to stay as low level as possible in the beginning, and hire all the officers when they were low-level, so when they leveled up their abilities and skills could be chosen freely. But the downside with that approach is that it is no fun, and if your officer dies in combat (like his ship being sunk), you can not get a good replacement. Besides, always having the same faces in passenger list all your life is rather booring. If I could change the way the officers get generated, it would not be a great deal if an officer dies in combat, because I could get a professional replacement easily.
It would be great if in some future build would be the possibility to fine-tune the way the new officers get their skills/abilities allocated. That way everyone could get what they most liked. The officers currently get their skill points allocated quite nicely, but the abilities seem to be more random. If they also would be more concentrated around those skills that they are good at, I would be happy. A gunner with gunnery skill of 10 would be more likely to have abilities related to gunnery than a gunner with skill of 5 I think. So maybe the allocation of abilities should be tied to skills? The higher the skill, the higher the change that you have an ability related to that skill. If you are good at sailing, you would more likely have abilities related to sailing. If you are good at defence, you would be more likely to have abilities related to defence etc. If you're good at commerce, you would be more likely to have learned the secrets of advanced commerce etc.
So maybe this would work better (than the rough method I suggested above): officers get abilities in relation to how high their skills are in relation to their total amount of skills. Say, the new officer at level 5 has 10 available skill points and 5 ability points, and allocates 6 skill points in melee, and 3 skill points in grappling, and 1 skillpoint in sailing. If there are 10 different skills, and all skills start at 1, now the officer has 20 points of skills in total. 7/20 skill points (1+6 allocated points) are in melee, thus the change that an ability point is allocated to melee related ability is 7/20. For grappling related ability the chance would be 4/20 (1+3 allocated skill points). Maybe in this case the program would generate a random number between 1 and 20, and if the result was 1-7, the ability would be related to melee, if 8-11, the ability would be related to grappling etc. This would make officers get (on average) abilities in direct relation to their skills. So, if the officer was a navigator and good in sailing, he would on average have most ability points in sailing related abilities (like speed, maneuver, storm helsman etc). If the officer had all abilities related to sailing already, the remaining abilities would get allocated elsewhere in similar manner.
Ok I know this post has gotten pretty lengthy. I have no abilities at programming, so I don't have a clue if a mod like this is even possible. But I would be happy to hear your thoughts. Would something like this work as an idea how the officers' abilities would get allocated? This would make the chance to have an ability depend on the related skill (if any). Officers would be more interesting and as their skills vary quite much, also their abilities would vary so officers would not be like each other, but at the same time abilities would get concentrated somewhat to give some sense and an useful role for the character. And I think it would be quite realistic also, what you are good at (or where you have the most experience), that is where you excel.
Thanks for everyone who had the patience to read through all this!
<span style='color:yellow'>One more quick question here:</span>
<span style='color:blue'>Can I change the skills/abilities/hitpoints of my current officers? How do I do it?</span>
<span style='color:yellow'>Thanks for any help!</span>
ps. Do your officers benefit from having "rush" and land-owner abilities? Do they use rush in combat? And how about the land? Can they own land and get money from it? And if someone can make/mod the officers to parry more in combat, they would survive better in melee (hint hint).
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