Commissioning New Ships

[Jason Maffettone]

A thought I had: add an option at the shipyard to have a new ship custom built. It would follow the same rules depending on the options you have set regarding the selling of ships(i.e. warship and level restrictions), but instead you could ask for a specific ship to be built for you.

It could take a period of time to complete, say 16 months minus the ship class (15 months for a class 1, 7 months for a class 9, etc) and at the end of that period it would be placed in a laid-up berthing slot at that port waiting for you.

Additional restrictions could be imposed by nationality, such as Spanish Galleons only at Spanish ports and what not.

This would be nice for those of us who want specific fleet compositions without searching forever for the ones we want, or for players who want a particular ship but are not into piracy/privateering. I think it would also just be cool to have a ship in-game that was specifically built FOR you. If you have the Shipwright professional background you could get a discount as you would be able to draw-up the planns yourself which would also be nice.

Another possibility is that each ship builder might get certain bonuses or penalties of their own in addition to the national ones, perhaps at additional cost from exceptional ones.

It seems this would only require a new dialogue option with the shipyard owner since the interface for selecting ship at game start could be used for selecting the desired ship type.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I do like that idea and vaguely remember it being discussed on the forum before.
Main challenge is the usual one: who is going to make it happen...?

 

[Dat Scharger]

Holy shito, yes!

But I would add more restrictions to prevent it from just being "Easy Warships on demand":

You have to encounter the specific ship at least once and you have to provide the shipyard with the necessary building materials.

 

[Grey Roger]

A thought I had: add an option at the shipyard to have a new ship custom built. It would follow the same rules depending on the options you have set regarding the selling of ships(i.e. warship and level restrictions), but instead you could ask for a specific ship to be built for you.

It could take a period of time to complete, say 16 months minus the ship class (15 months for a class 1, 7 months for a class 9, etc) and at the end of that period it would be placed in a laid-up berthing slot at that port waiting for you.

Price should be at least double that of a second-hand ship bought the usual way. Add another 10% and another 2-3 months for designing the ship; skip that bit if you have the "Shipwright" background.

Additional restrictions could be imposed by nationality, such as Spanish Galleons only at Spanish ports and what not.

Use the same restrictions as apply to buying a ship. You can't order a ship that is too big for the shipyard to handle; you can't order a warship unless you have sufficient rank with the shipyard's nation; naval officers below flag rank can't order a ship at all. Additionally, you can't order anything bigger than tier 4 - national shipyards won't build anything bigger except for their navy, pirate shipyards can't build anything bigger. Maybe allow flag rank naval officers (not privateers) to order bigger ships as they represent their nation's navy. Also maybe allow ordering of trade ships only if you have a merchant licence - we may as well get some more value out of that document.

It seems this would only require a new dialogue option with the shipyard owner since the interface for selecting ship at game start could be used for selecting the desired ship type.

It would require a new dialog option and a new interface to pick your ship. And, as @Pieter Boelen says, it also requires someone to work on them...

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Also maybe allow ordering of trade ships only if you have a merchant licence - we may as well get some more value out of that document.

I like that idea.

 

[Dat Scharger]

Use the same restrictions as apply to buying a ship. You can't order a ship that is too big for the shipyard to handle; you can't order a warship unless you have sufficient rank with the shipyard's nation; naval officers below flag rank can't order a ship at all. Additionally, you can't order anything bigger than tier 4 - national shipyards won't build anything bigger except for their navy, pirate shipyards can't build anything bigger. Maybe allow flag rank naval officers (not privateers) to order bigger ships as they represent their nation's navy. Also maybe allow ordering of trade ships only if you have a merchant licence - we may as well get some more value out of that document.

With so many restrictions, such a feature would be pretty much pointless as there's no shortage of tier 4 and 3 ships which you can just steal in large quantities.

Commissioning ships should primarily alleviate the need to spend hours for finding that one tier 1 or 2 ship.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Simplest trick is to just cheat using the console.
If you don't want to chat, remove an appropriate amount of money the same way.
Requires a bit more creativity, but it's fairly simple to do and barely requires progressing at all.

 

[Grey Roger]

With so many restrictions, such a feature would be pretty much pointless as there's no shortage of tier 4 and 3 ships which you can just steal in large quantities.

Commissioning ships should primarily alleviate the need to spend hours for finding that one tier 1 or 2 ship.

Civilians wouldn't be able to buy such powerful ships! In much the same way, no matter how rich Bill Gates is, he's never going to be able to buy a nuclear missile submarine. If you want to command the most powerful ships in your nation's navy, join the navy!

Besides, your suggestion was:

You have to encounter the specific ship at least once

And if you've encountered the ship, you can steal it.

Simplest trick is to just cheat using the console.
If you don't want to chat, remove an appropriate amount of money the same way.
Requires a bit more creativity, but it's fairly simple to do and barely requires progressing at all.

Removing money requires no progress at all. The church will be happy to take money from you.

Instead of using cheatmode to give yourself your choice of ship right at the start, you could start off as a naval officer and use cheatmode to promote yourself up to admiral. Then you would be able to order your choice of ship.

Of course, if you start with a tier 1 or tier 2 ship, you're going to be heavily penalised because you don't have the "Leadership" or "Sailing" skill to command it efficiently. You can either earn them by playing for hours, or you can use cheatmode to give yourself a lot of level increases.

 

[Dat Scharger]

Civilians wouldn't be able to buy such powerful ships! In much the same way, no matter how rich Bill Gates is, he's never going to be able to buy a nuclear missile submarine. If you want to command the most powerful ships in your nation's navy, join the navy!

Besides, your suggestion was:
And if you've encountered the ship, you can steal it.

Encounter doesn't equal being able to steal it. Not in the sense of "You can't steal it at all", but more of "Have fun trying to capture one, which is part of a large fleet consisting of powerful ships. In a flushdeck frigate".
Also, you have to encounter it again if your attempt fails.

Then at least make Tier 1 and 2 ships appear more frequently (I really miss the bounty hunters) please, because searching for hours isn't fun, while Centurions and Fleurons are a very common sight.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Removing money requires no progress at all. The church will be happy to take money from you.

Sorry, I meant to write "programming".

 

[Dat Scharger]

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Money makes the world go round, right?

Then maybe a generous donation to the shipbuilder might enable even a civilian to commission navy ships. Say... +50 percent of the ship's price?

 

[Grey Roger]

Sorry, I meant to write "programming".

Donating to the church doesn't require that either.

Then maybe a generous donation to the shipbuilder might enable even a civilian to commission navy ships. Say... +50 percent of the ship's price?

Make it 500% and he might think about building you a frigate. Or start your game as a naval officer, work (or cheat) your way up to flag rank, and then you're commissioning the ship on behalf of the navy. The shipbuilder can't object to that.

Then at least make Tier 1 and 2 ships appear more frequently (I really miss the bounty hunters) please, because searching for hours isn't fun, while Centurions and Fleurons are a very common sight.

That's something you could easily do for yourself. Edit "PROGRAM\Ships\Ships_init.c". Look for the sort of ship you want to be more frequent, e.g. "Manowar1" (the same sort of ship you'll face near the end of "Tales of a Sea Hawk"). In particular, look for these lines in the ship's definition:

   refShip.period.0 = 0.0; //
   refShip.period.1 = 0.0; //
   refShip.period.2 = 0.4; //
   refShip.period.3 = 0.3; //
   refShip.period.4 = 0.0; //
   refShip.period.5 = 0.0; //
   //Nation
   refShip.england = 0.02; //
   refShip.france = 0.02; //
   refShip.holland = 0.0; //
   refShip.portugal = 0.0; //
   refShip.pirate = 0.0; //
   refShip.spain = 0.0; //
   refShip.america = 0.0; //

The ones which are really making it rare are the "england" and "france" ones. Increase those, start a new game, and you should see more of them in British and French fleets. If you want them to appear in someone else's fleet, e.g. Dutch, change their entry from 0.0 to whatever you used for "england" or "france".

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Donating to the church doesn't require that either.

Well, I wasn't disagreeing with you anyway.
It's a simple and effective option.

Then at least make Tier 1 and 2 ships appear more frequently (I really miss the bounty hunters) please, because searching for hours isn't fun, while Centurions and Fleurons are a very common sight.

It's also related to the type of encounters you can have on the world map and DirectSail.
These are defined in the encounters init folder.