Poll More unique officers

[Pieter Boelen]

As opposed to trying to find a quartermaster with the right +1 to offset the -1 incurred by your other officers, then trying to find someone to offset the -1 from that quartermaster, etc. That could be considered a bit dull. Better to just "hire any quartermaster, mission accomplished, never need to think about that again", then find some cargo for the quartermaster to sell. Whether you have the quartermaster buy it or have your cannoneer persuade someone to give it to you, that's your choice, but either way is a lot more fun than endlessly trying to balance the bonuses and penalties from officers.

Depends on whether you want "officer management" to be something you do once at the start of the game (e.g. "fill all slots and that's enough")
or you want such "human resource management" to remain important throughout the entirety of the game.

The idea of a unique officer bringing a skill to 11 was just a suggestion for a way to give him a unique bonus. If that can't be made to work, what about the other suggestion of a few special perks not available by normal means and only assigned to such officers?

I'd prefer regular officers to stay as they are now, and additionally have the occasional special officer with a special advantage. He'd also demand a higher salary or a bigger share of divided loot because he's an expert and he knows it!

Also a perfectly good idea.

I do wonder how much higher the salary would have to be to make it something worth considering, rather than an "instant hire".

 

[Levis]

The idea of a unique officer bringing a skill to 11 was just a suggestion for a way to give him a unique bonus. If that can't be made to work, what about the other suggestion of a few special perks not available by normal means and only assigned to such officers?

Do you mean they can contribute perks which are normally not contributed. Or do you want completly special perks. Like each officertype gets a "special" perk which gives it some bonusses and only some officers have this perk.
Maybe even 2 of these.
For example:
A first mate could have a perk:
Charisma(this was originally plannend by someone but never executed) which gives a moralboost to your whole crew
and another perk for example giving a small reduction in crew salarys (or something like that).
These perks can't be aquired in any other way.

 

[Tingyun]

Levis, building off those perks ideas you list, I would love it if there were, say, a quatermaster with the perk "penny-pincher", which reduces food and rum cost (or deceeases their consumption), but decreases morale, because he buys lower quality stuff. Or a first mate with "generous", which increases morale but also increases salaries. Or the opposite, lower salaries lower morale.

Basically, those special perks should not just be "good", and the game becomes pokemon "gotta collect them all," with the special trait guys better than normal guys (so you just always try and try to hire them). Instead, the special guys should be both better and worse, and the player has to decidee the tradeoffs, with the normal guys just as good in an objective sense.

 

[Grey Roger]

Or have the special guys be good but rare. Unique. So if you find one, you're certainly going to hire him, but it's hardly going to be "gotta collect them all" because there won't be that many around.

Otherwise, by the time you find one of these officers, you'll probably already be settled into your playstyle for this game and decide that he's not worth the trouble.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Levis, building off those perks ideas you list, I would love it if there were, say, a quatermaster with the perk "penny-pincher", which reduces food and rum cost (or deceeases their consumption), but decreases morale, because he buys lower quality stuff. Or a first mate with "generous", which increases morale but also increases salaries. Or the opposite, lower salaries lower morale.

I like 'em!
That makes them much more like "character traits" than part of any linear progression.

Basically, those special perks should not just be "good", and the game becomes pokemon "gotta collect them all," with the special trait guys better than normal guys (so you just always try and try to hire them). Instead, the special guys should be both better and worse, and the player has to decidee the tradeoffs, with the normal guys just as good in an objective sense.

From my side, I very much agree.

Or have the special guys be good but rare. Unique. So if you find one, you're certainly going to hire him, but it's hardly going to be "gotta collect them all" because there won't be that many around.

It would still be "collect them all" though, wouldn't it? Just a very slow version of it.

Otherwise, by the time you find one of these officers, you'll probably already be settled into your playstyle for this game and decide that he's not worth the trouble.

Depends on how flexible you are.
If you find a better Carpenter than the one you've got, why not hire the new one and fire the current one?
Choices, choices.

 

[Grey Roger]

It would still be "collect them all" though, wouldn't it? Just a very slow version of it.

If you're going to play the game that long then it's going to be "collect them all" anyway, if only so that bonuses and penalties balance out. I'd hope to see one, maybe two during the typical lifetime of one of my games, which is the duration of a storyline plus a bit of freeplay to enjoy whatever reward the storyline gave at the end. The folks who like to free-play for years on end are the ones who'll "collect them all", which is nice as it gives them something to do when they've run out of side quests.

Depends on how flexible you are.
If you find a better Carpenter than the one you've got, why not hire the new one and fire the current one?
Choices, choices.

Mainly because unless I'm amazingly lucky and find the special carpenter early on, he probably isn't better than the current one. That's because the current one has probably levelled up and now has Repair 10 and all the carpentry perks by the time I find the unique one. So unless the unique one is a net positive who'll add to the ship's abilities without detracting from them in some way, I'll stick with the one who's been with me. Loyalty works both ways.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Levis, how hard would it be to change the game to a 1-100 skill range? I'm afraid that would be a very risky thing to try and do.
But it might make it much easier to create a situation where it would take absolute infinity to get your officers all the way to their maximum skills.
Which does sound like quite a good thing. Eventually. Maybe. Perhaps....

 

[Tingyun]

Grey Roger, the bonuses and penalties to skills don't cancel out, because they aren't party wide. Here is Levis's explanation: "I was thinking on having the bonus just for them. As if they where carying a skillboost item. It might not serve much use but it does look nice and gives them some personality." The bonuses and penalties to things like morale presumably wouldn't cancel out either, because you would pick which direction you preferred (i.e. Higher cost higher morale) and only hire those.

I think Levis's conception is to add general flavor and personality to many officers, so the world feels more differentiated than their skills. In other words, when Levis says "more unique officers", he means that most officers should be more unique.

Grey Roger seems to want instead a special/legendary officer system, where there are a rare few officers with special talents (1-2 in his entire play through).

These are fundamentally different approaches, and we might as well decide on one or the other expressly.

I personally prefer the Levis conception, because I prefer making the world generally more immersive over adding a rare special power to collect. Also, Levis's conception lends itself to trade offs, which make for interesting decisions, whereas Grey Roger's conception implies they should basically just be collectible bonuses, which doesn't lead to as fun strategic decisions.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

These are fundamentally different approaches, and we might as well decide on one or the other expressly.

Or both with toggle, depending on how difficult they are to accomplish.

In any case, the amount of options are quite huge. Eventually we'll have to limit ourselves.
And I must admit I'm beginning to lose track of all the suggestions and which ones are good/bad and why....

 

[Tingyun]

Pieter, I like toggles for other things, but this one would require entirely separate perks for each, it isn't just a matter of changing the frequency (i.e., special bonus legendary perks vs trade off ordinary perks). We are basically talking about two different mechanics here, and trying to implement them together will just water the thing down out of coherence.

Since Levis has mentioned he would have fun implementing this, I would say we go with his suggestion and implement it in that general approach, common traits making most officers more unique. If it proves controversial later, we can add a toggle to turn it off later, and then if someone wants to create a legendary officer bonus system, that can be done seperately.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Sounds sensible.

 

[Levis]

@Levis, how hard would it be to change the game to a 1-100 skill range? I'm afraid that would be a very risky thing to try and do.
But it might make it much easier to create a situation where it would take absolute infinity to get your officers all the way to their maximum skills.
Which does sound like quite a good thing. Eventually. Maybe. Perhaps....

Depens on if we want to implement it right or cheat .
In the interface I could make it show as a 1-100 scale very easy by using the % we have now. Instead of using a 1-10 scale you would have 1-10 between each scale which is calculated with the % of skill increase. Internally you would still work with the normal values but in the interface it wouldn't show the % anymore but instead show a 1-100 scale.
I could even show the % also. It's just a matter of applying some math on it to calculate intermediate levels.

About the perk idea. I do like it because I was longer thinking of something like that. If we are going to apply this I'm willing to make it because I like this too. I especially like if its not possible to get all of them. so for example have a "Good" and "Bad" perk for each type of officer. This could even be linked to the loyalty system where a officer has a good or bad allignment too.
But I do need idea's for these perks. and a lot of work always goes into making the images for them (because I'm bad with graphic programs). so if someone wants to help me make these images and come up with texts for the perks etc I can do the programming work!

Maybe people like @imado552 or @Tingyun or @Eskhol could help with this ?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Depens on if we want to implement it right or cheat .
In the interface I could make it show as a 1-100 scale very easy by using the % we have now. Instead of using a 1-10 scale you would have 1-10 between each scale which is calculated with the % of skill increase. Internally you would still work with the normal values but in the interface it wouldn't show the % anymore but instead show a 1-100 scale.
I could even show the % also. It's just a matter of applying some math on it to calculate intermediate levels.

If it is only fake, then effectively nothing changes. I think we should either not do it or do it right.

But I do need idea's for these perks. and a lot of work always goes into making the images for them (because I'm bad with graphic programs). so if someone wants to help me make these images and come up with texts for the perks etc I can do the programming work!

@Jack Rackham and @Grey Roger are good with images.

 

[Levis]

@Jack Rackham and @Grey Roger are good with images.

I know, but they have other stuff to do also.
There is a blank image somewhere for the perks. I believe @Armada know where it is. So you just need to put something on there and make a large and a small version of it. And you need to make a gray version and a locked version.

 

[Jack Rackham]

I will always have other things to do but can give this a try for a change.

 

[Tingyun]

@Levis You are rescuing my beloved campaign with the reinitilize fix, so of course I'll help you with this.

I will make a list of suggested perks over the next couple of days, and post back here as I come up with ones. I want time to think on good trade offs for each one.

 

[Armada]

There is a blank image somewhere for the perks. I believe @Armada know where it is.

I don't remember coming across a blank perk image. I only did some work on the lock icons a while back.

 

[Levis]

I don't remember coming across a blank perk image. I only did some work on the lock icons a while back.

nvm see I added it to the game already.
its the file
empty_frame.tga.tx
in
RESOURCE\Textures\INTERFACES\PERKS

 

[Pieter Boelen]

nvm see I added it to the game already.

Good man!

 

[imado552]

I would be happy to help ....well in always happy to help rather then waisting my time doing nothing lol just tell me what I should do
Just changing some copies of your empty tga tex file?