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WIP Officer System Modifications

F

Ferdish

Powder Monkey
I have played Build 14 for a couple of weeks and need an opinion from more skilled players, mostly from those who played other storylines than stock one (Tales of a Sea Wawk), so I hope you'll help me guys.

I'm starting to be more and more convinced that First Mate is not necessary at all. What I'm saying, First mates are primarily used to keep morale high and to increase performance quality of ship's crew and officers, due to their high Leadership skill and Iron Will ability they are predicted for. But that's it, nothing more. In stock game, I also used them as officers with high Luck skill a.k.a "lucky guys". It had affected events during sailing on the high seas like formation of storms and random ship encounters. Of course, it had no effect for getting caught smuggling, this was affected only by main character's Luck.

Unfortunately, Luck is not First Mate's active skill in Build 14. It is Sailing, and only partially. But this skill is fully covered by Navigator. Of course, Leadership higher than main char's one may come in handy at the beginning of the game, but your main char's Leadership will overcome after a few level-ups. So in my opinion, First Mate will be uselles at any rate.

What do you think about it?
 
I don't quite understand where you're going here but yeah, first mate in build 14 is necessary along with the other officers depending what skill you lack most.
Like if you lack leadership as you mentioned, hire a first mate, and so on..
..i think you answered your own question here..o_O
 
:shrug

Having an officer with high leadership and luck is a good thing, but I primarily look for melee skills. I will say that it is easier to upgrade an officer's sailing skills than leadership skills, so a good first mate will later become a good Captain.
 
Cheers,

that's precisely what I use them for.

In the early game to boost main characters luck, and later on, to command captured ships.
 
Apparently NO character type contributes luck. Perhaps we can return that to First Mate.

But indeed I think the main purpose to them is so that eventually they can become companion captains.
 
I would remove the commerce skill from a doctor and add luck to the doctor.
I think luck fits a doctor best.
 
This is easily edited in PROGRAM\officers.c . I'd welcome someone to look through that and "sense things up" a bit.
 
This is what it says now, with 1 being half contribution and 2 being full contribution.
Code: 
//First Mate
    makeref(officer, Officer_type[OFFIC_TYPECLASS_FIRSTMATE]);
    officer.name = "First_Mate";
    officer.skill.Leadership = 2;
    officer.skill.Fencing = 0;
    officer.skill.Sailing = 1;
    officer.skill.Accuracy = 0;
    officer.skill.Cannons = 0;
    officer.skill.Grappling = 0;
    officer.skill.Repair = 0;
    officer.skill.Defence = 0;
    officer.skill.Commerce = 0;
    officer.skill.Sneak = 0;

    // seems to be personall skill...
    //officer.perk.IronWill  = 1;
    officer.perk.Brander = 1;
    officer.perk.Troopers = 1;

    //Quarter Master - Master Purser in fact.
    makeref(officer, Officer_type[OFFIC_TYPECLASS_QMASTER]);
    officer.name = "QMaster";
    officer.skill.Leadership = 0;
    officer.skill.Fencing = 0;
    officer.skill.Sailing = 0;
    officer.skill.Accuracy = 0;
    officer.skill.Cannons = 0;
    officer.skill.Grappling = 0;
    officer.skill.Repair = 1;
    officer.skill.Defence = 0;
    officer.skill.Commerce = 2;
    officer.skill.Sneak = 0;

    officer.perk.BasicCommerce = 1;
    officer.perk.AdvancedCommerce = 1;
    officer.perk.Trustworthy = 1;
    officer.perk.BasicLandOwner = 1;

    //Doctor
    makeref(officer, Officer_type[OFFIC_TYPECLASS_DOCTOR]);
    officer.name = "Doc";
    officer.skill.Leadership = 0;
    officer.skill.Fencing = 0;
    officer.skill.Sailing = 0;
    officer.skill.Accuracy = 0;
    officer.skill.Cannons = 0;
    officer.skill.Grappling = 0;
    officer.skill.Repair = 0;
    officer.skill.Defence = 2;
    officer.skill.Commerce = 1;
    officer.skill.Sneak = 0;

    officer.perk.BasicBattleState = 1;
    officer.perk.AdvancedBattleState = 1;
    officer.perk.ShipDefenseProfessional = 1;
   
    //Cannoneer
    makeref(officer, Officer_type[OFFIC_TYPECLASS_GUNNER]);
    officer.name = "MGunner";
    officer.skill.Leadership = 0;
    officer.skill.Fencing = 0;
    officer.skill.Sailing = 0;
    officer.skill.Accuracy = 2;
    officer.skill.Cannons = 2;
    officer.skill.Grappling = 0;   
    officer.skill.Repair = 0;
    officer.skill.Defence = 0;
    officer.skill.Commerce = 0;
    officer.skill.Sneak = 0;

    officer.perk.FastReload = 1;
    officer.perk.ImmediateReload = 1;
    officer.perk.HullDamageUp = 1;
    officer.perk.SailsDamageUp = 1;
    officer.perk.CrewDamageUp = 1;
    officer.perk.CriticalShoot = 1;
    officer.perk.LongRangeShoot = 1;
    officer.perk.CannonProfessional = 1;

    //Navigator - what is he supposed to do, exactly?...
    makeref(officer, Officer_type[OFFIC_TYPECLASS_NAVIGATOR]);
    officer.name = "Navigator";
    officer.skill.Leadership = 1;
    officer.skill.Fencing = 0;
    officer.skill.Sailing = 2;
    officer.skill.Accuracy = 0;
    officer.skill.Cannons = 0;
    officer.skill.Grappling = 0;   
    officer.skill.Repair = 0;
    officer.skill.Defence = 0;
    officer.skill.Commerce = 0;
    officer.skill.Sneak = 0;

    officer.perk.ShipSpeedUp = 1;
    officer.perk.ShipTurnRateUp = 1;
    officer.perk.StormProfessional = 1;
    officer.perk.Turn180 = 1;
    officer.perk.SandbankManeuver = 1;
    officer.perk.SailingProfessional = 1;

    //Carpenter
    makeref(officer, Officer_type[OFFIC_TYPECLASS_CARPENTER]);
    officer.name = "Carpenter";
    officer.skill.Leadership = 0;
    officer.skill.Fencing = 0;
    officer.skill.Sailing = 0;
    officer.skill.Accuracy = 0;
    officer.skill.Cannons = 0;
    officer.skill.Grappling = 0;   
    officer.skill.Repair = 2;
    officer.skill.Defence = 1;
    officer.skill.Commerce = 0;
    officer.skill.Sneak = 0;

    officer.perk.LightRepair = 1;
    officer.perk.InstantRepair = 1;

    //Boatswain
    makeref(officer, Officer_type[OFFIC_TYPECLASS_BOATSWAIN]);
    officer.name = "Boatswain";
    officer.skill.Leadership = 1;
    officer.skill.Fencing = 0;
    officer.skill.Sailing = 0;
    officer.skill.Accuracy = 0;
    officer.skill.Cannons = 0;
    officer.skill.Grappling = 2;
    officer.skill.Repair = 0;
    officer.skill.Defence = 0;
    officer.skill.Commerce = 0;
    officer.skill.Sneak = 0;

    officer.perk.LongRangeGrappling = 1;
    officer.perk.GrapplingProfessional = 1;
    officer.perk.InstantBoarding = 1;
    officer.perk.MusketsShoot = 1;

Adding luck wouldn't be a problem. think its just a matter of adding the line "officer.skill.Luck = X " for each officer. But I would like to hear opinions about the distribution of the different officers so if I'm going to chance it I do it right instantly.
Personally I think the commerce perk for the doc is useless so I would change that to luck.
Also I would change the Navigors leadership perk to accuracy (with his math knowledge he should be able to calculate the cannon angles better).
 
The Luck skill is called "Sneak" in the game. That actually seems like a better use for it, because actual "Luck" shouldn't be something that you can get better at.
It's just..... random, isn't it?

In the game, that sort-of half applies though. But not quite.

Indeed I agree that a doctor has no purpose for a commerce skill. Not sure about the Navigator, though.
I don't think a Navigator should be near the gun deck in the middle of a battle; should be needed on the quarterdeck.
Depends, though, of course. If by "navigator" you consider "establishing ship position through celestial observations" or something, then it doesn't matter.
But it would seem like an "Officer of the Watch" type job to me.

On the other hand, now that the player gets Leadership for paying salary on time, would the player not get a higher leadership skill than an officer?
Not sure myself, because I hardly ever have time to play. But it could be....

Do we even need those "half" assignments? Doesn't that just make it more complicated?
The few times I did play, I ended up spending quite some time experimenting with officer assignments to get the optimum result.
Unfortunately that require quite a lot of clicking and going back-and-forth between the Characters and Passengers interfaces.
Admittedly not the best gameplay, really. :facepalm
 
I'm doing the jack sparrow quest and my leadership is going up slowely but steady. I'm at level 5 now and I believe I reach level 15 with the character. So I think thats nice. You do need officers in the beginning but at later stages you could do without them.
yyl
I think there shouldn't be a optimum unless you use quest characters (don't know if they contribute something but I assume that for now). And else that might be a nice reward for some quests. For example it could reward you a officer which can contribute on multiple fields. Else I think each officer should only have 1 speciality.
I would say:
First Mate: Leadership
Quarter Master: Commerce
Doctor: Luck/Sneak
Cannoneer: Cannons
Navigator: Sailing
Carpenter: Repair
Boatswain: Grappling

Then I only miss Accuracy,Defence and Fencing
Now I dont think you want a officer for Fencing. But Defence and Accuracy would be nice. So you could add Defence to the Doctor cause that sounds right And Accuracy should be added to the Cannoneer then.

I wouldn't give you a really optimum solution but depending on your playstyle you wouldn't need to make choices.
 
Quest characters technically should contribute their skills. But they don't until you manually assign them to their role.
The reason is that any instance where a quest character is added to your group, the code to update their officer type and skill contribution needs to be executed too.
But that was never added for most cases because it is again a lot of work and checking and figuring out. :facepalm

Accuracy should definitely go with the Gunner. And Defence reduces crew losses, so is definitely for the Doctor too.
Fencing is unique for each character anyway and isn't ever shared. Since your shore party is now independent from the officer skill contribution, that should be OK anyway.
 
I totally agree with an idea that Commerce skill is useless for doc. But officers specialized only on one skill? Seems a little hard for me. For instance, a gunner have to fully contribute both Accuracy and Cannons skill. Why to know shoot and reload fast, if you can't aim properly? :D Besides, that might increase a number of officers player will need during the game. That may cause some trouble.

When played stock (unmodded) game, I was fully aware of problems and bugs with hired officers. I'm sure you are familiar with them:
  • hiring more than 8 officers on your ship (or acquiring them during quest) will cause a loss of an officer who occupied last position in Passengers screen
  • hiring a new officer will cause a loss of all additional (non-captain) officers on all ships in your fleet, except yours
  • selling a ship or using the Change Captain function will cause loss of all additional officers on that ship
With new skill system proposed by Levis, these problems will surely occure, since the number of officers you have to hire. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this was based on fact that I didn't find any reference in build readme files about fixing those issues.

My suggestion to officers's skill contribution looks like this - since player can switch between different officer roles, and some roles have similar skill contributions, I would let half/full contribution system be and do only minor changes in exact skill contributions. For example, you don't need Quartermaster and Carpenter on board at the same time, so you can have one person trained in two roles and easily switch between them, which means you don't need to have a lot of people hired.
  • Cannoneer, Boatswain, Navigator, Quartermaster and First mate should remain as they are. Perfect switch between Navigator and First mate.
  • I would add full Luck cotribution to Doctor. Whether full or half may be discussed yet, but it will make him a stable and indispensable crewmember.
  • I would change Carpenter's half contributon to Commerce, that make him perfect for switching as Quartermaster.
 
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The doctor is tremendously indispensable as it is! He is the only one helping out with wounded crewmembers.

The "no more than 8 crewmembers" thing must have been fixed AGES ago.
There is basically nothing left from the stock game officer system.

There is not much point in having multiple officers of the same type though.

Only one skill for one officer type is nicely simple; but we've got more skills than officer types, so some need to double up.
Gunner doubling up for Accuracy and Cannons is absolutely required.
 
In the game I am playing I have 13 officers and I move them around, buy, sell, and berth ships all with no problems.

Why has no one mentioned the Master at Arms?:duel:
 
Ah yes, the Master at Arms or the disciplinary officer. :whipa
In my game I have 14 officers:aar
 
Actually I like the idea you can't get a set of officer to cover all the skills. So you do need to make choices. If you can cover all the skills with certain officers then everyone will just get those.
 
Well, you'd have a hard time collecting a GOOD officer for each skill.
 
Until you get one of those super officers. I have 2 now. One is all 8-8 and the other is all 10-10, but they have no skills so they have to sit on the ship. It's too dangerous for them to be out in the jungle with no melee skills.
 
Well shouldn't it be hard to have the perfect combo? It's possible right .... just hard ... and the game should be hard.

I like the master at arms idea.... What should it have? Leadership contributing but also melee quite high and some melee skills so you can take him onshore easily?
 
Was the Officer system ever completely finished? I noticed in the files that there were secondary/sub-Officer roles that were never implemented into the game. I think current system works fine just was curious if was ever going to be put in game :)
 
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