Production of Ships ( A short overview)

[Galuddyn]

The purpose of this post is to give a small overview of the complexity of shipbuilding, and to hopefully provide an example of why we would need to work together to help to create a shipbuilding section of the society.

As my example I will be using the Bermuda Sloop, a fairly popular choice for players at lower level in beta. As well I believe, that due to the level and releative simplicity to build, this ship will become a staple of our sales when the game goes live.

For those that do not know this is the Bermuda Sloop: 'Bermuda' Sloop -- Pirates Of The Burning Sea Vault

This overview will outline the skills and buildings need to accomplish this with our players, as well as a theoretical how to guide, if we used our current homeport of Havanna.

Rigging
"Small Fore and Aft Rig" found: Recipe: Small Fore-and-Aft Rig -- Pirates Of The Burning Sea Vault

To create the Rigging you need to first learn the skill, from a small/medium/large shipyard. Once you have built your shipyard, you need to collect the ingredients. These are:

8 mast hoops (Created by forge, with 10 iron ingots)

1 Medium Mast (Created from Lumbermill with 8 Fir logs, which come from a fir camp)

5 Small Mast ( Created from 10 Fir Logs)

2 Rigging (Created by textile mill, with 2 Hemp rope{5 hemp 1 wood tar}, and 1 oak block{Carpenter 10 Oak Logs})

2 Medium Sail (4 Hemp Canvas{Textile mill, 20hemp}),

5 Small Sail (5 Hemp Canvas{ Textile Mill, 20 hemp})

2 Medium Spar (10 Fir Logs)

5 Small Spar (5 Fir Logs)

Thus for one player alone to make the riggings you would need (1) Fir Camp
(2)Lumbermill (3) Hemp Plantation (4) Textile Mill (5) Iron Mine (6) Blacksmith (7-10) Shipyard.

This should show you that even making a small piece of the ship, the sails, would not even able to be accomplished by one player, since you still need to distill the tar. For this reason I would propose that each player take a section of the economy they are excited about, and focus on that. For example, one player is a plantation owner, one player is a blacksmith, one player is a lumberjack, one player is a shipyard owner. By putting yourself into one of these catagories we can ensure that we will always have the items we need. How would this work? Well, lets say for instance we have 8 players, 2 of each catagory. If these players work together we can ensure that almost all of the basic goods are covered, as well as the more advanced if we try to get Freetraders into each catagory. The blacksmiths will focus on mining forging and quarrying, the plantation owners on food cloth and hemp, the lumberjacks as loggers and woodshapers, the shipbuilders as draughtsmen and shipyards.

Just a basic idea on a very long post. This would require cooperation within each catagory, as well as with the society as a whole. Any thoughts?

Your method is good. How would you propose to exchange material/goods between each players?

Basing on your individual focus material producing model, I propose a rationing method:

- At the end of the week, we collect all needed material proportionally from each player in the group
- The group makes 16 ships with enough materials.
- Since there are 8 player on the team, one player is allowed to get 2 ships/week free from the group
- If he/she needs more, than he can buy another player's ship in the stock.
- If all player's ships are taken or sold out, we adjust the material input and ship output level

The rationing method combines rationing and supply and demand within the group. This way, everyone in the production team benefits.

[Galuddyn]

We could work it in a couple different ways, however until they set up the ability to have a society warehouse it will be very difficult.

One way would be to have "groups" of like the example 8. Those 8 would support eachother, drawing from the rest of society only what was absolutely needed.

Another way would be to have the designated banked also be the "warehouse". Since we have many many different slots and only 3 classes it would be possible to have one person hold all materials until they were needed.
The last method would be by just a ask and recieve. For example someone comes to the website, says they want to build xxxx ship and needs xxxx parts. Those parts would be given freely as long as that member gave his parts freely to others as they asked. In this way the cost of building a ship is spread out across the entire guild, enabling us to be able to save money on every ship. As well this method allows us to produce ships as a guild, which could than be sold.

Either way cooperation is needed big time.

[Galuddyn]

The first reason of why Havanna is for the PvP. It is on the boarder of the Pirate and French lands, with a little of the English to the northeast. This is going to make the area a huge pvp spot, and all the better to allow us a home port from which to get right into the action.

Next it is one of the few Natural Harbors, allowing for the construction of large ships.

All wood resources are found between the Spanish Starting lands, and the port of Havanna, allowing for a mostly safe trip for players of all levels.

"Most" resources for shipbuilding found withing 1 territory range. (Turtling Bay, Sisal, Havanna)

Originally Posted by Galuddyn

Either way cooperation is needed big time.

I agree with you that cooperation (sharing) is important, but it would distract us when keeping track of things and watching out for abuse.

[17:02] ren: great post on ship production
[17:02] Adam: its not done yet
[17:02] ren: but i see 2 problems
[17:02] Adam: i replied to yours
[17:02] ren: 1, who gets to produce what
[17:02] Adam: whats the 2 problems
[17:02] ren: 2, who gets what products
[17:03] Adam: each person gets to pick out of those 4 catagories, and the optimal idea is that they would check the forums to see what others are using the 10 slots for and do something different
[17:03] Adam: and for the 2, check my new post =p
[17:03] ren: ok
[17:05] ren: so you are asking for absolute sharing of everything?
[17:05] Adam: thats one way to do things
[17:05] ren: it would create problem for sure
[17:05] Adam: only cause a problem if we didnt watch for abuse
[17:06] Adam: which could be the bankers job, or it would give more reason to gain the points you were talkin about
[17:06] ren: we would be spending too much time keeping track of everything and not be efficient
[17:07] ren: there has to be some forum of supply and demand (free enterprise) component in the distribution process
[17:07] ren: form*
[17:07] Adam: the problem with that is what happens when the free enterprise system starts making guild members compete against non guild members
[17:08] Adam: for example, a guild member starts creating things for the guild that dont sell well in the economy
[17:08] Adam: should that player be put at a disadvantage for helping where we need it?
[17:10] ren: as far as I understand, that's an example against guild designating a player's production
[17:10] Adam: how so
[17:10] Adam: wouldnt it be in the guilds interest to be able to self sustain?
[17:10] ren: because the guild member has to create something for the guild, he is in disadvantage
[17:11] Adam: so than your idea would be to let everyone just do whatever, and than hope that we can build ships?
[17:13] ren: I can't offer an working alternative yet, but I am against complete sharing, because it's inefficient.
[17:14] ren: how about the weekly rationing method?
[17:14] ren: I assumed that the main thing each player need is ship after their's gets blown up
[17:15] ren: the supply of a certain number of free ship each week should ensure a player's bank account not taking huge hits.
[17:16] Adam: so each week each player has to produce x amount of a certain item where x=each of our guild members?
[17:19] ren: like the example i have in the thread, each player has to produce an x amount of one material precalculated so that 8 player has different types of components which can be made into y amount of bermuda sloop
[17:19] Adam: y would have to be 8
[17:19] Adam: atleast
[17:21] ren: the production hour is the most valuable resource a player has, is it?
[17:21] Adam: no, since different resources are needed, and there are higher level resources
[17:23] ren: ok, and that's where inequality comes in if we designate people into producing one type of products. ex: the lumbermill guy's production value is always lower than the forge guy. Am I getting what you are saying?
[17:26] Adam: Aye, however the point would than be that while some people generally have to give more to the guild, those items would than also be worth more in the free market, negating the losses, while also helping the guild

[Cristobal]

here is how I see the ship building "game" within the society
peeps kicking goods up are going to want deeds kicked down and rightly so.

the 3 guys I have coming in only really care about playing not about how much wood did player X chop down.
in essence I'll be playing all 3 of them for "economic purposes" I'm sure I'll have all there log in info so I can take care of production if they aren't around and we need things done.

on the other hand they will "expect" ship deeds at sometime-they won't be whining about it, but will expect something.

early on (IE til we have someone with the special buildings needed-textile mill, weaponsmith) we will HAVE too farm huge amounts of trade goods to give to euro trader for cannons sails even rope.

what I purpose is we use the preboarding weeks to focus on farming 2 or maybe 3 of them (I started making notes on this but I need to look at the map more) while at the same time getting the "infrastructure" set up for large scale production

the bad news-the shipyard can only kick out so many ships in so much time
as I said in my big post before just making a "tiny hull" takes 2 hours and its used to make the "Starter" ship for FT's (I think) which in turn takes I think 6 hours, one of the mid range frigates takes a day-the hull I think takes 6 hours...
the good news-small society we only "need" to make a small amount of ships to keep 'the team' happy later with luck we can get an advanced large shipyard which allows construction of 2 ships at a time (IE I think it gets 2 timers which is kinda nice)

as I said before we need multiple people with lumbermills it took me over a day of time to make all the stuff to make the tiny hull.
or maybe the shipyard guy has 2 or 3 lumbermills some of the bigger items require TONS of wood and 6-8 hours to make 1 "piece".
I'm almost thinking it might be good to have some guys purely focus on farming a single resource or maybe 2 depending on the town.

the biggest thing to focus on week 1:
oak-(common wood) granite-(gravel) iron, leather and the easiest to harvest trade resource for euro trader (less we get lucky and get a textile mill deed early on) to get rope for buildings. since time is the biggest factor we need buildings going up as fast as possible.
week 2, is when we focus at getting 'the machine' rolling

after some testing I have come to believe there are some 'hidden' game mechanics that we could abuse early AND have fun (for those who just 'want to blow shit up').
I told gal that I was attacking merchant ships outside towns with resources I wanted and around 50% of the time you would get 1 if not 2 of the resources that the town can produce, as well as causing unrest.
the thing that is funny about this is you can build a warehouse in said town.
kill merchant ships all day long (you get marks if you can capture them as well) you get xps for kills, you get loot for kills-often but not everytime, and you get marks-if you board them or they abandon ship which you can pretty much guarantee by blowing there sails off then hammering them.
you just warehouse the 'unwanted' stuff fill your hold with the 'needed' stuff and eventually you get a full hold.
using the 104 gunner I had a full ships hold in around an hour and would have warehoused another holds worth of random other stuff.
granted the 'higher end' items like gold silver and cochirane (or whatever its called) would drop more rarely but I got alot of wood, iron, leather, rope (items that all are needed early on).
I also got many other drops-best sword I found in beta, several recipe books, outifitting items, even brass shot which is nice. so for the "economically disinclined" you can harvest and kill...(which I'll be doing on my priv alt)
I will say that this did cause me to be attacked way more often by ships of that nation. especially pirate hunters but that just became more xp loot marks...

anyway my plan is to just build what is needed to get the machine running quickly, and worry about how much gold I have later. if someone wants to keep track or set up a schedule for 'team shipbuilding' thats fine.
I'm not worried about what everyone else will be doing, although its complex the 'idea' isn't rocket science when it comes to ship building. we just need everyone to focus on one piece of the pie and let the shipbuilder decide if its going to be apple or cherry (so to speak)

also for those not playing an FT I believe you can skip the tutorial get you 'real' starter ship then go back to the tutorial and have a much better ship for the battles-I never tested this although I think it will work. you get 3 or 4 lvls for doing the tutorials which take 10 mins...just a thought

lastly I plan to take monday off from work to play as much as possible day 1
I will be doing the tutorials (as should you all easy xps plus you get free buildings). I'll take draghtsmen to make deeds for everyone else, so dont bother taking that. what we will need is people to take the base resource buildings and just harvest like crazy I know that some require rope and leather beyond the wood and granite. hopefully someone gets lucky on drops during missions and will share for the good of all.
do use the gravel pit and base logging camp for 1st week then let it burn when upkeep comes in. gravel and basic wood are needed for many things so might as well get what we can out of them since they are free.

anyway thats my 2 db's
~Cris~

[Minoman]

I talked with adam about this stuff last night and I really don't have time to finish reading the all this this morning, but adam and I decided it'd be best for me to focus on blacksmith since I'm going to play privateer and will be focusing on killing npc's/pvp and providing protection so that I would be able to make all of my own ammo along with whatever ammo the society needs. this is the list that adam and I came up with I would need to make all types of ammo:

Iron Mine -1- location: Campeche
Sulfer Mine -1- location: Tampico/Irish Point (not sure yet which one I'll use)
Powder Mill -1- location: Havana
Weaponsmith -1- location: Havana
Woodcutter's Camp -1- location: Havana
Saltpeter Caves (Guano) -1- location: Santa Clara
Gravel Quarry -1- location: Santa Clara (this one is just for stone shot for armor/structure...so I imagine I'll end up with a lotta excess of this)

[Galuddyn]

With Minomans' build I was hoping to show that a person can produce a very much needed trade good on their own, while still having slots open to assist the guild with prduction of raw goods, that others like the freetraders can use to produce items. Since the players will already be producing what they want, this extra production is seen as just helping out, which should help to bring everyone closer since these items can be anything we need.

[Cristobal]

LONG read part (I'll mark where to skip too if you just want to get money making ideas)

there are towns where you can get 2 or maybe 3 of those things if you dont mind harvesting in another countries towns

for instance there is an english town with iron copper and silver south of havana which I plan to use simply because it has 3 metals in 1 spot.

also there are 2 towns (I think both are french) north of havana 1 has saltpeter the other has sulfer and they are right next to each other
I think one of them has iron as well, the other has I think fir or oak trees

the only reason I point this out is that you are better off having as many buildings as possible in 1 town simply because of the cost of building a warehouse

if you AREN'T a ft this is a somewhat bad idea because you will be raped on the taxes FT's get the tax evasion skill which makes it somewhat less painful but in the end I think having easy access to resources is worth the extra pennies versus the time needed to haul it back.

lastly I agree that peeps should have the ability to produce things to make cash on the side. I will be focusing on getting the machine rolling more then making DB's

*******MONEY MAKING IDEAS*******
Leather is the LEAST produced resource in the game (although tar is close)
leather requires 2 buildings that really only do 1 thing 1 makes animals the other skins them to make leather-although you CAN make furs for the eurotrader as well. SIDEBAR-I read that there is a "cattle ranch" that allows you to get both meat and skins to make leather and for provisions but I haven't been able to find out if this is the case...
I found leather to be the hardest thing to find on the AH and I was paying 1k per (this is before everyone got 1mil free db's) as there was only 1 guy making it steady (it was always in 1 french town and always was up for sale around noon each day)
leather is needed for most of the buildings and for some ship building stuff I forget which

rope 2nd least produced (about even with tar) problem with rope requires textile mill which is drop only and it requires tar to make so you need 3 buildings to make 1 resource the good news is the textile mill also makes sails and it also makes all the sail outfittings as well. rope is needed for most buildings and all ships-alot of rope for ships-which means alot of hemp...

provisions are another underproduced resource-I never dabbled with the provisioning buildings as I thought they were unimportant till I started reading the ship ingredients-the problem with doing this to make money is you will need to cart the provisions to the towns with the deep harbors to have any chance of selling them and I'm almost sure you NEED the carpenter building (the one that I thought only made blocks for rigging) to make 'barrels' for the provisions. so I think it requires 4 buildings to do provisons-(field-wheat)-(wheatmill-flour)-(bakery-bread)-(carpenter-barrels)
also I believe that some of the provison buildings are drop only

those were the ideas I came up with during beta simply by checking the ah for 'when sold' and prices-leather was always the hardest to find by far, and it only needs 2 buildings to do...the output is very low I think it worked out to like 5 leather per hour maybe 10 but I remember that the hunting lodge only getting 1/2 the required animals to make the '1 hour worth' of leather IE 2 hours of hunting lodge = 1 hour of leather. but I only used them once each so don't quote me. I will say I was thinking of raping the leather angle when the game started simply because it only needs 2 buildings while most other resources require 3 or 4.

anyway I love talking about the game so expect more lenghty posts in the future
~Cris~