Suggestion: Allow Pirates to quickly unload a Storage Crate into their Supply Barrels

Speaking from experience, Storage Crates are a valuable commodity that should never be emptied, and should be kept on your deck near the cannons, along with the refillable ammo crates. I typically keep about 50 cannonballs (more or less depending on what I have in main storage), some wood, some chainshot, some food, and some throwables in them. It may seem like a no-brainer to put everything in the barrels (we all do this at first), but the extra time you take running between barrels and your cannons is going to cost you during combat, especially on the larger ships.

There would be no way to prevent alliance members or enemies from grabbing a supply crate and doing exactly what you want to do with that supply crate. When you have a supply crate on your ship, it doesn't tag it as belonging to you, and to do so would only add needless imbalance to the game.

@jmcafreak

You've seemingly failed to read the simple language of my post and the mechanics related to it. I am also speaking from experience. Experience that could've endured far less time supplying a ship and more time pirating. (And this isn't a quick helper for server-hoppers either. It's fair.)

First of all, I'm well aware of the benefits to keeping supplies in a storage crate. The time to grab cannonballs actually isn't that bad on sloops. It's not as necessary. It's more important on a galleon/brigantine to keep your crew's cannonballs closer to the cannons.

However, the main purpose of this suggestion doesn't strike PvP in any negative way. If an enemy boards you and steals your crate, it's just as bad either way. It's their supplies now. In the context of a ship to ship battle and the time to conduct that fight, you're highly unlikely to steal the crate back to have made the loss of those supplies worth returning until the very end when either of you gulps more seawater than is healthy. In all reality, fair's fair, they pirated you.

I said:

This doesn't allow for alliance members or enemy players to dump storage crates into the barrels of their enemies/allied crews. The reason for this isn't to prevent PvP attacks on a ship's supplies or suspicious activity, but rather to prevent inappropriate open crew trolling situations.

If you aren't a member of that crew, you can't quick-dump the supplies of a crate into their barrels or any other crews' barrels; you can only put it in your barrels. That's a simple mechanic, and can't be abused in the manner you perceived. Not imbalanced. Not unfair at all.

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Situation 1: Current system.
Pirate sees island with storage crate. "Whoopie!" Pirate loots barrels on big island, taking all the stuff he can. Pirate sees [Insert Obvious Reaper] on the horizon! "Uh oh!" Return to ship, spend next 5-10 minutes swapping, (quite painstakingly), between menus of inventory/barrel and inventory/crate. Heavy clicking activity! Pump those planks!

Situation 2: Crate-Dump System
Pirate sees island with storage crate. "Whoopie!" Pirate loots barrels on big island, solving puzzles/playing music/looting, and taking all the stuff he can. Pirate sees [Insert Obvious Reaper] on the horizon! "Uh oh!" Return to ship, dump supplies in a completely unorganized manner to his barrels real quick, and start stretching those sails to be more pirate!

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@amendelwyr

@amendelwyr said in Crewmate Storage Crate Barrel Dump:

@jmcafreak

You've seemingly failed to read the simple language of my post and the mechanics related to it. I am also speaking from experience. Experience that could've endured far less time supplying a ship and more time pirating. (And this isn't a quick helper for server-hoppers either. It's fair.)

You know, I wasn't a jerk to you, so don't be a jerk to me. But if you want to be that way... Your "simple language" was muddled and unclear from the get-go, so don't blame me for misinterpreting a poorly-wrought word salad.

First of all, I'm well aware of the benefits to keeping supplies in a storage crate. The time to grab cannonballs actually isn't that bad on sloops. It's not as necessary. It's more important on a galleon/brigantine to keep your crew's cannonballs closer to the cannons.

Then why are we even talking about this?

However, the main purpose of this suggestion doesn't strike PvP in any negative way. If an enemy boards you and steals your crate, it's just as bad either way. It's their supplies now. In the context of a ship to ship battle and the time to conduct that fight, you're highly unlikely to steal the crate back to have made the loss of those supplies worth returning until the very end when either of you gulps more seawater than is healthy. In all reality, fair's fair, they pirated you.

I repeat, then why are we talking about this?

I said:
"This doesn't allow for alliance members or enemy players to dump storage crates into the barrels of their enemies/allied crews. The reason for this isn't to prevent PvP attacks on a ship's supplies or suspicious activity, but rather to prevent inappropriate open crew trolling situations."

If you aren't a member of that crew, you can't quick-dump the supplies of a crate into their barrels or any other crews' barrels; you can only put it in your barrels. That's a simple mechanic, and can't be abused in the manner you perceived. Not imbalanced. Not unfair at all.

And I said that it wouldn't work that way without being programmed in an abusable way. They pick up the supply crate, put it on their ship, it would necessarily register as their own, so they'd at worst be wasting 3 extra seconds to make it function the way you want it to function for yourself. Or worse, an open crew member just takes your box and leaves the ship. Trolling successful. So again, why are we talking about this?

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Situation 1: Current system.
Pirate sees island with storage crate. "Whoopie!" Pirate loots barrels on big island, taking all the stuff he can. Pirate sees [Insert Obvious Reaper] on the horizon! "Uh oh!" Return to ship, spend next 5-10 minutes swapping, (quite painstakingly), between menus of inventory/barrel and inventory/crate. Heavy clicking activity! Pump those planks!

Yes. That's how it should be. If you're going to waste time emptying a storage crate, then it's on you if you get caught with your pants down and sunk while someone is unloading the supply crate. Maybe focus more on fighting and less on frantically unloading a storage crate.

Situation 2: Crate-Dump System
Pirate sees island with storage crate. "Whoopie!" Pirate loots barrels on big island, solving puzzles/playing music/looting, and taking all the stuff he can. Pirate sees [Insert Obvious Reaper] on the horizon! "Uh oh!" Return to ship, dump supplies in a completely unorganized manner to his barrels real quick, and start stretching those sails to be more pirate!

Let me rephrase that for you.
Pirate sees island with storage crate. He loots barrels and fills the storage crate with everything he can. He sees a reaper coming up, so he quickly and easily abuses the mechanic and eliminates the risk that comes with having a full storage crate and denies the other pirate the loot while not losing anything. He then stretches his sails to be more coward.

Did I miss anything?

@galactic-geek said in Crewmate Storage Crate Barrel Dump:

The transfer of supplies is deliberately designed to be slow. It forces you to decide how much of that you want to do versus other important things, like sailing the ship. This, in turn, makes you more vulnerable to attack and other kinds of engagements. It's a way of facilitating interaction among players, while also forcing you to decide what's more important not only among your supplies, but your obligations to your crew as well.

Find your balance, and you'll be just fine. ☯️

Galactic makes a really solid point here: It's all about balancing risk and reward.

Everything in SoT is designed to be a risk/reward system. You take risks for rewards. Any system that gives rewards with zero risk would, contrary to your belief, ruin game balance. Being able to dump all the supplies from a storage crate into barrels removes the risk of having the supplies in the crate to begin with. You suddenly have zero-risk convenience. It's not like there's going to be much in those crates anyway. If you're smart, you've got your curseballs in your pocket or distributed among your crew, so there's no "disorganized dumping" of supplies.

If you want to deny an enemy of supplies that badly, learn to sink them before they sink you, or if you know you're outgunned, start dropping loot overboard or sail into the Shroud. If you want to avoid trolling from open crews, just don't open your crew. Make friends, use the LFG system, and run a closed crew. There are plenty of Discord communities that play SoT together and have different play styles as well.

I'm also unsure of how easy dumping of supply crates into barrels would dodge open crew trolling. If they intend to troll, they're going to troll.

@jmcafreak
I was not being a jerk and my apologies if you believed I was. If I wasn't being clear, you certainly could've asked questions to that effect. Your post had me feel that you didn't properly give my idea any thought because you said your experience trumped my idea's possible inclusion into the game. Now your assumption of my response's intentions only makes you look foolish.

@jmcafreak said in Crewmate Storage Crate Barrel Dump:

"Speaking from experience, Storage Crates are a valuable commodity that should never be emptied."

Just because I'm aware of a potential benefit does not mean I entirely agree. There is something to probably give you perspective here. Storage crates can feed your enemy pirates on the server. Why give them anything should you sink? You have a chance to potentially redeem yourself, so why give them your supplies? [Yes, fifty cannonballs on the deck of your Galleon is only fifty, but it's still fifty more than they had when they sunk you.]

@Amendelwyr "If you aren't a member of that crew, you can't quick-dump the supplies of a crate into their barrels or any other crews' barrels; you can only put it in your barrels." That's a simple mechanic, and can't be abused in the manner you perceived. Not imbalanced. Not unfair at all."

@jmcafreak: "And I said that it wouldn't work that way without being programmed in an abusable way."

How different is that from our current system? A crate stolen is a crate stolen. This idea is based around already existing mechanics in the game. If you have a crew member that is evil and out to destroy you, well then you're screwed no matter what. An alliance backstabbing you by stealing your crates? Well, that's still what's happening. Enemy boarder took it to his ship? Well, he got 'em.

Storage crates are an interesting thing. They don't have owner IDs because you can't sell them. [Except empty ghostie ones, but this still works the same way. A big reason my friends and I really want this mechanic.] So, the ID in the code will come from the owner of the ship to the barrel you are attempting to fill. If you have a storage crate in your hands and bring it to a barrel that isn't yours, then the mechanics I've described are easily in place!

@galactic-geek said in Crewmate Storage Crate Barrel Dump:

"The transfer of supplies is deliberately designed to be slow. It forces you to decide how much of that you want to do versus other important things, like sailing the ship. This, in turn, makes you more vulnerable to attack and other kinds of engagements. It's a way of facilitating interaction among players, while also forcing you to decide what's more important not only among your supplies, but your obligations to your crew as well."

• Inventory space is not affected. Active PvP and long-winded attrition often means having a crew member(s) being shot via cannon toward islands with empty pockets. There is no opportunity to bring a storage crate with them and will have to make decisions regardless. No change.
• There are plenty of things that invite interaction amongst players. Most are world events, FotD, and emissary flags. A storage crate quick-dump will not speed up a ship's initial 30 minutes to gather supplies any differently. What it will do is reduce the time requirement of putting supplies into a semi-safe container.
• If you meant interactions between crew members, then this would reduce the time that draws that player away from his fellow crewmates to swap menus over and over... flashing the same screen over and over...

I don't believe the transfer of supplies into barrels was really by design. They worked on the inventory system's balance of course. How much food can a crew member have? How many cannonballs should they have and why? What makes it fun? This is something very small. It would make things easier in a small way. It would reduce the time it takes to do a very menial thing and open more time for fun things.

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Can I just leave my supplies scattered over the deck and/or somewhere else on my ship? Yes?
Do I want to do that? No.
Do I like to do what we are currently doing? No.
How can we change this? My idea.

@amendelwyr I've said it before. im on the one way dump train. From a crate to a barrel. Doesn't matter who's crate or who's barrel.

This solves the insta drain issue but makes your own ships resource management a little better

I think the real issue boils down to there is no system with the crates that will make everyone happy because there are mixed approaches to them with how numerous things are setup in game.

Group A: Likes strategic supply placement around the ship, the current design facilitates this fine, they would rather dev time be spent on other tasks. Some could be convinced for the quick dump change cause it wouldn't generally impact them terribly.

Group B: Likes all supplies in barrels, but don't have any special organization preference with the multiple barrels they have for some supplies. The current system is slow for them, a dump feature would make their lives easier so they want a change.

Group C: Wants all stuff in barrels, but makes use of having multiple barrels for some supply types. Neither the current system or dump system favor these folks. Many are accustomed to the current system and thus don't want it to change, others would not care and would be fine with either system and have little skin in the game.

Group D: Just hates spending time on supplies and wants to have a quick dump and quick pull, despite the fact that this could wildly throw off things in the game. They might be convinced of the quick dump system, but it doesn't really fully do what they want in the end and feels like a half feature.

There is more nuance to all this, of course, but this seems like the broad strokes to me. Personally, I'm in Group A with the caveat of I would adapt to the change fine if it came to be, but generally I would rather dev time be spent on either bugs or truly new content. I also think, with the gradients above, we'd have less of the overall player base for the idea than against it overall, but that is simply wild speculation since I know nothing about the population sizes of any particular grouping.

So, I don't think the idea would be game breaking, but I also don't personally feel like it is worth it. Just adding my two cents as food for thought.

@redeyesith
True, there is a lot that we as the players desire to have done for bugs and new content. However, I do feel that this wouldn't take much time to implement and work out in code, especially in a quarterly update style that Rare realized they need to take for providing (hopefully) new stuff for interest in long-term play.

I appreciate the feedback on my suggestion and your thoughts concerning player-types' use on if it were implemented. I think of myself as a good mix between A and B; depending on what ship I'm on, who I'm playing with, and the energy I might have, but the option to do so would mean a lot in terms of Ghost Fleet supply crates.

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We'd never know though. It could be difficult, it could be easy. (I think it'd be easy to include.)