The Merchant Allaince...

  • BaronStinkbeard
    Marauder

    So in a another Thread a player named @uberkull made the statement that...

    "absolutely not. The quests can’t be chained, the coops/crates/baskets are items that can be lost...and need to be picked up AFTER you place a voyage. Of all the pirate things I could come up with, chasing chickens, feeding pigs to keep them from dieing, and cradling snakes that bite u in the face is so far from pirating its not even funny or fun.

    IMO...but carry on, withdrawls from chicken chasing, got it,"

    And I have to say I don't agree and I wont continue this discussion so we don't hijack that other thread.

    On issue one...

    "The quests can’t be chained, the coops/crates/baskets are items that can be lost...and need to be picked up AFTER you place a voyage."

    I have to say no. You cant loose them. They don't get destroyed. If loose them it is because you have misplaced them. They don't just disappear from your ship. Yes they do need to be picked up from the merchant, but I would say this is equal to having to find the islands /do the riddles of the gold hoarders. It takes about the same amount of time.

    And the second part is that they cant be chained...
    Also no. Yes they can, but you don't really need to. The merchant alliance is not a group of quests that you really need to chain especially since completing a voyage does not give rep or gold. All the rep and gold comes from turn ins.

    So here is my point. I say that doing the merchant traders is by far more lucrative than the other two factions but only 1 way.

    That way is taking voyages, voting on them getting the cages/crates/baskets, and then canceling the voyage. You do this as many times as you think you can handle filling cages and turning them in. Then you pick up 1 voyage, pick up its cages/crates/baskets and then set off with all your cages/crates/baskets and go fill them all. Making sure to get the ones for the voyage. And then keep all the pigs alive, making sure to scour all islands you visit for any extras you may need, bananas, planks, cannon balls. As well as extras you may find like sugar, silk, tea, gunpowder. Then go turn in at the outpost you are supposed to go to, before the time runs out. I guarantee you will make more gold then do any run of 3 missions from other 2.

    And here is why I say that... (and note I have only had exp with pigs and chickens. I have yet to run into snakes yet.)

    Chickens run in prices... (rough numbers that I can remember seeing)

    Whites- 75-100
    Blacks 100-250
    Red 300-500
    Gold 600-1000+

    Pigs...

    Pinks 25-100
    Pink and blacks 150-250
    Pink with black feet -300-400
    Black coated 500-600
    Gold banded 650-1000+

    and the other things like sugar, tea and silk are just icing.

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  • Dills Ghost
    Marauder
    Insider

    @raggedynaphtali Dont forget you can always stop by the forts and pick up the barrels of gunpowder for the merchant too.

  • BaronStinkbeard
    Marauder

    @dills-ghost You know I just found that out. Is that based on a rep level. Because I know at like level 1 I could not do that. Or is that like a hot fix? was that bug?

  • Dills Ghost
    Marauder
    Insider

    @raggedynaphtali I have been able to turn them in from day 1.
    The merchant quests will start asking for barrels of gunpowder as a quest turn in after rank 20 or 25 I don't remember exactly. As a quest turn in I have seen gold paid out from 800 to 1200, and 95 to 350 for just a turn in.

  • Mr RealPancakes
    Marauder
    Insider
    Founder

    I just starting playing around with the merchant quests, and between me and my buddy who were sailing in a sloop. We had a blast, if you get snakes have one person play music and hide them in the bottom of the ship, (keep them away from chickens and pigs they will kill them) make sure you have a tone of bananas for the pigs, because let's be honest when they start dying it's really depressing. We also switch our titles to the merchant ones and flash our lamp if we see a ship coming towards us.
    And they are right in one case if your ship gets sunk you will lose your crates and more than likely just want to go to the other side of the map and grab a new voyage. However if your crew sails very well together. We had one sloop come at us. they happened to be merchants too. Now we didn't shoot first as I was flashing my lap and waving. They shot two cannons at us, and missed. So I was like okay, not doing this we're sinking them. (Like trust me they had bad aim first 6 shots I took I landed 5) they sunk we stole their crates. Because like why would you do this. Anyways they came back, sunk them again, and we thought okay let's leave the crates for them. I left the crates on the Island so they wouldn't sink within 5 minutes. Got a message from one of the guys, saying thanks for leaving our crates 10minutes later. They only came back for round two for their crates

    Bottom line if you go for a Merchant, you will make next to no money from them. So don't take our stuff

  • BaronStinkbeard
    Marauder

    @dills-ghost Note it not from quests. You get 0 gold and rep from the quest it self which is why you take so many crates out. The gold an rep comes from the turn ins.

  • Mr RealPancakes
    Marauder
    Insider
    Founder

    @raggedynaphtali Now I think about it I believe you get a bit of extra rep from the voyage being completed, but most of the gold and rep come from the turn ins you're correct. (I say I believe because I'm not 100% because I could have just gotten an accommodation at the same time)

  • Zythal
    Master

    I really enjoy the Merchant Alliance voyages. They're fun and lucrative, and I don't even do the cancellation tactic.

    I like keeping tabs on the various animals I see on the different islands to ease in the future collection of them.

    All of the factions are fun, but my appreciation for the Merchant Alliance is definitely growing! They're now my highest ranked faction, although the other two aren't too far behind.

  • BaronStinkbeard
    Marauder

    @a-trusty-mango Same with every other thing in this game....

  • PopeTom
    Marauder
    Founder

    This seems like a good place to share my ideas on the Merchant Alliance game play.

    In this post when referring to supplies I am referring to Bananas, Cannon Balls, and Planks as well as any other game items that function in a similar way that may be introduced in future updates.

    Currently the Merchant Alliance voyages are OK but as a faction I think they could be better. To this end I would like to toss out this idea.

    First, when a ship spawns into the world, either when starting a game or after sinking, is has zero supplies onboard.

    Second, when a player first spawns into the world they have a full stack of each supply type. If/when they die they respawn with whatever supplies they were carrying at the time.

    Third, Barrels at Outposts no longer spawn supplies. If you want supplies at an Outpost you buy them from the Merchant Alliance. Each vendor at an island would have an inventory of each supply type that could potentially reach zero thus rendering that supply type unavailable for purchase. Purchasing supplies would be done in full stacks and the price would be determined by how many supplies a vendor has in stock, eg. The lower the stock the higher the price, the higher the stock the lower the price.

    Fourth, Vendors would also offer empty supply crates for free. The chalk board in front of the vendor would list the current price paid for a full supply crate. The price paid by the vendor for a full supply crate should be ~50-75 percent of what the same number of stacks of the supply would cost to buy from the vendor. Every sold crate immediately updates the buy/sell price for the related supply type.

    Fifth, The Merchant Alliance still offers fetch voyages but only for animals and gun powder barrels

    Sixth, not 100% related to the above but The Merchant Alliance also offers a commendation for turning in trade goods (Silk, Spices, Sugar, Tea).

  • PopeTom
    Marauder
    Founder

    @a-trusty-mango RE: Merchant Alliance voyages not chainable.

    A simple fix, I think, would be to raise the spawn rate of empty animal cages on non-outpost islands.

    So a crew would take a bunch of voyages from the other two trade companies andone from the Merchant Alliance. While doing the other voyages they collect empty cages. Once those voyages are done if they think they have enough cages for whatever level of Merchant Alliance voyage they have then start that voyage, collect the animals, then go to the destination outpost to sell everything.

  • IndigoOzir

    No and no, selling animals (even gold ones) land you 90 - 120 gold same as gunpowder barrels, the only time you'll be getting more for those is if you're actually doing ma voyages, so it's not the same as the others, you can turn in a golden skull and get 1k even if you're doing gh voyages, and Im lvl 20 with ma, the only ones at the level of chest/skulls is crates found randomly or in forts

  • BaronStinkbeard
    Marauder

    @indigoozir

    I was just about to report this. I have done some research and it turns out the initial research of doing merchant voyages this way, is actually counter productive!

    it is way better to turn in animals that are apart of a voyage instead hoarding them and doing 1 big turn in!

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