Capturing Ships Mechanic

  • Brigadius
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    So I had this idea for capturing ships as new mechanic rather than always just sinking them. It basically would work like king of the hill but rather than having it be like the more people occupying the ship the faster it captures, it would be a steady capture rate per crew regardless if one person or four persons is on board.

    So, it would go like this you board a ship and if there is at least one enemy on the ship it won't begin to capture you must either kill them or knock them off. At this point it will start capturing the ship. They will be able to respawn on their ship until it is fully captured. If they respawn or reboard capturing is halted until all of the original crew is of the ship again. If the occupying force is killed or falls off ship all progress is not lost it just starts reversing itself so you have a chance to get back on and continue the capture without having to start over. If a ship is fully captured the original crew will no longer spawn there and they will Spawn with a new ship elsewhere. The ship is now yours and you can choose which to set as your future spawn.

    With a good crew you could get yourself a mini fleet going or leave one ship behind. All your ships would show up on the map but if you leave one behind you risk it being captured or sunk. This would open a few varied play styles and would allow a galleon crew to commandeer a sloop and 4 man sloop it if they wanted to. Or rather than sinking an attacking vessel at a fort capture it and have more firepower if they return. Perhaps break up your crew for faster voyages or split your galleon over two sloops for a tactile advantage. Of course spitting a crew and going separate ways to speed voyages up does come with the drawback of increased vulnerability, so you would have to way your options.

    Sure there are probably some kinks that need to be worked out with it but it would be an interesting mechanic and add a reason to board a ship more rather than just sinking on sight. Capturing battles could become quite intense especially if one crew just want to sink you while the other is looking to expanded it's fleet.

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  • Sandmanbakery
    Marauder

    This had been talked about much by the community, with the key difference being that the majority have suggested the flag on the main mast be brought down via a rope pulley at the bottom. This rope would have to be pulled continuously for 60 seconds without any interruption. In the event that you are damaged, or somehow taken out of the interact range of the rope and pulley, the flag would shoot back up to the top in under 6 seconds (if from the bottom). This way the defender has the advantage. Also, you do bring up a good point. What would happen to the ship you have now left behind for your crew's new one? I think that should be answered, by auto scuttling it after another 3 minutes, unless you can capture its flag back, thus reversing the capture of the enemy ship. in the end, the captured ship is good for one go (i.e. after it is sunk you spawn back on your normal ship, which is spawned fresh like always). If the ship you had before is left behind, that could create A LOT of problems on the server side. Massive amounts of ships just floating there could drag the whole server into lag hell.

  • Brigadius
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @sandmanbakery I wouldn't be opposed to the ship auto scuttling after a certain amount of time of inactivity, say if it's left abandoned. But, it should stick around for a bit. Maybe another crew could come upon it and take it if they want to. I do think a crew should be able to occupy multiple ships though. If a galleon crew captures a sloop one man could set it as his spawn ship while the others keep their spawn on their galleon. Now that crew is a true force to be reckoned with because if they stick together they could cause some real terror in a chase scenario. Also if they decided to go for two two-man sloops they could cut a voyage time in half if they have a bunch of islands to visit.

    I mostly play solo so me capturing another vessel for any reason other than for the thrill of the fight would be a rare occurrence but it would still open a variety of options for how a crew decides to go about their pirating.

    Also, with a few abandoned ships floating around or parked at outposts or wherever until they auto scuttle would bring up tension a bit because you would have to check it out or risk a major detour for no reason.

    I figured this had probably been brought up before and I would have been a little disappointed if it hadn't but a quick search did show me any specific results for this suggestion so I figured I'd toss in my thoughts just to be sure.

  • Freecellqt

    @brigadius i've actually been on hiatus the last 2 days because of how boring the pvp is and how easy it is to sink/spawn kill other peoples galleons.

    If this were ever implemented it would really server no purpose besides a cool thing u could do. Sure stealing a sloop to run 4 man would i guess be nifty. It would make spawn camping probably worse. As for getting a fleet of your own. For what purpose. So i can have 1 crewmate per galleon sailing around gimp without a full crew.

    It serves no real purpose to anything besides a cool thing that you could do. My one caveat to this idea, would be that after you capture a new ship you're able to invite friends to be crew of that ship. That would make it worth it. After X amount of ships are owned by your group or if your crew expands to X amount of players you're transfered to a different set of servers where its only groups who own 2+ ships in there fleet.

    I dunno. cool idea, but servers no real purpose imo. Esspecially if someone decides to claim 20 ships for the heck of it to lag a server.

  • Tyburn Ketch

    You could sell it.

  • Brigadius
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @freecellqt that would be kinda of cool. A server for large crews with multiple ships.

    I would never spread four men over four Galleons. Maybe, four sloops. And as far as the point of it you could divide and conquer but as you said it would be a cool thing, regardless of the point. It would just be another thing you could do if you wanted to and the game needs things like that. Just another thing to add to your adventure, you don't have to do it. Also, as the other guy said above if you capture a ship and leave one abandoned it should probably despawn after a set amount of time to prevent server lag. No point in having abandoned ships floating around for too long.

    I just want to at some point when they let us name ships be like, "We got a whole bunch of boats, 12 Jenny's".

    Like the multiple ship server idea though with the expanded crew. I wouldn't mind seeing a crew abandon a ship in that server and just manning a galleon with a full crew. That ship would be a beast to come across.

    @Tyburn-Ketch that could be a thing too. Selling for gold might be balance wrecking though. Maybe some minor gold and progression towards unlocking Ship Wright stuff.

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