If I had my druthers, I’d like to see new islands, dungeons, and trade routes as the next priorities (in that order, I suppose).
Equipable items are likely to shift the nature of gameplay; it might make balancing easier in the long-term by incorporating equipment sooner than later.
Will ship upgrades be focused specifically on things like cargo capacity, or will upgrades have an impact on naval battles (like better cannons, or hull armoring)? If ship upgrades are going to include martial elements, it probably makes sense to develop ship armament upgrades and naval battles concurrently.
I would suggest that aeropolitical conflict and war with the Weislay Empire would be more interesting once the Terrisel territories are pretty well fleshed-out. A larger game-world would allow more room for a war to unfold.
Just got back from being dead. No provisions and no empty space replacing them, so all I can do now is see what happens if I run out of provisions while under sail (I’d recently filled up).
EDIT: Can’t even do that actually, since I need 5 to sail. edited by James Yakura on 12/13/2012
James - Oops! That shouldn’t have happened. Bug’s been fixed so won’t happen again. If you PM me with a list of how many trade goods you have and how much Cargo Space is left, I’ll send you a code to restore your missing hold.
First I want to say that I’m loving your world quite a lot. If I had money, I’d tip you, alas I do not. Hopefully in the Spring.
I found something that may be a bug or may be operating as designed. I recently let my wound count get to high and went through the process of getting rid of wounds. The result landed me at Port, which totally makes sense. What seems odd to me is that I got to keep my “Making Headway” It seems a little inconsistent so I figured I’d let you know in case you didn’t want that to happen. I’m not complaining mind you, I would very much like to be able to use it to go somewhere else really quickly, just thought it was the right thing to do.
As to priorities for expansion. I think that upgrading the ships in a way that allows for more cargo would be a big one for me. Your game is challenging but well paced. Every full session of play I feel like I was able to make serious progress toward my goal and also wish that I had more actions. The desire to get more cargo and deliver it to make more money is still a very strong drive. It would make sense to me that a captain would want enough cargo space and/or income to travel with some ease before being too concerned about islands further out or with more complex over arching politics. That said, all the expansion options you are considering sound amazing. I look forward to playing more. :)
Thank you, Whitney, for playing! The thought of tipping is appreciated.
Ah, that is an oversight, yes. I’ll sort that out and thank you (again) for your honesty.
Expanding the amount of cargo that can be carried is likely to be one of the most difficult to acquire upgrades, and possibly only at higher levels. Increasing cargo space is a force multiplier for trading. If a captain routinely sets off with 20 Provisions, even an increase of 5 Cargo Space could be a 25% increase in profit per run. I’m far from ruling it out, but it’s going to require some very careful balancing.
Expansion of the cargo hold seems a thing best left to flat out replacing your ship with a bigger, better one. What you could do is borrow a page from the Escape Velocity games; tonnage for cargo and equipment is shared. If you upgrade your cannons/armour/whatever, then you have to sacrifice overall cargo space.
Wine & Liquor are now available to purchase from the restaurant staff’s market on Capital. No license is required.
Category 1 licenses (for buying and selling Thruster Parts and Arkhay Relics) are available from the Republic Mercantile Registry offices on Capital.
Acquiring a license requires a considerable sum of money and favour.
Balancing is… an on-going activity. I’ve got some ideas for how to make acquiring money not quite so hard in the early game, but they’re not going to be implemented overnight.
Profit margin on Wines & Liquors is downright horrible compared to Fine Food… and pretty much every other trade-good, in fact.
If you wanted to make it easier to get money early-game, one easy way would be to increase the profit margin on common clothes from Portdown to Capital. That, and maybe reduce the price of provisions a bit.
Ed: Some more cards with ‘Making Headway’ options for travel would be nice, or some adjustments to the probability of current cards. I just got the ‘another ship is coming too close’ three draws in a row. Combined with my other two cards from each draw coming up Floatsam or something equally low-use for actual travel purposes, and what should have been a simple flight from Capital to Portdown took twice as long as it ought. I had to go with as many risky travel choices as possible (not counting the fog card, since that’s zero-risk with Command 7) simply to make any kind of reasonable progress.
I realize that, yes, sometimes the RNG just decides to be a total arse, but that was absolutely ridiculous. edited by Arcalane on 12/17/2012
Arcalane - It’s true - Wines & Liquors between Capital and Portdown has a comparatively poor profit margin (12% compared to Fine Food’s ~20%). But Portdown isn’t the only island in the Republic which likes a drink. =)
Coming soon, to further adventure, conflict and profit, will be jobs for the Rangers - the roaming detectives and law-keepers of the Republic. Some quests will be completable without leaving an island, others will see you hunting down absconding felons or stolen items across the skies. WATCH THIS SPACE!
Miss Strangeweather - I do love my escapism. And I’ll admit, I am shocked at the amount of action refreshes I see you and a couple of other players buy. I thought it was a bug or accident, but you keep doing it! So, thank you again. =)
UPDATE - Trade goods are now disposable. In case you find your hold too full of items and you have no space for Provisions (try not to let this happen, by the way) you can now ‘Use’ the trade goods in your inventory to view a Storylet that will allow you to discard a unit of the trade good to free up Cargo Space. Each discard action costs 1 Action and the discarded trade good is IRRETRIEVABLE!
EDIT: Shipping orders (like that for the Mercantile Registry) are not disposable. END EDIT.
(This update also paves the way for other uses of various trade goods in future. For example, you might search through a crate of Fine Goods in hopes of finding a usable Outfit of somekind, or slaughter some Livestock to create Provisions.) edited by lily on 12/17/2012
So, I had a must card show up that is due to my dissent being too high. I was already in the capital though and then it killed a bunch of sailors and moved me to the capital again but the text made me feel like I was at sea when it happened.
Additionally, I’m curious why the dissent doesn’t reset if you lose all your sailors. Wouldn’t that be like a reset for your reputation with the crew or is it the sort of thing where your reputation precedes you and your entirely new crew is already suspicious and filled with dissent because of your reputation as a captain?
Hi, Whitney. I’m afraid I don’t quite follow you. Dissent takes effect under two conditions: if you are flying and your Dissent rises to 10 or higher the crew Mutiny. If you have just landed upon a proper island and your Dissent is 6 or higher some crew jump ship. Which one of these happened to you?
And yes, your reputation precedes you. And, to be honest, it stays for reasons of game balancing and I’m a cruel and punishing storyteller.
Well it is hard to say what happened exactly as the memory is a bit fuzzy by this point. What I do know is that when I landed I had no crew. I then set about doing “in port” things including getting new crew. I had been doing this for quite a while before problems occurred. I believe that what triggered the effect was actually by buying some rounds for the crew at the tavern in the capital I believe that that is when the must card was triggered and I lost some of my newly acquired crew. Not entirely sure about the other details of what happened though. Sorry.
Another odd thing happened. My suspicion was at 4. I used the parliment card to lower suspicion and it said that it had lowered to 2. This change is not registering on the qualities on the left however. I kept playing and used another turn to get more cards to see if there was some weird update issue based on actions use but it still says Suspicion is 4.
That’s a pretty neat idea, actually. I’d think the Ex-Pirate would be +1 Hostility (because he has more battle experience, but as an unofficial officer he has little skill in formally leading men) whereas the Young Lieutenant would be +1 Command (he’s been through the academy and done all the theory work, but is still a rookie when it comes to real live combat).
Some idle musings for travel cards; Stormy Weather - the Republic must see more than just fog. How about a good ol’ storm to liven things up? You can wait it out (slow but safe) or try to cut through as a very dangerous Command+Luck challenge, like the fog card but with random(ish) results - maybe your ship just gets really wet. Or maybe you get hit by a thunderbolt! Who can tell? Strong Winds - the wind currents are especially strong lately. It’d be dangerous to try to harness them, but if you pull it off you could travel much more swiftly than normal. This assumes the ships have sails. They have sails, right?
It’s great to see this discussion, and I’m taking it all into consideration. First Officers are going to need some re-working, most likely alongside new ship traits. What complicates matters is it doesn’t make sense for First Officers to provide bonuses while not on your ship.
And, yes, ships have sails. Largely for decoration, now that generators and thrusters have been discovered.
Are there any instances where they wouldn’t be on your ship but still considered part of your crew, though? I mean I know if the Ex-Pirate isn’t in your employ he can be found elsewhere, but if he isn’t in your employ then he simply shouldn’t apply any bonus at all.
I’d be careful with applying negative values - with the level system as-is, modifiers in either direction have a much bigger impact. edited by Arcalane on 12/21/2012
I mean ‘they shouldn’t provide bonuses while you are not on your ship’. Because they’re not with you and they wouldn’t influence your personal abilities.
Ah, I see now. Things like exploring the ruins or what-have-you, where they’re left with the ship (and the remainder of the crew, if any) whilst you explore. I can see why that would be a concern, yes.