Lockesmyth
Posts: 7
12/12/2012
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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.
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James Yakura
Posts: 41
12/13/2012
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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
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My world: Sharazad
Play Comment Current state: Designing basic mechanics.
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Lily Fox
Posts: 346
12/13/2012
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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.
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@LilyLayer4
Fallen London character: Lilith B.
Author of Maelstrom - Play - Discuss
Author of City of Phire - Play - Discuss
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Whitney Levis
Posts: 12
12/13/2012
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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. 
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Lily Fox
Posts: 346
12/13/2012
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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.
Happy flying!
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@LilyLayer4
Fallen London character: Lilith B.
Author of Maelstrom - Play - Discuss
Author of City of Phire - Play - Discuss
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Arcalane
Posts: 26
12/13/2012
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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.
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Lily Fox
Posts: 346
12/16/2012
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UPDATE
- 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.
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@LilyLayer4
Fallen London character: Lilith B.
Author of Maelstrom - Play - Discuss
Author of City of Phire - Play - Discuss
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+1
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Guest
12/16/2012
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Lily Fox wrote:
UPDATE
- 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.
I've been enjoying the recent updates quite a bit: so much so, I've happily been paying for action refreshes pretty regularly now. I happened to be in Capital when the opportunity to purchase a Category 1 license became available. I've since landed in Portdown, but there is no option to complete what must be done in order to earn the license. Will an option be showing up in the Quartermaster's pinned card or as an opportunity card? Thanks for any time and help.
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+1
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Lily Fox
Posts: 346
12/16/2012
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Oh, drat. There was a branch I'd forgotten to make publicly available. It is there now. =)
Thanks for playing, and welcome to the forums, Miss Strangeweather.
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@LilyLayer4
Fallen London character: Lilith B.
Author of Maelstrom - Play - Discuss
Author of City of Phire - Play - Discuss
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Arcalane
Posts: 26
12/17/2012
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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
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Guest
12/17/2012
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Lily Fox wrote:
Oh, drat. There was a branch I'd forgotten to make publicly available. It is there now. =)
Thanks for playing, and welcome to the forums, Miss Strangeweather.
That I would finally post after having this profile so long is probably as much a testimony to how much I'm enjoying the game as the action refresh purchases are. Looking at your list of possible additions to Maelstrom, I would love to see (in order of preference) war and politics, new islands and trade routes, and dungeons. I enjoyed my first battle with the pirate brig, but I'm in it more for the world exploration than anything else. I would love to know more about the Terrisel. The blend of archaeology and hinted mythology found in the dungeon was fun, too. (But then I'm an archaeologist in RL so I tend to be easily excited about such things.) The differences in the islands we can currently visit are nicely defined; seeing what (or rather, where) else you come up wit will be a pleasure when you can get to them. Thanks for all of your work in developing the game. It's a great bit of escapism.
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Lily Fox
Posts: 346
12/17/2012
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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
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@LilyLayer4
Fallen London character: Lilith B.
Author of Maelstrom - Play - Discuss
Author of City of Phire - Play - Discuss
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Arcalane
Posts: 26
12/17/2012
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Makes sense! Chasing miscreants, you say? Should be fun.
Probably about time I updated the Captain's Log again, now I have my trade license...
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Whitney Levis
Posts: 12
12/17/2012
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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?
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Whitney Levis
Posts: 12
12/17/2012
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Upon further analysis it did not actually move me to the capital because I still have my ticket for repairs.
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Lily Fox
Posts: 346
12/17/2012
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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.
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@LilyLayer4
Fallen London character: Lilith B.
Author of Maelstrom - Play - Discuss
Author of City of Phire - Play - Discuss
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Whitney Levis
Posts: 12
12/19/2012
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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.
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Guest
12/19/2012
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Out of curiousity, since we have a choice between First Officers, might you consider letting them add a different +1 (and -1, if you must) quality when we engage with the foe? Something along the lines of +1 Hostility/-1 Battle Initiative with the Ex-Pirate but +1 Command/-1 Larceny with the Young Lieutenant (or whatever)? Or would that screw up your long-view plans for the qualities and menaces? Also: not that I love having menaces raised or advantages/qualities lowered, but I am prepared to trade-off one advantage for another when engaged in battle.
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Arcalane
Posts: 26
12/20/2012
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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?
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Guest
12/21/2012
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Arcalane wrote:
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?
As far as the First Officers go, that was my reasoning for the +1 quality we would get in battle. (I'm fine with it only being during battle, too.) As for my reluctantly suggested -1 qualities, the Young Lieutenant struck me as being straight and narrow enough that he'd make it harder to fight dirty while the Ex-Pirate could be reluctant to engage in battle because those are his former mates we're going after. I won't be sad if the -1 qualities are skipped, though.
I'd enjoy those additional weather cards. I also enjoy how restful...crap. Gone blank. How restful the breadbasket of Terrisel is, that outer island where we can get stacks of wood easily. A fourth card would be nice to mix things up, though. That far from the Capital and Portdown, they could be hungry for all of those rumours we pick it. Make it a Discourse challenge or a permanent 'pretty good/could go either way' odds card: we might be paid (possibly with a trade item instead of pounds if picking up cash too quickly is a concern) but we also run the risk of increasing our suspicion/losing our standing in High Society or the Terrisel Navy if the wrong person overhears.
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