Brethren of the Brick Seas (BoBS) Intro Thread, Era II

[Darnok]

Just now, Professor Thaum said:

That's the point !

And it is not to be changed, the rats are the wild card of BoBs, not a fourth faction... we love to be at the sideline... at the edge to be truly correct.

 

Let me rephrase it then: it would be great to have more than one active wildcard.

Edited October 26, 2017 by Drunknok

[Professor Thaum]

[Kwatchi]

4 hours ago, Sir Stig said:

I don't know how much they cooperate/rival with each other.

We don't usually.  If you look at the Sep TMRCA results, that becomes readily apparent. The only time we ever got organized as an entire group, two ESL fleets got sunk so it is probably a good thing. 

The "Who are the Sea Rats?" subject seems to come up roughly every six months.  While I personally don't care all that much about perception, I guess I'll go into my take on things as a public service for the ERA 2 joiners.

 

1. Sea Rats are NOT the pirate faction, but a place for the independent minded to play.  Ska's original vision for SR was more as the catch-all group.  Yes, we do have most members playing buccaneers, under Letters of Marque when possible; but also free traders, Pombe's 'Ship of Fools', the Charlatan Bay mini-nation, etc..  The true pirates in BoBS are really the NPC ones.

2. We don't do joint efforts.  Our only collaborative build attempt fizzled out.  @MKJoshA does yoeman's work organizing trade fleets for the MRCA (which we are grateful for, because it is like herding cats tbh), but that is about the extent of our cooperation.

3. We each have our own politics.  In fact, a number of us have non-aggression treaties with individual players negotiated privately.  I'll give you a moment to let that tidbit settle in...

4. We tend enjoy RP'ing our story lines more than trying to "win" the economic game or doing challenges.

5. We are the smallest in terms of members, and most of us are part time players on top of that.  It is what it is.  Feel free to call us "dead" if you feel like it; our activity level is pretty much where it has always been.  I will venture that it is not a beginner friendly faction or one for someone who is looking for a team concept, so that fact we don't recruit and/or retain many new members is somewhat expected.

6. We tend to talk amongst ourselves in private. So if you were wondering why our faction intro post is so quiet, now you know.

 

Other Sea Rats may have a different take, but I think that just reinforces my overall point. 

 

 

Edited October 26, 2017 by Kwatchi

[Capt Wolf]

2 hours ago, Bregir said:

Hostile does not mean at war, but simply that the very much dislike you

This was the issue I raised in NPC Development group. "Hostile" does not work, as it infers actual hostilities, i.e., war, to too many players, and I asked that we change it to "Very Unfriendly". The fact that it continues to raise questions confirms that it is a poor choice of words.

[Spud The Viking]

46 minutes ago, Capt Wolf said:

This was the issue I raised in NPC Development group. "Hostile" does not work, as it infers actual hostilities, i.e., war, to too many players, and I asked that we change it to "Very Unfriendly". The fact that it continues to raise questions confirms that it is a poor choice of words.

How about changing the relationship to 'abysmal', like in the Total War games (I'm heavily inspired by Empire: Total War for this game). This may save any confusion, hopefully. 

[Darnok]

Having a secondary (thirdary, fourthary, whatevery) character in another faction is a No-No, aye?

[Sir Stig]

1 minute ago, Drunknok said:

Having a secondary (thirdary, fourthary, whatevery) character in another faction is a No-No, aye?

For keeping your integrity, I would hope so.

[Bregir]

3 minutes ago, Drunknok said:

Having a secondary (thirdary, fourthary, whatevery) character in another faction is a No-No, aye?

You can only be in one faction. But there is nothing stopping you from adding a character to your "portfolio" from another faction. But say you use that character to play in attacks on your countrymen probably wont make you any friends... ;)

[SilentWolf]

6 minutes ago, Drunknok said:

Having a secondary (thirdary, fourthary, whatevery) character in another faction is a No-No, aye?

Depends on how you define in another faction. There is nothing wrong with building a character and storyline that takes place in a city of another faction, but that character won't get you included in that factions correspondence nor be part of any government etc. Example being, I created a group of mafia for a minichallenge last year and have used them in other occasions that I needed some less savory characters for the story. They reside in a sea rat town but in no way do they get me any access to being a sea rat, but they serve my purpose. I could see a similar way of having a character who runs an office in Eslandola or Oleon or similar ideas. 

Edited October 26, 2017 by SilentWolf

[gedren_y]

I have done other faction characters. I have used one particular Corrington character a few times for some lighthearted mystery. I have finally decided that he is a 'stalking horse', intended as distraction whilst real intelligence operatives go about their business.

[Mesabi]

2 hours ago, Drunknok said:

Having a secondary (thirdary, fourthary, whatevery) character in another faction is a No-No, aye?

In my opinion, it's okay as long as the character does not do anything significant to the other faction, (like attack someone, or declare something about said faction.) . That was the rule in Andromeda's Gates at least. @Bregir might have to yell at me again though. 

[SilentWolf]

8 minutes ago, Mesabi said:

In my opinion, it's okay as long as the character does not do anything significant to the other faction, (like attack someone, or declare something about said faction.) . That was the rule in Andromeda's Gates at least. @Bregir might have to yell at me again though. 

I think for the very first time, no yelling is needed. 

[MKJoshA]

16 hours ago, Sir Stig said:

I think the Sea Rats could need a little PR boost either way. I don't know how much they cooperate/rival with each other.

We prefer to stay in the shadows. That way no one sees us coming. Right ESL? 

[Capt Wolf]

Just now, MKJoshA said:

That way no one sees us coming. Right ESL? 

Actually, you did sort of warn us, but too late to do anything about it.    It was well played.

[Flavius Gratian]

I have noticed that some LDD builders have used minifig torsos and heads that don't exist in the vanilla version, Kolonialbeamter among others. Since I will mostly build in LDD I wondered how you do that?

[Bregir]

5 minutes ago, Flavius Gratian said:

I have noticed that some LDD builders have used minifig torsos and heads that don't exist in the vanilla version, Kolonialbeamter among others. Since I will mostly build in LDD I wondered how you do that?

@Kolonialbeamter: Can you help here? :)

[Kolonialbeamter]

@Flavius Gratian Since I've been using bluerender for my images, I only use what's available in LDD. I'm using extended mode though, so some minifig part/color combinations don't match. And regarding minifigs I don't care they exist in real life or not, as LDD's torso/faces/etc. pool is very limited. Of course you can use your own graphics when rendering - in POV-ray that was pretty easy - but so far I've been too lazy to find out how it works using bluerender.

Should you know, teach me ;)

[Mesabi]

Okay, so according to the chart, I should owe 245 DBs in upkeep. Then I put it in the calculator, and I got an upkeep of 167. I made 180 Dbs. And that's before I pay everyone off.  Considering I owe 25% of the beacon to BoC, and 70% of the Icarus to an investor, I don't know how exactly to factor that in when Upkeep is paid in a lump sum. 

I started doing everyone else's to try to understand things.

@Ayrlego had 10 ship levels running (Assuming LJ is a class 4) And he made around 108 by my calculations.

@Professor Thaum had 7 levels running and made 56 Dbs, at the cost of his class 4...

@blackdeathgr I can't figure out because I don't know his ship levels.  I can't find his ship classes anywhere!

@Bodi lost 30 Dbs and won a ship. (Unknown class)

@Bregir My guess is you had about 1212 Dbs in upkeep. I can't find a couple of your ships at all. And you only made 308 Dbs. That equals a loss of  904 DBs, and a class 4

@Brickwolf launched one class 2? assuming it's free, he made 30 Dbs. Smart guy!

@Capt Wolf 145 Dbs in upkeep. But, you made 845 Dbs, so 700 Dbs profit. Wow!

@Captain Genaro made 98 Dbs.

@Dukesc Lost a class 6, A class 2? and a class 3? and 1750 DBs, but made 834 Dbs. So, total loss of -916 Dbs, and three ships. 

ETTC lost money for sure. Fortunately they have a ton. I can't find their ship classes.

@Faladrin I think you made 35 Dbs

@Flavius Gratian Lost his free ship. 

@Garmadon made 113, and lost his free class 2

@gedren_y Made 117 assuming "Consort's Duty" is a free class 2. I can't find a link to her.

@Gulagurag made 27 and lost a ship

@Kai NRG against 25 upkeep, made 160 Dbs.

@kaiju made 83 Dbs

That's all I'm going to do for now. My numbers are probably fuzzy because I had to guess for ships I couldn't find (Which there was a lot of!  I later realized there's a page on the account Summary just for ships )

So, my conclusions. Less is more. The age of big fleets is over, which was part of the MCRA II, but I didn't really realize that until now. So unless you're hitting a big port with high cargo stats, you ain't gonna make a lot. You're better off with 3 ships. A free class 2, another class 2, and a class 4. That translates to pretty much pure profit. I'd recommend making the freebee a sacrificial lamb, to maximize profit. Captain Wolf launched three ships, and made 700 Dbs. 

I should really take a day to enter all this in a spreadsheet to really calculate things, but I have two papers due this week. Maybe before the next MCRA.

I came into this angry that I came out with such a loss. But I understand now this is the new meta. I can't send my Icarus or Beacon out because they won't make a profit. I need to do what I said. Make a class 2 that's free, another class 2, and a class 4. If I want to make a buck, that's what I have to do.

When I saw the new ship classes, I was excited! We had all these new levels we could pile onto. Class 6s,7s,10s! But the fact is, they're only really useful for the AMCRA. They're just so gosh darn expensive. A class 10 costs 400 an MCRA to operate alone. Unless that bad boy has 15 Cargo points and hits bastion, it's just a cool build.

So, consequences? I think that the new upkeep will be prohibitive for people to have large, cool ships. I'm trying to build two class 7s at the moment, but, they're an obsolete class. Maybe this is focusing on the game mechanics to much, but form follows function. Not vice versa. 

And while I'm here, I'll reiterate. Class 0s are overpowered. I would build a ton if I weren't lazy.

[gedren_y]

@Mesabi, it was the Island Rose (Class 3) that made the profit in Weelond. The Consort's Duty (Class 4) got diverted by the storm and made no profit.

[Mesabi]

Just now, gedren_y said:

@Mesabi, it was the Island Rose (Class 3) that made the profit in Weelond. The Consort's Duty (Class 4) got diverted by the storm and made no profit.

Well, I found the link to all the active ships. I think I'll spreadsheet the heck out of this tomorrow. The calculation I did was total. It counted what you made, subtracted the upkeep costs, and totalled it. I didn't account for individual ships unless they sank.

 

[Mesabi]

got done with the spreadsheet 

Name	Ships Score	Ships total	Upkeep	Profit	Total	Extra
Ayrlego	10	2	122	230	108
Bastion	4	1	5	18	13
BlackDeathGR	8	3	55	273	218
Bodi	9	3	55	40	-15	Captured Ship!
Bregir	34	9	712	308	-404	Lost a Class 4
Breshaun	5	1	5	109	104
Brickwolf	2	1	0	30	30
Capt Wolf	15	3	310	845	535
Captain Genaro	9	2	75	108	33
Charlatan Bay	4	1	0	13	13
Dukesc	41	10	1637	834	-803	Lost 2 class 7, class 2
Elyzabethtowne	0	1	0	22	22
ETTC	17	4	320	211	-109	Lost Class 3
Faladrin	5	2	0	35	35
Flavius Gratian	2	1	0	0	0	Sank
Garmadon	5	2	0	230	230
gedryn_y	7	2	5	117	112
gulagurag	6	2	0	27	27	Lost Class 4
Kai NRG	8	2	40	192	152
Kaiju	7	2	5	83	78
Kings Harbour	2	2	0	14	14	Captured Ship!
KolonialBeamter	40	6	1850	1439	-411	Lost Class 7
Kot_Z	7	2	5	25	20	Lost Class 5
Kwatchi	8	2	35	40	5	Captured 2 Ships!
Legostone	29	4	360	1035	675
MAESTRO	8	2	50	461	411
Maxim I	9	3	25	439	414
MCTC	14	3	242	725	483	Lost Class 6
Mesabi	10	2	122	180	58	Is Awesome
Mike S	9	2	90	116	26
MKJoshA	26	4	662	18	-644	Lost Class 7, 2
Phred	31	10	905	686	-219	Lost Class 6
Pombe	4	1	0	0	0	Lost
Professor Thaum	6	2	0	81	81	Lost Class 4
Puvel	5	2	0	216	216
Rassilion	4	1	0	37	37
RNTC	14	3	227	338	111
Sebeus I	2	1	0	0	0	Sank
SilentWolf	21	5	220	428	208	Lost Class 3
Sir Stig	7	2	5	35	30
Spud the Viking	2	1	0	34	34
Umbra Mantis	7	2	5	439	434

[Bregir]

We are looking at making adjustments to the tMRCA.

Consider that this is the first run with the new mechanics and that it is hard to predict how things like this work out.

We have found some aspects of it that does not give the right incentives for different strategies and we will be looking at adjusting it over the coming months.

For now, just accept that shipping is risky business, and that while you some times strike it big, some times you will have a loss.

And anyways, there is far too much cash in BoBs as is, so a few moguls making big losses from time to time might not be too bad.

[blackdeathgr]

1 hour ago, Bregir said:

And anyways, there is far too much cash in BoBs as is, so a few moguls making big losses from time to time might not be too bad.

I second that!

[Darnok]

I have a question regarding plantations and their sometimes higher yields. It is known that certain plantations generate a higher income, given that the right plant is grown at the right location. How do I get confirmation on the specific "high yield crop" though?

 

Say I guess it could be either plant A or B, and I build and license one plantation for each. When and how will I get told whether A or B  is "the one"?

[Flavius Gratian]

7 hours ago, Mesabi said:

@Flavius Gratian Lost his free ship. 

Maybe it's a shrug to you, but I suffered heavily from my emotional investement!

Impressive work with the spread sheet, though!