Legostone

I'm pretty sure you still have to pay the extra. But you can game the system by shifting the more expensive ships in the cheaper ranges I guess.

Yes, this! As well as that maybe add a bonus of 25 DB given to a random FB outside of those top 15. I agree completely with the build quality part, not much to add there Yep, everyone seems to be forgetting that heavy increase in price after the 3rd ship, as most classes don't really seem worth it anymore at that point. I still think it should be a bit different (maybe instead of straight up +50% go for steps of 25%, so 4th ship 125% total, 5th 150%, 6th 175% and so on. Same result on average, but might allow some players to get a few more vessels. Could get messy calculating though (well, it could actually be really easy with the right use of google forms, so I don't think this would really pose a problem) Yep, I'm already spending way to much time calculating which ship is the best one to use for the MRCA (the part of the spreadsheet I showed earlier wasn't everything, thats my spreadsheet:P), so I would rather not add that part to that. Also, it could get easy to find out where a fleet landed, so the SR or opposing nations could obliterate other fleets with just a little bit of planning. Let the builder decide what ship type he wants, and if it really doesn't fit send him to the naval licensing court - thats why we have them. Last MRCA one class 5T (400 DB) was captured and one class 5F (350 DB) sunk. If you don't consider that a fortune at this point in the game I'm not sure what to consider a fortune in this game - that are more DBs on each than I have right now, and I've been saving up!

Indeed! Also, this still wouldn't exclude it from the 3 cheap ships - I would suggest, that if you happen to lose your free ship, you can always get it back, but after the third ship you still pay the extra - so 50 DB for the next 3 (considering a 2F/T/WR) and so on. As well as that - I think that ships shouldn't be able to earn more than 1.5 times their initial investment in any case.

I have to agree to this - and say I'm guilty of doing the same thing that is being complained about, at least the part about not improving existing builds. The biggest problem with improving existing ship builds is often - at least in my case - the rigging. If you change something, you might have to spend a few hours redoing the rigging, which is, as many of you might know - rather painful doing again. I think we could have something along the lines of a BOBS Shipyard, where everyone who wants to posts his ship before doing their rigging so we can give him some hints what to improve before doing the rigging. This would work even better now, as approvals are not needed anymore, and a comment in that thread wouldn't be worth any less than one in your own topic, if you are one of those people;) Oh yeah - the MRCA, where some people make over 200 DBs with their free ships while others get almost none. I guess that is one of the reason why to revisit it... How could we solve it that improved builds - and builds, that are can not be improved - fall into the same category? And how do we do all this without putting to much work on the shoulders of the organisers? That would definitely motivate me to further improve my builds - I've said some other stuff before. Maybe a few extra DB if the build was posted in WIP form and changed a decent bit since then? But only once, otherwise people could easily game the system there. Now it is the time to see what is more important - more FB or the MRCA:P I already try to give feedback on what to improve whenever I comment, but very few here seem to do that sadly. Approvals were a great idea, but the way they were included was kinda unfitting I think. But that is to much effort for the organisers which I can totally understand. 2.Conversion - if you need some help in the naval licensing court I could also jump in for the point when we have to reclassify most vessels. But how do we deal with auction - won licenses? I think those should straight up stay in an equal class. 1. Yes please - but maybe we should also add some other vessel types to the list, just so everyone has a better idea where to expect their planned vessel (like: Xebec/armed Xebec etc) 2.I really like this idea and I would like it included. 3.I feel like the prices for the classes up to class 3 or 4 can stay as they are - I think it is just right that even someone who didn't get anything from his first months MRCA can afford a smaller ship in the second month. However, I think these prices with just adding up the features of the ships and multiplying them by 9 is a little bit to simple - it doesn't do much justice to the stronger guns in Warships for example. However, for estimating the rough price of the stronger vessels this is just right. However - I don't think your broadside weight calculation works that well - for some larger East Indiaman you easily get values of 30+ - maybe that part should be thought about again. Again, if you need any help trying to find some better values I can give some suggestions after thinking about it. I also think the large merchant vessel (class 4T) is way underpriced compared to the 5LT, 5F and 5T. If you want I can go through the whole list and write something about every class, but lets continue that in another place.

Hey, I'm happy too, at least for the Wringe II:P

It actually is not exponential at all as far as I can see after processing the last few MRCAs, I've calculated the average outcome of the different classes: The only one poking out is the 3f and 5f, but those are a) a small sample size or b) have one ship with an insane income (over 1000 DB) messing up statistics.

Yes, you got 21 DBs from that.

Well, Eslandola just hit 730 DBs this month. I guess we were all a little scared after last month. At least MAESTROs situation isn't as bad as last month, 310 DB, thats almost half of Eslandolas commerce this month!

Not the best outcome for me, but at least better than last month! Again, not a single Corrington vessel captured. This time none sunk too...

If they sink or capture Arkady they'll have to hope I don't find them! By the time that is possible I'll have way stronger ships as I don't plan on licensing him anytime soon (I already have 2 ships and want the third spot reserved for a special kind of ship which is being worked on):D Yeah, sadly not all of them are finished - the green one is a schooner which I've had sitting here since mid February and I just can't get myself to finally do the rigging, and the big one is a full size New Terraman which I started about a week ago - I just barely started the upper deck and am not even close to start the rigging... That is my figurehead! I try to keep them as different as possible - I still have a few dragon heads, wolf skulls, cow, sharks, sawfish, crocodiles, dogs, seagulls, spiders, ants, horses, bats, crab, dolphin, manta ray, squids, rats, frogs, pigs, chicken, scorpions, snakes, birds and baby dragons lying around waiting to be used. I guess I have enough figureheads for all small ships I'll ever build lol. Next one wanting to chose one of these can chose the one I use for my next small vessel(whenever that one will be build)! Well, I guess he does believes in dragons Flying Chicken. Will do, but no guarantee of a weekly vessel, lol!

And everyone is biting their fingernails(or whatever you do when you are waiting for something like this as he already said he has calculated it. I wish he wouldn't have said it already, then we would have been a bit more patient... :P

These bricks in the wings and these plates in the body. The plates are lbg and the bricks are white.

So, as no-one seemed to be to interested in making a tutorial on building masts, I took it onto myself and found a way to make them sturdy and made a tutorial of that. Here you go!

There. Have a tutorial on building masts.

Hello everyone! As nobody else seems to be interested in making a tutorial for building masts, I'll have to do it myself! If you happen to have more techniques for making masts or just want to thank me for it - off course only after reading the full tutorial - go ahead and either show them or do what you think is necessary! This topic is just about building the masts, not the ship, ship, sails, sails, sails or the rigging, all those have separate topics. If you feel like there is something missing from this topic just tell me. Edit 1: Further tricks to stabilise connections between mast sections by Ejred: click here So, lets start: Lets begin in the year 1989. The Black Seas Barracuda just got released. It contains some interesting pieces, which I'll show first: Some of these parts were released later, but still fit well with these masts. Lets see what one could do with these masts: One could simply combine the different Mast sections, or: Stack them above each other. Could also be combined with another technique I show later on. Then there are the new Mast parts - first released with the 4+ Pirate ship which can also be combined with other techniques: And, as expected, one can just stack these above each other: I'll not show more of these, if anyone wants to show all the possibilities these give you go ahead! Now, on to parts that are useful to custom Mast building: Technic axles. There are also a 16 stud long one and a 32 stud long one, I didn't put those on this picture though. Technic bushes. All kinds of them. These can be combined to form the upper part of a mast: Just lengthen these sections and put them ontop of your bottom mast part - or use them where ever you see them fit. If you want to reinforce the round ones you can use flex tubes: Which are available in many colours and length, but they are, as the name suggests, flexible. Other parts that can be used for masts are these: I'll go into more detail with the 2x2 and 4x4 round ones now, as those are the most interesting ones for the biggest part of the mast. One can use a 32 long technic axle to get a decently sized mast going. But what if that isn't enough? Or maybe that is not exactly the length you want? Then the next part might be the solution for you: For this example we'll use two sections of 15 2/3 studs height and 3 platforms; this technique can be applied to any sensible size. I recommend at least two platforms to make it sturdy though. As you can see a 32 stud long axle is not exactly fitting for this kind of mast - the mast would just break of right above it. So, you ask, what do we use instead? Flex tubes? Those are both flexible and not exactly cheap to acquire in decent length - and you might even have to cut them. No, we'll use this instead: You need some round 1x1 plates in a colour that doesn't clash with your existing design, a pair of scissors (which won't be used to cut pieces nor will it be build into the mast), a technic pin, a technic axle of your choice (I'm using an 8 stud long one here, but you can use any length you like and a bit of string with a diameter of around 1mm. Warning! If you use this technique the technic pin and maybe one of the 4x4 round bricks with technic holes might be damaged. Next you take a bit of string that is a bit longer than your mast: I've taken a bit to much here, but rather take to much than to little. Next, you tie it to the technic pin: It just needs to be tied around in a way that the string won't move away if you pull on the string. Then you just pull it through your mast: Note: the technic pin is at the upper end, not connected to anything, just hanging there. Now you put the mast back together and pull the string tight. Next we use the technic axle to fix the string at the bottom and also give us a way to mount this mast really securely in our ship. Don't cut off the remains of the string just jet. While pushing the technic axle in, pull a bit on the string. Now, the part which might hurt some of you: You have to pull the string (which you just tightened with the axle) around to insert the technic pin into one of the pin holes on the round 4x4 brick with pinholes. Don't losen the technic axle for this, the string is a tiny bit flexible which should still allow this. Now that we've done this, it is time to check if this mast is already strong enough for our course: Well, this isn't strong enough for me(it might be for some of you - this already takes a bit of force), so lets go on and use some of those round 1x1 plates that I said to have ready: You see this gap? That is where you'll place your 1x1 round plates. It doesn't exactly matter if you go side by side or around, just place 4 of them. It should look like this now: In my case, this was sturdy enough. If it isn't in your case, just add those plates to the top platform too. Note: There are alternative solutions to the technic pin; for me it is the easiest solution - especially as both parts at risk are quite cheap. I've given some examples at how to built the upper mast, but if you feel like adding more examples go for it - I don't know everything about masts either. Also, excuse the bad lighting in some of these pictures - I hope everything is still well visible.

I actually found a quite stable solution by running a stretched piece of string through them, the main Mast is now almost solid as if it had a long technic axle in it. If you want I can show you what I mean.

Why not cut a 5L axle in half if you have to do it anyways?

Wow, that was fast! Let's hope it didn't hit MAESTRO as badly as it did last time...

If I'm using a character from another player (I've used the Maxims captain of the Knight of Stedor for example) can we get that one to count too? Also, as the crews on my fleet constantly mix - can I count the crew new every time or do I have to check if I haven't used that figure as a crew member before? Counting like this I currently count 51 unique minifigs in my builds - so 7.65 DBs.

Okay, there has been quite some progress on my new ship, the Pride of Elysabethtown: Pride of Elysabethtown WIP She'll be some kind of New Terraman (Indiaman), with around 30 guns and a lot of space for cargo and crew. Are there any good ways besides 32 stud long technic axles to reinforce the masts?

So wait, I'm a bit confused now - my Wringe I has been captured by NPC Pirates, and I rebuilt her in different colours as the Wringe II, is that alright?

[ESL - CH 2A] Arkady | Legostone | Eslandola

After some time around these newly explored islands we noticed that some stronger defence on the water would be needed; many Sea Rats and even some unidentified creatures which attacked our man on their small boats were around and causing our man to lose confidence that it would be a good idea to stay around these islands. Some even said they were cursed. This made it clear that we need more to defend our island than just a few man with sticks in rowboats. I decided it would be a good idea to sent a letter to one of the best shipbuilders of Eslandola if he were interested in building some sloops to defend the area. He agreed to the contract and went ahead to build this one; I've named it Arkady for its wild nature and, for its size, good armament. It even has some space to carry along some goods, which I really appreciate. Hereby I present you, Arkady, a class 2WR sloop: I sure hope his aggressive bow keeps those Sea Rats under control! And lastly, a picture of Arkadys starboard side: Not exactly relevant for this challenge, but I still feel like it is relevant, the Arkady with the rest of my fleet (including the HMS Kent/War Dwarf which is now owned by Bregir). Captain Anco Liconardo commands this vessel.

I'm thankful that I won! Thanks everyone, I'll put those 22(or 20?) DBs to good use! And congrats to all other winners, especially Capt Wolf with his first place in the MCTC! Edit: Great, 22 DB for me!

While I must agree that the base for the whole build is a little bit to small, the presentation of the wreckage is great. The rocks are great work, but I'm wondering a bit how this part of the wreck managed to fit so well in-between them:D