Ship Type Changing Mid Session

@sgt-palooggoo said

Second, in order to change your ship type, your previous ship has to be Scuttled or Sunk, and the ship you select has to have enough room for your current crew size.

This would be better if you didn't scuttle and just let the program do that before or immediately after it spawns your new ship.
An instant swap would be more effective at saving performance resources.

The reason I say this is because if your crew scuttle the ship the game will then use resources to spawn it at an island far away from other players.
The "scuttle" cycle in this scenario has to be stopped by means of a more controlled function set from new lines of code within the game, not by user choice.
No use wasting operating and performance resources where it's not warranted.

edit:

As I've stated in other threads of this topic, downsizing (to a smaller vessel) would be fine depending on your current crew size but upgrading to a larger vessel requires more work. It will require the acceptance of a friend invite to the game. Otherwise it only knows the current crew size already in game.

Even that's buggy and slow. Whenever a crew member leaves it takes the game quite a while to register the vacancy.
We've had players kicked by server error or internet connection or mysterious PC reboots but couldn't re-invite them to game for several minutes because the game still had them listed as part of the crew.

@sgt-palooggoo
No worries mate, I'd love to help get this sorted.
It's something my crew have wanted for, well, forever.

Sorry if it sounded like I was shooting it down. I'd like to brainstorm on this topic.

@sgt-palooggoo
It would be great but Joe Neate has already answered the question when it was put forward to him in a stream by saying "it would be too hard to implement".
To me that showed absolutely no confidence in his programming staff. :/

@sgt-palooggoo

So let's get brainstorming!!!

List what it would require, then tackle each listed item with a solution. (My patented method of programming) :o)

• Game needs to refresh crew size count every time a member steps onto the shipwright platform. Sounds easy enough. happens with each new voyage
• Vessel size options enabled accordingly. Simple. I can do that in my sleep
• Add the "invite friend" feature to shipwright. Too easy. it's already in the main loading menu
• Game needs to refresh crew size count every time the "invite friend" feature is used and the invite is accepted. okely dokely yawn
• Vessel size options enabled accordingly. Simple. zzzzzzzz
• Make it happen. done. yay Rare.

Everything seems to already be in the game. Just a matter of piecing it all together.
Or Rare's willingness to piece it all together.

Edit: Your ship size, livery, sails, flag and figurehead are all stored in a temp file for every time your ship re-spawns throughout your entire gaming session.
Change that ship size (in the temp file) to project your current crew size.

There will still be no more than six ships or 24 players regardless of up-sizing or downsizing.

@sgt-palooggoo

Thank you.
You'd be surprised how often I use that method and it works. lol

Sorry for having the "brainstorming" all one sided.

Here, you can use this line and I'll edit it out of my post. lol

Make it happen. done. yay Rare.

P.S. You know they could simply add minor adjustments to this to kick inactive afk or brigged players from the game.

@sgt-palooggoo
With my method of problem solving, I usually run it by my pets first (cats, dogs, ducks, chickens) then we make it happen. :o)

They would like to do that, but they've said that is difficult to make it.

@archangel-timmy said

Does the boat spawn elsewhere the instant it is sunk, or does it wait for one of the crew to take a mermaid or load from the ferry, then the action is triggered to load the ship at some location and teleport the player? It would be a waste to load the ship if the crew has no intent on utilizing it.

Good question mate. Although without having that inside information I would take a guess at the ship spawning as soon as your current ship has sunk and disappeared. Regardless if you have died or not. After all, your ship is your spawn location, it has to be there before you are.

When it comes to changing the ship, your current crew would have to be in agreement for that to happen or you would have people constantly swapping at the shipwright which would cause a lot of grief and be taxing on the system.

Another good point which could be dealt with by way of a pop-up notification (for all crew members) of the vessel swap with "Yes" / "No" vote options.
A cool down period could also be added here before the next vessel swap.

Depending on when the ship actually spawns (immediate or crew-load) you could vote to scuttle, switch your ship type based on the crew size at the outpost, then take your mermaid. Not ideal, but I wouldn't expect it to be any more resource intensive than the current system?

By voting to scuttle it will spawn an identical vessel (minus patches and holes) only for your crew to then change it for a different model. That is more wasted resources than it's warranted.

@sshteeve said

Now it doesn't necessarily have to have an invite to another crewman to start - afterall we can start Galleons, Brigantines and Sloops solo if we wish.

Great point. I was mainly thinking of people abusing the function but that could happen from the start of any session. My regular crew mate and I have started voyages with either brigantine or galleon because we know to expect others to pop in before we're done.

You are right though - the scuttle has to be handled by the client and server and not the crew, but I love the original idea of seeing a model of the ship.

Agreed, I also like the idea of selecting a model ship as means of voting for it. :o)

I say mermaid to it and it spawn elsewhere as this would then use the existing scuttle/sink mechanic, just loading a new ship type instead into the server - it also requires players to lose any resources that they have - a fair trade for a larger or smaller vessel on the same server I say!

When other threads of this topic were everywhere a few months ago there was a lot of discussion on whether or not our supplies be transferred onto the new vessel.
Maybe this could be a checkbox option when selecting a new vessel size. Just the person proposing the swap, not all vote on the supplies option because then it gets complicated.
Sometimes you may have less than the default amount of supplies so you'd be foolish not to take the better option of the two.

So to recap with additional intel I overlooked, brought to light by @Sshteeve. Cheers mate.

As @sgt-palooggoo suggested, at any shipwright we walk onto the platform and focus on a model ship she has on her work bench.
This could be done with just one model ship (galleon like the one in the captain's quarters) so as not to clutter that space. Besides that, it's already made. :o)

It does not need to be picked up, just a permanent fixture.
In the same fashion as approaching a barrel or NPC the familiar tooltip menu is displayed with ship size options for the vessel types you don't already have.
Actually this could include your same vessel for those who prefer a new one without patches. Think of it as a localized alternative to scuttling.

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The image above depicts the options available to a crew of three (note the disabled sloop option).

This would require the game to:

• Refresh crew size count when player steps onto shipwright platform.
• Disable inappropriate sized vessel from the menu. You can't have more people than the boat can hold.
• Display vessel selection menu with option to transfer supplies to new vessel.
• When a vessel type is selected: if supplies are opted to be transferred do so, then de-spawn current vessel and replace it with selected type. Blink and you miss it.
  All livery, sails, flags and figurehead (plus any custom items in future) are transferred to the new vessel.

I think that the "My Crew" menu could be a suitable location for the "invite friend" feature.

Non important but possibly cool features:

• The ship model could also change with whatever customization you are browsing. Like a display model allowing you to preview a mix and match of livery and sails, etc. :o)
• The ship model could also change to whichever size vessel you currently have. Then with hovering over menu items it changes to the vessel model of that menu item.

@sgt-palooggoo
Glad you like it mate.
Sorry I've been distracted all morning with a visitor and now on chat trying to help a mate out with his new website.

I edited a line into my previous post about adding the "invite friend" feature in the "My Crew" menu.

@andreas5524

The swap will only be made available at an outpost shipwright and it could come with a cool down timer preventing another swap for however long Rare thinks it's required.
Whether that is 5 mins, 10 mins or 30 mins, who knows? But it wouldn't be anything hasty.

I honestly don't see it as being too much of a concern. If another ship approaches you whilst at an outpost (or anywhere) what difference does size matter?
So you go from sloop to galleon, there's still only two of you in the game, one steering while the other on cannon or repairs.
It's no different, in fact it's more of a burden than controlling the sloop, rotating it on the spot to keep your cannon aimed at the intruder(s) and hoping the stern isn't taken out by the dock.

@sshteeve

True. That's why I included the option to transfer supplies when swapping vessels.
The intention of that is not to add to the existing default of 15, but to totally transfer what you have into empty barrels on the new vessel if you decide to do so.
With that option unchecked your replacement vessel will have the default amount of supplies.

There may be cases where you might have less than the default, so that would be foolish to transfer that amount over. lol

Just a reminder, anyone could always scuttle their vessel when they are out of / or dangerously low on supplies. So that in itself is a bit of an exploit.

@sgt-palooggoo

That would only occur via a bug in the coding. Rare wouldn't release an update with any bugs.

@sgt-palooggoo
My ribs hurt.

Ok, serious now.
The script would say something that represent the following (broken down in layman's terms) :
If the transfer check = true then
Ship new cannonballs = ship old cannonballs (of course the cursed ones would each have to be listed individually)
Ship new planks = ship old planks
Ship new bananas = ship old bananas
else (meaning if the option is not checked)
Ship new cannonballs = 15, 15, 15
Ship new planks = 15
Ship new bananas = 15
end if

or whatever the default numbers are.