Free Abandonned Ships

I like the idea, it's different.
I can effectively 2 man a Galleon (outside of combat), so being able to pick up a sloop for a 3rd crewmate would be awesome!
They could knock out those merchant or GH voyages while the 2 man crew focus on skellies (darn Athena's).

They should add really interesting and unique ship variants that arent anything like the ones we spawn with.

A barge with only a small hold that has the ingredients for players to be able to craft gunpowder barrels every 5-10 minutes, that has a catapult or trebuchet on the large otherwise mostly empty deck of the barge, to throw the barrels with.

A fishing/merchant ship with trawling nets, live pool for bait or catchs you want to keep alive, and an ice box for fish you want to save to cook or sell.

A merchant ship that has empty bottles and a station to brew grogs and rum with collectable resources such as bananas or crates of sugar.

They would need to expand the item economy and allow merchant crates to be emergently harvested/created in the world at various stations/places on islands that are similar to how i described how powder kegs could be created, with fun little creation minigames that reward consistency and can have poorer results for errors in the creation minigame.

The purpose of these ships should be specific to different aspects of gameplay, and should only be combat oriented if they are creative ideas like powder keg mortars, rather than just more cannons on blank/same ships we already have.

However if they did just add one of each ship type per server as is, as a first iteration, i wouldnt complain. Just would be better to have unique uses and new and interesting ways to play being added rather than it being something where some crews have extra ships.

Though just the fact that you could wipe a crew and steal a ship and they wouldnt spawn back has me interested.

@starship42 said in Free Abandonned Ships:

Currently we are assigned a ship, one of three standard types, when we log in. But what if unique, empty 'unowned' abandonned ships could be found in the world, and commandeered. Ships that are not "tied" to any one player, and therefore can be hijacked, or borrowed, without fear they will be scuttled by the owner. They would be "owned" by whomever is sailing them at any given moment.

So the idea is you find a new, unique abandonned ship out in the world that is not "tied" to a player. It is literally there for anyone to take or steal, and use for their own purposes. It could be of a unique design and quite different in style and capability from our standard ships we choose when we log in. It may also have pre-loaded supplies, cargo, loot, or nothing.

It could have special sails, armor... could be made of iron or other metal, could be old and delapidated, or brand new, ... whatever. It could be really funky and different than anything we have seen before in ship design.

The catch is that these abandonned ships, if sunk, are sunk permanently. They do not respawn. They have one life only for your current gaming session. But you should be able to pass them on to another player if you wish.

Occasionally, another new, unique abandonned ship may appear randomly in the world. Like the rowboats we find, but should not be as numerous as rowboats. These should be rare.

You could then split up your crew and control more than one ship, as a crew. The new ship could be used as a decoy, a trap, or just another ship to add to your "fleet" and carry abundant amounts of loot in one go. Or you could create a fierce fighting force.

They would have to be taken and accepted "As is" though. They also cannot be scuttled by anyone, only sunk. If you were to quit game, they would not sink, unless you destroyed them yourself.

Once sunk, the player would have to mermaid to their "assigned" standard vessel, or find another new abandonned one somewhere else in the world, if one was available.

Thoughts?

This is a wonderful idea an is a variation of similar ideas posted way back. One was where PL could resurrect sunking Ships.

The issue is i can't see how they could make this work as the ships themselves act as player loobies. So even if you could take control of the ship there's no mechnism in place to reassign spawn points. So you couldn't spawn on the commendered vessal if you die.

Another thing is the ship themselves are huge assets and is the reason why the server is limited to the amount of ships and not crew and is also why skelly ships were an issue requiring the devs to work h*****n server optimization to get them in along side skull forts.

I would love to see this work though as it sound awesome.

@starship42 said in Free Abandonned Ships:

Here's an extended add-on to this idea. One of these abandonned ships is used for a time and left behind on a server for anyone who finds it. A new player finds it and discovers a message, or mission/quest from the previous player, that has not been completed.

We could call this game/mission "Pass The Baton". It would be a game where you leave a partially completed quest/mission for another player who finds your ship after you are finished with it, and he/she continues to try to complete the mission. So the ship passes hands from one player session to the next. It could be a chain quest passed down to other players just logging in, indefinitely. Could make a unique game out of it with the SoT community.

Just a thought.

Man, you just hit on somthing. I actually tryed to play this kind of meta game back at the launch of the game where i tried to keep the same Ship afloat and always passing it down to freinds as I left a session hoping i could comback to the same ship as if to give the ship a History. I think this is a brillent idea althou i don't know how entrench the ship model is link to the player lobby since you would need to see the source code for that. Still if they could detach the looby from the ship and stay in the Map as a place holder this would definitly allow for more options. Althou the problem you would run into is the different sized Lobbies so if a crew of 2 left from the session then the game would have to despawn the sloop for a galleon. The only way this would work is if we had one dynamic lobby cap to 4 players instead of 3 static lobbies. This would also allow for other ideas such as changing ship types.

@tartansnake no offense man but i couldnt disagree more. Rowboats have literally nothing that satisfies what people want from this idea. And beyond that alliances themselves are poorly designed to duplicate gold and otherwise dont even make sense how we flag ourselves rather than vote, and would have been better added with a notoriety system to offset their server farming game breaking nature.

@captain-arcanic said in Free Abandonned Ships:

I think this idea is brilliant with all kinds of potential.
Just give the finding crew a voting choice to "switch ships." Their original ship scuttles and only respawns when the unique ship is sunk.
They could instead just pilot the ship around without officially switching over, at the cost of respawning on thier original ship.

Or their original ship becomes the abandoned ship and stays, though tbh i would prefer these ships are just as much physical commodities as items, they are never yours. A max of 2-3 lives per player if that vote was taken and then they should respawn elswwhere.

@captain-arcanic said in Free Abandonned Ships:

The more I think about this, the more I think the ship should be anchored until a crew Takes Command by everyone climbing aboard, someone taking the wheel and a vote being taken. You can't take it for a spin without committing your crew to the new vessel. Then your original ship despawns and the new ship becomes yours until it sinks OR any other crew takes the wheel for say, 10 seconds? If that happens, the ship becomes neutral again, ready for a crew to Take Command in the same way.

This would lead to interesting combat scenarios where a thieving crew needs to take the ship without sinking it, hold the wheel for 10 seconds in a fight, then have everyone aboard to Take Command.

Now that I think about it, this would be a very cool way to handle all ships in the game. Then it REALLY would be a sea of thieves! Maybe too much of one?

Also, the ships need a better name. How about Cursed Ships, or Ghost Ships?

Add in a system that only allows crews to commandeer new ships every hour and all “ship theft griefing” beyond just the loss the first time would be avoided also.

I still think non combat oriented ships that have unique purposes and allow more interaction with sandbox tools like powder kegs or cargo etc and the world itself rather than just current ships being stealable is a better idea.

That way people will always have their safe space scuttle ship, but if they choose to take on the responsibility and session based progression of dedicating some of their crew to this new ship, and it is lost, there is nothing to complain about. It is just another emergent element/tool within the sandbox to be used as players see fit.

Thinking even further, if these ships were unique and were made to be used as a way to increase efficiency and profit in whatever eventual item economy we get, that isnt directly voyage related (god willing...) they could have this be a thing where an alliance of ships could each send one member rather than halve their crew or abandon their old ship, and the increased profits would be the incentive and they could fix the gold distribution issue that alliances currently have. Which basically makes piracy in a pirate game unnecesary and spiteful instead of a possible tactic or opportunity. Working together should increase profits through extra man power alone, not by screwing the npc over by making them pay 12 people by the hour for a job that dosnt require that many, so to speak.

@starship42 Hey i currently trying to attemp to make a running and organized list of all the great idea's disscussed by the community. I was wondering if i could add a link to your post there?