Modification to ship sailing orders.

[Songthrush]

I think what you are now saying, Doug R., is that your law-abiding and hardworking characters would like to continue abusing the possibility of this instant-unstoppable-docking flaw in the game, to their advantage.

But this is exactly my point here: if the prisoner has this advantage, then should not the renegades (hated pirates, or hard working and noble revolutionaries, whoever), also have SOME kind of means to do what they do in the game? Without the silly endless dock-undock cycles into which everything degenerates now. And need I point out to you, that no matter how many years-of-work an enterprising pirate may put into his operation, this unstoppable-docking thing will still be there to thwart him (unless he deliberately loads up his boat with heavy materials, to slow it down, which to me sounds & feels a lot like abusing the game, almost cheating).

If you are the kind of player that sets an alarm clock to wake in the middle of the night to rescue your character, you can continue to do so, and even better, get a healthy 9 hours of sleep, with this suggestion in place.

Reason with me, if you set your alarm three cantr-hours after your character has (say) been kidnapped by ruffians, you, just like they, have the chance to direct the boat back toward your city. On a fixed course of 3 hours.

You see what I mean? Only now it is a bit more fair and equal: both parties may take advantage of the mechanism, as opposed to the current implementation, which favours ONLY the imprisoned character for no explicable reason, making it impossible for the renegade boat to move anywhere if an active prisoner is aboard and they are next to his city. This is just not right. We are outside the game here, and whatever your personal thoughts about pirates and their work ethic, surely you are not trying to say that the game should favour law abiding peoples and frown on pirates. Indeed, I think it is by accident that we even have this, because even Tiddly thought the problem does not exist and anyone can cancel ship docking.

This simple modification is really a restoration of balance that was accidentally lost at some point, and as such it benefits the whole game. Not to mention that these idiotic hourly dock and undock struggles will finally be history (and become instead 3-hourly or 9 real time hourly struggles - already a significant anti-silliness improvement)

[Tiamo]

The redocking possibility is an unfortunate flaw in the game system, caused by the fact that anybody on a ship can order it to move, no matter how many other characters on the ship would like to give a different order. It's just first come first choice.
The solution to this problem is NOT to extend this flaw for a few turns, the solution lies in the restriction of (im)possible activities by characters.

My suggestion would be that larger ships can only be operated by more than one character. Have you ever tried to dock or undock a large sailboat by yourself? It is impossible without the help of several people adjusting the sails while you are steering.
If a large ship needs more than 1 character to operate it (all participants must initiate or aid the order) it would be impossible for a single character to initiate a docking battle.
Of course such an activity would only activate after enough characters have come to aid. If another group would activate a different order beforehand their order would prevail!

There would be quite an effect on sailing larger ships though, as this would always require a well cooperating group of active characters.

[Songthrush]

Certainly, if we could easily and completely get rid of this instant-unstoppable-docking problem near cities, then nothing like this quick fix proposal would be necessary. But I think it's a pretty integral part of the current implementation, and changing it all would probably be far too great a task.

Then again, has anyone ever felt annoyed that characters on your boat are able to cancel your character's move orders willy-nilly? It makes sense to me that there would be a way to have the boat move on a set course without possibility of interruption, even if it's by only a few turns at a time.

[ceselb]

I think we could be solving a larger class of problems with another approach.
Binding of hands.
If someone is overmanned (same procedure as dragging should be good), they are bound and can't do any work, pick things up, leave a location or drive vehicles.

[Pilot]

Then again, has anyone ever felt annoyed that characters on your boat are able to cancel your character's move orders willy-nilly? It makes sense to me that there would be a way to have the boat move on a set course without possibility of interruption, even if it's by only a few turns at a time.

Why should you be annoyed? In a boat there is only one skipper and the crew should follow skippers orders. If the skipper can't control the crew, he/she is a lousy leader.

If the one that's playing with the rudder is a prisoner then the pirates/kidnappers had it coming. Prisoners shouldn't be wandering on the deck. They belong inside a dungeon and if the boat doesn't have one the kidnappers deserve all the trouble they get.

The prisoner will logically make everything he can to mess things up in order to give the kidnappers a hard time.

[Songthrush]

We have been over the cabins issue above, Alf.

The annoyance I described has more to do with "reset-battles". They go something like this: you the captain set a course. But some unruly passenger changes it. You set it back. They change it. You set it back... and so on.

Eventually you realize you need to wait until the exact time when ship movements update, and reset your ship's course at exactly that time, hopefully so that the passenger won't have the chance to do the same.

I find that extremely silly and out of place in a game design like Cantr's. Where events are supposed to be slow-paced, and not trigger-figered every 3 realtime hours. Do you see what I am getting at?

So the idea is to put in this fix, firstly to deal with the unfair instant-unstoppable-docking problem near cities and secondarily to make it so that in general the naval trigger-fingering (if any) now happens at a slower frequency of 9 real time hours instead of only 3. Until better solutions in sailing, binding people's hands, etc. are thought out and implemented.

[Pilot]

You are missing the whole point then.

Let me tell you that Cantr is a roleplay game and you should roleplay. Not make others fix things in your advantage just because you made a bad move. Better learn of your mistakes, don't you think?

[Songthrush]

Yes, we've heard your "roleplay" solution, Alf - "just kill the prisoner".
No thanks.

I really don't get you guys a lot of the time, and your objections of the form "nah, we like the way it is". I'm real happy for you guys, it works out for you, that's great. But this is the suggestion forum and the way it is implemented now has serious problems, which I just described. That ought to be enough to consider fixing them, no? Personal perferences and ideologies aside.

Now you're presuming I'm arguing for the sake of some character in a naval bind with a prisoner onboard. But that's not the case at all. None of my characters, if you're interested to know, are in that situation. Please read my story on the first page, about a very stupid sequence of events in which I was the actual prisoner taken by some people of different political persuasions from my home city. As long as I remained active and alive, they could not even move their boat away from the city! EVER!

They demanded I not touch the steering, or else death. I ignored them, and from this point on all our roleplaying had to fall apart. I kept docking, and they kept undocking. At first it was fun, but after a while I started asking myself: "why can I even do this?" and "what's actually happening here, what game are we playing now?"

Does that not concern anyone? I mean, as long as it is like this, being a "feared pirate" is essentially made impossible. What you must instead be, is a trigger-happy person with an alarm clock and an unhealthy fascination with docking and undocking your ship.

All we're proposing is, please, at least let's do this quick fix for now. On the one hand get rid of the unfair unstoppable-docking problem, and on the other make it so you do this dirty ship stuff once every 9 realtime hours, instead of every 3.

[Dust Puppy]

We have been over the cabins issue above, Alf.

Where did you explain why the owner of a ship can´t just put someone in a cabin to avoid "reset-battles"? I must be stupid, because I still think this would be the best solution. Why do you insist on a suggestion that has so many downsides just because one of your characters was kidnapped by pirates who didn´t know how to be pirates? There are successful pirates in Cantr, so it is hardly "made impossible" to be one. Kidnappees on boats are at a disadvantage anyway, they can´t even break a lock and run away.

[SekoETC]

Here's some news for you, ships that are able to have cabins are not capable to docking directly to the shore. Thus you would have to dock to a harbour, assume that it's not locked, drag the target twice unless they come to the harbour on their own, then drag a third time to get them to the cabin. Oh and you gotta be sure that they don't wake up and undock after you have dragged them to the ship but haven't had time to drag them to the cabin.

[Dust Puppy]

Good point, that´s another advantage for pirates. Even if prisoners manage to redock, they can´t even alert the town.
As Songthrush said, even with the change, anyone could still meddle with the steering, the only real change would be making things harder for all sailors who don´t happen to have overly wakeful prisoners or mutineers aboard. (Are overly wakeful people really so common in Cantr? I must have been playing a completely different game all the time. )

[Songthrush]

I think you have not read the suggestion, Dust Puppy.

I said it at least three times already, and will say it a hundred more times: what we're proposing in no way affects sailors sailing with the default 0 turn mode specified!

With this in mind, I'd be interested to hear what all the "downsides" you've been able to discover in it actually are.

The advantages go as follows:

1. The unstoppable-docking issue that unfairly favours only the captive character (as opposed to, at least, giving both parties an equal chance to prove who's more active and determined to win), would be history. Now chances will be equal, regardless of whether you're a renegade or a captive. Don't you agree that's the way it should be?

What does having ship cabins etc. etc. have to do with the game mechanic being fair to every player, treating all equally as opposed to only favouring one side?

I think equal treatment of all characters by the game should be our goal at all times. This does not mean balancing the very questionable scales of "advantages" that each "side" could presumably have; it is just the simple matter of the simulation itself not being biased toward one character or another without any logical reason for it being so. Otherwise it becomes: "we dislike pirates & renegades, so let's keep things as they are."

It sounds like some players here proclaim the game shouldn't be biased, but where it comes to characters who aren't in their opinion working hard enough, or that they have moral problems with, they suddenly change their tune and opine that the game should, kinda, punish them by default. And if the game accidentally does so now, that's alright and should remain so. No, I would urge you to reconsider this rather selfish viewpoint.

2. Ship-reset battles (of all kinds) will now occur every 9 real time hours, instead of every 3 real time hours. I feel we owe this to our players; not all of whom are masochists with an alarm-clock, on a 24/7 regime aligned with Cantr's server update times.

Yes it is a temporary, quick fix. For something that is badly out of balance. Hopefully, in future we might have more interesting sailing and combat models, but for now, we need to fix this.

[Chris]

The aggressors always have the advantage. They choose the time. They drag the poor victim into the boat. Three or four people hit. The victim is dead. If you can't do this, or you have some more complicated goal, then it should be tougher to accomplish. The game balance is fine as is.

[Songthrush]

When a person fractures a bone in their body, and there's no prompt medical attention available, the bone will grow back together on its own. Now, this may allow the person to walk upright, retaining their balance just fine, but if you look at an x-ray, you can easily see that the bone has grown together WRONG.

That's exactly the situation with instant-unstoppable-docking by the prisoner in Cantr. It has no logical explanation of any kind. It favours only the prisoner. And it is there not by design, but more by accident.

Now you guys are trying to say that you feel the balance is just fine. Maybe so! But this bone right here has grown together wrong, it's plain for anyone to see. The game should not arbitrarily favour the attacker or the defender.

It's a coincidence that CORRECTING this flaw would be to the advantage of the pirates; and you're arguing against this advantage as if pirates do not deserve to be treated the same as non-pirates.

Wake up a bit guys, it's a flaw that should not have been there in the first place, and you've grown attached to it as though it was an intended gameplay feature.

[Pilot]

When a person fractures a bone in their body, and there's no prompt medical attention available, the bone will grow back together on its own. Now, this may allow the person to walk upright, retaining their balance just fine, but if you look at an x-ray, you can easily see that the bone has grown together WRONG.

This premise is absolutely wrong kid. There are many types of fractures and not all need by default medical attention.

People here have been trying to explain to you the reasons why this suggestion is a bad one but you simply don't want to understand reasons. Don't be stubborn and move on.