Modification to ship sailing orders.

[Songthrush]

We are just suggesting that if a ship is ordered to move for 1, 2, or 3 turns, this movement should be fixed, not cancellable or stoppable by anyone on the ship. All other movements, including the default 0, work as before.

The importance of something like this becomes evident if you think about the current situation with ships and harbours/cities. Suppose a ship with some renegades docks to a town and captures one of the citizens prisoner, dragging them onto their boat. When these renegades undock, if the prisoner is at all an active player, all that is going to happen is that he will dock their boat back to his home city. AND it is impossible for anyone on the boat to cancel that docking, most of the time, which is quite unrealistic. Why would the prisoner have this impossible advantage in real life?

By implementing fixed ship movement as above, this would be balanced a bit more - and now the renegades too have some kind of chance to speedily play their card and have the ship move away from the city, beyond docking ranges.

Thanks for considering my suggestion.

[tiddy ogg]

Anyone can stop the docking. If you're going to hold someone on a ship, that's why you build a cabin.

[Doug R.]

tiddy ogg is correct. The problem you seek to fix is not really a problem, and your fix would destroy boat use as we know it. People legitimately screw up their sailing orders, especially on a map that's tilted 90 degrees to the right, and even if they don't screw up, if you're trying to put in a precise course, it sometimes takes multiple attempts to fine tune it. All this would do is punish everyone with a boat.

[Pilot]

And we the pirates/sailors love to go after merchants/thieves and what you suggest would certainly take all the fun.

[marol]

Moved to rejected suggestions due to reasons stated above.

[Songthrush]

It says, clearly, that fixed movement would only apply if you specified a fixed number of turns for a ship to move. If you (as most do) use 0 turns, then nothing changes from how ships work now.

I hope I'm explaining the suggestion in a way understandable to all, here. So you see, if you use the default 0 turns movement option, your ship works as usual, you can alter movement at any time.

It's only if you tell the ship to move for 2 turns, let's say. That this starts to have an effect - you would not be able to cancel until it's moved exactly 2 turns. That's all I was suggesting! Not changing anything fundamental about ship movement nor does it in any way limit the possibility of naval chases.

So it's mysterious for me why anybody would object to it on grounds of "punishing clueless players" - they all sail with 0 turns specified, and it would not affect them at all.

Tiddly objected something substantial. First he says that anyone can stop the docking. But this isn't true, if the ship is fast enough (common), then initiating docking causes it to be at 50%+ done from the moment it's triggered. Thus, impossible for anyone to cancel. I even know some characters who deliberately load up their boats with junk, so that its movement would be impeded so much, that docking would not work. But how is this at all realistic?

The second idea is about using cabins for prisoners. But not all ships, most notably the Darter favoured by renegades of all kinds, allow for cabins. I can hear "tough luck" from everyone, but this isn't the point here. The point is that a captured character for some inexplicable reason has all the advantages, and the renegades who managed to take him captive get not a chance to even move their ship. Their movement order is easily cancelled, but the prisoner's docking order cannot be cancelled.

Don't you agree that the situation needs some more thought put into it? Because the default behaviour is very biased, and I cannot personally think of any fair reason why it should be that way.

I request the mod to move the suggestion back to active discussion, please.

[Piscator]

Wouldn't it be easier and more realistic to make the rudder lockable somehow, so that only the one with the right key can change the course? Or implement a way to tie the prisoner up? The method you suggested seems rather inelegant, because it is a totally arbitrary rule. (Or let's say another )

[Songthrush]

That's true, it would be nice to have lockable rudders and ways to tie up prisoners. But both of these have been suggested many times and though are good ideas, they're too hard to implement in practice I think. (it's been years since I read about these suggestions)

So since the "renegades" of Cantr get none of these things, let's at least give them the possibility to move their own damn ship the way nature intended, and not be stuck perpetually docking back and forth to the captured prisoner's city.

[SekoETC]

Boat control locks and tying up prisoners have been discussed in other topics and should not be discussed here. I think that this is a valid suggestion, although 8 to 16 turns is a bit extreme. What if the prisoner or a boat thief happens to be awake and starts a 16 hour sail off to nowhere project and you cannot stop it? Or what if it's a ... 20 hour thing but your bedtime is right before you become able to change course so you could only change it the next morning, or the next day after school, and by that time, the prisoner/boat thief may have set another huge sailing lap. I think that 1 or 2 turns might be enough. There needs to be a way of not canceling movement endlessly - although then there should also be a way that stops people from turning around a hundred times while on a road...

[Songthrush]

Yes, that needs to be thought out a bit more - the exact number of turns that it can become un-changeable for. I'm thinking 3-4 turns (half a day) seems a conservative and reasonable number.

If a ship could do that, then the renegades have some kind of chance to move away beyond the insta-unstoppable-docking range of the city.

Beyond which it again becomes the usual combat struggle of who is more active, since the prisoner can direct the ship back toward the city with a fixed number of moves too.

[Pilot]

It's easier to kill the prisioner, don't you think?

[Songthrush]

I'm sorry. Your question is entirely beside the topic of discussion.

It's only the explanation that seems complicated. The actual suggestion is simple.

Say you set your ship to move in direction 100, speed 100, 0 turns. Nothing changes. It will move as it does now, cancel/change any time etc.
The suggestion here only applies if you want to set your ship to move e.g. in direction 100, speed 100, 5 turns.

The idea is that it will not be possible to change the movement for 3 of those 5 turns. On turn 4 you can again start changing the course.

PS: If it's easier implementation-wise, could we just do:
- if number of turns specified to move is 1-3, then it's not possible to change the movement, boat moves on fixed course for those 1-3 turns.
- in all other cases boat moves as it does now, one is free to change direction etc.

[Doug R.]

Dude, I understand your suggestion 100%, and it's a bad suggestion. Pirates already have it too easy, and this makes it even easier. I move to re-reject it.

[Songthrush]

Doug R., is that your personal opinion, or are there facts you want to bring up which would support what you're saying?

- How do pirates have it "too easy"? The current system is what evolved out of many discussions like ours. If you think it unfair, then why don't you write a separate suggestion about how this could be fairly corrected?
And,
- What does this have to do with the insta-unstoppable-docking problem I described which gives an unfair and utterly unrealistic advantage to prisoners on ships?

I speak from experience here, only my char was the actual prisoner, dragged onto a boat. Of course I did everything in my power to keep docking back to my home city. The result was that for many days the pirate ship just bounced between docking and undocking, docking and undocking. Don't you agree that this is silly?

Note also that pirates on ships laden with piles of junk are able to avoid this problem. But just what kind of logical sense does it make, to have to load up your ship until it barely moves, before attacking a city?

In the most simple form, we are just suggesting that if a ship is ordered to move for 1, 2, or 3 turns, this movement should be fixed, not cancellable or stoppable by anyone on the ship. All other movements, including the default 0, work as before.

Thank you.

[Doug R.]

One of the hallmarks of a good suggestion is that it's good for the whole game. This suggestion is only good for pirates, who by their very nature flourish on murder and destruction. Cantr is not a hack-and-slash game, and your suggestion only serves to encourage more of that kind of behavior. I'm not saying that piracy should be discouraged, only that for it to be successful, a player should have to put into it as much effort as they would have to put into any other kind of cantr activity (i.e. years of work). I've seen vibrant communities literally wiped out overnight by as few as three alert pirates. Such impact should not be possible without forcing the players of those characters to have a few technical hurdles to overcome.

If a player is so attached to his character that he is willing to set his alarm clock to wake up every three hours overnight so he can redock the ship, then he deserves to have every chance to live. So no, I don't think it's silly at all.