Ship Rules in “Pirates of The Burning Sea”

Due to it’s unique nature, planning a “virtual economy” for Pirates of The Burning Sea presents a number of challenges.

Once the decision to have a “player-driven” economy was made, issues needing to be addressing included, among other things, ships.

Ships can be captured, built, sunk… in the real world, the construction of a ship in that era took years and represented a tremendous investment. The original plan for PoTBS was simple: when certain ships were sunk, they were gone. It was logical if ships were supplied by the game at a fixed cost, but didn’t make quite as much sense when a ship represented a huge investment by player-shipwrights. Then there’s the issue of pirate capture; conceivably, any captured ship in a digital world could be duplicated without cost nor penalty. Not a real workable idea in the virtual economy.

On the other hand, without penalties for being sunk or captured, ships would remain in the game until scuttled by their owners. Shipwrights would receive no special rewards for their specialized skills and efforts, and new players wishing to enter the market would find it difficult to break in. The ideal ship would set one up for the rest of their gaming life, as long as they weren’t lost on death. Considering the resources involved, would anyone use any other type of ship?

What the game designers have come up with is a Durability point system. When a ship is sunk or defeated by a boarding party, it will be returned to the nearest friendly port intact, but will lose one Durability point.

All ships will have a number of these Durability points attached. High-end, more durable ships will have fewer, whereas the ships players start out with may have dozens (exact numbers are yet to be determined). When a ship loses a Durability point, it cannot be regained. When it loses its last Durability point,  the player is sent back to port to take command of another one in his/her fleet. Once all a player’s ships are lost, s/he will be provided with a “basic” ship appropriate to their rank with one Durability point.

When a Pirate captures a ship, it will also lose a Durability point; essentially, the pirate wins a damaged ship.

Due to it’s unique nature, planning a “virtual economy” for Pirates of The Burning Sea presents a number of challenges.

Once the decision to have a “player-driven” economy was made, issues needing to be addressing included, among other things, ships.

Ships can be captured, built, sunk… in the real world, the construction of a ship in that era took years and represented a tremendous investment. The original plan for PoTBS was simple: when certain ships were sunk, they were gone. It was logical if ships were supplied by the game at a fixed cost, but didn’t make quite as much sense when a ship represented a huge investment by player-shipwrights. Then there’s the issue of pirate capture; conceivably, any captured ship in a digital world could be duplicated without cost nor penalty. Not a real workable idea in the virtual economy.

On the other hand, without penalties for being sunk or captured, ships would remain in the game until scuttled by their owners. Shipwrights would receive no special rewards for their specialized skills and efforts, and new players wishing to enter the market would find it difficult to break in. The ideal ship would set one up for the rest of their gaming life, as long as they weren’t lost on death. Considering the resources involved, would anyone use any other type of ship?

What the game designers have come up with is a Durability point system. When a ship is sunk or defeated by a boarding party, it will be returned to the nearest friendly port intact, but will lose one Durability point.

All ships will have a number of these Durability points attached. High-end, more durable ships will have fewer, whereas the ships players start out with may have dozens (exact numbers are yet to be determined). When a ship loses a Durability point, it cannot be regained. When it loses its last Durability point,  the player is sent back to port to take command of another one in his/her fleet. Once all a player’s ships are lost, s/he will be provided with a “basic” ship appropriate to their rank with one Durability point.

When a Pirate captures a ship, it will also lose a Durability point; essentially, the pirate wins a damaged ship.