Today, whilst watching "Pirate of the Caribbean" I had an idea for a game on BYOND that would (hopefully) avoid problems of lag, and yet be rather fun and interesting. Due to a hectic schedule (8 hours of work a day, extra studies, food, sleep, and a life!) I will be unable to make the game any time soon, but I would like to bounce the ideas off of the BYOND community.

[EDIT] I have put key words in bold so that you can read just the sections you are interested in![/EDIT]

You start as a poor fisherman with a small boat. The boat has storage for 20 crates, no weapons and a small sail. This means it can only travel slowly, and only carry 20 crates (obviously). To gain money at first you will have to fish (jump in your boat, and either get lucky or use advice from NPC's to find fish). You can also take quests to gain money. Quests such as; "Find Black Bob and bring me back his head" - Get clues from NPC's for "Black Bob's" location, and kill him, or "My Inn needs good food, fish me 20 Blue Marlin" - find a blue marlin fishing spot and get 20 of them, then bring them back to the inn.

With money you can repair your boat, buy bigger/better boats, buy hand weapons, and start trading. Trading will involve of finding an island/trading post that has a want for a particular item that you have access to. E.g. Blue Harbour Port wants grain at £200 a crate, and you happen to know that Grainmill Port sells grain for £100. Or you may happen to know a mine, and a miner there who will extract ore for you if you pay him.

Quests also give all involved crew members experience. At certain experience they gain levels. The level allows them to increase a certain attribute : Sailing, Cannon Aim, Handgun Aim, Sword skills, Brawling, Weapon Loading. I didn't want to use levels, but I see no viable way around it. Hopefully it won't be too negative.

With hand weapons, quests that require killing someone, become easier. If your quest is to defeat "Captain Silverbeard" who is level 5 at Sword skills and has a cutlass, and you are level 2 at Brawling with no weapon, it is going to be almost impossible. However if you are of equal level, yet you have a better weapon then your chances improve significantly, but are by no means definate.

Eventually, after quests, fishing and/or trading you will be able to afford a boat/ship with the ability to equip weapons. You can buy (so far the only things I have come up with) harpoon launchers, cannons, culverins(long cannons), mortars and flamethrowers in which the following ammunitions can be used (only some are compatible with some) : cannonballs, bombs, grapeshots, chain-shots and oil pots. (If anyone has more knowledge on weapons of that time, or a reference to a site, it would very much appreciated). Anyway! With the weapons you can then attempt attacking other ships. If you sink the ship then you can raid the wreckage and have a chance of find money, and a few supplies. If you render it immobile the crew will surrender, and offer you supplies in return for a safe passage to the dock; you can accept, or you can refuse. If you refuse they shall board your ship (because you will be joined next to them in order to here their offer) and slaughter as much of your crew as possible.

If they succeed in killing you - game over! If you do render them immobile, you don't have to join next to them, you can just sail away, leaving them there to either sink after 1 week of game time (crew die due to thirst) or for another ship to join next to (<--I really need a better word for this!). Another result of a fight is that you massacre their crew, without sinking the ship. In this case you can board and attack. If your crew overpower theirs (randomness takes a small part, though the main effecting factor is the quantity and quality of your crew) then you get complete control of the ship. If not, they kill you and your crew and - game over!

In the case that you get control of their ship, you can place aboard a Captain if you have an experience enough crew member. If not, you can put it in tow, or steal the supplies and sink it. If you put a Captain on two HUB icons appear; 1 for your first ship, 1 for your second. For each extra ship you capture you gain another HUB icon, with a maximum of 8. The extra ships then work just as your first ship.

You can also sell boats to get money. Boats are some of the most expensive things in the game, so to acquire lots of money your best bet is to be a very efficient pirate/naval captain. If you defeat a pirate ship, and report back to a Naval Base, you gain 1 point towards your reputation and an amount of money. If you defeat a naval ship then you lose 1 point and gain only the money you find on the ship/in the supplies. The higher your reputation, the more respectable you are. At high reputations you gain rankings, and the amount of money you gain from each defeated pirate increases, but you also begin to be hunted by pirates. At negative reputations you gain pirate ranks, and begin to be hunted by the Navy.

The fighting system is a bit hack-and-slash(mainly due to my complete lack of understanding of swapmaps which are useful for turn-based fights). You click on a HUB icon to fire the equipped weapons. There is an "autoaim" setting. If ON then it will automatically fire at the nearest, (if multiple) weakest, (if still multiple) random ship. If not an input box will come up with a list of ships, allowing you to select. Firing will occur, and dependant on the weapons, ship strength, angle to opposing ship, and randomness an amount/type of damage will be inflicted. Ships have to main factors that can be damaged - crew count and hull.

You can board the other ship at any time, though if their crew count is too high you will be in trouble! After firing, weapons will take time to reload, dependant on crew skill and the weapon type. Then you can fire again!

A few little things that I couldn't fit into the main description :

Better boats have bigger sails/better streamline, and so can sail fast.
Better boats can have more weapons.
Inns may have rumours, only available after enough drink.
In Naval Ports you will be protected if you have a positive reputation, otherwise you shall be attack by cannons in the port. The same, but reverse, for Pirate Ports.



Sorry it is so long, and thank you immensely for your time. All comments will be very greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

~Ease~