Rental Ship Renaming

[God_In_Action]

Currently anyone who rents a temporary ship is able to change the name as often as they like. This is making it very difficult to keep track of which ships are which, where they are from, and what they are responsible for. There is no consistency in being able to tell new sailors what ships to look out for. It also means that if a ship is used for some good ol' piracy, the owner can immediately change the name and disguise what ship they are sailing or were previously sailing.

This feels like a problem to me. If we're not careful Umberlee will send some serious storms, as all seasoned sailors know how unlucky changing a ship's name is!

[If Only]

Some people also just put some spaces instead of actually entering a name, which honestly feels even cheesier.

The temporary names can be funny I guess. At the same time it would be nice if you could, as said above, recognise the ships. Maybe list both in the menus - original name and temporary name?

[dominantdrowess]

Yeah, I remember Jhaamdath used to rename the Constant Companion as 'The Coconut', etc. I think that the class of ship in brackets or the original name would be ideal. I dunno. It is kinda cheesy, especially when the idea of the names being used when spotting is recognition.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

A counterpoint to that though, people will rush to ship lease signs to figure out who owns them so they can go "SO AND SO IS A PIRATE AND EVIL!!!" or what have you.

[LichBait]

The Spyglass item reveals a lot more details about a ship which can be further used to know which ship it is despite the name. It's not an exact thing, but it does narrow things down a bit more especially to those characters seasoned in sailing.

I personally don't mind ships being renamed, though I do think if they're going to be renamed they should have an actual name and not blank spaces.

[Irongron]

I have never been at all fond of ship renaming. I put a lot of thought into the names I gave the ships, and have them referenced by that same name by the NPCS.

At the time of devising the ship system we did not have renaming as an option, and I did not foresee it.

Yet, I have to recognise that will be times when my own creative vision conflicts with the desire of players to have their own agency in such matters.

Did it bother me to see 'The Weary Troubadour' spend years sailing under the name 'The Laughing Elf'? VERY much so, but? Well...every now and then I have to give ground.

[The GrumpyCat]

Obviously everything 'gron says holds true, and player agency is important, but for what little it's worth I also dislike the renaming convention for the following reasons.

*As said, it tends to just confuse things ICly and is a bit wierd.
*From a DM standpoint, it makes it difficult to keep track of what ship is what. It changes in the toolset for us, making some areas hard to find.
* IRL renameing a ship is VERY bad luck, and generally is only done rarely and with great ceremony. I get FR isn't RL and other things come first, but it's an interesting note how this pushes against navel supersition.

My suggestion?

*Rented ships cannot be renamed.
*Owned ships can be renamed but remove all bootsts (sail schematics ect) and also may incur some sort of 'bad luck' penalty for a little while after.

[LichBait]

My suggestion?

*Rented ships cannot be renamed.
*Owned ships can be renamed but remove all bootsts (sail schematics ect) and also may incur some sort of 'bad luck' penalty for a little while after.

I would weep.



The above is just one tier. (admittedly, the final tier. The rest aren't too far under it)

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I think with Sencliff, changing names for rentals is half the point of pirates mostly relying on rentals to begin with. The idea is you can have a full pirate crew without being one of those rare ship owners. When you rent a ship, you give it the alias that your crew goes by.

If we did no renaming of ships, i would prefer it on all ships, especially permanent ships so I can actually learn what ships are in this bloody module with hopes of ever owning one. All static arelith given names for all ships, or let us rename them all completely is what I say.

[xanrael]

Going to echo the earlier statement of the having the ship class being posted as well by default. Seems like a decent middle ground.


Personally I'd rather non-rental ships be an unsafe resource determined through PvP (boarding, sinking, etc) than the property system with added disincentives for letting them sit in port unused as a trophy for the risk adverse. I realize that doesn't really fit the server vision for them though so it's not a serious desire.

[God_In_Action]

A possible middle ground could be to allow nicknames, I.e. The Penny Rose ("Sea Sprite")

Or a thematic penalty to ship renaming could be that it literally causes bad luck: there is a noticeably increased chance to generate nearby storms when sailing and a little message about the sea gods being angry or such. This might also generate IC conflict since other players on other ships might also be affected, thereby making ship renaming an IC taboo that one character might blame another for.

[Tesla420]

At the risk of meta. Ways do exist to identify ships.
Ship classifications and some of the ships abilities give away the true identity of the ships.

3 person ship but you pierced darkness? Constant Companion.
Brigantine ship? Pretty much only owned by pirates with the exception of the Sea Leapord.
Galleon - Either the Ironhelm, the pirate Galleon or the First or Second Sister.
City Galleon - Cordor, Guldorand, Andunor
Trawler? Penny-Rose
Cog? Troubadour / Timberfleet.

All the Galleys that exist are rentals. Already some of the rentals cannot be renamed. (The Two Couriers.) I feel having crews determine which ship is which and if it is or is not hostile is a important part of ship RP. It also - gives the smaller ships more chance to escape. Because they are slower and far less powerful than the larger ships.

If you have the ship knowhow and the sail skill. You can identify ships with a reliable amount of accuracy.