The captain's lay

[HEAVY FIRST RATE]

So it would appear that in my focus to figure out the mechanics of the game, I have overlooked some issue about the captain's portion of the take. I never really paid much attention to that aspect of the game other than it was sufficient for the captain to accumulate enough wealth to constantly purchase supplies and buy a better ship when the time was right. Then, on the first whale collecting trip with a large ship (9 crewmen and 3 whale boats), I carefully parked my ship just outside the port to allow the crew time to completely render my entire load of blubber to oil before taking it into port to market. The gross lay for this marvelous first time haul of pure whale oil was something over $6,000, of which the captain got 1 %, yes, that is correct, a whopping total of $60.00, Since I was doing the Honolulu thing with the blue whale grounds practically on the doorstep, I quickly made several more trips to see what was happening and each time the captain's lay is 1% on a load of thousands of dollars of oil. In fact the only money the captain really made on all of this is the sale of the meat which money, it appears, he does not have to share with the rest of the crew.

Really now, 1% lay, WTH? The business belongs to the captain, he bought and owns the ship (by which means the other crewmembers supply only the labor), and pays for all ship supplies and repairs out of his own pocket and his return is 1% of the blubber/oil take and all the meat he can sell!

So my question is this, did I trigger something in the game that landed me in this financial hell, because I really do not think any real world businessman would continue to venture capital or even startup one in the first place on this sort of prospectus! Like I said, the captain seemed to be getting an appropiate share when I only had a small/medium ship and used only 1 whaleboat as he earned enough money to buy a large ship, so what happened, what aspect of the game did I totally miss to get to this point?

[akuarmoton]

I don't have alot of experience of the game, but each cew member takes atleast 1% lay per level. So if you had 9 crew and all were high level it would bring the total lay close to 100%.

[Scrogdog]

Take the food along with the blubber. When you sell it none of the crew gets a cut. Plus after a certain point money is fairly meaningless. In my current game it is 1830 and I have 40k along with a large ship and full crew of ten.

A lot of it was made during the middle phase when I had a medium ship but only two boats - still a pretty good cut of the lay. Of course, there is nothing that prevents you from firing three men increasing your lay and effectively cutting you to two boats for a time until you build up a bit.

Upgrade your captains quarters and try works to level 5. Have crew with the generous trait. :)

[cromagnonman2k]

Of course, making money is only secondary to the goal of killing MobyDirk, so who cares?

[HEAVY FIRST RATE]

Wait, are you are saying that when I was selling only blubber at the start of the game (even though it got sold automatically when I entered port) that the crew got no lay of that? I would have to check that out as I don't think that is quite correct!

I have 9, level 10 crewmen, which based on the game at this point = 9*10%=90%, yet it clearly lists in my captain's specification page that he is getting only a 1% lay, which is reflected in the actual amount paid to him. While 10% of profits would in real life, have been a bit on the low side for a captain's lay, where is my other 9% going in this game, and furthermore, the lay for the ship's owner is never less than 50% after expenses and that comes right off the top with captain and crew taking their lay from the remainder (not from the gross profits of the voyage).

The end of this game might be all about killing Moby, but real world whaling was all about making money and profits and I think (not unrealistically) that I kind of would expect a game about whaling to sort of reflect a little more realistic slant on that aspect! That means, that since the captain in this game is also the ship's owner, he should be getting at least half or more of the gross profits outright and then a captain's lay along with the crew based on the remainder of the profits after the owner takes their share.

This is an excerpt from an online article published by the New Bedford Whaling Museum: The success of a voyage
When the New Bedford whaler, Benjamin Tucker, returned to home port in 1851, she carried: * 73,707 gallons of whale-oil; * 5,348 gallons of sperm oil; * 30, 012 pounds of whalebone (baleen).

How the profits were divided
After expenses, the net profit of the Benjamin Tucker’s voyage was $45,320. The usual share for the owners of a ship was between 60 and 70 percent. In this case, between $13,596 and $18,128 would have been left to be divided among the captain and crew for several years of work.

When the Ship Milton returned to port in 1836, the captain received a lay of 1/17th or $5,882; the first mate 1/22nd or $4,545; the boatsteerer (harpooneer) 1/75 or $1,333; and the blacksmith 1/140th or $714. The best paid seaman earned $800, while the worst paid received $571. On another voyage of the Milton, one of the ordinary seamen earned only $10.10.

While the actual percentage splits varied from ship owner to ship owner, the facts listed in this article are pretty typical of several other source articles I have read. I should point out to you that in the above article, the dollar amounts in the first two paragraphs are not related to the amounts and their splits listed in the third paragraph, the third paragraph is about a different ship on a different voyage. Based on the figures in the third paragraph, the Ship Milton apparently had a profit of $99,994.00 AFTER the ship's owner had taken his share, the percentage of which is not listed in the article for the Milton. For those of you who have a little problem with the math, 1/17th=0.059 cents/dollar, 1/22nd=0.045 cents/dollar, 1/75th=0.013 cents/dollar, 1/140th=0.007 cents/dollar.

In another article by the Woodshole Nautical Museum, they quoted: captain 1/5 (0.2 cents/dollar, 1 st mate 1/20 (0.05 cents/dollar, 2nd mate 1/135 (0.007 cents/dollar, boat steerer 1/75 (0.013 cents/dollar), sailors (able/ordinary seaman?) 1/150 (0.007 cents/dollar), green hand 1/180 (0.006 cents per dollar) as being about average lays.

I would like to state emphatically, that I really do enjoy this game, but, little points like this money thing do have a tendency to take something away from an otherwise neat idea of a game. I am not a programer but neither am I totally computer illiterate, and since I see that at least one of the developers reads and responds to items on this forum, I really would like to ask him "Just how hard would it have been to program a little authentic math into the money aspect of the game and if not so much, could it come as update/upgrade?".

[HEAVY FIRST RATE]

I also would like to point out that the game's take of 1% lay per level of the crewman is totally out of the realm of the actual historical wages. Even the 1st mate, who would be the top of the heap crewman, only made about 5% lay and there is only 1 of him, everybody else, except the captain, made a partial percentage of less than 1 percent historically

[Brygun]

Originally posted by HEAVY FIRST RATE:

This is an excerpt from an online article published by the New Bedford Whaling Museum: The success of a voyage
When the New Bedford whaler, Benjamin Tucker, returned to home port in 1851, she carried: * 73,707 gallons of whale-oil; * 5,348 gallons of sperm oil; * 30, 012 pounds of whalebone (baleen).

Thank you HEAVY FIRST RATE for finding some numbers. 100s or 1000s of players like us can do much more research then a tiny indie dev team. I'm also hoping we can find prices for land, real estate or shore side investments.

Then we could get an idea how really wealthy whalers could get and have goals other than the defacto Moby Dave fight.

[HEAVY FIRST RATE]

I totally agree with you Brygun, and while we can come up with a whole lot of ideas, numbers, and facts about the historical aspects of a game, only the game's developers can tell us whether they can incorporate any of that stuff into the game before they quit working on it. Thus, it is really great when you see that a game has at least one developer that is checking the forum and interacting with it's members. Big thumbs up on that!

[Scrogdog]

I don't disagree, Just pointing out that I have 40k and another player on the first page is complaining that he has 20k and nothing to spend it on.

The real issue here is the pacing of the game. In my view, the game as it stands has two phases, one in which you grind, then next in which you have the adventures the game has to offer.

Instead, it should be more even especially in a permadeath game. Whaling is only important at first, or you can use the Narwhals to grind up replacements for dead men later on.

This again gets back to what I said earlier that money becomes irrelevent. While whaling needs more focus I agree, money should never be irrelevent.

Perhaps in Nantucket II. :)

[Jean Vicquemare]

Originally posted by Scrogdog:

I don't disagree, Just pointing out that I have 40k and another player on the first page is complaining that he has 20k and nothing to spend it on.

The real issue here is the pacing of the game. In my view, the game as it stands has two phases, one in which you grind, then next in which you have the adventures the game has to offer.

Instead, it should be more even especially in a permadeath game. Whaling is only important at first, or you can use the Narwhals to grind up replacements for dead men later on.

This again gets back to what I said earlier that money becomes irrelevent. While whaling needs more focus I agree, money should never be irrelevent.

Perhaps in Nantucket II. :)

We dont need a Getting Over It crossover to be honest.

[Oddible]

Originally posted by Scrogdog:

The real issue here is the pacing of the game. In my view, the game as it stands has two phases, one in which you grind, then next in which you have the adventures the game has to offer.

Completely disagree, and I'm playing in Seadog, I personally find the pace works extremely well. I don't find it grindy, that may just be the way you're choosng to play it. The early game IS about skilling up my crew and finances. The scheduling it takes to do quests while arriving at whaling locations in time for the hunt is fantastic.

Are you all just hunting narwals for 20 years then going after Moby? Do you use the same exact crew every time in your whaling boats? Do you save scum and never lose a man? I think you might be limiting yourself and then blaming the game.

[Bramborough]

The difference is the Generous/Greedy trait pair. OP, I bet if you look through your crew's traits, you'd find some greedy folks there, and few or no generous ones. Generous lowers their lay%, while Greedy increases it. It's a small number per level and easy to overlook, but in the aggregate for a shipload of level 10's, it adds up to a lot.

Another way to shave some lay percentage is to try getting by with as few scientists as possible; their lay percentage is a little bit higher than the other crew types.

[Jean Vicquemare]

Originally posted by Bramborough:

The difference is the Generous/Greedy trait pair. OP, I bet if you look through your crew's traits, you'd find some greedy folks there, and few or no generous ones. Generous lowers their lay%, while Greedy increases it. It's a small number per level and easy to overlook, but in the aggregate for a shipload of level 10's, it adds up to a lot.

Another way to shave some lay percentage is to try getting by with as few scientists as possible; their lay percentage is a little bit higher than the other crew types.

2 scientists is really all you need. The third whale boat can just be your non combat crew

[Shenji]

And I guess OP got the Generous trait too.
Also those science guys have the highest cut.
But that really doesn't matter since most if not every player's major profit came from meat at the later game.

[pascal.difolco]

Well, I used to think like the op that lay% in end game is broken...But after some more playing it seems quite well done !
Thing is when you have a 10 men crew and want to gain money it forces you to have lvl 5-7 crew max so you still get 35% share, and whale hunt is still challenging. You can then load your boat with lvl10 crew when you swim in money and want to end the questline.
Food loot should be much more rare (as raw food will spoil quickly) to prevent "abuse".
Another improvement would be to have crew leveling up with captain cost less than new crew for same level, to encourage player to keep is crew, currently they're rather expendable...

[Shenji]

Talking about expandable crews, if a crewman dies or leaves, dose the special equipment I gave him go with him? Just think about it, can't go testing it for now.