As of the Empires update, the brig’s bed has become functionally useless in Bronze Sea servers, as the player’s ship despawns with them when they die to prevent attackers from having a large advantage in taking islands from other clans. While I can see why this was done, it makes things worse for players who aren’t in clans as a whole and for clan players who aren’t near enemy islands. I’ve done a bit of thinking, and thought of two remedies to the issue.
Fix 1: Brig Beds Prevent Ship Despawns on Death Once Per Ten Minutes
This is possibly the simplest to create, as it reimplements the former system for the Brig’s Bed, but the ship will still despawn back to the Sea Border if its owner dies again before ten minutes pass. It still leaves an advantage for those fighting for control over islands, but it doesn’t leave non-clan players or passive clan players in the balancing crossfire.
Fix 2: Ships Only Despawn on Death when Sufficiently Close to a Claimed Island as a Clan Player
This is more detailed and likely harder to produce, but it’d fix the issue at hand better. It would change the current system to only work for Clan players, but only if they are around an enemy clan’s island. Non-clan players would revert fully to the old bed’s system, or partially if there’s concern about non-clan members attacking claimed islands. If the latter was considered, non-clan players could be despawned back to the Sea Border if they had attacked a clan’s island within the past ten minutes. The idea of this fix is to give Non-Clan players the old bed system back, and the same with those in clans if they aren’t near another clan’s island.
Traits of Fix 1
- +Beds can still work for all players regardless of distance from enemy islands.
- +All players can use the bed almost exactly as before.
- -Still leaves a smaller advantage for Clan members attacking to overtake another clan’s island.
- -May create a stalling and hiding meta for attacking Clan members.
Traits of Fix 2
- +The old mechanics of the bed are restored for Non-Clan players, and are mostly restored for Clan members.
- +Attacking Clan Members don’t have an advantage compared to those defending an island.
- +More flexibility for change if there’s issues with this idea.
- -Finding a balanced distance to trigger a Ship Despawn on Death might be tricky, especially for larger islands.
- -May be harder to add without creating bugs.
