What stinke is, that the quality/size/armament/speed etc. It cant be too difficult to show some hints how upgrades influence the ships survivability when sending it out. Let's say that ship that brings me on average 200 per week on piracy and is called back to port after earning 1500 can usually survive at least 3 cycles. I send smaller captured ships for piracy (up to galleon size) - they normally bring more money than I would get from selling them. And I regularly call them back (I was told that it influence their survival - I haven't checked it) Whenever I checked their life-cycle, they tended to pay for themselves. I send only ships that has enough cargo (this seems to be only feature that has impact on income value) and low crew requirements, so the "income - wages" is high enough.
Not a viable economic model-the cost exceeds any value. I have sent more than 60 ships on the safe adventure only to have them sunk at a rate of 100% in three months game time.
Originally posted by lincolnfamily:The problem with the swashbuckling adventures is even when employing the safe adventures, the ships are usually sunk before they even pay for their upgrades.