Pirates don't spend all day making ships. They buy or steal ships made by NPCs. So.. why not have an
NPC operated shipyard
Supply Blueprints, materials, assign NPCs, and go sailing while they make you new ships.
New station, Ship Blueprinter.
Placed aboard a ship. Once a ship has been launched, players can craft a Ship Blueprint that documents the current state of the ship.
Ship Blueprint includes a list of all building objects, but not consumables, currently on the ship at the time of blueprinting
Ship Blueprint includes the quality of all objects.
Ship Blueprint also includes embedded placement information of all objects.
New Skill - Shipwright (Basic, Expert, Advanced, Master).
Skill level determines how many ships can be built from the blueprints.
Reduces resources need to craft Ship Blueprint
Improve starting and/or max levels for ships crafted from Ship Blueprint
Shipyard Job Board.
Snaps to the shore side of a Shipyard
Has snap points for a billboard, storage, and craft stations.
Has one Ship Blueprint inventory slot. Ship Blueprint in inventory will be listed on the Billboard, along with required parts /mats.
Has virtual 'stations' for assigning NPCs. Number of NPCs depends on size/quality of attached shipyard.
NPCs assigned to the Job Board will construct parts in the Ship Blueprint list, using mats deposited in the Job Board Mats storage, in the crafting stations attached to the Job Board.
NPCs will deposit constructed parts into the Job Board Parts storage. Players can add parts as well.
BP parts in the Ship Blueprint will either need crafted by players and deposited in the Job Board Parts storage, or the necessary blueprints will need to be present in the crafting stations attached to the Job Board for the NPCs to use.
Once all parts in the Ship Blueprint are present, NPCs will begin assembling the ship in logical order.
Rationale: In order to use the NPC Shipyard, it will be necessary to have
Have either built an original ship and blueprinted it, or have acquired a ship blueprint through trading, piracy, or perhaps looting?
Have collected the mats and parts to build the NPC shipyard objects, crafting stations, etc
Have bought/looted sufficient NPCs to operate the shipyard
Maintain the Gold and food to keep the NPCs working
Have the BPs for any BP parts
All of these incentivize players to get out and do pirate activities, rather than sitting in the harbor, crafting planks and rebuilding the same ship for the twentieth time.