What Ship to Use?

[HughMyronbrough]

I play on Adventurer and Rogue and mostly use Sloops.

I'm aware of the War Canoe zerg-rush strat, but I'm not great at the Combat minigame, so I don't like it.

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Is there a point to using the large combat ships?

And what about on Swashbuckler?

[astonar]

My favorite is the Frigate. Can carry a bunch of guns and men but still a decent turn rate and speed.

[Elondrius]

I'm usually playing on rogue, tried swashbuckler a bit.
My ship of choice is the brig of war. A bit slower than a sloop, but can carry more cannons and has a larger cargo capacity. It's a universal ship that can carry out different tasks. With a sloop you have to be more careful and navigate more precisely, as a direct hit from a frigate or galleon basically obliterates your ship and the battle takes longer, too. A brig can take at least one more shot. A frigate on the other hand can sink the enemy from afar with a few direct hits, but it is harder to navigate with it and therefore can't close in on a target unharmed. You have to deal some damage first, which reduces the worth of your prize. It all boils down to your playstyle.
By the way the big and clunky spanish galleons simply don't worth the effort. They fetch a good price, but if you want do dish out the pain from afar, a frigate is your best option.

[Marcelis_Wallace]

I usually go for the sloops because I like to close the distance and board rather than gun it out from range.

[Freeasabird🕊]

Fully upgraded Sloop or brig of war. can't go wrong.

[Chocice75]

I usually use the War Canoe nowadays, since the "Thrust" move in fencing is completely broken (it can counter any enemy attack) and boarding is way easier than using cannons. (Plus, you get an undamaged ship to sell.)

[realist1003]

I play on Swashbuckler and usually use either the Mailrunner or Royal Sloop. I'll sometimes use larger ships (Frigate-class or Brig-class) for variety.

I'd say that the advantages of larger ships are crew capacity (for both boarding ships and raiding cities), greater firepower, ability to take more damage, and more cargo room for loot. The frigate-class ships are also very fast sailing with the wind directly behind them, so with good positioning it's possible to close the distance very rapidly and board opponents. That requires some maneuvering on the world map before battle to make sure that your ship starts in a good (i.e., upwind) position, however.

Even if you don't use a pinnace-class ship for many sea battles, it's still useful to have one in your fleet and use it as your flagship when sailing on the world map. That's because your fleet moves at the speed of your flagship, adjusted down a bit with some penalty for each additional ship in your fleet. (There's also a penalty for any damaged ships in your fleet, which can really slow down your fleet.) If all ships are undamaged, for example, a fleet with a war canoe flagship and a treasure galleon will sail just as fast into the wind on the world map as a fleet with two war canoes. And a fleet with six ships will sail slower than a fleet with two ships.

The other advantage of having one pinnace-class ship in your fleet is attacking Indian war canoes. I find them to be really tough to catch at Swashbuckler-level using any ship larger than a pinnace.

[Breakingzap]

i use a brig or brigintine for it's decent firepower and menuveribility

[qmuddy]

windows 10 ? are you playing using windows 10 ? thanks

[Elondrius]

Originally posted by qmuddy:

windows 10 ? are you playing using windows 10 ? thanks

I do. Windows 10 x64.

[qmuddy]

Elondrius : thanks; i installed it from my dvd, can't get it to work, installed ok: thinking of buying it from steam ? thanks will i have to delete that steam file from the steam folder ?

[SpankEngine]

Ship of the Line for sure. You have to force it to spawn though.

[Coffee]

Ship of the Line 100%. Once you get it, you're completely set. Extremely fast, extremely potent broadside, extremely maneuverable. It's worth the effort of forcing the spawn.

[trapani2]

How do you force it to spawn?

[SpankEngine]

Raiding the same English/French trade line for a while.

[trapani2]

Thank you for the reply :)

Good Hunting.