Practical actions to take

[tofucsek]

I'm still new at the game and trying to get the hang of it. Hope someone might able to shed some light on a few issues.

1. At this stage I'm trying to avoid using my cannons altogether and just ram the enemy ship and win at boarding. Recently purchased a small range flamethrower which is working like magic. All the aiming and moving around part just seems way to long, which gives the enemy more time to inflict more damage.

2. Read somewhere that trying to get to the good side of pirates is the most recommended way to take at this stage in the game. It's still a bit slow, having trouble finding the merchant, who is supposed to be westward from Deep Cove. When do quest reset (as I'm currently doing Big Buster again).

3. Is there a smart way to make money in the game? I'm trying to run errands for pirates and occasionally other factions but it's still not a lot. Just recently discovered red and green % signs near ports, I'll look into a trading option if that's an advisable action to take.

Thanks for the replies.

[Sern]

1.) You can go through cannon balls fairly quickly. I keep around 500 high quality ones on board. Don't undestimate the other types. Sometimes you want to avoid a broadside from a larger ship and taking out their sails early can allow you to do just that. Sit behind them as they can't maneuver and pound away.

I'm not a fan of the flamethrower but it is ideal for boarding. I use the mortar because it's great to hit from a distance, which I prefer, and reduces the amount of cannon balls I go through. You have two artifact slots, so you could use both.

2.) You should see a big green circle on the map for some quests. You sail around inside until a specific marker pops up and then interact with it. The merchant who gives you 1500 is inside that green circle. Quests reset a certain # of days after completion which can be seen when at the associated port (for the faction) and viewing the quest menu.

3.) I believe there are some guides on this. Personally I'm not a fan of some of these guides because they're all about min/maxing which is a boringly super industrial way to play any game IMO. I don't think trading is a good way to make good money with the starter ship, it just doesn't have the capacity to carry a large load. Lots of small shipments = small profit. Periodically may want to attack trade routes and sell those goods. The trade faction is one of the few factions I've decided not to all out ruin so I do missions for them to repair any damaged relations from destroying their ships to at least keep it neutral.

As for boarding ships, supposedly you can make more from loot drops. I've yet to notice a big difference. I shy away from doing too much boarding at this stage of the game's development. I feel boarding could be far better and the devs have mentioned they're working on a new system for it. You tend to take a lot of damage when boarding because you have to parallel the enemy ship who, even without a crew, can still fire their weapons at you.

Don't even think about boarding a ship with a flamethrower artifact. They'll melt your ship and crew before you can even begin the process. If you haven't found out yet, you can scout ships with a spy glass prior to engaging them. This is highly encouraged as you get more info the longer you scout a ship (to a point). The last thing scouted are the ships artifacts, if it has any.

Each ship scouted (if you did it long enough) will give you a +15 percent modifier which you can see on each ship. At first I thought this was a +15 percent damage modifier but I think it's actually a +15 percent chance to hit the ship on top of your existing chances when you fire. There are some things, like what I just mentioned, that are a bit unclear in the game itself and could use further explanation.

Anyway, just wrote a book, so I think that'll cover most of it.

P.S. - Money is slow at first but you start to rake it in as you get access to better quests (increasing rep) and your ship and crew are more efficient killing machines. Also make sure to run over dropped loot yourself most of the time (can still use speed up). Auto picking up loot means you loose 30 percent of all drops (in the current build).

[tofucsek]

Thank you for your detailed answer.

Currently I'm using the flamethrower artifact and the one I've got from killing the kraken. I've been toying with the idea of giving mortar a try, see how that would fit into my playstyle.

At this stage I've tried to stay away from pissing off any faction apart from the ones with green flag and an axe in it. Would you recommend to kill a few trade faction ships for higher profit?

How do you feel about the most expensive ship at this stage (18000 gold if memory serves me well)?

Do you save xp for captain's skill upgrade? 50 seems to be a lot just for 1 point increase. Speaking of XP, is there a quicker way to accumulate them? Destroying enemy ships sometimes gives me 1 but it's not a guarantee.

[tofucsek]

Thanks for the info.

What do I use dust of fiery stone for?

When do quests reset?

Is there any exact numerical figure on when do I reach next reputation rank with different factions (neutral, loyal, etc)?

[Sern]

Originally posted by tofucsek:

Would you recommend to kill a few trade faction ships for higher profit?

Yes. Just pace yourself. Do it too often and your rep will go down faster than you can repair it by doing their quests.

Originally posted by tofucsek:

How do you feel about the most expensive ship at this stage (18000 gold if memory serves me well)?

No opinion at the moment. I'll be looking at it soon.

Originally posted by tofucsek:

Do you save xp for captain's skill upgrade? 50 seems to be a lot just for 1 point increase.

50 does seem a lot but the # of skills are pretty limited atm so if you got it too fast you'd essentially reach end game fast too. Basically if I don't feel like I need to spend XP to distribute my crew then I don't and it gets saved. The most important thing is having an effective crew or you'll suffer in combat and thus progress more slowly and spend more money on repairs.

[ADRIEN manowarad WRP crossbowlov]

Originally posted by tofucsek:

How do you feel about the most expensive ship at this stage (18000 gold if memory serves me well)?

Do you save xp for captain's skill upgrade? 50 seems to be a lot just for 1 point increase. Speaking of XP, is there a quicker way to accumulate them? Destroying enemy ships sometimes gives me 1 but it's not a guarantee.

=> most expensive is 40 000 (on second archipelago, you can go there using the east symbol on east map border)

=> i always hold xp for skills which help a LOT, for info:
- if you run gold good, you can directly buy good crew
- a faction on the second archipelago upgrades all crew directly to tier III for free ! (needed especially for big ships)
- you earn more xp buy destroying real big ships (that you encounter when yours is bigger too)


the only downside is that the game doesnt give much "embellishment" loots like the item of the cursed ships or some items from the other factions, most embellishments are too much rare

[Sern]

Yeah I wonder how many people aren't even aware of the whole second map thing? Lol. If you don't fully explore the first map, it could be easy to miss. I also don't like the transition between maps.

The first time I went to the second area I was ambushed by AI that were far superior to my capability. I discovered this passage early on and I had to run away fairly far so the enemy AI would despawn before I could go back and return to the first map. IMO enemies should not spawn too close to map transitions for reasons like this.

[tofucsek]

To be completely honest, I had no idea about the second map at all. Just about to venture over there and see how long I'd last. Will try to find that faction you mentioned, free training does sound like fun.

[ADRIEN manowarad WRP crossbowlov]

yes blackbeard is a heavy ambusher

tip => travel from cities to cities, they cant spawn while at ports !

free training to tier III is useful, its even enough for starting ship "runner" and a must for biggest ships

about money remember there is an event in trading faction making all green -10% into +40% during 4 days

=> you must hold ressources/items in storeroom of one of these cities in order to directly cell them while the event is running

=> you can hold as much as you want in a port storage

=> on the second map, one of the trading city is REALLY close to a protectorate city which has high ressources, its not the best benefit but still a heavy one

=> i easily transformed 30k into 68k just with 250 silver with that event in less than 1 day, and keep buying/selling the 3 other so i ended with 80k

=> at start do this with other ressources and when you got more than 14k you can start to buy/sell/store silver by packs of 50

=> when no events are running you still got good trading routes starting from -10% to sell in +15%, usually you must earn 1k each travel

=> when you got enough stored (even 50 silver at start is nice) you can do quests and explore and travel for more gold, and come back when event is running

=> sometime the dominion has an event -30% prices, its less interesting because of low ressources choices, but still awesome for good start (or storing for a future +40% event)

note that saving ressources in city storage is useful because you never lose what you store (including rare items and so)

money is fast when this method is fully up, and you have much more thinsg to manage, so profit !

my only "bug" still that i make money first to get the max embellishments i cant o choose the one i love for my ships, but most of the embellishements are hard to get (drops)