Theoretically impossible to win main quest.

[prinso]

The first main quest, Finding the Rachel. I ignored it for a bit, it was presented about 9 months into the game, after some hard grinding all my crew was at level 4. However, it requires you to fight 3 auto-replenishing sharks for 8 turns. Even if you kill one each turn, you still take 12 damage at a minimum each turn ( 4+4 and two bleeding characters ). There is no way to survive this unless you ignore the main quest line for years, which makes no sense to me.

[LegTheFish]

medics make you bleed imunne you just need better bout and crew i started it with 2 whale bouts decent medic in both as well as decent hunters and couple of repair guys that can reroll was quite easy.
if you win the event it goes down to 6 turns but if you lose it it goes up to 10 turns.

[Barravm]

And its bugged, when u find the sharks, if i win the 6 rounds or i try to retreat i cant press the continue button to return to the map.

[Cinderella]

I did the quest in 1824 with captain a hunter and a medic. My captain was specializing in sailing and hunting. Whenever you're able to kill a shark, do it. The killed shark loses their attack. Whenever the sharks are submerged use your sailing and healing. It only took me 2 tries with lvl 5 captain and lvl 4 crew members.

[prinso]

Ok, 1824 makes sense, you can have 6 * level 10 crew at that point. But don't show me that quest 3 years before I can do that. Just a medic doesn't do it with level 4s, unless you roll the 1/6 heal all crew every time.
Also, the retreat button doesn't work during this encounter, so that's...you know...

[Brygun]

Maybe post in bugs but seems more a bad battle for you.

Some tips mentioned.

There is a chance to reduce the # rounds vs the risk of increasing the # rounds.

I found hte Rachel battle brutal and rough but made it on like the 3rd go.

Personal tip I suggest is dont go round South America until you are in a 2 whale boat ship or bigger. That means dont rush after the Rachel at the game start in that 1 boat sloop.

[Waladil]

I did it with my captain at like level 4 hunting, with a level 2 hunter, and a level 9 or 10 medic. The medic is the important part -- gives your whole party immune to bleeding and has hefty healing skills. Just keep duct-taping people together until the sharks get bored.

[ScruffyBamboo]

I just did it in 1821 with my level 3 captain w/ science, my level 2 builder, and my level 3 harpooner. Both the builder and the harpooner died, and I survived with 4hp.

Funny enough, having crew member die is not that big a deal in this game. I wa able to hire better crew on my next trip into town.

So it's very, very possible.

Screenshot of mission 2 being active (my captain is now lvl 4):

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1275194304

[scott_smart2000]

I did it with two level 10's and my captain at level 3, forget the year but it was pretty early on. The trick is to only kill the bigger sharks as the 3HP ones deal only 4 damage, and once you have bleed immunity with a good healer, they can't kill you. Leave the baby ones as the board refills. Once you have only 3HP sharks, you're not going to die, and then keep the heals going. If you use the same strategy you use in regular fights (kill off the most the quickest) so you kill off the easiest targets is the WORST tactic for this fight.

[chevron]

Originally posted by Barravm:

And its bugged, when u find the sharks, if i win the 6 rounds or i try to retreat i cant press the continue button to return to the map.

Afaik it is not possible to retreat from main quests. Did in on seadog an yeah, the fight was tough, but not that hard. Sea manouver helps a lot

[Jobbie]

This mission bugged out on me too, got the victory message but cannot click the "close" button, only keyboard key working is escape. Will try again it must be a rare bug in a quite (for me anyway) solid release.

[Kotli]

I did it at lvl 3 with a single boat. 1 harapooner yellow/green captian and scientist.
I just killed the non baby sharks if no one injured badly why because less damage. Apart from that just spam heals on the guy they attack. Your scientist should be able to heal for more than 3 bites +1 bleed tick of damage from babies.

[David]

I just got this quest for the first time on Sea Dog and did it in 1821 with one boat and no medic (taking fatalities). Despite what others are saying it's not easy to do, you get this quest after gaining 25 prestige which is just a couple of battles and jobs, and it's a huge ramp up from anything you should get so far- it should be possible to get this in 1820 too. 1824 means ignoring the main quest entirely for 5 years including 1820, as the other guy said, you can have a maxed out boat and crew by then so it should be easy then.

There were no baby sharks in my event. Adults that deal 10 bite damage and 4 bleed damage = 14 damage minimum each. Sounds like it's a bit random since the person above me killed sharks and ended up with newborns, that didn't work for me, more adults.

My reccomendation is to put this quest off until you have at least 2 whaleboats, 1-2 field doctors (not medics, that's for sick bay) or you're just plain feeling lucky. 1 L10 scientist even if he's a medic isn't enough to heal all of the damage from 3 young-adult sharks, plus they can spread it about and he can only heal 1 person, then all 3 sharks could attack the most wounded guy you couldn't heal.

[prinso]

I don't see how it's possible to ignore the main quest for several years.
The quest line bisects the entire map.
I've tried 5 times now to ignore the quest, it's just not doable. You sail near the line for more than 3-4 days and the quest will trigger.

The most recent attempt I was in the north pacific when the main quest got enabled.
So, to get back to Nantucket I at the very least had to cross through the line at Cape Horn.
I tried to approach it completely perpendicular, so that I was near the quest line for maybe 1 day, boom main quest triggers.
I had just one higher level crewman because I left with about 18 prestige and got over 25 while in the Pacific due to quest.
I don't see how it's possible to win that.
The lowest you get are young sharks, there are no baby sharks.
An adult shark will one-shot a character, the young ones need 2 attacks.
If your medic triggers the heall all characters every round somehow you still lose at least one character per turn because 3 sharks will be able to attack you.
Kill one, you wont be able to heal, so you'll still lose at least 1 crew per turn.

If you could ignore the main quest for a while it would be fine.
If at leas I could get my captain to lvl 3. But as it stands if you're grinding properly there isn't even enough time to get more than 2 upgrades on your base ship before the quest fires.

[Mantomex]

I'm considering the idea of putting a "come later" option, it's an easy fix, even if it's a bit weird looking at the events of the quest.

[Ilyich]

Originally posted by Big Jobbie:

This mission bugged out on me too, got the victory message but cannot click the "close" button, only keyboard key working is escape. Will try again it must be a rare bug in a quite (for me anyway) solid release.

Happened to me also. It seems to have something to do with bleeding status on your crew. Both my sailors (I had one boat at that time) were dead and my captain was ready to bleed to death when I got the win message. And it just stuck there, couldn't close it...