Captain Hammered

I don't disagree, and would enjoy seeing AI that could rep, take/keep the weather-gauge, etc. However, let's look at the possibilities: Suppose they did add AI that could a) repair, b) counter what people rather hilariously here call 'kiting', c) plot their moves dependent on player performance and d) retreat or surrender ifd overpowered by the player - all things people are asking for. "Waaaa! The AI's too hard!!!" "Devs, the AI is unbeatable - DO SOMETHING NOW!!!" "Devs, the AI is WAAAAY too easy! I kill them every time!" "AAAARGH! The only time they fight is when I can't beat them! If I can they run!" "The AI cheats!" "The AI sucks!" "They kill me every time!" "This game is dead. Thanks Devs!" Et cetera, ad nauseam. I agree that I'd love to see these things - if only for the immense pleasure of hearing the howls of anguish from players. However, asking for these things (ad nauseam) in every possible post and forum is beating a dead horse - it's not going to happen. Devs have come up with a relatively equal middle ground - AI which is good enough but not too good...roughly judged by the number of people that howl, scream and complain on either side of the spectrum. 😉

So far as I've seen, it's about 50%, at least in the half-dozen or so elite battles I've fought. IOW, a ship will have a 50-50 chance of having a note. But that's just a guess at this stage; I need a LOT more points to track before coming up with a definitive number.

Thanks, that's nice of you to say. I'm trying to get better at video making. Here's the thing about angle-armour: it's extremely specific to ship type. Different ships have different abilities in the angles and it's important to know how your ship reacts to fire at different angles, ranges and calibers. The Bellona is easy, because it's got the largest angle-armour stats per ship size in the game. By that I mean by placing an enemy at the 45 or 135 degree position relative to your ship, it has the strongest chance of bouncing even the largest shot at close range. Between those angles the effect drops sharply, reaching 0 at 90 degrees - dead abeam. But - here's where people sometimes screw up - beyond those angles (closer to the bow or stern) the values drop off as well - not to mention opening up those vulnerable areas to attack. It's best to practice getting hit - believe it or not - when taking over a new ship by letting some weak puppy blast away at you and seeing what his shots do. A good tactic is to catch some poor trader in a TBrig and parallel him at different angles and ranges. See what his fire does to you under different conditions and write those values down - you'll see the pattern of your angle armour appear fairly quickly. (Then blast the lil' bugger! ) Angle armour and wind usage are two excellent skills to practice. Get good at them and you'll have a much easier time. Cheers!

Well; speaking for myself I'm not familiar with any 'bugs' past the AI's unfortunate tendency to beach themselves - which could be bloody useful in times of stress (chuckle). In my particular case it looked like my enemy Bellona was heading for a certain beaching; he turned at the last minute and actively close-hauled away; I was rather impressed. Beyond that, if anyone can define why using an enemy's weakness against them isn't a basic principle in combat, I'd love to hear it. Anyhoo; whatever people who want to complain about what isn't instead of enjoying what is will say; I enjoyed myself immensely. Here's a video of the duel; hope you like it: Cheers!

Hello! My own videos don't come close to the fine productions you gents make, but I was having fun, and recorded a battle between myself and an Elite AI Bellona. It was a fun fight, though I didn't realize until later that Bandicam hadn't recorded my narration. Without a dedicated video editing program - yet - I used M$ Photos; it worked well enough. Hope you enjoy it:

Folks, can we chin-wag a bit about the new Elite vessels? Apart from the Patch 32 post; which includes all sorts of other goodies. I'll start, and come out in overwhelming support: I LOVE THESE GUYS! WOOHOOO!!! At last - a 1-on-1 equal-ship challenge in PvE that's a real challenge! I was cruising in my Bellona up the coast of Hispanola heading from Spanish Town to St. Vic when I spotted a solo Bellona with a skull icon. Poifect - I'd been wanting to try one of these Elites; the wind was onshore, giving me the advantage of beaching him if needed. Nothing beats a duel among equal ships for testing, so I turned and attacked. The next 45 minutes were one of the hardest duels I've ever fought; and that includes against players. The Elite Bellona hit like a sledgehammer, turned (seemingly) on a dime, my balls just bounced off. More than once I was forced to dive for the shore to get away, only to have to pull him away from the rocks once I was able to repair. It was BRUTAL! I loved it! Devs, THANK YOU for these Elite ships! Now - the PvE crash happened later, and I lost my lovely purple Elite Bellona I gained from that fight. I'll just have to find another. But - those are my thoughts. In 1-on-1 duels, these Elite warships are grand! It's nice to go into a battle with a great deal of trepidation and cracking knuckles. Cheers!

What - really?! You're American aren't you? The star in question is questionable, because the colour is in question. It could be red, or it could be a dirty white. Devs, please remove the American star from the stern of the Pandora! Sheesh.

Possible, but if @DeRuyter was precise enough to record mast hits, saying he 'did demasting wrong' is both premature and unhelpful. We've seen that Pandora has a fairly unique gunnery profile; I would prefer to see solid data and accurate information before making judgements.

Agreed completely and thanks! I haven't fought in small ships for a dog's age, I'm used to the more sedate pacing and timing of Capital ships and it shows. I doubt I would ever take Pandora into PvP; it's simply not 'ma thang' - though I'm positively bristling at the chance to unleash Rattvisan on the War Server this weekend LOL. I'm going to continue testing and opening book-slots on the lass; I'm fairly confident that with sufficient knowledge and RL experience, the pretty beastie will be able to duel an Indef - I'm placing that as the upper limit at the moment until I truly learn its abilities. I'm glad you liked the video; I'm going to work with the suggestions offered to my post in the Guides forum to produce much better, slicker videos - I hope at least. Cheers!

I've started testing the Pandora - LUVVERLY little ship, I must say! Excellent turn, speed and accelleration; to be expected for a ship its class. I find it similar in many ways to a Surp; it would hold a similar role. I made a video of an engagement near Nassau against a Privateer - tiny little thing; good for target practice. As others have noted, the top-deck swivels do aim high, and draw the other guns with them. I'm just not sure it's a major issue - as I say in the video (I narrated this one lol) it seems less of a bug and more of a condition of those specific guns. In short, they'll take practice to learn but I'm happy with them. Here's the video: Not the best fight of mine by a longshot; but excellent practice and good experience. Cheers!

I agree in principle - it would be great to have a widely-varied and complex AI system that could include - if I'm reading you right (and how I personally imagine it) specific AI behavious such as: The Aggressive Captain, The Wary Captain, The Fearful Captain, The Undisciplined captain, etc. - personality traits for Captain and crew that would define how the AI ship fights. An AI Bellona might, for instance, be overly concerned about the status of his armour and not engage too closely, or even run - or he might be suicidal but incompetent, or brave and highly skilled, etc. I'm just not sure how it would work in practice - it sounds like it could require a complete teardown and rebuild of the AI protocols. I've no idea how complicated that could be; as far as I know computers are magic boxes with little green imps inside pressing buttons.

o7 folks! You know, some folks on here make superb videos of their NA gameplay, I really enjoy watching them, and I would like to do a few of my own. Unfortunately, both my tools and skills at video recording are...well...crap. I used to use Bandicam and Micro$oft Movie Maker back in the Win95 days, but there HAS to be better technology available. (And, apparently, M$MM doesn't exist in Windows any more. Figures.) If anyone could offer tips on programs, techniques and thoughts, I'd really appreciate it. FWIW, here's my latest attempt done with Xsplit: No title, no narration (I was really having to concentrate on the fight), dark and blurry. In other words UGH - I'd like to do much better. Thanks folks

More feedback on the Rattvisan. Just for fun, I recorded a fight in the patrol zone between myself and an AI Wasa. Poor quality unfortunately - just a Twitch video. I'm no good at making films in NA (Tips would be great lol - some of your vids are AWESOME!) At any rate she's tough, capable, a confident fighter and easily the match of any Class 3 ship. Enjoy:

I agree with this. While I prefer the much harder, more challenging AI, new players are going to have a problem. I've also felt right from the beginning that class 7 ships are overpowered historically, both in firepower and performance - even the dinky little Pickle is no 'Barrett's Antelope' as it were. I've restarted my game and character about 3 times now - 4 full grind-ups to RA rank and every time I'm surprised and perturbed how difficult the first three ranks are to achieve - and that was before the changes to the mission system. Now it's going to be much, much harder. Quite personally - and this is merely a personal opinion - to assist new players I'd love to see the return of Rookie Brigs, placed on short runs around national ports in OW - only attackable by Class 6-7 players, though I doubt that's possible. Players in Class 6-7 ships anyway - that is do-able. They would represent new AI officers in the best ships they can afford (in other words cheap, leaky crap), just learning their trade. Lousy - if any - loot to discourage experienced players, but just enough XP to give new players a solid and pleasant learning experience.

Update - Testing goes on with the RattV and while that's not the focus of this thread, the behaviour of the AI is. I'm finding the total effect of the new AI to be excellent. Numerous one-on-ones vs. Class 3 ships have given me a strong appreciation for the individual skills of AI Captains; and HOW they apply their protocols dependent on ship type. For example, the 3rd Rate is slow, awkward and trends to downwind tactics - its captain undoubtedly knows that going into the wind is not helpful with such a lumbering vessel. She hits HARD though, and WILL try to suck the player into close-range action where it can pump a broadside into your hull. I was caught by surprise when it suckered me into following him into a downwind parallel; I lost quite a bot of armour before gaining separation - and gave up a ton of structure through the stern. Terrifying in the moment - an excellent tactic for the 3rd Rate. The Bellona is of course always a tough fight, and unlike all other Class 3's is largely impossible to kill without at least one rep - for me anyway. They're using a mix of upwind and downwind tactics and can be extremely canny when it comes to forcing the player into a potential head-to-wind stall - while maintaining the inertia to capitalize on it, either with a broadside or boarding. They haven't managed to complete the trap yet; in the first case I managed to squeak past at 4.1kts, thanking Poseidon that the RattV accelerates well. They hit hard AND accurately, targeting your ship for maximum damage. They'll also hold fire if you're angling off, and blast when you round to fire. BLOODY tough. While they have wide firing arcs, I don't see a particular increase in firepower - which is good, since they're already nightmares at the broadside. I haven't lost to one yet but it's been DAMN close. Like...THAT close. Wasas are the dogfighters of the Class 3's; again a unique set of tactics emphasizing their maneuverability and quick firing. Very canny, VERY frustrating when attacking from upwind. They'll round up, spoiling your hit on his sides. They'll 3-point, giving you both broadsides in double-quick time. They'll sucker you in, trap you, force you into unneeded damage. One thing I've noticed with them: they can get rattled. Last fight, my enemy was tough, crisp and accurate, until I blasted him down to 1/2 armour, gave him a solid stern rake and his broadside bounced off. Then he seemed to become uncertain, firing wildly, keeping his distance, making mistakes. It didn't last long, but it really seemed that his cool was blown for a few minutes. Connies are...well...Connies. Upwind-fighting, evil, sneaky insta-boarding bastards that have perfected the upwind ram as much as an AI possibly can. Staying upwind on these buggers is critical, but they're fully capable of rounding up, closing the gap FAST and forcing you into the wind where they WILL take you - every time. I lost a beautiful Gold Indef to one; I'm no beginner at boarding but it took me down - I need to take defensive boarding lessons from Tenet; he's a bloody master at it. So far I haven't lost a RattV; its manoeuverability and high-fighting ability trumps the Connie's excellent upwind fighting and trapping skills. Results: I am LOVING the new AI. The same old boring 'Steer-him-off, broadside-then-rake' predictable AI are gone; replaced by a much cannier, complex AI that is still predictable, but takes much greater advantage of ship-types. While I DO see that all ships have wider firing arcs, they're not nearly as wide as some people fear. Also, I still see no indication at all of increased firepower or accuracy. If there IS any change, it's minimal, to maximize an individual ship type's advantage against the player. So far, I give the new AI 4 out of 5 stars - there's always room for improvement but it's pretty excellent. Cheers!