Tips, Tricks and Cool Things

[Slamz]

This is basically a copy-paste from my own guild forums. Feel free to contribute. The idea is mainly simple one-liner things we figured out the hard way.

 

This is kind of a brain dump (randomly presented tidbits mainly in the order we figured them out) and it's possible some of this information is wrong and may be out of date if this post is old by the time you read it but maybe there will be some useful tidbits for you in here.

 

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* Starter ship repair kits are free. Keep them loaded up and use them in between fights to get back to full health. You can buy them on the "Home" screen of any port.

* For NON-starter ships, repair kits are expensive. It's far cheaper to go to a port and use the "Repair" button in there. I think for regular ships, repair kits are for deep sea emergencies and you should always return to port to repair.

* In combat, buttons 5-9 are like the "Crew Focus" buttons from POTBS. It's important to know that "Survival" will fix leaks, put out fires and man the pumps. (Repair -> Urgent Repair will only fix your rudder and pumps, I think, and it has a cooldown.)

* Yes, ships can catch fire. If you don't use "Survival" to put it out, your ship can explode. I think if you are under-crewed, everything is slower, including putting out fires, so you're more likely to explode. It's a bad idea to be near exploding ships.

* After being hit, check for "leaks" in the upper left. Note, though, that once your armor is gone you will start taking leaks that do not show up as "leaks" and cannot be fixed with Survival. "Survival" will man the pumps but eventually you'll take on more water than you can pump.

 

My theory:
Any hit can cause a "Leak", which Survival can repair.
Hits to unarmored areas can cause leaks that don't show up and can't be fixed. This is what eventually sinks you.
Hull to hull contact with another ship can cause permanent leaks regardless of armor.

I would bet that a shot to the underside of your ship (like on a big swell) may cause permanent leaks too. I'm wondering if that's where ramming damage comes from: I run over them and they tear up the underside of my ship.

 

* "Repair Ship" fixes invisible leaks. Granted you can only do this once per combat. This is probably what you should save that 1 in-combat repair for, in fact. So far it has always let me fix my sinking problem (until I get shot again, anyway). It does consume a repair kit, though.

 

* Ramming tends to cause unfixable leaks (to both sides, though I imagine tougher ships have fewer problems with this)

* Ships don't really have a "hull" stat in the POTBS sense (like a final hit point bar that kills you when it runs out). It's based on the water line you'll see in your compass. You're dead when that fills up. It's a little less like a hit point bar and more like a DOT (holes in your ship) vs HOT (manning the pumps, which takes your crew away from other things).

* Ships can also capsize and I think they can get "swamped". I've taken on water just being too close to a bigger ship and one time I tried to board a smaller ship by doing the old POTBS ram and ended up flipping it over, whereupon it immediately sunk.

* Big, fast turns screws up your aim. After a big turn you might want to give it a moment to settle down. You can see the "cone of fire" narrowing after you stop turning.

* There is no "you are here" on the map. Don't get lost at sea.

* You can fire all cannons with left-mouse or fire one at a time with spacebar. Spacebar is better for aiming but I think a full broadside has a greater chance of causing a "stun" -- not sure what the rules are but it's possible to cause crew to stop working (or stop performing a specific job, like reloading) after a big enough hit.
 

A word on cannon settings:
Set cannons to "Unlocked Sector Focus Auto" (displayed in the lower left, above your 1-4 buttons) unless you find a reason to do something different.

I'm pretty sure "Locked Sector Focus Auto" means all cannons will point in the direction you are looking, all at the same angle while "Unlocked Sector Focus Auto" means they will all point in the direction you are looking, converging on your current target (to the extent that they can). You can also set "Unlocked Sector Focus: 100m" and "250m" which means they converge on that point.

I'm not totally sure why you would want to use Locked Sector Focus. You would have to re-aim after each shot otherwise you'd get a broadside as wide as your ship which is probably not what you want.

* Cannon balls can bounce off their target. Seems to happen most when you hit a side at an angle, especially a sharp angle. Like the enemy ship is facing away from you but a bit to the right, you're trying to hit it square in the back but instead your cannonball hits the side of the ship, you might notice the cannonball bounce off. I don't think they do any damage when that happens.

 

* Even if the cannon ball doesn't bounce, not all hits really "count". Some are totally resisted despite what looked like a solid hit. (CTRL-L will show a big combat log if you want to read it, but it takes up your whole screen and can't be sized.)

 

* If you go into the wind with a square rigger, you can end up going backwards. Remember that left rudder turns your nose to the right if you're going in reverse! Otherwise you can end up waddling back and forth through the wind. (Pay close attention to your speed.)

 

* NEW XP METHOD!

When doing our usual attacks, make sure you get the aft armor down and then do a couple of full, point-blank grapeshot passes. I should have written down the numbers but I was getting well over 60 xp from graping Constitutions. Combined with the assist (+60) and whatever damage I did I was getting > 120 xp just from assisting on one ship (one particular fight got me almost 400 xp from just a Constitution and a Surprise).

 

* Depowering your sails ("T") can help prevent your ship from rolling due to wind when you need to fire (as in a Brig or a Snow). Won't help with rolling due to wave action but there's an upgrade that helps a little with that ("improved ballast").

 

* For the best XP, make sure every shot hits. I rarely launch a full left-click broadside. I fire one (spacebar), left-shift to zoom in and watch where it lands, then fire another and do that for every shot, especially on a smaller ship like the Cutter where you only have 6 guns on a side anyway.

* Try not to let the battle get too far away from you. If you sit and lob from range and the battle is drifting away then I think you'll end up with less XP doing that than you would have by taking time to hold fire, sail closer and hit harder.

 

* You can teleport between outposts but this does NOT take your ship with you (or any of its contents). Only the teleport to the capital city which you can do only from the open sea takes your ship with you.

* If you grape a ship's crew down enough (<5?) it will turn into a ghost ship and just sail straight on its old path. It counts as "killed" and you can't capture it. (So don't grape a cargo ship down TOO much.) Sometimes this will put the ship in my loot window as captured, sometimes not, depending on factors I haven't figured out yet.

 

* On ships with multiple gun decks, you can turn individual decks on and off with F1-F3. This could allow you to aim two different gun types separately, for instance.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Slamz

[BobW-Bristol-RI-US]

Very helpful thanks.  Hoping others share the wealth too.

[Admiral 8Q]

Great compilation of tips and tricks! This should be "pinned" so it's easy for everyone to find. 

[Capt. Rice]

Nice and easy tips.

[Enraged Ewok]

* If you grape a ship's crew down enough (<5?) it will turn into a ghost ship and just sail straight on its old path. It counts as "killed" and you can't capture it. (So don't grape a cargo ship down TOO much.) Sometimes this will put the ship in my loot window as captured, sometimes not, depending on factors I haven't figured out yet.

 

This one likely requires more testing. I am almost certain decrewed ships can be captured, the difficult lies in actually slowing down the ship enough for the capture prompt (X) to appear. The reason I say this is because I did manage to recover a clanmate's Surprise after it was decrewed by a third rate detonating right next to him. It continued with sails set but 0 crew until myself and several other clanmates managed to slow the ship enough that I was able to hold X and capture it.

 

Also, regarding XP. After each battle you can right click on the section that shows your gold and XP payout. This will open up a list that shows which ships you damaged and how much damage you did, whether or not you got kill or assist on the listed ships, and how many crew you killed on the ship. It also gives the experience breakdown for what these actions earned you, and shows friendly fire and the experience losses from it.

[SirLeitet]

* If you grape a ship's crew down enough (<5?) it will turn into a ghost ship and just sail straight on its old path. It counts as "killed" and you can't capture it. (So don't grape a cargo ship down TOO much.) Sometimes this will put the ship in my loot window as captured, sometimes not, depending on factors I haven't figured out yet.

 

If you park your ship's aft right infront of the "ghost" ship, it will come to a stop, but it will damage your armour/cause leaks so prepare for that.

[haibeo]

Few more things to add from what I known:
- Ramming does decrease ship armour

- Press B (go straight to battle sail) will quickly fold your sail. It will reduce heel of the ship (the "rolling due to wind"), reduce the potential damage your sail can be taken (good when you see other people shooting chain at long range).

- Bow or Stern raking shot (shot from bow/stern of the ship along the hull) have good chance of knockout guns on the side of the ship, especially if the armour is down to 0. Also, good at killing a lot of crew. This is true during Sea Trial and it should still like that. 

- Stern camping your enemy and a small, lesser ship could take down much much much bigger ship. Given enough time, a cutter could cripple 1st rate. 

[Long Beard]

If you're in a cutter vs a privateer or lynx and things are going south, get in behind it, switch to survival and ram its rear, continue pushing against it and that baby will flip and sink pronto style.

 

I've even done this without firing a shot. Fast XP and gold.

 

Note, doesn't work vs clipper. Their rear end is too high.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Long Beard

[Long Beard]

For more accurate navigation when sailing to missions or port to port, print out this compass on A4 paper. Print it in landscape and make it full page.

Now when in map, place the A4 paper on your screen, preferably with the bottom running along the bottom of your monitor to ensure it's straight. Then with your mouse, move / zoom in / out the map until your current location is in the centre of the compass. Cut the circle out if it helps, if not, you should still see through the paper.

Now you have a more accurate heading to sail on.

 

[Archetype]

Great post, thank you! Some useful tips, even after playing for two weeks. 

[Long Beard]

The closer you are to an enemy ship in Open World (OW) when the attack timer hits 0, the closer you will be to it in the battle instance. If the timer is nearing 0 and you want to get closer, hit the attack button again to reset the timer to 20 seconds. Rinse repeat until you are close enough.

Edited February 21, 2016 by Long Beard

[Grim DeGrim]

Repair Ship: this one repairs your pump / rudder / magazine (typically from yellow to white).

Example, you are "just barely" sinking, no holes, but excessive armor loss. If your pump was damaged (yellow), you'd use "repair ship" to bring it back to higher effectiveness.

[Admiral 8Q]

If you're in a cutter vs a privateer or lynx and things are going south, get in behind it, switch to survival and ram its rear, continue pushing against it and that baby will flip and sink pronto style.

 

I've even done this without firing a shot. Fast XP and gold.

 

Note, doesn't work vs clipper. Their rear end is too high.

A slightly different situation; it's fleeing, you want to capture it or grape it's sails to slow it down, get behind it, and as you're ramming in your cutter, push the other ship's nose into the wind.

[Tindahbawx]

Repair Kit cost isn't fixed per ship type, its a random factor decided when the ship is first crafted.

 

For example, I discovered that the 2800 I was paying per repair kit on my Frigate was ludicrously expensive compared to what some other people in nation chat were paying for theirs ... like 900.

 

Needless to say, I'll be selling that ship on and trying my luck on a different one.

[Admiral 8Q]

Repair Kit cost isn't fixed per ship type, its a random factor decided when the ship is first crafted.

 

For example, I discovered that the 2800 I was paying per repair kit on my Frigate was ludicrously expensive compared to what some other people in nation chat were paying for theirs ... like 900.

 

Needless to say, I'll be selling that ship on and trying my luck on a different one.

Good to know. I won't be buying a frigate from you anytime in the near future.