Tactics:

[Capt Schroder]

Curious to see what amatuers may come up with in face of certain situations: For instance if you are capt. of a small ship such as a frigate or smaller . yes you may be faster then an enemy 1st rate  but how do you keep him occupied until your freindly fleet arrives without damaging your own crew and ship.?

[Xenutheeviloverlord]

Run?

 

*points to self*

 

Amatuer

[Chilly Willy]

Try to make him chase you at his worst angle while staying close to your best

Occasionally turning to give him a broadside or so at your Max range

I stand corrected not broadside to broadside your broadside to his bow with chain or dismantling shot

The idea is to slow him down until help arrives

Or Bob and weave

If that doesn't work

Put your head between your legs

And kiss your A** Good Bye

[Feretier]

Occasionally turning to give him a broadside or so at your Max range

That could mean death but yes you could with a lucky shoot eventually break a mast, maybe not in a cutter, indeed make him chase you at is worst wind angle. I say stay out of range in any case. Knowing that a 1st rate can sunk you in one volley.

But myself i'm an amateur.

[BungeeLemming]

depends.. maybe you go all in and try to sterncamp him.

else you can only run and hope for a lucky demasting shot..

[Privateer]

If he is much larger than you, the maneuvering advantage is likely yours.  You can change course far quicker than he, and if you're rigged fore-and-aft with the weather you can readily flee to windward.  Fore-and-aft to leeward would be a bit more tricky, but with enough time you may be able to outdistance a square rigger on close reach.  It would bring you closer to the enemy than, say, a beam or broad reach, but there's a slim chance of a Bermuda rigger outrunning a square rigger on broad reach—that is his best point of sail after all.

 

Should you also be square rigged and hold the weather, you'll have better luck fleeing to windward than he (though not nearly as much as a cutter, but if you're square rigged facing a cutter then you shouldn't be the one fleeing in the first place), since you can maintain a steady close reach while forcing him to sail close-hauled to gain any headway.  To leeward you face a similar situation, though your odds are less favourable.  You might attempt to flee on a broad reach, at your best point, and he would once again be forced to sail at a less-optimal point (say, 14 to 15 points off the wind as opposed to your 12 or 13).  Ultimately the outcome of this case would likely be decided by the faster hull and superior rig; studsails in light airs can make all the difference.

 

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.  It's been a while since I studied the subject in detail.

[Capt Schroder]

I personally run straight at first with half sail thinking i hadnt seen him yet with him behind me then start a wide zig zag pattern and double back to original course at night  keep him guessing and curious until its to late say hello to fleet

[Flip]

Is not everyone an amateur, unless someone has been alive since the 1700's.

[Hyperion74]

Run towards your own fleet.

Stern chasers.

If it gets dark, heave to, go dark, make him the chase, stern rake him as manny times as you can.

Rum always comes in handy...whatever the tactic.

[Hyperion74]

Wow Privateer, you know your stuff, but you forgot the rum.

[Chilly Willy]

Is not everyone an amateur, unless someone has been alive since the 1700's.

Unless you're reincarnated from that time

[OTMatt]

Either have a faster ship or a second buddy. Other than that you may as well rage quit

[Edward Vernon]

Not really sure I want to discuss my personal tactics in an open forum....but I know they work....  

[Edward Vernon]

Something I have noticed in the 2 v 2 videos that have been posted, that rarely do the two ships stay close together. Is there some particular reason for this?  Staying reasonably close together would surely be a smart move.....focussing of fire onto 1 of the opposing vessels to take them out of the fight quickly (or more quickly at least) and potentially splitting the enemy fire back. I also noticed recently more use of chain shot and the apparent significant degradation of the enemies sail and rigging, yet seeing a vessel with sails down around 60% did not, to me at least, seem to have had much effect on the speed and handling of the enemy.

 

Can any of the current testers shed any light on these two questions?

 

TIA

[RAMJB]

Well, I'll need some first hand practice with the game before anything. But the theoretical idea of any 1 v 1 encounter is pitting your strenghts against the enemy weaknesses. A 1st rate's weakness is obviously well known: lack of maneouverability. So if I'm in a frigate or less I'd try to pit my maneouverability vs his firepower. The problem is when the firepower trumps the maneouverability. I.E. any 1st rate should probably massacre a frigate in a couple of well aimed full broadsides, and any need to exploit maneouverability to fight involves neccessarily slipping into the rear of the 1st rate, thus chances are the rate is going to have his couple shots before you slip in. Unless conditions prevent him doing so.

 

So in the end It'll all be situational. If it's a clear day and I don't have the weather gauge there's not even a second consideration: you have to run. Running away might seem problematic, as big ships tend to be very fast (usually faster than small ships), but here is where maneouverability and being smaller comes into play. As soon as the rate starts gaining, you'd have to change course to force him to adjust. Course changes can be accomplished faster and with less loss of speed in a smaller ship. The unmaneouverable rate will take longer, but not only that, he'll have to beat his own inertia to do a course change, hence each course change should net a good distance gain for the smaller ship. Trick should be timing the course changes appropiately to win enough separation so the smaller ship can escape.

 

Clear day and with weather gauge it's all dependant. You have an almost guaranteed escape route (just run as close hauled as you can, he obviously won't be able to follow), and it's in your hand deciding wether you want to push your luck or not. In such a situation I'd probe a bit to see his reactions to my moves. If the first steps of the dance convince me the guy knows his stuff, I'd just go close haul and leave him behind. But if I somehow feel he's not that good, I'd try to use my wind advantage to lure him into a bad position to then try to sneak past his broadsides and find my way towards his rear end. Once there, it'd be all over. But still would be a tough proposition and a high risk move. It'd all depend in wether I can risk my ship or not.

 

 

The main thing here is that in clear day the rate has an obvious advantage. That firepower can render you unbattleworthy very quickly. But what if you're in a lively sea?. Well, then the rate might be forced to slam shut his lower deck gunports lest he gets a nice inrush of water that puts him in serious danger of capsizing. And then the scenario changes dramatically. With his heaviest firepower slam shut, the chances of a sneak into his rear arc without suffering too excessive damage in the process increase exponentially. You can be much more agressive in your approach and probe him to try to put his ship in a bad position and slow down enough for you to use your much better turn and acceleration to sprint towards his rear. If you achieve it, by all means it should be game over.

 

 

It's not easy to say "what would you do with this ship against that ship". Depends on who holds the gage, how calm the sea is, but avobe all, player experience. That's why probing your adversary in the first moments of the battle and get a feeling for his quality would probably dictate the rest of the engagement. For a smaller ship running away will almost always be feasible either by using maneouverability and lesser inertia, or by running closer to the wind than what he can, so the run away option should almost always be open. So I'd just probe the opposition, qualify his moves, and if he seems not that good I'd probably give it a go. If not...run, Neo...RUN!.

[Charles Caldwell]

I wouldn't risk coming under her guns, so I'd opt to shadowing the 1st rater taking a log of time, position and course.... 

 

Your presence would be an annoyance to the enemy Capt, but would also alert him to the fact that you are holding your position for a reason. 

[BungeeLemming]

 

Something I have noticed in the 2 v 2 videos that have been posted, that rarely do the two ships stay close together. Is there some particular reason for this?  Staying reasonably close together would surely be a smart move.....focussing of fire onto 1 of the opposing vessels to take them out of the fight quickly (or more quickly at least) and potentially splitting the enemy fire back.

Well I cannot tell you the backgroun dbehind that behavior.

When we had very early testing I was in a 3v3 with guys who already knew tactics from potbs. Both sides formed a line (or tried to.its not too easy) and we concentrated our firepower on one particular ship.

Blocking like in other games works perfectly fine.

Brawling is the most fun but you are very vulnerable while you approach your enemy.

 

The use of chainshot..? maybe experimental? Or tactics? After all you have to decide if you go for a sail repair or a hull repair. Its a huge factor after all. Two repairs to spend. How will you use it?

[Johny Reb]

Something I have noticed in the 2 v 2 videos that have been posted, that rarely do the two ships stay close together. Is there some particular reason for this? 

TIA

I would add to Bungee's statement that since the speeds of the boat are closer to reality and the ship speeds between different boats in the videos only vary by a knot or two (unlike the drastic differences and exaggerated speeds of PotBS), then when a ship gets separated from the pack it is a lot harder to return to it so a separated ship often remains separated for the duration. I think some of the foundational tactics of this game will be to get the other team stretched out or separated. The saying, "Sail first, shoot second" will be drastically more important in this game than in Potbs. And sailing in formation is alot harder in this game as well. There is no minimap to show the entire battle and your perspective is not zoomed out as far as in potbs. Commanders of fleets are gonna find extra challenges keeping situational awareness in this game and more reliance on a players skill and decision making will be required I believe.

 

I remember some of those early 3v3 battles Bungee refers to. We never had a real "caller" in those battles imo. We knew basic tactics and concentrated shots but it wasn't that much deeper than that.

[Leviathan]

Something I have noticed in the 2 v 2 videos that have been posted, that rarely do the two ships stay close together.

 

To reference the videos you were asking about. The Bellona battle more closely displayed the type of game-play you were describing except that the other team was separated early on. The Surprise battle started as a brawl on purpose at the request of everyone to change the dynamics up. We were all on the same ts channel so there wasn't much discussion of tactics during the battle so it depended heavily on individual situational awareness. As far as the chain shot goes...I think Chilly has an affection for it

[BungeeLemming]

Since I was on TS with barberouge and ink I think they were. We said who we will focus on.

So.. there was focused fire indeed.

 

[Edward Vernon]

Thanks guys that answers my queries I think, except the apparent lack of effect of sail degradation on speed and manoueverability, or is it so little as to be hard to notice at distance?

 

Another question, do we have canister (grape) shot available? I do love to cross astern at close range and rake her length with canister.....carnage and a huge reduction in ability to fight

[Chilly Willy]

They do have grape shot with the last patch. Had canister before tried it a few times without too much success thinking the damage may need to be adjusted. As it seems not to have had the effect that I was expecting

[BungeeLemming]

Canister shot is not final. Right now it does minimal damage. It once wiped ALL of your crew

So the devs retired that ammo type and will rework it.

[Edward Vernon]

Gimme some of that "special" canister please.......pretty please.... 

 

I can imagine it must be quite hard to balance that right.

[Chilly Willy]

Canister shot is not final. Right now it does minimal damage. It once wiped ALL of your crew

So the devs retired that ammo type and will rework it.

Kinda like cannon loss in patch b4 much better now. Figured it a work in progress.