Exams - How to pass - tips and tricks

[z4ys]

Naval Action combat is dynamic. There's no fixed solutions. Each Captain has its own style and Exam can be passed in several ways. A sample of 5 veterans groups shown that Final Exam was passed using 5 different methods. By shooting hull and sinking both ships, by boarding both ships, by capturing NPC and sinking the second, another using demasting to cripple and then sink both ships. Everything works.

What works for one Captain might not be the best for another. Plus wind, waves, positioning, flow of battle, is different everytime we try.

Improvise, adapt and overcome

The following videos just give a brief overview how the exams can be completed successfully.

 

[z4ys]

Demasting exam commented:

 

Demasting exam with no comments:

 

Edited April 23, 2018 by z4ys

[z4ys]

Final exam with no comments

 

 

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

14 minutes ago, z4ys said:

Naval Action combat is dynamic. There's no fixed solutions. Each Captain has its own style

+1

[Capt Jubal Early]

I've done the Exams twice. Both time in different ways because the AI reacted differently. (Especially in boarding)

In the final exam, chaining one down and fighting the other is the best start tip I can give you. Fight one enemy at a time.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Capt Trashal Early said:

I've done the Exams twice.

Me2. First time full berserk mode and sinking both one after the other. Second time rage boarded one and thereafter sunk two. Method 1 was slightly faster as replenishing crew after boarding takes quite a while (without graping before boarding ofc^^).

Edited April 23, 2018 by Guest

[ZuLu oNe5432]

Real Captains shoot single shoots hull only in the final Exam;) yaaaargH!

[kapteinsnabeltann]

• rear cannon demasting 😎

[Guest]

4 hours ago, ZuLu oNe5432 said:

Real Captains shoot single shoots hull only in the final Exam;) yaaaargH!

real captains dont fail

[Project Pluto]

I love the npc sniping from long range with 100% hit chance ignoring waves. 

Edited April 23, 2018 by Project Pluto

[ZuLu oNe5432]

2 hours ago, Wyy said:

real captains dont fail

haha I pass it in the first run  phuuuu 😃

[Project Pluto]

All vets measuring d*cks here? any feedback from new guys? 

Edited April 23, 2018 by Project Pluto

[VendoViper]

I have finished everything except for the final exam, which still escapes me.

I found all of the tutorials up to the final exam extremely helpful, and really cemented a lot of concepts for me. I want to especially call out the endurance mission as a particularly good tutorial, honestly working at that tutorial over and over until I figured it out made me a better captain full stop.

 However I feel like there are several pieces missing from the tutorials, tactics and angling. As the final exam is showing me over and over again, I just don't know what the right moves to make are, and I routinely put myself into an awful position even relative to a single opponent. A lesson on angling would likely be the simplest of these to introduce, rather than just having a tool tip have a tutorial where the player has their guns disabled, and someone shooting at them, and have them deflect a certain number of shots. Give some tips on how to tell how well angled you are relative to another ship.

As far as tactics go, cover how do you get to winward of someone, when you should cross behind them etc. Maybe there are some good resources here on this board.

[Barbancourt]

1 hour ago, VendoViper said:

Give some tips on how to tell how well angled you are relative to another ship.

The angle depends on the thickness of your armor vs the penetration (type, size, and range) of their guns.  You can just look at whether their balls are bouncing off you or not.  (look for the splashes)

[Potemkin]

On 4/23/2018 at 4:14 PM, VendoViper said:

However I feel like there are several pieces missing from the tutorials, tactics and angling. As the final exam is showing me over and over again, I just don't know what the right moves to make are, and I routinely put myself into an awful position even relative to a single opponent. A lesson on angling would likely be the simplest of these to introduce, rather than just having a tool tip have a tutorial where the player has their guns disabled, and someone shooting at them, and have them deflect a certain number of shots. Give some tips on how to tell how well angled you are relative to another ship.

As far as tactics go, cover how do you get to winward of someone, when you should cross behind them etc. Maybe there are some good resources here on this board.

Agreed 100% it would be very helpful to a new player to at least be exposed to these two concepts (angling and positioning relative to the weather gauge) early on as they play a very big role in combat. Imo the tutorial is good as is but adding these two lessons would be the cherry on top of a very important addition.

Edited May 20, 2018 by Potemkin

[Hethwill, the Red Duke]

Practice practice practice.

Despite this being about the Exams, listen...

Do not get used to overpower the AI all the time to maximise rewards vs time spent. It only turns a promising cadet/commander into a numb fighter.

Always try to fight the AI on a 1:2 odds or worse. That's what the Final Exam clearly shows, whatever excuses you come up with - veterans pve farmers do not fight the AI, they farm it, and when faced with a simple 1:2 odds against a AI script they find it too hard.

[Jean Ribault]

I failed Endurance 3 times.  OK, I am mostly trade, not pvp, and admittedly I suck at battles (all types), but on my last attempt I probably would've won the second ship if I had more repairs.  I sunk the first one, not board, but I was too engaged in the battle to think of looting, and I had no repairs to finish up.  Someone told me afterwards I could loot the ship, it just never occurred to me, and I'm sure such stupidity is not an isolated case. 

The tip: if you sink the first ship of the Endurance exam instead of board it, go loot it first for repairs before taking on the second one. 

[z4ys]

Final Exam

 

Edited January 4, 2019 by z4ys

[z4ys]

Endurance Exam

Edited January 4, 2019 by z4ys

[Lying Dutchman]

How I passed the final exam by being terrible....

 

I got one good broadside on one of the ships damaging the sails, which should be the basic scenario. I then consequently failed to score any broadside hits at all so I ran away to repair. during my running away I tried to so at least a wee bit of hull dmg with my stern guns on the fast ship. My Aim aparrently is horrible cause the only thing that really happened is that I demasted the ship. Ofc now the first ship started gaining again and took over, demasted him the same way. now they were sitting ducks and i finally got some hits in, sank one and boarded the other while slowly sinking myself.

took me well over an hour so i dont recommend it but its possible to do the exam while being terrible :)

[Hittings]

As a new player this final exam eludes me.  I'm in my first week into it, and every night have been a skill building exercise.  I have many MMOs under my belt including POTBS and EVE so alot of the basics of sailing are there its just this is more extreme and harsh.   This final exam isn't a tutorial though and thats the biggest problem with it.   A tutorial should have a 70% success rate or higher.  It should be building up a player not beating them into the ground with the harshness of the game.   (They should find that out later on..not in the tutorial section).    The final exam is suppose to be achievable, to build a new players confidence.   This new player experience most likely runs alot of new players off.  Its a unfortunate thing to have happen.

 

 

[Zlatkowar]

Just completed it out of curiosity, and I don't have one single positive thing to say about the exam, the reward, or those who designed it. Quite the opposite really.

I passed it by demasting both ships and then stern raking them to oblivion.

[Lord_Shing]

It took me quite a few tries to complete as expected, but in the end a mistake is what gave me victory.  Upon start I did the usual attempt to manoeuver one ship behind the other while chaining the one in front...I didn't do this very effectively and was taking a pounding.  I then ran to make repairs but I ran downwind instead of my intended upwind (off a few points), this was a mild panic at seeing my hull go bye bye.  As I ran, I noticed that the enemy ships lined up behind me with the sail damaged one lagging behind, so like any good captain I began using my stern chasers to demast the lead ship...got them all by the time the lagging ship caught up to the slowing down front runner.  Once the second ship came around, I just continued my tactic and demasted it as well.

Now free to manoeuver, I went back and selected more poor positions to sink them but was eventually successful after ~1h 15m.  I had to do several repairs through the running to ensure I didn't sink.

Did this on the PvE server and then went on to the PvP server and did the exact same thing for the first try win in ~1h 10m.  I only repaired once this time and only did that out of habit, it wasn't strictly needed.

Not pretty, not gallant, not heroic...but successful.