Trimming expert & carronade master & Hold optimization.

[o Barão]

Sorry for my poor english, is not my native language.

 

I usually use fleet control 1, fleet control 2 , expert carpenter, prepared and double shot. However i am thiking now how many times i use double shot to be such an important perk to have and i reach the conclusion that most of the times are against bots. Well if i am doing PVE i should use carronades instead so maybe i should change for another option.

 

A ) Trimming expert. Well i never used this one before. How important this can be? Well how much a ship can heel ? 15 , 20 degrees? So 3 degrees can actually make a big impact in your aiming. I use a lot the Requin and i also tried to use the Trinco before. The players who owns this ships knows how bad the heel is. Yes i understand we can always depower, use battle sails or make the sails aligned to the wind to reduce a lot the heel but sometimes in the heat of the battle things doesn't always go the way we want and the moment i finally reduce the heel maybe i already lost the timming to use the cannons or maybe i lost to much time showing my broadside and the enemy already reload the cannons.. So trimming expert can be an amazing perk to improve the player efficient in the battle? 

 

B ) Carronade master. Well this one i think it is probaly a bad choice but i can be mistaken. There are any player who use this perk?  You guys can make this perk work with others skills to make the carronades efficient at ranges around 400m or more? 

 

C ) Hold optimization. I find this somewhat useful when i am doing pvp so i can carry more repairs without losing so much speed . For carrying cargo i already use fleet control 1 & 2 so maybe is not that important?

 

I want to hear your opnions about this. Thank you.

[William Death]

I use:

Expert Carpenter (must have)
Double Charge (use all the time to demast)
Double Shot  (use all the time for demasting and reload shocking ships...also lets my light PvP builds slug it out with tank builds, after they waste all their double)
Fleet Control 1 (use occasionally to carry an AI repair bucket or take home a nice ship)
Determined Defender (I don't like to be boarded unexpectedly)

And I almost never change it. Occasionally.....maybe...for one duel or something, I might drop fleet control for emergency master. But really its not worth the effort and clicks. 

In the past, when we had free perk resets, I'd sometimes use carronade master combined with accuracy mods to make a carronade ship into a mast sniper.

I find prepared to be useless 90% of the time. If you're tagging an enemy alone and you're in a position to use prepared, that also means you're in a position where you have a harder time escaping if reinforcements join his side. I always play super cautious the first 3 minutes of a fight, so I have plenty of time to get guns to load before I move in to engage. Now, if you're going in a ganking group, its nice to have a fast chaser with prepared to throw chain right at the start. But I'm not about to waste a point and a perk slot on a 'once-in-a-while' scenario.

Trimming expert: to me, all heel mods are useless. I have never found any ship to have a heel I couldn't adapt to. I will use optimized ballast sometimes, but for the 1% speed, not the heel.

Hold optimization: I used it once or twice, since it makes you a little bit faster for a given amount of repairs. But again, not worth the slot to me.

[o Barão]

11 hours ago, William Death said:

I use:

Expert Carpenter (must have)
Double Charge (use all the time to demast)
Double Shot  (use all the time for demasting and reload shocking ships...also lets my light PvP builds slug it out with tank builds, after they waste all their double)
Fleet Control 1 (use occasionally to carry an AI repair bucket or take home a nice ship)
Determined Defender (I don't like to be boarded unexpectedly)

And I almost never change it. Occasionally.....maybe...for one duel or something, I might drop fleet control for emergency master. But really its not worth the effort and clicks. 

In the past, when we had free perk resets, I'd sometimes use carronade master combined with accuracy mods to make a carronade ship into a mast sniper.

I find prepared to be useless 90% of the time. If you're tagging an enemy alone and you're in a position to use prepared, that also means you're in a position where you have a harder time escaping if reinforcements join his side. I always play super cautious the first 3 minutes of a fight, so I have plenty of time to get guns to load before I move in to engage. Now, if you're going in a ganking group, its nice to have a fast chaser with prepared to throw chain right at the start. But I'm not about to waste a point and a perk slot on a 'once-in-a-while' scenario.

Trimming expert: to me, all heel mods are useless. I have never found any ship to have a heel I couldn't adapt to. I will use optimized ballast sometimes, but for the 1% speed, not the heel.

Hold optimization: I used it once or twice, since it makes you a little bit faster for a given amount of repairs. But again, not worth the slot to me.

First i want to thank you for sharing your opinion. I didn't reply yesterday because i wanted to try trimming expert first to have a better opinion.

 

"I always play super cautious the first 3 minutes of a fight, so I have plenty of time to get guns to load before I move in to engage."   I never thoght in this terms. Makes sense . I will discard prepared.

"Double Charge (use all the time to demast)" I never use double charge and i also suck at demasting . Maybe this would help me alot. I will also try this one.

"... I'd sometimes use carronade master combined with accuracy mods to make a carronade ship into a mast sniper." I thought a little more about this and since the carronades loses alot pen around 200m i just think is not worth it.

About my trimming expert experience.  It makes a lot difference when playing with the Requin. Now my biggest complain about the requin not being a stable gun platform doesn't exist anymore. I can sail 90 degrees to the wind and i can aim my cannons that are facing the wind to the waterline  all the time . Also it is more difficult  to get leaks with this perk. I will need to make more tests but it seems it also helps a lot in the aiming having a stable platform all the time. So my first impressions about this were very good.

So atm i am considering using the following perks.

Fleet control 1

Expert carpenter

Double charge

Double shot or ( fleet control 2 because trading )

Trimming expert

[Capn Rocko]

I use carro master when I run full carro load outs. If you are only running carros on your upper deck I don't think it would be worth it.   

I would advise against trimming expert. It's a good perk for beginners who don't know how to manual sail to control heel. And don't forget that heel can be a good thing if you are in a smaller ship needing to chain/demast.

Edited October 20, 2018 by Capn Rocko

[o Barão]

4 hours ago, Capn Rocko said:

I use carro master when I run full carro load outs. If you are only running carros on your upper deck I don't think it would be worth it.   

I would advise against trimming expert. It's a good perk for beginners who don't know how to manual sail to control heel. And don't forget that heel can be a good thing if you are in a smaller ship needing to chain/demast.

Well that is the point. I know how to use manual sails and still find me in situations where i need to waste precious seconds to make the ship stable to fire the guns.  And because of this sometimes i lost my chance to fire my cannons in a perfect broadside ship. Also i like to add the Requin which i use a lot doens't have depower sails and this perk helps a lot . Getting leaks is more difficult but usualy it never wasnt a problem but today i  noticed something when i was fighting the french around puerto de espana, It seems because the ship is more stable  the hull in the Requin is more effective in bouncing shots since that slope hull continues to be in a steep angle. But of course i will need more testings about this.

 

But tell me how you use the carronades? Is doing pve ? How they behave with the perk and other skills?

[William Death]

1 hour ago, no one said:

But tell me how you use the carronades? Is doing pve ? How they behave with the perk and other skills?

I can't speak for Capn Rocko's carronade preferences, obviously, but I can tell you mine. 

Yeah they're good for PvE, of course...but I like them in PvP too.

I almost always run carronades on the upper decks of frigates, and always on lineships (except Pavel and Wapen, where the tiny longs are usually less useless than tiny carros). The carronades give you extra punch up close, and if you're firing at good angles and shooting that deck by itself (turning off the long cannons below), they can be pretty effective out to 400m, and effective against masts out to 100-200m depending on ship class.

Another thing to think about, most of the time the long cannons that are carried on the upper decks are uselessly small. 9pdrs on the upper deck of a Bellona....uhh....no thanks.

Example:
If you're at a range and angle where a 9pdr will pen, a 32pd carronade will be effective too. (I know the stats are different, but think about it this way):
If you are fighting a L'Ocean with your Bellona....9pdrs are going to bounce unless you're super close and at a perfect angle. You may *technically* have the pen out to 200m+ to do damage, but let that Ocean get just a few degrees angle (and the hull is already angled) and you're long 9pd cannon won't pen.
So don't bother wasting crew to reload it. Turn that deck off. Now, you move in close and it'll pen...but if you're that close....wouldn't you rather have a carronade then?  

Same thing applies in frigate vs frigate engagements, but the comparison isn't as dramatic. 

 

However, some ships do have useful top decks of long guns. Santa Cecilia, Surprise, and L'Hermione stand out to me as such. In all cases, their upper decks are only 1 class smaller than their lower decks, making them quite useful against other ships you'll fight. In contrast, look at Trinco with her 18/9 decks, or Endy with her 24/9 decks...much, much better, IMO, to have carronades there on the upper decks. Those 9pdrs don't do much unless you load charge or double in them or are at just the right range and angle to take advantage of them (rarely happens). Carronades, on the other hand do damage up close, also have the pen to demast when close, and they give you a tiny bit more speed and are a little easier on reload times.

Another way to look at it: anything less than a 32pd carronade is suitable only for ship-hugging (silly Endys and Belles running around with 24/12 or 32/24 carronade loadouts and hugging lineship noobs) or shallow water ships. 

 

Further observations/tips:

• Using carronades on the top deck effectively increases your double shot/charge shot count. You get 4 rounds per gun on the ship. Ships with large top deck batteries (Trinco, Endy, Connie, Santi) really benefit from this. I've fought battles with those ships where I still had some charge and double left at the end of the battle, yet I was steadily firing broadsides throughout. 
• I recommend at least one accuracy mod. I like gunnery encyclopedia, but instructions aux cannoniers is almost as good and much more common. I wouldn't recommend a straight accuracy mod (like Pellew's) unless you're specifically building a demasting build or something. Better to lose a few % accuracy and gain some reload or crew modifiers from the multi-purpose mods.
• Always remember the most important skill of reload/crew management: if it won't do damage, don't shoot it. Basically, if you don't fire a cannon, the crew reloading that cannon goes to another cannon. So I might only have 197/343 crew in reload, but as long as I don't fire my top deck when its not going to do damage, I'll have nearly 100% reload rate on the bottom deck cannons. With that, I can fight both sides of my ship using the bottom decks, or I can fight one side using both decks. But trying to fight both sides using both decks is a losing proposition. 

[o Barão]

33 minutes ago, William Death said:

I can't speak for Capn Rocko's carronade preferences, obviously, but I can tell you mine. 

Yeah they're good for PvE, of course...but I like them in PvP too.

I almost always run carronades on the upper decks of frigates, and always on lineships (except Pavel and Wapen, where the tiny longs are usually less useless than tiny carros). The carronades give you extra punch up close, and if you're firing at good angles and shooting that deck by itself (turning off the long cannons below), they can be pretty effective out to 400m, and effective against masts out to 100-200m depending on ship class.

Another thing to think about, most of the time the long cannons that are carried on the upper decks are uselessly small. 9pdrs on the upper deck of a Bellona....uhh....no thanks.

Example:
If you're at a range and angle where a 9pdr will pen, a 32pd carronade will be effective too. (I know the stats are different, but think about it this way):
If you are fighting a L'Ocean with your Bellona....9pdrs are going to bounce unless you're super close and at a perfect angle. You may *technically* have the pen out to 200m+ to do damage, but let that Ocean get just a few degrees angle (and the hull is already angled) and you're long 9pd cannon won't pen.
So don't bother wasting crew to reload it. Turn that deck off. Now, you move in close and it'll pen...but if you're that close....wouldn't you rather have a carronade then?  

Same thing applies in frigate vs frigate engagements, but the comparison isn't as dramatic. 

 

However, some ships do have useful top decks of long guns. Santa Cecilia, Surprise, and L'Hermione stand out to me as such. In all cases, their upper decks are only 1 class smaller than their lower decks, making them quite useful against other ships you'll fight. In contrast, look at Trinco with her 18/9 decks, or Endy with her 24/9 decks...much, much better, IMO, to have carronades there on the upper decks. Those 9pdrs don't do much unless you load charge or double in them or are at just the right range and angle to take advantage of them (rarely happens). Carronades, on the other hand do damage up close, also have the pen to demast when close, and they give you a tiny bit more speed and are a little easier on reload times.

Another way to look at it: anything less than a 32pd carronade is suitable only for ship-hugging (silly Endys and Belles running around with 24/12 or 32/24 carronade loadouts and hugging lineship noobs) or shallow water ships. 

 

Further observations/tips:

• Using carronades on the top deck effectively increases your double shot/charge shot count. You get 4 rounds per gun on the ship. Ships with large top deck batteries (Trinco, Endy, Connie, Santi) really benefit from this. I've fought battles with those ships where I still had some charge and double left at the end of the battle, yet I was steadily firing broadsides throughout. 
• I recommend at least one accuracy mod. I like gunnery encyclopedia, but instructions aux cannoniers is almost as good and much more common. I wouldn't recommend a straight accuracy mod (like Pellew's) unless you're specifically building a demasting build or something. Better to lose a few % accuracy and gain some reload or crew modifiers from the multi-purpose mods.
• Always remember the most important skill of reload/crew management: if it won't do damage, don't shoot it. Basically, if you don't fire a cannon, the crew reloading that cannon goes to another cannon. So I might only have 197/343 crew in reload, but as long as I don't fire my top deck when its not going to do damage, I'll have nearly 100% reload rate on the bottom deck cannons. With that, I can fight both sides of my ship using the bottom decks, or I can fight one side using both decks. But trying to fight both sides using both decks is a losing proposition. 

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation and the tips you gave.

[Capn Rocko]

3 hours ago, no one said:

But tell me how you use the carronades? Is doing pve ? How they behave with the perk and other skills?

Carronade Master perk combined with gunnery encyclopedia/old flag officer allows your carronades to penetrate better at the 300-500 meter range. This gives you more space when fighting other players/AI. It does take some practice to do this as you need to aim your guns at least 5 seconds in advance to get the most accurate shot.

But as I mentioned before, I would not recommend the Carronade Mater perk unless you are running a full carro setup. The larger caliber guns benefit the most from this perk. If you are running carros on the weather deck and cannons on the bottom decks, then it is best to just turn off your carronades until you are within the 200 meter range.