Using Patrol Circles to score 9000 BR Points in 10 Battles (PvE)

[Tenet]

This method is fully built into the in-game rules. If you do not like it, the rules should change:

Step 1: Find a Patrol Zone in an area where First Rates are common - La Mona Patrol is probably the best

Step 2: Take a Frigate or Light-Frigate into the Patrol Circle, and attack a L'Ocean or Santisima (900 BR Each), make sure to be Downwind (!)

Step 3: Sail Downwind until you reach the circle edge, while putting some shots into the Enemy (get Sail Damage to mark it as your kill).

Step 4: Right before the Enemy is likely to turn, sail outside of the Patrol Circle, but keeping yourself tangent to the circle so you can return in time.

Step 5: When the Enemy ship follows you clearly outside the circle, turn so it can intercept you and commit to a turn + fire broadside behavior.

Step 6: Survive the barrage and re-enter the Patrol Circle enough to Reset the clock.

Step 7: Exit the Patrol Circle again and wait for the Enemy's 5 minute clock to run down to 0. This ensures the Enemy ship stays outside the circle, and since you reset your own timer, the other ship gets sunk first and you win. Your timer stops after winning.

Congratulations, you just Killed a First Rate. You can now loot the corpse. Repeat Steps 1-7 until you reach 8100 points. To get the most Dubs, perform the last battle in the last few hours before Reset, since the tie-breaker is the last person (!?) to reach 9000 points.

PvE Server Testing:

6th Rate Test: ~2700 points, won the ladder (didn't bother to max). Mercury with no skill unlocks and no mods. Lost one ship - mistake, took a broadside from too close a distance.

5th Rate Test: ~4500 points, won the ladder. Surprise Sab/Sab got the most kills, no skills or upgrades required. Lost a Surprise to timer mistake, Lost a Trinc - unable to return upwind.

4th Rate Test: Killed a L'Ocean with an Aggie on accident, discovering this method.

There are paths that are quire possible with heavier ships. but 3rd rate and above is trivial to just win by Boarding/Fighting.

 

Boarding Help Method - alternative method that is also likely used:

1. Make a L'Ocean with Boarding Spec and take Barricades and other defensive skills, Marines, etc.

2. Fight a Lone Santi/L'Ocean and start the fight by softening the rear armor by 25%, then immediately boarding.

3. During the boarding, do not use any attacks, and Defend whenever your crew goes low enough for the AI to Counter-Attack. Slow down the killing of enemy crew.

4. The smaller ship gets behind the Enemy and starts raking from optimal distance and position, starting with hull damage, and then switching to Grape for crew.

5. If the smaller ship does more Crew and Hull damage than the Helper, it will get the kill even if the larger ship wins the boarding.

Can be enhanced by allowing the smaller ship to work down the sails with Chain initially, scoring extra sail damage which adds up for to secure kill.

This can be done in 30-40 minute fights or less. This is simple enough to do with an Alt-Account / Dual-Box.

 

Suggestions:

1.Make Weekly Ladder Fights 1v1 only, do not score kills in fights with friend or fleet ship help. No help, 1v1 only. (This disables the Boarding Help method)

2. Make the AI Ships Immune to the Patrol Circle timer.

Edited May 19, 2019 by Tenet

[van der Clam]

Perhaps this explains it all as to how these light ship weeklies are just ridiculous. I think now is the time to limit weeklies to only 1 rate higher than the required ship.

[Tenet]

3 minutes ago, van der Decken said:

Perhaps this explains it all as to how these light ship weeklies are just ridiculous. I think now is the time to limit weeklies to only 1 rate higher than the required ship.

The other explanation that needs to be handled is Group Kills and help. It takes longer because of DPS requirements, but Clans can push a member to the top of the ladder by securing easy first rate kills.

You use 1x L'Ocean to Board the NPC L'Ocean/Santi, which disables movement and all guns, allowing the Friendly player in a weaker ship to kill all Crew and Sails, and do the most Armor damage - securing the kill. Rake damage against crew is pretty high with the right guns and ship choice.

2 people can get to 9000 points relatively quickly if they perfect the method.

Edited May 17, 2019 by Tenet

[admin]

good point

[Cetric de Cornusiac]

Weeklies need a reform.

(1) Forbid the cooperation for doing them. Just one player should be allowed. If two or more are registered by game mechanics, trying whatever exploit, the score does not get counted for weeklies' calculation.

(2) Reflect the size/potential/BR of ship used in relation to NPC being sunk. The weaker the ship used by player, the more his score must be weighted. It would mean honoring the underdog for doing more risky deeds than the 'sure kill' guy. This would encourage people to use lighter ships in order to score higher.

(3) Add some bonus if player does battles with more than one opponent appearing in weeklies, because... obviously such fights are harder than 1 vs 1 engagements.

[Jan van Santen]

You can't make ai immune to timer . Simply make timed out battles  vs ai a zero result. No exp, no kill, just wasted time.

An other way to profit from timed out ai exploit: traders will always run. So you just chase a trader out of patrol circle w your base cutter to lvl. You dont even need to turn etc.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Jan van Santen