Ship combat: How do you move behind an immobile ship

[ArnoldRimmer]

In some fights i manage to destroy all their sales and then they don't move.

 

When this happens how can I move behind them so that their sides are not facing me so that they can't shoot cannons at me?

[omgFIREBALLS]

You can't

 

But if you know the range of your cannons and theirs, you can camp at one ideal to you.

[Myztik]

You could've blown their hull by that point, ignore shooting sails

[KDubya]

Not being able to out manoever a ship with no sails is another big problem with the whole ship combat system.

 

Give me a reason or benefit to use chainshot and remove sails.

 

Let me manouver such that I'm perpendicular to their ship such that I fire raking shots, not have me expose myself to raking fire.

 

I'm hoping that in the first DLC they totally revamp ship combat and at least give us a plan view of two ships and let us manouver relative to the other ship to take advantage of wind direction and raking fire.

[omgFIREBALLS]

They really could add the option when the enemy has no sails, to reposition your ship to fire at their bow or stern. The time would depend on distance between the ships, and also when you're halfway done or more, the enemy ship would no longer be able to broadside you. In the pictures it would be expressed by the enemy ship turning.

[Ichthyic]

the game does not seem to care what the orientation of the enemy ship is wrt to firing cannons.  they always seem to be able to broadside you, even if they are moving forward in the previous turn, even if it is a galleon.  so frankly it doesn't matter even if you re-align yourself relative to them by say, turning to put your stern to them and moving away 50m.  it only means YOU won't be able to broadside them.  I think the ship system needs a bit of detail work frankly, but the potential is there for storyboarded ship combat that could be quite fun.

it's *almost* there.  just not quite.

 

[Ichthyic]

Not being able to out manoever a ship with no sails is another big problem with the whole ship combat system.

 

Give me a reason or benefit to use chainshot and remove sails.

 

Let me manouver such that I'm perpendicular to their ship such that I fire raking shots, not have me expose myself to raking fire.

 

I'm hoping that in the first DLC they totally revamp ship combat and at least give us a plan view of two ships and let us manouver relative to the other ship to take advantage of wind direction and raking fire.

well, it's not for want of trying.  if you follow the detail in the turn log, you can clearly see that destroying, or even severely damaging, enemy sails DOES have an effect on how long it takes them to accomplish turns that require movement, and you certainly can modify distances between your ship and theirs much more easily.

 

it's just that ranges don't mean much given that expert cannoneers can basically increase the effective range of their cannon by a huge margin (just like your crew can), and the game automatically seems to allow enemy ships to fire broadsides from any angle.

 

the effect of torn sails is much more noticeable with a novice crew, OR, if you grapeshot an experienced crew.  once you have novices behind the cannons, having torn their sails so you can move around them more easily becomes much more noticeable as an advantage. 

 

but then, as people pointed out, with a novice crew you might as well just blast them with cannonballs instead.  I think the only times I found using grape/chain shot any advantage, was when fighting very experienced crews sailing galleons with very high hull strengths.  THEN, either using chain or grapeshot (not both) becomes a worthwhile strategy.  if you can take out at least half their experienced cannon crew on your first turn with grapeshot, you then have a huge advantage. 

 

My rule of thumb when fighting experienced crews was always try ONE round of grape/chain shot first.  then immediately switch to balls for the rest of the combat.  a lucky first round would give you a huge advantage, in both offense and defense (especially), without taking away too much from the damage you could have potentially done to their hulls.

 

 

[KDubya]

With a Junk and full double bronzers you can drop a Galleon in three broadsides. No reason to waste time with sails or crew damage just sink it and be done.

 

When they lose thier sails they can still fire cannons. As long as they have a few crew members they will still fire cannons. Enemy ships usually have the weaker, faster reloading cannons so the time needed for you with your eight turn reload double bronzers to jibe, hold, fire and then jibe, hold, fire gives them enough time to just keep reloading the one side and firing back at you.

 

They need a system that takes relative position and the wind direction into account. The compass thingy just comes across as half assed.

[Usana]

You know when it comes to ship combat what always comes to mind for me is Cutthroats:Terror on the High Seas. And frankly I think they did ship to ship combat much better. Though it is real time. But the point is that game was all about mobility(for me anyways). Frankly I relied heavily on the smaller ships for combat. Shelling your foes is all good, but it is better if you don't get shelled back. Meanwhile combat here feels like stand and fifty paces and shell. Maybe more realistic, but I find it quite a bit more boring. Out maneuvering foes you really shouldn't be doing battle with and pulling a by the hair of your teeth win was so much more fun. Though it could get boring since once you got it down it wasn't much of a challenge, the smaller ships could keep out of the line of fire easily enough if you were paying attention. Though multiple ships could complicate things.

 

Anyways as it is ship combat feels like a chore here, so I tend to avoid it unless necessary.