I mean, they only have to make away to be in full repair and supply, whereas my ship is still damaged and undersupplied because of the exchange.

Come old chap, all you need to do is pull in at a nearby harbor and make some repairs.

 

I admit that ship combat is difficult in the beginning before you get all the toys, but it's a walk in the park late game. 

Come old chap, all you need to do is pull in at a nearby harbor and make some repairs.

 

I admit that ship combat is difficult in the beginning before you get all the toys, but it's a walk in the park late game. 

 

It's not that it's particularly hard, it's just rigged.

Edited October 26, 20187 yr by abaris

I agree that this is kind of unfair. While the rest of the ship combat is very easy (once you understand how it works) this particular thing is annoying me. Especially because some of the tougher ships like Deck of Many Things like to immediately turn and flee if my first salvo hits really hard. Once I reengage they are fully healed. Eh...

This is Ondra's Challenge material.

It would have been easy otherwise. 

 

On the other hand you can repair your own ship during combat, while the enemy never can. How fair is that?

It would have been easy otherwise. 

 

On the other hand you can repair your own ship during combat, while the enemy never can. How fair is that?

 

Oh, they do. They dispatching crew members just as I would do. I don't know how you come to the conclusion, they can't.

 

It would have been easy otherwise. 

 

On the other hand you can repair your own ship during combat, while the enemy never can. How fair is that?

 

Oh, they do. They dispatching crew members just as I would do. I don't know how you come to the conclusion, they can't.

 

 

I have never seen the ai getting the "repair hull" or "repair sail" event, they only ever get negative events 

 

It would have been easy otherwise. 

 

On the other hand you can repair your own ship during combat, while the enemy never can. How fair is that?

 

Oh, they do. They dispatching crew members just as I would do. I don't know how you come to the conclusion, they can't.

 

 

Never seen them do that, bud. 

 

If it's any help, just level your cannoneers to rank 4 by sinking a few merchant ships and visiting stuff around the map. That should make you apply statuses much more often. 

Arguably, ship combat is rigged completely in your favor because save/load and the enemy can't. Also ship combat is generally designed to be beaten, not vice versa.

Yeah, yeah. But the point is that this one behavior is not right: You can blow a ship down to 1 hull and if it manages to escape and you immediately reengage it has full hull. 

I did find it annoying at first, until I started targeting enemy sails as priority. They like to escape otherwise. 

That doesn't work if you like to fight at long range. As long as they have 1 sail left they can turn and escape with half sail. Because they just have to reach the 600+ mark.

Edited October 26, 20187 yr by Boeroer

BTW, if they do escape a number of times, they will run out of repairs. It happened to me once in an earlier playthrough. I was having some trouble with Diccila and kept a lot of distance. 

Edited October 26, 20187 yr by Hulk'O'Saurus

I mean, they only have to make away to be in full repair and supply, whereas my ship is still damaged and undersupplied because of the exchange.

I think that is just a way to compensate for the fact that the AI isn't as clever as a human character. I have had success bringing down bounties far above my level because I could focus on ship combat and avoid boarding. The enemy escaping and repairing has been far less devastating than the enemy boarding and one/two hitting my main. 

 

I suppose you could argue that one should only go after ships of about the same level but I think it fits the lore for me to be competent enough to down a big ship and get some gear considering the Watcher's feats in the first game leave him/her extremely competent, albeit low on power.. 

The ship combat is rigged I agree. It seems to favour AI unreasonably. AI can turn around and runaway. I can't but only surrender. I can't close or increase distance after turn to port. But evemy can?

Edited October 28, 20187 yr by Archaven

You can turn and flee. As the enemy you have to reach a distance of over 600m.

 

Enemies can't turn to Port/Starboard and then advance.

 

Enemies can't surrender.

 

Sometimes AI is also really dumb, doing hold position and nothing else which makes then a sitting duck.

 

All in all the AI has a hard time, but this fleeing and being fully repaired in an instant is a bit meh.

 

It's also frustrating that you can't sail around a ship and get to its other sides without it turning.

Edited October 28, 20187 yr by Boeroer

The ship combat is rigged I agree. It seems to favour AI unreasonably. AI can turn around and runaway. I can't but only surrender. I can't close or increase distance after turn to port. But evemy can?

 

You can also turn and flee. It all depends on how well equipped your ship is and how well experienced your crew is. The problem in doing so is the insta repair of the enemy. If you're an inch before you're being blown out of the water, you carry that damage, while the fully repaired enemy doesn't need to lick it's wounds. They can just reengage and sink you with their first barrage.

Edited October 28, 20187 yr by abaris

If you flee, the enemy is quite far from you, you know. If they flee, on the other hand, they spawn right on top of you, so you can reengage. 

 

You must be doing something wrong to get the conclusion that sea battles are riggen in your disfavour. 

If you flee, the enemy is quite far from you, you know. If they flee, on the other hand, they spawn right on top of you, so you can reengage. 

 

You must be doing something wrong to get the conclusion that sea battles are riggen in your disfavour. 

 

Far from you? You have been obviously in luck. You never had that situation of the enemy homing in on you over and over, after disengaging?

Mate, I've been playing those ships over and over, and over again, and I know what I'm talking about. 

 

Get a sailor at every spot, level their ranks by sinking 3 to 4 merchant ships and visiting some spots on the map. With a rank 3 and above Navigator no ship will ever catch you. Not to mention that with two rank 4 gunners you will sink everything with beginning sloop. 

Ship combat is ridiculously easy once you know what's going on, but still that one mechanic is not right.

Ship combat has a lot of the problems that early pokemon games had and have only just started solving, and their entire game is based around the same sort of encounter and trade of of blows that is just a mini-game in Pillars.

I mean, there's much better things to do in this game than ship combat. And ship combat at best becomes somewhat tedious, but it does net you cash and xp rather quickly... and easily... so if you were to ask me if I wanted it to change, I'd say there's other things they may well look into before that, and just leave ship combat as it is. 

I just board em. Ship combat is meh.