Is it fun to buy new ships?

[claudius]

PS4; normal difficulty

My party is level 18 I've cleared lots of quests but still to do Ashen Maw meet Eothas.  Bounties have lead me to ships to destroy to meet bounties that are much bigger than my ship.  I have upgraded my ship I started with buying it new sails etc.  My tactic in ship combat is to have far guns on one side (2 with beginner ship) and close up guns on other side (2 with beginner ship).  I maneuver to far range then stop (more accuracy) then fire.  Then I close range for close guns and jibe or maneuver to other side (close guns), stop, and then fire.  Rinse and repeat.

With these most recent bounties they had 5 guns on each side so I just boarded them and I was much higher level combatants so I win.

But my question is on this my first playthrough would it be fun to buy the biggest, baddest, best ship and explore the game in that way?  Is it fun?  Any tips on ship combat?

Thanks!

Edited October 28, 2022 by claudius

[thelee]

honestly you can make do with the basic ship. i upgrade ships for one of two reasons:

1. i get the Voyager if I want to travel real fast for some reason - it has the fastest max speed. (common reasons: eothas challenge, rymgrand challenge are both sensitive to travel times)

2. for the style factor

with decent skills and occasional upgrades, you can totally wreck most enemy ships with just the basic ship. with Ondras challenge it's more of a difficult fight, but still do-able. the main reason why you'd upgrade is to utterly demolish enemy ships (five powerful cannons firing at once off a Junk will make quick work of any enemy ship), and to have a cooler place to hang out (so, just style factor). for this reason i'll use the rautai submarine even though it's like way worse than even the basic ship, since you can't ugprade it. it's still cool as heck

[claudius]

I think I'm going to go for it with a new ship and considering my options.  When I buy a new ship can I sell my old one?  The Dyrwoodan Sloop?

I have about 120 k gold and probably some unique weapons and craftables if I really need to sell if I get low on gold.  I have lots of food and drink for crew.

I'm thinking to go with Dhow or Galleon?  The Dhow wouldn't be as big a jump but maybe I want to jump all the way to Galleon?

Also I'm a Priest of Wael and Conjurer going to align with Principi if that matters.

Edited October 29, 2022 by claudius

[Boeroer]

After the initial phase of experimenting with all the different ship types I nowadays don't buy those anymore - and I always sink every named ship in the Deadfire with the starting Sloop. It's perfectly capable of sinking every other ship with the right combination of upgrades, cannons, crew and sailors' experience. 

Buying another ship is burning money - but it can be fun nonetheless. For example with the Voyager you can fight very differently than with a Sloop because you can fire the cannons in the direction you are going. So you can - for example - equip the Voyager with a flamethrower in the stern, sail towards the enemy really close and really quick (where most cannons are very uneffective), turn around and torch them with the flamethrower every 2 rounds. If the enemy wants to close the gap for boarding you can simply sail away a tiny bit (you will always be faster wit the right sails) and continue - while they can't shoot at you. It's rel. foolproof, too. 

[claudius]

Cool I've read around a little and find that you cannot sell your old ships.  Too bad.  I wonder  if you can get the ship achievement for having each ship if you buy them all and go back to a saved game?   Or even buy different ships on subsequent, separate playthroughs?  I had already intended to do 4 total playthroughs with one playthrough for each faction.  I could take 1 extra ship per playthrough?  Voyager Huana, Dhow Principi, Galleon VTC, and Junk for Rautai empire people.

Edited October 29, 2022 by claudius

[Shai Hulud]

Once late in the game I usually have stupid amounts of money (300k+) so why not buy some ships? The junk absolutely destroys other ships if you equip one side with 5 Vailian Hullbreakers, or alternatively 8 double bronzers and jibe, hold between volleys. Though the first volley often cripples the enemy. 

The sloop is good enough with upgrades to sink any ship, really any of them are, but some ships like the Voyager get wrecked in ship combat because of raking fire. It's the fastest ship (not a big difference vs upgraded sloop / dhow / galleon though), but man it sucks at ship combat. If you want to use the Voyager I'd put two double bronzers in the front, fire immediately (don't hold) so you can get raking fire, and use grapeshot. If both shots hit you take 4 enemy crew out, then you can board. Or even better, Haeferic's Nose + Double Bronzer can take out 6 crew in one volley with raking fire.  Personally I don't enjoy the ship combat, I prefer sinking them. 

And if you want to sink them, the Junk is the best, period. 10 cannons? Yes please. You need a lot of sailors though. Make sure to collect the three Master cannonneers, then you can add a couple experts for the last two slots. The junk travel speed is slightly lower, which only really matters if you have Eothas' challenge enabled. 

If Eothas' challenge is enabled the galleon would probably be best for ship combat. The dhow is also okay but IMO not a big advantage over the sloop. Sloop can fire 2 cannons every 3 turns with fire jibe hold fire jibe hold repeat dhow can fire 3 cannons every 4 turns, since jibes take two turns. fire jibe jibe hold fire jibe jibe hold repeat. So the dhow actually has slightly higher damage potential (3/4 per turn vs 2/3 per turn), and it also has more hull and sail health, but it is less maneuverable and you will find it harder to do strategies like I outline below. 

If you like the idea of managing lots of sailors and sailing around sinking everybody the junk is pretty fun, too. 

Combat, depends on the enemy ship. Vs. dhow and galleon a good strategy with the sloop is to fire one volley at the sails broadside, then sail in within < 100 meters of the enemy. The enemy ship will turn after firing either to charge you or run away. Either way, fire at the sails. Two Vailian Hullbreakers will do about 38 damage raking fire if both shots hit. The enemy can't turn without sails so now you can pick away their sailors then board or sink them. 

Vs. junks you can use the same strategy but you need good hull health vs a lot of enemies. If they have 5 double bronzers or Hullbreakers, watch out! With the sloop it will usually take you 3 volleys to break the sails, and the enemy will likely have fired 2 to 3 itself so that is potentially a LOT of damage. 

One thing I've noticed to conserve action economy, when you have to do a "report to" to fix some ship event, you don't need to actually confirm. Just click "report to", fill in the sailors, then hit cancel. They will still fix whatever the problem is and you don't lose the turn. Only thing this doesn't work for is switching out injured sailors.

Vs. voyagers their hull health is so low it is generally best just to use cannon to sink them. You'll often take 1 to 2 rounds of raking fire which sucks but there isn't much point targeting their sails since they can still get you with the fore cannons. Voyagers don't have much loot anyway. Galleons are the best targets since they are fairly easy to sink and carry a ton of cargo.

The best cannons in almost every situation are the Vailian Hullbreakers. Enemies usually have longer range cannons so you can fight close enough (range 0 to 250 meters) to give the enemy big accuracy penalties. The base damage is also huge and they can be fired every 4 turns. Getting 4 is a little tricky, you can actually get 6 but 4 of them require boarding enemy ships (Radulf, Rafiq Red Beard, Rock Stomper Radul, and Fyrgist). If you need to board enemies, take the sails out while they're facing you or fleeing, then whittle away their ship defenders with grapeshot. Also if you need to use grapeshot then Haeferic's nose is the best cannon. It does double damage with grapeshot for some reason.

If you're using the sloop 2 Vailian hullbreakers are enough and you can get two in Port Maje if you bought one before the first quest. On the other side use two Royal Bronzers or Haeferic's Nose + Royal Bronzer (Haeferic's Nose requires you to have bound the spirits to the cannons in The White Forge, you get it first time you leave Neketaka).  

Magran's Flamethrowers do a lot of damage but you can't really target specific parts of ships. Even if you pick grapeshot or chainshot they just randomly hit, usually the hull but often the sail, and seem to set deck and hull fires more often.

Vital upgrades - get the misc. upgrades when you can afford them. The Dragonwing sails and Red Dream are probably best overall for combat. Once you figure out the battle mechanics and realize enemies don't target your sails, the Palm Sails are actually fine, as are Stormwind. On the rare occasion your sails get hit you can repair them in 2 turns. 

[ArnoldRimmer]

No