The Ship combat thread

[syphonhail]

I'm pondering writting a negative review of this game just due to how bad ship to ship combat is. It feels so badly implemented and out of place in game like this.

 

I had fights where I would chase the enemy ship for 10 turns or more, trying to hit it, missing, going left, going right, and then after 15minutes instead of trying to sink them, they board you and you are 4v20 and die in 2 seconds...like who thought this system through, who though this would be fun?

 

This game so far is miles belowed PoE. Right now I'd almost call it a bad game.

 

Some other irks:

- hate the narrator

- hate the stupid english-italian accent

- hate the inclusion of unknown words that you constanly have to hover to see what the NPC is talking about

- hate the rations ship system

Sounds like you hate it because you don't understand it. The Ship Combat is amazing.

 

1. Close to Cannon Range
2. Turn To Port/Starboard
3. Halt
4. Fire Cannons
5. Jibe
6. Halt
7. Fire Cannons 
8. Repeat Steps 5-7

Just destroyed the Black Isle Bastards and Captain Fygist and it was fun. Double Bronzers are the way to go! The Kapana Taga looks like an interesting sword.

Edited May 17, 2018 by syphonhail

[Aridea]

Love the ship combat. I was initially averse to it, and reading other people's responses realized that my own problem was also a lack of proper tutorial. Or at least to really understand what some of the terms meant. But once you get the hang of it, its quite cool and the rewards are awesome. In the beginning, your small ship can escape from pretty much anything if you want to avoid it.

 

As for other nitpicks:

- the narrator is fine, she has a nice voice. However, I could do without her sometimes when I am restarting the game for 10th time and want to skip conversations.

- LOVE the accent, the voice work is superb and gives characters a lot of life

- there are only about max 10 simple words that are used, and all of them you can remember in the first 30 min without needing to hover over later. If anything they also give a lot of cultural distinction to characters.

- Rations are fine, there is stuff in abundance across islands, baring that you can buy food/drink for cheap. Expert cook on your ship also reduces the number of rations consumed per day

[PangaeaACDC]

Another cool event in ship combat. No idea about the chances for this, or if it was unique somehow, but I sure was surprised when the ship sank on the first salvo.

 

Edited May 17, 2018 by PangaeaACDC

[Camonge]

They just need to better articulate boarding and shooting phases.

 

Anyone played nantucket? There are some fine environmental stuff there for naval combat.

[ThacoBell]

 

I usually just rush to board, and deal with the injuries.

 

Don't even bother with rush to board - it assumes way too much damage. Just keep hitting "1" (full speed ahead) until you reach boarding range and you'll take maybe one or two hits.

 

The problem is that full speed ahead doesn't always work. I've had multiple instances whre an enemy ship was quick enough to stay away and even escape before I could catch up to them.

[TomReneth]

Hey,

 

After getting a character to import (I thought I already had one, but I didn't, so: Hello, Dyrwood!) and having some fun sneaking about a castle and stuff, I found myself in a few ship-to-ship combat scenarios. The short of it is that I really, really didn't enjoy it as it seemed rather rife with RNG and, should I overcome that with some investment to my ship, far too tedious to bother with.

 

I really don't want to be a downer, as I've enjoyed the parts of the game not related to the ship quite a bit, but I'm not inclined to deal with the ship combat. Is it something I can largely avoid? Because otherwise I'm probably going to go back to Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition for the forseeable future.

[Koth]

Just keep sailing straight ahead to close the distance, then board them for normal combat. You’ll take a bit of damage, but repair supplies are cheap, so meh. Plus side is that you get much more loot from normal combat anyway

[Voss]

Just keep sailing straight ahead to close the distance, then board them for normal combat. You’ll take a bit of damage, but repair supplies are cheap, so meh. Plus side is that you get much more loot from normal combat anyway

Yep.

 

Ship combat is fairly pointless.  The auto-close damages you a lot, if you just go straight to the enemy, most of them fail to shoot at you much.

 

Also, sure it nets you money and whatnot, but it's never really important 

Edited May 19, 2018 by Voss

[Shakyr]

Personally, I found it fun. Been quite a few times I've just sat in that screen and blown up a ship (even if I get less loot). Do that a few times and your crew gains massive amounts of experience. Higher ranks improve things like travel speed on the world map, as well as higher chance with cannons, healing speed of injured crewmen, etc.

 

First off, equip 4 of the basic cannons on your ship. Then in a ship battle, close to ~250m (Full speed ahead). Turn to port or starboard, doesn't matter which. Fire grape shot. This injures crew and ends up taking out sails as well. Injured crew means less people to man the cannons and maneuver. Sails damaged or gone, means they're less likely to get a wind advantage and more likely to stuff up a turn (especially compounded with injured crew).

 

Now jibe, which will turn you around. Fire grape shot again, then jibe and repeat. The aim is to get the crew down to 0 or 1 (bottom right, first number), which if you trigger a few events, easily done. At that point, switch to cannon shot and start filling them with holes/injuring below deck crew. Once you get their hull < 10-15, you can choose to close to board (more loot), or just blow them up (more crew experience).

 

Once you have 3rd rank cannoneers, you should be able to attack from 300-350m (less turns spent moving forward at the start). What you have to watch out for, is that while reloading one side, they have a lower chance to hit with the other side (-20% or so). Being at the lower range of a cannon, increases chance to hit. So you need to pick a distance that nets you ~95% for the first volley and ~75% for the following volleys.

[Nokturnal Lex]

I'm guessing you're play a rogue. Seeing as you can't stealth prior to engagement always use the Smoke Screen ability at the start of boarding combat. It'll reset the enemies targetting to focus on your other (hopefully more tanky) characters.

 

Far as the text adventure of ship-vs-ship combat. Never do the boarding action. Do the combat action, but then just spam Full Speed Ahead until you're close enough to board then board them. (Reduces how much dmg your ship takes to like none and gets straight to the regular combat)

[Karkarov]

There needs to be some incentive to participate in ship combat like maybe a chance they will surrender if I do enough damage.  Or make it more risky to simply rush forward.  Every battle I have been in, the enemy captain just parks and holds position without moving as I rush towards him.     

That's the thing, most people who never do proper ship combat won't realize it but, there is an incentive.

 

You get better crew EXP, and better loot if you win the ship battle the "traditional" way, and do not win via boarding.  I have done multiple boarding wins, the rewards always suck, even if the enemy initiates it.  Meanwhile I always get a full page, sometimes almost two pages, of loot when I win by sinking them.

 

Like I mentioned earlier, once you actually invest in the best guns, and best ship, and best upgrades, and get expert or better cannoneers ship combat is also stupidly fast to win without boarding.  I would go so far as to say it might be faster than spamming 1 and fighting it out in many cases, especially if the enemy crew is high level.

Edited May 19, 2018 by Karkarov

[GamerSerg]

 

Just keep sailing straight ahead to close the distance, then board them for normal combat. You’ll take a bit of damage, but repair supplies are cheap, so meh. Plus side is that you get much more loot from normal combat anyway

Yep.

 

Ship combat is fairly pointless.  The auto-close damages you a lot, if you just go straight to the enemy, most of them fail to shoot at you much.

 

Also, sure it nets you money and whatnot, but it's never really important 

 

 

Enter combat, sail forward repeatedly, board the ship and fight a quick battle of all your companions and sidekicks against their weak crew.  Works every time and you don't even need to bother with wasting gold on better ships or upgrades.  Whatever you start the game with is more than enough to win every battle.  Kinda sad really. 

 

They should have made ship combat more like the scripted interactions used in other parts of the game, with choices to make and skill checks to pass.  It would have been more challenging.  They do something like that if your ship enters a storm and it was fun.  Either that or enter a Sid Miers Pirates style naval combat.

[Nemesis7884]

it seems when you shoot down the crew before boarding this might have a slight impact on the guys on deck (at least there are some dead lying around) but my god - especially in the beinning of the game - there are SO MANY enemies when you board a ship...its incredibly hard to win fights very early on...at the same time its incredibly easy to just sink the exact same ships...i think that needs some balance tweakin

[ThacoBell]

Oddly enough, I have the opposite problem.

[PangaeaACDC]

 

There needs to be some incentive to participate in ship combat like maybe a chance they will surrender if I do enough damage.  Or make it more risky to simply rush forward.  Every battle I have been in, the enemy captain just parks and holds position without moving as I rush towards him.     

That's the thing, most people who never do proper ship combat won't realize it but, there is an incentive.

 

You get better crew EXP, and better loot if you win the ship battle the "traditional" way, and do not win via boarding.  I have done multiple boarding wins, the rewards always suck, even if the enemy initiates it.  Meanwhile I always get a full page, sometimes almost two pages, of loot when I win by sinking them.

 

Like I mentioned earlier, once you actually invest in the best guns, and best ship, and best upgrades, and get expert or better cannoneers ship combat is also stupidly fast to win without boarding.  I would go so far as to say it might be faster than spamming 1 and fighting it out in many cases, especially if the enemy crew is high level.

 

 

Definitely agree with that. Admittedly normal combat is slow for me because I turn off all AI and do everything myself, but the XP and loot is better from normal ship to ship combat, and for me at least, it's also more fun.

 

If you for some reason are low on repair supplies, medicine and cannonballs -- just attack a merchant ship and you'll fill up. I routinely get 30-50 cannonballs and suchlike from sinking merchant ships. Which of course makes sense, because they carry lots of wares.

 

Currently boarding also has the issue of a potentially weak main character being put on the front, and nuked by the enemy crew. Hence dying pretty darn fast.

 

What the game needs is a better tutorial that better explains ship-to-ship combat. Yes, some will always hate it due to the zero-patience nature of people these days, but I think many can get to like it as well, when they know what's really going on and how to best use the different tactical options.

[Saint Toad]

I like ship combat well enough as-is. But I think if I wasn't already somewhat familiar with naval combat in sailing ships (thanks, Patrick O'Brien novels!) I would have found it much more confusing.

 

I think the combat could use some refinements. I'm not clear whether causing crew casualties with grapeshot makes boarding any easier. And if I'm able to take the ship without sinking it, I'd like to be able to send it back to Port with a prize crew (although that might be economy-breaking).

[Epimetreus]

I like ship combat well enough as-is. But I think if I wasn't already somewhat familiar with naval combat in sailing ships (thanks, Patrick O'Brien novels!) I would have found it much more confusing.

I think the combat could use some refinements. I'm not clear whether causing crew casualties with grapeshot makes boarding any easier. And if I'm able to take the ship without sinking it, I'd like to be able to send it back to Port with a prize crew (although that might be economy-breaking).

I’m pretty sure that causing crew casualties only affects the pre-boarding element of the combat. Unfortunate, since it makes sense that if you injure half the enemy crew with grapeshot, there ought to be less able-bodied combatants when you board. However, don’t discount it - if they have to pull cannoneers to put out a fire, you’ve saved yourself some trouble.

 

I’d really like to see prize-taking. Of course, you should have to repair all the damage you did before boarding and capturing the ship... but it would be great to get a higher-quality ship by storming it and killing the crew. And lower-quality or identical ships? Sell ‘em for cash!

[illathid]

 

I like ship combat well enough as-is. But I think if I wasn't already somewhat familiar with naval combat in sailing ships (thanks, Patrick O'Brien novels!) I would have found it much more confusing.

I think the combat could use some refinements. I'm not clear whether causing crew casualties with grapeshot makes boarding any easier. And if I'm able to take the ship without sinking it, I'd like to be able to send it back to Port with a prize crew (although that might be economy-breaking).

I’m pretty sure that causing crew casualties only affects the pre-boarding element of the combat. Unfortunate, since it makes sense that if you injure half the enemy crew with grapeshot, there ought to be less able-bodied combatants when you board. However, don’t discount it - if they have to pull cannoneers to put out a fire, you’ve saved yourself some trouble.

 

I’d really like to see prize-taking. Of course, you should have to repair all the damage you did before boarding and capturing the ship... but it would be great to get a higher-quality ship by storming it and killing the crew. And lower-quality or identical ships? Sell ‘em for cash!

 

 

IIRC Josh has said that injured crews showing up for boarding is a bug.

 

And yeah, prize taking would be a lot of fun.

[Wormerine]

Another cool event in ship combat. No idea about the chances for this, or if it was unique somehow, but I sure was surprised when the ship sank on the first salvo.

 

Ship gunpowder stores.jpg

It was happening every othe fight in one of the beta builds. They seriously lowered odds of that happening.

[Shakyr]

As someone mentioned these back on the 2nd page, I figured I'd post a screenshot of the stats. Unfortunately you don't seem to be able to acquire them for yourself!

 

[demise4u]

The OP makes one valid complaint and a bunch of dumb ones.

 

Ship-to-ship combat is completely nonsensical. It isn't hard or complex, it just makes no logical sense and it's completely fanboi-ish to insist otherwise.

 

It can be fun to pick apart Enemy Wessels!, but then...

 

Sample combat:

 

I only fire grapeshot and sweep the decks clean of foul pirates (except for that one amazing super-villain that leaves the crew counter at a perpetual 1/XX).

 

Once that (invisible and cannon-immune) scoundrel is all that's left, all of my subsequent shots hit sails.

 

Dastardly Shield-Sails gone? Time for 100% shots to miss 90% of the time (except for that 10% when I manage to hit the hull).

 

Well fine, maybe my (very experienced) cannoneers are bored.

 

Speaking of bored, I board! There I discover that are a dozen or more (incredibly resilient and tenacious) enemy crew ready to repel boarders!

 

Gleefully, I dispatch (with alacrity) what must be (shape-shifted, kith-looking, rapidly-regenerating) trolls and it's time to take possession of my new ship!

 

...right? Oh. Nope. No, apparently my watch is broken and it is not that time.

 

I assume that (very clumsily) I manage (every single time) to trigger the self-destruct disintegration sequence when my (amazingly talented) crew bee-lines to the (oh-so-valuable and incredibly-delicious) hardtack before all else.

 

Fortunately, I always manage (with the luck of the gods themselves!) to make it back to my small (but nimble and brave!) ship with my hands full of (the intensely desirable!) hardtack and a corpse or two's loot in tow before the enemy prize poofs into the realm of logical fallacy, never to be seen again.

 

...yeah. Nonsensical.

 

I'm enjoying the game so far, but the lack of info for pretty much everything (the St. Drogga's Skull "sabre" not being marked anywhere as off-hand-only is a great example) and the ship-to-ship silliness are nasty blemishes on what could be an all-time great. This game could have used several more months of polish and bug-fixes before release.

[KDubya]

If you got to keep the ships after boarding it'd further break what little economy there is.

 

Instead of the compass like ship heading, they needed to have a grid plan view showing distances, wind direction, facings and what not. Give a reason to destroy sails and outmaneuver the enemy instead of the current broadside every time. 

 

Maybe they can greatly expand on it in a DLC or something.

[HoopleDoople]

I hate to say it, but the ship combat is just embarrassingly bad. It's unintuitive, tedious, repetitive, immersion breaking, and just plain pointless. There reallly needs to be the option to disable it and have every encounter be an auto-boarding without penalty (and without requiring modding).

[Yonjuro]

I hate to say it, but the ship combat is just embarrassingly bad. It's unintuitive, tedious, repetitive, immersion breaking, and just plain pointless. There reallly needs to be the option to disable it and have every encounter be an auto-boarding without penalty (and without requiring modding).

 

 The penalty from boarding is really minor. You take a small amount of damage that you need to repair - the cost of repair supplies will have (approximately) no consequences. 

[PizzaSHARK]

Yup, the ship combat is bad.  Everything involving the ship is bad, really - food and water are so common and easily affordable and accessible as to be meaningless, same with medical supplies, morale, etc.  Getting to 100 morale and keeping it pegged there is basically effortless (go find and kill one ship and then share out the coins and you're at 100 and will probably stay there without intentionally trying to lower it.)  Some simple suggestions, to my mind, to make ship stuff better:

 

- Scale resource costs with difficulty level.  If I'm playing PotD, it's safe to assume I'm intentionally wanting to have the game bend me over a barrel.  Instead of a full crew drinking and eating 10 units per day... make them consume triple that, and then triple the morale penalty for negative foods (maggoty hardtack and slimy algae-filled water is disgusting, dude) while leaving positive foods unchanged.  Triple medical supply costs.  Make repairs take more than one unit of supply per unit of hull and sail health.  And so on.  Sailing around is how you get access to some of the most powerful equipment, and you can get some of it literally as soon as you get your ship if you know where to go (and PotD is effectively NG+ for powergamers, anyway.)  Make there be an actual COST to doing this.  Similarly, this also means that easier difficulties would basically end up completely doing away with boat management crap, which is probably fine for them since they're just focused on the story and not the crunch anyhow.

 

- Make ship morale weighted to always head towards 50.  The closer it is to either extreme, the faster it recovers if you stop treating your people like **** and the faster it decays the faster you stop giving them really ritzy feed or knocking over enemy ships.  Then again, morale doesn't appear to even DO anything other than give you a pat on the back if it's high or a chance of mutiny if it's low... so who cares, I guess?

 

- Make damage to enemy crew reduce the number of enemies present during boarding actions, quadratically proportional to total crew strength remaining.  Damaging enemy crew to 8/10 will not affect the number of crew present very much, but reducing it to 3/10 will remove a massive number of crew and a 1/10 crew will basically be just the ship's captain and a couple of mooks.  It's ridiculous to fire tons of grapeshot at a ship and initiate a boarding action when it's down to 1 listed crew and then you're fighting a clown car full of generic mooks alpha striking you to death.

 

- Add an auto-resolve option to ship battles for people that don't even want to bother with it.  Compare various numeric stats between the two ships and assign damage etc accordingly to both ships.  One button and you can move on.

 

- Reduce the delay between command prompts in ship battles, and accelerate text speed.  The ship battle system is serviceable, if not particularly deep or engaging, but it takes a LONG damn time to have an actual ship battle because of how much time is "wasted" between text speed and pauses.

 

- Make enemy ships actually offer surrender, based on numeric values.  If I run across a sloop while I'm sailing around a big galleon, they should just choose to surrender instead of fighting, if they can't flee.  If I'm clearly winning a battle and they're on their last legs, it makes a lot more sense for them to fly the white flag than have their ship sunk.

 

- Add crew and other special rewards to victories over other ships as an incentive to actually participate in the ship battle system when not forced to.  Right now, enemy ships are largely identical...  you get some money, random supply items, and maybe a cannon or something and that's it.  What's even the point of it, unless they attack you first?