The Ship combat thread

[try2handing]

How can I decrease the number of enemies on the other ship? I fought a combat in the 1.1 Beta and reduced their crew to 1 but by the time I got close enough to board it raised to 3. Is there a way to keep it down?

 

They had 6 defenders, can I reduce that number too?

To damage abovedeck crew you have to shoot Grapeshot or Chainshot. Grapeshot almost always damages abovedeck crew. Chainshot has only a low chance. To damage the belowdeck cannoneers you have to shoot Cannonball but it has only a low chance of damaging them.

 

They will swap ship members around when they are injured. From my experience, reducing their crew to 2 or 3 will force them to switch position continuously, reducing their combat effectiveness. If they have a good surgeon onboard though, I think it's not worth it to try and damage their crew. Unless you have lots of fire power, perhaps.

Edited June 9, 2018 by try2handing

[mrscojangles]

I'm having trouble installing upgrades. I try to install the Menagerie, it prompts me if I want to add it and I hit "Accept," then nothing happens. Any advice?

 

Instead of dragging the menagerie item into the slot, left click it to lift it up and then left click it into the slot. Or thats what worked for me when I was having the same issue before this patch, so it's worth a shot.

[InsaneCommander]

To damage abovedeck crew you have to shoot Grapeshot or Chainshot. Grapeshot almost always damages abovedeck crew. Chainshot has only a low chance. To damage the belowdeck cannoneers you have to shoot Cannonball but it has only a low chance of damaging them.

 

They will swap ship members around when they are injured. From my experience, reducing their crew to 2 or 3 will force them to switch position continuously, reducing their combat effectiveness. If they have a good surgeon onboard though, I think it's not worth it to try and damage their crew. Unless you have lots of fire power, perhaps.

 

I used the different shots, but I didn't know everything you mentioned here. Thanks for the help.

[InsaneCommander]

Holy Gaun, ship combat is strange. It seems all the ships have only one cannon and can easily be beaten, but boarding is impossible in the beginning because my party start in a stupid position and the enemies are much stronger. Eder is in the middle and Serafen is killed before he can do anything.

 

Wouldn't it be better if enemy ships were like ours, with at least two cannons, and enemy crews scaled with level? If this would make ship combat too dangerous, then maybe the starting ship could be faster and escape undesirable battles easily.

[Shadenuat]

Most enemy ships are underequipped. For example, galleons with 2+2 cannons and other nonsense. They also have strange and often dumb mix of cannons that have different threat ranges so AI just misses.

[InsaneCommander]

And if I try to send my characters to the back they push each other like a bunch of amateurs lol

 

I guess I'll stick to bombarding them

 

If my crew dies during the combat, will I lose then?

 

Edit: Ok, I won by running like a coward to hide behind the stairs. I summoned some figurines and used an empowered consecrated ground asap. I don't know if anyone from my crew died but nobody disappeared after the battle. And I got the flag I wanted.

Edited June 9, 2018 by InsaneCommander

[Celan]

 

I'm having trouble installing upgrades. I try to install the Menagerie, it prompts me if I want to add it and I hit "Accept," then nothing happens. Any advice?

 

Instead of dragging the menagerie item into the slot, left click it to lift it up and then left click it into the slot. Or thats what worked for me when I was having the same issue before this patch, so it's worth a shot.

 

Thanks. I got the Junk and it correctly installed with dragging.

 

Aaaand, after I got an upgraded ship and bigger crew, I never have any sea encounters anymore.

[InsaneCommander]

Oops... I found the better ships. 4 cannons, 600 m range. Barely survived, but it was fun.

[M4xw0lf]

I find I quite enjoy ship combat this time around. On my current playthrough I started to take on all Sloops, Voyagers and Dhows with the starting ship and then upgraded straight to the Djunk when I had the money. My crew levelled up extremely fast and is very efficient and deadly now, not a lot can withstand a broadside of my cannons. I'm having fun with that.

I don't think a lot has changed mechanically (the level up speed?), I guess I'm just doing it right now.

Edited July 23, 2018 by M4xw0lf

[M4xw0lf]

Only problem: I've sunk everything by now. Sad.

[Hassat Hunter]

I hate it. Instant boarding for me, not going to waste time with a minigame that's basically shoot, jibe, hold, shoot, jibe, hold. Wow, such fun.

The one thing I COULD see myself do is do this to lower their crew for boarding... BUT... for some reason they can heal their people in combat (no such thing for your side). Making shooting above-deck entirely pointless. Why? Who thought that was a good idea?

 

1. Same on narrator, but fortunately she's quite after the prologue bar some sparring "chapter changes". Which are okay.

2. Nope

3. It's a good thing from Tyranny. Rather than learning a billion terms in your head like PoE1 you can just look up stuff from time to time. I barely scroll over anymore at all, except if they speak in an unknown language (and it's good it can actually do that now).

4. I'm so-so on it. I wish they had seperate UI for food and drink, islands provide food for +1 morale, but drink of -1 morale as drops :/. Also cooks make food consumption (which is easier to find) more managable, but drink consumption not (while being less frequent). That seems a bit odd to me.

[M4xw0lf]

I find the boarding fights way more tedious than the ship to ship combat. Some of them can also be f*cking unfair early in the game, with enemy shooting squads annihilating you in moments. Also sinking ships gives better rewards in terms of loot and XP.

[juanval]

I like the overland map and the Battlebrothers style of the ship management. I see instant boarding battles too easy.

 

I've finished a naval combat and I saw that my crew could fire a Wyrmtongue in the 4th turn, even indicating that it won't fire because it needs 5 turns to reload.

[Queeg]

I find the boarding fights way more tedious than the ship to ship combat. Some of them can also be f*cking unfair early in the game, with enemy shooting squads annihilating you in moments. Also sinking ships gives better rewards in terms of loot and XP.

 

 

More XP, yes. Loot? I discovered that is not the case. By boarding you have a chance of getting a cannon (like vailian hullbreaker which are very rare and only one can be bought) plus for some unknown reason, sometimes a unique item from naval combat disappears when either boarding or smashing to smithereens.

 

The loot table also differs for equipment when done differently.

[M4xw0lf]

 

I find the boarding fights way more tedious than the ship to ship combat. Some of them can also be f*cking unfair early in the game, with enemy shooting squads annihilating you in moments. Also sinking ships gives better rewards in terms of loot and XP.

 

 

More XP, yes. Loot? I discovered that is not the case. By boarding you have a chance of getting a cannon (like vailian hullbreaker which are very rare and only one can be bought) plus for some unknown reason, sometimes a unique item from naval combat disappears when either boarding or smashing to smithereens.

 

The loot table also differs for equipment when done differently.

 

It used to be more loot in the launch version. You definitely can also get unique items upon sinking ships (this time I got the Kapana Tanga by sinking the ship, last time I didn't get it through boarding - however, I got the Black Isle flag last time, but not this time) - there definitely is some randomization in place here. And I think you generally get more money from sinking (at least this, too, was the case at launch).

I think you're right about the cannons though, I believe I didn't loot a single one after sinking every named ship on the map. That part at least makes sense, cannons are not great at floating.

Edited July 26, 2018 by M4xw0lf

[Hassat Hunter]

About the boarding, not the actual combat (is this thread the proper place for discussion of that too?)

 

Anyone knows if leveling and gearing non-party members helps out? I got everyone level 1, ungeared except my party, with the exception of Maia (since I use her high perception to spot stuff I know is there but Serafen can't find).

Would actually leveling them and gearing them actually help out during the combat sections, and I crippled myself so far? Or do they just use some default stats. Guess I should give Maia some passive boost gear and see if it's active during ship combat next time, but if anyone knows...

[M4xw0lf]

Your 'parked' party members will be randomly selected to participate in boarding combats, and they will use the gear and level you left them with. So yeah, stripping them naked and not levelling them up is bad for that.

[Hassat Hunter]

So far 100% of the cases it'll spawn ALL of them. So if it's supposed to be a selection I think they broke that.

But good to know I can make it considerably easier on myself then for future encounters.

[M4xw0lf]

So far 100% of the cases it'll spawn ALL of them. So if it's supposed to be a selection I think they broke that.

But good to know I can make it considerably easier on myself then for future encounters.

Maybe it depends on the crew size of the enemy... not sure though. Also one of the things they may have changed with patches.

As I said previously here, I solved all the sea battles this time around by sinking the enemy ships.

Edited July 26, 2018 by M4xw0lf

[Kian]

The narrator is irritating to me. Especially since if you play male (( bla bla spoilers - most people who finished will know what I'm talking about )). The voice itself is grating but meh, that's more personal preference than anything else, but the story/lore issue is irksome.

 

Now the ship combat. Personally I like it, although I do agree it can get boring. The way I see it, once you get how things work it's easy to "outsmart" the AI and that makes fights both very fast and very easy. For example, when using Junk (silly name btw) vs other Junk ships (or Galleons), you can get a full set of double bronzer cannons and basically kill any ship in 5-ish rounds (3 of witch you spend spam-clicking end turn waiting for the Jibe maneuver to end). If you learn how to bait the AI to make the wrong moves at the start of the fight you can be the one firing first which also means you basically take 0 damage (since 1 round of cannon fire will severely damage the enemy ship and almost always cause injuries, fires, etc forcing the enemy to skip their cannon phase in favor of repairs and stuff).

 

In my first pt the fire guys ships were really annoying specifically because they boarded you almost immediately (after firing their super OP cheat cannon -.- ). But even that was irrelevant in my main pt where I would kill all of them with 2 wilting winds (me and Aloth :D ). I did manage to kill one of their ships before they had the chance to board me, but it was such a hassle of multiple load/saves and so dependant on luck that it's not worth it.

 

What worked for me in terms of ship combat was to get money for Junk asap and the 10 double bronzers and then it's fun... Or boringly op I suppose, depends on everyone's ideas of fun gameplay. I think this is why they doubled the prices for Junk and Galleon. It's a bit slower now, but eh.

 

I don't generally like the boarding aspect of the ship combat because of the crew and how I'm always worried they would die permanently. I don't know if that happens, but whatever.

If you want to talk about very VERY irritating moments, there's one particular scripted combat that's part of a quest (being vague because of spoilers) where you basically have to go with an empty ship (in terms of crew) or you will almost 100% lose people (at the start of the combat, WHILE THE GAME IS PAUSED, some crew members casually walk over to the enemy ship and camp right in front of all enemy troops... like... what the actual.........). Very frustrating.

 

The food/drink system is cute. Nothing much to say about it really in my opinion. It's not difficult, it's not interesting... it's just there. Eh.

 

My biggest complaint about ships/crew is the fact that there are not enough crew available to cover 2 things:

1. Master crew members for each position on Junk (max crew). There is no Master Surgeon and there are only 3 Master Cannoneers.
2. BOTH male and female versions for each position. Since the sea shanties depend on the crew configuration, you should be able to make an all male and all Master crew and same for female crew. I get that there's a role play benefit to having "randomized" crew members, but personally I find it annoying. I would like to be able to make an all male crew, with all positions Master. And I imagine there are people who would want that with an all female crew.

One other thing I would like to see more than possible improvements to ship combat is more details on crew members. What do the personalities affect, clear stats, etc.

Edited July 26, 2018 by Kian

[Hassat Hunter]

Seems it IS possible to have 5 stars... although this is likely a bug. Recruited the Cannoneer in Nekataka and this is how she joins my crew;

 

 

So is that a bug, or the 4 star cap? Hmmm...

(And yes, leveling my crew made a major difference and makes boarding just that much easier)

Edited July 27, 2018 by Hassat Hunter

[Kian]

Seems it IS possible to have 5 stars... although this is likely a bug. Recruited the Cannoneer in Nekataka and this is how she joins my crew;

 

 

So is that a bug, or the 4 star cap? Hmmm...

(And yes, leveling my crew made a major difference and makes boarding just that much easier)

 

Afaik Emeini is the only crew member in game with 5 stars, so yeah, it's likely just a bug. I think she's not supposed to have the Deckhand star.

And yeah leveling the crew to 4 stars helps a lot. Also making sure they're not injured.

[Hassat Hunter]

 

So far 100% of the cases it'll spawn ALL of them. So if it's supposed to be a selection I think they broke that.

But good to know I can make it considerably easier on myself then for future encounters.

Maybe it depends on the crew size of the enemy... not sure though. Also one of the things they may have changed with patches.

As I said previously here, I solved all the sea battles this time around by sinking the enemy ships.

 

 

Actually, seems it's constantly 6 (out of on my Junk. Thought it was all on my previous ship... hmm... will have to give that another try now to see if I was wrong or the Junk is limited.

 

Afaik Emeini is the only crew member in game with 5 stars, so yeah, it's likely just a bug. I think she's not supposed to have the Deckhand star.

And yeah leveling the crew to 4 stars helps a lot. Also making sure they're not injured.

Yup. Makes it weird that it's much costlier to hire 'versatile' crews when they are worse :/

[wanderon]

I find I quite enjoy ship combat this time around. On my current playthrough I started to take on all Sloops, Voyagers and Dhows with the starting ship and then upgraded straight to the Djunk when I had the money. My crew levelled up extremely fast and is very efficient and deadly now, not a lot can withstand a broadside of my cannons. I'm having fun with that.

I don't think a lot has changed mechanically (the level up speed?), I guess I'm just doing it right now.

 I found it useful to use the shorter range  but higher damage guns on one side and the longer range  on the other - long range early short range late and often it's not necessary to board and while I have not really compared side by side it seems like the overall loot + rank increases is better than when boarding.

[M4xw0lf]

I equipped Imperial long guns + Haefaric's Nose on starboard and double bronzers on port in the late game. Could solve most encounters at 600m distance with that, because enemy AI often runs in circles when faced with the long guns.