A bit of advice please

[Olek]

Back into this gem again, and there has been a few updates since I last played, not sure if my issue was introduced in an update or just plain old bad memory.

I am unable to take a ship as a prize, transfering crew and officers gives no further options, I vaguely remember having to have leadership or some skill at a certain level, not too sure.

There's a thief on my ship!, money keeps vanishing, and it's not the crew salary, it may have been that share option chosen when starting a new game, if this is what it is, is there any way to turn it off mid-game?

I have searched for answers before creating this thread

Cheers and thank you.

 

[Grey Roger]

Welcome aboard!

You need at least Leadership 5 to be able to command a fleet of more than one ship, which includes taking a prize ship. But if that's the reason, you should get a warning when you try to assign the officer.

I've no idea why your money goes down! By default, you pay the crew by salary and each month you get a message on screen asking if you want to pay them. You should only be paying by dividing plunder if you chose to do so, which you'll do from the "Ship" interface - press F2 to get the interface screens, click "Ship", then "Crew", where you should see an option for crew payment. You can also use that to check how the crew are being paid now. In any case, that doesn't take money from you automatically either. You divide the plunder by visiting a loanshark. If you've chosen to pay the crew this way, you need to do this when you've been at sea for over 90 days otherwise crew morale will drop rapidly and you'll have a mutiny.

If you talk to people on land, they sometimes pick your pocket. But that can't happen while you're at sea.

Which storyline are you playing?

 

[Olek]

Hi Grey Roger
I'm playing as Mr Hawk, I think i've about 8 leadership now and no option has ever come up to take a prize ship, I am able to assign officers, crew and canon, but I can only ever hit the X and then i'm asked if I want to leave the ship, then once on the sea map it sinks.
I never knew I could click on the crew in the ship screen, I'll give that a go and pay more attention to messages in regards to the money issue.

Thank you for your advice

 

[Grey Roger]

There's no "Take Prize Ship" option. You take a prize ship by putting an officer in command of it. It should then become a companion ship.

There are four squares to which an officer can be assigned. As far as I know, the command slot is the top left. If you're putting your officer into one of the other squares then the game may decide that you haven't assigned a commander.

Next time you try to capture a ship and it sinks, upload the files "compile.log", "system.log", and "error.log" if it exists. The first two, and possibly the third, should be at the top level of the game installation folder, not in "PROGRAM" or "RESOURCE". In particular I'd like to see "compile.log" because that will tell me which version of the game you're using.

 

[Olek]

I finally captured a ship, I was doing everything right as far as crew and officers, but when I click to exit the interface it says "are you sure you want to leave the ship?" this has thrown me out, as I thought it meant "do I want to leave the ship behind" so I would bring my officers and crew back on board out of fear of losing them on the "Ship left behind".
Got the money issue sorted, lost some crew in the process but everything is going well now, thanks heaps for your help Grey Roger, it's very much appreciated

 

[Grey Roger]

Glad to hear you've figured out how to capture a ship!

Another warning you might get, when assigning an officer to command a ship, is that the officer does not have high enough skill. That won't prevent the officer from commanding the ship, so you can still capture it. It just means the officer can't command it to full efficiency. Neither can you, if you buy, capture, or start the game with a ship beyond your ability.

Larger ships have lower class / tier numbers; the largest ship is tier 1, the smallest is tier 8, and the largest you can command to full effectiveness is shown on your F2/"Character" interface screen. It's determined by your Leadership and Sailing skills. If you try to command a ship beyond your ability, you'll get a penalty on both skills while you command that ship. So will that officer.

What this means is that if you try to put an officer in command of a captured ship, get the warning about skill, and leave him in command of it anyway, it won't sink, but he might not be much use in a battle. But if you've just captured the ship, it's probably damaged and you probably haven't put a full crew aboard, so it's not going to be at full fighting effectiveness anyway. He'll keep it afloat and get it to the next port. There you can sell the ship or repair it, hire new crew, and take it over for yourself.

 

[DavyJack]

I finally captured a ship, I was doing everything right as far as crew and officers, but when I click to exit the interface it says "are you sure you want to leave the ship?" this has thrown me out, as I thought it meant "do I want to leave the ship behind" so I would bring my officers and crew back on board out of fear of losing them on the "Ship left behind"....

Makes sense. That line threw me off the first time as well. So, should we change or rephrase and add a check to that that line so that it will say something else if you assigned a captain and a crew to it?