Character/Officers Build Guide?

[stethnorun]

Well the official Playlogic forums are seemingly dead but I posted this over there:

So like any RPG, I want to get a handle on how to build my character and crew before I jump into the game. If I'm going to spend hours upon hours playing, I want to feel like I made good choices at the start. Does anyone know of a good starting guide? Just looking for suggestions on PIRATES, which skills should be invested in, who is best to hire when and for what skills, etc. Like any RPG, I'm sure people will have different preferences, but all I'm looking for is suggestions, not definitive answers.

 

[Luke159]

My suggestions are to hire a connoneer asap or someone who can take the role as the cannoneer for now, then train or hire crew members who are good at gunning, that way you can hold your own, before leaving the island my tip would be to search for local work try to make enough cash to change the cannon type from colveners to the best calibur cannons if they are already the best calibur of cannons then you won't need to do this although i like to have some cash just in case.

Go skellington hunting on the islands, you can make an easy 20K from them in very little time just make sure you have enough potions on you, buy contraband and sell it at another port for profit, or you can do my way and go pirate hunting and loot all pirates you can and sell there ships or use them for transporting goods you loot from other ships.

 

[stethnorun]

<!--quoteo(post=331890:date=Jun 22 2009, 07:24 PM:name=Luke159)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Luke159 @ Jun 22 2009, 07:24 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=331890"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->My suggestions are to hire a connoneer asap or someone who can take the role as the cannoneer for now, then train or hire crew members who are good at gunning, that way you can hold your own, before leaving the island my tip would be to search for local work try to make enough cash to change the cannon type from colveners to the best calibur cannons if they are already the best calibur of cannons then you won't need to do this although i like to have some cash just in case.

Go skellington hunting on the islands, you can make an easy 20K from them in very little time just make sure you have enough potions on you, buy contraband and sell it at another port for profit, or you can do my way and go pirate hunting and loot all pirates you can and sell there ships or use them for transporting goods you loot from other ships.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Cool thanks for the tips. Any thoughts on the PIRATES system? Should I focus on certain stats over others? Is it better to turn my captain into the best fighter he can be (for boarding actions)? Or is commanding some aspect of the ship more useful?

 

[ButterCutter]

<!--quoteo(post=331892:date=Jun 22 2009, 11:35 PM:name=stethnorun)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (stethnorun @ Jun 22 2009, 11:35 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=331892"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Any thoughts on the PIRATES system? Should I focus on certain stats over others? Is it better to turn my captain into the best fighter he can be (for boarding actions)? Or is commanding some aspect of the ship more useful?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
My take on this is the following (but keep in mind I have not gone that far into the game):
Ship skills, except for navigation that you will want in order to have big ships, you can get by hiring good officers. Therefore they are of little consideration when distributing PIRATES points. You want from these points what that does not simply level with skills and ranks or officers.
<b>Authority</b> limits the number of officers you can have to twice the value. To have all officer position filled, plus some soldiers, plus a spare navigator or two to handle captured ships means that I will not put less than 7 there. I also do not bother with a treasurer onboard and so I want good trade skill. Leadership is personal skill good to have and will allow you to hire more & better sailors.
<b>Talent</b> How fast your skills raise. I am not sure if this affects how many perks you get per rank - if it does, I'd say try to max it. Any way, a high talent is good because it affects many skills. The skill advancement rate can also be adjusted when creating the player profile - if it does not give extra perks per rank and you just want to advance faster you can use the slider and save a few points.
<b>Endurance</b> determines your hits per level gain. I usually die before I am out of endurance, so this is more important to me and try to have 7 in this one.

There are the most important ones to me. After that:
<b>Power</b> - I really feel the difference when I swing with higher Power score. Since I find swordplay often difficult for me, I put 6 here (cannot afford more).
<b>Luck</b> - Who needs skill when you have luck? Well, I don't know what this affects, so I never have less than 5 here just to be on the safe side. If it does not affect anything outside the skills (like loot quality etc.), I'd lower it.

The sacrifices:
<b>Intuition</b> - pistols are not that important (I play without auto reload) and I have officers to handle the cannons. This is usually my lowest score.
<b>Reaction</b> - very useful for sword play as it determines your endurance. low score here makes my favorite heavy weapon a little problematic as I tend to run out of breath very fast. I really try not to have less than 5 here.

Overall, I tend to go for a balanced distribution without any 10s. 8-9 on the two most important skills and 4-5 on the less important. I hope this helps and I am interested to hear what others think and especially, what is the effect of Luck except on relevant skills.

 

[Marinx]

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Talent How fast your skills raise. I am not sure if this affects how many perks you get per rank - if it does, I'd say try to max it. Any way, a high talent is good because it affects many skills. The skill advancement rate can also be adjusted when creating the player profile - if it does not give extra perks per rank and you just want to advance faster you can use the slider and save a few points.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

I have Talent at 10 and I need 30 points (in personal or ship abilities) to raise a level, 30 points in personal abilities to gain personal perk, 30 points in ship abilities to gain a ship perk.

In my first game I had talent 7 and I needed 33 points instead of 30. I think (this is not verified) that formula for points needed is:
<b>40-Talent</b>
So if you have Talent 1 you'll need 39 points.

I noticed that having 10 in talent instead 7 in my first game, I level pretty fast and because of that I find higher level officers to recruit. Usually higher level officer have multitasking perk and so they can fill two positions instead of one.

P.S. If anybody doesn't understand leveling system let me know and I'll post how it's work.

 

[Luke159]

If you want to know about capability points and which personal and/or ship points they effect then look no further than <a href="http://forum.piratesahoy.net//index.php?showtopic=13778" target="_blank">Character Capability</a>

It depends on what you want to do, if your happy to keep a low profile at first selling goods then focus on trade if your more into sailing bigger and better ships then build your navigation skills up and authority since you'll need some officers.

One last tip, each offer you hire will need to be payed, so if you find yourself taking on officers often refresh the roles so that each role has the best ranked officers from your crew and then either use the lowest ranked officers as fighters (they will die in boarding or land fights) or fire them, that way your not wasting money on things you don't need.

For looting ships, if you capture a ship and your near a friendly port drop in and hire max crew for both ships (if your not near a friendly port start sailing to one and top up on crew) now sell all unwanted iteams, in POTC i would sell all the cannon balls and bombs from the other ships in my fleet leaving them with just grape and chain shots however in COAS that is not the case it seems if i leave ships with just those two types of shots they simply won't fire at the enemy ships, very annoying (when i start playing COAS again, i will do further testing into that). Now with max crew on both/all ships go either pirtae or enemy ship hunting i like to do pirate hunting, and loot them all don't take on ships if you don'don't need to and try to stay close to any friendly ports for keep access if in need of repair or all ships cargo's are full. After each battle press F and click tab marked ships, now double click on one of the ships when asked if you want to tranfer cargo select yes and put all cargo you don't need into each of the ships in your fleet ( you will need to douuble click on each ship in turn) its quicker than sailing to the ships in 3D sailing mode.

 

[stethnorun]

Cool thanks for the tip. Butter Cutter that's exactly what I was looking for. I'm going to take your advice and see if it works for me. The only one I may change is endurance (I was fairly competent at sword fighting in previous games)...but we'll see. Anyway thanks for the rundown. If anyone else has similar suggestions for builds, please post them here! I want to hear as many people's opinions on it as possible.

 

[Handel]

So authority is actuall important only for the number of officers? Because who really cares how fast you level up? Just go in the jungle for some fight or capture 1-2 more ships...
And going for miltitasking and tripple tasking actually tripples your authority officers-wise?

What skill is needed for doctors (beside the perks) and is the doctor needed at all?

 

[Sordid]

No, it just allows an officer to occupy two or three posts. Which is handy, but requires an unholy number of perks to be effective. With positions like doctor or treasurer that only need two perks each it's fine, but combining, say, navigator with bosun or cannoneer is very inefficient.

 

[ButterCutter]

<!--quoteo(post=331982:date=Jun 23 2009, 09:31 AM:name=Marinx)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Marinx @ Jun 23 2009, 09:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=331982"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I have Talent at 10 and I need 30 points (in personal or ship abilities) to raise a level, 30 points in personal abilities to gain personal perk, 30 points in ship abilities to gain a ship perk.

In my first game I had talent 7 and I needed 33 points instead of 30. I think (this is not verified) that formula for points needed is:
<b>40-Talent</b>
So if you have Talent 1 you'll need 39 points.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So basically you always get the same perks per rank? In that case I would put 5 points here and set the leveling slider a little higher instead.

 

[Handel]

How to train the stealth? I know it is used to enter hostile towns and this means it is trained too but at low levels of stealth I guess this will be PITA.
Also is there some other way to trin luck besides playing games?

 

[Sordid]

Your luck influences everything you do a little bit (according to the description) and seems to increase a little bit whenever you do anything. As for stealth, the best way is to get stealth-boosting items.

 

[veritas]

Yeah I agree, I've been playing on impossible with hardcore. For that you'll NEED at least 10 endurance or 10 power (endurance over power). I'd suggest both on high difficulty and 10 authority. I've tried them all and those 3 seem to be noticeably worth more and everything else can be taken care of by officers and/or items. As for officers, I'd get a cannoner, then navigator, then treasurer asap.

In high difficulty levels it's really hard to find crew to hire so having a doctor is a big help.

 

[redCorsair]

<a href="http://forum.piratesahoy.net//index.php?showtopic=13641" target="_blank">http://forum.piratesahoy.net//index.php?showtopic=13641</a>
Maybe you should read this - there is a part in there about what I could observe about how the skills work in this game.
After reading compare with your own game observations and draw your own conclusions.

 

[Marinx]

<!--quoteo(post=332132:date=Jun 23 2009, 09:11 PM:name=Sordid)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Sordid @ Jun 23 2009, 09:11 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=332132"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->No, it just allows an officer to occupy two or three posts. Which is handy, but requires an unholy number of perks to be effective. With positions like doctor or treasurer that only need two perks each it's fine, but combining, say, navigator with bosun or cannoneer is very inefficient.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

True, but as I said with talent 10, I leveled very fast and level of officers to recruit is based on what level are you. So my first officer which I recruited was around level 20 and he had multitasking and practically all the perks for two positions. Now I'm level 36 and almost every skill is at 100 and I'm not playing very long (Difficulty is one above the easiest, so maybe it is because of that).
Now I have officer level 40 who have almost every perk, very high skills and can fill 3 position <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

 

[Handel]

Did you noticed the emeralds are the only trinkets which stacks with itself? I.e 3 emeralds give +30 leadership. All the other trinkets only the 1st are working. So I guess this is a bug because it is easy to get leadership 100 with several emeralds...


Edit:
Oops... my mistake
It appears I have a totem too; so the emeralds works as intended.

 

[ButterCutter]

<!--quoteo(post=332171:date=Jun 23 2009, 09:20 PM:name=ButterCutter)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (ButterCutter @ Jun 23 2009, 09:20 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=332171"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=331982:date=Jun 23 2009, 09:31 AM:name=Marinx)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Marinx @ Jun 23 2009, 09:31 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=331982"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I have Talent at 10 and I need 30 points (in personal or ship abilities) to raise a level, 30 points in personal abilities to gain personal perk, 30 points in ship abilities to gain a ship perk.

In my first game I had talent 7 and I needed 33 points instead of 30. I think (this is not verified) that formula for points needed is:
<b>40-Talent</b>
So if you have Talent 1 you'll need 39 points.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
So basically you always get the same perks per rank? In that case I would put 5 points here and set the leveling slider a little higher instead.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I now realize this is not exactly the case - you have skill cap of 100. So talent will affect the total potential number of perks you can have sometime when all your skills hit 100, or the game rate will slow down significantly when some of your skills hit 100 and stop advancing.

 

[Handel]

I am still frustrated about the perks. So far I understood when there is an officer assigned and this officers has the jobs specific skills those skill are activated.
But what happens if there is no officer (for example cannoneer) assigned but the main char has the some perk (for example quick reload). Will this skill be activated or not? From the description it appears there *must* be an aooficer asigned the skill to be useful. Or not? Because if the officers arealways needed the main char actually has no usefull ship perks besides the "change the flag" perks???

And which actions improve the main char personal skill? Which actually are much more needed then the ships skills?

 

[Marinx]

<!--quoteo(post=332871:date=Jun 26 2009, 02:32 AM:name=Handel)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Handel @ Jun 26 2009, 02:32 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=332871"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->I am still frustrated about the perks. So far I understood when there is an officer assigned and this officers has the jobs specific skills those skill are activated.
But what happens if there is no officer (for example cannoneer) assigned but the main char has the some perk (for example quick reload). Will this skill be activated or not? From the description it appears there *must* be an aooficer asigned the skill to be useful. Or not? Because if the officers arealways needed the main char actually has no usefull ship perks besides the "change the flag" perks???

And which actions improve the main char personal skill? Which actually are much more needed then the ships skills?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

If you have perk and don't have an officer, your perk is activated.

If you click on the personal tab you'll see in the experience bar something like 0/33. This means that you need 33 points raised in your personal skills (light,medium,heavy weapons, luck leadership...)
So when you raised 33 points you'll get personal perk.
Example: you raised leadership by 10, heavy w. by 12, luck by 5, stealth by 8.
You raised 35 points and you need 33. You'll get personal perk and now your experience for personal perks will say 2/33.
Same goes for ship perks but you need raise ship skills instead of personal.
For your level you need raise about 25 points in either personal or ship skill to gain a level.
Sorry for bad english <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />