Some questions about manual aiming, logs and other observations

[JackOfOwls]

Though I'm a total newbie at it, never having even played the vanilla game, I've been playing POTC:NH obsessively over the last few days and finding it frustratingly difficult (as it should be, considering the 101-level shite that passes for PC gaming these days) and my pride will not allow me to select "Apprentice" (Daddy, Can I Play?) difficulty so I'm making things extra difficult by playing on "Journeyman" and it's kicking me in the junk. I can't get anywhere. In sea battles, should I be using manual aiming (V key)? Is it turned on or off by default in the build I'm using (3.4)?

Sometimes I'm broadside of a ship I wish to pirate, the target cuticle turns red, I press the BOOM! button, and... nothing happens. Needless to say, I'm sitting there with my big baboon buttocks hanging out, exposed, then the enemy fires all 20+ guns and blows my masts & my ass away. Was it possible most of my starboard or port guns were taken out? Sometimes in the heat of battle I don't read the messages. Speaking of which, is there a way to check the message logs (btw, can the font and color be changed in config files, btw? It's kind of small and the color can be hard on the eyes sometimes) so I can analyze what went wrong in a battle and why I'm now dwelling in Davy Jones' locker?

One more thing: sometimes I successfully empty my cannons on an enemy but there's no sound or explosion animations from my weapons but I know they fired. Is this normal?

 

[Grey Roger]

There was a problem with cannons not firing during one release, and it was fixed. If you're playing Beta 3.4, be sure to get the update at the end of:
http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-3-4-release.24486/

The update is an archive created by 7-Zip, a freeware compression program which you can find here:
http://www.7-zip.org/

I generally find that I need to aim slightly higher than the gunsight's red zone. Raise the sight until it has just turned from red to yellow, then fire. If I fire while the gunsight is in the middle of the red zone, the shots tend to hit the sea. Alternatively you can press the spacebar and your gun crews will do the aiming for you.

Also, your own gunnery skills are very poor to start with, so you'll probably notice that your shots don't always go where you aim them. A good gunnery officer can help here. You can find an officer for hire in a tavern, he'll be one of the guys sitting drinking at a table. If you're lucky, he's a gunner. If not, leave the tavern, go back in and try again. If you have a gunner among your officers, you'll use his "Cannon" and "Accuracy" skills instead of your own.

You'll notice if you have guns knocked out, partly by the messages on the screen and partly by the numbers around the compass which show how many guns you have in each arc - if one or more of those numbers has reduced then you've lost guns.

There's also Beta 3.5:
http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/build-14-beta-3-5-internal-wip-for-testing.24817/.

This is still under development, so use at your own risk! In particular, quests might not work properly. Again, be sure to get the update file at the end of that post. One addition is the ability to tell the tavern keeper which sort of officer you want, which may help you get that gunnery officer.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Journeyman level is a good place to be, but you must remember that you start off as a nobody on the bottom of the food chain. Everybody is better than you are and you must use your wits if you are to survive. Later on when you have advanced in your skills it will get much better.

Use manual aiming and aim high as Gray Roger suggested. I aim just above the red zone and if I am in a small low ship I aim even higher as shooting fish is not the objective.

The game engine only plays a limited number of sounds at a time so in a large battle your cannons might make no noise because other ships fired just before you did.

But as always, use your wits! Choose your battles carefully and remember that there is no such thing as a fair fight.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Beta 3.4 did not have the performance fix that caused the cannons not firing, so that should not apply.
Though I did occasionally notice recently that auto aimed fire doesn't work and then it turns out that manual aim does work.
After that, auto aim works again. It is like the game needs a little reminder at times.

I think the log messages can be resized somewhere, but I'm not sure about the colour.
Remind me after the weekend and I can see if I can quickly track down the relevant code.

 

[JackOfOwls]

Oh, okay. Thanks for the valuable tips, boys. This forum is incredibly helpful. I didn't even know about the hotfix for 3.4 and just installed it now. Nor did I know about the auto-aiming feature. It was something I liked about Starpoint Gemini 2 a lot, the option to have your crew auto-aim and fire while you could concentrate on building up your ship. Useful for newbies and the beginning of the game. This mod seems amazing. Even though I've only successfully pirated a few ships, capturing that $50,000 cargo of ebony really kept me going. Now concentrating on bigger fish, merchant vessels and such. And I'm constantly running into surprises, all pleasant, like the ability to either kill the captain of a ship or persuade him to join your crew. I just need to figure out what the various Captain skills do, and what's best. I now know that Gunner is one of the most important ones. And probably a decent navigator. I've been foolishly promoting crewmen and assigning positions to them when they don't really have the proper skills. I now know to recruit them in taverns.

One more question: If I continue to pummel a fleeing ship with cannon fire, will the captain eventually surrender or will he/she sometimes go down with the ship? My mistake: boarding too early with an underpowered crew and suffering the consequences - DEATH.

 

[Grey Roger]

All officers have something useful to contribute. A boatswain will help you grapple and board the enemy ship. A surgeon will reduce your own casualties, especially if you take a few units of medicaments. And a quartermaster will get better prices for your loot as well as lower prices for your supplies.

Enemy ships do sometimes surrender. You can help this happen, as well as reduce the number of enemy crew who will oppose your boarding, by pummelling the ship with grapeshot. This is very short range, though.

Promoting crewmen is a cheap way to get low grade officers. But officers gain experience over time. They pick up skills, they earn experience points and eventually they go up a level and can be assigned perks. So those officers of yours, like you, are new to the job and not much good - yet...

Officers whom you've assigned as companions will gain experience more quickly. They'll also join you ashore. And they'll join you in boardings or dungeon raids, where they'll probably die. To prevent that, talk to them, click on "About you", then "Why don't you sit out the next boarding". When they've gained some Melee skill and you've given them some decent weapons and armour, talk to them again, "About you", "Next time we board you're coming with me". (If you're recruiting from taverns, some officers already have decent Melee skill and will be very useful in boarding actions.) Also put some decent weapons in your ship's locker; these will be used by your crewmen during boarding, improving their chances of survival, and yours.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Sometimes ships sink and sometimes they will surrender.
Depends on a lot of factors. Using grapeshot encourages surrendering over sinking.