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    Maelstrom New Horizons


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Starting game date, does it matter?

BogdanM said:
What I meant to say is that I never see pirates and their victims, only pirates crushed by the "insert country" warship patrols.
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I can imagine that happening.
Perhaps we should add some extra, common single-ship encounters in PROGRAM\Encounters\Encounters_init.c .
If people think that worthwhile, perhaps you or one of our other members could try modding that?
It isn't very difficult and I'd rather not have to spend my time on it myself....

BogdanM said:
What does "Cannot Buy - Navy Ship" mean? Do I have to be enlisted in the Royal Navy to get those ships? Or only have a letter of marque?
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Depending on the size of the ship, you may need indeed only a Letter of Marque. But for some, you also need to be promoted a few times.
They won't sell just anyone a tier 1 ship of the line.

BogdanM said:
Ah and another question, can I read anywhere what skills are used by each officer role?
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Most accurate place is to check the code in PROGRAM\Officers.c .
 
I could give it a try and tweak the parameters and see what happens. I'll let you know if I stumble upon something awesome! :))

But... How do I open those files? :D
 
The pirates are mostly accurate in that they mostly sailed small fast ships and preyed on merchantmen. Of course they could not stand up to Naval fleets and generally headed for the horizon. Your job is to even the odds.

If you don't like the firepower and stout hull of that fluyt (which I believe is the largest pirate ship) then perhaps you would like the Postillionen. She is fast, maneuverable, and has a useful cargo capacity. The Neptunus is another very good small ship. With either you should be able to take an Aurora class frigate and work your way up the food chain from there.
 
Buy a ship? You mean actually... pay for... a ship? :sick

It's possible that I bought a ship in the earliest days when I was playing stock PotC. And there was the one time when I was at Isla de la Muerte on other business, visited Vanderdecken, saved game and bought one of his ships to try out. Then I reloaded the saved game so it never happened, took a swig of rum to get rid of the foul taste of having paid for a ship, and went back to normal business. Apart from those lapses, I'm willing to put my hand on any holy book I can find in someone else's treasure chest and swear that I've never bought a ship in all the years I've been playing the various Build Mods.

Hence my comment about upgrading from lugger to sloop to xebec to brig to frigate - those are the sorts of ships I find either being used by pirates or as escorts for merchants, and which I capture to use for myself. I've been known to do a smuggling run and hope to get caught by the coastguard so I can steal their sloop.

I don't remember seeing the Postillionen or Neptunus - are they recent additions? Which nations use them? I'll have to see if I can acquire one of each... In any case, for me the Aurora is almost the end of the sequence, which I keep until I find a flushdeck frigate. With good speed, agility and firepower, that is the ship I end up using for general privateering, though I also bag one or two big battlewagons for use against forts. They tend to stay in shipyard berths when I'm not going after forts, that way I only have one ship at my command which means I can take 3 prizes before making port.
 
Postillionen and Neptunus were added I think some time last year? Not very recent anymore.
However, they don't appear in all time periods. I know Hylie generally plays the earlier ones where they do exist.
Which storyline are you playing? Perhaps after Colonial Powers, these ships become fairly uncommon and/or no longer appear at all.
Am at work right now, so cannot check their actual appearance settings in ships_init.c .
 
I guess it's all about how you like to RP in your game. I like playing as the merchant turned pirate/privateer. It allows me to level my character in a way that it doesn't break immersion, I don't like the idea of being a pirate with a very weak character or capturing vessels by myself without the help of my officers and with a tiny ship. So I trade and do some missions until I can by a proper merchant ship, then do some more trading until I can buy an ok raiding ship (in my case it's a Snow Brig). Having reached level 14, accumulated ~300.000 coins, hired 5 officers and got all sorts of cool weapons and items, I think it's the proper moment to start doing some combat. I'll decide this evening if I start doing missions for England or go straight to pirating.
 
The Neptunus is 3 years old and comes in early and late variants. The early version exists in periods 1 and 2. The late version exists in periods 2 and 3. The only difference is in some of the rigging. 16-12 pounders.

The Postillionen is 1 1/2 years old and exists in periods 2 and 3. 20-12 pounders. All nations use these ships but I prefer the Spanish versions because they have the largest holds. The French versions have the smallest holds.

I play as a merchant/smuggler with the occasional side trip into piracy. The English are the best opponents so that is who I go after.

The game I was playing and in which I captured a Man O War for modding has decided to start crashing on me, so I started over in the other install. I'm currently sailing the French Tartane, 4-9 ponders. Sha makes a great smuggler!
 
Well since I'm using this topic like it's yahoo answers, here goes another one. If I have two ships and the second one I staff with officers armed with the best weapons, will it count when doing a boarding action in which I'm not present? I'm dreaming about having a creating a pirate wolfpack to wreak havoc with in the Caribbean. :D
 
Oh, my mistake. I should have checked before posting.

Are your prepared for your daily dose of questions to stimulate your memory? :D

Is it possible to tone down somehow the amount of debris that flies from a ship when it's hit? It confuses me because I don't always know if the splash is made by sailors taking a dive or by my shots falling short of the target. :|

I've had my first couple of sea battles and the enemy managed to destroy one of my masts. Those that happen by chance or should I aim at something specifically (and use the right ammunition)?

How do you capture a town? The fort seems OP as hell, I've seen it taking out frigates in two shots.
 
Chainshot is good for taking down masts. To destroy a mast, aim for the mast. :D When you aim at a ship, the crosshair turns red when it's somewhere near the correct elevation, though I've found I need to aim a bit higher. To aim for a mast you need to aim higher still because that red is when you're aiming somewhere near the hull. Being behind the enemy is good because your shot may go through several sails, not to mention having two or three chances to hit a mast. However, if you're too close, you won't hit the mast because the ship's high stern will get in the way.

Forts are indeed powerful. They're made of stone and they have the strongest guns in the game. A frigate isn't going to do the job. You'll want something with at least 18 pound guns, preferably bigger, and that probably means a tier 3 ship such as a battleship. You'll also want all the ship defence perks otherwise the fort will be knocking out your guns faster than you're knocking out the fort's guns.
 
Thanks! I'm happy to hear that it's more than just chance. Do you have any idea how big of a crew do I need to have to conquer a town? And do crews from other ships in my fleet add to the total number?
 
When you have ships big enough to take forts you will also have crews big enough to take the town. Consider the Wicked Wench to be the bare minimum needed with far larger ships preferred.
 
If I recall, extra ships do count for fort assaults.

The particle code is in program\sea_ai\aiballs.c ifI recall. Can't check right now though.
 
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