What effect do Skills have?

[Morthon]

I know that having a higher melee skill increases your slashing speed and makes your defense better. But how do the rest of the skills affect gameplay? like sailing for example, how does a higher sailing skill affect your sailing? I hope to find a list of effects on the wiki, but alas, I found none. If anyone could point me to an explanation of the mechanics, that'd be great.

Cheers!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

If you Right-Click on the skill in the F2>Character menu, you'll see a brief explanation. These are the texts shown there:

ALeadership_Header{Leadership}
ALeadership_Descr{Leadership indicates how strongly you influence people around you, and how well you are able to achieve your goals.}
ALeadership_Img{leadership skill icon}
AFencing_Header{Melee}
AFencing_Descr{The Fencing skill is important for any captain, as your survival often depends on how well you can swing a blade.}
AFencing_Img{fencing skill icon}
ASailing_Header{Navigation}
ASailing_Descr{Navigation indicates how good you are at controlling your ship. It influences your ship's speed and manoeuvrability.}
ASailing_Img{sailing skill icon}
ACannons_Header{Cannons}
ACannons_Descr{This skill controls the reloading speed of your cannons and the grouping of their shots.}
ACannons_Img{cannons skill icon}
AAccuracy_Header{Accuracy}
AAccuracy_Descr{The skill of timing the moment when a salvo will inflict maximum damage to the enemy. The higher this skill, the more accurate your gunners are.}
AAccuracy_Img{accuracy skill icon}
AGrappling_Header{Grappling}
AGrappling_Descr{The skill at choosing the optimal distance, angle and speed for boarding ships, as well as keeping your boarding party together.}
AGrappling_Img{grappling skill icon}
ADefence_Header{Defense}
ADefence_Descr{The crew-quarters' level of comfort, hygiene and the capacity to heal the wounded all help reduce losses from heated battles.}
ADefence_Img{deffence skill icon}
ARepair_Header{Repair}
ARepair_Descr{Intimate knowledge of your ship and her construction allows you to utilise your repair crews better, improving the efficiency of their work.}
ARepair_Img{repair skill icon}
ACommerce_Header{Commerce}
ACommerce_Descr{Skill at haggling, assessing the value of goods and making business contacts. Helps you strike better trade deals.}
ACommerce_Img{commerce skill icon}
ASneak_Header{Luck}
ASneak_Descr{Luck, precognition or danger sense - whatever you call it, the more you improve this skill, the luckier you get.}
ASneak_Img{sneak skill icon}

You can also play through the Standard storyline tutorial and ask your bosun Malcolm about them. He's got a description for them all.

Does that help? If anything is still unclear, feel free to ask.

 

[Morthon]

Ahhh, interesting! Been playing the build mod for quite a while and never knew there were tooltips! Thanks! I also noticed that there are descriptions in loading screens. While interesting, my pc is so fast that I never have the time to read them. Might be an idea to make them otherwise accessible too.

Cheers!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

We've got a Tips & Tricks interface in the game now as well as per the Beta 3 test version.
And you can read those actual tips with the TX Converter if you'd like: http://piratesahoy.net/build/tools/Modeling+Texturing/TX Convertor.zip
Point it to your RESOURCE\Textures\Tips folder.

 

[Baalzie]

This... I feel like the tooltips are extremely vague, at least for someone into the actual mechanics behind things. Just saying "Sailing:It enhances your sailing, doh!" kinda' doesn't cut it for me... I want to know what actual effects a point in sailing will have for my turn rate, max speed acceleration and whatnot. I'd love to know what actual effects Leadership have on different mechanics in the game. What does luck ACTUALLY do? Not just "It makes you luckier". I haven't noticed ANY difference between 10 and 5 in Luck so, I kind of start looking at it as useless... But IS it? I might not notice because I accredit the changes to another mechanic, and getting it all wrong...

Just what does Melee actually do to make me more efficient in fencing? Add damage? Add to the hidden piercing/blocking numners? Makeme hit more? swing faster? What?

The Wiki would be the perfect place for information such as this,. Things that delve just a tad deeper than a casual "lemme sink a poirate yarr! Get yer numbers outtta me foice!" might need or want.

Problem is, by my reckon, that it's the people that know these things that'd have to create it. And well, they're busy creatin' more important stuffs aren't they?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Malcolm Hatcher can explain some stuff during the Standard Storyline Tutorial.
Not all-inclusive, but better than nothing.

Luck helps notably when you're Gambling, for example.