Boarding, Crew slaughtert like dogs

[Dragosz]

So i was boarding a barke (the slow small trade ship) and reduced the crew to 25 man. My ship had 117 man, I lost 40 man when boarding. THis seems a bit excessive. But in all my boardings so far my crew dies like thare made of suger. Wat skill do i need to increase so they dont die so fast?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

What difficulty are you on?
What's your crew morale?
Did you equip them with good weapons using the Weapons Locker?

 

[Dragosz]

Easy,Best,Put 20-40 weapons in the locker with 25+ dam minimum. Its yust that the enemy has 150-200 hp while my man seems to have 100-80.....

 

[Pieter Boelen]

@Grey Roger, do you have any advice to share?

Crew HP is normally scaled by morale and relative ratio of crew numbers, if I recall.
But with 25 versus 117 men in favour of the player, I'd expect it to be easier than @Dragosz describes.

 

[Grey Roger]

I don't know much about the way boarding is handled. In game, my experience is that boarding crew do indeed tend to die quickly, and I regard them as expendable drones to keep some of the enemy busy for a while until I and my officers have dealt with our immediate opponents. I don't even try to board a small merchant until I and my officers all have good Melee skill, most if not all of the combat perks, and preferably at least battle armour. Until then, preferred strategy is to pound the enemy ship with grapeshot and hope it surrenders, then all I have to do is duel the captain.

Things change once I have enough money to buy battle armour in quantity. That goes into the weapons locker, along with any weapons of "Good" or better quality that I've picked up so far. At that point the boarding crew begin surviving fights.

 

[Dragosz]

I agree with Grey Roger, I activated the side step so i can get arround my crew and start hacking in the enemy crew so its not becomes a 1 vs 5 when my crew finaly lets me stab somone (Also called thare all dead)

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Do I understand correctly your crew is far weaker than you and your officers?
One solution would be for someone to move the locators around so the player is always generated in front of the crew.

Also, I think @Levis' Leveling System changes the player crew type depending on the situation.
Can you show a screenshot of your F2>Character menu?
I wonder if that might explain your weak crew.

 

[Dragosz]

Do I understand correctly your crew is far weaker than you and your officers?
One solution would be for someone to move the locators around so the player is always generated in front of the crew.

Also, I think @Levis' Leveling System changes the player crew type depending on the situation.
Can you show a screenshot of your F2>Character menu?
I wonder if that might explain your weak crew.

I can try make some photos, Last boarding seemed to go better...

 

[Grey Roger]

Do I understand correctly your crew is far weaker than you and your officers?

If I've got enough armour for myself and the party officers but not enough to stuff the weapons locker, yes. If I don't have armour for at least myself and the party officers then the boarding probably won't end well anyway, unless I can persuade the enemy ship to surrender by bombarding it with grapeshot.

One solution would be for someone to move the locators around so the player is always generated in front of the crew.

It depends on the deck layout. The one which is typical for a frigate, for example, has two decks side by side, with a couple of ramps between them. You and your officers are on one; if the numbers aren't badly against you, your boarding crew is on the other. So I and the officers will deal with our group, the boarding crew will keep the rest of the enemy occupied for a while, and hopefully by the time the crew are wiped out, the officers and I have finished with our side and can deal with the other group of enemies.

Then there's the small ship, which at this stage of the game is probably the only one you ought to be looking at. The boarding crew are all in front of you and, unless they're tough enough to at least take out one or two enemy crew, they'll be wiped out and then I and the officers have to deal with the enemy as if the boarding crew had never been there in the first place.

Then there's the battleship layout, but you shouldn't be looking at this until you, your officers and preferably the whole boarding crew are well equipped. There's a boat in the middle effectively dividing the deck in two. By default the boarding crew and enemy crew all go to one side of the boat; only if there are too many do some go round the other side. So I tend to go round the other side, take out any surplus enemy boarders who are trying to do the same, then hit the main enemy force from behind while my crew are fighting from the front.

And then there's the two-ship layout where one ship is significantly larger than the other and there's only one boarding ramp between them. This is the one where I make most use of side-step because the crew are all clustered round that one boarding ramp. So, pretending to be Errol Flynn swinging over on a rope, I side-step all the way onto the enemy quarterdeck and again start attacking the enemy from behind. There are usually one or two enemy crew who can't get at the boarding ramp and who are therefore ready to meet me as soon as I let go of the "rope", i.e. have side-stepped to a position where I can drop onto the quarterdeck.

Out of all those, probably only the small ship layout really needs the locators changed. But make sure the player isn't alone - officer locators have to be moved forward as well, otherwise the player is going to be surrounded and killed rather quickly.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

It depends on the deck layout. The one which is typical for a frigate, for example, has two decks side by side, with a couple of ramps between them. You and your officers are on one; if the numbers aren't badly against you, your boarding crew is on the other. So I and the officers will deal with our group, the boarding crew will keep the rest of the enemy occupied for a while, and hopefully by the time the crew are wiped out, the officers and I have finished with our side and can deal with the other group of enemies.

There should actually be code in place to have your crew start on "your own" ship and the enemies on the other.
I don't think that ever quite worked correctly.

And then there's the two-ship layout where one ship is significantly larger than the other and there's only one boarding ramp between them. This is the one where I make most use of side-step because the crew are all clustered round that one boarding ramp. So, pretending to be Errol Flynn swinging over on a rope, I side-step all the way onto the enemy quarterdeck and again start attacking the enemy from behind.

Unless I'm thinking of a different location from you, I think there is actually already a secondary ramp where you as player can walk to attack the enemy from behind.
Turn around when you're loaded there and see if you can get to the other ship using a different route.

 

[Grey Roger]

Unless I'm thinking of a different location from you, I think there is actually already a secondary ramp where you as player can walk to attack the enemy from behind.
Turn around when you're loaded there and see if you can get to the other ship using a different route.

You are thinking of a different location. That's the frigate layout. The main effect of that second ramp is that, if the enemy has a larger crew or finishes off my crew too quickly, I need to watch in case the enemy are using it to try to get behind me!

There is also a second large vs. small layout. That also has a second way through - if you start on the smaller ship, you can climb over a wrecked cannon and through a breach in the hull. This is the layout which appears if you're playing "Ardent" and are boarding the payroll ship ("SP_CastelF") from the snow brig ("Shnyava2") - you're on the smaller ship and that cannon route is very useful!

 

[Pieter Boelen]

There is also a second large vs. small layout. That also has a second way through - if you start on the smaller ship, you can climb over a wrecked cannon and through a breach in the hull.

That is indeed the one I was thinking of.

 

[Dragosz]

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo............. I lost 36 man highly motivated crew to 8 pirate crew............
I first unloaded my Fleuron class 3rd rate's 30 cannons with grapeshot into the enemy 6th Rate Frigate untill 8 man ware left. I still neded to fight 3 dack and the captain with a crewman (thats more then the 8 man) And lost more crew then the enemy wtf is this bullshit?????

Okey the fergat had a munitenie and now i neded to fight agianst 7-9 creman while thare ware only 5 left when i empty my grape shop on them and 2 of them survived after the boaring. Are they hire mercenaries on the fly??????

 

[Grey Roger]

The number of enemies you face on deck does indeed seem not to match with the actual number of crew - I've noticed that before as well.

Pirates are indeed tough opponents. Practice your boarding on enemy merchants first, their crew are easier to kill. (And you'll probably get more money for selling the ship afterwards because merchants carry more cargo than pirates.)

As for the mutiny, there are a couple of possible causes for that. The first is that, right after you've taken a ship, the crew's morale is "Treacherous". Go to the "Ship" section of the F2 interface screen, pick the ship you just captured, then you can pay the crew loads of money to raise their morale, at least to "Low" and preferably better. The second is, what reputation do you have and what is the reputation of the officer you put in command of the frigate? If you're good ("Bloke", "Matey", "Dashing", "Hero") and he's evil ("Rascal", "Swindler", "Bloody Terror", "Horror of the High Seas") - or vice versa - then he'll be the one inciting the mutiny. Make sure you assign an officer who has the same general outlook on life as you do. ("Neutral" doesn't care, so they're safe regardless of your reputation.)