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Solved Newbie Help

Z

Zipeh

Landlubber
Good day all,

I went to make a new account but apparently I already had one .. and i dont know why or how :p But i guess i was on this site years ago .. was wondering why my username was taken....

Anyhow i have just begun playing CoAS and got through the prologue and now im out and about in the world and completely confused .. well mostly confused.

I wanted to do trading with some combat .. make some coin, and move up in the world.

So i thought i would start by sailing around and comparing prices .. but after 5 stops, paying out 5000 in salaries and i dont know how much in food .. i havnt found a single trade route. Maybe one with 3 profit / unit -- which hardly seems worthwhile. Am i missing some fundamental element to the trade side of the game?

Should i not start trading but work some other angle in the game ? I didnt want to play for the missions .. I was more interesting in a sandbox pirate game where i could sail around - buy and sell - and capture the odd ship .. maybe do the odd mission if the spirit moved me - or work for someone ..

Anyhow .. i have read through the manual .. and some guides and tried to poke through the forums .. but I thought i would post up, ask my questions and see if anyone had some advice .. before i get frustrated, pack it in and wander off to another game . .which i dont want to do as this one looks like it could be fun if i had half a clue how to proceed.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
 
When you first start out your skills are very low so you have to build them up, building trade skill up will reduce the prices you pay for goods and in some cases the sell prices will increase opening new trade routes to you. So to start with your best bet is to talk with one of the store owners and ask him about trade missings, the first time you ask him out a trade mission he will inform you about a ship called the Blue Bird (this is a one time quest, so saying no to this quest will mean you never get to do it). However you do not have to complete the quest straight away for the Blue Bird, in fact there is no time limit so you can do it when you want be it in a month or a years time its intirely up to you.

After you have been told about the Blue Bird, speak to the store owner again about a trade mission, if he has anything he'll offer you one. But take note that your ships availabe cargo hold is taken into account, so if you are playing with realistic weights on then it would be best to try and keep as much space free as possible in the small ships, about 800 units is more than enough or if playing with realistic weights off then 400 units of free space.

As you complete the trade missions your treasury skills will increase slowly, also as try to get the merchant perks which will again help lower the cost of goods and increase the sell prices. Doing merchant missions will also mean you have a pirate ship generated everytime you leave port to start a merchant mission, this pirate ship is called "Gentlement Of Fortune" it doesn't vanish if you enter sailing mode and then exit back to the world map. You can either fight them or try to avoid them, it can be tricky trying to avoid them but it also pays sometimes to simply run away from them.

Finally try to get a officer who has higher treasury skills than your self (the higher the better), once you hire one assign him as treasurer and this will lower costs and increase prices of goods.

Hope this helps.
 
K went back - loaded an old saved game, got the quest .. now im trying to capture sink the Blue Bird and i think i must either suck too much as a player or i have the wrong ship .. cant see to do any damage to it, and if they board me its all over in seonds. I have been looking around for tips on what ships to use / not use .. but no one seems to have a hard time with the mission.

I only have a sloop with 70 crew .. and im lv 4 and missing a few officers .. can it be done by a 70 man sloop, or do i want to roam about - try and capture some better ships or make enough money to buy something better ? How good of a ship do i need, or are my tactics just wrong. tried to fire the chain shot alot .. but the bars never dropped. - seemed to be hitting but didnt do anything.
 
Oh and should i wrangle with one of the mods ? do they add alot without causing too much grief in terms of install / affecting game stability ?
 
I think ou should load and older save level up more, get more money for a better ship, your not going to do much damage to The BlueBird at lv 4 with a sloop of 70 men against the Bluebird which has 22 x24 pounder cannon or culverin and over 200 men.
 
I think maybe lv 17 would be good level to take on the Bluebird- oh try to get a larger ship too with strong cannon.
 
A Friget or Corvette (over kill) but will do the job, i would go for something like the 28 gun Friget. She's a class 5 ship and can have about 180 crew or so and can mount perhaps 12 to 20 maybe even 24Ibs cannons. There are a few other class 5 ships more than capable of giving yout a chance but try to focus on a ship that can mount a minimum of 20, 16Ibs cannon/culverines and a crew size of no fewer than 130. She also needs to be fast, at least 14 knots. To get the upper hand try to damage the Blue Bird's sails so that she doesn't have the speed advantage and then focus fire with grape shots. You'll soon be able to board her and take her as a prize. Don't sink her because if you do that you will never see her again, she's a unique ship.

Once you have captured her go to the nearest port and put her in storage and then go to the store you got the quest from (save the game) and inform the store owner that you have completed the quest. He should give you the money and you get to keep the Blue Bird, if you don't store the ship though i think the store owner takes her from you?
 
k - so that will have to wait a little while.

Next question .. is there some sort of timetable for the game, in that does the enemy ship size and capability increase over time - as i seem to be constantly running into groups of 3-4 enemy ships all outclassing my one little schooner. Or is it just a random thing that i am interpreting as an on purpose thing ?

Also missions all seem to next 2-4k which hardly seems to be worth the work involved - seems that getting a lucky single ship and capturing her, selling her cannons and goods and then the ship itself is far more profitable use of ones time.
 
The Storeman does not take the Bluebird, he just bitterly complains that you did not fullfill his requirements by "sinking" the Bluebird and he refuses to pay the money. As Luke said its best to put her in storage, pick up your money and take her out of storage and do with her what you desire. Most of the time- getting work from merchants is not very much, they want a quick delivery and safe voyage for little money- its a shame. Sometimes though I only do it when I really need cash, I agree to escort or deliver cargo, either I plunder the vessel I was supposed to protect annd sell her cannon and goods, or I sell the cargo that was given to me to deliver- I dont reccomend selling cargo your supposed to deliver, but its pretty much ok plundering the ships you were to protect if you dont start plundering every ship you were to protect, or else your reputation will drop and no work will be avaible to you.
 
My bad, thanks for explaing why you should store the Blue Bird (been a long time since i did that quest, 2 years or so).:eek:

@ Zipeh
Yep the ships do increase as does the class of ships as time progresses, but this is all part of your own rank. The higher your rank the more likely you will find higher class ships or even fleets (including fl;eets already engaged in battles).

A tip is if you see a enemy or pirate ship engaged in battle on the world map go over and take a look. If you feel you are out matched let the other ship(s) have some fun before you move in to deliver the final blow. Take the ship and either swap her for yours (if she of of more use to use) or sell her at the nearest friendly port. I do this all the time, but only attacking pirate ships (don't want to make any enemies to early on). But i do also do the merchant missions, the more cargo space you have available the better and more money you will make.

So keeping a ship you captured will help you make more money from the store owner, i only do the merchant runs in the early stages of the game to build my trade skill up till i see a trade route that i can make some profit from. Then i go about buying and selling goods myself.

Turning realistic encounters off will mean you bump into more ships earlier than normal, if its already off turn it on and run the reinit function. You will soon see a difference and you might like the other setting (which ever that may be) more than what it was originaly set at.
 
I have a schooner at the moment and 140k in cash - i would like to get a better ship but all the ones i capture or can purchase are less gunned and slower, although with more cargo and crew .. at the moment i prefer the mobility of the schooner as i can almost always get away from pursuers .. and if i went to a galleon or flute .. i think i would be dead ten times over now

i havnt found a good list of all the ships and the general stats .. any advice on what to be looking for ?
 
A galleon will be good if you want to go the merchant route and make you money that way but you'll deffintely be unable to flee from a pirate schooner or a brig and since the armament on a galleon isn't that great, you better have a good crew to fend off attacks.
 
28 gun frigate or 32 gun Corvette , and the regular COAS frigate- all good ships all armed with good amount of cannon, can hold lots of crew to take on the BlueBird and I think the Corvette and 28 gun frigate are more manuverable and faster than the regular COAS frigate. I havent installed the newest GOF mod yet so I dont know if more ships were added that would be better but from my experience those 3 are perfect, in my opinion.
 
Depends on what you want from the ship.

For speed, a fair amount of gun and maneuverability a Frigate, Corvette. The Constitution would be my choice in this area.

For speed and maneuverability without the worry about having to many guns but a decent sized cargohold, the Black Pearl or Whydah.

For speed and power, the Constitition, Battle Frigate or any Frigate for this matter.

For poor power then its obviously Line Ships, MOW's etc.

But i would think you want speed, a decent cargohold but nothing to big and at least 30 to 50 guns (more if possible) so it would have to be a Frigate and there are more than enough in the game. But finding them can take a while, but once you have one you should start to see the ships that are generated for the AI been some what better more powerfull than they are right now.
 
K next question :p

Im working a Morgan mission to kill Edward Low or Law .. guide says i have to use a smaller ship than i have and to park my good one with a port master .. which sounds good .. but he wants to charge me 27,000 .. which is likely as much as i could even make on the mission.

Is that price normal? .. its about the cost of the ship .. well sorta ..

still havnt found a better ship than the schooner .. except when im attacked by more than one of them. I'll keep looking though.
 
Yep the price is normal bud, but it is worth it and the ship you will get at the end is also worth it and once you own the ship you get to keep her so no need to put her in dry dock.

Thats the ship i tend to go for asap, in less i start with her which i have with the character i'm playing as. I was going to say the Enterprise might be a worthy upgrade but after capturing one and fighting 2 pirate ships with the Enterprise who i had mounted 24, 16Ibs culverines on her was slow and when sailing towards the wind she was useless. So i would say stick with the Schooner for as long as you can but then you have more ships available to you than i do since i removed almost half of them lol. But i'm thinking of adding some of the class 5, 6 and 7 ships back in, but as it stands i think the only ship that will be a real problem for you is the Xebec's. They can be so fast and really good at sailing into the wind, so if you see a few of them, you know your in for a tough battle. But again they might be fast and more agile than the Schooner and mount the same amount of guns, but they have smaller cargoholds. So they are all about hit and runs really, rather than long drawmn out fights that you most likely will have from time to time with the Schooner.

In my current game i have seen no Schooner's (started with mine) i have seen only 2 Enterprise's and i captured the second one, alot of Brig's, Brigentines and Barkentines oh and a few Heavy Brigentines or are they Barkentines. Anyway there has been times when i have woundered if moving to another ship is worth it, and the answer everytime is no. The Schooner has so much that i like about her, that other ships don't have (from the ones i have seen) that i will stick with the Schooner for as long as i can and perhaps even put her in storage when i no longer use her. Or perhaps use her to train low level navigators with lol.
 
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