Questions about Sea Battles - Advice

Astrollos

Good afternoon everyone,

I come here looking for some advice on as to find out if I am correctly fighting on the sea. Currently, I am on an endeavor to complete a battle report in the city of Venice. Killing enemies in between formidable foes has been fairly easy, however, I am having trouble on the 100/200 stage. My light galley can handle their cannons and I can repair my ship. The trouble I am finding can be summed up in three sections: Materials, Damage and Melee.

Firstly, I cannot sustain a long battle with the two foes as my materials run out on my ship. I have spent 25 days fighting on the sea and I keep running out of either timber for repair or cannonball shots for my cannons. Which leads to my second inquiry: why are my cannons doing mostly 1 damage to the ships? Could the reason be that I do not have enough penetration as I heard some people say on the World Chat? Am I far away or too close? How can I figure out what cannons that I need in order to do more damage to them? Since my enemies have around 304 health each, six shots may put them down to 298 health, yet they repair themselves and my only hope is to cause a leak on their ship. Finally, I have tried to melee them and cannot best their 48 points of attack, no matter if my light galley is filled with all skilled sailors. Do I need the swordplay skill to increase my attack against them? I read on the Wikipedia that if the sailors are disrupted, it allows the attacker to cause more damage but how much if my damage is not huge in comparison with them? 

I would appreciate any answers and opinions and looking forward to hearing from you all.

Sincerily,

Exchequer

purplepirate

@Astrollos Hello Astro and welcome to UWO :) Glad to hear that you are trying out maritime and i can understand that it can be a challenge picking up some of the mechanics in this game, so here's so helpful points to keep in mind to help you get pass those early annoying lvl's.

  First thing you will want to look at are your starting skills for combat. Being such low lvl you won't have many skill slots yet to work with so only worry about the most important ones first. The base most important skills are repair and gunnery. Repair is prime and used for all 3 professions (adventure/trade/maritime) in various situations. Gunnery is the base most important combat skill and will affect your damage/range/reloadspeed of your cannons so try to rank this one up.

  As you get additional skill slot free the next skills you will want to build are steering for better reaction handling in battles. 4th most important will be leadership to keep your sailors under control from events like mutiny and disorder, a disordered crew in battle that engages in melee can loose you the battle especially when you have so few sailors. Swordplay will be the fifth base skill you will want for battles to defend yourself when you get caught in melee fights. These are the 5 base most important skills you will need to get you though those early starting lvl's. As you get more lvl's and skill slots available you will want to expand into more supporting and specialized skills for combat but don't worry about that until you get more experience.

  Important supporting skills are evasion, surgery and arms. Specialized skills are... For cannons, ballistics, accuracy, penetration. For melee,  first aid, guard, tactics, gunfire, assault. All skills listed in order of importance. These are all the main important combat skills to work towards. There are others but these are the base ones.

  When it comes to playing maritime as a beginner, the key is a decent ship. You must pass lvl 20 to get access to good enough ships from the shipyard to really survive the BR formitables. So just try to get to that barrier first. To do that there is a fast easier way for you. When doing the quest try to take out the smaller lighter ships so you kill them faster and get to the 200 mark. Every 50 kills will trigger a formitable encounter, key here is to just retreat if you are out matched and go back to sinking the regular ships. You can get to 200 mark without killing them but you will get less reward when you cash out but that doesn't matter. If you can't sink them then the whole battle is just a waste of time and resources so avoid it. If you have the skill caution then always sail with it on since it will deter the encounter. When you go to cash out the quest, if you have a xp boost use it before you cash out quest for extra xp. You can only gain 3 lvl's at a time, so you will have to repeat the br quest a few times to get past lvl 20 but the will go quicker without dealing with formitables. If you feel confident and want to try then only battle when 1 ship shows up not 2 (it's random how many ships will appear), retreat otherwise.

  When in combat there are some factors you need to consider. The first is the type of cannon you are using. Different types of cannons use different 'shot' types which affect how much damage they cause in battle. When you buy guns compare the PP (piercing power) of different guns. But when finding a good PP in a cannon you also have to look at the range of the gun since some cannons require you to get very close to enemy in order to use. The second factor is your 'field of fire'. This you will see as a blue zone for your guns. You'll notice that the field changes shades of blue, these are the different zones of damage the guns do. Cannon shots loose damage at long ranges and are most effective the closer you are. Don't use your guns at point blank range as they will loose all damage (1pt damage) unless you have the skill accuracy, this skill gives point blank shooting with no damage loss. Also, try not to be in a turn while you shoot as they are less effective (minimum damage). The skill penetration that you hear on world chat is a highly specialized skill and you don't really need to worry about it at low levels while you build your character.

  Melee fighting is a whole tutorial in itself and is a specialized fighting style, Stick to the basics for now and you'll be on you way to being able to handle any npc encounter. If you need help and or more info you can pm me in game Samantha99 and/or come check out our company (Freedom Hunters) located in Amnsterdam. It specialized in new players to the game and can help in many aspects of this game. Good luck, hope to see you on the seas :)

Samantha

Whitejacket

Can't really add that much to what Samantha said although I'll disagree with her regarding her skill importance criteria. :p

Keep in mind that you actually have to activate certain skills in the combat ring (e.g. ballistics or accuracy). Gunnery is automatic, but others are not, so you need to activate the skills in order for them to work and to level. For example, if you are firing your cannons but haven't activated ballistics or accuracy or evasion, or whatever, you won't get the benefit of that skill.

purplepirate

@Whitejacket how would you list the skills in importance? keeping in mind this thread is coming from a first time player, not a seasoned vet perspective.

Whitejacket

@purplepirate

Basically only two small things I would not agree with but it's really a matter of opinion.

1. I would say accuracy is more important than ballistics overall, even for beginning players. There's a lot of technical stuff that I've read about both skills so I won't reproduce it here, but accuracy does counter evasion, which some npcs use. Ballistics doesn't add much value at close range imo, since its power favours the mid and long-range sections and chances are when doing a BR you might not sink the ships from far away. That said, I think ballistics is very important - but imo saying it's more important than accuracy is a matter of judgment. In any case, he should get both and grind both, even though no beginning maritime job has both favoured.

2. For melee, I would not say guard is more important than the other melee skills. The idea for him is to get levels quickly, so guard would just prolong the melee unless the npc is spamming assault, which is not common. Other than that, I think all four melee skills (assault, tactics, gunfire, guard) are equally important although in melee against player pirates tactics is probably risky considering that many like to use assault, and it's favoured in pirate jobs anyway.

@Astrollos

One other thing I forgot to mention that might not be obvious to new players is that you should be in a maritime job when doing maritime-related activities so you benefit from the full experience and favoured skills criteria. You should also be in a maritime ship with lots of sailors. For cannons to do maximum damage you need to have a certain amount of sailors (there's a formula) and if you are doing a battle report in a trade ship with low sailors that won't cut it.

Maritime is a bit discouraging at first as far as the grind is concerned but it gets easier as you level because your skills get stronger. Keep in mind also that lower level ships have lower stats, so your ship will have a hard time turning and steering at first and takes a bit of time to level (which is why Samantha recommended steering).

Level 2 battle reports are also quite boring, but they do give decent xp at low levels. The formidables are challenging to newer players but as your skills get stronger you will find that they will be easier to do, although this will take time.

Get as many maritime jobs as you can, so you can work on skills that you will get early. Junior Officer is excellent when starting because steering, ballistics, gunnery, and leadership are all favoured. Even though accuracy isn't favoured you can still grind it. Mercenary is also good as accuracy, and repair are favoured, as is swordplay, assault, and gunfire. Mercenary is more melee-oriented so you might want to try Junior Officer first.

As you get more experience you'll see that these topics will become clearer.

Hope this helps.

Astrollos

Dear Purplepirate
and Whitejacket,

First and
foremost, I would like to show my deep gratitude for taking the time to reply
and share this wealth of information.

Thank you
for the welcome, I have been playing for about a month, reading both the
Wikipedia and snooping in world chat to get more information and get myself
accustomed to the game.

For my
starting skills, I chose the Mercenary job that highlighted some of the skills
and made the points halved. Four of the
skills that you mentioned, Purplepirate, I have already, with the exception of
leadership. I have Gunnery and Accuracy at rank 3, with Repair and Steering following
with rank 2 and I see that I also have Swordplay at rank 1. The armaments that
are on my ship include a Master’s Rapid Fire (for damage it excels greatly, but
it lacks range) and 2 Exploder cannons that damage and reduce the numbers of
sailors present on the enemy ship. I thought since my main cannons do not do
enough damage, getting the sailors down to 0 may be my second try.

Also thank
you for clarification Whitejacket! I think I noticed that something was wrong
with accuracy because nothing was happening at first, but later found out it had to be
activated in the skills tab on the top right corner. Also, thank you on the recommendation
of getting a job. Junior Officer sounds like a great choice if I wanted to just
shoot cannons and not melee based off what you put.

I also have
some quick follow-up questions based off what you guys have said that I am
curious about.  

1. The
battle report can be turned in if I hit the 200 ship mark, however, I get less
rewards. Theoretically, does that save all of the leftover formidable enemies
to spawn once I am at 200/200? For example, they will spawn until the last one
is done? Or will they only spawn one enemy and no more formidable enemies will appear?

2. Whitejacket,
you mentioned the four melee skills (Asssault, Tactics, Gunfire, Guard). On the
Wikipedia, I read that these counter one another to get an advantage in battle
and have their own purpose. How would I go about activating these skills? I think I only see the Escape button below the icons on the bottom right corner when in the Melee instance.

3.
Purplepirate, you said that while turning, minimum damage will be caused. Would
it be better for me to get distance from the formidable foes then? I have been
using Accuracy and keeping my ship close to them as they do not fire (and if
they do, it is a very low amount) which gives me more chance of staying alive.
However, I have to constantly turn. As soon as I gain distance, they barrage
me, incurring lots of damage upon me.

4. If I were
to inquire on joining the company, I have to physically be in Amsterdam to register. Is this correct?

I think
these are all the questions I have for now. Again, thank you both for prompt
and informative responses. I really appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Exchequer

Astrollos

I also would like to apologies for the format of my reply. I was not aware it would change when I moved it over from word.

Sincerely,

Exchequer

Whitejacket

@Astrollos

Hi again and I'm glad things are more clear. As for your new questions:

1. For all battle report levels (2-star through 9-star) you can destroy up to 200 ships but this does not in and of itself increase the rewards when turning it in. After every 50 ships sunk, the formidables will look for you. But more precisely, you will have an opportunity to increase your Battle Report mission "Rank." For example, when you take the Battle Report you will see that it will be "Rank 1" when you start out. Once you do the first batch of formidables after 50 ships sunk, and you succeed, the mission will advance to "Rank 2" and THEN your rewards will be higher when you turn it in.

After 100 ships, you will get the opportunity to get to "Rank 3," after 150 ships you will get the opportunity to get to "Rank 4," and after 200 ships you can defeat the formidable to get to "Rank 5."

The formidables stack, so even if you save them all until the end you won't lose anything.

2. Assault counters tactics, tactics counters gunfire, gunfire counters guard, and guard counters assault. When you are in melee battle, you will notice that in the bottom left corner are the attack and defense stats for both players. Each round of melee, you can choose one of the four melee skills by activating it (from your skills selections, or your custom slots from the top right of your screen). Swordplay activates automatically. You can also choose to employ a "melee battle item" (such as a firebomb, white smoke bomb, loud bomb, etc.) but when grinding you generally want to concentrate on your skills.

3. Samantha can elaborate on that but generally if you shoot while turning you lose a bit of damage power, but I would not say minimum damage.

4. If you want to join Samantha's company in Amsterdam, you have to apply in Amsterdam.

purplepirate

@Astrollos hi astro. Sorry i couldn't respond earlier i ended up getting tied with with the ESF (epic sea feud) and changes to my work and school schedules do to this corona stuff going on everywhere. Glad to hear you are doing better now with your sea battles and thanks to Milvio for taking care of many of your follow up questions.

  To answer your question about firing when turning... When in combat, you will notice that your field of fire expands in a triangular shape. Cannons are most effective when fired in the center of that field. They loose effectiveness the closer you get to the side edges of that triangle. So for optimal firing effect you want you guns to shoot in a straight 90degree angle from the broadside of your ship. When you are in a turn there is a much greater chance that the shot could go off to the edge of that firing field which can greatly reduce the potential amount of damage you could do. It takes alot of practice to get the hang of proper timing when firing cannons especially since they all have different projectile speed (which you will see on the cannon info). Hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions or need some help in game with various tasks :)

purplepirate

@Whitejacket Interesting view, yes i can agree that overall accuracy is more important than ballistics especially since in pvp fighting, people don't use ballistics as much as they do accuracy and penetration. But this isn't a thread from a seasoned pvp'er perspective, as i said it's from a first time playing perspective so there's reasons i listed ballistics first...

  As a new player, to succeed in this game one of the main goals to start with should be to establish strong trading/crafting skills so the player can set up a stable income of ducets. Maritime is the most expensive profession to play and it generates the least amount of income. When starting you want skills that will make you survive more than compete and ballistics is more of a 'all around' useful skill since if the player is attacked by a pirate then accuracy won't help them in anyway whereas ballistics will give you better range on your stern cannon to score that bow crit on a pirate and stop him dead in his tracks (doesn't matter if you adv/trader/maritimer). All the damage from accuracy won't stop any pirate but one nice bow crit shot will and allow you to escape.

   Also when building your character... In your own words "Ballistics doesn't add much value at close range imo, since its power favours the mid and long-range sections". Low lvl quests and BR's, the ships are so weak (barcas mostly) that you should be able to kill them anyways without accuracy but ballistics will give you better range for your damage. Astro even stated that because of low turning ability often he ends up at longer range when fighting ships so ballistics helps with this.

   The third point to consider is that Astro never said he was going to pursue a career in maritime. So assuming he will be playing more adv/trader then you want to minimize your battle skills to favor the other profession skills so why would you worry about damage more than survivability? This is why the skills i suggested are all mostly found in the Jr. officer job. Mercenary job is more for early melee favored players but i would NOT suggest going into melee (except for the basics) for any new player until they get a grasp of the game. Melee is a highly specialized fighting style that takes a strong grasp of battle mechanics and skills to be able to do effectively.

  As for melee yes guard is the most important of the skills for many reasons. First off when encountering a pirate at sea, the pirate will have overwhelming attack power and more often and not be using PEA (pre-emptive attack) so 99% of the time will use assault and guard is the counter to that. Guard and tactics are defensive melee skills while assault and gunfire are offensive. It's always more important to build defense first (also unless you are going to pursue maritime more fully you don't need offence skills as much).

   Secondly, in melee if you use a defensive skill (mainly guard) first in battle, it will enhance your ability to retreat in the following rounds. Using offensive skills (assault/gunfire) will lock you more into melee and reduce your chance to retreat in the following rounds. It's true that guard will prolong the melee which i agree with you slows down getting those early lvl's fast, which is why i suggested NOT to pursue melee as a new player but go for cannon skills first which will make your early experience gain much faster. The exception to this is if you want to build your swordplay/plunder skills which guard is the best skill to build those with since you want to prolong melee in that case for maximum results. High first aid reduces damage done to your sailors each round in melee and is a must regardless of how you build your character.

  Overall, building a character is subjective and up to individual play style. When playing this game, one should explore all the aspects UWO has to offer since this game is so much fun. Most of this game people will learn though 'trial and error' but a little fundimental knowledge goes a long way :)

purplepirate

"and not be using PEA"

sorry this was a typo mistake. I meant the will be using PEA usually.

Whitejacket

Some good points you bring up. Yes, maritime doesn't pay too well but we weren't really discussing that.

The situation you describe in which Astrollos is attacked by a pirate from behind and the opportunity to use his stern turret to crit the pirate will never happen. I can't see any of the top pirates making that mistake. If I see that I might just go buy a lottery ticket. :D

I agree that I think Junior Officer is better to start off with; I was simply differentiating that job from Mercenary as the skill set is different.

Yes, I am aware of the differences in melee skills. :D  I am not sure I agree that guard is the most important overall, but sure it can be terrible against a pirate if he's using assault. They are situational, but sure, guard is quite important against a player pirate.

The point you bring up about Astrollos not pursuing a career in maritime is good though. If that toon isn't going to do long-term maritime then maybe accuracy isn't important. I made the assumption that he only has one toon and that he's using this toon for at least some maritime grinding. Personally, I also found when I was grinding that ballistics without accuracy doesn't really do that much at lower levels. However, it could be that at the time I just had bad luck or maybe I just didn't notice that the damage levels changed.

purplepirate

@Whitejacket Sorry for the long delay in responding. I took a few weeks off from the forums when all this lockdown stuff started to happen because of the Covid :( weird times for sure... Thx for the response, a couple of things I wanted to clarify my reasoning though.

Yes, maritime doesn't pay too well but we weren't really discussing that.

   Ya, i realize that but what that was more a suggesting to let him know that if he wanted to go into maritime either to casually or primarily that he should make sure to be making good money first (since he said he was new to the game). The cost of continually replacing parts and mccts to repair the ship is an absolute nightmare for new players since they have such little money and revenue. I didn't want to get off topic so I summarized it to a short suggestion. Don't forget, one of the main complaints and reasons new players quit is because of the 'high' cost of items in the game. To us, the costs are low because we play with abundance since we are developed and i didn't want him to get overwhelmed.

The situation you describe in which Astrollos is attacked by a pirate
from behind and the opportunity to use his stern turret to crit the
pirate will never happen. I can't see any of the top pirates making that
mistake.

  This actually happens more than you think. Pirates aren't stupid but they are overconfident. When a pirate pursues at target they will 'size up' what they are coming up against. If it's just some dinky trade ship they won't bother with defense skills like that and will focus on speed and disabling skills (rowing,balistics,accuracy,abordage etc) pretty much most of the time a trade ship won't be armed so why worry about defense. Now if there is heavier ships and/or battle ships in the defending fleet then yes they will bring up defensive skills.

  You would be surprised at how many pirates i stopped dead like that back on ogp. Back then i started the game doing adv/trade and sailed in a modified trade clipper. Being speed/cargo oriented I didn't equip cannons on it but i started using a stern cannon because of getting attacked by pirates and used gunnery and balistic skills (better something than nothing lol). Well, I easily escaped a good dozen attacks that way, surprising the pirate (i was in defenseless trade ship lol), and would even turn my ship in battle away from the pirate so he would follow and i could line up a better shot hehe. Also if i used a cannon in battle, that also might trigger the pirate to sink me with cannons instead of boarding but like you said, it's situational, but they do get overconfident and let their guard down alot lol.

  I haven't done any trade here on Maris yet but I can't imagine that the strategy for pirates would have changed much. Fact of matter is that most trade ships are unarmed and pirates know this (that's why they attack them), so a little surprise can go a long way. Doesn't work everytime but it does work quite often. All you need is to score 1 bow crit to stop the pirate ship completely so he has to restart his speed over again which gives you time to get away :)

Refreshsun

how would you list the skills in importance?