Help, Frustrated Demo player...

[-MoRiDin-]

Hi,

I've been playing the Demo tryign to decide if I should buy the game or not but I'm utterly frustrated with the battle part of the game.

Auto resolving seems to always go more against me than it should but then so does fighting.

I can't beat the pirates at all, they attack my convoys 1 frigate and 4 sloops (best I can manage with only 10 years and only sloops, frigates and cutters available) and htey always win.. somehow they never give in, and just when it looks like I may sink them, they start hitting 90 hull damage every time and I keep missing.

Losing a fleet like that cost me my game in the demo, but I'm frustrated as it seems like the battle are too hard, the frigates move so slowly, in fact none of the three ships appear to be fast, most I've ever seen one go is 4knots.

Also i'm unsure about direct control, when I hit fire there is a delay does that mean the gn crews wait for the roll of the waves to be right or do I need to time that part (takign into consideration the delay?) Also the ships don't fire as fast in rts mode as they can in DC what is up with that. and sometimes they sit there not firign at all despite being on fire at will and an enemy is with fire arch!

It is also impossible to escape! I had a fleet of all sloops who should have easily out run a frigate, but no the firagte caught me on the strategic map and then blasted 2 ships out the water before I could get out of gun range... the battles start far to close to each other!

So what I want to know is are these things a problem in the main game too or is it just the demo? and also is there somethign I need to fix to get the ships movign at the right speeds? like a .txt file or something?

 

[delra]

- You can edit all the ships, their stats are written in game files with open text, you can also give a speed boost to all of them at once by editing difficulty settings (I moved from 0.03 to 0.09 for example).
- Sloop is the weakest ship in the game, Frigate is among the toughest so no wonder you lose so many Sloops.
- Running away is difficult if wind isn't favourable.
- Autoresolve is better avoided, it's a bit too random.
- If you really don't want to fight, you can save your game and load it, combat screen will go away and enemy will have to chase you again to initiate combat. You have a good chance of escaping.
- Your Frigate slows your Sloops down on strategic level. That's why Pirates are able to catch up with you.

 

[unmerged(140091)]

Hello -MoRiDin-,

Firing cannons in DC mode indeed has a little delay. The cannons have fuses, so it takes a little time for them to fire. More experienced crews can fire the cannons a bit faster.

We're currently working on the ship speed issues, they should be fixed soon. There is also a time compression planned for tactical battles to speed up things.

Fleeing from pirates (or stronger enemy) is sometimes a smart move, you could even send one smaller ship between your bigger ships and pirates to distract the enemy from your more valuable ships, in other words, sacrifice one smaller ship to cover your escape. Dropping your cargo also makes your ships a bit faster. You can also use cautios mode on strategic level to try to avoid battles.

 

[unmerged(148399)]

shente1

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[-MoRiDin-]

Thanks for the info,

Well my sloops get caught by pirate frigates even if they aren't escorted!

I'm not supprised my sloops get mauled by frigates, I'm just suprrised the friagtes can catch them, on both the tactical map (though this is mostly by starting so close together) and the strategic map. All my fleets on the strategic map are set to avoid enemies, yet still they get caught!

The reload trick may help some though.

It may jsut be my perception but the pirate frigates seem to shoot further than mine too.. and I really wish that we could see soem form of range indicator on the rts map or mini map!

It sounds like the game will be great after a few queaking patches though so maybe I'll grab it then!

 

[-MoRiDin-]

Hello -MoRiDin-,

Firing cannons in DC mode indeed has a little delay. The cannons have fuses, so it takes a little time for them to fire. More experienced crews can fire the cannons a bit faster.

So this means I do need to compensate for the delay and any roll on the ship? Ok then.. back to rts mode for me, I just hate teh fact in rts mode the ship is always putting the sails into half levels.

Does a ship take more sail damage if her sails are out?

 

[unmerged(146640)]

So this means I do need to compensate for the delay and any roll on the ship? Ok then.. back to rts mode for me, I just hate teh fact in rts mode the ship is always putting the sails into half levels.

Does a ship take more sail damage if her sails are out?

The ships tend to turn easier with battle sails, that's probably the reason why game AI uses them in RTS mode. Full sails are more useful when trying to catch evading ship or escaping.

In DC-mode unless it's stormy weather you don't usually need to take the ship roll into account (in arcade mode or normal). Just make sure that you have the enemy ship inside your fire arch when targeting and once the cannons fire and you should get a decent hit. I also strongly suggest you to use the narrow fire arch if you're in a good angle, it's much more accurate that way.

I'm not sure if sails take less damage when heaved, this would be an interesting detail if they did.