What is the relative importance of crew and cargo for the ships that are sent on a shipwreck hunt?

I saw forum posts that suggested that fleets of Trade Galleons and Large Merchantmans are big enough for successful shipwreck hunts. Yet a fleet with a Ship of the Line, a Frigate and a Large Frigate (with significantly more crew than the merchant fleets, albeit with less cargo space), was not able to retrieve a LMM immediately after I sunk one. Are the war ships bad for shipwreck hunts because of their low cargo capacity, even through they have larger crews?

Also, a separate question -- Is there a difference between two different messages I've gotten after unsuccessful hunts? Does one indicate that there is a ship present that I just could not obtain, and the other only mean that there might be one?
"There is still room for improvement to check for shipwrecks at the deepest parts of the ocean. Get more crew and cargo!"
and "Perhaps there can be a few shipwrecks left here but you can only find by improving your hunting fleet. Get more crew and cargo!



Edit: Topic Moved to Help - Dez

Cargo is more important then crew, from what I've found. I wrote the first shipwreck hunting guide sometime after shipwrecks hunting was added. Here's it below.



Heres a quick guide to salvaging for ships, I experimented quite a bit with the function so i am fairly confident in my advice.
please note that i will only be mentioning how to make an ideal salvage fleet, that can find any shipwreck, i did not bother finding what all the other levels of success can and can not get you(why settle for second best after all ).

anyway this is what ive found. after trying pretty much all merchant vessels, the ideal ship for salvaging is trade galleons. i also found that Cargo is more important then crew. i found that out since 5 LMM is not a perfect hunt, but 5 TG is. since TG has 150 cargo and 60 crew equaling 210, while LMM with 120 cargo and 100 crew equaling 220. meaning cargo is more important.
i think the minimum needed is 700 cargo space, since 4 TG with LF has 710 cargo and is ideal, while 3 TG and 2 LF equals 670 and is not ideal.

so in short, the cheapest ideal fleet is 4 TG with a LF tail. or just use 5 TG if you prefer, but you save a bit using LF and they are a cheaper tail.

As for your second question, yes there are different messages that display. It will tell you if you have an ideal fleet(like the one I mention in my previous post) or not. If it says to add more cargo or crew, you don't have an ideal fleet.

I also can not tell you what the different levels are. As I mentioned already, I figured why put work in finding out what works 2nd or 3rd best, when you can go for the absolute best. Which, is 4 trade galleons with a Large Fluyt tail. Or 5 TGs if you prefer.

To add to what Mel has stated.

The messages in question simply tell you if the fleet you used was sufficient to salvage the available ships sunken there. There are a couple of fleet setups that work with shipwreck hunting, but only the 5 trade galleons or 4 trade galleons with a large fluyt will salvage all ship types.

Make sure the fleet you are using to shipwreck hunt isn't carrying any cargo.

While Meliva prefers the 4 TG/ 1 LFL as it provides a cheap tail, unless you are going to be running specific trade routes with them when not shipwreck hunting, the 5 TG setup is generally better as it is the best fishing fleet. Shipwreck hunting is not a constant activity and with the TGs being the slowest ship in the game, having the fleet run as a fishing fleet allows you to keep the fleet in port with the ability to recall it back to port in very short time without having to waste turns or voodoo to move the fleet.

Ive always filled my ships up with iron, made me get better results. Never failed either. With the trade galleon setup of course.

Thanks for the responses.

I'll stick to using my Trade Galleon fleets for shipwreck hunting