Message in a Bottle Fifth Edition
PAGES
- Front Page - Message from the Editor
Page 2 - Portside Perusal - Global Events Round Up
Page 3 - PG Technical Advisor - “First Fleets Guide”
Page 4 - Historical Lookback - Port Royal
Page 5 - Meet The Crew - Sir Henry Morgan
PG Technical Advisor: First Fleets Guide
by Cutpurse
by Cutpurse
Thank you Cutpurse for your contributing feature this month.
Useful and handy tips for the beginner
'YOUR FIRST FLEETS GUIDE".
Cutpurse wrote:So it is time to set your first warfleet in order to get out on the sea in order to obtain some booty via plundering?
In this guide I try to show by a short, yet informative way how to create safe, strong and effective warfleets.
- the early start -
In case you started with cutter or sloop, you got your first warship right there. i
If you started with hawker, not to worry. it should be trading by now, making you gold coins to fund raising your empire and armada.
For your first warfleet, you will want a total of 2 cutters or sloops, or 1 of each. The choice is yours. As for your third ship, you will be building sloop of war. From there on you can fill the remaining two positions with large warships of your choice. do not forget to buy cannons to add to your ships.
- ship level -
Before adding more ships to your warfleet, do upgrade existing ones to level 10. ship level is most important factor regarding strenght - level 10 ship can defeat full fleet of 5 similar ships, that are level 5 or less.
Ship level not only increases hitpoints and damage of ship, it also grants more attributes to spend to further increase their effectiveness. with every level upgrade, you get 3-5 new attributes.
- ship attributes -
Now there are 6 attributes each having their own effect:round shot - increases damage done by each cannon that hits
bronze cannon - increases accuracy, meaning you will hit more often. increase is greater than hammock stat, but this stat wont increase ships speed.
copper plating - increases evasion, meaning your ship gets hit less often. grants more evasion than sail points, but wont increase ships speed.
iron scantling - decreases damage taken
double hammocks - increases accuracy and ships speed.
cotton sails - increases ships speed, and evasion. speed increase is greater than what hammock stat grants.
Curpurse wrote:Now how to allocate these attributes? well, there is not single answer to that, but i can offer some suggestion, so your ships would perform equally or better than similar ships with same amount of attribute.
1 - you will want maximum speed for your warfleet. maxing sail and hammock points will ensure this. not only will faster ship get to fire first every round of combat, your travel times between ports will be shortest possible.
2 - before adding points to round shot or iron scantling, you should first max the 2 attributes that support those stats. as example, if you want your ship to do the most damage possible, max both stats that increase accuracy first. these would be hammocks and bronze cannon. after all, you cant ignore accuracy. whats the point hitting twice as hard, if you miss twice often than usual, eh? same logic applies to iron scantling. do invest in both sails and copper plating before upgrading this attribute.
there will be technologies in your hideout to be researched later, that will increase effectiveness of iron scantling/round shot by 50% against other players, but those researchs time lot of time and resources.
in general, i recommend every warship to max attributes as follows
1 - sail - 2 - hammock - 3 - bronze cannon - 4 - copper plating
any remaining attributes can be allocated to whichever you choose, round shot or iron scantling-
another popular way is to maximise round shot as 4th stat, and copper plating as 5th. this ensures ones ships always hit as often and as hard as they can (while getting possible benefit from hideout research) at the cost of getting hit more often. all this while maintaining maximum speed.
as sidenote, average level 10 ship has 42 attribute points, so not everything can be maxed, you need to be making choices.
Cutpurse wrote:- ships order within a fleet, and concept of tail ship -
adjust you order of ships in your fleets in a way, that the ships that cost the least gold coins to build, should be placed in last (lowest) positions, regardless of ship levels. these ships are referred to as "tail ships". and most valuable ships should be placed in top position. as example:
Ship type - ship level
frigate - 2 -lead ship-
brig - 10
sloop of war - 5
sloop - 7 -2nd tail ship-
cutter - 8 -tail ship-
Cheapest ships on bottom keeps the ransom cost lower, and reduce the cost of re-leveling a ship, in case it loses a level. the more ships one has, greater the chance it loses a level if its fleet loses a battle.
Avoid using sloop of war as tail ship, as it costs 5x more to level up than cutter, and 4x more than sloop.
1 to 10 Ships: 0% Sink Chance (Ships never lose a level)
11 to 50 Ships: 5% Sink chance
51 to 100 Ships: 10% Sink Chance
101 to 200 Ships: 25% Sink Chance
201 to 300 Ships: 50% Sink Chance
301 to 400 Ships: 75% Sink Chance
401 to 500 Ships: 90% Sink Chance
501 or more Ships: 100% Sink Chance (Ships always lose a level)
Do note that sink chance is based on total ships currently owned, even ships not in a fleet are included.
Cutpurse wrote:All level 1 ships will sink if they lose a level, meaning the ship will be lost. you will also lose last positioned ship on your fleet, if you lose a battle and cannot afford to pay for ransom, which is:
10% value of the base ship price that was last-positioned in the fleet that lost the battle PLUS a random number between 1% to 5% of his treasury at hand
base cost for cutter is 10k, meaning 1k coins ransom. in comparison, ship of the line has base value of 750k, meaning each lost battle would cost 75k, if such valuable ship would be in last position. so pay attention to ship order, and upgrade your tail ships to maximum. even on your tradefleets should have tail ships upgraded to level 4-6, to prevent your more precious ships from getting attacked.
few things to keep in mind:
- if you ever expect to win a fight, you need to hit your opponent. always have max points in hammocks and bronze cannons.
- speed is king. if two identical ships face, the one who gets to fire first wins. having max speed ensures odds of you firing first are even compared to your opponent. some special setups can be made, if you are willing to always let others go first in battle. flag galleons are very slow compared to sotl or frigate, even after maxed galleon tech from hideout. and as flags have naturally higher accuracy, but lower evasion, one might put some sail points elsewhere, like round shot. this should increase your damage output more than extra damage youll be taking due to lower evasion. this only benefits vs fastest ships, vs another, faster flag you likely get beaten. but my general recommendation is max speed for warships.
some random facts:
- each point in scantling/round shot increases/decreases damage done/taken by 2% per point. this can be increased to 3% with hideout techs.
- sail points increase evasion based on ships speed. frig gains more evasion from these points than flags.
- hammocks effectiveness is based on crew on board. flags gain greater benefit from this than frigs.
- copper/bronze stats increases accuracy/evasion by same % for every ship. missing points from these two generally means youll be shooting cannonballs blindly in every direction without hitting often, while attracting enemys cannonballs like a magnet
