New player question about soloing and crewing

[Liddabit]

Greetings all

I'm Miss Gnomer in game, a level 8 pirate, I just started yesterday. I've had a great deal of fun but now I'm getting a bit frustrated. I've been trying to earn some coin but lately I'm getting sunk everytime I go out right about when I have a full hold in my galleon and I'm limping back to an island or when I try to take something my own level with my sloop. The repair costs are starting to stack up and I'm near not being able to afford sinking again.

Should I be crewing up instead? Given my schedual I mostly get to play late at night so I havn't had much luck finding a crew to join yet. It seemed possible to solo when I started yesterday but today I seem to be stuck.

I appreciate any pointers and tips someone could give about this Thank you!

Lidda Bit / Miss Gnomer , Pint sized pirate

[dangerousden]

Where are you based liddabit?

Crewing up would help you to get what you need. Try to stay out of range then hit them on a cannon rather than broadside. I took out a centurion in my light sloop this way lol

[Steely Jim]

Well, I don't want to dissuade you from crewing up because that can be quite fun; but, you can solo pretty much every ship in the game (although, I don't solo board anything higher than the Navy Man-O-War). Opening up Thunderbolt is a great way to make light work of frigates from a distance, so you don't have to worry which end you're attacking.

Other than that, one of the easiest ways to avoid damage is to use a "hit and run" style of moving up to the ship inside its gun shadow, so none of its cannons can hit you, then when you get close broadside it and start turning away. Learn to set your compass for the best scale to watch the ships with your radar, and then you'll be able to run out straight in front of them every time.

When you get them to the edge of your radar, or a little beyond if you want to work Cannon rep in too, then turn your ship perpendicular to them coming straight at you. In traffic, be careful to point your ship away from the busy area, so your escape route doesn't lead you into a crowd. For big ships, you'll get the hang of timing your broadsides, then taking a slight angle for the last one so you can turn to run away in a straight-line out in front of them.

Once you open up Thunderbolt, you can de-sail ships beyond compass range, especially handy for frigates, although you'll also learn to leave them enough sail to let their inertia carry them into the edge of your Cannon range for the shorter-distance ammunition types. For slightly better plunder, you can solo board the smaller flagships; start with the Navy Bulwark sailing the Windward Passage to get the feel for it.

Now, I got halfway through Sailing level 21 and just into Cannon level 18 working solo; however, over the past few days I started working with crews and found out that's going better these days too.

I started out the other day with a crew of random people, all single-digit Notoriety and mostly free players. None of them fired on anything random, and they actually jointly asked for orders before I started giving them.

Then, yesterday, I worked with a highly trained and well-organized crew that were all from the same guild. They were all effective players that were used to working together. Not only was it fun to have the company while Sailing, but I learned that I didn't have to keep moving to make distance as much, so we were filling up faster.

So, it isn't really a matter of "if" you can solo--you can. It is really a matter of of whether you want to or not. However, I've learned recently that, when I gave it more of a chance, sailing with a crew can be enjoyable.

[Bilgepump]

You can solo just fine. I do it myself.

The trick is to not sail up to within your target's broadside range, and use your cannons to pick them off at a distance. When your radar is zoomed all the way out, you can hit ships that are outside the maximum radar range.

So pick a target, park a distance away, and shoot at it. Pointing the cannon up will make it shoot farther. Unfortunately, this means that the cannon will obscure your view of the target. To keep from losing your firing angle, move the cannon sideways so you can see if the cannonballs hit. If they do, move it back and keep firing. If not, adjust up or down and try again.

When you hit the ship, it will turn and start moving towards you. It won't start firing at you until it gets quite close, so you have a bit of time to lay down some damage. With a very small amount of practice, you'll be able to drop most ships without taking any damage at all.

When the ship finally appears on the radar, and you can see clear space between the ship on the radar screen and the edge, then you can hit them with your broadsides too, but it's not strictly necessary.

To earn a little extra gold, look for Bartholomew Watkins in Port Royal. He's the guy hiding behind the barrel. He has three quests that pay 35 gold each. The quests say that they require specific ship types, but it's bugged, and will pay off on ANY ship you sink. That's 105 gold, as long as you sink something, whether or not you get sunk yourself. Once you complete it, you'll have to change servers to get him to give it to you again.

[Rackat]

Once you get to higher level, I would suggest always selecting a "Quiet" server. I almost always solo, but just recently as I was trying to level up my cannons, some idiot hijacked my ship while I was on cannon and tried to sail me at a Revenant. I took the wheel and steered back to shore. As I was sailing back to shore, I typed in a message asking why he was hijacking, and when he responded "because it is fun", I hit the report function so Disney has a chat log. I just wish Disney would let us know if the people we report are banned. anyway, that's why I alsways select quiet servers....so I don't get hijacked when I am leveling my cannons.

[Diego Birmingham]

When you get some friends take the opportunity to crew up for sailing and quests. You get higher rep and a bigger hare of the sinking loot if you are Captain. When a guild mate hooked me up with some of her friends who were high level I made a couple thousand coin on each voyage.

Batholomew Watkins' quests are easy cash and even if I sink my galleon, I still get to cash in on the quests and make a profit after repairing. If you frequently find yourself on Port Royal get the Sam Seabones quest. Sam hangs out near the shipwright and pays 25 gold for killing 2 skeletons. As I frequently find myself near the cemetery when teleporting in, and the jail is also close, I just take a few extra steps to kill 2 skels and go cash in with Sam. Josie McReady in the Royal Anchor bar in PR will also give you quests that pay well These get harder as your rep increases.
The PR Gypsy & Shipwright will give you quests, but these stop after a while, but Josie & Sam keep on givin'.

You can also try gambling to make some coin but of course that's risky. Some of your quests will require you to gamble so it's always nice to have some extra money in your account.

[Kat Sheffield]

I think that it's just more fun to sail with a crew, friends if you can. Part of the enjoyment always comes from the trash talking that we do with one another in between picking off the ships here and there.

[Soul Patch The Fiesty]

Crewing and plundering is my favorite thing to do in game. I am only noterity lvl 20, but my cannon skill is 14 - my next highest skill is my doll at 9. I love to shoot cannons and get loot!

[Aliese]

Originally Posted by Rackat

Once you get to higher level, I would suggest always selecting a "Quiet" server. I almost always solo, but just recently as I was trying to level up my cannons, some idiot hijacked my ship while I was on cannon and tried to sail me at a Revenant. I took the wheel and steered back to shore. As I was sailing back to shore, I typed in a message asking why he was hijacking, and when he responded "because it is fun", I hit the report function so Disney has a chat log. I just wish Disney would let us know if the people we report are banned. anyway, that's why I alsways select quiet servers....so I don't get hijacked when I am leveling my cannons.

I have actually had more of a problem on the quiet servers, I think because those guys have learned that's where most of us who want to solo go. My first experience with it, actually, was especially bad. I was on an otherwise dead quiet server and had one sail up to me and board (first time it had ever happened to me), so I switched servers, and immediately got another. I didn't know what the proper procedure was at the time, so I would just port, but now I just tell them I want to sail alone. So far they've all left when I've said that.

Anyways, like others have said, soloing is very easy once you get the hang of it. It took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to be doing, but once I did I could take most anything out on my galleon. Even with my big ships I still avoid non-skelly frigates and anything else that can shoot forwards, though (imagine my surprise when I first tried to take on a Colossus and it shot fire forwards at me ).

[Rackat]

Originally Posted by Aliese

I have actually had more of a problem on the quiet servers, I think because those guys have learned that's where most of us who want to solo go. My first experience with it, actually, was especially bad. I was on an otherwise dead quiet server and had one sail up to me and board (first time it had ever happened to me), so I switched servers, and immediately got another. I didn't know what the proper procedure was at the time, so I would just port, but now I just tell them I want to sail alone. So far they've all left when I've said that.

Anyways, like others have said, soloing is very easy once you get the hang of it. It took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to be doing, but once I did I could take most anything out on my galleon. Even with my big ships I still avoid non-skelly frigates and anything else that can shoot forwards, though (imagine my surprise when I first tried to take on a Colossus and it shot fire forwards at me ).

Yeah, that Colossus surprised me too the first time it shot from the bow. LOL! I think it's only fair that the designers reconfigure the War Galleon to have two forward facing cannons on the forecastle.

[Angel]

I'm going to suggest something here. Have you joined a guild yet? This gives you the option to solo and sail yourself or call upon your guild mates to sail with. Our guild (The Elite) is a plundering guild. We have plunder parties nightly (as most of us are on at night) and the avg take is about 1k, depending on whos sailing. The coast of padres is the best spot for larger ships and good loot.

The one thing with crewing up with just anyone is you dont know their sailing style and how they are. When you sail with your guild, you get to learn everyones ways and grow with that. Not trying to recruit you for our guild, but if you were interested in meeting us in game or joining the guild, let me know.

[Steely Jim]

I, also, try for Quiet servers most of the time. I would also agree that until they've finally eliminated unwanted visitors aboard our ships, then you have to learn to keep a weather eye on your compass for blue hulls as well as red. That is one more advantage of preferring the war sloop when I solo, I'm never far from my helm.

I try for Quiet servers because that improves the overall stability of the game for me pretty substantially; however, you don't necessarily need a Quiet server to find open space on the seas.

To use a regularly recurring example, the coast off Padres Del Fuego is a nice, busy place to find ships worth sinking; however, when you log into a Quiet server you may find 1-3 ships already trying to work on Boiling Bay. Meanwhile, you could log into the busiest servers and never run into any problems working against the Phantoms on The Hinterseas, or by skirting down the west side of PDF and then west across the southern edge of Mariners Reef and the Leeward Passage (you can also usually sail away from PDF by bearing northwest along the seam between Boiling Bay and Mariners Reef, then begin to turn south near Outcast). Similarly, you can often sail around the east side of Tortuga into the Salty Flats, and find some nice targets with no one else around.

EDIT: When you sail solo frequently, you develop timing for rocking the boat just as your surprise visitor is about to fire, so their shots don't usually land for them. It would actually take multiple stowaways working in an organized way to have much of a chance of landing a shot on a ship, unless I give them the shot to take with my ship's position (or, of course, if they jump on in heavy traffic).

[Liddabit]

Thank you all so much. The advice has helped quite a bit. I am now up to level 14, almost 15 and doing much better out at sea. I ditched my light galleon and I think that was some of my problem too as I couldn't move to dodge cannonballs Now in my medium sloop I'm doing a whole lot better!

This forum is great

[Steely Jim]

I'm glad to see it's been working out for you. I prefer the sloop to the galleon too.