[Guide] Ship Speed & Maneuverability

[LCountach]

With the new Ship PvP mode now live I decided to test the various ship's performance to see if I could find advantages. First I tested straight line speed. I sailed straight from Port Royal to Devil's Anvil and recorded the sail time. My findings might surprise you! Next I timed how long it took to turn a complete 360. I tested each ship I own several times with my various pirates and have created this small chart.

Type_________360_____Sail Time

Light Sloop_____0:24______0:50
Light Galleon ___0:34______1:05
Light Frigate____0:34______0:55

Sloop__________0:24______0:50
Galleon ________????______????
Frigate_________0:34______1:00

War Sloop______0:24______0:50
War Galleon ____0:34______1:05
War Frigate_____0:34______1:00

First I would like to apologize for not including the Galleon. My Best Guess would be it is IDENTICAL to the other two. None of my pirates own one. That should give you an idea of what I think of Galleons in PvP.

The sloops of any class have exactly the same performance.
Again the 2 Galleons have exactly the same performance.
The only exception the the pattern forming is the Light Frigate. It has a slight speed advantage over its bigger siblings.

Seeing that the various classes do NOT display any differences is disappointing. I think a little too much Copy/Paste was employed by the programmers. Also the "Sail" # when purchasing a ship is completely useless . They all just turnout EXACTLY the same. Lack of flavor and personality between classes!

Anyway, the Sloop demonstrates a clear performance advantage. I personally use the Light Sloop to GREAT effect. Its so tiny and low it is very hard to hit. Team up with one high level crew member and you can pick apart even the most powerful War Ships. Especially the War Galleon. Simply sail up next to one and it can't hit you with Broadside or Cannon fire! Take that you Giant Lumbering Sea Tortoise.

As you may have guessed I like Speed & Maneuverability over Armor & Firepower. My Second Choice after the Sloops is the Light Frigate. With a 4 man crew it can offer up Excellent Firepower, Good Speed, and Small Silhouette. However thats just me.

I hope this guide helps you decide what ship you will be taking into battle.

[League]

Eh, interesting, will try it out myself, see if results come up similar.

[Macon The Black]

thats cool...i use my war sloop during SvS cause its faster and can turn faster. weird thing i noticed was even when you take out an opponents sails they can still sail pretty fast unlike the normal opponents out in the ocean. any idea why? i noticed it on a war sloop that we took out all but the little back one and he could go as fast as my war sloop that had no damage

[Poison elf]

That's a good chart, but there also are other factors. Not sure if it will correspond the same, if you have say 5 points in sailing and/or 5 points in windcatcher, and ramming speed for the different types.

I noticed broken sails don't seem to matter, suppose stopping a ship dead didn't seem to work out for their idea in the svs.