281

My boxes arrive early next week I think? If they include buddy keys I’ll hook you and superhiro up.

282

My gaming buddy and I learned a lesson the hard way tonight. We were moving around in open sea killing pirates when suddenly he was attacked by 3 french PvP flagged folks (led by the strangely named Benjamin Franklin.) My bud was in a Curieuse Snow which is either French only or non-Pirate. Either way as soon as you get in those ships you auto-flag PvP. We had taken it earlier from a French NPC on open sea. So word of warning to others who might not know that certain ships will auto-flag you if you enter them.

283

So what happens when you lose your ship? Is it Eve-like, in that you lost everything invested in it? Or is it some kind of temporary resurrectable thing?

284

It depends on your faction, really. When you capture a vessel as a pirate, it only has one point of durability. When it’s gone, it’s gone. You can add more points by applying deeds for the same ship type (either buy them or capture), but pirate ships are still mostly disposable. Other factions have to buy their ships or have them built for them and I believe they come with “full” durability.

Lose a ship with more than a point of DR and you only lose the upgrades that were in it.

285

Here’s a good explanation of durability:

[quote]I don’t get what the point of this is. You’re not saving any money because 1 durability would be the cost of a deed which is the cost of the ship in the first place… I don’t understand why it’s useful other than to save time running and buying another deed after the ship sinks?

Convenience and saving time are enough. It might not be only your own time you’d be wasting otherwise, either. And now we’re assuming the ships are always available at the same price, or at all.

When you lose your last point of durability, you get sent to a port where you already have a ship. From my limited experience, not even the closest port. All the stuff that doesn’t sink (ammo, equipped generic outfittings, all unequipped outfittings, consumables, personal inventory) is also sent there. Now you’re away from the action in a possibly bad ship (like your dedicated transport ship when you need a battle ship). Simply jumping to a more suitable ship if you had another somewhere isn’t enough since you probably want the outfittings and consumables you had on you previously, and you have to fetch those.

Ok, that might not seem a big deal when you get sunk once in a blue moon while killing stuff in the OS or in missions. But for PvP, especially group PvP where everybody needs you to get back ASAP, spawning at closest friendly port with 1 less durability is important. And that’s enough to keep the economy churning. In OB our PvP group had to go on for even 2 hours without a member who got sunk and needed to find another good ship right then. (Up to half of that was just his travel time from across the map.) During the event at end of OB I sailed a bought (not captured) MC Bermuda tackler for a group of Pommerns/SoLs and kept reserve outfittings with me. Couple of times that day I got into a bad position and broadsides from much bigger ships easily sunk me. I was back by the time others finished the fight, coming fast from the nearest pirate port with fully outfitted ship.[/quote]
http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1832&highlight=upgrades+durability

286

Spent last night raiding with my Society around a British port in New Spain. Being on the defensive wasn’t good enough evidently so we’re taking the fight to them. It was very cool seeing Spanish ships, including other Societies and independants, crowding the waters there and taking down every British ship that moved (Well, except for us - too many Freetraders who didn’t want the rep hit for killing merchantmen, but warships and pirate hunters were fair game). The Consortium, another big Spanish Society, was fully occupied smuggling in unrest packages on top of it all.

This game is so fun.

287

I’ve been quietly muttered in Society chat for a while about not being comfortable with my new Xebec - well, I went and lost it in a mission. Gonna have to rethink my tactics, for now I’m back to my trusty heavy cutter. Starting to have problems in missions with several boats as I take a ton of damage going in, and generally it’s hit-and-miss before I can get the option to grapple (need a foolproof method!)

288

As a pirate you should have a skill available, called Decimate, that gives you an all but automatic grapple success if you’ve a cannon loaded with anti-personnel shot (grape, cannister, etc). My pirate build was all about boarding and that skill was my absolute favorite - one I miss very much now as a Freetrader who’s trying very hard to be a boarding combatant as well.

After that, you can get upgrades (both generic and specialized) that will boost your grapple chances. But the beauty of the Decimate is that you don’t need 'em nearly as much. Just don’t run out of grape (or chain-shot for that matter - they really need to be slowed down before one attempts boarding).

As for getting that chance to grapple - ram them. You’ll get that chance for a second. Can’t use Decimate unless you have bow guns of course…but it’s a shot. You can swivel to one side, switch to Maneuver crew toggle, and then Decimate them. But a fast ship might already be moving off.

289

As I understand it, if you are in Freetrader only ships as a Pirate you are auto flagged.

~C~

290

Thanks. Yeah, I took a lot of anti-crew skills, a grappling upgrade, and I do have Decimate, my problem was actually getting the opportunity to board. When the enemy has Repel Boarders does that stop you completely?

291

Sounds like you are fighting a Free Trader? It doesn’t stop me no, it’s short lived. For NPC’s the following works fine, for players, I would expect they would maximize defenses against you. I run a “grapple” xebec with the following:
Non-removable:
1 Medium Tough Sail (sail slot, mast integrity), 1 Medium Speed Rig (sail slot, additional ship speed)
2 Medium Grappling Cannons (gun slots, grapple offense)
2 Medium Armor Planking (hull slots, more armor)
General:
1 Grapples and Ladders (general slot)
1 Reinforced Bow (general slot, more bow armor)
1 Low Drag Rudder (general slot, more acceleration)

The technique, as another poster put earlier, is to haul ass as soon as you instance in for the closest ship. Get a shot or two of anti-crew (I use Langridge.) Then as soon as you can either block their path or get them to temporarily raise sails, hit your decimate, then cut back to zero speed and go for the grapple.

With the minimum (level 2) gear above you’re at about a 24 Grapple offense, plus Decimate for 25 more (I think they are additive, I’ll check later.) That gives you around +49 Grapple. The best Repel Grapple skill comes in at -45 grapple offense so you still have a chance. With higher level Grappling Cannons you have even more of an advantage. Actual players may have grapple defense mods as well, so really this is a back and forth game for us as pirates. Hope for no defense, and hope that he uses his skill too early or too late, or it’s on cooldown for your best success rate.

This is also assuming you are actually fighting the Free Trader who gets that skill. Otherwise it’s even easier. A non-FT would be limited to a single general Grapple Defense slot, and no Repel Grapple skill (that I know of.)

Somebody will come here in a minute and correct me on all the gear or skills I don’t know about yet, but to my so far limited knowledge, that setup above will work for you pretty well. It’s worth a shot, and it’s fairly cheap. If needed I’ll make you the Grapples and Ladders for your general slot for free.

292

All good info, thanks.

Bit scared to log in right now - was doing a mission, boarded a vessel in the middle of a big fight, killed the captain then the game refused to load the ships again. Restarting the game didn’t help, I couldn’t log back in.

Over an hour later the sony launcher finally works again… think my Heavy Cutter is dead :)

293

All you guys are in the Pirate faction on the Bonny server right?

294

Nearly all yep, and nearly all in “Stand and Deliver” society. Brian Rucker is in the Spanish faction on Bonny as well.

[B]Bonny Server:
Pirates:
** Stand and Deliver society list (Pirates) **
Ali Mony - (QT3) Mordrak
Amilcar Bolivar - (QT3) Jasper
Amelie Daguerre
Dead Buffalo
Der Dutchman
Disco Wallyscag
Doc Faustus - (QT3) William Abner
Esta Putas - (SA) Goonfleet
Gerald Bellicose - (QT3) JM
Golden Sphinx - (QT3) Erik J.
Haytred Incarnate - (QT3) Skipper
Josiah West - (QT3) NuclearWinter
Kalaria Coy - (QT3) Unknown
Ketchy Harangue
Lass Chick - (QT3) Tom Chick
One-eye Willy - (QT3) Lionel Thompson
Possum Joe - (QT3) Skipper
Samson Osgood
William Black
Wolfram von Hart - (QT3) balut
Xemu Arctangent - (QT3) Xemu
Zoraida Ignacio - (QT3) Erik J.

Also on Bonny server …

British:
Mayveena Whitman - (QT3) Lorini
Treasure Fancourt - (QT3) Lorini

Spanish:
Mandrake Grim - (QT3) Brian Rucker

French:
N/A[/B]

There are a couple of alts in here as well as some folks from Something Awful forums. If anyone knows names I’d be glad to fill them in.

295

She’s dead, cap’n. (Ouch)

296

I’m on as Mayveena Whitman, Freetrader. Also Treasure Fancourt, NO. Both British.

297

I’m Mandrake Grim, Freetrader (ex-pirate) in Vanguardia de la Cuarta Flota (Spain).

298

Have the servers gone down entirely? Just had my first crash and now can’t log back in at all. Been waiting on server screen for 15 minutes with no servers appearing.

299

Well, I’m getting a warning saying I should open certain ports on my router when I try to login. I did that, and still can’t log in. So the issue may be on their end for this one.

Erik J.

EDIT: Yeah, I got nothing. Updated firmware and all that, still no dice.

300

I walked out of a pub about an hour ago, and it froze my character outside. Had to kill the task to get rid of the game… since then, no servers on the server list.