Maybe it’s a damage thing. The only thing I’ve spent money on so far has been to load up on ammo and on some shoes/light gloves of doomyness. Well, nigh doom. Perhaps I should learn to buy stuff which killz0r more.
Maybe I’m not buying enough stuff to help me kill things? I just buy ammo and a couple of personal items…
JM1
663
A few close-range volleys with the right skills should see your enemies pounded into dust.
Not just the right skills but the right upgrades to your ship. Those suckers can make a big difference. Up your rate of fire or boost damage. Making your hull tougher will make engagements shorter if you don’t have to maneuver so much. Sails that boost speed will let you close on targets more quickly.
I’m level 46 now and it’s far faster to grind NPCs with pure firepower alone. My group always rolls their eyes when I can’t help myself and conduct a boarding action. “The icon was green! And I like boarding! Sue me!” Dirty Fighting, at high levels when it starts getting truly effective, is fun with AoEs against crews.
But…it’s not often a very effective way to go unless you’ve got good boarding skills and can wipe a crew out fast before boarding. As a Freetrader I usually have to build ships just for that and use a bit of grape. Privateers and Pirates have some built in advantages here.
OK, yeah I’m going to pick up some upgrades momentarily. I can afford some cheap ones, so why not? :) …well, I could afford a few but then I went and produced a ton of logs and gravel, not realising they cost money to make. Doh… o well!
I should come up with some short easy and a little profitable production plan but I have no clue which would be a nice route to go!
As a Freetrader I should be a font of insight about how to make money at the economic game. Sadly, I tend to play more as a privateer and earn my keep grinding mobs. Some folks hate grinds but I kinda enjoy this one even at this late date.
I can pretty efficiently kill almost all NPC ships up to level 50 quickly if I’m in a one-on-one and can handle two ships or one ship-of-the-line pretty handily but it takes a bit longer and I might have to use a hull patch or use up other consumables. Even three or four frigates up to 50 aren’t a problem but it takes a little more maneuvering (trying to split the pack or showing fresh armor to my exposed flank(s)). I can massacre entire convoys of lower level ships with little fuss.
So if I’m in the mood to quickly make dubloons or I’m hunting for particular kinds of loot drops I can do that without too much effort. Or I can mix things up by challenging myself with tougher targets and experiment with different tactics. And I can board. Sometimes, not often enough to really make a big difference admittedly, NPCs will drop things like dubloons or even items. When it’s a high level crew you can get goodies that way. But it’s very rare.
As for the economy, others who’ve done more with it will be able to better help you but a big key is being in a Society and working out some kind of scheme with other members to efficiently construct industries that support each other and can make items actually in demand. If you’re a national, and a Freetrader, you’ve got an edge in that you can see all the markets in all the ports on the map. You also can use much heavier cargo haulers to move goods in bulk. Those big ships also come in handy before Port Contention battles to move resources that build, or diminish, contention. Pirates can also use those big galleons and Indiamen but they’re Freetrader ships so they’ll be flagged PvP automatically (just as Pirates can use Ships of The Line or privateer exclusive frigates the same way.)
That’s it in a nutshell. Really, do the econ tutorials and find a good Society or a group of other independant traders to trade tips, advice and suggestions with. The economy of a server will change as there is more, or less, fighting creating more, or less, demand. Different ports can be captured which changes the availability of resources (it costs far more to manufacture in a hostile port - without a particular Freetrader skill at least). Red circles around contested ports can create other opportunities as well.
Thanks for the tips. I moved some of the logs and gravel to a market I think will hopefully make my cost back, +50% or so, so that’s good. If it sells. I find the whole auction house thing pretty bizzare and both the EVE Online and the WOW systems make a hell of a lot more sense to me. You put goods up, specify a price, and hope someone randomly bids that price or higher? I don’t know…
I’ve always loved having a bit of indsutry on the side. In EVE my market buying and selling netted me 12b worth of isk. Still don’t know what to do with it all!
I think some industry might help provide the cash that Pirates are traditionally short of. I know it’s herrasy but I’m kinda keen on having at least one backup ship that has durability, is fully outfitted and can be kept alive with more durability charges. And you need cash for that.
Oh, I’m very pleased they’re fixing the interface. The chat window is like something out of UO! I just wish they would also stop my client from constantly changing and resetting the graphics settings. If my client jutters a bit it thinks the vid card is about to explode it it drops the settings. Also, I wish they would seperate battle graphics from sailing graphics. All the details on works fine in the battles, but kills my ocean travel. I want to be able to drop the detail for ocean view and keep it up for battles… but I can’t do that without constantly tiwddling low/high models, reflections on/off, etc etc :/
Level 15 now mostly commanding either a Mediator Cutter or a Curiese Snow. The latter might be slow, but big holes appear very quickly in hulls of ships foolish enough to let her get too close. Great fun!
I haven’t really gotten started with the economy, but then our tiny society isn’t really equipped for that. Alas we may have to bow to the big multinationals and get swallowed up in an 18th Century merger.
Yeah, I’m going to join VDD - just to get more people online and to offer more advice! Come join!
Welcome to Antigua, where the Spanish rule. I would say join the French but since the pie-rats are coordinating with the French this time around, I guess it’s one and the same. Hope to see you and give you a 21 gun broadside… er… salute!
What the heck, I’m out for a few days and we just up and change servers, not to mention nationalities? What’s going on?
— Alan
There’s no changing of servers, Alan. It’s just that some of us are using Antigua in preference to Bonny because it’s where most Aussies and NZers seem to be playing right now, which is obviously preferable for joining people in our time zone (server downtimes at 7pm notwithstanding). Feel free to join us if you want to set up an alt of another faction, of course.
Joined a grind group and got powerlevelled from 12 to 17 in about 3 hours today! Pretty cool. When we finished I left to train skills and trade in my Bemuda Sloop for a Snow, yay for being a pirate and enjoying easy ships! I need 'em with my crappy wifi :D
Was a lot of fun working in that team. I couldn’t do much (just tagged along really) but at one point we had some great battle lines going on and it was pretty fun to see it all go well and well coordinated. Coordinated direction changes and all. Good stuff!
Think I’m getting on top of AvCom as well. Got enough skills to keep me alive. I’m not sure if I’m doing it right, but this is how I run my dirty fighting.
- ctrl+click active block (So I don’t have to fiddle with it again)
- get into a fight
- pop the +initiative power (this gets active block going)
- pop a couple of foot swipes
- Whack 'em with my bleedy attack.
What I don’t get is does the active block run at the same time as my other attacks, or are you EITHER blocking OR attacking? I don’t quite follow that yet…
That’s definitely not what the Stand and Deliver society message says when you log on Bonny–it says its moving to the Brits on Rackham.
— Alan
[QUOTE=Alan Dunkin;1272220]That’s definitely not what the Stand and Deliver society message says when you log on Bonny–it says its moving to the Brits on Rackham./QUOTE]
In that case disregard what I said, because I was referring to recent discussions in this thread not Stand and Deliver.
Say what? The society message now states that? I’m away from my PC until Saturday night, so I wasn’t aware. Can any other Stand and Deliver members comment on this? If it’s true, when was it decided and who decided to make this switch?
I just logged on last night after I hadn’t played since like Wed/Thurs and that’s what I found. There wasn’t anyone else on either.
— Alan
flyinj
678
I logged on four days ago and that’s what the message said. “We all moved to another server and now we’re all english, bye!”
I found it pretty frustrating, and logged off. The move was made to match up with the Australian time zone? What the hell? I though this was a QT3 guild.
Well, if that’s the case, I suggest we drop the members who are from that other website and keep only Qt3 members. Perhaps we should also limit the leadership level to founding members.
flyinj
680
What other website? Is there some Australian forum that is part of Stand and Deliver as well? Who is the leader of the guild? A Qt3 member?
