van der Clam

@admin Congrats on the Steam award. Looking forward to 2020....at least in virtual world. heh. On AI, will AI fleets have more variety than 8 Trincs w/ 2 Smalls that roam around at breakneck speed? I keep seeing a bunch of these around and seems a bit silly...especially their 100kn/hr.

Yet, we all know there are nations out there who purposely "test" every little thing there is to game the mechanics. You may not be one of them, but you know there are those kind who do and don't report what they find. Instead they keep it to themselves so they're the only ones who know the tricks.

Just like starting a Hostility Mission before they're even available, this is a feature that works as intended. No need to complain, just get gud and out mechanic the mechanic. lul

Our biggest struggle with doing Player Raids with only a few ppl is that we have to kill all the AI warships. Why do NPC Raids not also have to kill all our ships? Granted, it is very easy to defend just by sailing straight to the trader ships and sinking them, ignoring the NPC warships. But on Player Raids, it makes no sense that we can't just sneak in and capture the Indiaman and sneak out without wasting time on the NPC warships.

Vive la France!

@erelkivtuadrater I get your point that there was some diversity, but look at your first image. Nearly all Bucs won, and the diverse side got wasted. Look at the second image, almost all Bucs kicked the ass of the diverse side again. So my point still stand, no matter the port BR diversity does not win when the other team is filled with the meta. The only way to have diversity in port battles, imho, is to limit the BR per rate. Or maybe I'm missing your point still. If 45 point ports allowed only 1600 BR for 1st rates you would have a choice of 1 L'Ocean, or 1 Santi, or 2 Victories. (Same for all rates.) Say 55 point ports had 3200 BR for 1st rates you could have 3 L'Os or 3 Santis, or 4 Vics. 2nd rates and 3rd rates all the way down would offer even more variety because of the varied BR in those rates.

@Gregory Rainsborough Nice write-up and port map with overall strategy drawings. Bur next time it would be awesome to see the fleet arrangements with the ingame map (no health bars). Get your people on it.

@erelkivtuadrater So, if the BR was lowered to whatever redii is suggesting, what ships would people bring? Still as many 1st rates as possible. I've watched many vids on port battles over the years, and I've never seen diversity of ships in port battles, no matter what the BR was. Sure, you see the occasional 3rd or 4th rates, but looking at their rank will explain why. (Of course, this does not apply to Russian PB fleets, or the new LAMA fleets. In those you see a wide variety because their ships are impenetrable. Every one of their battles looks the same, enemy side all sunk or captured and their side not even damaged. Would be nice to see LLAMA fight the REDS/or any of the other big Russian clans. But I think that's physically impossible.) This was my BR suggestion for ports

BUMP! JACKS is full of good peeps. They are always helpful with their members and other pirates. The only times I've not seen a JACKS member answer a call for help is when they're not online or already busy helping elsewhere.

@FarragoInteresting. I wonder if that was patched in yesterday, because Saturday and Sunday I never ran out.

This is how I seem to get dumped into Loki Battles nearly 80% of the time...empty hp all around. #FixLokiBattles

Double Ball/Charge never runs out on a NPC, as long as you never change the shot type. I've loaded into a few Loki's that have either of these loaded and they never ran out of ammo. But I can say the only NPC that I feel are "over buffed or crazy strong" are the Elite NPC. Their sails are too strong, as is their hull (some shots don't even register), but of course it doesn't matter if you attack only lower rate elites, or group up on higher rate elites. Also, can you confirm/deny that our player ship has an agility nerf when fighting Elite NPC? My Prince dN is more agile than a Snow when facing any normal NPC, but as soon as I face an Elite NPC, it becomes a complete log, unable to turn, or stop. (Oddly, the acceleration seem unaffected.) Basically, when facing regular NPC, my ships are brilliant, when facing an Elite NPC, they move like they're half full of water.

Why would the BR lower for the top 3 populated nations? To my understanding, they are to be the only ones being attacked by NPC at their most developed ports..

Did raids get removed? No pirate ports have any raid missions available this morning.

Yes, with escorts of mixed rates. In fact, #MixedFleets please, @admin