Barbancourt

Sending new players to the PVP zone would be chumming the waters. They're just going to get curbstomped repeatedly by the roving gank fleets. Sending them to enemy capitals is much safer, LOL.

A random trade good can be easily done with a T-Lynx, with potentially a few losses, though I'm not sure why you'd want a noob to throw away ships. Violates the rule of "don't feed your enemies easy rewards" as well.

Well they keep running up hostility on half the ports on the map

I always scout them in a Trader Lynx. Sometimes a T-Lynx is enough, and it's the fastest way to know what you actually need, or whether it's even worth trying.

Cowards and scoundrels. Hang 'em high.

My dream, fulfilled. Then maybe people will start attacking ships that can fight back again.

What doubloons? I'm not putting doubloons in any ship until the magic naval credit card goes away.

There used to be a steady supply of AI 7th Rates. For my first month of playing I found a couple of places where Lynxs spawned predictably and just killed them over and over and over. Even during the "austerity" days I was able to build up my supply of money, repairs and gold mines that way, and it pays much better now. I didn't bother with trading until much later on when I could build my first LGV, and when they increased the payout for AI battles I stopped trading again.

Popping t-brigs is absolutely boring no matter what.

What if you can't get to it? If a port has been captured while you're away, which often happens, you don't want to spend an hour or two sailing to the other side of the map to what is now enemy port to close an outpost you can no longer use anyway. Also, many of us are at our outpost limit, and we need to quickly shed old outposts to make new outposts in a pinch to participate in dynamic game play events. This became even more important with "patrol zones" where we now need to have a bunch of free port outposts, and then frequently delete them later on at times when we have other needs. I always consider "sinking Tbrigs" to be wasting my time.

Capping/sinking helpless LGVs is the most profitable activity. I haven't bothered with trading since they increased the PVE battle payouts a year ago, since you can make mountains of money sinking helpless AI ships.

Thank goodness. 175 salt per Provision was ridiculous, and seemed like they were trying to make salt into a currency.

It was fish + salt on the test server, IIRC

click the "put or view ships on sale" button to see if it's there as an expired contract

I got stuff like that in a couple of weeks with a new character, no problem - and I'm not even any good. Also, shop for your "decent" ships at a place like La Mona or a national capital, where there are usually plenty of crafted ships for sale at prices that are easy to afford considering the massive payouts we get for curbstomping helpless AI traders. Looting and sinking AI T-brigs and LGVs is like taking candy from a baby.

NPC traders do need warships with them as a rule. They are just way too easy to kill/cap.

At the bottom of the sea

That's kind of the purpose of it being low.

Do tell? I'm interested

On the regular server, sure. Crafting on the Testbed server is very painful with the change to provisions. I hope that isn't a preview of the future.

Sailing to an enemy capital usually is?

I guess you could try to board it...I just sank it with gunzzzzz.

"Capital X to Capital Y"? Who would be that suicidal, and why would suicide be insured?

Who needs even more fricken money LOL?

"Basic" is the word that really applies. I hope there are better ideas in the pipeline.