AngryPanCake

I know you can capture AI traders. You go out into the OW, sail around, find a target, click on it, the Attack button maybe grayed until you are close enough, then click attack. After a handful of seconds, you enter the battle instance where the combat takes place. Once you weaken your target and win the boarding, the enemy ship is considered captured. Then you can either add her to your fleet if you have the proper fleet perk, or just loot her (take her holds content into your ship) and then either abandon her or sink her. If you sink the ship you will get some reward. More experienced veteran players may tell you which ships you can not capture.

That looked like true mayhem! That was epic! This game really mimics those age of sail naval battles.

I see what you mean and you are right, this might not be great content/feature for PvP servers, but it surely is great for the PvE server!

Great video @Zooloo, this reminds me of Capt. Aubrey's capture of the Spanish Cacafuego Xebec-Frigate. The Cacafuego was taller than Aubrey's ship who got very close to her, which made the Cacafuego unable to lower her guns low enough to fire at Aubrey's ship! Awesome tactics there.

@Magnum That is a great idea and will add more immersion to the game. I do like the voice warning better than a ding. The only thing I foresee as a possible annoying issue would be sailing in crowded shipping lanes and hearing the lookout/ding every other second! Adding some "Lookout options" to filter the warnings would be a good addition as well. For instance: Lookout warning at 8, 6 or 2 miles only. So if you choose 2 mile warning and you are in a crowded sea, you will only hear the lookout when ships are within 2 miles of your ship. But again, anything that would add immersion to the game would be welcome.

I captured a t brig and added it to my fleet, I moved half my basic cutter crew to it and sailed to Savannah with my prize. Once there, I was unable to split the fleet, it said I could not do it because I did not have an outpost there. I could not leave port because the basic cutter requires 28 min crew to sail and the t brig 18 for a total 46. My max allowed crew at my rank is 40. Trying to leave the port in a different b cutter would cause the loss of the fleet, don't care about the original b cutter, but did not want to lose the t brig. Furthermore, I could not sell the t brig if I couldn't sail it out of Savannah because I was not allowed to split the fleet in a port where I did not have an OP. The only thing I could do was to dismiss the t brig and not make any gold out of it. I could sell the loot in Savannah, or transfer it to the port warehouse, then to the b cutter hold to transport it to another port for a better price. So, my questions are: 1- Is there any reason/rationale for making this whole operation this complicated? 2- Why can't we separate fleet ships and sell them individually at any port regardless of having an OP or not?

I know right...that's what newbs like me do! To be honest, I knew there was a fleet perk, I just forgot to get it...I was too eager to go out and try my luck against unarmed or poorly armed traders, after "real" warships (AI cutters) whipped my @$$ in Midshipman combat missions. Plus, I'm in my trial post wipe period, have not redeemed my redeemables yet.

I have recently captured a trader and after winning the boarding I tried to loot the captured ship, but couldn't figure out how to do it. Looked for the yellow [X] everywhere, but I did not see it and ended up losing the prize and it's cargo when I found myself in the OW and the capped ship gone! Believe me, I was quite pissed and ranted in the forums! However, ranting alone doesn't do much good to other novices like me, so I thought I'd share some of my mistakes with my fellow newbies. My first mistake was the "BATTLE OVER, press ESC to leave", this is the same and only button to exit the boarding menu, the hold/crew/ship management menu and the battle instance. I clicked it once and got out of the boarding menu and not seeing the yellow [X], I clicked it again and ended up in the OW. I wish the exit button was more like "Exit Boarding Menu", then "Exit Ship/Hold/Crew Management Menu", Exit to Open World"...etc, so one knows which stage he/she is before moving to the next. The yellow [X] which is for "Inspect Ship and Hold" is small and not always obvious, especially for inexperienced players. If you don't see it after exiting the Boarding Menu, zoom out, pan around, make sure you are facing the capped enemy ship, keep doing that until you see it. DO NOT PRESS ESC AGAIN! that will throw you out into the open world and lose your prize. Again, I wish the Inspect Ship and Hold menu would pop up automatically after the boarding is won. To veteran players, if there is anything I forgot, please let me know and will add it to the original post. Edit 1: As Hodo pointed out, DO NOT FORGET TO GET YOUR 1st FLEET PERK as soon as possible, so you get to keep your original ship and bring home your prize! To add Fleet perks, see pictures below:

I'm still not sure why the map coordinates were done away with, I am sure there was some issues with exploits on the PvP server, but I don't think those issues are relevant on the PvE server. So, would people want to see the coordinates back on the PvE server?

Would people object to bringing back Map Coordinates to the PvE server? I am sure many new players start there and it would be a little more forgiving to sail in the OW with some indication of where you are. It will allow people to continue playing the game and progress and learn the harder stuff (manual sails, finer points of gunnery, combat maneuvers...etc), instead of getting frustrated from the get go and going crazy just trying to figure out where one's ship is?

I tried it, but not sure I figured it right, I guess I need some help. After right clicking on the map to establish my waypoint, It showed a red little bar on my compass in sailing mode. Easy enough, you sail towards that direction, wind direction permitting. Then I was waiting to see a marker or something telling me I reached that waypoint, but didn't see anything and I guess I saild past it and then wasn't very sure where I was in the open sea. Did I miss anything?

One of them many potential exploits someone thought of, I see. Like someone starts a battle then gives coordinates to friends who then come over and join it to tip the balance. Thanks for the response.

By the way, what was the reasoning behind the removal of map coordinates?

By the way, can someone post a video of a Midshipman combat mission using a basic cutter fighting an AI cutter? As stated above, I've been struggling quite a bit and would really like to see other players deal with these basic missions and see what I've been doing wrong or what others are doing right. I'm always in for learning new tricks. What they say about old dogs, you can't teach them new tricks, well that's not true. I can still learn...a bit slow, but I learn. Thanks.

I've been posting lately about my struggles since I have been back into the game post-wipe. I have been able to win half to three quarters of my Midshipman combat missions prior to the wipe, but since then, I've been struggling to win even a single battle against the AI since I've been back into the game. I've played 4 battles so far, lost badly all of them in my basic cutter. The first two were against schooner type vessels, the last two against cutters. The AI gunnery is amazingly accurate and terribly damaging. In most encounters, I lost half my sides before I even started damaging AI opponents. Reducing their sails to 60-70% did not seem to reduce their maneuverability either. This was my old tactics prior to the wipe, reducing enemy sails as much as possible then try to outmaneuver them and hit their hulls. As I have posted elsewhere, I feel the AI buff has overshot its target which was supposed to become challenging, has become just plain too hard.

I think you are right, Banks was only mentioned in the first couple chapters in that book, then went back to Blaine. I'm only interested in prodigious boobies collections... No, not those... these:

Hello there, I'm reading the Aubrey-Maturin series and in book 13 (Thirteen Gun Salute) there is mention of a certain Sir Joseph Banks! I am familiar with Sir Joseph Blaine the naval intelligence chief, Maturin's friend. But this Bank who just showed up in that book, I have no idea of the connection with Maturin. Any idea?

That would be great and people who like total immersion would really enjoy chasing and engaging enemy ships in POV perspective as if you were actually there!

I've never experienced the storm battles in the past, but one thing to keep in mind that rain and fog (along with smoke) is pretty intensive when it comes to GPU's.

That video looks great, do you use the same WASD keys to move around your ship after you press the Home key to start free look?

Since this is about realism, I was thinking about a possibility to sail a ship in 1st person. Currently when you zoom all the way in, the view seems to be in the middle and as Aegir indicated, your forward view is obstructed by the mast. My suggestion in term of "realism" is concerned is to simulate (I know some people hate the term "simulation" for this game, but bear with me) a captain's view from the quarterdeck and limit the third person view during combat instances for complete combat immersion. As you see in the pictures below, it shows the current views. 1st and 2nd pics show total zoom in, forward and side views. The 3rd one is aiming view after right clicking while in side view. My suggestion is to shift the deck view a little aft to simulate a captain standing on the quarter deck, with the ability to move a little to starboard or port to see forward without being obstructed by the masts (or if not possible, then make masts semi transparent like the sails to allow some vision), and when aiming, the view is moved to the current aiming position (which remains unchanged). So the only thing that changes in complete zoom in is the move a little bit aft for a quarterdeck view instead of center of the ship view. The second suggestion is to limit the zoom out view and eliminate the 3rd person view, again to make combat instances more immersive. The zoom out view should be as far as the crow's nest only, to simulate a view from the lookout. If it is at all possible to maybe add a "1st Person PvE" mission for people to test the more realistic view in battle for a few weeks or so and see what the feedback is. I know, PvE missions are being removed from PvP server in order to increase OW sailing, but this would be a time limited experiment to test how it impacts battles and what people think about a 1st person/POV battle instances. Maybe, this could be some additional content for the PvE server to allow interested players to experience Age of Sail battle simulation.

In this world of internet anonymous omnipotence, it is hard to prevent a small group of people from being toxic. However, I just logged into the game and double checked the global chat. It actually has an "Ignore" function!!!! So, why are people allowing themselves to be trolled by idiots while you can just hit ignore? Everyone KNOWS that if you respond to idiots you encourage them to further act like idiots. Does everyone feels he/she has to respond to every single moron that's out there? Please use the ignore button as needed and keep the chat the way it is and stop complaining about toxic players in chat! If WE the reasonable players can not do that, then yes, go ahead and get rid of the Global chat.

Isn't there an option to "Ignore" a particular player on chat already? If someone is being obnoxious, you right-click and choose ignore and you can continue chatting with the rest of the good people!

Thanks, I'll do that. EDIT: I was not logged in...it worked just fine after logging in. Thanks for the info.

I just tried, but I kept getting error 15! that's weird. I was gonna put as a reason for the flag: "this is not a review of the game itself, but a review of the devs. Therefore not a fair review!".