Pirates: and the people who hunt them

[Bleakbeard]

Well are you attacking them as they leave a free port starting their trading run? or are you hiding near a resources heavy port waiting for them to leave?  Again, intelligently think about it. Have you tried positioning yourself between an iron port and a capital and only attack the ones going back to capital?

 

The 1 piece of loot bug from player traders is a bug that the developers are aware of.  Not a feature, and not trolling.  Just a massive waste of time.

 

As for the combat patrols, I stopped running my Surprise solo and brought in a speed-rigged Reno and Privateer.  Feel free to attack, I'll be watching art on the second monitor.

Edited February 29, 2016 by Bleakbeard

[Arbour]

See this guy gets it. 

[Taralin Snow]

That's the thing, when we gank player traders of other nations all they have is 1 unit of whatever they were carrying. Either we ganked a bunch of master trolls or there is something skewed that makes other nations better pirates than actual pirates. Given all the bad maluses we have I wouldn't be surprised if it was intended.

 

I do try to remember to keep 1 unit of coal in the hold of each of my combat ships, but I had no idea other players were doing this kind of thing with actual traders ships.  Sailing around with no guns and a nearly empty hold strikes me as a waste of time that could be more profitably spent doing something else.  Just about *anything* else, really.

 

edit: oh, a game bug.  that makes more sense.

Edited February 29, 2016 by Taralin Snow

[Taralin Snow]

The 1 piece of loot bug from player traders is a bug that the developers are aware of.  Not a feature, and not trolling.  Just a massive waste of time.

 

Has this been fixed?  Because we've been taking cargoes from pirate player traders and getting more than 1 unit of whatever.

 

If this bug only affects pirate players but not nationals then it's a really horrible and unfair bug that absolutely needs to be fixed.

[Obliterati]

Well are you attacking them as they leave a free port starting their trading run? or are you hiding near a resources heavy port waiting for them to leave?  Again, intelligently think about it. Have you tried positioning yourself between an iron port and a capital and only attack the ones going back to capital?

 

I know for a fact i hit a US trader yesterday that had just taken an NPC trader. He had taken command of the damaged trader and had cargo. When i got to the loot screen. All i was given was 1 redwood log.

this has been reported multiple times by every pirate i know.

[Gaspar]

Then how have the French defeated the "pirates" in the SE on PvP2 with almost no ports and lesser numbers? I have taken several player traders myself, it is neither difficult nor dangerous. In fact it is the same as taking a NPC trader except their hold is FULL of iron instead of a handful of random resources, so it is totally worth it. You just have to have the right ship and know where to look for them....like a true pirate. I swear if you guys sat down, thought about pirate tactics intelligently, and then tried them out in game, you would have success.

I don't know, it's irrelevant to me. You don't play pirate. As pirate I can either sit in my waters and take NPC prizes, or go to another nations. If I go into another nation's waters the other ships will either run if a trader, or fight if not. If fighting they always call for friends. If I initiate combat, they also call reinforcement NPCs. Assuming all goes well and I take a trader, and assuming the one item bug doesn't exist, I now have to sail a trader to a free port if I want the items.

Right now, as the game is, traditional piracy is simply not worth the risk or effort. That is why Pirates are playing as a nation.

[Arbour]

Until yesterday, all of your complaints could have been about France and not the pirates.  So I kinda do know it's like to operate in an area of the map that has no useful ports and has potential enemies around every turn with no "safe zone" of my own.  If you learned the reinforcement rules then you could use them to your advantage even as the attacker.  If you are attacking something that is half of your BR rating then they can call reinforcements, but if you don't double their BR they can't.  If you are soloing around in enemy territory in a cerb or surprise or bigger then you are doing it wrong.  You shouldn't be taking those types of ships in enemy territory to solo anything.  Most pirates from the age of sail ran in small ships.  I believe the "Queen Anne's Revenge" was the largest pirate vessel in the historical age of sail and it was a frigate, and Blackbeard would commonly bring smaller ships to escort it because having a ship so big made it a safety risk if it was attacked by severl smaller vessels.  I don't bring my Frigate out to hunt unless I am grouped with others, preferably one larger ship and one smaller ship.  There are different class ships for a reason, the different ships are not "better" than each other they are "better" at different things.  This idea that "I am level 6 so I am going to use this Surprise for everything" is naive, and not how tactics work with sailing ships.  I am no expert on historical naval combat, but NA is a simulator with historical ships and I know this is how it works in this game.  

Edited March 1, 2016 by Arbour

[Arbour]

Now port battles are different but that is just because of the current port battle mechanics, which they do plan on completely overhauling with land and different types of fortifications and shallow water areas and (hopefully) landing men.  So even in the future, everyone jumping into their biggest possible ship will most likely be a bad strategy.  

[Gaspar]

Until yesterday, all of your complaints could have been about France and not the pirates.  So I kinda do know it's like to operate in an area of the map that has no useful ports and has potential enemies around every turn with no "safe zone" of my own.  If you learned the reinforcement rules then you could use them to your advantage even as the attacker.  If you are attacking something that is half of your BR rating then they can call reinforcements, but if you don't double their BR they can't.  If you are soloing around in enemy territory in a cerb or surprise or bigger then you are doing it wrong.  You shouldn't be taking those types of ships in enemy territory to solo anything.  Most pirates from the age of sail ran in small ships.  I believe the "Queen Anne's Revenge" was the largest pirate vessel in the historical age of sail and it was a frigate, and Blackbeard would commonly bring smaller ships to escort it because having a ship so big made it a safety risk if it was attacked by severl smaller vessels.  I don't bring my Frigate out to hunt unless I am grouped with others, preferably one larger ship and one smaller ship.  There are different class ships for a reason, the different ships are not "better" than each other they are "better" at different things.  This idea that "I am level 6 so I am going to use this Surprise for everything" is naive, and not how tactics work with sailing ships.  I am no expert on historical naval combat, but NA is a simulator with historical ships and I know this is how it works in this game.  

 

Again, I don't think you get it, I run smaller ships, however you need to understand it is a give and take, I take a smaller ship in enemy waters, it is still difficult to get a good mark when simultaneously running from other players who outclass me and catching a trader who, on sight of pirate sails, runs to the nearest friendly port.  At the same time moving farther out to cut that down results in the risk of having to sail BACK in a trader, running high risk of another ship catching me easily.  This of course still doesn't touch on allied ships rushing to help when a pirate catches a trader in battle.  This is something I've done, I still have a port off Florida where I go to harass people, but it is still high risk low reward.  that is the reason you see so many pirate players not playing like traditional pirates.  The pirate faction is extremely similar to any other faction, and as a result it is played as such.