Friday, February 29th, 2008

 

 {xtypo_dropcap}I{/xtypo_dropcap}t has been a treacherous month on the high seas. Sneaks, cheats, and no gooders lurking every corner of the murky waters. A pirate doesn't need to be tough, they need to be smart. And I believe thats where I was making my early mistakes. Tis awful tempting to fit a ship and head straight into sea warfare. Tis not smart not shoot at anything that floats passed. Even more daunting is the peril that can await at the ends of what I like to call "Straight Guards". These foul scallywags travel a direct path from island to island essentially patrolling any pirate activity in between. If they see your ship flying the good old Jolly Roger in the air, then the hunt is on. And they will literally chase you across the Carribean. If you stick tight to the shallows, more often then not, you can avoid their untimely demise. But a true swashbuckler can't cower to the coast forever. So I set myself my first main goal. I needed to destroy a ship. This pirate isn't even choosy as to what kind of ship, or what nationality. I just needed to blow something up. For my morale, and for my dainty reputation.

 

I begin my perilous plan in Marsh Harbour. Saw the Coxswain, made sure my ship was fitted to max level, and made the usual stops around town. After finding nothing new with the Master and not having enough points to up any of my fighting skills, I set sail. My main ship, well, my only ship, the "Spook Hollow" is a tiny schooner which coincidentally has been sank 8 times. Not much on her for beef at cannon either. But she will shoot heavy round shot, and really, thats all I'm going to need. I swiftly made a few laps at full mast, just scoping what was out on the seas. The map in your user interface is nice because by color coding you can see what exactly is sailing near to you, as well as checking the statistics on it if you like. For me though, I was needing to see just what my foe was cruising in. As hard as it may be for a man to admit, my little ship was only going to contend in the water against another little ship. After about 5 laps, I saw a  small "Bermuda" sloop. My blood started racing a little and I could almost feel the tension building in my fingers as I made the decision the close in on her. As the shifty sloop became in rage with it's back facing me, I made the call to engage, and entered the battle screen. Now I had been here before numerous times. Just the cool, still water between me and my prey. It was in this initial approach that I must maneuver into the perfect position and prepare to deftly attack rather then to pull along side and trade cannon fire.

 

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Naturally a lopsided exchange of fire means that I will retain the structure of my ship, while efficiently knocking holes in his. So on this day, I tried a different approach. I instructed my crew to focus on speed. Thus meaning I would quickly make my approach before those knaves could prepare their guns. Upon getting within firing distance, I could then shift crew focus into maneuverability. Settling myself comfortably at the rear of the ship I'm attacking. Now, in a ship battle in this game, it is going to steer and attack just as a real ship would. There are no brakes. You have sails, which means you go slow to fast. No reverse, no sudden turn around. You must maintain a steady and constant speed that will reflect the defensive maneuvers of your victim, as well as keep you in an appropriate and somewhat safe firing position. Likewise, in reality a pirate ship has two sides, meaning if your target is on the right, not going to do you much good to fire left, ya see? So to remain in the battle, I need to stay close enough to counter their advances, yet shift side to side to effectively use my cannon fire. So I go about half sail at 1-2 ship lengths away from the rear of their ship, and begin to come alongside.

 

At this point all guns are prepped and ready to fire, and I have my crew still maintaining maneuverability. I get an accuracy rating of about 90% and I take my first jab at them. This nets me some high scoring damage. They return fire, also getting some moderate damage on me. But I am expecting this and consider it collateral damage. As I take a few more blunt force shots at close range, I suddenly shift rudder to port side and do a loop around heading the opposite direction of the opposing ship. This allows me to take a couple nice shots with the ready cannons on my other side. Having speed at this point over my enemy, I swoop strong directly behind their tail and move in for another broad close range attack on the opposite side as the first one. In general, I'm usuing confusion and well timed heavy fire to dismantle the ship. I continue my established pattern, occasionally breaking course and allowing them to gain a little ground, just to keep their path of travel honest. Once I had withered them to around 50%, I closed in almost ship to ship, commanded the grew to focus on just gunnery, and proceeded to laden them with bar shot. In the game, you are given different options as to what your cannons are firing. You have heavy ball shot which is basically a stronger cannon ball. There is bar shot, which is two smaller balls joined by a bar, and cause more damage. And even in the most desperate of times, you can fire what appears to be forks and knives. So after about 10 minutes of fierce combat I can tell they are about to give in, the ship lays still, and I'm alerted that they have abandoned ship. Hooray! With the confidence and strategy of a hardened sea captain I had taken and plundered my first ship. The day was mine, and in the end, I not only built my confidence, but also gained some skill points, exp, and loot. With a notch under my built I was ready to approach a nearby town in Cuba, and fit my damaged ship. But the sky continues to be up for this captain, and the only thing to do is go back out there and take more ships. Perhaps next, a galleon. Eh, better beware my britches for now... Until next voyage, hail Captain T.Whitmer

 

  
 

 

 

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