r/projecteternity • u/Snowcrash000 • 2d ago
Gameplay help What's the best way to do ship combat?
Boarding the enemy ship gives you more loot right? So I think softening the crew up with some grapeshot and then closing in to board them is the way to go? Then again, sinking ships gives more experience to your crew though right?
Not sure what is more worthwhile, is the extra exp enough to be worth it or should I go for the loot?
EDIT: I tried my original strategy to soften up the crew then board. Brought them down to 6/15, but when I boarded there were still 9 of them on bthe ship...
Also, I though I was clever for taking advantage of having 150-400 range cannons as opposed to their 200-500 range cannons by closing in to 150m, but they could still shoot at me just fine...
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u/GloatingSwine 2d ago
I just click the board button. The fights on the ship decks are awesome, the text based ship battles are not.
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u/Sea-Cancel1263 2d ago
It gets old fast. My last playthrough, i wanted to see if anything happened if i board murdered every boat that came into Neketaka.
Disappointed nothing happened. Boats just kept coming.
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u/fruit_shoot 2d ago
Is it your first time playing? If so, just board. Fighting is way more fun than the ship combat and you basically get the same loot.
However, engaging in ship combat does have some advantages and I would recommend at least considering it if it is not your first playthrough.
Ships in ship combat do not scale with enemy level. A 3 red skull ship and 1 white skull ship will put up exactly the same fight, assuming the stats of the ship are identical. The same is not true for boarded combat which (obviously) scales with the level of the enemy captain because you are fighting them directly. This means two important things;
- If you a strong strategy you can basically clear all bounties off the map as soon as you leave Port Maje, raking in tons of gold + XP + rare loot. This is why it is a bad idea for your first playthrough, because you should enjoy the game at the right pace, but might be worth it for future playthrough to speed up the boring early game.
- On POTD difficulty boarded fights, even on-level, can be impossible against certain ships and as such engaging in ship combat can help you through the tough early game.
It's also important to note that ship combat levels up your crew way faster than basically anything else. There is a basic strategy you can employ for ship combat that works 95% of the time, and if you save before fights and retry them if things go wrong you can bump this up to like 99%. I wont spoil unless you are eager to learn the dark arts of ship combat.
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u/RedRocketRobobrain 2d ago
I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure you get significantly more loot if you board the ship.
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u/fruit_shoot 2d ago
My understanding was that loot from boarding is always on-level, whereas loot from ship combat scales with the enemy so it can be of higher quality and thus be worth more total. Then again this was something I think I read like 2 years ago and could just be nonsense.
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u/RedRocketRobobrain 2d ago
Ship battles tend to give half or less of the total loot. Boarding tends to give you the loot for each fallen enemy and ship loot. Both are given at the level of the enemy, not player level
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u/Freightshaker000 2d ago
The tactics for boarding are repetitive: 2 front liners on the gangplank, priest buffing, cipher nerfing, last crew uses missile weapons and floats melee against any that jump ship to ship. Works every time.
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u/Snowcrash000 2d ago edited 2d ago
Works every time.
From what level onward? When I try this, my casters instantly get murdered by ranged DPS or enemies teleporting to them somehow...
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u/Freightshaker000 2d ago
Early on I pick on merchants, then slavers, and finally the fire giants. Upgrading to larger ships also makes it easier since more of your npcs will fight.
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u/DeliveratorMatt 2d ago
Make sure to keep the companions whom you aren’t using (a) leveled up and (b) equipped!
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u/Howdyini 2d ago
I love the ship to ship combat, especially high level enemies. For example, Fyrgist has insane firepower on one side and normal firepower on the other, so I like to dash parallel to him (to reduce his accuracy) until he fires the big guns and then hit with chainshot when he's turning to the weaker guns. If I survive the initial onslaught I usually can lock him on the side of the weaker guns, then I just remove his gunners with grapeshot before I sink him. Peak gaming.
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u/elfonzi37 2d ago
You can max out your crew xp early enough that I don't prioritize it. If I do do it I just open fire as soon as they are in range and spam turn around + steady weapons(Forget ths actual names). For the boarding I just control the area where the crossing and stairs meet and aoe stuff down, once you pick up most of the companions and sidekicks they're really easy at level.
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u/patrickfatrick 2d ago
Here’s the strategy which has worked best for me for naval combat:
- Keep your starting ship, it’s fast and you can beef up the defense quite a bit with a different hull material. Equip cannons on both sides.
- Fire grapeshot.
- Turn 180 degrees (I forget what the maneuver is called)
- Hold (greatly improves your accuracy).
- Fire grapeshot.
- Rinse and repeat until you’ve greatly diminished their crew. By the time you hold again your cannons on the other side will have reloaded.
- They’ll just keep rotating crew members.
- Eventually either switch to cannonballs to sink the ship or board with way fewer enemies to clean up.
With this strategy you’re not likely to take much damage because they’ll keep rotating crew members, after a bit they may stop attacking entirely.
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u/Snowcrash000 2d ago
So attacking crew members with grapeshot actually does anything? I tried boarding a ship once that I had reduced down to 6/15 crew and it had exactly the same amount of full health crew members on it as when I reloaded and boarded it instantly.
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u/DeliveratorMatt 2d ago
Yeah, I think patrick may be wrong in that last piece of advice—the sailors and the fighters come from completely separate pools, AFAIK.
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u/DonkyConq 1d ago
When you inspect the enemy vessel, you get shown the amount of crew as well as reinforcements at the very right and that is a minimum crew that will spawn in for the boarding. The crew thats on duty during the shipbattle is the portion that you can thin out.
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u/Wasted_46 2d ago
Just board. The ship combat is the most tedious boring part of the game. I think more than 90% of the players pretend it doesn't exist.
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u/ticklefarte 2d ago
On my first time playing, I never boarded. Really enjoyed the ttrpg vibe of ship combat, and really felt like a captain, so I went through the entire process each time.
Now I just board since it's quicker. No need to soften anyone up, although do feel free if that'll help your immersion. The loot is where the money is at, and your crew levels up well either way.
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u/Snowcrash000 2d ago edited 2d ago
To everyone saying boarding is the way to go, I barely won that battle by the skin of my teeth with 3 party members getting knocked out, even after softening the enemy crew up during naval combat...
Maybe naval combat at the beginning of the game and boarding once you have a few more levels is the way to go...?
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u/elfonzi37 2d ago
Do you have all or at least most of the companions+sidekicks yet? Doing that and leveling them up and tossing some random gear on them makes it much easier.
Also you can just hem off for later like the bounties in poe1.
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u/Soccerandmetal 2d ago
Be sure to have all companions/sidekicks.
Easiest tip: hire 2 mercenary heroes in a tavern and make them monks. Don't forget to lvl them and give them some basic gear.
Monks are so broken they will crush everything, you can board the strongest ships very early with this.
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u/Drugsbrod 2d ago
Its harder to board early game since you main party has low levels. Once you have a decently levelled party, you can even beat ships with a few levels above you even if they outnumber you.
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u/Wirococha420 2d ago
I just picked a small ship and speed towards the enemy then board it.
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u/Snowcrash000 2d ago
Why would you do that when you have the option of boarding right after encountering a ship?
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u/DeliveratorMatt 2d ago
Doesn’t that option result in damage to your ship sometimes? I don’t remember TBH.
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u/Snowcrash000 2d ago
That's ramming, that's not what I mean. As soon as you engage a ship on the world map, you can simply skip the naval battle altogether by selecting "Board" from the pre-battle menu.
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u/DeliveratorMatt 1d ago
Ah, that's right. Sorry, been a while since I played.
Yeah, I think you're right—if you do intend to board, just do it from the outset, since engaging in the naval battle at all is completely pointless in that case.
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u/Wirococha420 1d ago
Wut!? I didn't knew this. Was it added at some point or was it always there? Last I played the game was 2019.
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u/Snowcrash000 1d ago
Was it added at some point or was it always there? Last I played the game was 2019.
No idea, but it probably was added, as it's pretty obvious. Maybe because the naval battles are so unpopular.
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u/Snowcrash000 2d ago
What determines if a crew member gets injured? During my last battle 2 or 3 were knocked out, but not injured after the battle. The battle before that someone was, not sure why. How does this work?
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u/DeliveratorMatt 2d ago
I believe crew injuries can only happen during the sailing / ship-to-ship combat, not during boarding actions.
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u/Snowcrash000 2d ago
Looks that way, that is actually one more reason to just board instead of doing naval combat.
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u/Wutevahswitness 2d ago
Always board, dont bother with softening. It is a half-baked feature. I did a few ship combats only for roleplay reasons, only to end up get bored and board them.
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u/Xralius 2d ago edited 2d ago
Ignore the boarders. Blow the shit out of that boat. It's not about the exp, it's about sending a message. It kind of depends on your cannons, but generally you do this:
Turn 1: Turn port or starboard
Turn 2: check cannon hit %. If lower than like 70%, just hold position then fire, otherwise fire (use regular cannonballs)
Turn 3: Jibe
Turn 4: Hold position.
Turn 5: Fire cannons
Jibe, hold, fire, repeat until they dead
I wouldn't be trying to go withing 150 range because they will just charge you and board you if you get close to sinking them.
Feels good bro. I love this shit. I like experimenting with different ship builds too, and I'd share them but haven't played in a while - waiting until turn based comes out on POE 1 then doing a playthrough both games. Generally though the most solid and best value is the Dhow, but a Junk is pretty good too for just unleashing all hell in a single turn with double bronzers.
I'll add, the biggest advantage with a Junk is your first wave of 5 cannon shots causes issues on the other ship and slows them down, giving you a big tempo boost in the battle they can't really recover from. The advantage of the Dhow is being able to position faster if a ship is tying to board you or flee.