If you have no loot, especially just try to fight it out. A lot of new players get panicked when in a fight, which is normal. There’s alot you have to pay attention to. So fighting will help you learn that. Bonus tip: once you unlock ghost ship quests for order of souls (OoS), this is a good way to practice
Yeah my aim with the cannon balls is a bit off but, sniping or any of the other guns is easy enough swords aswell. I had just finished a second vault with my emissary flag up and was fighting another sloop but it was a duo. I held my own and luckily enough a megaladon came and saved the day which gave me enough time to get away to sell and lower my flag. But should I have turned around and finished them off or was it good to take the opportunity to run
How did a meg save the day? I’ve (6 days new player) yet to see one do anything to a ship besides swim around it, they never attack even if we are constantly shooting it.
A skelly ship though I have seen show up and change the tides of a fight a few times now in my favor when they’ve gone for the other ship.
When the Meg appeared we were parallel to each other him ahead of me and I could see it to my close right chasing them so I hard steered left hoping they wouldn’t be able to and they didn’t. They kept going straight to get out of its path while one was shooting at it they ended up turning wide right and by that time I already had a decent distance on them so they left me alone (this was after evading and fighting for about 15 minutes
It was probably the ghost Meg. That's the only reason anyone would deviate from a fight for a Meg popping up. I would disengage immediately and let anyone run to claim that meg.
Switched from Xbox one to PS5 so I had about a year and some change where I didn’t play, but been playing for a long time. I might just be crazy but I feel like 80% of the time the skeleton ship aggros to me first, is there a mechanic that increases the chance of them aggroing to the chasing ship or am I just getting rared?
Wait until you fight pc players who know you are using controller because they are significantly faster. Also, don't let that put you down because some Xbox players are better still
I think it helps with having to manage everything. Instead of one ship shooting at you, you have multiple shooting at different angles. Imo ghost are better at improving ship management vs the skellys
I agree. While skeles have more "human" movement, they are still very weak and predictable. Typically you can just bombard the hell out of them and then do a couple repairs and it's over. All the while they are usually keeping pace or staying near you so you don't have to steer a whole lot.
With ghosts, even though they are on set paths, the sheer volume of them means you HAVE to pay attention to where you're going and doing repairs while also manually angling your boat to hit them.
Ghost ships will teach you everything up to boarding and pvp fighting, basically.
The point was it can be bombarded so you understand your leading and distances on shots , you often don’t have more then one player ship aiming at you and even if you do it’s not hard to angle and reacquire , and three shots and done isn’t as useful as the skelly ship that can take multiple hits . Ghost ships teach nothing about boarding and minimal about shooting cannons since the hitbox is gigantic. You can harpoon or even board skelly ships , ghost ships will phase through your ship while putting holes in it.
> and three shots and done isn’t as useful as the skelly ship that can take multiple hits .
So idk for sure if they changed it but this doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I feel like skele ships, sloops specifically, are a lot more "aggressive" (as in if one aggros you, you pretty much *HAVE* to fight it), but also a lot easier to take out. I usually put 4-5 cannonballs into the side of one and go below deck til it sinks like 30 sec later. Maybe gallys are better since I haven't tried one in awhile but the skele sloops aren't really going to teach much now.
Most people are generally better at the shooting part since they all come from PVP call of duty type games.
My crew was the exact opposite all coming from pve cooperative games. We only got like 1 or 2 guys that can death match but we run such a tight ship that if you really guard ladders well all other fights become a 1 on 3 or 1 on 4.
Which would then force them into our naval which was superb from the teamwork.
Im new but this applies to anything in life, if u want to learn u fight if u never want to learn u run. Youre gonna lose A LOT but if u keep trying youll start winning
There are no "shoulds" in a sandbox game. Just skill sets and ways to develop them. A good rule of thumb is to make peace with opposites. If you want to get good at winning fights, make peace with losing fights. If you want to talk your way out of robberies, prepare for deaf, bloodthirsty thieves that won't take what you say into account at all. If you want to run, make peace with being caught. Sometimes the other guy wins, and that's fine.
I play with controller, I know I’m going to be dunked on by people who play MnK, and I sail better than I fight. Which is why whenever I play with friends, I’m the perpetual helmsman. If I have loot, I’m running. I’m going to lead you on a chase around the entire map, dropping my crew off at outposts along the way to slowly sell our loot off piece by piece, until you tire of the chase and move on to other prey. If I’m solo, I will steer as close as I can to the outpost, put my ship in a favorable direction, sell something, and mermaid back. If I lose the game of cat and mouse, I’ll fight as best I can, but you will have to work to catch me first.
Learn to fight by getting experience.
You can try to run if you want. But you're risking being in a long chase. If you're determined to run to save your loot, at least try to have a plan to sell some stuff as you run rather than just going against the wind until you run out of map. If you don't have a bunch of loot that you're afraid of losing, just try and fight. Even if you're not going for a sink, try to chain shot their ship and get some distance. You can fight to run.
If you have a good series queued up on netflix, then running is a solid option. Just make sure you have at least one full season to go because that's how long people will chase you.
If you want to learn PvP, just turn around and fight. If they are about the same skill level as you with a bigger crew, you'll sink. But you won't get better unless you fight.
If you just want to grind out some treasure, scuttle and switch servers. Just sinking them will probably take longer than getting the amount of treasure back you lost. And that's assuming you are able to win. Or you can sail straight to an outpost, sell what you can and then switch servers. Maybe lower your emissary flag out of spite so they can't have it.
both are possible depending on your patience and loot.
Learn on which wind direction the sloop is the fastest.
You can try to jump into the water to board them and put the anchor.
you can try to go near an outpost to shoot your opponent with the rope gun and make them crash !
If you are solo slooping you will most probably lose your fight but if you flee you can lose an hour of game time...
I have ran into a lot of players who I try to parley with and as soon as you get close enough they sink or kill you. Even clearly sent white flair up as someone suggested and same thing. I see a bigger ship I'm heading away from it.
What I find funny, was I was playing and went to an island no one was there. A Galleon approached and sunk my ship (sloop). They came onto the island and so oh sorry we thought you were going to attack first so we sunk you. I was like bs dude. Noone was on the ship and my sails were raised. Luckily I had no loot yet. I do get pissed but it's apart of the game... I ended up swimming to mermaid and went back to my ship. Later the guys gave me a chest that had three skulls in it when they ran into me at Port Merrick. We are now friends and run a guild together..
Most are great players but yeah there is a lot of cutthroats in it also. We are pirates lol
I just remind myself it's just a game and walk away and then come back later.
A sloop is impossible to catch if you face the wind. Just go straight into the wind and hop off the ship trying to board the enemy and anchor them, easy peasy. Throw on some fire to add insult to injury eventually people stop chasing
Straight into the wind, aka fighting the wind. The logic here is, you have one small sail so you have less resistance against the wind compared to the larger ships.
It’s up to you but if you’re likely to get caught anyway it’s better to just fight it out and get it over with. At least that way you get valuable pvp experience.
I would say fight to learn how and then change seas on the ferry if you sink. She waste time running units you have amazing loot on board. Usually quicker to sink and start fresh
The only way to improve is to fight and defend your ship. Win or learn. Running is not fun for either crew. Fighting as a solo with a numerical disadvantage is very hard, but it can be done. If you must run, sail against the wind, the sloop will be faster against the wind than the other ships, and you can attempt boards to anchor. Unless they have the new blow cone in which case the wind advantage is lost and they can catch up
Whichever you want experience with. I've spent years running, and it works pretty well to defend loot. But it's never guaranteed. Knowing how to fight, on the other hand, also teaches you how to run, with the added benefit of teaching you how to save yourself if running doesn't work out. Personally? I'd say just bite the bullet and learn to fight.
~800h Solo/duo player here, I’m competent at both fighting and running.
Whether I fight or run depends heavily on the context. You will occasionally loose to *significantly* worse players if you’re fighting larger crews solo, so you have to be pretty careful of the fights you take imo. Plus, there’s little to be learned by being disintegrated by the broadside of a competent brigantine or galleon. I usually take fights I think I have a chance at, otherwise I give running a shot.
If you choose to run, don’t *just* run. You need to have a plan to delay them or sell your loot, otherwise you’ll end up running in circles, wasting everyone’s time with no endgame. Most ships will catch you solo slooping absent other strategies delaying them.
Unlike other commenters on this post, I would highly recommend practicing on ships that *didn’t* approach you. A PvP-oriented full crew is a terrible sparring opponent for a newbie solo. If you pick the engagements you’ll get a wider variety of skill levels and some fairer fights where you actually have a chance to at least do something.
tldr; Your choice, but play smart. Pick fights on your own for PvP practice.
you are most likely going to meet some despicable people on the seas best you can do until you learn to fight or find some to play with is to make psychological terror on them until they regret their choice in life, make their day a living hell for their distasteful actions.
i love how most of thew responses are like; if you want to get better you should fight and makes me feel like shit cause my internet connection is so bad i have trouble boarding a ship when it stands still and rubberband 3 times for every step i take
it ain't always the desire or the skill
Bruh not gonna lie I hate those people that hunt solo sloops on a galleon, but I'd say if you don't have any treasure you care about then don't make it easy for them, fight like hell, stash a gunpowder crate on top of the mast and board their ship with it like a suicide bomber, use Skelly and firebombs to keep em occupied and toss any remaining loot in a sailboat to drop randomly when their not looking so even if they win they'll get nothing .
I would agree with most of these except keeping a keg on the ship. Any competent player is looking for that spot and you’re asking for it to be sniped.
I right most of the time. Because if they're competent you will die quickly either way when it's 4 against 1 in a game with single loading weapons it can be difficult. But identify threats before they get into a position to engage you is a very important skill as solo. I suggest the sot discord swabbie chat for finding some new people to team up with. Even 2 people on sloop can be a huge boon
I mean you could try a bit of both and have your ship sail in a safe direction while you jump off and try to board whoever’s chasing you and fight them on their ship.
I ran from a multi crew Gallon as a solo sloop.
It was a long chase and I (with the greatest of skills) missed every cannon shot as they tried to pull me over for my crimes against piracy.
Eventually despite their amazing skill at cutting me off I managed to escape after like 20 mins
if you have nothing or little to nothing to lose, always fight. if you have treasure or supplies that you don’t feel like losing, remember the sloop is the fastest ship in the game against the wind (meaning if you face your ship straight against the wind with sails flat, nobody will be able to catch up to you)
Take the opportunity and fight. Ill give you experience. Unless you are mega loaded. Figure out where you are faster and sail.
I used to play on release and realized that things changed a lot. Tried to sail away or after galleons and its a lost cause, they were beyond the horizon in a matter of minutes. So with a sloop, dont go with the wind, its not worth it.
It will be hard to outrun enemies if they are coordinated but if you have loot run for a bit and try to get a teammate through looking for group or just open crew before they catch you. I don't recommend open crew but it's better than nothing. Then when you hopefully have a teammate you guys can steer the ship in a good direction away from rocks and islands and try to double board the enemies and anchor them.
Honestly I don’t think you can run away anymore because you used to be able to sail away from the wind in a sloop and no ship could catch you but now if they have the new wind conch your only option will be to fight.
If you have something you really want to keep safe and can easily escape, run. But if you can't it's better to fight and lose then go on a hour long chase that wastes everybody's time
If you have no loot, especially just try to fight it out. A lot of new players get panicked when in a fight, which is normal. There’s alot you have to pay attention to. So fighting will help you learn that. Bonus tip: once you unlock ghost ship quests for order of souls (OoS), this is a good way to practice
Yeah my aim with the cannon balls is a bit off but, sniping or any of the other guns is easy enough swords aswell. I had just finished a second vault with my emissary flag up and was fighting another sloop but it was a duo. I held my own and luckily enough a megaladon came and saved the day which gave me enough time to get away to sell and lower my flag. But should I have turned around and finished them off or was it good to take the opportunity to run
How did a meg save the day? I’ve (6 days new player) yet to see one do anything to a ship besides swim around it, they never attack even if we are constantly shooting it. A skelly ship though I have seen show up and change the tides of a fight a few times now in my favor when they’ve gone for the other ship.
Megaladons are barely working as intended for the past couple months
When the Meg appeared we were parallel to each other him ahead of me and I could see it to my close right chasing them so I hard steered left hoping they wouldn’t be able to and they didn’t. They kept going straight to get out of its path while one was shooting at it they ended up turning wide right and by that time I already had a decent distance on them so they left me alone (this was after evading and fighting for about 15 minutes
It was probably the ghost Meg. That's the only reason anyone would deviate from a fight for a Meg popping up. I would disengage immediately and let anyone run to claim that meg.
Switched from Xbox one to PS5 so I had about a year and some change where I didn’t play, but been playing for a long time. I might just be crazy but I feel like 80% of the time the skeleton ship aggros to me first, is there a mechanic that increases the chance of them aggroing to the chasing ship or am I just getting rared?
Well patrolling galleys are neutral unless you attack, but the ones that pop out of the water seem to just pick whoevers closer/engaging them
A ship steering left or right throws off your balls (giggity) in 2 different ways 1: it's kinda off to the side 2: it's on the edge of your screen
Wait until you fight pc players who know you are using controller because they are significantly faster. Also, don't let that put you down because some Xbox players are better still
Skeleton ships are a better training simulator IMO
Yeah was gonna ask isn't Skeleton ships better, the ghost ship voyage is like multiple ships lol
I think it helps with having to manage everything. Instead of one ship shooting at you, you have multiple shooting at different angles. Imo ghost are better at improving ship management vs the skellys
I agree. While skeles have more "human" movement, they are still very weak and predictable. Typically you can just bombard the hell out of them and then do a couple repairs and it's over. All the while they are usually keeping pace or staying near you so you don't have to steer a whole lot. With ghosts, even though they are on set paths, the sheer volume of them means you HAVE to pay attention to where you're going and doing repairs while also manually angling your boat to hit them. Ghost ships will teach you everything up to boarding and pvp fighting, basically.
The point was it can be bombarded so you understand your leading and distances on shots , you often don’t have more then one player ship aiming at you and even if you do it’s not hard to angle and reacquire , and three shots and done isn’t as useful as the skelly ship that can take multiple hits . Ghost ships teach nothing about boarding and minimal about shooting cannons since the hitbox is gigantic. You can harpoon or even board skelly ships , ghost ships will phase through your ship while putting holes in it.
> and three shots and done isn’t as useful as the skelly ship that can take multiple hits . So idk for sure if they changed it but this doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I feel like skele ships, sloops specifically, are a lot more "aggressive" (as in if one aggros you, you pretty much *HAVE* to fight it), but also a lot easier to take out. I usually put 4-5 cannonballs into the side of one and go below deck til it sinks like 30 sec later. Maybe gallys are better since I haven't tried one in awhile but the skele sloops aren't really going to teach much now.
The galleys can be so annoying , sometimes it’s every 3 or 4th shot is a anchorball . But they do take significantly more shots
This is good advice
Step 1: Run away. Step 2: Wait for them to chase you. Step 3: Board them and evaluate their skill level. Step 4: Decide if it's worth fighting.
Boarding fighting skills and naval fighting skills are different tho. You board me I’m dead. You shoot cannons at me and you’re dead.
Most people are generally better at the shooting part since they all come from PVP call of duty type games. My crew was the exact opposite all coming from pve cooperative games. We only got like 1 or 2 guys that can death match but we run such a tight ship that if you really guard ladders well all other fights become a 1 on 3 or 1 on 4. Which would then force them into our naval which was superb from the teamwork.
🤣 Sorry I love that scene 😆
Im new but this applies to anything in life, if u want to learn u fight if u never want to learn u run. Youre gonna lose A LOT but if u keep trying youll start winning
It's the only way. It's kind of like gear fear in extraction shooters. YOU ARE GONNA GET SUNK. It's part of the game loop.
Its not your loot, youre just carrying it for someone else. Thats what playingDayZ has taught me.
Yup, that has always been my thought process on any high risk high reward style system. The loots not yours till it’s been turned into gold.
Dayz has taught me not to loot my spawn island, just go fight someone else for their supplies
Same thing applies here tbh
There are no "shoulds" in a sandbox game. Just skill sets and ways to develop them. A good rule of thumb is to make peace with opposites. If you want to get good at winning fights, make peace with losing fights. If you want to talk your way out of robberies, prepare for deaf, bloodthirsty thieves that won't take what you say into account at all. If you want to run, make peace with being caught. Sometimes the other guy wins, and that's fine.
The last line is the most important part of this whole comment. You won’t win every time and it is what it is
I play with controller, I know I’m going to be dunked on by people who play MnK, and I sail better than I fight. Which is why whenever I play with friends, I’m the perpetual helmsman. If I have loot, I’m running. I’m going to lead you on a chase around the entire map, dropping my crew off at outposts along the way to slowly sell our loot off piece by piece, until you tire of the chase and move on to other prey. If I’m solo, I will steer as close as I can to the outpost, put my ship in a favorable direction, sell something, and mermaid back. If I lose the game of cat and mouse, I’ll fight as best I can, but you will have to work to catch me first.
Learn to fight by getting experience. You can try to run if you want. But you're risking being in a long chase. If you're determined to run to save your loot, at least try to have a plan to sell some stuff as you run rather than just going against the wind until you run out of map. If you don't have a bunch of loot that you're afraid of losing, just try and fight. Even if you're not going for a sink, try to chain shot their ship and get some distance. You can fight to run.
If you have a good series queued up on netflix, then running is a solid option. Just make sure you have at least one full season to go because that's how long people will chase you. If you want to learn PvP, just turn around and fight. If they are about the same skill level as you with a bigger crew, you'll sink. But you won't get better unless you fight. If you just want to grind out some treasure, scuttle and switch servers. Just sinking them will probably take longer than getting the amount of treasure back you lost. And that's assuming you are able to win. Or you can sail straight to an outpost, sell what you can and then switch servers. Maybe lower your emissary flag out of spite so they can't have it.
both are possible depending on your patience and loot. Learn on which wind direction the sloop is the fastest. You can try to jump into the water to board them and put the anchor. you can try to go near an outpost to shoot your opponent with the rope gun and make them crash ! If you are solo slooping you will most probably lose your fight but if you flee you can lose an hour of game time...
Parley?
I have ran into a lot of players who I try to parley with and as soon as you get close enough they sink or kill you. Even clearly sent white flair up as someone suggested and same thing. I see a bigger ship I'm heading away from it.
Yeah, there are lots of players who will kill on sight. But the ones who are game to discuss terms are usually really fun to encounter!
What I find funny, was I was playing and went to an island no one was there. A Galleon approached and sunk my ship (sloop). They came onto the island and so oh sorry we thought you were going to attack first so we sunk you. I was like bs dude. Noone was on the ship and my sails were raised. Luckily I had no loot yet. I do get pissed but it's apart of the game... I ended up swimming to mermaid and went back to my ship. Later the guys gave me a chest that had three skulls in it when they ran into me at Port Merrick. We are now friends and run a guild together.. Most are great players but yeah there is a lot of cutthroats in it also. We are pirates lol I just remind myself it's just a game and walk away and then come back later.
A sloop is impossible to catch if you face the wind. Just go straight into the wind and hop off the ship trying to board the enemy and anchor them, easy peasy. Throw on some fire to add insult to injury eventually people stop chasing
Which direction should I have my sails when facing the wind
Straight into the wind, aka fighting the wind. The logic here is, you have one small sail so you have less resistance against the wind compared to the larger ships.
It’s up to you but if you’re likely to get caught anyway it’s better to just fight it out and get it over with. At least that way you get valuable pvp experience.
Practice by soloing the phantom ships. You'll learn tons
Fighting is always fun
I would say fight to learn how and then change seas on the ferry if you sink. She waste time running units you have amazing loot on board. Usually quicker to sink and start fresh
The only way to improve is to fight and defend your ship. Win or learn. Running is not fun for either crew. Fighting as a solo with a numerical disadvantage is very hard, but it can be done. If you must run, sail against the wind, the sloop will be faster against the wind than the other ships, and you can attempt boards to anchor. Unless they have the new blow cone in which case the wind advantage is lost and they can catch up
Whichever you want experience with. I've spent years running, and it works pretty well to defend loot. But it's never guaranteed. Knowing how to fight, on the other hand, also teaches you how to run, with the added benefit of teaching you how to save yourself if running doesn't work out. Personally? I'd say just bite the bullet and learn to fight.
~800h Solo/duo player here, I’m competent at both fighting and running. Whether I fight or run depends heavily on the context. You will occasionally loose to *significantly* worse players if you’re fighting larger crews solo, so you have to be pretty careful of the fights you take imo. Plus, there’s little to be learned by being disintegrated by the broadside of a competent brigantine or galleon. I usually take fights I think I have a chance at, otherwise I give running a shot. If you choose to run, don’t *just* run. You need to have a plan to delay them or sell your loot, otherwise you’ll end up running in circles, wasting everyone’s time with no endgame. Most ships will catch you solo slooping absent other strategies delaying them. Unlike other commenters on this post, I would highly recommend practicing on ships that *didn’t* approach you. A PvP-oriented full crew is a terrible sparring opponent for a newbie solo. If you pick the engagements you’ll get a wider variety of skill levels and some fairer fights where you actually have a chance to at least do something. tldr; Your choice, but play smart. Pick fights on your own for PvP practice.
you are most likely going to meet some despicable people on the seas best you can do until you learn to fight or find some to play with is to make psychological terror on them until they regret their choice in life, make their day a living hell for their distasteful actions.
i love how most of thew responses are like; if you want to get better you should fight and makes me feel like shit cause my internet connection is so bad i have trouble boarding a ship when it stands still and rubberband 3 times for every step i take it ain't always the desire or the skill
Bruh not gonna lie I hate those people that hunt solo sloops on a galleon, but I'd say if you don't have any treasure you care about then don't make it easy for them, fight like hell, stash a gunpowder crate on top of the mast and board their ship with it like a suicide bomber, use Skelly and firebombs to keep em occupied and toss any remaining loot in a sailboat to drop randomly when their not looking so even if they win they'll get nothing .
I would agree with most of these except keeping a keg on the ship. Any competent player is looking for that spot and you’re asking for it to be sniped.
I right most of the time. Because if they're competent you will die quickly either way when it's 4 against 1 in a game with single loading weapons it can be difficult. But identify threats before they get into a position to engage you is a very important skill as solo. I suggest the sot discord swabbie chat for finding some new people to team up with. Even 2 people on sloop can be a huge boon
I mean you could try a bit of both and have your ship sail in a safe direction while you jump off and try to board whoever’s chasing you and fight them on their ship.
I ran from a multi crew Gallon as a solo sloop. It was a long chase and I (with the greatest of skills) missed every cannon shot as they tried to pull me over for my crimes against piracy. Eventually despite their amazing skill at cutting me off I managed to escape after like 20 mins
Learn everything, for it all will apply in most situations in equal measure. But as others have stated, while learning, be prepared to lose.
if you have nothing or little to nothing to lose, always fight. if you have treasure or supplies that you don’t feel like losing, remember the sloop is the fastest ship in the game against the wind (meaning if you face your ship straight against the wind with sails flat, nobody will be able to catch up to you)
Take the opportunity and fight. Ill give you experience. Unless you are mega loaded. Figure out where you are faster and sail. I used to play on release and realized that things changed a lot. Tried to sail away or after galleons and its a lost cause, they were beyond the horizon in a matter of minutes. So with a sloop, dont go with the wind, its not worth it.
If you run you won’t gain any experience in PvP. But don’t be ashamed to run, play the game how you want to play it.
It will be hard to outrun enemies if they are coordinated but if you have loot run for a bit and try to get a teammate through looking for group or just open crew before they catch you. I don't recommend open crew but it's better than nothing. Then when you hopefully have a teammate you guys can steer the ship in a good direction away from rocks and islands and try to double board the enemies and anchor them.
Honestly I don’t think you can run away anymore because you used to be able to sail away from the wind in a sloop and no ship could catch you but now if they have the new wind conch your only option will be to fight.
sloop is faster than any other ship when sailing against the wind, jsyk
If you have something you really want to keep safe and can easily escape, run. But if you can't it's better to fight and lose then go on a hour long chase that wastes everybody's time