Sailing 101 to 301 - A Crash Course

[Taelorn]

Overview

This is broken into 3 sections. 101 covers the most basic elements of sailing. 201 covers the differences between scout ships and warships. 301 has extra data tables on ships.


WIND
Sailing ships need to think about the wind. Sailing against (towards) the wind is bad. Sailing with the wind directly behind you is usually not the best angle because your sails can't fill up with wind.

If you enable the Wind Indicator in Preferences/Interface, there's a circle around your ship that's divided into Green, Yellow and Red sections. Green sections have the best speed, Yellow are okay and Red is the no-go zone. Don't sail into the red unless you're in a very agile ship. It's often faster to turn the long way (away from the wind) than it is to turn through the wind.

Speed and Acceleration
While the max speed stat is important, it doesn't determine whether a ship feels fast. When you're choosing between ships, look at the acceleration values to see if they're fast. An acceleration of 1.5 or lower tends to be slow. 3 and above is very quick.

Ships with high acceleration can turn more and make more mistakes in combat. A ship with 15 speed and 3 acceleration is "faster" overall than a ship with 17 speed and 1 acceleration, because the first ship can fully utilize its speed.

[Taelorn]

There's a distinct handling difference between warships and scouts.


THE MAIN GOAL is to have different playstyles for scouts and warships to give the game more variety. Playing scouts and warships the same way will result in sub-optimal performance. This is especially evident in a warship, as scouts are used to introduce you to the game.

Overview

Here's an overview of what you need to know about ships in order to squeeze the most out of them in combat.

Scouts
*Suffer minimal movement penalties. As a result, they are capable of extended maneuvers.
*Fast acceleration
*Easy to play
*Difficult to master. Must take full advantage of maneuverability to beat similar ranked and skilled warships.
*Able to catch and board ships, but lower crew.
*Able to escape most fights

Warships
*Suffer heavy movement penalties. Not capable of extended maneuvers.
*Slow acceleration.
*Hard to play
*Not as hard to master once you learn how to play
*Maintaining speed is essential. Warships need to plan their maneuvers out carefully and ahead of time. When warships maintain speed, they are almost as maneuverable as scouts.
*Higher crew than other ships. This helps them against crew effects and on defensive boarding.
*In the worst case scenario, the warship is equivalent to the firepower of a scout. At higher levels they get more firepower.
*Warships are the hardest ships to sink. They have more armor, structure and damage reduction. Gun loss is related to % armor and structure, which means they suffer slower gun loss.

Merchants
*Lower crew, more vulnerable to boarding.
*Generally lower armor, structure and damage output.
*The Ketch and Indiamen ships are combat-capable merchants. This includes the Oliphant. They handle similar to warships.


What you see, what you don't
The character UI does not have enough room to list the dozens of stats that determine the performance of a ship. You see:
Max speed
Accel - how fast you gain speed
Deceleration - how fast you lose speed
Best Point - the wind angle at which you get the most speed (this is a mirrored point on a 180 degree half circle)
Turning (Slow) - max turn rate at 4 knots, degrees/second
Turning (Fast) - max turn rate at max speed, degrees/second
Turning Accel - how quickly you reach your max turn rate
Turning Decel - the minimum deceleration suffered when turning

You don't see:
There are a dozen values for speed
There are more acceleration and deceleration values
There are different speed %s for each wind angle
There are a dozen values for turning

A lot of the maneuverability for ships comes from those hidden values. Some of these valuse have too subtle of a difference to display in a way that makes sense. Showing the ~50 values that make up a ship's maneuverability would make ship selection very difficult.

Slow turn rate and deceleration are especially important. To determine how fast we turn, we apply your turning acceleration when you start turning. We look at your speed... if you are between 0 and 4, we lerp from "Stopped" to "Slow" turn rates. If you are between 4 and max speed, we lerp from "Slow" to "Fast" turn rates. The slow turn rate is your base, and you always want to keep your ship above 4 speed to keep that turn rate. Turn rates are show in degrees per second.

Deceleration values determine how much speed you lose whenever you do anything with your ship. Warships have higher deceleration, which makes them lose more speed. That's why it's important to maneuver cautiously on a warship. The more you turn, the more your decelerate. It slows down a lot after you've been turning a bit, but it levels out after awhile. It's important to compare a ship's deceleration to its acceleration, because those values play against each other.

The Sleek ships in particular have upgrades to a lot of the stats we don't show.

Using the Wind
Here is a typical Scout Wind Diagram and a Warship Wind Diagram. Note these vary from ship to ship, and within each class of ship. However, most warships have a sail rig that keeps them close to that performance with a best point at 135. This is typical in Frigates. The scout ship diagram represents ships like Cutters (best point 90), but the Cerberus is closer to the warship diagram.

Warships handle better going with the wind.
Scouts handle better against the wind.
Sailing with the wind directly behind you (running) is rarely an optimal wind angle.

Since warships accelerate slower, losing the wind is much more painful. Sailing into the wind will cost you more time. Warships are often better off taking a long turn to maintain speed instead of going into the wind. Additionally, warships need to be careful about protecting their vulnerable masts when fighting fast ships.

Scout ships can afford to take more risky maneuvers into the wind because they recover speed fast.

On the wind indicator, all green sections are not the same. Green is typically any speed greater than 85%.

Tacking
Sailing directly into the wind is bad. That is why you should tack. Tacking is changing your sailing position back and forth and sailing towards the wind, but not directly into the win. This creates a zig-zag movement pattern, which is faster than a straight line into the wind.

The Close Haul wind angle is the most important to understand. You sail much, much faster if you move into a Close Haul instead of Luffing/Upwind.

Managing Sails
Scout acceleration allows them to make frequent changes in their sails. You can lower sails for a shot, then increase them right afterwards. You can adjust your speed, come to a stop and try to turn around and go another direction.

Warships need to monitor their speed closely. You want to keep your average speed around 50% of max or higher. Battle sails are not as important for warships, because your speed will usually be low enough that you'll be getting the full target tracking bonus. However, it is important to change to battle sails if you expect dismantling shot because it will help protect your sails.

How to Turn
You need speed to turn. That is a simple fact in our game. If you try to turn and accelerate at the same time, you will get a slow turn and you will not accelerate. It is much better to accelerate and then turn. You will get the speed you need for future maneuvers, and it will make your turn complete faster. I cannot stress how important it is to gain speed before turning for the slow ships, unless you want to turn in place.

Scouts are forgiving when it comes to turning, but warships will punish every mistake. This is why warships are hard to sail, but once you learn the basics they are easier to master. Scout ships are hard to master because you can sail poorly and still be successful, therefore they don't force you to learn.

[Taelorn]

Data tables! This shows the % of its maximum speed that a ship can attain at each wind angle, and what angle it transitions from luffing to close haul. Knowing the differences between ships and wind angles is critical in high-end PvP.

Updated the table on 7/21/09 with values from M17. Includes the Poseidon, Alymer, and the 5 new Refits.

[marks76]

For those of us that missed beta but pre-boarded this is absolutly amazing to read. It has helped me understand ship manuvering so much better. Thank you

[WillRule]

Thanks so much for helping us to understand

[Mothfarmer]

You rock my friend!

YARRRR!

[Aeiedil]

Great post An interesting read indeed, I think I'll be looking for Scout ships rather than warships, I rather be able to move

[ramp4ge]

A warship, as long as speed is maintained, can hang with a scout thru the twisties. It's when it gets low and slow that the warship has issues, since it doesn't accelerate near as quickly.

But as the OP says, if a warship keeps it's speed up, normally at or above half, it can turn with the scout. Especially if you're smart with outfits.

[Tigerflower]

I agree this was absolutely amazing to read. I didn't understand a word of it. Since there was no instruction manual with the download is there any resource other than the game screen key map to help new players with trying to fight using these horrible boats? Mine sank yesterday trying to do the very first quest and I don't know if I should be sad right now or happy that I manged to kill it. The experience was a bit like trying to park the mercury in the mall parking lot at Christmastime with 4 screaming nieces and nephews waiting to eject from the side ports.

[Jennifer_Rose]

In the end of your post you mention "battle sails". What does that mean?
(please don't say read the manual, because as was mentioned the download version doesn't have one... which is sad, usually its included in download versions as a PDF)