Ship Speed and Difficulty Level

[Strange]

After playing on Swashbuckler and having a fully upgraded enemy Royal sloop sail 5 knots faster than my fully upgraded Royal Sloop in High Wind (about 15-17 knots), I decided to investigate.

I did some testing with ship speed and difficulty level.
Made sure that the opposing ship and me had equal equips in the way of Copper Plating & Cotton Sails.

I did my main tests with all 3 sloop classes vs an enemy Sloop of War
I did some other tests with a Mail Runner vs War Cannoe, which seemed to match the Sloop Tests.

I did some addtional tests, with a Enemy Pinnace vs Mail Runner and Enemy Pinnace vs War Canoe

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My Testing found the following:
Results:

Apprentice:
You have a 3-6 knot advantage over your enemy.

Journeyman:
You have a 1-3 knot advantage over your enemy.

Adventurer:
Your ship & enemy ship equal in speed

Rouge:
enemy ship about 1-3 knots faster. With the sloops, this resulted in a twitching behavior where when the enemy was chasing me it would go to turn and fire, but quickly turn back to pursue before it even tried to fire, which, over time, lets you escape

Swashbuckler:
enemy ship has a 3-6 knot adavtage. you can't outrun them in same type ship

General Effects:
*All ships of the same class are equal in speed. (yes, even the highly touted War Canoe Yes, it probably does turn tighter and evade fire better cause of it's smaller size, but it's no faster than a Mail Runner
*A Navagator had no effect on ship speed in battle.
*Navigation had no effect on ship speed in battle.
*Cotton Sails give about a 2-3 knots advantage over normal ship speed.


A Mail Runner was roughly 3 knots faster than a Sloop of War.
Which can be generalized to All Pinnacles are roughly 3 Knots fasters than Sloops.

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The knot advantage will tend toward the higher numbers in the range in higher winds (15+ knots) and smaller in lower winds (6 or less knots).

So, if it seems your Mail Runner is being outrun by an Ocean Barque on Swashbuckler, now you know why.
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[Strange]

If anyone wishes to try at home, you can do the following:

1. grab a trainer
2. go into the open sea and find a ship you wish to test this agains.
3. pause, then save
4. unpause, engage enemy, note if they have cotton sails or copper plating
5. load saved game, pause, use trainer to change your ship type and upgrades to match enemy ship. Reduce crew and cannons to minimum so that the enemy will try and board you. And set difficultiy level you wish to test.

(having only 24 crew on your ship should be good for any ship class you're testing. You'll also want to make sure both ships are undamaged.)

6. engage enemy ship and try and run away (be sure not to get hit or hit enemy first.)

7. Once on a good straight line course running away and enemy is matching course, see how enemy is 2-4 knots faster on you. (for swashbuckler level)

8. while in the battle, you can pause (Shift + P) and switch to the trainer and change your ship and or the difficulty level and observe the effects quickly and directly.
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Check this out -----> piratehaven.net

[Sashanan]

I *thought* there was something fishy about sailing speed. I noticed an enemy Pinnace make no less than 24 knots on Swashbuckler, which is plain scary.

Can I use the results of your research in the next version of my strategy guide? Full credit will of course be given.
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"Any fool can defend his or her mistakes; and most fools do." -- Dale Carnegie

[Strange]

Sure, no problem.

Also, is there anything else I can do to help with the strategy guide?
(not sure how much time I can devote, but I could find at least a little)
_________________
Check this out -----> piratehaven.net

[Wolfwood]

Hmm... Good research... But now I'm disappointed that the programmers gave such unfair advantage to the AI ships, instead of just* making the AI smarter at higher levels...

* Ok, I know that programming an AI is hard, but...
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It is much better to be armed with a sword that has two edges than with an estoc [...], which is nothing more than a stick with a point. (Rapier Master G. Morsicato Pallavicini, La Scherma Illustrata, p. 14.)

[Jando]

I always found it strange that (on Swash difficulty) I could catch an enemy ship on the sea map - but then the same ship could outrun me on the battle map.

Looks like these speed differences aren't setup the same way in both sea and battle map?

[Striker]