Most my companions ship is dull & useless

[iicecube]

Hi, i wonder in AOP2 is having companion ship is useless? Cause they wont attack enemy ship at all and they just simple round and follow me.. (Even i use the "attack" key still nothing happen)

Does anyone having the same problem as me? Or is this normal?

 

[ReiAyanami]

Well the AI generally works (if at all) when the ships are enemy instead of friendlies. In ship to ship combat only once has a companion ship managed to board another ship, the rest of the time they are rather idle. But I have to admit that they are extremely useful in fort bombardments. I usually turn the ship around in map mode, so the friendlies are caught inside the bay behind me when I go to sea mode The fort hits them and at the same time I order to strike sails :slap They have nowhere to go, so they just fire at the fort, which is the idea.

 

[blackmane]

Yea the companions are generally a pain, I use them as cargo space and for more soldiers and sailors. Sometimes I see them boarding on their own which is bad because they will have in general much more losses than you would have (the autocalculation seems very unvavorable for the player) and sometimes they abandon the ship you gave them in favour of the new one. I was cruising around with the Dog of War and had the Cinqo Laguas (I got a fast one, both ships fully upgraded) and my companion dumped his super duper frigate for some smelly class 3 "Heavy-something" ship. That made me furious. Sometimes they decide they had enough and leave your squadron for good (with the ship you gave them). I actually needed a while to figure that one out. I was smuggling Mahagony from Port Royal to Port of Spain and mysteriously one of my two ships disappeared. I reloaded and observed the message "there was a mutiny on ship xy" and "ship xy has left the squadron". It was actually not the sailors mutineering but that illoyal officer bastard and unlike when your sailors decide to have a new captain, you can't do anything about it. Besides giving the ship to someone else and letting the officer fight against all skeletons in the dungeon under Fort de France. But if you give your companion a ship with a big cargo hold and sell all his cannons/ammo/gunpowder and only keep a small crew, then he will be the optimal freighter captain. And you need them for "Allied Troop Landing" when attacking Forts and stuff.

Rereading your post, i have written something completely different. If your companion does not attack, something is wrong. Check if he has gunpoder/ammo. Check if he has cannons! They suffer from cannon fallout just like you and sometimes even more so because they shoot more stuff (seagulls and fish most of the time) and probably dont have your skills. They are quite belligerent and shoot as soon as an enemy is in range which means they will start to blast away even if it means they wont hit anything on the long range. But giving them big ships, many cannons, tons of gunpowder and ammo will work surprisingly well if you direct their efforts a bit. It is like your fighters. As soon as you start using the three fighter command keys their usefulness in some situations will increase dramatically.

 

[iicecube]

Hmm maybe because they wont use other kinds of ammo except cannonball,usually i using the explosive ball only.. I wonder AI will switch often ammo when they are in battle, i will try out the matter than see will my friendies will shoot anything out or not..

But i wonder do you guys know the star above our hp/energy bar statue mean? (Sometime it will went red and white)

 

[Talisman]

But i wonder do you guys know the star above our hp/energy bar statue mean? (Sometime it will went red and white)

I think it is your gun status - no of bullets / shots you have - red star means reloading.

At Sea the stars above your ship icon are the Ship class.

 

[iicecube]

Hmm i tested as companies does'nt know how to used bomb ball as i empty the cannon ball and now i bought back the cannon ball with the grappy shot so it work which they tend to fire at enemy.

@ Talisman you mean as sea the star is the rank of the ship? What about when on land my char also got those 1 star when sometime it goes red with the 2nd star as well and what it mean?

 

[Talisman]

@ Talisman you mean as sea the star is the rank of the ship? What about when on land my char also got those 1 star when sometime it goes red with the 2nd star as well and what it mean?

- At sea the stars are the rank of the ship

On Land it is your pistol shots - if you have a one shot pistol then you will have one star - a 2 shot pistol has 2 stars.

When you fire the pistol the star changes colour to show the pistol is reloading.

 

[iicecube]

Ahh thanks alot for the answer and this little features is damm rare which it show on top of our hp/energy bar..

Hmm one last question, what is the point of owning a city/island if we fought our way in and capture it? Like if i capture a england city and what will the island flag turn into?

 

[blackmane]

If you haven't done the governor general missions or the pirate questline (do the pirate thing better after the gg missions) then you just loot the city so bring ships with a big cargo hold and loot citys with much gold and silver in the store or you wont get anything out of it (you get lots of experience and it is a really good way to raise authority I think). If you did the missions you can set one of your Officers as governor in the city, depending on his trade an authority (I think) you will get taxes and the city will periodically be attacked by the nation it originally belonged to. To stop the attacks you have to pay several million pieces of eight to a diplomat in a pirate tavern. If you keep the city for yourself it will be pirate, if you capture it for englands sake (for example) it will be english (of course you can only capture them for england if you did the english gg missions)

 

[iicecube]

If you haven't done the governor general missions or the pirate questline (do the pirate thing better after the gg missions) then you just loot the city so bring ships with a big cargo hold and loot citys with much gold and silver in the store or you wont get anything out of it (you get lots of experience and it is a really good way to raise authority I think). If you did the missions you can set one of your Officers as governor in the city, depending on his trade an authority (I think) you will get taxes and the city will periodically be attacked by the nation it originally belonged to. To stop the attacks you have to pay several million pieces of eight to a diplomat in a pirate tavern. If you keep the city for yourself it will be pirate, if you capture it for englands sake (for example) it will be english (of course you can only capture them for england if you did the english gg missions)

Ohh okiex @blackmane, When my own island been attacked by others can i attack them back or only can pay the money to diplomat only? Anyway when my cannon fallout can i fix it during battle when i bought 1 exact cannon?

One more thing is can a ship hold 48lbs cannon?

 

[blackmane]

You get a message that your town is being raided by a squadron and you have some (very little) time to rush to the defense.
There might be 48 pounders out there, my biggest calibre at the moment is 42. Perhaps some of the randomly generated MOWs have them or the french questline ship the Soley Royal. Ships bought from the docks have no bigger caliber than 36.