Can't Swap Nor Buy Ships

[Grey Roger]

Ok – THAT makes sense. I do think at some point they sold some of my cargo. Will take note to not go to the shipyard during smuggling missions. Honestly I thought those missions would be harder. I'm glad I was wrong. Smuggling is something I want to look into as well since it doesn't seem smuggled items can be sold in stores without that one skill ability as far as I can tell.

That is correct, contraband can not be sold in stores unless you have the "Trustworthy" ability. It's not contraband if you can sell it in stores normally!

Be warned - the smugglers aren't stupid. If you keep taking governor smuggling missions, they'll eventually figure out that every deal they make with you goes wrong, and then they'll blacklist you. After that, the only way to smuggle will be to pay a fee to the agent, and the fee goes up the more times you do it.

Of course, if you do a mission for the governor, and then do some ordinary smuggling, then not every deal the smugglers make with you ends badly, so they're less likely to get suspicious of you. For best results, do a governor smuggling mission for Britain, then do ordinary smuggling in an enemy port. That way, if you get caught by the coastguard, you aren't making an enemy of your own country, and you may even take an enemy coastguard ship as a prize.

 

[piratebooty69]

smuggling is just another very poor and absurd easy way of making money. Buy stuff from colony A -> go tavern in colony B -> chat with smuggler and soldier -> go to the shore -> make gigantic income. Repeat as much as you want and you are a millioner so now any gold reward from quests, finding a treasures, doing export/import trades, selling personal items no longer have any sense coz you just got unlimited amount of money... Same stupid stuff with merchant cargo quests...

Thanks for you suggestion! So – my way of making easy money is this. I spoke to the intro tutorial character from the beginning of the game (Harold?) and he told me I should sell gold in Martinique because it fetches at a good price. I kept this in mind for literally the entire duration of the game, came back, and found his dialogue actually updates! Turns out gold was still very much in. Bought large quantities of it for 800gp a piece from Speightstown, sailed to Octopus Bay, walked to St. Pierre, and sold the cargo. Note: upgrading the merchant-related abilities helped me earn a pretty penny. I quickly learned that there's a ramp to how much profit you will actually make when trading. If the starting price is 700gp a piece, and you buy a thousand, by the time you end the purchase, the price will have gone up to something like 1000gp per unit. Same with selling – you get less and less gold per sale at the destination. Helpful to keep in mind.

While I'm rambling – I went ahead and gave a ton of my gp to the loan shark, who gives me 11% interest (I WISH I could get that interest on my $$$ in real life) per month. In the meantime, I'm sailing, sinking ships, climbing ranks, and kicking ass. Once in a while I check back in, and happily watch my money climb. At the moment it's roughly 10 million. I don't know how much that ultimately is in the overall world of the game, but it seems one needs more and more money with crew maintenance and everything.

Last thing: the coolest thing to have happened so far is this. I sailed off the shore of Port Royale, and found a convoy of Spanish or maybe French ships. Anyway, convoy was lead by a warship with excellent morale and decently-sized crew, followed by four fast merchant ships with a depressing amount of morale, and maybe one more warship at the end. Sunk the headline ship right off the bat, circled around the merchant ships and fired with grapeshot until crews were decimated. Two of the merchant ships surrendered, one escaped (because of the Land Ahoy announcement, the ship disappeared when loading screen was over). Anyway, the PRIZE ship happened to have 3082 gold on it! :O Wow! What booty! 69! Did my gold run in St. Pierre, and earned a tidy 3.5 million.

I think this is what I most like about the game and mod – you have a multitude of options on how to make money, engage in battle, or what or what not to do. Definitely unique stuff like this makes me think of other games like Dwarf Fortress, where specificity is king, and each player's stories are ridiculously one of a kind. That part is pretty neat. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.

 

[Grey Roger]

While I'm rambling – I went ahead and gave a ton of my gp to the loan shark, who gives me 11% interest (I WISH I could get that interest on my $$$ in real life) per month. In the meantime, I'm sailing, sinking ships, climbing ranks, and kicking ass. Once in a while I check back in, and happily watch my money climb. At the moment it's roughly 10 million. I don't know how much that ultimately is in the overall world of the game, but it seems one needs more and more money with crew maintenance and everything.

Are you still playing as a naval officer? If so, you're safe, but if you're a pirate or a privateer then eventually the crew get upset - they're risking their lives just so you can hoard all the gold! The way to keep them happy is to sign articles - you'll find this by pressing F2, going to "Ships", and then to "Crew Payment". Some of the crew will desert but you can soon get replacements at the next tavern. Every three months or so, you then need to divide the plunder. One way to divide the loot is at any loanshark. Your quartermaster can also do it if you're moored at a port - you'll find the quartermaster on the ship's deck, or in your cabin if you put the quartermaster into your party officers.

But naval captains don't need to worry about all that - naval discipline keeps the crew in line!

Last thing: the coolest thing to have happened so far is this. I sailed off the shore of Port Royale, and found a convoy of Spanish or maybe French ships. Anyway, convoy was lead by a warship with excellent morale and decently-sized crew, followed by four fast merchant ships with a depressing amount of morale, and maybe one more warship at the end. Sunk the headline ship right off the bat, circled around the merchant ships and fired with grapeshot until crews were decimated. Two of the merchant ships surrendered, one escaped (because of the Land Ahoy announcement, the ship disappeared when loading screen was over). Anyway, the PRIZE ship happened to have 3082 gold on it! :O Wow! What booty! 69! Did my gold run in St. Pierre, and earned a tidy 3.5 million.

Yes, you'll make a lot more profit if you don't have to pay for the cargo first! Incidentally, if you're near an island, press '0' (at the top of the keyboard, not the numeric keypad). That disables direct sail, which means you can't sail to another island, which means "Land Ho" can't happen, which means the surrendered ship won't suddenly disappear. Once you've captured everything available, be sure to press '0' again to re-enable direct sail, partly so that you can sail to another island, and partly because the game will keep nagging you with on-screen reminders while direct sail is disabled.

If you're still playing as Hornblower then you're in the "Napoleonic" period. Spain isn't quite the power it once was. If you play in earlier periods, you may be lucky enough to find a Spanish treasure fleet. This will be well escorted because every merchant ship in the convoy will be stuffed with gold or silver.

 

[piratebooty69]

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I feel like there's a lot of incentive to replay the game over and over again. I'm still a Naval Officer and intend to keep at it until the end of the game. After this playthrough, I'll consider starting a new character/story line.

I'm at the point now where I've basically ignored a lot of the story lines (I did a decent amount but arguably am still relatively early) and just concentrated on doing task for the British governor. I have sank an endless amount of ships and my relationship score with Britain is something like 553. It looks like I have totally maxed out. Now, I'm finally getting to the story line, doing errands (for eager 5000 gold lol) but am advancing nevertheless.

I took my first fort in St. Pierre and received a ransom of something like 11 million. Question: I'm becoming the Jeff Bezos of the Carribbean – what do you do with the millions of gold you eventually get? In retrospect I ought to have balanced the quest/money looting portions of the game, though at the same time, the incentive of the mod seems to be to just play freely and do stuff, so that's what I did. Any tips for what else to do except the quest would be appreciated.

 

[Grey Roger]

I took my first fort in St. Pierre and received a ransom of something like 11 million. Question: I'm becoming the Jeff Bezos of the Carribbean – what do you do with the millions of gold you eventually get? In retrospect I ought to have balanced the quest/money looting portions of the game, though at the same time, the incentive of the mod seems to be to just play freely and do stuff, so that's what I did. Any tips for what else to do except the quest would be appreciated.

Are you still playing "Tales of a Sea Hawk" as a naval officer? That's the only way I know for a naval officer to get a ransom from attacking a fort. Normally you're required to take the colony for king and country, which means the only option when you talk to the governor is to change government, and then only to your served nation. But capturing St. Pierre for Britain could mess up the story, so you're not allowed to change government, and the same applies to all colonies which feature in the story. The same does not apply to colonies which aren't part of the story - if you attack them, you have to capture them for your nation. If you complete the story, the block on capturing colonies is lifted, which means you won't get any more ransom from St. Pierre either.

Privateers, on the other hand, can take ransoms when they attack towns. But they then have to share the loot with their crew or face a mutiny, so

The incentive of the mod is to do whatever you like! If you like stories, you have a choice - the original game and earlier mods only had the story now known as "Tales of a Sea Hawk", whereas now it has several very different stories. On the other hand, if you want to do your own thing without following a story plot, there's FreePlay.

In fact, FreePlay originally started out when someone wanted to do much the same as you, which is play "Tales of a Sea Hawk" and then ignore the story, though he wanted to be a pirate. At that time, the only way to play sidequests was to play "Tales of a Sea Hawk" because the sidequest code was built into that story. This chap wanted to be able to do the sidequests and otherwise do his own thing without having to run errands for Silehard. So he basically cloned "Tales of a Sea Hawk", removed the story, and changed the start to feature a naval officer who mutinies and then becomes a pirate. This was "Brave Black Flag", a storyline without a story. It evolved and grew into today's FreePlay. And that's why the default character, ship and officers for FreePlay are those from "Brave Black Flag".

 

[piratebooty69]

Yes, I'm still playing "Tales of a Sea Hawk" as a naval officer. Interesting story! It's awesome to hear about the origins of the mod, and I really appreciate you taking the time to share it with me and others.

I think in the meantime I'm going to focus on the main story line. I find it interesting enough to keep up with it, though I find upgrading ships + taking over forts to be really interesting as of right now. I'm positive though that the story becomes especially interesting as I get closer to the origins of the Black Pearl.

Question: do many players finish the story and start a new game entirely? I feel like the game can get boring once you max out your skills/abilities/ship+upgrades. The fun is in struggling and having to become better at the game. Are the other quest lines/stories really interesting and also worth delving into?

 

[Grey Roger]

Certainly I finish a storyline, then start a new game in another storyline. For me, it's not the maxing out which is boring. The story is over, I've done everything, now it's just a succession of routine cruising and plundering - time to end this game and start another story. Though I'll sometimes do a bit of freeplaying to enjoy the final rewards of the story - if I've just completed "Tales of a Sea Hawk", be sure I'll take Silehard's former flagship on a tour of some enemy forts!

The other storylines are certainly worth playing. In particular, if you're interested in the Black Pearl, I strongly recommend that you next play "Hoist the Colours". There are two completely different paths through the early part of the story, and some other points where a key choice can lead the story in different ways, which means you can play that one several times and get a different story each time. It also features alternative versions of several sidequests. More to the point, you'll see the Pearl in various stages of her career and yours.

 

[piratebooty69]

I'm about 3/4 of the way through the Tales of a Seahawk, and I very well might start over and play "Hoist the Colours" once I'm done. I was utterly disappointed that part of the main-quest is to betray Silehard....and to think of all the time I spent improving my relationship with England to get that one good ship, only to lose reputation entirely for Danielle. I'm still not sure what the point of it all was – we went to his private estate, interrogated him for a second, were told nothing, and fled. THAT was the plan?? Not sure whether this is the original writing, but boy, it's quite something.

In the Tales of a Seahawk, is one's allegiance ever only to England? Or is it possible to have allegiance to other nations? If so, what are the advantages/disadvantages of doing so? If one gets a new title or a different ship, does it ultimately make a huge difference? Are some top-tier ships for different nations better than others?

 

[Grey Roger]

"Tales of a Sea Hawk" is indeed the original game from the stock game. It's been adapted a little to make it fit in with the mod but the basic plot is unchanged.

You went to Silehard's bedroom, interrogated him, and fled. Danielle should then have told you to go to Bridgetown to get an idol. (Incidentally, read the questbooks. Silehard isn't exactly honourable. In fact, you may end up bringing him to justice.)

You can have allegiances to other nations. If you want to remain loyal to Britain even though Silehard has turned against you, you could buy Letters of Marque from Britain's allies, which are Portugal and Holland. Be careful not to attack any British ships other than those sent directly by Silehard - the other nations are watching you, they know Silehard is corrupt, and so long as you confine your actions to fighting Silehard's ships, they won't mind. If you start attacking British ships generally, Portugal and Holland will turn hostile too. Or you could switch sides entirely, buy Letters of Marque from France and Spain, and go to war against Britain. Or you could become a pirate. The choice is yours. (You may ultimately regain your status with Britain if that is what you want...)

You will certainly need to get a bigger ship. In due time you will have to fight a fort, which requires at least 18lb guns, preferably bigger, as nothing smaller will affect a fort at all. But you may want to keep something smaller and faster for general raiding, give the big ship to an officer (and possibly berth it in a port somewhere), then only take command of it when you need it.

There's a nice guide to all the ships in the game which may help you to decide which big ship you like best:
Guide - New complete guide for ships on POTC New Horizons

Personally, I remain pro-British, get Letters of Marque from Holland and Portugal, and when Silehard turns Britain against me I fly either a Dutch or Portuguese flag until the main story is over and I'm back in Britain's favour. I'm not too bothered about picking the best possible big ship; I go looking for trouble against France and Spain, eventually helping myself to a French flushdeck frigate for the simple reason that I reckon it's the best frigate available in this time period and only France uses it. And I also capture a French or Spanish tier 2 ship for the purposes of attacking forts - I'm not too fussy exactly which tier 2 ship I get because there's something better to be captured at the end of the story...

 

[STARk7]

smuggling is just another very poor and absurd easy way of making money. Buy stuff from colony A -> go tavern in colony B -> chat with smuggler and soldier -> go to the shore -> make gigantic income. Repeat as much as you want and you are a millioner so now any gold reward from quests, finding a treasures, doing export/import trades, selling personal items no longer have any sense coz you just got unlimited amount of money... Same stupid stuff with merchant cargo quests...

They have sea patrols and land patrols, so it's not that easy to smuggle. Merchant quests are not as good as doing trading yourself, it is good to do it if u want to become merchant, because you can use your merchant ship good cargo space and it's great way to learn prices by visiting Merchants and earning some money along the way. I feel that being merchant is too easy because if you come across the pirates or any enemy, you just change flag. I wish it was harder, like if you're sailing with ship that is not usual for that nation you should be much more suspicious, and if you're sailing merchant ship and pretending to be a pirate, they should always attack you, even if you are actually a pirate, unless you're high enough rank, so they don't attack out of respect or fear.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

I feel that being merchant is too easy because if you come across the pirates or any enemy, you just change flag.

Maybe with the latest versions this might be a bit harder?
@Grey Roger fixed a bug in the false flag recognition, so now you can get recognized as potential enemies get closer.

if you're sailing merchant ship and pretending to be a pirate, they should always attack you, even if you are actually a pirate, unless you're high enough rank, so they don't attack out of respect or fear.

You mean the false-flag recognition should take into account the type of ship?
(Eg. "Trade = true & War = false").

 

[Grey Roger]

I feel that being merchant is too easy because if you come across the pirates or any enemy, you just change flag. I wish it was harder, like if you're sailing with ship that is not usual for that nation you should be much more suspicious, and if you're sailing merchant ship and pretending to be a pirate, they should always attack you, even if you are actually a pirate, unless you're high enough rank, so they don't attack out of respect or fear.

You don't have to fly a false flag if you don't want to. But having false flag recognition depend on whether the ship is routinely used by that nation is not such a good idea because you can repaint your ship to different colour schemes, and different paint schemes are just representations of different models. So you might happen to like the Dutch green scheme, you've painted your Castell Friedrichsburg brigantine green, and the French fort attacks you for no reason other than it doesn't like green ships.

Anyway, being a peaceful merchant might be easy but it's also less profitable. You make a lot more money selling cargo if you never paid for it in the first place!

Having pirates always attack even if you're a genuine pirate means you're never getting into Grand Turk, which will ruin any storyline or quest that requires you to go there. It also means that if you've joined the Brotherhood, you probably won't remain a member for very long.

Maybe with the latest versions this might be a bit harder?
@Grey Roger fixed a bug in the false flag recognition, so now you can get recognized as potential enemies get closer.


You mean the false-flag recognition should take into account the type of ship?
(Eg. "Trade = true & War = false").

It might be worth going the other way - make false flag recognition more likely if you're in a warship. The fact that you're flying a merchant flag because you don't have a LoM from this nation is a bit of a giveaway! But first, perhaps see if you can be made to fly a naval flag if you're in a warship, flying a flag for which you have no LoM, and you have the "Master of Disguise" perk. And then cancel that boost to false flag recognition if you have the perk, the reason being that you're flying the correct flag.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

the French fort attacks you for no reason other than it doesn't like green ships.

Oof!
Nasty.
Bunch of discriminatory fort crew twats!

 

[STARk7]

Maybe with the latest versions this might be a bit harder?
@Grey Roger fixed a bug in the false flag recognition, so now you can get recognized as potential enemies get closer.

I hope it's harder.

You mean the false-flag recognition should take into account the type of ship?
(Eg. "Trade = true & War = false").

Yes

 

[STARk7]

Having pirates always attack even if you're a genuine pirate means you're never getting into Grand Turk, which will ruin any storyline or quest that requires you to go there. It also means that if you've joined the Brotherhood, you probably won't remain a member for very long.

Not always, only if you're having merchant ship, and only if your rank is not high enough, and never Fort, but I guess Fort is the same as a ship.

 

[Grey Roger]

It is certainly possible for both forts and ships to see through your false flag. It shouldn't happen often, but especially with forts, the consequences of being detected are serious enough that you may want to consider mooring at a beach instead.

I still say that, if the recognition code is going to take account of your ship type, it should be more likely to recognise you if you're in a warship, not a merchant. Both forts and ships are more interested in knowing the true intentions of an approaching warship than a relatively harmless merchant. For that matter, so are pirates.

Besides, if pirates are guaranteed to attack if you're low rank and in a merchant, then it makes the start of the game harder while doing nothing for an advanced game. You start "Tales of a Sea Hawk" at level 1 with a lugger by default, so you're an easy target for pirates, and that's when you really want to be able to avoid them. Later on you'll need a big warship to be able to take on a fort, at which point pirates are just a minor nuisance and they'll probably run away regardless of which flag you're flying.

And indeed, for game purposes, a fort is just a ship which can't move.

Finally, if you think false flags make the game too easy, don't use them!

 

[STARk7]

I still say that, if the recognition code is going to take account of your ship type, it should be more likely to recognise you if you're in a warship, not a merchant. Both forts and ships are more interested in knowing the true intentions of an approaching warship than a relatively harmless merchant. For that matter, so are pirates.

That does makes sense.

Besides, if pirates are guaranteed to attack if you're low rank and in a merchant, then it makes the start of the game harder while doing nothing for an advanced game. You start "Tales of a Sea Hawk" at level 1 with a lugger by default, so you're an easy target for pirates, and that's when you really want to be able to avoid them. Later on you'll need a big warship to be able to take on a fort, at which point pirates are just a minor nuisance and they'll probably run away regardless of which flag you're flying

It is very hard to play realistically as merchant, so if you encounter pirates you just change flag to pirate and they don't care even if you are fat merchant ship. I mean your own men are envious of your wealth, which is how pirates are.

I understand what the big problem is, if the pirates attack, you can't outrun them and you just die and load, and keep loading until you arrive safe. Basically pirates can only annoy you and not do any stealing from you. If you're a merchant you'll always make the trip. Being able to surrender to them would be a great thing, not sure if something like this is even possible.

There's the thing to get around all this with just a little bit of imagination and role-playing. If you're a merchant, you just don't change flag, and try to escape if you can't, you load game and toss cargo they would steal, turn off direct sail until you're on the same spot on the map. Only thing that's the problem is how much goods to toss.

 

[Grey Roger]

Your own men are envious only if you bought a Letter of Marque, in which case you're a privateer and they're entitled to a share of the loot.

If you start as character type Merchant, you get a Merchant Licence. If not, you can buy one for 1,000,000 gold from any of several trade offices - the East India Company in Port Royale, the Dutch West India Company in Willemstad, the French West India Company in Port au Prince or the Casa de Contratación in Cartagena. (The last two are only available if you have the January 2022 installer.) Any of these licences shows you to be an honest trader and prevents the crew from becoming envious, as well as giving you an advantage in trading in stores. (But don't get caught smuggling and don't do anything piratical, or you lose the licence!)

 

[Guntrek]

I used the search bar bit with no luck, i hope this question fits this thread:

I'm playing as an Spanish naval officer, in a free play, and checked the wiki for the "different playstyles", so, I wanted to play a naval officer.

-First thing is, I began the game as "alferez de navío" which, is not the first rank, at least that's what the wiki says.
-Second, how can I check the points I need for a promotion? In the wiki says 2.000 more or less to the second rank, but I'm unable to find that Statistic ingame.
-Third , is it normal to receive a quest after few ingame days (something like San Juan etc etc...) already completed that allows you to swap ships and buy ships????

 

[Grey Roger]

1: Yes, naval officers are set to rank 3 (Lieutenant / Alférez de Navío) by default. Lesser ranks would not be given command of a ship, except possibly a small prize ship with orders to take it to port and wait for your own ship to arrive. Even a lieutenant would be lucky to get an independent command, but setting you to rank 3 by default leaves you with more to achieve in the game. (You can start at a higher rank by picking some preset characters. If you want to start at rank 1 for Spain, see if you can find "Offic_spa_15", "Offic_spa_16", "Offic_spa_17", "Offic_spa_18" or "Offic_spa_19". If you want to start at rank 5, try to find "47_Sparrow_spain".)

2: The calculation is done by function 'RequiredNextRank', which you can find in "PROGRAM\Characters\CharacterUtilite.c":

float RequiredNextRank(ref char, int iNation)
{
    float nextrank = makefloat(GetRank(char, iNation)) + 1.0 + NEXTRANK_ADD;
    nextrank *= NEXTRANK_COEFF;
    float retVal = pow(nextrank,NEXTRANK_POW);
    return retVal * NEXTRANK_SCALAR;
}

NEXTRANK_ADD is 0.5, NEXTRANK_COEFF is 1.0, NEXTRANK_POW is 2.5, NEXTRANK_SCALAR is 1.0. (They're set in "PROGRAM\globals.c".)

So the calculation is (((your_current_rank + 1.0 + 0.5) * 1.0) ^ 2.5) * 1.0, which simplifies to (your_current_rank + 1.5) ^ 2.5. You're rank 3, so to reach rank 4 you need 4.5^2.5 = 43 points.

3: There are no quests which allow you to swap or buy ships. Have a look at the first few posts of this thread. You're in the navy now, subject to naval discipline, which means you've been assigned command of your ship and you will command it, that's an order! If you want the freedom to buy or swap ships, you should have been a privateer instead. However, when you reach flag rank (rank 7, Commodore / Capitán de Navío), you can rearrange your fleet however you like, including swapping to a different flagship. (Or buying one, if you're rich enough to afford it and cowardly enough not to take it from an enemy. )