Need Help Navigation Skill

[CrankyPirate]

Navigation Skill Broken?

Just started the game (GOF v1.2) and have been sailing around, and noticed that my navigation skill does not go up at all. I tried on the world map and in 'real time' + battle but no increase at all. I even put in on 8x speed and went of and watched tele for a bit and cam back after 30 mins to find zero increase in the skill.

From what I have read in various threads the Nav skill should just go up when sailing around..? I have 10 Talent points etc, so according to most I have read it should be going up pretty fast.

The only time I have seen an increase was in a storm, I gained just two skill points, but the ship got trashed..

What am I doing wrong? - or is this a bug.

Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[Luke159]

Yes sailing in storms will help increase your nav skill faster than sailing from one port to another, however if you are sailing a ship that requires a higher nav skill than you have then your skills will increase very slow (the higher the ship the class the slow the increase in skills will be). The easiest way is find a officer with good nav skills and set him as your navigator which will allow you to sail higher class ships. If while looking at your skills you right click on nav skills it will tell you what skills you require for each class of ship.

I would be guessing you are sailing a class 4 ship like the Black Pearl, if this is the case then you need to get a officer with good nav skills or put the ship in dry dock or sell her till you have the skills to sail such a ship.

 

[CrankyPirate]

Yes sailing in storms will help increase your nav skill faster than sailing from one port to another, however if you are sailing a ship that requires a higher nav skill than you have then your skills will increase very slow (the higher the ship the class the slow the increase in skills will be). The easiest way is find a officer with good nav skills and set him as your navigator which will allow you to sail higher class ships. If while looking at your skills you right click on nav skills it will tell you what skills you require for each class of ship.

I would be guessing you are sailing a class 4 ship like the Black Pearl, if this is the case then you need to get a officer with good nav skills or put the ship in dry dock or sell her till you have the skills to sail such a ship.

Hi,

Thanks for your answer. I was intending on being my own navigator to save on an officer slot; I am sailing my starting ship, a class 7 bermuda sloop. Required skill 1 =, my skill is 15 (after trashing my ship in a storm)

I continued to play last night, did a few trade runs between two british ports and got no increase at all.

I actually posted this topic on another board as well and got an answer there that the Navigation skill will onlky go up in storms or in combat.. are you saying that this is not the case? a little confused here.

 

[Luke159]

To be honest up ontill the other day i hadn't played COAS in a long time, but i'm sure that your nav skill does increase from running trade missions for the store owners. Maybe it only increases slightly or only when you are not in the world view (i can't say for sure) but i know my nav skill use to increase when doing trade runs because thats how i alway's play when start a new game.

But the skill increase may only have been taken into account when in sea mode either running/battling or sailing into a port. You should be able to sail in sea mode from island to island now and have the destination town generate, can take a long time but should help increase your nav skill.

 

[CrankyPirate]

To be honest up ontill the other day i hadn't played COAS in a long time, but i'm sure that your nav skill does increase from running trade missions for the store owners. Maybe it only increases slightly or only when you are not in the world view (i can't say for sure) but i know my nav skill use to increase when doing trade runs because thats how i alway's play when start a new game.

But the skill increase may only have been taken into account when in sea mode either running/battling or sailing into a port. You should be able to sail in sea mode from island to island now and have the destination town generate, can take a long time but should help increase your nav skill.

Ok, so I was not doing trade missions as my ship is not large enough to take them; only 500 cargo space. I was doing manual trade runs with leather and ginger between two close english islands.

I did finally get offered a "forgotten log book" quest from the port guy and that raised my Nav from 15 to 30 just by completing it.

To be honest I am confused over all with the way the system works, I played POTC years ago and came back to this thinking it would be similar, but it all feels very unintuitive. For example, my repair/carpentry skill has shot up to 20, and I have no idea how or why.. I have not been in any battles to speak of on this save and only done a bit of sailing really, I think, but am not yet sure that this is going up after completing the "lost gem" quests from the money lender.

 

[Luke159]

i don't get why your repair skill is going up if you haven't had a single battle or run away from any ships. The only thing that comes to mind is durring the course of the game your ship takes some weather damage (i guess thats the only way to explain it) to the sails, if you have cloth onboard then that might explain why your skill has increased. What difficulty are you playing on?

 

[CrankyPirate]

i don't get why your repair skill is going up if you haven't had a single battle or run away from any ships. The only thing that comes to mind is durring the course of the game your ship takes some weather damage (i guess thats the only way to explain it) to the sails, if you have cloth onboard then that might explain why your skill has increased. What difficulty are you playing on?

I am playing on Bosun, was on Captain but I restarted because I kept getting owned in melee..

I have no cloth on board. Literally all I have done is go between 2/3 islands and buy/sell ginger and leather, mixed in with one log book quest and lots of missing gem quests; = some running aroud on islands (alone; no officers)

I was in one storm, but I did not repair the ship at sea as I do not have the repair ability. I went into port and paid for the repair.

My defense skill has also been going up.. but less so than the repair. I have been in no real fights; except ones where you can drop right back onto the map and run away - my ship has no cannons.. i sold them all.

EDIT** I have just done a quick test, it would appear that this is a rather game breaking bug, whether local to my install or not. When sailing around on the map (not in real time mode) then my repair skill steadily goes up for no reason. I have no damage to the ship, no cloth or planks on board to repair and am not in combat at all. I can only assume that the navigation/repair skill have somehow become swapped. Whether this is a total swap (ie repair is actually navigation is no known) but the missing log book quest still levels up nav as it should.

To answer the obvious questions; this was a fresh install of the latest version of COAS and a fresh install of the whole GOF V1.2 downloaded from this forum directly. I downloaded the patch 1 and the problem still exists.

I have now reinstalled the vanilla game (v 1.3) and the same thing is happening!, I do not understand... can anyone explain? it makes no sense. When just sailing around on the "toy ship globe map" my repair skill goes up constantly (to be precise in 20-30% increments) but my navigation skill does not increase at all.. is it meant to be like this? all tips threads/guides I have read suggest otherwise and I can think of no reason why this would happen.. really want to play this game but this is a bit of a spoiler really..

Edit** Have now done a total uninstall of the game, clean + defrag hard drive. Downloaded game fresh from Gamersgate, new fresh install and still same issue.. repair skill is raised by sailing, not navigation skill.