Okay level-up!

I have noticed as Kitty pointed out.....To compete in the red area it would be best to be level 35 and up! Sound advise if I ever read it! So as our Society grow's we will have an opportunity to try once more to press the line! Untill then we should focus on getting other's to compliment the group! Practice.....practice.....we shall!

kit has s an excellent point. to have access to the greater stronger ships, you have to be at a higher level too.

i have tried to focus on this a great deal and do a lot of solo and group combat with the high level ships in the 40 to 50 range Npc. you are always welcome to join up with me. i dont care if u are lvl one or higher. its to my understanding you will get the same exp points plus great loot. just give me a shout.

also, ship selection is a personal choice, but these ships i highy favored when i was at these levels and would be decent choices for anyone.

at 24 lexington Mc i loved this ship and it got me all the way to 32.

at 32 i highly recommend the Raa line. they have some of the fastest reload times for the guns in the game p.lus if you loose your ship they are easy to pick back up off near Iguana.

at 37 a new batch of HUGE class ships open up for you. i havent decided whats my choice yet. i think i am going to roll with the raa until i get into the 40s but not sure yet.

Suggested ship progression:

6: Jamaica sloop
8: Bermuda sloop
12: Van Hoorm Snow, Mediator Cutter
14: Mediator Heavy Cutter, Cruizer Snow
16: Try a Xebec, you might not like it
17: Bermuda Mastercraft, Locust Corvette
24: Locust Mastercraft, Lexington Mastercraft
25: Agamemnon Bark, use this as your floating warehouse
30: Try a Cerberus Heavy, you might not like it
33: Stralsund Mastercraft
34: Raa Heavy, if you didn't find a Strals MC
39: Raa MC, this will be your last OS grinder boat until 50.

There's a lot of ships out there, and you really should try them all. But I've tried to highlight some of the best ones.

Also, this list is focused on OS grinding, which is the fastest way to level up. You won't have a lot of gold, but it's really easy to go back and blast your way through missions in a higher level boat, and collect the gold faster than you would have been able to if you did them at the "right" level.

As for the Raa MC being your last OS grinder, you really don't want to have a higher level ship for xp purposes. Yes, you can grind 40+ NPCs in a smaller ship, and you should. But the Raa MC is the closest thing to a chainsaw on the sea, what little xp you lose over using a low 30s ships is more than made up with the sheer speed of killing. This way xp over time is greater than with a smaller ship.

Once you're into a Strals MC or Raa Heavy/MC fit a reinforced bow mod (head to Guarnica and do the Dutch mission chain for a +45% bow armor general mod), and sail directly to your target (40+ npcs), at 150 yds. turn broadside and blast away. Nothing fancy, it's all about doing lots of damage, quickly to get them to abandon.

While you're leveling, pay attention to what you're killing!

Try to preserve faction with one nation. Read the reputation guide (link posted in the market forums), and plan accordingly.

I chose to build faction with the Spanish (House of Trade, and Trade Union). This way I have access to their auction house & Euro trader. This was because:
1) There's a lot of spanish ports near the Bahamas, so it's convenient.
2) The Spainish resources are pretty well distributed near the bahamas. Not for setting up mines, etc. but for being able to buy from newbs that overproduce and sell for near cost.
3) I had sunk too many French before figuring this out, and didn't care to try and fix that rep.
4) The Spanish Euro trader is the best way to get black powder.
5) The Spanish Euro trader in Barilla is in a port that will never have pvp near it, so you'll always have a supply at no risk.

Economy while you level:

Don't worry too much about it. But it's a good idea to make your ammo to save some gold. The first 30 levels are about learning the game, and that includes popping into various AHs and seeing what the market looks like. Don't try and produce for AH sale until you have a firm grasp of what you're doing. Production costs gold (in fact it's about the only true gold sink in the game for pirates), so you don't want to spend it unless you have to.

Basic setup for your lots:
Weaponsmith
Cacao plantation

That's it. Iron is pretty easy to loot, and even easier to buy from the over-producers. Keep an eye out, and if you find Iron Ingots for less than 130, buy them. Once you have Indifferent rep with the Spanish House of Trade, you can trade cacao for black powder at 63 tobacco for 12. At Trusted it becomes 54 for 12. The Trusted rate is very close to production costs (30 via the trade, 21 if you self produced). You can trade tobacco to the Dutch, but you need 126 at indifferent. With cacao, you can fit 2 trades worth in an average ship.

The reason for doing this is you only need to build 1 warehouse. Which saves you the cost of a second (3200) for production. If you made your own Iron, you'll have to have 2, because iron and limestone are never in the same port. Now you can set up that second warehouse for loot storage near where you grind for a loot drop. You don't want to build a third warehouse (cost: 16k) just for loot.

You'll need to find a port with fertile soil for your set up. Which is pretty easy.

Now if really want to do it on the cheap, pay attention! Only use the iron you loot to make "specialty ammo." This would be your anti-personnel and dismantling shot. For everyday blasting use stone shot!
1) It's cheap. It only takes gravel and black powder.
2) A production run makes 15 crates, where metal ammo only makes 10.
3) Using the free gravel pit from the econ tutorial, make about 500 gravel and save it for when you have your weaponsmith set up.
4) The hybrid damage from stone shot makes NPCs abandon ship faster.

With the weaponsmith, you can make your ammo, and gun outfittings. You really don't need perm outfittings on a OS grinder ship. But having either +damage or +reload (depending on which is the strength of your ship) will make it grinding go faster.

If you want, you can set up a carpenter to make hull patches, but you really shouldn't need to many. Use the plug leaks skill, and buy a stack of 10 of the best quality that you can use. That should get you through most situations. For OS grinding I might use 1-2 hull patches per level. So the carpenter is something you can wait on.

Skills:

My preferences by skill line:
Brutality: Ignore for leveling, you'll want it for pvp
Destruction: Can be handy for missions, ignore if OS is your focus
Disaster: You want up to Desperation Fire 2. This is your opener for the first broadside.
Evasion: You want the full line. With Tack Upwind & Evasion, you really won't care where you spawn.
Flogging: You want up to Flog Gunners 2. +Reload is your friend.
Gunnery: I passed this line, but it might fit with your playstyle. I don't like the long cool downs.
Red Flag: One point for Decimate, sometimes you need to board, this helps.
Skullduggery: pvp only line
Smuggling: 3 points for Before the Wind 2. You want closing speed.
Survival: 4 points for all the repair skills. Save Too Mean To Die for later, the 30 minute cools down means you won't use it that often, the point has more use elsewhere while leveling.

Everyone plays different, feel free to experiment. But this is what I've found most useful.

Kitty,
That was an amazing post. Did you think of all that yourself or did you find that from other sites?

Aguinara wrote:

Kitty,
That was an amazing post. Did you think of all that yourself or did you find that from other sites?

That was pretty much streamed straight out of memory of what I've been doing. you won't see it anywhere else!

Okay well said! That was great Info!

Amazing post and much needed information, my thanks!

Kitty Luckshot wrote:

Aguinara wrote:

Kitty,
That was an amazing post. Did you think of all that yourself or did you find that from other sites?

That was pretty much streamed straight out of memory of what I've been doing. you won't see it anywhere else!

From what your saying it is pointless for players to produce iron ignots, if I understand correctly? That is unfortunate, perhaps the developers should decrease the costs to make them and increase the number of ignots required ot produce items, this will force players to have to build iron mines and forgeries (While still producing products from them at the same cost).

Very good advice in your post Kitty. Being around 40 now I found out most things by myself, and sometimes by paying too much. Folks who read this at an earlier point can avoid making those mistakes.

About the whole leveling-up issue. I believe this is a matter of everybody's personal taste. I would never think of just OS grinding my ass up to 50, it would just be boring as hell for me. For myself, "it's the journey", I try to have fun along the way from level 1 to 50, I don't want to get to 50 as quickly as possible.
Of course, only at 50 you will stand a chance in PVP, but don't rush there only to find out that you burnt yourself out and there is only one thing left to do (PVP). So my 2 cents is, try to enjoy the journey as well guys

Mendez wrote:

So my 2 cents is, try to enjoy the journey as well guys

Could not agree with you more...

I'll stop and enjoy the scenery at 43. I want, no, NEED a Triton (aka Caribbean Jet Frigate). I have payback to administer, and that will be the instrument of my vengeance.

As for Iron Ingots. There's a place for them. It's just that place isn't with a pirate trying to level up. You'll get enough of them dropping and purchased cheap to supply a fair bit of your ammo. But it's expensive to produce, and you don't want to have be maintaining a gold sink, plus 2 warehouses, while you're coming up.

I'm referring to making ingots for AH sale. The reasons the margins are so thin, is that it's only over-production on the AH. The people that need iron on a steady basis, have supply agreements in place with other players. Those are they ones you want to sell to, but you can't do it via the AH. If you want to actively play the economy while leveling, that's another story and beyond the scope of my guide.

I haven't been only OS grinding. Usually I'll do a few mission per level, for the extra gold, and some items. But the missions are pretty much as repetitive as OS grinding.

One more thing. DO PVP.

You know that feeling of dread when you get near a red circle, or find a mission that requires you to go into one?

Here's the secret: other people have that too!

Now your job is to never scuttle a boat. Use a boat you were going to destroy to learn a little bit about pvp. Load it with about 500 round of Bar and Heavy Round, a couple of hull/mast/structure patches, and head out.

Then hunt.

You're counting on trying to find players who are more scared of you than you are of them. You're also going to be running from groups and ships that seriously out class you. Be the hunter. Here's a little trick to getting over the pvp jitters: Treat other players in the red as NPCs with better than average AI.

Yeah, you'll sink. But guess what? You were going to scuttle that ship anyways! But now you've learned something.