Fastest way to level up sailing?

graylyn said:
Me and a bud have been killing hunters. But it almost seems lower level stuff gives more XP
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Generally speaking regular ships (the moderate to higher level ones) give the most experience.

If you can gather the crew for it, the very best way to level up is to have gunners shoot only at the sails while the captain sinks the ship using broadsides. The gunners can/should clean up (sink) the enemy ship if you broadside it down to very low health though (like 10% or less), as at that point another broadside is a waste. Additionally, once the captain has landed two (or three) broadsides into the ship, the gunners should finish it off regardless of its health. Any further broadsides will yield diminishing returns.

The above applies only to regular ships. All gunners should aim for the hull at all times on hunters.

Hunters have the potential to be better experience, but that depends largely on your crew. If they can sink the hunter fast enough to where you only just hit the rep cap from the hunter you're in the sweet spot for rep.

Warships are trash, except En Garde - same applies for her as hunters.
 
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Sky Kiwi said:
Generally speaking regular ships (the moderate to higher level ones) give the most experience.

If you can gather the crew for it, the very best way to level up is to have gunners shoot only at the sails while the captain sinks the ship using broadsides. The gunners can/should clean up (sink) the enemy ship if you broadside it down to very low health though (like 10% or less), as at that point another broadside is a waste. This applies only to regular ships. All gunners should aim for the hull at all times on hunters.

Hunters have the potential to be better experience, but that depends largely on your crew. If they can sink the hunter fast enough to where you only just hit the rep cap from the hunter you're in the sweet spot for rep.

Warships are trash, except En Garde - same applies for her as hunters.
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Very thorough reply. Thank you!
 
Just to build on the first response. Use the ship with the highest broadside count available. Each cannonball counts as an individual hit. And rep is largely decided by the number of hits an enemy takes.

You may not ever come across this, but I'll suggest it anyway. If you befriend someone with a copperhead, ask to sail it. They sink things incredibly fast. That may seem counterintuitive to my first point, but it seems that each explosive round adds a pretty big amount of rep onto the stack. On many occasions, I've reached the rep cap after only 3 broadsides with mine. There's a lot more ships on the sea now as well thanks to a recent update. So go around, 1-2 shot them all in quick succession, and that level will rise very quickly.

Side note: Other special ammo types probably offer more rep per hit than round shot as well. This concept also applies to a few other weapons. For example, the voodoo staff. Flaming skull gives more rep per cast than wither does.
 
WilyJaymes said:
Just to build on the first response. Use the ship with the highest broadside count available. Each cannonball counts as an individual hit. And rep is largely decided by the number of hits an enemy takes.

You may not ever come across this, but I'll suggest it anyway. If you befriend someone with a copperhead, ask to sail it. They sink things incredibly fast. That may seem counterintuitive to my first point, but it seems that each explosive round adds a pretty big amount of rep onto the stack. On many occasions, I've reached the rep cap after only 3 broadsides with mine. There's a lot more ships on the sea now as well thanks to a recent update. So go around, 1-2 shot them all in quick succession, and that level will rise very quickly.

Side note: Other special ammo types probably offer more rep rep hit than round shot as well. This concept applies to a few other weapons as well. For example, the voodoo staff. Flaming skull gives more rep per cast than wither does.
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Just tested single shots against hunters. One explosive gave me 58 experience, one thunderbolt gave me 33. Three round shots gave me 36. Including a 50% crew bonus. It's possible that this is different for broadsides, so I'll need to get some help testing that, but this would be interesting to find out.
 
You should have fired just one round shot. That would be better at telling you what to expect from broadside rep.
 
WilyJaymes said:
You should have fired just one round shot. That would be better at telling you what to expect from broadside rep.
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I tried but at that point everything got kind of chaotic lol. One shot against normal ships gave me 1 rep, where thunder gave me 33 as well, I think.
 
The game is still in Beta. Expect things to not work as intended at times.

Also, if your sailing/cannon skill is higher than a certain ship, expect a lower payoff in experience from fighting that ship.
 
LOL, I love these questions!
To level up in the game is to do.
To level weapons, use weapons.
To level sailing, sink ships, while sailing.
It's all very basic and elementary stuff.
Simple!
Savor!
 
> Buy a light brig and get your ship up to level 5
> Buy a Brig and level up your ship to level 15
> Buy a War Sloop and sink ghost ships, they give the most XP
> Patience (Something I struggle with LOL)
 
Squidgallows said:
sink ghost ships, they give the most XP
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I disagree with this. They give the most XP per ship, but in terms of XP per hour it's inefficient.

You typically want to get one to two broadsides in per normal ship. No more than three. It's ideal if you have deck gunners that can clean up after your broadsides (finish off ships with low health) so you can move on to your next target. The reason ghost ships tend to give a lot of exp is because the sails on the front of the ship are so low that your broadsides often hit them. Additionally most of them are War Frigates, which take the most hits. This means you put more cannonballs into ghost ships than any other type before sinking them. More cannonballs into one ship means more rep for that ship.

However, there's a curve to the amount of exp you get. After a while (like, first three cannonballs) you start to get diminishing returns. For example with deck guns, if you plug a single high level ship with three round shots you'll typically get ~33xp. But another three won't raise it to 66, it'll be something in the 40-50's. Broadsides, while having different numbers, function the same way. After the second or third hit, you'll start getting significantly less rep per broadside that hits the enemy ship. Hence it's best to blitz through a lot of ships quickly, in terms of broadside rep.

Though less favourable to the captain, having the gunners destroy the sails before sinking the ship is another common rep hunting method. However, if the gunners aren't good at it, it's inefficient for the same reasons as above. This tactic is very effective for the gunners, and yields the highest overall rep for the entire crew.

Basically, your captain shouldn't have to put more than two broadsides into any ship.

Note these numbers aren't precise, and it varies heavily depending on what ship you're facing and how good your crew is. This is just a general response regarding normal enemy ships (ie not hunters or warships).
 
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