Right from the get-go, we ran into issue; upon leaving port, we discovered there were at least THREE active Player Galleons in the area, and most of them were... let’s just say they were either orbitting or at station-keeping near the islands we absolutely NEEDED to go onto.
A few of them we waited out until they decided to do other stuff, but at least twice, a Galleon would suddenly turn around and start moving to get into a firing position, and we were forced to flee.
One of the times, the other ship (while firing at us from long range) had caught some fantastic wind and had managed to cut across our course. I saw them coming, and had planned to swoop right by under their bow and kind of do a quick 90 turn and head on a new tack while they struggled to turn their pig of a ship (I’ve done this before with great success), but I misestimated just how good that wind of theirs was.
So instead of cutting across their bow... I plowed our sloop almost perpendicular to them, catching them just off the starboard bow. Tremendous impact. My friend was already below decks filling holes, so before impact I was letting him know what was coming and to be FAST on those repairs.
BLAM! Smashed into ship. My friend ran up to the deck, unloaded a surprising FIVE cannon shot directly into their starboard lower hull, before rushing back down to patch the holes my blunder had knocked in us. I turned us 90 to starboard to cut us away from the ship, and put us at full, perfect wind away from them. Our aft was exposed to them while we ran, but given the fact we’d just punched a LOT of holes in their hull, and galleons are bitch to fix even with full crew, we managed to gain a lot of ground.
That must have been enough for that crew, because instead of chasing us, they turned and either headed back to port, or headed out on whatever their mission actually was. I’d like to think my kamikaze run on them scared the crap out of them. Or that they were so low on repair tools they needed to find landfall fast to keep the boat floating. LoL
A few other galleons later, and a few Megalodon attacks later, we managed to get to a few of the islands we needed. Uneventful stuff, honestly. Well, except for that time another team had come swooping in, and we had to book it. As a matter of security, only one of us was ever off the ship at a time, so the other could escape getaway with our ship. This saved our hides no less than FIVE times.
At one point, during a ‘Hunt the Skeleton Lord’ mission, my friend was left on shore while I had to run for open water. I didn’t go far though; a little ways away there was a cluster of jagged, giant rocks in rough water. I carefully moved directly between them, to a place no ship would want to chase me without CAREFUL moves, and killed my acceleration. Not anchored; I wanted a bit of drift. I sat there, relaying what I was doing while my friend relayed his encounters on the island. Apparently he ambushed a team of FOUR and beat the tar out of them, and then used the island’s guns to punch about ten holes in the hull of their parked ship. He told me later that they seemed really unskilled in combat, and we found out much later that they had left a bunch of chests either half-dug or undug all over the place.
My friend felt bad because it’s very possible he’d encountered a squad of true new people, under the guidance of one medium player, and he’d absolutely destroyed their treasure hunting fun. I felt bad too..for a moment. Then I pointed out that this crew might have been the ones chasing and firing on us earlier. In which case, they’re not all THAT nice...just unskilled. Once they get skilled, they’re a threat.
Fastforward a while, and we finally get back to port to finish the Shroudbreaker mission (part 1 anyway), and I’m scouring the island for supplies. Then...this happens.
Me: *turns a corner and finds a badly beaten Sloop parked off shore, completely opposite of where ours was supposed to be parked* “Oh shit! There’s a sloop here! Get the ship and get the hell out of here!”
Friend: “Uh, yeah I know. There’s someone on OUR ship right now.”
Me: “What?! What are they doing? Can you fight them off?!”
Friend: “They’re.. They’re repairing our hull?”
Me: “Repairing our... what? They’re actually fixing the ship??”
At this point the other Sloop comes apart as the player scuttles her.
Friend: “Yeah. They fixed one of the holes I missed I guess. And now they’re cooking food.”
Me: “I’m totally confused now. You mean they’re not trying to raid us?”
Friend: “Doesn’t look like it. I’m checking our stuff, but I don’t see anything missing. They’re just...cooking food below decks right now. You gotta come see this.”
So I did. Sure enough, waiting for me on the upper deck with a freshly cooked splashtail was a female avvie player by the name of BlackByrd something. Had a bunch of numbers. They offered me the fish, which I took, gave my thanks, and then... they went to a part of the ship and started fishing.
I didn’t know what to make of this. We had a mission to do that might take us into Red Water territory (with the mission making the area safe for us), but if this person hung onto our ship, they’d die when we hit red water. They hadn’t done anything hostile, and in fact, were just... they were just fishing.
So we took a break. All three of us just fished for like, an hour, cooking food and stuff. It was surreal.
Finally we decided to head out. Seems that BlackByrd didn’t have a mic, and was playing the PC version of the game, because they had access to the chat window. So we headed for a few of the closer island to get stuff we needed, while they kept fishing off the bow of the ship.
Sadly, our surreal little experience with our hitchhiker finally came to an end. Not a bad end, but a sad one. As we started to head into the Wilds, Blackbyrd stopped fishing and came up to the wheeldeck and waved at me. So I waved back. They turned to my friend and waved to him, and he too, returned the wave.
Then they jumped overboard. I guess it was time for them to go, or they didn’t want to go on OUR adventure, preferring to fish instead. I wish them the best. They reminded me that not ALL players want to massacre each other.
There were a few other encounters, but the last one that stood out was a Skeleton ship that had somehow managed to not only jam its bow into the docks of Plunder Outpost, but had physically bottomed out her hull on the shoreline beneath, stopping her dead.
We didn’t think Skeleton ships could even get NEAR outposts, but this one looked legitimately docked (which can’t happen. It was just jammed in so perfectly).
Of course, we took a bunch of potshots at it, and cracked its hull with our only explosive barrel. We even got aboard and raided a few of its treasures before the crew realized we were there. (literally walked on from the dock. That’s how close they were) Btw, this was a tough ship; all the deck crew were gold-plated skeletons, while they had about 7 below decks crew of Crew Skeletons (as opposed to normal skeletons). Crew have slightly higher reflex rate and MUCH better aim.
Long story short, that ship bellied out enough that game physics required it to roll off the sandbar and into deeper water. So we chased it around the island, before I managed to trick it into literally ramming the side of the island where it is rocky. She LIFTED out of the water. Only her rudder was still in the soup.
By this point we were angry that such a simple shipkill had become an annoyance (seventeen Jigballs fired at us, as well as continuous Anchorballs gets you that way), so we used up the last of our cannonshot pounding her until she finally keeled. She keeled right at the secondary docks, so we just parked, waited, and claimed our glory.
Missions accomplished, next step completed, and treasure turned in, we logged out for the night.
It wasn’t the best run. But it was interesting. Hope BlackByrd caught a nice fish while we were gone.
