No Pirates in single player? Do they respawn?

[Philminator 1]

Playing single player with the option ticked for wild pirates. In roaming around for 3-4 hours and even flying with the console command, I have not found a single WPE let alone a single pirate. Are they that rare? I've tried both Ocean and Blackwood maps. I read the patch notes on WPE and I know they don't respawn if you wipe it out completely, but can wild pirates in general respawn without it being an encampment if that makes any sense? I'm worried about one day being established, maybe taking over all the WPE and not having any wild pirates at least respawn. I'm hoping they do like the animals do.

[Shadow Wolfe 3]

I only know about Ocean, don't think they are on Blackwood. But basically, each island has up to 4 pirate bases. Each island can have a myriad of pirate ships patrolling the island from sloops to galleons. If you take out the ships, but leave a base intact and log off, when you get back into the game, the ships will respawn. If you take out all the bases on an island, the pirates will not respawn on that island, and you are notified that you control the island. If you leave one pirate alive on a base, and log off, same thing happens when you log back in, that base will be reconstituted.

The pirate ships are way tougher then SOTDs because they can heal and repair and it takes way more cannonballs to take them down. A galleon I faced cost me well over 300 shots to take him out. Plus, their shots do a lot of damage to your ship, so best to avoid incoming fire as much as possible. Even the pirate schooners hit hard.

So best to take over a whole island before you log off, specially if they had patrolling ships, cause the cost in cannonballs is great. You can go through a bunch and then it takes time to remake more for the next encounter.

Seems some bases are glitched, even after I take the flag and it becomes mine, I can't enter the buildings or raid the storage boxes. I've had to resort to using admin console commands to fix some of those issues.

[Philminator 1]

2 hours ago, Shadow Wolfe said:

I only know about Ocean, don't think they are on Blackwood. But basically, each island has up to 4 pirate bases. Each island can have a myriad of pirate ships patrolling the island from sloops to galleons. If you take out the ships, but leave a base intact and log off, when you get back into the game, the ships will respawn. If you take out all the bases on an island, the pirates will not respawn on that island, and you are notified that you control the island. If you leave one pirate alive on a base, and log off, same thing happens when you log back in, that base will be reconstituted.

The pirate ships are way tougher then SOTDs because they can heal and repair and it takes way more cannonballs to take them down. A galleon I faced cost me well over 300 shots to take him out. Plus, their shots do a lot of damage to your ship, so best to avoid incoming fire as much as possible. Even the pirate schooners hit hard.

So best to take over a whole island before you log off, specially if they had patrolling ships, cause the cost in cannonballs is great. You can go through a bunch and then it takes time to remake more for the next encounter.

Seems some bases are glitched, even after I take the flag and it becomes mine, I can't enter the buildings or raid the storage boxes. I've had to resort to using admin console commands to fix some of those issues.

Thank you for the reply. So I guess all pirates are tied to a base of some sort, they aren't like animals where some random pirates could respawn. I know it sounds funny, but I worry about investing hundreds of hours into a map, building a nice town, and having nothing but tigers and snakes that can kill me with no pirates. I guess I could always just not kill the bases, but it seems like it would be fun to do.

[Geminia_Sierra 20]

The WPE (Wild Pirate Encampment) are just that, encampments. I've seen from 8 to 10 pirates at some of the encampments (bases) and  if it is some what close to shore, there is often a ship doing circles out there.  There aren't any wandering pirates, although that would be SOOOO cool.  The WPE base come in a variety, really cool, thatch lean-to's and cannon stands with puckle placements. a couple of Stone buildings with tower (which can either have a ballista or a couple cannons). A couple of wood buildings with cannon and puckle emplacements. Sometimes there is a pirate in the buildings. I don't know if this is a glitch or meant to be. If the later, doesn't make sense because you have to destroy a wall to get to him and the only way to do that is blast with grenades, shoot with a cannon (have to be on the cart since you can't place near enemy placements), bombard from a far with mortar or destroy with some tame.

The pirates will respawn at encampments if you don't kill them all or you don't claim the flag. found that out the hard way. However once you claim the flag the camp won't respawn.

Issues I have found so far:

• when you discover the island the first time, WPE's will spawn in and you can easily (depending on the site) take the camp.
• if you log out or leave the island and come back, the WPE camp will spawn in multiple times. I have see upwards of 4 identical camps spawned right in the same place. Thankfully, only the buildings and items double/triple spawn. The pirates do not. So, you can capture the base, but you can't get to rewards because of the other structures blocking. So, I resort to bombarding with several hundred mortar rounds or I cheat, once I capture the flag, I use the "kill" command on all structured and destroy them and carefully do the same to the other flags.
• Pirates on a cannon/puckle/balista can't be hurt until knocked off. Destroy the weapon, or run up and slash them with a sword. Otherwise they'll just stand there hoping you get in front of them.
• Pirates have deadly aim. A WPE near the water will shoot cannon at your ship... correction at YOU on the ship. The ship is collateral.
• WPE ships are glitching in that even though they take lots of damage and even look like they're missing planks but their health bar remains full (until you disengage and come back). I don't know if the health bar is the ship or the lone crewman at the wheel. you either have to pummel the ship to nothing or kill that one guy

I think that covers everything I know.

[Philminator 1]

2 minutes ago, Geminia_Sierra said:

The WPE (Wild Pirate Encampment) are just that, encampments. I've seen from 8 to 10 pirates at some of the encampments (bases) and  if it is some what close to shore, there is often a ship doing circles out there.  There aren't any wandering pirates, although that would be SOOOO cool.  The WPE base come in a variety, really cool, thatch lean-to's and cannon stands with puckle placements. a couple of Stone buildings with tower (which can either have a ballista or a couple cannons). A couple of wood buildings with cannon and puckle emplacements. Sometimes there is a pirate in the buildings. I don't know if this is a glitch or meant to be. If the later, doesn't make sense because you have to destroy a wall to get to him and the only way to do that is blast with grenades, shoot with a cannon (have to be on the cart since you can't place near enemy placements), bombard from a far with mortar or destroy with some tame.

The pirates will respawn at encampments if you don't kill them all or you don't claim the flag. found that out the hard way. However once you claim the flag the camp won't respawn.

Issues I have found so far:

• when you discover the island the first time, WPE's will spawn in and you can easily (depending on the site) take the camp.
• if you log out or leave the island and come back, the WPE camp will spawn in multiple times. I have see upwards of 4 identical camps spawned right in the same place. Thankfully, only the buildings and items double/triple spawn. The pirates do not. So, you can capture the base, but you can't get to rewards because of the other structures blocking. So, I resort to bombarding with several hundred mortar rounds or I cheat, once I capture the flag, I use the "kill" command on all structured and destroy them and carefully do the same to the other flags.
• Pirates on a cannon/puckle/balista can't be hurt until knocked off. Destroy the weapon, or run up and slash them with a sword. Otherwise they'll just stand there hoping you get in front of them.
• Pirates have deadly aim. A WPE near the water will shoot cannon at your ship... correction at YOU on the ship. The ship is collateral.
• WPE ships are glitching in that even though they take lots of damage and even look like they're missing planks but their health bar remains full (until you disengage and come back). I don't know if the health bar is the ship or the lone crewman at the wheel. you either have to pummel the ship to nothing or kill that one guy

I think that covers everything I know.

Thank you for the reply. Maybe that is a suggestion I could mention to the devs, to have wandering pirates like the rest of the animals in the game. Maybe even take it a step further, and have an option to allow the camps you capture to become hostile again like in Assassin's Creed, or the ability to have pirates retake the camp or something. I dunno, I'm new to the game, I'm just ranting, but I am enjoying single player quite a bit so far. 

[Geminia_Sierra 20]

In single player now, the control of the island seems to have taken the place of placing a claim flag for official PvE/PvP.  So, when you get done with the island the Atlas map show a green flag on the island.

The wandering NPC pirates would be cool. maybe having them path between camps.

[Philminator 1]

On 11/4/2019 at 1:58 PM, Geminia_Sierra said:

In single player now, the control of the island seems to have taken the place of placing a claim flag for official PvE/PvP.  So, when you get done with the island the Atlas map show a green flag on the island.

The wandering NPC pirates would be cool. maybe having them path between camps.

Yes that would be amazing. Sorry for long delay in the reply, I was not allowed to reply lol. I had to wait almost 24 hours. I found my first WPE, and I got slaughtered. There was like 10 pirates. Definitely in single player, I will have to tweak things to make it more possible to take on, but yeah random pirates even if just a few here and there would be nice, as so far I'm not finding too many threats in the wild compared to Ark Survival. I'm having fun though.

[Geminia_Sierra 20]

in SP, fighting the WPE, I find the nice combo is to take a good fighting bear and 2 or 3 good pig. maybe a second bear or horse (why can't bulls pull a cart??) with a cart and cannon. Leave the later outside the encampment for later busting down doors. You can ride the bear in and direct the fighting. sometimes the pigs will knock the pirates off the guns. For cannon or ballista on top of the towers, I usually bombard with mortar, or swing up with grapple and sword and smack them.

yeah, the wandering threats of Ark make it far more challenging. Although there are some islands with lots of snakes, tiger and lions that make life difficult.

 

[Philminator 1]

3 minutes ago, Geminia_Sierra said:

in SP, fighting the WPE, I find the nice combo is to take a good fighting bear and 2 or 3 good pig. maybe a second bear or horse (why can't bulls pull a cart??) with a cart and cannon. Leave the later outside the encampment for later busting down doors. You can ride the bear in and direct the fighting. sometimes the pigs will knock the pirates off the guns. For cannon or ballista on top of the towers, I usually bombard with mortar, or swing up with grapple and sword and smack them.

yeah, the wandering threats of Ark make it far more challenging. Although there are some islands with lots of snakes, tiger and lions that make life difficult.

 

OMG LOL, I forgot to take animals with me. For a moment I forgot you can tame animals, breed them etc. Thanks for reminding me lol.