Can a schooner fit through a large gate, and other harbor defense questions

[Poot Pootington 30]

My new Chinese neighbor on PVE has a fondness for aggro'ing SotD into my bank, ships, and shipyard to salvage their mats; so I'm considering some home improvements to keep my ride in the driveway longer than a few hours. 

 I can wall off the deep water access and rebuild my shipyard behind it,  but I want to be sure I'd be able to get a schooner out of a large gate before I go through the trouble. 

Also, anyone have experience setting an NPC crew on a mortar up on top of a cliff to blast SotD if they come close?  Do resource boxes and larders work outside of a ship?  Any other suggestions for offline harbor defense? (I miss gen X plants...) 

I figure I can keep NPC's on s Schooner's cannons, but I'm worried they won't be able to defend themselves very well while anchored while I'm sleeping and the Chinese are doing their thing... (Yay PVE!)  

I'm hoping I have some options to actually sail in a sailing game since my new neighbors don't appear to be moving out anytime soon. 

Thanks!

Edited January 17, 2019 by Poot Pootington

[Vaenix 131]

1 hour ago, Poot Pootington said:

My new Chinese neighbor on PVE has a fondness for aggro'ing SotD into my bank, ships, and shipyard to salvage their mats; so I'm considering some home improvements to keep my ride in the driveway longer than a few hours. 

 I can wall off the deep water access and rebuild my shipyard behind it,  but I want to be sure I'd be able to get a schooner out of a large gate before I go through the trouble. 

Also, anyone have experience setting an NPC crew on a mortar up on top of a cliff to blast SotD if they come close?  Do resource boxes and larders work outside of a ship?  Any other suggestions for offline harbor defense? (I miss gen X plants...) 

I figure I can keep NPC's on s Schooner's cannons, but I'm worried they won't be able to defend themselves very well while anchored while I'm sleeping and the Chinese are doing their thing... (Yay PVE!)  

I'm hoping I have some options to actually sail in a sailing game since my new neighbors don't appear to be moving out anytime soon. 

Thanks!

You honestly don't want to give the SotD more of a reason to target your things so I'd avoid a crew on the schooners cannons, at least not active ones.  The mortars are not a bad idea, we've used them without npc crew and this managed to level a SotD fairly quickly.  I'm unsure about gates with boats though, I've heard that behemoth can work just fine for all but I've not tried any(luckily I have nice neighbors).

[mndfreeze 92]

3 hours ago, Poot Pootington said:

My new Chinese neighbor on PVE has a fondness for aggro'ing SotD into my bank, ships, and shipyard to salvage their mats; so I'm considering some home improvements to keep my ride in the driveway longer than a few hours. 

 I can wall off the deep water access and rebuild my shipyard behind it,  but I want to be sure I'd be able to get a schooner out of a large gate before I go through the trouble. 

Also, anyone have experience setting an NPC crew on a mortar up on top of a cliff to blast SotD if they come close?  Do resource boxes and larders work outside of a ship?  Any other suggestions for offline harbor defense? (I miss gen X plants...) 

I figure I can keep NPC's on s Schooner's cannons, but I'm worried they won't be able to defend themselves very well while anchored while I'm sleeping and the Chinese are doing their thing... (Yay PVE!)  

I'm hoping I have some options to actually sail in a sailing game since my new neighbors don't appear to be moving out anytime soon. 

Thanks!

You can squeeze up to a brig through a large gate.  It will be a super tight squeeze but you definitely can do it.  Schooner will of course be much easier.

NPC's can't be assigned to mortars for some reason.  Only cannons and swivel/puck guns.  

Ship resource boxes can be placed anywhere you can normally build stuff.  We use them in crafting rooms and in an admin locked room for storage.  Makes it a lot easier to manage raw resources (but a lot easier for people to popcorn your shit if they break in on PVP, so make sure its secure).   Larder boxes also can be placed anywhere and work.  Both are required to put NPCs on cannon/gun towers.  They work similiar to a feed trough for animals with a globe radius around it for what it covers.  NPC's are expensive to leave on swivels btw.   Since you're playing pve swivels are pretty much useless, but cannons could work against SoTD.

 

[Shintai 117]

You cant get the masts through can you, at medium sized it gets taller than the gate.

[Scotty 18]

41 minutes ago, Shintai said:

You cant get the masts through can you, at medium sized it gets taller than the gate.

Masts have no clip points, so they will just go through the tops of gates... we built bridges at our base (with pillars/ceilings) and move our sloops in and out of the bay. Our sloops use medium masts and all scoot in fine, clipping through the ceilings/gates.

[Shintai 117]

2 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Masts have no clip points, so they will just go through the tops of gates... we built bridges at our base (with pillars/ceilings) and move our sloops in and out of the bay. Our sloops use medium masts and all scoot in fine, clipping through the ceilings/gates.

Oh, now that opens up new possibilities.

[mndfreeze 92]

Masts have zero clipping as scotty said, even on the largest boats.  All that matters is if the boat is slim enough to get through the sides.

 

[Poot Pootington 30]

Thanks everyone. 

If I was to build a gun tower with medium cannons and npc's, can they shoot over half walls? Would doorways or windows work better?

I'm assuming the SotD will fire back; so I'm thinking the npc's would need to be behind something for protection. 

[Warspectre 141]

9 minutes ago, Poot Pootington said:

Thanks everyone. 

If I was to build a gun tower with medium cannons and npc's, can they shoot over half walls? Would doorways or windows work better?

I'm assuming the SotD will fire back; so I'm thinking the npc's would need to be behind something for protection. 

I wish I could say for sure but I think the half walls are too big. You might try either using doorways or two slope pieces to form a V like that and put the cannon in the center.  With a high tower and considering cannons arc, it should have a difficult time scoring a direct hit anyway. 

The only cannons I've set up on land bases are swivel guns which are much more flexible in their deployment, and you can mount and use them directly on half walls. So your particular issue isn't one I've had to tackle. I'd start with my suggestions though if I was in your situation. Just like a lot of aspects of this game, there might be some trial and error involved.