Whales, borders, and why they need fixing.

[Rita Longlegs 20]

How we managed to loose 2 galleons, with less than 20 minutes between:
Cross a border, run into a whale, as in RAM it, just as you spawn in.
Loose the rudder + beds, WAY before the planks give way.
Sails are up, you aren't for some magical reason, kicked off the boat, so you sail in a straight line with SOtD's on both sides, plus a whale in your buttocks.
Buddy, does ALL he can, shooting the SOtD's one after the other, and we lower sails in order to get the first ship repaired.
But, what do you know... 2 more whales appear, with their build-in million mile aggro range, along with another 2 SOtD's ..... needless to say what happened.
By the time the 2 other wales were spotteed, the wind was absolutely unfavorable, and my buddy had zero chance to escape.
First hit of the whale, destroyed HIS rudder AND beds, with no leakage from the planks....

I have nothing against whales, nor the SOtD's, but the fact that they appear AT THE FRWEQSDSGHTDYJ BORDER!!!!!! that is nothing less that a spit to the face!!
It has been mentioned over and over, again and again, and it is really about time some of these spawn mechanics get looked through!

Rant over.... Seriously... do something about this absolutely needless killingspree that does nothing to the game, other than being utterly useless.

[MaLioSherGaming 5]

I once was eaten by a shark....while on my boat, traveling between servers.  Apparently my body spawned in before my boat, where a shark started to eat it.  By the time I gained control and my ship appeared....I was already shark food. 

[Vegetto 59]

I enter regions parallel to the border which seems the best method to not get surprised by 3-4 camping damneds. 

[Lukas1987 22]

As the guy above me said try to go parallel or at sharpest angle possible. Another way is to slow down to a crawl before crossing the border. 

[WInslow 25]

I slowed to a crawl to cross and spawned on top of a whale. no escape except if they tail slap you away. I had to replace 8 planks immediately and emergency repair the rest.

[Aztro 6]

couldnt be worse as meeting a whale + sotd + abandonned raft + cyclone

bumped by whale i did a lot of 360 SOTD missed me and cyclone with huge wind saved me from second bump 

btw never bump a dead whale, u can sink ur boat like this shes doing more dmg dead only skin contact and 1K dmg/ sec

to hull

[Shintai 117]

Bumped one as well, just with a sloop for simple exploration. The border camping with SOD, whales etc just get´s boring real fast.

[Buck Rider 63]

I'll tell you what I think happened.

Weeks back you could travel pretty freely along the border grid lines. Then I saw people commenting about that on the forum. I'd guess the devs saw those post and didn't want people freely traveling down the grid lines because shortly after seeing those comments, SotD were on the borders.

If this was the case. I think it was to add danger to those traveling along the border without considering those crossing and rezzing/loading in among them. Yes, to me loading in to being under fire is a problem.

It's not that we want a world without danger, we just want to see the danger coming.

I do think SotD and maybe whales should be moved back 1000 yards from the border and the rendering range on the SotD should be increased to 2 or 3 times the current rendering range.

[Nokim 16]

The problem i find with mean whales is that there is an insane mounts of them. if you are in a galleon you are screwed if you plan to carry anything.

last time i took a galleon i kept my weight t 50% so i figured id be ok..WRONG!

I first crossed and spotted one to my right, ok np i just kept going, before long it was behind me. Then i wee on to the left, ok np i turn to the right a bit before i turn left a bit againt o go in my direction. so now i have one behind nd one south west of me.

Next thing i know i spot one coming at me north west and one north east, ok np ill just keep going straight and speed past them. Just then i spot on straight in front of me.

 

CRAP. i cant turn left or right, sure as hell can't do a  u turn as i have 2 behind me and this turns like a turtle. So i take my chances and try to speed past the front one at an angle. Few seconds later im getting ping ponged by 5 meanwhales. I got smashed so hard i somehow ended up riding on top of a mean whale, glitching in and out of it, watching it do circles around the wreckage.

 

considering their agro, range and the fact they give  discovery point and tons of gold if you do kill them, they should be more rare..like 3-4 PER SERVER. I once raced in a schooner on a straight line , by the time i cross the border i had9!!! mean whales chasing, ridiculous.