Paints look awful on the buildings! :(

[George Catcher 367]

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  I've noticed on a few yt videos that you can also add a sort of armour plating to ships, by building out from them using angled doors, is this particularly useful or is it really just for looks?

As far as I could see, SotD lvl-30 (or even 35) do for around 4-8K damage per fight to EACH PIECE of Brig's center part. (depend on wind, your maneuvering, and your accuracy. I also didn't have last tier of Rally and Overdrive skills. If I had - things would be even better). Ceilings, roofs and walls on Brig - are 5k health. So... they will definitely give you an extra hp, and probably save your planks. Those walls or roofs are also much cheaper to build then planks.

But my goal was to avoid any ugly louvers designs, no extra doors and roofs armor. I had just regular Brig with some extra cannons. And with 160% of sturdiness and almost all skills in captaining skill-tree I was even able to take down 2 SotDs at once: one was lvl-36 and another lvl-22. (I mean really thing were so good - I saw this "you ship is sinking" alert, and then I was like: "Ok, I'll better do some more maneuvering and and finally kill this damned ship first and then I'll take my hammer and go for repairs"). 

With my battle missions I took with me 2000 wood, 2000 thatch, 2000 fibs, 200 metals, 200 hides (for sails) and 50 alloys for cannons. Also around 250-300 cannonballs. And off course 6-8 extra gunports (never use all of them, usually couple), 4 planks, one steering wheel (never use it). And that's was enough to fight 4 SotDs lvl-30+ or 5-6 SotD's around lvl-20+ (or like 10-15 SotD around 1-10 lvl). (I mean not together, just one by one : )) Then I back to base for maintenance, and cannonballs refill. 

One more pro-tip I've noticed. If I fight SotD and it's on left side of my ship then after a fight most damaged will be LEFT planks/gunports and somehow RIGHT cannons and other design stuff on the top deck : ) 

Edited March 27, 2019 by George Catcher