Shadow Wolfe

The only issue you might run into is if for any reason you are logged out during the taking of an island, when you log back in, some of the bases glitch out, the base will respawn on top of the previous base that was already there. So what you get is essentially two buildings occupying the same space, so when you raise the banner, you get the camp, but then you have to move around the banner and raise the second hidden banner that is right next to the first one so that both parts become yours and then you can do what you wish with the camps. Haven't thought of looking for the second banner til now, but will have to try it the next time I come across the glitch. What I have been doing is using the console commands to make the second buildings mine as well so I can demolish them, cause if you don't, it won't let you build anywhere around it cause it is still considered and enemy base even though you took the camp. It is quite tedious using the console commands cause you have to do it on each item in the camp. I'd rather just build my own base anyhow, but usually leave at least one bed and equip enough supplies at each camp if I ever decide to fast travel back to an island for any reason. I haven't had the glitch if I take over the whole island before I log off though. The glitch only seems to apply to active pirate camps left on the island between logins. So if you do what I do when I come to each island and sail around taking out any pirate ships first, then land and take out each base, but the amount of ammo required to take out the ships is considerable, but if you log off before taking the whole island, the ships will respawn and you have to fight them all over again unless you happen to take over the camp that ship was tied to before logging off. I am having to constantly be making gunpowder and cannon balls before I go to the next island, which means I have to farm a lot of coal, flint and metal on each island I take over. So I stock up on a lot when I can. I have a 41 gun brig, 13 guns rear, 6 front, 11 on each broadside, so I go thru a lot of ammo. I tried to make the brig an all rounder and also placed ballistas so I can also do whaling, but for some reason the ballistas don't fire at the whales, even though I can mount each one and load them, the crew will not fire at a target, I figure they are just too high up or blocked by something even though I have no problems firing them, must be something in the mechanics that are impeding them. Had the same issue trying to put them on the rear deck of a galleon, they won't fire. So when in whale country, I will just have to stop and build a Whaling Schooner, since I don't seem to have that issue shooting from a Schooner, even though the rear mounted ballistas are almost as high as the ones on the back of the brig. The broadside ballistas I mounted on the brig are in doorways, but the ballistas are placed well in front of the door, so that they stick out as much as possible, I've even tried removing the doorway, but there was armor plating above the ballistas that may have been impeding them somehow. Oh well....

Yes, you need a lot of cannon balls to take down even the sloop, you have to keep the pressure on them or they heal and still hit you hard each time. I generally get them to follow my battle brig and let my 13 rear cannons just keep firing at them til they sink. Does go thru an enormous amount of cannon balls though, Takes at least a 100 or so for the schooners and sloops and close to 300 for a galleon. Too bad there are no loot boxes on the sunken ships though, the only thing they are good for are the resources you get from dismantling them, or at least whats left of them after I'm done with them. And another thing to keep in mind, if you don't take out the whole islands camps before you log off, they will regenerate too include any ships associated with the bases when you log back in. So if you wasted a lot of ammo taking out a ship, then log off, it will respawn and you have to do it all over again, but your ammo that you used won't respawn for you. And you have to pay attention when leading the WPEs, cause if your not keeping an eye to the front, you may run into SOTDs, and they don't care bout the WPE ships, just you.

Don't necessarily think it had to do with the foundation, think the bug also relates to the save portion, or rather, when you log out and come back in, it doesn't put everything back. Save file gets corrupted somehow. I've noticed at times when I logged back in I would have several pieces of armor missing off my ship, or pieces of armor would disappear off my crew, or I would lose items out of my personal inventory. I generally carry three waterskins with me at all times, but am constantly having to make extra ones to replace the ones that come up missing on each log in. I have begun the habit of putting all my personal inventory stuff into a chest before logging off, don't seem to lose items that way. Also had gold come up missing from the resource chest. Also, each time I log in, I have to go each one of my crew and remove their armor and then reequip them because the armor starts to bleed, so to speak, you can see the NPC skin through the armor. When you have 80+ crew with armor, gets to be tedious, but its something I have to do, cause if I don't and wait too long, the armor starts disappearing all together and I have to expend more resources to replace it. But then, its not all bad, gives me a chance to level up the crew while I'm at it.

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.

The next question is, are you using any mods that deal with gunports or whatnot. Had that issue when I was using TS mods before it went defunct, you couldn't snap regular cannons in a TS Gunport, had to use the TS guns, otherwise they wouldn't snap in, you could still place the med cannons near the gunport because you can place them anywhere, but they won't work properly or be activated when opening the gunport unless they are snapped in. If you are not using any mods, then it is a collision issue with another structure, and the structure doesn't necessarily have to be right next to it, it can be a floor above or below the plane, so clear the area all around the gunport, place the gun in, then see if it works, then replace one piece at a time around it and test the gun each time til you find the collision piece.

Noticed that as well. I recalled one play thru, my first real episode on SP that I got into after the last big wipe and everything shut down on MP for a week. Kinda enjoy the SP portion now and haven't been back to Multiplayer. But I had taken over one of my first islands and decided to build a small base around an NPC ready made dock that was located there. Spent a considerable time there, build a Brig and a Galleon, and gathered all the resources in and around the base to build and equip them. After they were completed, decided to move the base to a newer set of islands in a different grid. So put as much stuff as I could carry on one ship and moved it. Then fast traveled back to get the other ship, and then boom, I got a discovery notification about a "Hidden Dock" on the dock I had been using the whole time. So I'm guessing you have to do the fast travel thing to activate those other discoveries. I haven't begun to really test that theory out, cause so far its only happened the one time. But my plan for this new game I started is to build a small base on each and every island I take over, and to stock each base with the necessary equipment for when I fast travel to it, then run around the island to see if I can pick up anymore discovery points. I've noticed on this new SP I started that there no longer is a level cap on the Freeport islands, guess that was the fix they implemented after Xbox players were unable to gain any XP at all or something.

I just grapple them onto the boat, sometimes the shark still gets them if you take too long, but if I dive into the water to recruit, seems the shark show up the moment I hit the water, but just grappling them seems to give you more time before the sharks show up. Another method is to use diving suit and speargun approach, go into the water and kill any sharks before you recruit, usually 1 or 2 will be in the area, sometimes 3, but once they are dead, it will take awhile before more show up.

I don't think the Discoveries are working properly in SP. I found an NPC dock jutting out into the sea on an island once, so I built a small ship building base and integrated the NPC dock into the plan. Built a Brig and a Galleon there and used that as an operating base while I went to nearby zones claiming more islands. Decided to move to another location and while in the process of moving the entire base and ships, one at a time, I fast traveled back to pick up my final ship to move, and wouldn't you know, the moment I stepped on the NPC dock for the final time I got notified that it was a "Hidden Dock" and got a discovery point out of it, so why didn't I get the discovery way back when I first landed and built a base around it? I don't even look for discoveries other then first stepping on a new island anymore, even though the Discovery tab shows there are more discoveries in the grid, can't find them if they don't activate properly.....

I was not overly enthused with one and only time I hooked one up, pre update at that. Of course, I was in a desert region, which was probably a bad idea, and already had my base built and the grill installed, so went looking til I found a spot that would give my reservoir 60% water supply, which was quite a distance away from the base. That's ok, started running straight pipes, ran out of length, or rather, you can only run them so far, plop down another reservoir, which was on dead ground, but no matter, once I rerouted the straight pipes to finally connect to that one, I was able to extend the pipes, it was a pain trying to get the pipes to intersect with the reservoir since they always want to place at weird angles, had pipes going in every direction, zigzagging across the landscape. Would of been a pain if it impeded your ability to walk through them. Finally got the pipes close to the grill but wouldn't connect, course, I didn't have the luxury of knowing about removing floor pieces and whatnot, but I finally got it to connect up after I put a drinking spout on the end of the pipe, then placed the grill on it, but the only way to get it to snap blew my floor plan all to hell, so much for architectural bliss. I just got tired of messing with it after that. You'd figure there would be an easier way to mesh that system out. The only reason I wanted to water the grill was to make making dyes quicker since I pretty much paint everything and am having to constantly be making more dye. But even with a full reservoir, the grill only has a 300 capacity, which is good for a few bottles of dye before you have to wait for it to refill to make more. My other method was for more quicker, using water jugs, could make 50 bottles at a pop that way using 10 jugs, just have to keep taking them to the water barrel to refill them after each use.

The islands have anywhere from 2 to 4 pirate bases, some have ships but not all, I've encountered some large islands with 2 patrolling ships, guess it varies based on the size of the island. If you kill all the pirates associated with that base, to include any ships, you can then raise the flag and capture that base, it becomes your base. But I think some of the bases are bugged because even after you raise the flag, some of the buildings you can't enter until you destroy a wall or something to get into the storage containers for your customary 80 coins. Some of the bases are built in thatch or wood, you can use an axe on them, after several thousands whacks, you may be able to get through a wall or door, maybe carry multiple axes with you cause you will use them up. But some base buildings are made of stone, axes and picks don't work on them, what I've been doing on those, the ones that won't let you in after you capture the flag, is I have a foundation prebuilt and carry with me, as well as a large cannon and cannon balls for it, and since it won't let you set up the foundation too close to an enemy foundation, I just walk backwards until I can place the foundation in line with the wall or door I gotta take down. then I plop the cannon on the foundation and start shooting till I take the wall down. Haven't tried using a mortar, since I am maxed out on XP for awhile and don't have the mortar skills trained up, so can't really use one, might be an idea to set one up before the initial raid to pound the melee fighters. Can't really do that with a large or medium cannon since you gotta use line of sight with those and if you are in range of their guns, which you will be, they will just fire at you constantly. Only drawback is you can't reuse the cannon, have to demolish it after each use, which is another stupid concept, why can't I cart the cannon around, although, could put one on a cart to re-use, wonder why I didn't think of that before, have one bear hauling the cannon and another bear with a storage cart to carry all the ammo, gonna have to try that now... But once all the bases on the island have been taken the island becomes yours to do with as you wish. And once you take over every island in the grid, the grid becomes yours. I've only taken out 2 grids so far, been delayed because I'm building my castle right now from which I will launch my next raids to the surrounding grids.

Yep, only in SP so I've heard, don't know if they are on Blackwood. And yes, they have patrolling ships on some of them. But they aren't as easy to take out as SODs because the patrolling pirate ships heal their damage and repair if given time, so if you don't keep the pressure on them, they may just keep repairing and coming after you. The first time I encountered one, I could not spot any NPCs, but then that was a few updates ago, now I see an NPC at the helm. The pirate ships are pretty generic looking, Brigs and Sloops so far, just a couple of masts on an open deck with the wheel. On the Brig, they have gunports only. On the sloop, there may be 4 guns on the top deck, the Schooner also has gunports, but nothing on top deck. I've tried boarding one, but you just slide off. I've heard someone on the forum saying they were able to recruit the NPC thus making the ship his, but then the land base opened up and sank it instead, don't know if that's true, haven't tried that myself. The land bases have a myriad of defenses, too include cannons, ballista, puckles and swivelguns, and usually covering every approach. Fortunately they don't kill you with one shot, otherwise you'd never be able to take one out. Gotta remember, in SP, its only you. So best to use whatever cover is nearby, don't try to sneak, cause they will fire at you whenever you get in their field of fire. Have to get close enough to bring out whatever melee fighters are at the base, get them to follow you out a bit to where you can utilize cover and keep shooting at them till they die, then move into the gun positions. Usually, you have to knock them off the guns one at a time with a melee weapon, then kill them before moving to the next gun position. Most times they don't leave their positions unless you knock them off. Does no good to shoot at them while they are on the gun, bullets don't do nothing until you knock them off. Would be better if you could use a carbine and snipe them off, but not in this game. One good tactic is before you make a raid, spend some time taming a bunch of wild pigs, get as many as you can, put them on attack your target and let them lose on the base. they have a knack of taking some of the melee fighters out, or at least, gives them more targets to shoot at. Kinda difficult taking out a base solo without some good tames. Also, almost forgot, never found loot on the pirate ships I've sunk, they are only good for resources if you need them, no gold. The bases sometimes have gold, around 80 coins in one of the containers, sometimes you find 2 containers with gold, but not often. I've noticed they have added some upgraded loot on one of the last updates, like various blueprinted armor and stuff, nothing super fancy.