How to escape skeleton ships?

  • For me skeleton ships are currently the most annoying thing in this game, even more so than other player crews.

    You can get out of the ink circle of a kraken, and it'll just sit there and go away after a while.

    A megalodon will go away if you get near any land mass.

    Both of them also hit very slowly. Skeleton crews on the other hand have a skeleton for every single interactable object on their ship, and they respawn ten times as fast as players. Skeleton ships are also always galleons, so whatever crew amount or ship you have, you always face the max firepower that is possible in the game.

    I always dread sailing out of an outpost after a resupply and hearing the slow base drop and the action music kick in. Not because I'm scared they'll sink me, but because it's such an inconvenience. I've learnt that if you sail right back to an island and wait there for a few minutes, then sail out, they will not spawn and the music will fade out (though sometimes I just get 2 ships in a row, and end up fighting the second).

    In my entire time playing this game (and I'm almost pirate legend with no level purchases), I have never been able to "escape" a skeleton ship. They keep following me at 3 times the speed of a normal galleon until either I or they sink.

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  • @denisowator My escape method is to sail near another ship and hope the ship draws the skeleton ship's attention away from me. Has worked all but once so far!

  • I have 3 methods for them but escape is no option need to sink it real fast and agressive before it keeps firing ccb at you

    1 if i have peaceball and anchorball i stop the boat and then shoot it until it sinks.

    2 if no ccb available we ram it and stick side by side then they dont fire canon and you can sink it with buckets water or whatever.

    3 when solo and close to island i park real close to a cliff and sometimes they dont see you and keep circeling the island a couple of minutes then they dissapear or if they do see you they have only a short time to fire while circeling the island and gives you time to fire back and repair when they are out of range. This can take a while -.-

  • Well, the above options are very good. I have one other suggestion, of you are lucky and The Shroud is nearby sail into it! They cannot see you and will lose interest. Good luck out there and hope to see you soon on the Sea!

  • I am a casual player. Most of the times, I am on my own and only want to do my quests. If there are other players, which attack me, I have to deal with it, because it is a PvP game. But if there is an PvE encounter, that I can´t
    evade, and which is impossible to handle alone, that is very annoying.

    Perhaps there should be a way, to evade such fights as a single person.
    For example, if you raise a white flag, there will be no PvE encounter to you.
    Still PvP is possible.
    Just a suggestion of a (right in this moment) salty player.

    Regards
    Delfao

  • @delfao

    No such thing as PVP you can't handle alone

  • @ruigtand-nl said in How to escape skeleton ships?:

    3 when solo and close to island i park real close to a cliff and sometimes they dont see you and keep circeling the island a couple of minutes then they dissapear or if they do see you they have only a short time to fire while circeling the island and gives you time to fire back and repair when they are out of range. This can take a while -.-

    Yip... that's the one I use.

    • park real close to an island

    Doesn't work all the time, but it at least gives me a chance to repair... fire back, rinse & repeat.

  • Ahoy,
    There are some really good methods written above.

    My preferred way is to make a quick dash to the closet island preferably a fort. (This gives you more options to resupply).

    When at an island you are protected on one side, and only subject to attack for a short window as the ship circles.

    In that window of time you can attack and deliver your counter. Once the ship is out of your arc, you will have time to repair and restock etc.

    If you have a number two, that person can swim out with a Keg and move the fight along abit.

    My key advice is not to leave the outpost without at least 50 of planks and Bananas and over 100 cannon balls.
    You need to be prepared for anything from the get go.

  • Thanks for suggestions above, but let me tell
    you a story, happend a few minutes ago.

    Just fought "the hungry one" with a friend on a sloop.
    Killed it. Jumped into the water to get the loot.
    Then, surprise surprise, guess what.
    The ghostship jumped out of the water and had a funny little time
    with us.
    Really, are you f***ing kidding me? We couldn´t hardly finish the first encounter, and the next one is right on our back?

    The ghostship comes way to often and imho for me it kills the fun of the game at a lot of times.

    Thank you for enduring my saltiness.

    Regards
    Delfao

  • Ahoy!
    I am quite frankly sick of skeleton ships,when I have lots of loot they magically appear right beside you and if I have a rowboat than it’s its so hard to get back to an outpost.I agree with Delfao,if a ship has the white flag raised,than skeleton ships leave you alone.I also play solo a lot as finding good players is quite hard.
    #Sick of losing chests and bounty skulls!

    Kind regards,Bluemicrobe775.

  • If im low on planks or cannonballs, i turn hard into them as soon as they appear. Lock on and keep bucketing water onto them. You may need to raise/lower sails as they change speed, but this is easily the best way to solo sloop skelly ships. Costs maybe 5 planks and 10 bananas(depends how good their sniper is). Dont forget to repair after :)

    If you really need to escape, head for a large island like plunder, smugglers, krakens. Lead them straight to it, and raise your sails and turn. As soon as they commit to a lap of the island, drop sails and head in the opposite direction. If you have good wind, you can get far enough away that the skelly ship drops away. Shipwreck bay is possibility the best.

    Honestly though, the smash and bucket method is faster, easier, less stressful, uses less supplies AND gives you loot. Hope that helps.

  • @denisowator Probably not usefull for you but generally we stop our galleon by raising the sails as soon as we hear the music and one of us drops into the watter with a gunpowder barrel and swims to the ship (that's circeling us because we've stopped)
    If you set off a GPB on a skeleton ship you just have to hold the skeletons off from repairing for a short while and they will sink within 5 minutes. I'm guessing you can do this solo too but I doubt it the sloop will survive this.

  • They seem to always attack my Solo Sloop when I am trying to escape from a Galleon of rabid players. Happened at least 5 times now.

    Now I've got a Skellie Ship and a Galleon to try to outmanoeuvre. And then Meg will sometimes show up to help too!

    Personally I think that they should attack the larger ship in the area instead of constantly pestering the little Sloop.

  • @bluemicrobe775 There's 2 ways you can escape skeleton ships on a sloop. 1, sail towards a large island/outpost/fort and then wait for them to begin circling it. When they're on the opposite side sail away in the other direction.

    2, when you hear the audio cue (but before they've emerged) turn the ship to face directly into the wind with full sails. When they emerge let them pull away a bit, then turn the helm hard right/left and drop the anchor. Raise the anchor immediately after your ship turns and then sail in the opposite direction with full wind. (this method doesn't always work)

  • Almost Every boat i see running from a skellyboat sinks..
    Most easy way is attack them super agressive! Shoot ram and stick to them so they stop firing because you are too close then bucket water in them and they sink easy.

  • Sail to cliffs and shallow sea. Those bones are bad navigators and will crash soon.

  • Ram them and turn the opposite direction or hard turn with an anchor drop when they're close. If you put some decent space between you, they'll usually just drop off your tail. If this isn't enough, just run them into rocks/land.

    They're really dumb, just out maneuver them and get them stuck on something, or head upwind a minute and cut down to lose them.

  • Finding a way to do a cut back in the opposite direction is best. I use rocks and small islands. It can take a couple times, but usually, I can swing around before they can adjust and I can get out of aggro distance. I've done some pretty elaborate dances with them.

    It's a shame that they can just sail through the Roar without really being aimbotted by the volcanoes - otherwise, that'd be a good tactic, too. Unfortunately, they only have to deal with the random lava bombs.

  • All these are good suggestions.
    Another method is to sail into the storm if it is close enough.....

  • Cursed Cannonballs. The peace one works well and just pummel it with cannonballs. They'll start firing eventually but as long as you hit them enough times they'll sink by the time you finish repairing. Took one out solo in about 3 minutes last night.

  • If you can find them all, curse cannonballs. I easily dispatch the skelly ships that pop up on when im solo slooping. If you can't get all the ones im about to mention a simple helmball or anchorball can get you enough time to get away.

    (always keep them in inventory, not ship so even if you lose your ship at anytime before you run into skelly ship you can still do combo). Alright here is a combo that makes quick work of skelly ships. Hit them first with either helmball or anchorball, i find helms easier cause they will just drive in a straight line and you can get easy shots. Immediately follow up with a peace ball so they cant curse you back, then immediately follow up with the one that makes them lower in water (I forget name of it, I think ballastball?), now they are easy pickings. Now just wail on them with cannon balls and they will be done fast.

    Even on console you can fire off and hit them with all the curse balls really fast even though this sounds like a lot. Like I said always just keep the curse ones in inventory not only so you will always have them no matter what as long as you're in server, but the skelly ships can pop up so fast you won't have to run and get them cause you will already have them.

  • I FINNALY DONE IT.
    I have finally done it.The way to avoid skeleton ships is to just not mark anything on the map.This works for me.As soon as I mark something they appear in the distance.The past few days I’ve been doing this and solo is now so much fun!!I have also seen them sailing to my marked islands and like to mark random islands just to confuse them!Im on PC so this might not work on Xbox one...

    Sencerly,Blue Microbe!

  • @denisowator I have tried almost all of these options and sometimes they worked and sometimes the other options worked. So the better approach is to try what works best for you.

  • You don't you sink it.

  • One thing I like to do is get really close to the edge of the map, almost in the red sea. The skeleton ship will begin to lag behind you and eventually go away if you wait long enough by the edge of the map.

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