Skeleton Ships - Intended Behaviour?

  • RoxxPewPew
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    Question: is this behavior as expected?

    My buddy and I were on a sloop when a skeleton ship popped out of the water right next to us (while we were looting a megalodon we had just killed, by the way).

    We didn’t attack the skeletons at first, but they opened fire on us anyway....which I understand IS expected behavior. We quickly ran out of the few boards and cannonballs we had remaining, and decided to run. However, we couldn’t shake it. For a moment, we got a good distance away, only to watch it super speed up beside us again.

    But my biggest frustration came when we tried to escape to Daggertooth Outpost. We were AT the DOCK and the skeleton ship did not relent. It kept circling the island and laid into us at each pass until we finally resupplied and sunk it from the dock.

    My conclusion is that the only way to end a skeleton ship battle is to sink it or be sunk (including maybe scuttling?)
    Is this the intention with these things? If I were playing solo in that situation I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

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  • WeakDexx
    Commander
    Insider

    @captainroxx

    I guess thats just bad luck.
    Same bad luck i had when boarded the skelly ship, defended the hole, the ship filled up. And JUST before they would be sunk they decided to submerge and be gone.

    So with this experience i would say yes u can "out-run" them.
    But when at u that didnt happen.
    That can be because of the behaviour they have. U got dosile ships they are just sailing around and will fight u once u begin to fight them. I think these u can out-run.

    The one u faced just showed up next to u. This is an aggresive skelly ship out for battle. These will probably keep following untill 1 of u 2 sinks.

    To answer your question yes i think this is intented behaviour. U just got unlucky it was a aggresive one

  • ClosingHare208
    Marauder
    Insider

    @captainroxx I raise my drink to you mate the skeleton ships are esszay if you board them and kill the skeletons on board

  • TheNobility20

    I'm with you here. I was just solo on a sloop with full cargo when one popped up. I tried to run to the nearest outpost but it kept laying into me and I had to keep repairing. Then it started firing cursed cannonballs so my ship got turned around and stopped etc. Eventually one of the shots knocked me overboard and my ship sunk while I waited for a mermaid.

    I thought I read that these were to be scaled to the number of people on your boat but this was far too difficult for a solo sloop. Could barely keep the boat afloat, never mind sail accurately or fight back. Very frustrating.

    Would be nice to see skelly sloops and brigs come into play. That way the appropriate ship could be spawned depending on the player numbers!

  • UltmateRagnarok
    Master

    I believe skeleton crews vary in aggressiveness (similarly to the megalodons), and you were unlucky enough to get a very aggressive one. A good idea would be to sail directly at an island at high speed and anchor before hitting, at which point the skeleton ship will ram it and become stuck, providing either an easy target or it will despawn (which will give you everything on board and the skeleton captain treasure). They appear to have the ability to have full wind at will, which needs to be changed drastically (perhaps toned down a bit and add the action of diving down and arising somewhere else).

  • SwimPlatypus7
    Marauder

    @theunionjames said in Skeleton Ships - Intended Behaviour?:

    Every word you just said has only made me more excited to play tonight!

    That, and I would like to also say that this update has been unreal fun. IMO more fun than sea of thieves has been in total so far..

    The action is ENDLESS!

  • TheNobility20

    @ultmateragnarok Thanks for the info. I hope they change that consider the number of people on the boat the ship will spawn near though, doesn't feel good to lose a lot of loot for a bad RNG ya know. And yeah I also agree that they should have to deal with the same wind that we do haha

  • PollyOliverPerk
    Captain
    Insider

    @captainroxx Same thing happened to us tonight, it came up at Devil's Ridge, we made it to Ancient Spire where it kept circling our docked ship. My crew mate boarded it, killed skellies and stole their treasure, I restocked our sloop and fired on them when they came in range. Then we took turns patching, bailing and firing. I hit them with an anchor ball and placed a nice long pattern of shots at the waterline, that finished their ship and it sunk. Best time ever!!
    To me, this game just gets better and better. I think when I solo I'll always make sure to keep a rowboat so I can use it to load my loot and scarper if (when) one of those beasties comes up from under the waves, and if I don't have any loot, then I'll be practicing my skills (or should I say, my lack of said skills) until I improve or at least die a lot trying.

  • Mayorsam01
    Master
    Insider

    That is currently the correct behavior. Shrouded Spoils changed the ships so that their are 3 types. The normal cloud ones from CS, ones that roam around passive until fired upon and ones that pop up with no warning apart from the battle music and are always hostile. You were attacked by the 3rd. Yes it does seem unfair for solo pirates so I do hope Rare look into it or at least make it like the meg (goes away when near an island)

  • Tigress9469
    Castaway

    Let me say something real quick. I don't know if this is some kind of event but I'm saying EVERY, time I leave the outpost, I'll still be so close to it by the way and I'll hear music thinking it was just the backround regular music for a second and then it stops to this hardcore music, the first time this happened I was excited to think it was the megladon because it's easier to kill so I'm here excited to my surprise I see that stupid skeleton boat, coming up from the water. The first time this happened I was like ok if I die it's okay it's just a game, then the next day I decide to get on sea of theives again to do some things at the reaper hideout, I'm telling you I had nothing valuable on my boat accept for the necessities to survive, but right when I got near like a little rock on front of the outpost, it comes out of nowhere again but the third time it was just so fooking annoying and confusing because it already happened 3 times this week and I need to know if I'm the only one.

  • Shadow20642
    Marauder
    Insider

    There is a distance you can get to escape them. Using islands and rocks is useful to gain distance.

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