| “ | Stop blowing holes in my ship! | ” |
Privateering, often known as Ship PvP or SvS, is a Battle mode for Pirates of the Caribbean Online. This mode places you in the heat of a furious battle between the Pirate 'Warlords' of two small islands.
Privateering is a great way to have some fun, gain infamy, and earn a bit of gold as well. This is a great activity in the game, especially for mastered pirates who might get bored at times.
Scores in Privateering are based on what ship you sink. If you sink a ship with more bounty, your score will go up more then if you sink a ship with less bounty. As a ship sinks more vessels, the ship's score and bounty increases.
Background[]
| Pierre le Porc is a French Pirate "Lord" and rules over Ile D'Etable De Porc. le Porc prefers to refer to himself as a "refined gentleman of acquisition" - with his focus constantly on acquiring more territory, more gold, and more men to take up arms against his dreaded rival Garcia de Avaricia. |  |
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Garcia de Avaricia is a Spanish Pirate and the self-proclaimed "Lord" of Isla De La Avaricia. Avaricia spends the majority of his day plotting the demise of his rival Pierre le Porc. In between swigs of rum, he counts his vast fortune while recruiting pirates to his cause. |
Joining Ship PvP[]
To join ship PVP either:
- Sail out of either PvP port, Ile D'Etable De Porc or Isla De La Avaricia
- Have one member of a crew sail from a PvP port, and join them.
- Select Join a Privateer Crew from the Crew options menu.
- Go to the Lookout Menu, and select Privateer.
Hint: Andaba is usually the most popular server for Svs.
Ship PvP HUD[]
Press ~ to get the Ship PvP HUD. This shows the ships battling on your current server, their points and bounty.
Spanish ships are shown in yellow and French ships are shown in blue. Your ship name would be highlighted in white color.
Bounty[]
Bounty is affected by how many ships you sink as well as the amount and quality of your ship and its crew. When you first launch your ship your bounty will be low, but not zero (depending upon the vessel's size and crew). As you sink other ships, your bounty goes up. The amount your bounty increases depends on the bounty of other vessels.
This means if another ship sinks you and you have a high bounty, that ship's crew will get more gold and salvage points. And, in turn their bounty gets higher. A ship that continues to sink others and stay afloat will gain a high bounty count and become a more likely target.
Starting Bounty[]
Starting bounty is the bounty you first have when you launch. It is increased depending on what ship you sink and how much bounty it had. It goes down once if sunk.
When sunk the bounty you see in privateer stats after spawning is your current starters.
Note: Starters will be combined with other people's starters if you have others on board.
You start at an amount between 5 and 23 (based on your gold and level) and can get up to 100.
Score[]
Determined by how much damage you do to the other side. As you sink ships, your score increases. When you first launch your ship, your score starts at zero. You can see other scores by pressing the ~ key.
Privateer Ranks[]
With the addition of Infamy, a pirate can now earn points towards rank promotion as a privateer. Each ship they sink or help sink earns points. These points vary based on ship class and the infamy of the vessel sunk.
| Infamy Rank | Infamy Points (to reach next level) |
Badge Icon |
|---|---|---|
| 0 - Swabbie | 25 | |
| 1 - Mariner | 175 | 
|
| 2 - Lieutenant | 800 | 
|
| 3 - Commander | 1500 | 
|
| 4 - Captain | 2000 | 
|
| 5 - Commodore | 2000 | 
|
| 6 - Vice Admiral | 2500 | 
|
| 7 - Admiral | (max) | 
|
Crewing[]
No pirate can be successful for long alone out there. It takes a good group of gunners and a good sailor to lay your enemy to waste.
Adding Crew[]
To acquire hands for your privateer vessel, you can recruit on the beach of the islands, call upon your crewmates, friends and guildmates or turn on the Start Crew option under the Hearties menu to find pirates looking for work.
You can also select the range of crewmen you're seeking by how close they are to your pirate's Notoriety level. Higher level pirates may wish to set this number higher if gunners are scarce.
When the Start Crew is on, pirates seeking a crew will automatically be added to your list and can then teleport to your ship.
Joining A Crew[]
For a pirate wanting to join a Privateer crew, it's simply a matter of going to Lookout then Privateer. Or from a privateer island, go to a nearby dinghy and press Shift. Instead of choosing your own vessel, you can select from the privateer ships seeking crewmen.
Booting A Crewman[]
Sometimes the need may arrive for a captain to give a non-performing or troublesome crewman the heave ho. He won't walk the plank, per se - but the captain can select the crewman who needs to go and then select BOOT.
A removed crewman CAN however return to the ship, if the boarding option is still set to Public. In that case, you should cancel boarding permission to the public.
Combat[]
Once you launch, your ship will appear off-shore under the protection of a glowing shield. This shield will not allow the ship to be damaged as your crew take positions and prepare to weigh anchor. It prevents the enemy from ambushing ships new to the battle. Your ship's sails will have the colors of either the Spanish (Red/Yellow) or French (Blue/White/Red).
Unlike sea combat versus traditional enemies (Royal Navy, EITC, Skeleton, etc.) ships in PvP can withstand more damage, making strategy more important.
Crew use deck guns, while the helmsman uses the broadside guns to engage ships from the opposing team. Destroying sails, however, will NOT affect ship speed. Once, the hull reaches '0', the ship sinks and will re-appear at its home port.
If an enemy ship is sunk, the crew each receive a portion of the bounty money.
- Note - If more than one ship aids in the sinking, crews will split bounty.
- Note - You CAN'T gain any plunder when sinking any ships.
Also, the victorious crew receive a Salvage Bonus, that is added to their ship - repairing hull and sail the amount of salvage.
Ship Repair[]
If your ship gets damaged by enemy fire, instead of docking and repairing at the shipwright, you can repair your ship while at sea. See Ship Repair for more info.
When the jobs are complete, the ship's hull and sails will be repaired. These repairs can occur even when the ship is in motion. However, enemy Grape Shot can slow down repair efforts.
Once the ship is fully repaired, any crewman working will stop and return to standing.
Docking[]
At any point, you can return to port. However, once you drop anchor your accumulated points and bounty will be reset.
If your crewmen need to replenish their ammunition, have them teleport to a gunsmith (there are smiths on the privateer islands as well as the main islands) and then teleport back, so your points will not be reset.
- Warning - A ship engaged in combat will NOT be allowed to dock! If an enemy ship hits your ship, you will not be allowed to dock for around 30 seconds.
- Also note that when docking another ship may take your place if your team is full when you dock not allowing you to go back out. Forcing you to wait until someone else docks or for you to move sides, also remember that both teams might be full and you won't get out on either side with your own ship.
Game Note[]
Captains (ship-owners) can now teleport off-ship. Previously, they were not allowed to.
Sinking[]
If you happen to get sunk during the battle, you'll respawn back at your team's port, fully repaired. The temporary shield will already be on. This can actually be exploited for a free ship repair - just launch from an SvS island and let yourself sink.
After sinking, your Privateering score will be the same, albeit your bounty will be lower.
Ship vs. Ship Quests[]
To introduce new pirates to privateer combat, additional Fortune Quests were added.
Completion of the French and Spanish quests will reward the pirate with special tattoos.
Hints and Tactics[]
- If you are sailing a customized ship in SvS, your custom sail color will not show, however, custom hull, rigging, and emblems will show. Black emblems show the best on both sides sails. White emblems work well on Spanish sails, but not so good on French sails.
- Your fighting style and crew size may determine what kind of ship you want. Galleons have the most armor, but are the slowest and are easy targets. Frigates have the most deck guns and have the widest firing arcs. Sloops have the greatest speed.
- Light Sloops, though very weak, are VERY hard to hit, making them very effective sometimes in privateering. Using a light sloop with only one person is mostly called soloing. Sometimes, higher levels will use Light Sloops with Fury which has been proven very successfull.
- Fury ammunition is the most effective ammunition to take out a ship in under three seconds.
- Grape Shot rounds are used for slowing down ship repair, as well as damaging the enemy ships.
- Thunderbolt rounds can hit enemies from tremendous distances.
- When repairing, try and get away from the battle. Keep a sharp eye out for enemies sneaking up on you.
- Use your Take Cover, Open Fire, Ramming Speed, Full Sail, and Come About skills wisely.
- Stay away from the enemy port while their ships are under protection shields. You can't damage them, but THEY CAN DAMAGE YOU.
- Once you move your ship, your protective shield goes away. Don't move until you're ready to engage the enemy.
- When performing quests where you must collect damage points or sink ships WITHOUT sinking, discretion may warrant abandoning ship, instead of staying to sink and having to start over.
- A good tactic is to have high level gunners at the front of a Frigate. Have them all load Explosive rounds. Then, ram an enemy ship with Ramming Speed. Use Open Fire and have them all fire their Explosives into the enemy ship.
- If you see a light sloop DON'T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN. The light sloops can sink a war frigate given enough time, because they are so hard to hit.
- WARNING - SvS can cause MAJOR lag and can cause a computer to disconnect from POTCO. If you have an older computer, just be careful when getting into fights with multiple ships at a time. Lowering the graphics could help or you could look into getting a new graphics card.
- A good strategy for light sloops that are going up against War Galleons is to go right up to the ship, that way the gunners AND broadsides can't hit you.
- Starters can help you determine how strong your foe might be... keep an eye out for it.
- A lone pirate in a light sloop can have a bounty of 10 yet a lone pirate in a war frigate can have a bounty of 9. Don't always expect an easy prey just because it has a low bounty!
- The Best place to fight against the best privateerers in the Caribbean is on Andaba Server. It's the unofficial server for Privateering.