LIKE A DRAGON: PIRATE YAKUZA IN HAWAII

LIKE A DRAGON: PIRATE YAKUZA IN HAWAII CREW ROLES, LEVELING AND MORALE Build the crew around jobs, not portraits Recruiting someone adds them to your available roster. You still need to assign them to a working position. Open Goro Pirates → Crew Formation; during a voyage, use Prepare to Sail at a lighthouse. Check the formation after expanding the ship: a new space is useful only when someone fills it, and an unstaffed weapon cannot fire. Once the Goromaru is fully expanded, its formation has: • Cannon Squad: one First Mate, four people assigned to each broadside, and two assigned to the machine guns. That is eleven ship-duty positions. • Boarding Squad: four five-person squads. Each group includes its leader, giving twenty fighters rather than twenty fighters plus four leaders. • Support Squad: three support characters. These are separate from the twenty boarding fighters. A complete formation therefore uses 34 recruits, excluding Majima. You can recruit far more than you can deploy. The ship's performance-upgrade menu expands the weapon and boarding positions; see the Goromaru upgrade guide for the purchase ladder. Read the right stats • Cannon Power affects weapon damage and broadside reload time. • Ship Upkeep affects ramming damage, boost recovery and ship-repair speed. • Attack and Defense matter when a crewmate fights on foot. • Health is the amount of damage a fighter can withstand. The combat-role icon also matters. Fist-marked attackers close in aggressively; shield-marked tanks draw pressure; medicine-marked healers restore injured teammates; gun-marked shooters attack from range. A useful starting plan is to spread healers among the boarding groups instead of concentrating them in one group. Adjust that balance when a particular fight demands more damage or protection. The First Mate contributes to the ship's overall Cannon Power and Ship Upkeep. First Mate Traits work in that position. Likewise, a Squad Leader Trait requires a leader assignment: placing a character in an ordinary slot does not activate their leadership trait. Pick your officers first, then fill the remaining positions with crew whose stats suit the job. Passive traits and active support are different Leadership traits come from the formation you chose. Support Skills are activated during crew battles after the Voltage Gauge fills. With a controller, press up on the D-pad when the support prompt is ready. Do not confuse Voltage with Majima's Heat or Madness gauges. Support characters gain experience by actually using their skills. Simply putting Noah or Goro in a support slot and winning very short battles is not a reliable training method. Choose a fight that lasts long enough to activate support, and use it when available. Support belongs to boarding-style crew battles, not the ship's cannon phase or the ordinary four-companion treasure-island excursions. Leveling and level caps The normal rarity ceilings are Bronze 20, Silver 30 and Gold 40. There is no general promotion system that turns every low-rarity recruit into a level-50 fighter. Ship battles and Coliseum matches train assigned crew. Expand the formation before a training session so more recruits benefit at once. For repeated runs, choose a match you can win consistently rather than the toughest one you can barely survive. Lowering the difficulty does not reduce crew EXP, so it is an option if you want faster training. Gifts help an individual recruit, while feasts train selected guests in the captain's quarters. These are useful for catching up a newly recruited specialist without sending them straight into your hardest match. Party meals serve a different priority: restoring the active crew's morale. Bond upgrades are worth doing Jason, Masaru, Saejima, Minami and Nishida can reach level 50 after their associated Bond Chats and Drink Links are completed. Minami and Nishida share a conversation route but both receive the upgrade. These events also strengthen their leadership benefits: • Jason: stronger Attack and Defense bonuses, plus Gun Resistance. • Masaru: stronger Attack bonus, plus Poison Resistance. • Saejima: stronger Attack and Defense bonuses, plus Stun Resistance. • Minami: stronger Attack bonus, plus Burn Resistance. • Nishida: stronger healing benefit, plus Shock Resistance. For Jason and Saejima, finish their five Bond Chats, then speak to them in the Goromaru's crew quarters for their Drink Link. Minami and Nishida likewise need five shared chats before their joint Drink Link. Noah's Drink Links are a separate support-character progression. Experience earned by these bond-upgrade characters at their old cap can carry forward when the cap rises. Completing the bond first still gives you their higher-level performance sooner. Do not assume this means an ordinary capped Bronze recruit can eventually be promoted. Keep morale from undoing your training Morale has five states: Awesome, Good, Normal, Bad and Terrible. Positive morale improves performance; negative morale weakens it. Newly recruited crew start in excellent spirits, but repeated sea battles and treasure-island fighting wear them down even when you win. Use the recovery method that fits the problem: • One tired recruit: give that crewmate a gift. Gifts add experience as well as morale. • Several recruits needing training: invite them to a feast. Its guests receive both experience and morale. • Most of the active formation is tired: throw a party to raise the assigned crew's morale together. • No supplies to spare: remove tired members from the formation and fight with replacements. Resting members recover toward Normal, not automatically all the way to Awesome. Defeats and escapes cause a larger morale loss. Check the morale icons before a difficult Coliseum sequence rather than judging the crew only by level. Hold parties and give gifts while safely docked or in a safe area, before entering the fight. Useful officer and support choices There is no single formation that is best for every fight. The following options solve clear problems without requiring paid crew. First Mate • Nishida: First-Rate Mechanic Kiwami supplies two extra repair uses. Choose him when survival is the limiting factor. • Julie: also supplies two extra repair uses, providing another way to build around repairs. • Minami: Sink King Kiwami increases damage against enemy sterns. He suits an aggressive approach built around getting behind opponents. • Captain Beef: an earlier candidate for the same stern-focused trait. • Kei: Strait Racer Kiwami adds two fuel stocks. Consider her when extra emergency boosts are more valuable to you than more repairs. The extra stock comes from the character occupying the First Mate slot. It is not a permanent upgrade purchased for the ship. Boarding leaders Jason, Masaru and Saejima are strong foundations once bonded. For the remaining leader position, decide what the formation lacks: • Misaki: Succession of Will combines an Attack boost with faster Voltage charging. This supports more frequent use of your active support abilities. • Toru Higashi: offers a stronger healing benefit and faster Voltage charging. He is a useful alternative when the boarding crew struggles to stay alive. • Chitose Buster Holmes: Defender improves Defense and healing, another defensive option. Keep the rest of the boarding crew balanced between offense, staying power and healing. A strong officer does not compensate for empty slots, exhausted members or a full group of underleveled recruits. Support trio A practical no-DLC combination is Noah, Osakana-chan and Goro: healing, damage reduction and increased Attack. Barkley is another offensive option. This is a recommendation, not a required composition. If you already own the relevant DLC, Nancy supplies a stronger Attack boost than Goro. Other DLC support choices specialize in effects such as guard penetration, stunning attacks or coordinated gunfire. They are optional alternatives rather than prerequisites for building a capable crew. Crew-related trophy checklist • Welcome to the Goro Pirates! Recruit 30 members. • The Goro Pirates Set Sail! Recruit 50 members. • Goro Pirates, Go Go Go! Recruit 80 members. • Bonds Between Boys: finish Noah's Drink Links. • Bonds Between Men: finish every crew Drink Link. The recruit trophies stop at eighty. A complete roster is a separate completion goal, and reaching eighty does not finish every Bond Chat or fully train your formation. Before a hard fight 1. Fill every available formation slot. 2. Put ship specialists on weapons and combat specialists in the boarding groups. 3. Check that each officer is in the position needed to activate their trait. 4. Restore low morale and train any recruit who is far behind the rest. 5. Include healing and damage reduction if the crew is being overwhelmed. 6. Use Voltage support during the fight, not just Majima's personal abilities. 7. If you keep losing, change the part of the formation that is failing instead of buying upgrades blindly.