New Players: Things you may want to know about Regions, Ships, and your first Transit

[CUERVO]

At risk of co-opting other threads, here are a collection of things that may help make your first oceanic loop a smooth(er) one:

The Regions
- Al'Ankh is probably the most difficult to navigate at first. While the weather may be more cooperative, the main trade route can be absolutely frustrating. The Academy is a building in the middle of the ocean. It takes some time to get the hang of reliably finding it. This makes the starter ship grind a little more frustrating.
- Emerald Archipelago is probably the region I would suggest you actually start in. The main trade route has islands readily visible by eye, and turns into a 'point ship, go there' kinda thing, and the starter ship (Kakam) is the easiest to sail. Also, getting into The Loop (see later) from here makes the ship transitions pretty straight forward.
-Aestrin is easy enough to navigate and start from. Similar to Emerald Archipelago, everything is visible so you shouldn't get lost. The only thing is that the Cog isn't as easy to start with. (But it's not impossible - start here if you like a little bit of thought and work)

The Ships
First thing - sell the stupid table you get (pick it up, and walk into a vendor until the popup appears). It takes up space for goods, doesn't functionally do anything, and could buy you more rations (Aestrin), or reduce the chrono compass grind.
- The Dhow (Al'Ankh) is the simplest ship to sail. One lateen sail. Put sail up, point ship, move. Not much more to it than that. You'll figure the rest out as you're moving.
- The Kakam (Emerald Archipelago) is the easiest ship to sail. Although there's two sails, the thing flies up and down wind, and handles like a go kart. The two sails are super easy to get used to.
- The Cog (Aestrin) is the ship to start with if you want the transition to Brig to go the smoothest. You need to know when to use your Square Rig, and the Jib. Not insurmountable, but definitely a difficulty notch above the other two.
- The Sanbuq (Al'Ankh) is a bigger Dhow. Lateen sails, flies upwind, simple to operate. Quite ample storage, and, if you start from Emerald Archipelago, will be your first big ship. Easy springboard into oceanic trade.
- The Junk (Emerald Archipelago) still handles like a go kart. Hyper manoeuvrable for a big ship, this one moves pretty darn quick at all points of sail. Decent storage, but I find it a bit cramped. Also needs to have its sails reefed in during storms, and probably my least favorite in heavy seas.
- The Brig (Aestrin) is my go-to now that I have it. More room than you know what to do with, it comes down to route planning and using the right sails (don't use the square rig at all if you're heading upwind. And the gaff rig is generally not that useful going downwind). Keeps station very well, and laughs at storms in a very Chuck Norris way. And you can have sunset sausage and fish BBQs on the quarter deck while getting plastered on rum and wine. As Mr. Norris would want. In a storm.

Transiting
- Grind out the chrono compass before the first crossing. Once you learn how to use it (along with the quadrant), there's next to no guess work involved in any transit.
- One transit crossing will get you enough to pay for your next ship.
- Until you get comfortable with transits, take the lightest cargo, with the least number of crates, at the longest delivery time. You're not going to miss the 1k gold. 5 cargo missions at 4k is enough for even the Brig.
- Transits generally take 10-11 in-game days.
- In my play through, prevailing winds seem to be blowing NE throughout the entire map. I find it's a lot easier to sail clockwise; Gold Rock -> Fort Aestrin -> Dragon Cliffs. Doing so, I've yet to come to many instances where I've been in irons.
- Plan your crossings with the prevailing winds in mind. With a little planning, you won't end up on the wrong side of the destination island having to beat upwind.

Rations and Water
- Fishing is the easiest way to ensure food for 10-11 days. A case of fishing hooks, and three or four raw fish a day keep you alive.
- A barrel of water will last 10 days, conservatively (6 sips a day). Bring at least two barrels for a transit, three if you can fit it.

Storms
- Reef (pull in) your sails at least half way if your ship is being pushed past 45 degrees in relation to the water by the wind.
- Try to make sure your ship sails 45 degrees into (or away from in a pinch) the swell (waves). Do those 2 things, you'll survive every storm, regardless of ship. As long as you didn't overload it.

Hopefully that gets you folks on the right t(r)ack to enjoying this game! Happy sailing!

[The Düle]

Nice post, great advices.

I will ad one thing : crossing the ocean is easily doable with just the quadrant, for those of you who would not have the patience to grind the Chronocompass.

It certainly adds a lot of confort though.

[boris.glevrk]

Nah, supposedly you should be able to do your first crossing with only a quadrant.
As long as you are not going to/from Happy Bay, you don't exactly *need* a chrono, but it will help when you are doing ocean crossing beside Emerald/Al'Ankh.

[CUERVO]

Originally posted by boris.glevrk:

Nah, supposedly you should be able to do your first crossing with only a quadrant.
As long as you are not going to/from Happy Bay, you don't exactly *need* a chrono, but it will help when you are doing ocean crossing beside Emerald/Al'Ankh.

I mean, yeah, you *can* do a transit without a chrono, but you have no idea what your longitude is at any point. You can guess, but to accurately know it, you need to know the time. You can find Oasis without a chrono, and I guess the Gold Rock/Dragon Cliffs one if you're brave.

But when mission rewards are distance based, on a linear scale, it's far easier to do 5 runs in your starter zone to get the cash when you *know* where you're going, than to risk a crossing. Doing just one run in the starter zone, round trip, should get you around 1200. Do that 5 times, bam, chrono and more.

[Gizmo]

couldn't put it better myself great post....

"Emerald Archipelago is probably the region I would suggest you actually start in"

500% this.. best allround starter ship great little trainer ship... and the area is by far the easiest to make money when your starting out.. its also the best lead into your first voyage to Al'Ankh and probably the best 2nd ship when starting.. its just a fantastic ship....

The table tip is big one when starting out also.... get money and more cargo space... winner all around...

as regards a sea crossing without a chrono? yea its doable and quite easy if your D- cliffs > gold rock but only if you have some experience under your belt.... as this is for new players i wouldnt advise it.... you will gain important sailing experience while saving anyway, plus if you do it right you need to open up 5x deliverys anyway before a crossing so a chrono comes not long after getting the rep for that, so just get the chrono, it will make your crossing a lot more fun and less of a shot in the dark when your green

The only thing i would add is Learn how to control your food and drink to aid you in your sleep, you will wake up if your hungry or thirsty.. so plan ahead, need to wake up pretty soon? go to sleep with lower hunger/thirst bars... lean about what certain foods give you, so dont eat eals if you only want to bump up your hunger a little bit.. sometimes you want to sleep the full night... so fill your hunger + thirst before you get your head down...

on longer voyages you will want to sleep even more, so we can use rum instead of water when we want to run down our tiredness bar quickly so we can sleep... food and drink is a big mechanic of the game, learn how to use it to your advantage and you will enjoy the game a lot more

[theaaronone]

Great post! Thanks for the tips!

I initially started in Al'Ankh, then after I saved up enough to buy all available equipment and the larger ship, I made my first crossing to Dragon Cliffs, back before the mission rewards were reigned in, so I bought the large Junk right away and still had 30k or so to spare.

After that, I took a bunch of cargo to Fort Aestrin with one small shipment to Happy Bay, just so I could check it out and maybe resupply depending on what the wind was doing - but I *completely* missed it so had to abandon.

After my missions to Aestrin I ended up with some ridiculous amount of gold and bought the brig, which constantly thought it was aground and sunk about 3/4ths of the way back to Al'Ankh. I think my brig was glitched or something, every time I loaded the game it was 100 feet in the air, all the sails were reefed and centered regardless of how I'd left them at save, and like I said, it always thought it was aground, whether at dock or in the middle of the ocean. I finally abandoned that save, I still had like 75k in gold or more with nothing else to buy anyway, so I'll call that one 'happily retired'.

New game now, started in Al'Ankh again, but I'm going to be more methodical and slow this time instead of blasting my way to the brig as quickly as possible.

I'm going to try to buy all the other ships, including the region starters and spend some significant time in each. Especially Aestrin, which I didn't really explore at all because I wanted to get out on the water with the brig, and took a few missions to Al'Ankh without thinking about sticking around. I immediately regretted it, but just rolled with it. That obviously ended badly.

[Droid]

Frankly the Brig probably isnt the best ship for any particular reader anyways.

All the 3 big ships have enough cargo space. They each perform differently, and as noted, the Junk is fast enough and easy to sail.

The Sanbuq sacrifices downwind speed for the ability to shrug off most headwinds.
The Junk is the jack of all trades but is still saddened by headwinds.
The Brig is not only saddened by headwinds, all it wants to do is run away from them.