Beginner's Guide to Windward

[Justin]

Wrote the first guide to Windward here. Anyone wanna give it a quick read through and provide feedback?

This guide is also, admittedly, for myself so I remember things too.

[ArenMook]

Very thorough! Impressive.

[MoonlightEmber]

Going to pin this, so that everyone can find it, thanks for doing this! :)

[Justin]

A bit of a more pressing question though: is there anything in there that's wrong? I really, really don't want to be presenting information that's wrong.

[ArenMook]

Well, rumors are never wrong. Things can change when playing multi-player though, or when towns grow, which may cause it to seem like the rumors are wrong, when it's simply the town's demands that changed.

Main difference between factions is also in how they gain experience. They each get a bonus to specific experience. Valiant - combat, consulate - questing, sojourn - exploration (they gain exp from discovering towns), and exchange - from trading. If you start as Valiant then find yourself mostly doing questing, you may wish to switch to the Consulate faction, for example.

Also, where you buy ships matters. Factions have certain favored ships that they give a 30% discount on. Valiant towns sell Ship of the Line at a 30% discount, for example.

Quests, while all are available, also are affected by factions -- or their cooldown timer to be precise. Valiant can get kill quests much more often than other factions, for example.

Regarding "Additional effect" slot -- in addition to the two you listed, there is also a Mortar you can obtain, which gives you a new AoE ability (in addition to the explosive ammo bonus). You may also wish to add "at the time of the writing", as this will be expanded in the coming weeks. Same with the grappling hook / spyglass.

In regards to talents, the benefit they provide is generally either +2 / +5 if it has 2 points, or +1 / +3 / +5 if it's a 3-point talent. Volley is 15% / 30% / 45%. Lucky charm effectively boosts the quality of items by +1, and in some cases even +2.

[Justin]

Thanks for the feedback, I'll be implementing this ASAP.

I think I implemented everything mentioned.

[Micheal]

I have a question that doesn't seem to be covered. What is the Green Upwards arrorw requirement that I sometimes see? And at what point do we unlock the special abilities (3rd row of talents) and the class abilities (under their respective tree, support, damage, etc).

[Justin]

The green upwards arrows are your talent points. A new patch means you need a total number of talent points (which you can see if you press K; it's expressed as [available to spend]/[total gained]) in order to get there.

The third row of talents are unlocked by spending points on the second row; Defiance, for example, requires you to invest points in Shields Up! first.

[ArenMook]

I've gone through the guide and cleaned it up a bit to remove references to old information and add some updated content.

[Justin]

Much appreciated, Aren!

[Sandarbian]

corvette and frigate more powerful than a ship of the line...♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Agile, speedy, I grant, more powerful is just WRONG.

[Justin]

Power in that context is "attacking power".

[ArenMook]

I adjusted the stats of ships in the guide to reflect the recent changes.

[[STD]Random Lead]

Sorry for the necro. Just want to chime in and say this guide just got you guys a sold game.

[Justin]

It's impossible to necro a pinned thread =P

Thanks for the guide, though Aren deserves the credit - I'm just a guy who wrote the guide.

[CoolDaddy]

could you add a bit of info about the stars above the ship's head. from what I can tell someone said "You get one star for each kill until you hit the fifth, then it changes to a skull." and possibly something about crit chance increase?