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After getting somewhat familiar with the game, a low level player quickly takes note of the ships many older players use to move around. For a lowbie who struggles with long distance travel, those Frigates and Galleons seem a marvel: quickly sail from continent to continent, across the mountains to whatever area you want. No running out of ep's, paying to transport trees, waiting for slow ferries or Esiris portal cooldowns. Plus they can carry an almost limitless amount of loot and have rooms for teleportation and regen! No need to worry about your disc dropping or saddlebags filling up or whatnot. Equally impressive is if you are invited to pirate hunts: sinking NPC ships seems like an easy way to make exp and money. On top of all, Sailor Guild gives a nice stat bonus for no level required!
After getting somewhat familiar with the game, a low level player quickly takes note of the ships many older players use to move around. For a lowbie who struggles with long distance travel, those Frigates and Galleons seem a marvel: quickly sail from continent to continent, across the mountains to whatever area you want. No running out of ep's, paying to transport trees, waiting for slow ferries or Esiris portal cooldowns. Plus they can carry an almost limitless amount of loot and have rooms for teleportation and regen! No need to worry about your disc dropping or saddlebags filling up or whatnot. Equally impressive is if you are invited to pirate hunts: sinking NPC ships seems like an easy way to make exp and money. On top of all, Sailor Guild gives a nice stat bonus for no level required!
So inevitable question is "How can I get some of that?" And the answer, sadly, is to invest significant amount of time and money to build the capabilities. Most popular shiptype, Class 5 (Galleon) will cost close to 10 million gold, and that is not including all necessary sacrificial items, or guardian golems, teleports, etc. needed for a fully rounded vessel.
So inevitable question is "How can I get some of that?" And the answer, sadly, is to invest significant amount of time and money to build the capabilities. Most popular shiptype, Class 5 (Galleon) will cost close to 10 million gold, and that is not including all necessary sacrificial items, or guardian golems, teleports, etc. needed for a fully rounded vessel.
However, small shiptypes are much cheaper. A sloop (class 2 vessel) might be available at under 1M, well in the range of lowbie players' budget. A class 1 boat will cost just like 250k. But are they of any use? Shipguides available tend to say 'no' and if you ask in-game, most players would say 'Hell no!". I have plenty of experience using these small ships so with some authority I dare to say answer is "it depends."
However, small shiptypes are much cheaper. A sloop (class 2 vessel) might be available at under 1M, well in the range of lowbie players' budget. A class 1 boat will cost just like 250k. But are they of any use? Shipguides available tend to say 'no' and if you ask in-game, most players would say 'Hell no!". I have plenty of experience using these small ships so with some authority I dare to say answer is "it depends."
Class 1 (boat) is useless, make no mistake about it. It is really slow and can't store waypoints so any sailing is by manual commands. Contrary to what is said, it CAN cross oceans to a very limited degree using 'cruise' command, but it is such a laborious process that there is no point using it to that purpose. Also it doesn't have a cargo hold so you can't collect sailor reputation either (in the past you could build up sailor rep by repeatedly summoning and docking your vessel, but that is discontinued). It can sail swamps but I can't think why that would be useful...maybe if you want to search herbs from swamps and not use ep or something, dunno.
Class 1 (boat) is useless, make no mistake about it. It is really slow and can't store waypoints so any sailing is by manual commands. Contrary to what is said, it CAN cross oceans to a very limited degree using 'cruise' command, but it is such a laborious process that there is no point using it to that purpose. Also it doesn't have a cargo hold so you can't collect sailor reputation either (in the past you could build up sailor rep by repeatedly summoning and docking your vessel, but that is discontinued). It can sail swamps but I can't think why that would be useful...maybe if you want to search herbs from swamps and not use ep or something, dunno.
Only real use for owning a boat is to become a member of the Sailors guild. This will allow you commands which you can use with a larger ship you may be given access to by a friend, House or Secret society.
Only real use for owning a boat is to become a member of the Sailors guild. This will allow you commands which you can use with a larger ship you may be given access to by a friend, House or Secret society.
All ships start out as Class 1 and must be built up incrementally. So someone might want to buy or build a boat for the purpose of expanding it to a larger ship later. Any way, actually operating a class 1 is pretty useless substep at that.
All ships start out as Class 1 and must be built up incrementally. So someone might want to buy or build a boat for the purpose of expanding it to a larger ship later. Any way, actually operating a class 1 is pretty useless substep at that.
Class 2 (sloop, cutter etc) has all the basics of the 'real ship'. However they have no room for mages so they can't fly, and can contain only a few basic upgrades and none of the more exotic improvements. They are also slow and almost defenseless if attacked by a pirate (usually player pirates won't attack you, but NPC pirates may).
Class 2 (sloop, cutter etc) has all the basics of the 'real ship'. However they have no room for mages so they can't fly, and can contain only a few basic upgrades and none of the more exotic improvements. They are also slow and almost defenseless if attacked by a pirate (usually player pirates won't attack you, but NPC pirates may).
I sailed a sloop for about a year with my main character, just to see what can be done with it. Basically, sloop is a personal ferry. You can sail between main ports and sell your loot to NPC merchants, and gain Merchant Marine reputation. That is pretty much it. You can go to few areas which are accessible by sea, but as the ship is slow and vulnerable, you probably don't want to venture much outside tradelines. Sloop is generally slower than ferries. With Rank 4 crew and Navigator, sloop takes about 5 minutes to travel from Daerwon to Lucentium. By comparison, ferry makes the same trip in about 3 minutes 20 seconds, and well equipped bigger player ships are faster (by comparison, Esiris cooldown without all continent quests made is a bit under 6 minutes). With Rank 5 everything, sloop gets bit faster than ferry but getting your sailors to Rank 5 is hard as you need reputation to attract Trainers and rep is hard to gain in Merchant Marine. And you really can't attempt to make any other Sailor guild rep than Merchant Marine as Navy and Pirate rep grow on ship combat.
I sailed a sloop for about a year with my main character, just to see what can be done with it. Basically, sloop is a personal ferry. You can sail between main ports and sell your loot to NPC merchants, and gain Merchant Marine reputation. That is pretty much it. You can go to few areas which are accessible by sea, but as the ship is slow and vulnerable, you probably don't want to venture much outside tradelines. Sloop is generally slower than ferries. With Rank 4 crew and Navigator, sloop takes about 5 minutes to travel from Daerwon to Lucentium. By comparison, ferry makes the same trip in about 3 minutes 20 seconds, and well equipped bigger player ships are faster (by comparison, Esiris cooldown without all continent quests made is a bit under 6 minutes). With Rank 5 everything, sloop gets bit faster than ferry but getting your sailors to Rank 5 is hard as you need reputation to attract Trainers and rep is hard to gain in Merchant Marine. And you really can't attempt to make any other Sailor guild rep than Merchant Marine as Navy and Pirate rep grow on ship combat.
You CAN sink small NPC ships, I have done 1 gem compasses with a class 2. However as sloop has problems catching anything, it is very time-consuming process. The way ship combat works, size matters, so you can usually only sink ships smaller than your own, or with some effort, those of the same class. So basically you can easily only sink NPC boats, which are rare. I sank Class 3 ships on few occasions with a sloop by luring them next to a port and repeatedly repairing my ship, but it took like 50 minutes to destroy a ship that way so I would really not call it a productive use of my time.
You CAN sink small NPC ships, I have done 1 gem compasses with a class 2. However as sloop has problems catching anything, it is very time-consuming process. The way ship combat works, size matters, so you can usually only sink ships smaller than your own, or with some effort, those of the same class. So basically you can easily only sink NPC boats, which are rare. I sank Class 3 ships on few occasions with a sloop by luring them next to a port and repeatedly repairing my ship, but it took like 50 minutes to destroy a ship that way so I would really not call it a productive use of my time.
So is it any good? Well it depends what you want your ship to do. I say if you solo a lot and gather loot for selling in shops, then sloop is a fine way to be introduced to Batmud ships. You can slowly build up sailor rep by sailing around and manifesting cargo whilst accumulating money to invest for a larger ship. And if you decide you don't like it, you can always dock it and let it be until you can upgrade it to a bigger model. This all assumes you really WANT a ship. If you only see the ship as a tool to make you more powerful, forget about class 2 ships, or indeed, ships altogether, at least until you are well covered in all other respects. If your goal is just to gain player power quickly, then investing in weapons, armour, eq, chests, guards, Spider demons, Animist sacs, Kharim shards and whatnot is better return for money than any ship.
So is it any good? Well it depends what you want your ship to do. I say if you solo a lot and gather loot for selling in shops, then sloop is a fine way to be introduced to Batmud ships. You can slowly build up sailor rep by sailing around and manifesting cargo whilst accumulating money to invest for a larger ship. And if you decide you don't like it, you can always dock it and let it be until you can upgrade it to a bigger model. This all assumes you really WANT a ship. If you only see the ship as a tool to make you more powerful, forget about class 2 ships, or indeed, ships altogether, at least until you are well covered in all other respects. If your goal is just to gain player power quickly, then investing in weapons, armour, eq, chests, guards, Spider demons, Animist sacs, Kharim shards and whatnot is better return for money than any ship.
For learning ship handling, class 2 ship works out fine. It doesn't have mages so it has less moving parts and doesn't feel as overwhelming. If you want to map waypoints and routes yourself, class 2 works fine for that. I advise investing straight to Rank 5 navigator because promoting him later is more expensive and navigator rank makes a difference in sailing speed. This is true with all ships but particularly class 2 which is otherwise slow.
For learning ship handling, class 2 ship works out fine. It doesn't have mages so it has less moving parts and doesn't feel as overwhelming. If you want to map waypoints and routes yourself, class 2 works fine for that. I advise investing straight to Rank 5 navigator because promoting him later is more expensive and navigator rank makes a difference in sailing speed. This is true with all ships but particularly class 2 which is otherwise slow.
Zoomin' Schooners.
Zoomin' Schooners.
So you tried out class 2 and were disappointed how limited it was. But with just a couple of million more, you can upgrade it to class 3 (schooner, corvette etc). Which not only is faster, but it flies because you can hire mages! You can get to all those areas inland and carry loot straight to ship. And they have a lot more upgrade options too. Now we're really talking!
So you tried out class 2 and were disappointed how limited it was. But with just a couple of million more, you can upgrade it to class 3 (schooner, corvette etc). Which not only is faster, but it flies because you can hire mages! You can get to all those areas inland and carry loot straight to ship. And they have a lot more upgrade options too. Now we're really talking!
Yeah well...the truth is that fresh-out-of-shipyard schooner is pretty much a glorified sloop. Really. It has 50% more sailors, so it is much faster on water. You will now easily outpace ferries and if you manage to get your sailors to rank 6 or more, schooner is amazingly fast between continents. You can almost sail to other continents faster than your Navigator buddy finishes his Wanderer spell. On the seas you can nearly always escape if you are attacked by NPC ships.
Yeah well...the truth is that fresh-out-of-shipyard schooner is pretty much a glorified sloop. Really. It has 50% more sailors, so it is much faster on water. You will now easily outpace ferries and if you manage to get your sailors to rank 6 or more, schooner is amazingly fast between continents. You can almost sail to other continents faster than your Navigator buddy finishes his Wanderer spell. On the seas you can nearly always escape if you are attacked by NPC ships.
Schooners' flying ability is initially very limited. With default (rank 4) lift mages it can only fly over flat terrain - not forests or hills. You can basically fly to Arelium south crossing and not much else. Also with so few Speed Mages onboard, it flies very slowly. You need to hire Trainers to level your Magi to achieve useful flying ability, similar to what class 4 ship has out-of-the box, but getting those trainers can be a long and frustrating wait. Even then, you can't fly over mountains.
Schooners' flying ability is initially very limited. With default (rank 4) lift mages it can only fly over flat terrain - not forests or hills. You can basically fly to Arelium south crossing and not much else. Also with so few Speed Mages onboard, it flies very slowly. You need to hire Trainers to level your Magi to achieve useful flying ability, similar to what class 4 ship has out-of-the box, but getting those trainers can be a long and frustrating wait. Even then, you can't fly over mountains.
Schooner can have a lounge for improved regeneration, but this is useful only if your ship is next to where you fight, which schooner necessarily isn't. And it can't take Teleportation chamber, which is a very useful addition especially if you lead a lot of parties. In terms of ship combat it is of course better than class 2 ship, but still, most of the compasses aren't doable for class 3 so those lucrative Navy or Pirate careers are probably beyond you.
Schooner can have a lounge for improved regeneration, but this is useful only if your ship is next to where you fight, which schooner necessarily isn't. And it can't take Teleportation chamber, which is a very useful addition especially if you lead a lot of parties. In terms of ship combat it is of course better than class 2 ship, but still, most of the compasses aren't doable for class 3 so those lucrative Navy or Pirate careers are probably beyond you.
So basically in my opinion, class 3 supports a similar playstyle than class 2, just without the most annoying limitations, namely speed. It has good upgrade potential, and initially almost useless flying capability can become meaningful, but you need patience to gain necessary crew training. You can order custom reinforcements to improve its combat capabilities, but if you are willing to spend so much money, one can reasonably ask, why not just use that money to upgrade it to class 4 which is much better as all-around ship? However with class 3 ship you can at least taste all aspects of ship captaining in Batmud and the speed on high seas is genuinely a nice capability: so if nothing else it makes a useful stepping stone for bigger things. And you don't feel like paddling a rubber dinghy in a motorboat race, as with class 2.
So basically in my opinion, class 3 supports a similar playstyle than class 2, just without the most annoying limitations, namely speed. It has good upgrade potential, and initially almost useless flying capability can become meaningful, but you need patience to gain necessary crew training. You can order custom reinforcements to improve its combat capabilities, but if you are willing to spend so much money, one can reasonably ask, why not just use that money to upgrade it to class 4 which is much better as all-around ship? However with class 3 ship you can at least taste all aspects of ship captaining in Batmud and the speed on high seas is genuinely a nice capability: so if nothing else it makes a useful stepping stone for bigger things. And you don't feel like paddling a rubber dinghy in a motorboat race, as with class 2.
Why do ships cost so much?
Why do ships cost so much?
Building a ship is an expensive and laborious commitment. Work phases require lots of time, materials and money. For example, just improving Class2 ship to Class3 requires 1 million gold in shipyard worker salaries and hundreds of kilograms of materials, and that is before adding any individual modules like mage quarters, which have to be built separately. Some of the materials and items required for individual upgrades are annoying or hard to acquire. Finally, actually learning the trade requires you to do a number of quests, some of which are quite hard or time-consuming. So it’s not like Shipwrights just train Shipbuilding to 100% and start ripping off hapless players! There is a reason why many merchants don’t offer shipwork.
Building a ship is an expensive and laborious commitment. Work phases require lots of time, materials and money. For example, just improving Class2 ship to Class3 requires 1 million gold in shipyard worker salaries and hundreds of kilograms of materials, and that is before adding any individual modules like mage quarters, which have to be built separately. Some of the materials and items required for individual upgrades are annoying or hard to acquire. Finally, actually learning the trade requires you to do a number of quests, some of which are quite hard or time-consuming. So it’s not like Shipwrights just train Shipbuilding to 100% and start ripping off hapless players! There is a reason why many merchants don’t offer shipwork.
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