Utilizing Labor Hours

I'm going to talk about subscription oceans, specifically, here, so don't get your pants all in a knot about doubloon oceans. Much of this doesn't apply to doubloon oceans or, if it does, is slightly different.

On a subscription ocean, every subscribed account is given 24 hours of labor, per day, to work with. So what? Well, your labor is a great source of income for you. Whether you use it to forage or to work at shoppes, using your labor is a way to put PoE in your pocket. Nonetheless, I'm always surprised how many people don't understand the labor system and are wasting a lot of their potential. Seriously, on Midnight right now, 24 hours of labor can be worth well over 1,000 PoE per day.

I won't go over every detail, but here are a few highlights. (If you want greater detail, go here.)

Labor is Split Evenly Between Alts

That means that, if you have two pirates on your account, each is given 12 hours to work with each day. I constantly hear people say things like, "I have 3 pirates on my account, but only one of them has jobs, so it's okay." No! It's not! The hours are split up among your alts whether you use them, or not. Unused hours from one alt do not transfer over to other alts. So, if you have multiple pirates on one account and some of them don't have jobs, you're wasting labor. The only way to get more than 24 hours of labor available to you is to pay for a second account.

Active Puzzling and Foraging Uses "Advance" Labor

Whenever you try to forage or puzzle at a shoppe, the game checks to see if you have any "labor credit" available. Everyone gets 24 hours of "credit." Assuming you have labor available, you're allowed to puzzle and provide labor or forage. Every time you use an hour in this way, you must wait one real hour for that hour of labor to become available again.

So, if you happen to use 24 hours of in-game labor within 1 hour of real time, what happens? I'm so glad you asked.

If you're foraging, it's quite simple. The game tells you that you've used up your labor for the day. If you're puzzling at a shoppe, it tells you that you've used up all your labor for the day. You're still allowed to play the puzzle and your standing can change, but you can not provide labor, based upon your work.

Once your advance labor is all used up, you need to start waiting real time for it to become free, again. For example, if you were to go out and forage 24 times, you'd be stopped, by the game, from continuing to forage. After 1 real hour, you'd be able to forage one more time. After two hours, you'd be able to forage twice more, etc. After 24 hours had elapsed, all of your "labor credit" would again be available to you.

In General, Shoppe Puzzling Doesn't Pay

For the most part, if doesn't make good economic sense to play shoppe puzzles. Occasionally, you need to renew your labor or perhaps you want to work on improving your standing. However, if you're interested only in producing labor or making money, puzzling at shoppes isn't a great way to do it. You can make similar amounts of PoE working with the navy and far more pillaging. Meanwhile, your labor hours can be used up automatically, whether you're online, or not.



That's all I'm going to discuss, here. If you want more details, check the YPPedia. I just find that a lot of folks have misconceptions about the labor system, so I thought I'd post something quick about it.