Shipwrightery: Reaching Ultimate and Beyond

In my last article, I tried to lay out basic strategies for playing shipwrightery. I'll try to point out a couple things that might help you advance up the ranks and into an Ultimate shipwrighter, but there isn't a lot more to know. Master the strategy that I laid out last time, and you'll find yourself doing very well. Just keep in mind that, as your skill in the puzzle progresses, you'll get larger patterns to try to match. At top form, you'll be getting two 5-piece patterns, two 4-piece patterns, and two 3-piece patterns. Not until you reach that level will you be generating the best scores in shipwrightery. If you're not there yet, just keep practicing and working at it - as your standing increase, so too will the size of your patterns.

Set Up For Extra Matches

As you play shipwrightery, you'll begin to recognize many of the patterns that you see. While I don't have all of them memorized, I know quite a few. If you want to see them all, look at the YPPedia entry, here. Knowing the patterns is important because you're working on a 25 piece board and, at top level, your patterns will take up 24 pieces. That means, in order to get every pattern in your tray set up and ready to go, you're going to need perfectly matching pieces and a board with just the right number of each type of piece. In other words, it takes a lot of luck and very, very rarely happens.

One difference between a good shipwrightery player and a great one is what they do with those "extra pieces". Extra pieces are those pieces that are left over after you've set up as many pattern matches as you can. Like I said, unless you're very lucky, you're going to have some.

Worry about getting your combo of patterns set up first. Then, with whatever leftover time you have left, consider trying to create "parts" of other patterns with the extra pieces you have. Perhaps you can create a part of one of the patterns you already have in your tray, or perhaps you can create a pattern that isn't currently on your tray.

Let me steal this image from my previous article:



Notice the five "extra" pieces I have near the top-right corner. If you look at what I did with the two whites and a brown, you may recognize this as one of the 3-piece patterns, the Batten. Granted, the Batten isn't in my tray, but I have set up to clear the Halyard and the Cleat and that will give me two new 3-piece patterns. What are the odds of me actually getting the Batten? Not very good - only 2 in 16. However, a 12% chance of getting an extra match is better than the 0% chance I'd have had if I hadn't arranged these pieces in this way.

If you can't make a complete pattern, try to create part of a pattern, particularly if it's a pattern that's already in your tray and you can't fit into your combo. Have a Ballast (4 blacks) in your tray but only three extra blacks on your board? Set up the three blacks around a match that you've got set up so that, when you clear that match, if a black appears in the right place, you get a free match. What are the odds of getting the right piece? A little better than 25% (don't forget about the gold pieces). Again, not great odds, but far better than 0%.

Taking care with your extra pieces can really help you extend your combos and squeeze out some additional points.

Understand the Scoring System

Probably the biggest leap that took me from Legendary to Ultimate was gaining a better understanding of the scoring system behind Shipwrightery. Once you know the scoring system, you can actually put a value behind a puzzle attempt, and you can determine if one attempt was better or worse than another.

While the scoring systems for any of these puzzles are never revealed to the public, testing leads us to get pretty good approximations of the scoring systems. This forum thread that I started some time ago goes into a lot of great detail for the scoring system. Probably the most important bit of that thread is this table:

Step    Combo     3-Piece      4-Piece      5-Piece
----------------------------------------------------------------
1       N/A       Fair         Good         Great
2       Double    Good         Great        Excellent
3       Triple    Great        Excellent    Admirable
4       Bingo     Great        Excellent    Superior
5       Donkey    Great        Admirable    Magnificent
6       Vegas     Excellent    Superior     Artisan
7       Vegas^2   Excellent    Superior     Artisan
8       Vegas^3   Excellent    Magnificent  Paragon
9       Vegas^4   Admirable    Artisan      Paragon
10      Vegas^5   Admirable    Artisan      Master
11      Vegas^6   Admirable    Artisan      Master
12      Vegas^7   Superior     ???          Master
13      Vegas^8   Superior     ???          Master
14      Vegas^9   Superior     ???          Master

From this, you can start to see how well various combos will score. Always keep in mind that the score of a combo is the average of the scores of the individual matches of that combo.

For my own benefit, I assigned a point value to each score, like this:

Fair          1
Good          2
Great         3
Excellent     4
Admirable     5
Superior      6
Magnificent   7
Artisan       8
Paragon       9
Master        10

So, if I wanted to score a combo, I'd take the scores for each match in that combo and average them. For example, a 3-4-5-5 combo would score Fair-Great-Admirable-Superior or 1-3-5-6 for an average score of 3.75. When I last tested, you needed to be able to score about a 4 (Excellent) to reach Ultimate on Midnight. That may have changed since, but I'm guessing it's probably still pretty close.

This scoring system is probably oversimplified in the fact that it assumes all matches with the same descriptive word are worth the same amount (i.e. All 3-piece matches that score "Great" are considered equal, regardless of whether that move was a triple, a bingo, or a donkey). My guess is that those scores are actually a bit different, but my approximation seems to work pretty well.

To help me see just how well I was doing, I created an Excel spreadsheet in which I had boxes for each score. As I was playing, I'd make a match and put a tally into the corresponding cell in my spreadsheet. Those cells would automatically tally up my average score and tell me how I was doing. That way, when all was said and done, I knew just how well I was doing.

While this may not make you a vastly better puzzler by itself, it will help you see how you're improving.

Gaming the System

As of the time I write this, there is no penalty for dismissing a shipwrightery puzzle attempt. At any point. That means that you can play all the way through the puzzle and, if things aren't going the way you want them to, you can dismiss the puzzle right before the end and suffer no penalty.

I'm not going to get into the ethical debate over whether or not this is a good practice, or not. I have my own opinion and I'll keep it to myself. If you want to debate it, the forums are a great place to do so. What I will say is that you absolutely *do not* have to use this "feature" to make Ultimate on Midnight. It's quite do-able without using this technique.

You see, the problem is that, in general, you're not going to consistently get more than 3-4-4-5-5 combos (often, these aren't even possible). Those combos score about 4.2, using my system. That's good enough to get you to Ultimate, but probably not good enough to get you to #1. However, the only way to get above that score is through pure luck - you need additional matches to "appear" and lengthen your combos. Sure, you can use the techniques I described above to give yourself better odds of having these things happen, but it still comes down to luck. If the right pieces/patterns appear, you score better, but you have no control over what actually appears.

So how do you increase your score? You play the puzzles in which luck is on your side and you score exceptionally well and you dismiss when the luck of the draw doesn't go your way.

Like I said, I won't go into my personal feelings about whether this is an ethical way to play, or not, but I will point out that distilling used to exhibit this same behavior and now no longer does. Now, when you play distilling, once you've started playing the puzzle, if you dismiss, you damage your score - severely.

I'll just reiterate that you do not need to use this technique to reach Ultimate, but you may very well find the #1 spot very difficult to reach.

Conclusion

As with all crafting puzzles, there's no inherent benefit to reach the Ultimate level of play. Once you've reach Renowned standing, there's no need to advance further. Those that do advance beyond Renowned do it for pride or a love of the puzzle, or both. Given that, not everyone will need the tips listed here. But, if you're looking for a goal to shoot for an Ultimate shipwrightery is that goal, I hope this article helps you along your way.

Happy puzzling!

Shipwrightery: Strategy and Scoring

When discussing shipwrightery, I tend not to talk about how to move the pieces around the board as I find that to become trivial for anyone with a bit of experience. Rather, I like to discuss two aspects of the puzzle: your strategy and the scoring system. I'll actually begin with the latter because understanding the scoring strategy drastically impacts your strategy.

Scoring

The scoring system in shipwrightery isn't always obvious to everyone and it really dictates the way one should play, so I'll talk about it briefly.

Every time you "match" a pattern, you get a score for that match. The score is determined by two things: the size of the pattern you matched and the position in the chain in which you made that match. The larger the pattern, the better you score (i.e. a 5-piece pattern will score better than a 3-piece pattern). Also, the later in a chain you make a match, the more it's worth.

Given that, there are a couple rules of thumb that you'll want to take forward:

• Build the longest chains possible


• Use your biggest matches last

While this may not be exactly accurate, I like to think of it this way (for the more mathematically inclined) - each match is worth a given score - each sequential position in a chain has a higher multiplier. By placing your best scoring matches (those with the most pieces) later in your chain, you're multiplying your biggest scores by the biggest multipliers, which results in a largest product possible.

Another thing to note about shipwrightery scoring is that your final score is the average of all your match scores. So, if you had three matches that scored Fair, Great, and Admirable, your average score would be "Great". (See the wiki for a complete list of scores.) On Midnight, it seems that you need to average approximately "Excellent" in order to score Incredible.

If you're really interested in digging into even more details about shipwrightery scoring, have a look at this forum thread.

Strategy

In terms of strategy, I find shipwrightery to be more like carpentry than any other puzzle - it really takes good "spatial organization" to do well with this puzzle. When I play this puzzle, I generally do the same few steps over and over again:

1. Plan Layout


2. Look for Shortages


3. Move Pieces


4. Execute Combo

I'll go into each step to give you a good idea of the things I look for.

Plan Layout

This is the part of the puzzle that I really find to be a lot like carpentry. When puzzling at the highest levels, you'll have two 5-piece patterns, two 4-piece patterns, and two 3-piece patterns. That's 24 pieces worth of patterns. The board is only 25 pieces large. That means it's going to take a whole lot of planning and quite a bit of luck to get them all on the board.

There's really nothing you can do about getting patterns that all fit well together or getting the correct pieces on the board to match the patterns you have. What you can impact is how you arrange these patterns on the board to maximize space. The largest patterns are the most important, so make sure you get those placed first - I'd suggest building around the outside edge to save you as much room as possible. Then move on to the next largest patterns, and so on, until you've run out of room.

Here's a picture of a typical starting board:



The first step is to look at my patterns and try to determine where they'd best fit on my board. Given the pieces I have, this is how I think I'd like to arrange them:



So the next logical question is, how the heck did I come up with that?

My approach is pretty simple. Start with the biggest patterns you have, whether those be 5-piece patterns or 4-piece patterns. These are the most important pieces to place (because they score the best) and they're also going to be the most constraining. Once you have those placed, your options for the smaller pieces will be more limited and it'll take you less time to decide where to put them.

When determining where to put your largest patterns, try to find ways to put them together that won't "waste" any spaces. Notice how I put together the berth and the gangway in the example above. The two pieces fit together in such a way that no spaces are trapped where they can't be used.

Some patterns fit together better than others. The berth and gangway work quite well together. In other cases, like the helm and capstan shown below, there aren't always good ways to put them together. Notice the green block that's been trapped in the upper-left corner - that block can't be used in any other patterns and thereby limits your options for additional pattern matches.



Other pairs, such as the mooring with the nest can be downright awful. Which two patterns you get isn't under your control. How you try to arrange them to save the most space is up to you. With ten 5-piece patterns available, I won't go into the best way to match them all, but here are a few examples of useful ways I've found to match patterns. Note that the same pattern may get moved around the board based on the pattern it's paired with. For example, the shot works best in the lower-right when paired with the nest, but it works best in the lower-left when paired with the mooring. Here are a few arrangements to help you get the idea - remember, the goal here is to fit your largest patterns on the board and leave as much space as possible for other patterns.



Once you have your biggest patterns in place, move on to the next largest patterns (the 4's, generally), and so on until you've placed everything you can. By placing the largest patterns, which have the least options available to you, you make it easier on yourself when placing the smaller patterns.

Look for Shortages

I kept this as a separate step, but I really do this while performing steps 1 and 3. Once I have my plan set from step 1, I usually start moving pieces around. While I'm doing this, I'm looking at the pieces I have on the board - will I have enough to complete my patterns? Am I going to be short a specific color?

If I go back to my original example, I wanted to do this:



If you look close enough, you can see that I can't possibly do this. The berth requires 2 wood, the gangway requires 2 (it would normally require 3, but I'm using the gold for that), and the halyard would normally require a wood, but I'm using a gold there, as well. So that means I need 4 wood for these three pieces. Take a look at that picture. There are only 4 pieces of wood on the entire board. That means I have no way to create the pattern for a yard, which would require two additional pieces of wood that I simply do not have.

So what happens? I revise my plan.

While moving pieces about to fit my plan as best I can, I have to determine what I can do with that upper-right corner where I had been planning on putting the yard. Fortunately, because my plan already accounts for all the other patterns, I only have one option to evaluation - can I get a cleat in there? Every other pattern is done and the yard won't work due to lack of wood so the cleat is my only option. Does it fit? Certainly. This is what I ended up with:



Not far from the original plan, but it does show that it's important to be flexible while implementing your plan.

Move Pieces

Once your plan is in place, begin moving your pieces to implement that plan. I won't get much into the actual moving of pieces around. The basics are simple - getting good and efficient at it simply takes practice. Practice makes perfect and, once you get used to moving the pieces, you won't even really think about it any longer - then you can dedicate yourself to thinking about your plan and how to get those most out of the patterns and the board in front of you.

When you're moving pieces, you're constantly looking at your plan. Will it work? Do you have all the pieces you need? Do you need to modify it? While I have these first three steps separated, they really all happen together. Often, I plan for a couple seconds and then immediately begin moving pieces. While moving, I'm revising that plan and looking for shortages and adjusting accordingly.

Execute Combo

Finally, after all that work, it's time to sit back, relax, and build your combo. While you might feel stressed and pressed for time during the previous segment, this is a part of the puzzle you simply should not rush. Every time you clear a pattern, your timer starts over. Your board is already set up for the next pattern, so take a moment and slow down.

Rather than simply firing off your entire combo in one fell swoop - you should be looking for new, "intermediate", clears that crop up after clearing existing patterns. These intermediate clears help you push those ever-important big patterns further and further back in the combo. The longer you can hold those big patterns, the better off you'll be.

Here's an example:



In this case, when I clear the nest shown in the left image, it leaves a piece of cloth in just the right place so that I can now clear a boom. When these happen, you don't want to miss them. Try to make your chains as long as possible and keep the biggest patterns as far back in the chain as possible.

So, when it comes time to execute your chain, take time after each clear to see if something new has cropped up. If it has, lucky for you! Take advantage of it and get yourself a better score!

When you simply can't match any more patterns, your chain is over and you have to start over at step 1. Rinse and repeat until complete!

Shipwrightery: Required Reading

Shipwrightery is a puzzle that I feel is often overlooked. It doesn't seem to have a large following and the pay you get for excelling in the puzzle is usually overshadowed by the pay you might get from distilling. Nonetheless, I've had some requests asking me how to perform well at this puzzle so I'll do my best. Here are some basics to get you started:

Shipwrightery Basic Info
Shipwrighting Scoring Discussion

Great Ways to Lose Money Running a Stall

Here are some of the best ways to lose money while running a stall or shoppe. There are probably plenty of other perfectly good ways to run yourself dry, but here are a few of the most famous.

Underpay Yourself

Labor costs are always an issue. Pay too little and you don't get enough employees. Pay too much and you can't make a profit. A great answer is to work at your own stall for very little pay. Perhaps 1/1/1 for Basic/Skilled/Expert labor. That way, you get to tap in to all of your own labor, but pay next to nothing for it!

Just forget about the fact that you can make over 1,000 PoE per day on your own labor, working elsewhere. Absolutely do not track the loss of 1,000 PoE each day as a loss against your net gain. Your profit margins will soar because of your incredibly low labor costs. This is a very useful technique to distort your actual gains and should be used all the time.

Move Small Quantities

Nearly every shoppe owner has to deal with the joy of moving commodities. Sooner or later, someone will actually expect you to "make" something for them or they won't pay you. It's total nonsense, but that seems to be the way some people think. When that time comes, you'll have to hop onto your trusty ship and go pick up the commodities and bring them back to your shoppe. I'd suggest using a sloop - for everything. The small cargo size is somewhat of a hindrance, but the ease of which they can be sailed by yourself makes up for that and then some. Moving wood? No worries - only 7 trips with your trusty sloop will carry as much as one trip with those clunky merchant brigs. And those 7 trips are so easily done that it just doesn't make any sense to do it any other way. It's certainly not worth asking for a bit of help from a good mate to move one of those big ugly beasts.

And, whatever you do, don't bother to track the cost of the rum used on those voyages as costs against your shoppe. After all, it's just a bit of rum and it would make your profits look worse. No reason to include it. No reason, at all. Moving in bulk might save you a bit on rum but, pfft - it's only a bit of rum!

Never Plan Ahead

Some people get so tied up with how commodity prices fluctuate over time. Personally, I think they're all well on their way to getting coronary diseases. There's just no reason to fret over things like that. When you need a commodity, go buy it! You can try finding somewhere to bid on the item and save yourself a bit of PoE, but don't overlook an opportunity to purchase something dockside. Nothing like instant, overpriced, gratification!

Don't bother trying to build up a surplus of commodities when their prices are low. It's just too much headache and it requires you to have too much money tied up in your inventory. Those times that everyone worries that commodity prices are too high? I don't believe they exist.

Bid Fees, Bid Shmees

Okay, so despite my recommendation to purchase things dockside, you've decided to try to save a few PoE by bidding on commodities and then waiting an excrutiatingly long time for that bid ticket to fill. Fine. I can't save everyone.

When you bid on something, there's a bid fee attached. It's such a rip-off. You know who gets that PoE? No one! It just vanishes! Stupid Three Rings. Nonetheless, it's such a minor amount compared to what you're paying for the commodities that there's no reason to track that as a cost. Sure, that bid fee could be thousands of PoE, but, if it is, you're paying so much more than that for the commodities, itself, that it just seems insignificant.

Don't bother tracking it as an expense. It'll only make your profit numbers look worse. Save your energy for pillaging.

Booch Your Order Prices

In most industries, such as distilling or iron mongering, you sell virtually everything dockside (except swords, I suppose). As such, you really don't need to worry about properly setting your order prices. No one will come along and order your goods at far below market value and then sell them off to make a profit on their own. It just doesn't happen. Seriously. People are too paranoid.

Ignore Rent

You ever notice how once a week, some invisible tax collector comes by and takes PoE out of your coffers? If he doesn't find the PoE lying around, he cuts the power! What a total jerk! There's nothing that can be done about this guy. He's just too wily. I've had pirates try to hunt him down. I've hired the mates of El Pollo Diablo to get after him. I've even tried ninja assassins. He can't be stopped!

As such, best to just ignore him. Just forget about the PoE he takes. It's better to just let him take it and ignore the lost PoE than to spend hundreds of thousands of PoE on good-for-nothing skellies that can't catch a stupid invisible tax collector. As you can't do anything about it, don't bother to track rent as an expense. If you do, it'll make your profit numbers look worse than everyone else's because everyone else ignores it. Trust me - they do.

Conclusion

Those are some great ways to grind your stall into the ground. There are others out there, but this help you get started. See you on the high seas, pillaging to keep your stall running!

How to Make Y!PP Videos

It's like the old saying goes - a picture is worth a thousand words. If that's the case, one can only imagine what 25 frames per second is worth...somewhere around 1.5 million words a minute, I guess.

I always find it difficult to describe techniques through words, or even pictures. Likewise, people that come to me asking questions about what they're doing and how they can improve have difficulty telling me what it is they're running into. I've found a way to create videos of myself playing Puzzle Pirates. I doubt it's the best way out there, but it works and it's free. Any videos you might find on this blog were made using this exact technique.

When I set out to try to find a way to make videos, I had a few goals in mind. I wanted it to be fairly easy. I wanted the videos to be of good quality. I wanted to be able to narrate the videos. And, quite importantly, I wanted the cost to be...well...free. This technique manages to cover all these goals pretty well. The only drawback I've run across is that the resulting video files can tend to be quite large. Perhaps someone else can find a way to compress them without losing too much quality but, as of yet, I haven't found a way (nor have I looked particularly hard).

Anyway, my goal with this post is to allow other folks to make videos the way I do. Hopefully, when people have questions or want to make videos of the way they do things, they can use this to easily make a video. Videos tend to make things far easier to share, in terms of playing puzzles, and such.

First things first. In order to make a video, you're going to need some sort of screen capture software. The first thing I found was Camtasia Studio. It looks like a great product but, as best I can tell, it comes with a 30 day trial and then costs somewhere around $300. The trial won't work and $300 is somewhere around $300 over my budget. So, while I think it looks great, it just didn't do, for me. I kept looking and found CamStudio. It's certainly not as flashy as Camtasia and it doesn't allow for video editing, but it's a nice screen capture application and best of all - it's free! Simply download the installation and install it from their website. If you need help getting it installed, they've created a video to guide you through the process. There's a link to it on their website, or you can simply click here.

Using CamStudio is pretty simple. I'd love to make a video of me using the video capture software, but I couldn't think of a good way to do it and I'm slightly nervous that the universe might implode if I tried, so, as ironic as it may seem, you're going to have to settle for pictures.

When you launch CamStudio, you should see something like this:



The first thing you need to do is to set the region of the screen that you want to record. To do this, have that little CamStudio window up and also have your Y!PP window up (please do not do this while playing Y!PP in full screen mode). With both windows visible, in the CamStudio window, select the "Region" menu and select "Fixed Region...". In the dialogue that appears, click on the "Select" button near the top. When you do that, your cursor should change to look like some goofy thing with a crosshair at the end. CamStudio needs to know how large of a rectangle to record. So, at this point, move your cursor to the top-left corner of your Y!PP window and click and drag to the bottom-right corner of the Y!PP window. Basically, you're going to stretch a rectangle the exact size of the Y!PP window. When you're happy with it (it doesn't have to be perfect), simply release the mouse button. Now that the capture region is set, click "OK" to return to the main CamStudio window.

With that in place, we can begin recording. To do that, click on the big red circle in the CamStudio window (far left). When you do that, you'll see a big rectangle border appear. Oddly enough, that rectangle should be exactly the same size as your Y!PP window. Go figure. ;) At this point, we've told CamStudio how large of a region to record - now we need to tell it where that region is located. So, move your mouse until that rectangle is right over your Y!PP window and then click your mouse. You're now recording! You should notice that the record button in CamStudio goes gray and you'll get little green flashing brackets around your window - these are all indicators that you're now recording whatever happens within those green brackets.

At this point, do whatever it is that you want to capture. If you want to capture yourself rumbling, go rumble. If you want to capture yourself sailing, go sail. If you want to capture yourself walking your pet cat from one level of your estate to another, go do that. Just be aware that everything that appears on your monitor within those green brackets is being recorded. When you're done, click on the Stop button in the CamStudio window (big, square, and blue). When you do that, CamStudio will pop up a window labeled "Save AVI File". Now, you just need to give it a location to save the data that you just recorded. I normally just save it to the desktop so I can easily deal with it, but go with whatever suits your fancy. And don't forget to give it a file name!

You can also set how you want to capture audio by going to the "Options" menu. From here, you can choose to not record audio, record from the speakers, or record from a microphone (if you want to talk right along with your recording). Often, I just record from the speakers but, if I know I'm going to be narrating over this, I might choose not to record audio, at all, so that the sound effects in the game don't interfere with my horrible narration. You can record from a microphone if you want to speak right along with the recording, but I don't really like that. I end up with lots of "Umm's" and "Err's" and silence. When I do narration, I need to know what I'm going to say ahead of time or it doesn't come across very smoothly. I'll talk about how to add in narration after you've already made a recording in a little bit.

Please remember that it will record *everything* that is displayed within those brackets. That includes the little CamStudio window, itself. To avoid getting that window in there, I make sure that there's no overlap between the CamStudio window and my Y!PP window. If you look at the video I've included here, you'll notice that the CamStudio window makes an appearance, or two. The reason is because I was recording the entire screen, so there was nowhere I could hide the CamStudio window.

Depending on how long the video is that you just created, CamStudio may appear to freeze for a little while. The longer the video, the longer it'll freeze. Just be patient - it's working. Once the file is created, a new window will appear - the CamStudio Player. This allows you to view the video file that you just created. Just use the play and stop buttons on the top to view your video and make sure you captured what you wanted.

So, at this point, you could be done. You've successfully created a .avi file that you can now share with other folks. However, you may not want to stop here. I sometimes want to edit the video (cut parts out or splice in other videos) and add narration. For that, I use Windows Movie Maker, which comes, for free, with Windows XP. Here's a quick rundown of some of the basics, although I'm sure you can do far more with it than just this.

The following section is also illustrated briefly here. (It's a video of me making a video...kinda weird, but okay.)

When you launch Movie Maker, you should see a panel on the left side that says "Import Video". Click that link and then select the .avi file you just created with CamStudio. It may take a few moments to import, but you should see a thumbnail of it in Movie Maker, once it's done. (As an aside, I've noticed that Movie Maker will try to determine where there are logical breaks in the video and split it up, accordingly. For example, if you start your video with you standing in a distillery, then play the distillery puzzle, and then leave, you may get three videos appearing, instead of just one. It's not a big deal - it's just your video split into pieces.)



The area at the bottom of the screen is your "timeline" (See image below). Drag the video (or parts of your video, if that's the case) into the white boxes at the bottom. As you do, you'll notice that your video appears in the black box on the right. You can use the video controls at the bottom to view your video here (although it's usually far too small and looks like crap, but that's beside the point). At this point, you can add narration by going to Tools->Narrate Timeline... (You'll need a microphone, obviously). You can also add some video effects, if you so desire by right-clicking on the video in your timeline and selecting Video Effects, Fade In, or Fade Out. In general, I try not to use the effects too much, but I do use a Fade Out in the video here.



When you're done, go to File->Save Movie File... You'll go through a little wizard which will ask you questions like where you want to save the file, what you want to call it, etc. Just answer the questions and, when you're done, click Finish. You'll have to wait a little while for the video to be created, but you can just let it run and walk away. The longer the video, the longer it'll take to process. When complete, you'll have a nice .wmv file, which will play in Windows Media Player and is much easier to give to people than a .avi file, which require a specific codec in order to play.

You may want to play with the quality setting. I often go with the default (best for playback) and, often, that works. However, I have run into cases in which the final video is of horrible quality and simply isn't usable. If that happens to you, all is not lost! Just go back in to save your movie again and select a different quality option. It's important to always review your video when you're done. Just remember that there's always a trade-off between video quality and file size. Better looking videos will tend to be much larger files, and vice versa. So, if you can get away with a lower quality, it'll be easier to send to folks. If you just can't get away with it, or file size isn't an issue, go with the better quality. High Quality Video (Large) tends to be a very high quality compression level, but it also tends to make large files.

I hope this helps people make videos! If you have questions, please let me know. I can always try to add to this guide.

Pillaging in a Merchant Brig

Over the last couple weeks, my flag has run into the issue of having about 9-11 people that all want to pillage together. Unfortunately, that means that we have too many for a sloop, but I don't care to take out a war brig with anything less than 15, at the least. In a couple occasions, I've recommended that we take out a merchant brig and got a lot of funny looks (well, as much as an animated pirate with limited facial expressions can give, anyway). Here's my take on the matter...

Sloops are excellent pillage ships - they're easy to handle, move quickly, and just a few good pirates can keep the ship running smoothly. Unfortunately, you often need to keep the crew to 6, meaning everyone needs to do a good job to keep things going well, or you begin spawning brigs, which are far tougher to defeat in a sloop. Regardless, with 8 or more folks looking to pillage together, sloops are simply out of the question.

From there, a lot of folks want to move up to a Cutter. A poor idea, in my opinion. Cutters seem logical, but they have some issues. On the up side, they do move well as they still acquire maximum sailing speed and can place 4 movement tokens per turn in sea battle. The biggest downfall for a Cutter, however, is that you will be spawning war brigs. To max a war brig with the small shot fired from a Cutter, you need to hit them 15 times. And, of course, you're firing only one shot per round. That war brig, on the other hand, firing medium shot, needs to hit you only 5 times to max out your swordfight damage. Plus, they're firing two shots per round. Literally, you can be maxxed in about two movement tokens, as opposed to the 15 it will take to max them. I don't care how great a b-navver you are, those just aren't good odds.

So, if Cutters stink, I guess we should just go to a War Brig, right? They use medium shot and can fire twice per turn, so it would seem the perfect option. However, if you don't have enough people to staff a War Brig, things can get ugly, in a hurry. My rule of thumb is that you need about 15 pirates to run a War Brig. Even with that many, you can still get in trouble, easily. It takes far more effort to do much of anything on a War Brig - generate sail tokens, reduce damage, empty the bilge. If you're running with a skeleton crew and take even a small amount of damage, it can be difficult to recover. A little damage that can't be removed leads to filling bilge, which leads to reduced sail tokens, which leads to additional damage; wash, rinse, repeat. Without enough people on board, a War Brig is essentially a floating coffin with lots of guns.

Based on this, I turn to the Merchant Brig. Most people discard it as a pillaging vessel due to the fact that the word "Merchant" appears in the title, but that doesn't mean it can't be used as such. Merchant Brigs are surprisingly easy to sail - many folks have been known to solo them in order to move commodities around. Seriously, with 1 good carpenter, 1 good bilger, and 2 good sailors, you can stay on top of things. Any more than that is just gravy. And, seeing as we're talking about what to do when you have 8-15 folks that want to pillage, you do have more than that. A Merchant Brig simply doesn't have the effort issues that a War Brig has - they're much, much easier to keep afloat and running smoothly.

In terms of fighting capability, they're not as good as a War Brig because they only fire one shot per round. On the other hand, they beat a Cutter because they fire medium shot, rather than small shot. The "token-to-max" ratio goes from 15:3 in a Cutter to 10:4 in a Merchant Brig. Obviously, it's still not great, but it's a heck of a lot better. The Merchant Brig can take nearly double the damage of a Cutter and deals far more damage, thanks to the medium shot. The only thing you give up from a Cutter is the ability to move 4 tokens per turn. Considering that you'll only be fighting other things that can't move more than 3 tokens per turn, I find this to be only an inconvenience, rather than a real issue.

Sure, it's a niche ship only really useful when you have 8-15 people looking to pillage, but it serves its purpose. A Merchant Brig can be a useful pillaging ship, despite its name.

On a side note, a Merchant Brig carries over three times the payload of a Cutter, making them significantly better at carrying commodities.

Do me a favor. Never buy a Cutter.

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.

Bilging: Value of Clearing Crabs?

A FU student asks:

I've heard that clearing crabs scores as well as consistently doing bingos. What's your take on that?

The value of a cleared crab is proportional to the level of the water in the bilge. The higher the water, the more a cleared crab is worth. Unfortunately, you just don't have much control over when you get crabs. You do, on the other hand, have more control over constantly creating bingos.

A crab may be worth a good score, but so is a bingo. A bingo along with a crab cleared is worth far more. Wink Personally, I see the crabs as "bonus" points. I don't generally chase crabs. I just clear 'em as I work my bingos about the board. The only time I pay much attention to crabs is if I can arrange a clear to release multiple crabs at one time (which provides a bonus) or if I really can't find any decent clears. In such a case, I might just try to release a crab and then look for good clears, after that.

Bilging: Slow and Steady / Building Bingos

One of the common problems I see from bilgers (I myself was guilty of this for quite some time) is that they try to bilge "too fast." People want to swap pieces as fast as possible and make as many clears as they can in order to keep pieces moving through the board, release crabs, and feel like they're getting somewhere. Unfortunately, that doesn't translate well into emptying the bilge of the ship. To keep your bilging indicator sparkling, you generally want to go slow and look for efficient clears. You can actually have a good amount of downtime between moves. I believe I've heard that you can have up to 8 seconds between moves, but I've never tested it, myself. It does seem to be in the ballpark, though. So keep in mind that taking some time to observe and plan is perfectly acceptable.

In bilge, you score far better making combo clears than just straight lines. By that, I mean simply that a 3x3 will score better than a 3 piece clear followed by another 3 piece clear. Seems simple enough, right? The real goal is to clear the largest combinations using the smallest number of moves possible...and somehow coming to a nice balance between the two. For example, is a bingo that requires 5 moves more valuable than a 3x3 that requires only 1?

Here's my strategy for high-end bilging. Look for bingos. Constantly. They're actually not that difficult to spot and build. Here's the approach I use.

CONSTRUCTING BINGOS

1. Look for 3 common pieces in the same row

Here's an example of a beginning bilging board. The first thing I do is look for three common pieces in a single row. I've highlighted the first group I spotted.



2. Look for that same piece in the rows above and below that row

The next step is to look in the rows immediately above and below the row where you found the three common pieces. Our goal here is to be able to clear the row of three at the same time as we're able to clear a column of three. So, we either need one in the row above plus one more in the row above that, or the same thing on the bottom, or one above and one below. If you have more than that, great. If not, no big deal. The key here is 3.

So here's the next thing I look for:



3. Look for a column of 3 of a different piece, in those rows

If we've managed to find both of the first two pieces, we've almost got our bingo. The last thing we want to do is to find a column of at least three of some other piece that overlaps with our row of three. Here's what I spot:



Notice that I can also make a column of three of the pentagonal pieces on the left, as well. It just so happens that they're farther away, so I don't need to concern myself with 'em.

4. Build your Bingo

Notice that, as of yet, I haven't moved anything. Everything that I've done thus far has to do with observing the board. With bilging, you want to conserve your moves, so it's important to plan carefully what you're about to do. Once you have your plan, execute it. At this point, I have my plan. Here's what I intend to do:



Okay, we're all set, right? We've got our plan - now we just need to move the pieces into position. The important thing to keep in mind here is that we want to be as efficient as possible when moving our pieces. Try not to waste any moves. Here's the most efficient movement plan (I've numbered the pieces so that I can discuss movement more easily - individual pieces are numbered, while positions are lettered):



Our final move must be the swapping of pieces 1 and 2. With that in mind, let's look at how to move the other pieces into position.

1. Move Piece 5 to Position C - requires 2 moves
2. Move Piece 3 to Position A - requires 1 move
3. Move Piece 4 to Position B - requires 1 move
4. Swap Pieces 3 and 4 - requires 1 move*
5. Swap Pieces 1 and 2 - requires 1 move

That's it! We just built a 6 move bingo!

Pay special attention to Step 4 above. Pieces 3 and 4 need to cross. We could have moved Piece 4 all the way to Position A first, right? That would put Piece 4 into position. However, if we were to do that, when we crossed Piece 4 with Piece 3, in order to get Piece 3 into position at B, we'd be pushing Piece 4 out of position. Then we'd have to waste a move getting Piece 4 back into Position A, where we wanted it, in the first place. That would take us 5 moves. As I illustrated above, it can be done in 3. Whenever you have to cross pieces, be sure to pay attention to this.

5. Rinse and Repeat

Now that one Bingo is complete, start looking for the next one. You always want to be looking for big combos that don't require many moves to complete. In general, I try for constant Bingos, for better or for worse. Sometimes, though, there just isn't a Bingo available. Sometimes, you can't find any pieces that meet the criteria laid out in steps 1, 2, or even 3. In those cases, you really need to look for other combos that can be done easily. Perhaps you can spot a quick 3x3 or 3x4. Maybe you can't even find one of those. Hit a single move clear of 3 or more. You only want to resort to such small clears if you really have nothing going for you on your board, but it is necessary, at times.



Watch for "Accidental" clears

When you're setting up your Bingos (or anything else, for that matter), watch out for clears that you don't intend to make that may goof up your plan. Let's look briefly back at my positional picture, from before:



What would happen if we were to use this set of moves?

1. Piece 5 right one position (Still left of C) - requires 1 move
2. Piece 4 to Position B - requires 1 move
3. Piece 3 to Position A - requires 1 move
4. Swap Pieces 3 and 4 - requires 1 move
5. Piece 5 to Position C - requires 1 move
6. Swap Pieces 1 and 2 - requires 1 move

6 move Bingo, right? Not so fast! Order matters!

In this case, we started by moving Piece 5 one space to the right. Note that this actually makes an inadvertent clear of the 3 green balls. In this case, that's fine. It all happens below our Bingo and won't mess anything up. However, you may be surprised by it and move on to another part of your plan, rather than getting Piece 5 all the way to Position C. So you start working on the top half of your Bingo, moving Piece 4 Over to the left. Then you move Piece 3 to the right so you can swap them.

Oops!

You just cleared a column of three octagonal pieces - the three pieces you were planning on using to complete your Bingo! Now you've spent a bunch of moves on some crummy clears and your plan has gone to pot. Time to pick up the pieces and try to recover.

Try not to let this happen. Watch for inadvertent clears. If you can see that it won't goof up your combo, great - more points for you. If, however, it's going to screw things up, watch it. See if you can avoid it. In this case, avoiding the inadvertant clear is simple; be sure to move Piece 5 all the way to C before working the top half of the Bingo.



Conclusion

This technique takes a bit of practice (especially in recognizing the patterns), but it's not particularly difficult. Just keep in mind the steps I laid out and see what you can do. Hopefully, you'll find that your Bilging standing will increase without nearly as much effort.

I'll try to post a video of this technique in action, soon.

Bilging: Required Reading

With the introduction of trophies, I've noticed a lot more people are bilging in order to obtain the various crab trophies. As such, I figured I'd do a little piece on bilging.

As is the usual case, I'll start off by pointing folks towards existing tutorials and information. Be sure to check these out:

Basic Bilging Info
Bilging Tutorial

Rumbling: Countering Turbo-Sprinklers with Bruises

If you've spent any reasonable time rumbling, you've run into someone that loves to sprinkle. Heck, many fights start as strike-fests and then degrage quickly into sprinkle tennis as you each send larger and larger spinkle attacks back and forth. This is a technique to help you counter someone that is sprinkling heavily. It can be done with any bludgeon - it's the technique that's important, not the tool.

The goal is to send bruises to your opponent. Because bruises take more effort to clear, the hope is to decrease the number of sprinkles your opponent can send for each row drop their given. Just to give you an example of what we're looking for, here are a couple screenshots I took - these are from a Renowned rumbler (Amatoria) fighting me, an Ultimate rumbler, showing that you don't have to be the best rumbler in the ocean to pull this off. The only caveat is that I sent her nothing but sprinkles, and she knew that was coming. I'll talk about why that's important, later. Here's her first strike against me:



Notice the large number of bruises in that strike. That was the first strike she sent in the game. None of those bruises are from board drops. Here's what happens if you continue using this approach effectively:



What a mess. There are some groups of similar colors in there but, all in all, it's a nightmare to clear. And remember, this is someone that's Renowned. You don't have to be an amazing rumbler to pull this off - you just have to understand the strategy. What nasty bludgeon was used to create this mess, you ask? Rope coils - a bludgeon often known as having one of the worst strike patterns in the game. It's truly the technique, not the bludgeon causing the mess.

Understanding Bruises

First of all, it's important to understand how bruises are created. When you trigger a major strike (triggering a charged group), the size of the strike is determined by the number of charged groups that are triggered and how many total balls are in those groups. However, the number of bruises included in the strike is determined by how many loose balls "fall off" of the puzzle due to the clear. I've not tested it, personally, but Boothook claims that up to one half of the volume of a strike can consist of bruises. It seems about right to me, so I'll assume that's true.

That means that, if you send a 20 ball strike, up to 10 of those balls can be bruises. What does that mean for your strike, though? Well, if you send that strike as is, there won't be any bruises (unless you're using a bruising bludgeon, like a hammer, of course). If you want to turn 10 balls of that strike into bruises, you need to add 10 "loose" balls to your strike so that, when you clear it, those 10 balls fall off the puzzle, turning 10 balls of your strike into bruises. That means that you're using a considerably larger number of balls to send a strike that's no larger, at all, but a strike that's filled with bruises.

Because it requires so many extra balls to create srikes filled with bruises, they're not often used. However, if you're fighting someone that likes to sprinkle endlessly, you can use their attack strategy against them in the form of bruises.

Let's take a look at how it works.

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Step 1: Pay very special attention to the sprinkle pattern of your opponent.

In this case, I'm fighting someone using bare fists. The sprinkle pattern, from left to right, is red/yellow/orange.

Step 2: Set your trigger group.

The goal here is to make a fairly large strike so we need to assume that the opponent will send one or more sprinkle attacks while we're busy building. That makes it very important to start the combo by placing the trigger group in such a way that it lines up with your opponent's strike pattern. In this case, my trigger group is orange on the right, which lines up with my opponent's sprinkle pattern. If my opponent sends any sprinkle attacks, the orange balls they send will simply attach to my trigger group, keeping it available for me to trigger.

Here's the basic setup:



This may not look like much, but there are two things to note. First, my trigger group is oranges on the right. As I said earlier, I know this lines up with my opponent's sprinkle pattern. Second, notice that the charged groups stretch all the way from one side of the board to the other. Here's an illustration to help you see it:



What's so important about that, you ask? Well, the important part is that anything that comes up from below is bound to fall off the puzzle when you break this combo. So, no matter how many sprinkles your opponent sends, those balls can be incorporated into your attack and sent back.

Step 3: Cut off the charged groups.

If you allow the balls to all mesh together, you're going to create a nice, wide strike, but it's not going to be very large, unless you can create a combo with a lot of individual charged groups. Because turbo sprinklers can fill your board so quickly, it can be hard to build a combo with a lot of charged groups. That means you end up wasting a lot of the attack.

To take full advantage of your opponent's attack style, make sure that these groups aren't all connecting. So, if you have a red charged group on the left (where your opponent is sending red balls), be sure to block it off with some other balls. That ensures that the red balls become a separate group. Your goal here is to make sure that your opponent's attacks become unattached groups. As long as they're unattached, they'll become bruises in your counter-strike.

Here's what it looks like when you're ready to trigger the attack (I've left the black line in place so that you can see where the cut-off is):



Step 4: Trigger the Strike

A couple things to notice here. For one, the strike is actually pretty small. There are only 6 charged groups in there. That means my strike is only going to be about 4 or 5 lines long. However, notice how large that group of oranges is on the right. That's because my opponent's attacks all accumulated onto my trigger group. Because that group is so large, my strike is going to be very wide, even if it is short. Also, look at how many uncharged balls are just hanging off that strike. Tons. Honestly, there are far more hanging off it than there need to be. Because a strike can only be about half bruises, I have many more balls hanging off this strike than I need. Many are simply wasted. Nonetheless, I really wanted to illustrate the strategy, so I kinda overdid it.

Step 5: Follow the attack

Once you send the strike, you're not done. You need to keep the pressure on and make sure that your opponent doesn't have time to recover. If you immediately go back to building a large strike, you're going to allow your opponent a chance to dig through all those bruises. My suggestion is to send a lot of small strikes. Small strikes are good for a few reasons:

• It pushes the bruises down at your opponent, forcing them to work through them.


• It deprives your opponent sprinkles to clear to help work through the bruises. Your opponent is forced to fire balls from their gloves to clear the bruises, causing them to get more row drops.


• It helps to scramble the bruises about, making them more difficult to clear.

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So that's the basic strategy. Please note that, in order to make this work, you do not have to cut off the entire board with charged groups, from one side to the other. It's nice, if you can do it, but it's not essential. If I were to set a trigger group on the orange, I could charge the red on the left and then cut it off. Anything that attaches to that group would become bruises in a strike - just make sure that those balls don't attach to anything except the red group, which will break. To make it a little more effective, you could attach balls to the edges of the group hanging off the red, so that it catches more rising sprinkles.

You can even slow down a bit when using this technique. Very quickly get the setup in place, setting the trigger group and making a line of charged groups for attacks to hang off of. Once that's in place, though, let your opponent do the work. Let them fire ball after ball and fill your screen with sprikle attacks. This causes them to get many more board drops (and with them, bruises) than you do. Finally, when your board is nearly full, let it rip. Once you're at this stage, get back on your horse and get to work, sending small strikes to keep the pressure on.

Also, you need to be careful when using this strategy. It can be very useful against someone that is only sending sprinkles, but, if you're busy building and your opponent sends a strike attack your way (even a small one), it can really screw up your board, making you easy prey.

This certainly isn't a strategy that works against everyone, but it can be useful against those that want to play sprinkle tennis against you. I hope you find it helpful.

Rumbling: The Able Perspective

I've tried to show folks videos of me rumbling but, quite often, I'm told that it just goes too fast and it's difficult to follow. Fine. Yoanne has been kind enough to provide a video of her (an Able rumbler) rumbling against a bot. I've taken her video and added my own narration discussing some of the things that she could work on to make herself a better rumbler.

Enjoy.

Yoanne Rumbling

Duty Navigation: Tips & Tricks

The duty navigation puzzle serves two purposes. For one, it works as a multiplier that impacts the efforts of your sailors. So, by having a duty navigator in addition to your sailors, you can accelerate your ship even faster. However, without any sailors, duty navigation does you no good, at all. Also, duty navigation is used to memorize league points, which is usually what the puzzle is used for. As it can't be used in battle, it's simply not used much on pillages or commodity runs (although some folks do prefer using duty nav and allowing swabbies to sail on commodity runs - I oppose that concept, but some prefer it). So, in general, the main benefit of duty navigation is memorizing league points.

It's known that you memorize league points faster (in less passes) if you perform better at the duty navigation puzzle. Therefore, the better you are at the puzzle, the less time you'll have to spend memorizing to learn your routes. Some folks complain of having to make 6-8 passes over a league point to memorize it. Garnering Excellents and Incredibles, I can normally memorize any league point in 4-6 passes (usually 4-5). So, if that's the case, let's talk about how to be a good duty navver.

Duty Navigation is different from most puzzles in Y!PP in that it isn't based largely around combos. Sure, you can combo in duty nav, but it's very difficult and I never even bother to try. Regardless of not doing combos, I've climbed as high as #11 on Midnight. If you really want to get to #1, I'd suggest spending some time learning about combos and then you can write about how to be a good duty navver. ;) The scoring is based on clearing constellations - the larger the constellations, the more your indicator is impacted. As such, when you first start duty navigation (at Able standing), you're going to have very small constellations which won't be worth much. As you increase your standing, however, your constellations will become more complicated. This means that they'll take more effort to complete, but they'll also have a greater impact on your duty report. Here's an example of a basic 5-star constellation. The easiest constellations will have only 2 or 3 stars in them - the most difficult will have around 8.



However, while Duty Navigation may be different in that it's not largely combo-based, it's very similar to most puzzles in that a little planning will take you a long way. Actually, I'd go as far as saying that the duty nav puzzle is almost entirely about planning.

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Replacing Lower Circle Pieces

Filling the first constellation is usually pretty simple. You just drop stars as you need them and you're good as gold. The real trouble comes when you have to complete constellations and you have existing stars in your way. Sooner or later, you're going to run across a situation like this:



In this case, we have an orange star in the lowest ring that's preventing us from putting the yellow that we need in that place. So we need to find a way to clear that orange star and replace it with a yellow. It's not a complicated process - let me guide you through what the steps are.



And, to go along with that, just so you can see it in action, here's a quick video of me doing the same maneuver. In this case, I'm trying to replace an orange in the inner ring with a blue star.

Video Sample

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Planning For the Future

Quite often, it seems like you get a lot of stars that don't fit into the constellation so you can just drop them anywhere. Beware - what you don't pay attention to now may come back to haunt you later. Take a look at this example:



In this case, I've got a red star coming that I simply don't need. I could easily just drop it where it is. But, what happens if I do? Then I have two red stars on top of one another (the red star on the inner ring is even part of the constellation). If it takes me a while to get the orange star needed to clear this constellation, I may have to be careful not to accidentally clear that column of reds. If I do accidentally clear it, I may have to start all over, which is costly.

Okay, so that example is a little contrived and not too hard to deal with, but what about this situation?



In this case, I have two oranges stacked - one of which is part of my constellation, so I don't want to clear it. Both the inner and middle rings are locked into place because it helps me clear my constellation. What's worse is that, to complete this constellation, I need two yellow stars. The chances of me getting two yellow stars prior to getting one orange one are not good. That means that I'm probably going to end up with an orange star in my outer ring and I'm going to have to be careful about moving it about so that I don't accidentally clear that column and ruin my constellation.

These situations aren't always avoidable - sometimes you just get stuck in such situations. However, a bit of planning can help you avoid them as much as possible. Even if you can't avoid the situation, being able to recognize that you don't want to accidentally clear that column can help you clear your constellation without a gaffe.

"Fixing" Troublesome Setups

The situation I just pointed out isn't hopeless - far from it. If you're really getting taxed for space in the outer ring and you have an orange star out there, you may want to try to clear it out, giving you some more freedom to move.

In this case, we're fortunate in that there is another orange star in the inner ring. If another orange falls to us in the outer ring, we can shift the inner ring counter-clockwise one position. This action maintains the formation of the constellation in the inner ring (although it's now offset by one position) but allows you to clear the "new" column of oranges safely, making the constellation easier to complete.

Be wary of using this strategy when your outer ring is getting quite full. As you rotate the inner and middle rings, you might find yourself accidentally making clears where you don't intend to and potentially destroying your constellation. This brings me nicely to my next point.

Buying Yourself Time

There are five different colors of stars in the navigation puzzle: red, yellow, white, blue, and orange. As such, you can expect that it'll take, on average, about 5 stars before you get a repeat of the same color you just got. Of course, what star you actually get is random, but the law of averages plays its part, here.

Look again at the previous example. I need two yellows to complete that constellation. Unfortunately, if you count the red one that is falling, I only have 8 positions remaining in my puzzle before I booch. Will I get two yellows before then? I don't know, but it'll probably be dang close. This is a great example of a situation in which I'd like to "buy some time."

Buying time is really just the process of clearing stars in rows or columns to give yourself more room. The most important part of this, though, is that you must clear them without jeopardizing the integrity of your constellation. If you screw up your progress, you really cost yourself more time than you saved.

As I mentioned earlier, you can try to "repair" the column of oranges. Not only does that make the constellation more manageable, but it also opens up three additional spaces on your board, giving you more opportunities to get the two yellow stars needed to complete the constellation.

Any other possible clears that stand out? How about the whites extending off to 3 o'clock? Those have nothing to do with the constellation and are already lined up, just waiting to be cleared. That would be a great way to open some more space.

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Okay, I've rambled on long enough about duty navigation. Hopefully, some of the above makes some sense. As usual, if you have questions, post them here.

Below is a link to a video of me doing some duty navigation. Be warned that I went for video quality over file size, so it is a very hefty download (just over 47 MB, zipped).

Duty Navigation Sample Video

Duty Navigation: Required Reading

Unfortunately, there just isn't much for tutorials on duty navigation. Here are a few things that will help to get you started, though.

YPPedia Entry for Duty Navigation

Duty Navigation Tips Thread on the Y!PP Forums

Scarymuffin's Navigation Video

Start there and I'll come back with some of my own tips shortly.

Power Memming

If you're serious about memorizing the entire ocean, you're eventually going to have to do what is known as "power memming." Power memming is the process of hopping on a boat and then putting everything you have into memming as quickly as possible. There are a number of things to keep in mind to make the most out of your time memming.

Chart Long Routes

Chart the longest route you can chart (that's feasible). For example, if you need to memorize the entire route from Remora to Vernal Equinox, chart the entire thing, if possible, rather than just Remora to Beta. This will help in a few ways.

For one, if you're asking someone else to hop on and chart for you (and rechart once you reach the end of the route), you don't have to bother that person as often.

For another, how well you perform the duty nav puzzle directly impacts how long it takes to memorize a given league point. It often takes a league or so to get your indicator sparkly, so that first league is going to be tough to get a good score on. However, once you're going, you might as well make as much as you can out of that glowing indicator.

Watch Out for Brigands

It may go without saying, but being engaged by brigands just slows down the memorization process. While playing the duty nav puzzle, be sure to keep an eye on your ship and watch for brigands moving in. If you have to, do a quick "Turn About" to avoid the brigands. A little lost speed is well worth it, if you can avoid an entire battle.

If you do get caught in a battle, you'll probably have to switch to sails to augment the token production of your bots. In general, when I'm out memming, I don't even carry any shot. So, when I get into a fight, I just run away for 10 turns, disengage, and then go on with my memming.

Get a Helper

One problem with memming is that, when you reach the end of the route, you need to leave the duty nav station and rechart (assuming you're using charts). Whenever you leave the duty nav station, your indicator resets. What's worse is that you're probably already at max speed so, once you rechart and get going, you're going to have even less time than usual to get your indicator sparkly. This might not only booch your score at the first league point, but the second, as well.

A potential solution to this is to bring someone else aboard to help out. That person will probably sail to help you get up to speed quickly (and thereby enable you to avoid brigands) and, when you reach the end of the route, rechart back over the same route again. Note that this only works if the other person has access to chart your ship (an officer in the same crew as you, for example). The great thing about this is that you never have to leave the duty nav station. You can just keep puzzling away and you never have to lose your sparkly indicator. The downside, though, is that you have to impose on someone else to sit on your ship with you and you also never really know when you're "done" memorizing the route because you're not looking after each pass. This technique works great when you're just starting a route and you know it's going to take a full 5-6 passes to get it memmed. When you're down to a handful of league points, this method loses its effectiveness, because you're going to want to leave the station anyway, just to check your progress.

Memorization: How to Get Routes Charted

In order to nav a course, you need to first get that course charted. You have two options here - you can either chart it yourself (meaning that you must own the chart for that route) or you can get someone else to do it for you.

Step 1: Use the Navy

Memorization of the ocean may be the single best use of the navy (well, maybe except for the "Defeat Brigands" missions which are never run by the folks that need it most, but that's a different story). Once you have Broad experience in bilge, sailing, carpentry, and gunnery, you can take navigation missions from the navy.

What's so great about navigating with the navy?

1. The navy will automatically chart a random course for you within the arch you're in (including interarch routes). You need no chart and you need no one to come chart it for you.

2. You don't need to worry about being attacked on the high seas because no one can attack a navy vessel.

3. You get paid to mem! Sure, it's not a lot, but you're still getting paid, and that's something.

What's not so great about navigating with the navy?

1. The routes it gives you are random. That means that, even if you already have Spring-Epsilon memorized, it may still show you that route...over and over and over again. You just need to be patient and keep checking the mission list for a different route. They change periodically. This becomes more and more of a problem as you successfully memorize more and more of the arch in question.

2. Not all routes are available. You can get a whole lot of routes by navving with the navy (I think you can get all the interarchs, but I'm not quite certain). Nonetheless, the navy covers nearly any route you'd ever want to sail. Most routes not offered are routes that go to uninhabited islands. Unless you're big on foraging, those routes probably aren't a big deal.

Step 2: Find Charts

Once you've memorized everything the navy will allow you to memorize, you're going to have to go out on your own and start memming. This can be a bit of a pain because you're now open for attack (don't carry much - just some rum will do) and it'll cost you PoE to go memming, as you need to stock the ship.

Of course, now you need to chart the courses yourself, because the navy won't do it for you. That means you need to either have the chart for the route in question or you have to have a mate that knows the route and can chart it for you.

If you're looking for a specific route, there are a number of places you might check for charts. For one, check with mates in your crew and/or flag. They may very well have the chart lying around somewhere. If it's a particularly troublesome route, check out the Buying/Selling Charts thread in your ocean's bazaar forums. (That link is for Midnight.) You may be able to find someone selling the chart you're after. You can also sell the charts you no longer need out there, getting you a little PoE back and, more importantly, helping others accomplish just what you're trying to do: memorize the ocean.

Another place to find charts, which may seem a little odd, at first, is at skellie fights. Quite often, people bring extra charts with them to skellie fights to use as their wager items. Whether you take part in the fight or are just watching, you can see the list of items won by folks when the fight is over. Scan through that list and see if you spot some charts that you need. Quite often, you won't find any charts in there that you can't already buy elsewhere, but occasionally you hit the jackpot. If you find a chart you need, send the winner of that chart a polite tell asking if you can buy it. Often, they won't want it, anyway, and just hand it over. And, if they'd rather sell it, 100 PoE is usually enough to get it in your pocket. It may not be the greatest place to find charts, but I found a few that way.

Step 3: Watch for Helpful Charters

There are quite a few folks out there that have the entire ocean memorized. Most likely, all of those folks had some help getting it done, from others that would chart routes for them so they could memorize them. Many of these people look to "give back" by simply helping the next group of folks memorize routes.

Maybe you have someone like this in your own crew or flag. Ask around.

Once in a while, you can find "events" like this one (which is coming up soon) in which you'll have a whole crew of folks willing to help you memorize the ocean. Events like this are a spectacular way to memorize large chunks of the ocean. I memorized nearly all of Sapphire in a single morning thanks to a similar event.

Memorization: Required Reading

Memorization is the process of navigating over a league point so many times that you get to know it "by heart." Once a route is fully memorized (or memmed, for short), you never need a chart to sail that route again. Some things you should read to get the basics down regarding memorizing routes:

YPPedia Article

Also, as memming routes is primarily about duty navigation, you should read this, too.

I'll post more tips as time goes on, but this is a great place to start.

Rumble: Accessing Trigger Groups

An FU Student Asks:

Since it's important to hit the original charged group to set off your chain... what is the best way to build so that you have access to it? Everytime I set my chains up, I almost never hit my original group so it leaves 2-3 sets of charged groups up.

Good question. There are a couple ways to keep your first group (often referred to as the "trigger") available. One option is to simply not build on that side of the board, like this:

In this case, the trigger is the red group on the far right. Notice that I have a red ball in my right hand just waiting to trigger the combo. It's important to have that triggering ball available (and in a hand that can reach the trigger). To build this, I basically started my combo by charging a red ball and attaching it to the right side. At that point, I continued to build my combo primarily from the right hand. I do this until my right hand has the color I need to trigger the combo - in this case, red. Once I have my trigger ball ready, I go to my left hand and build only from there. I don't want to lose that red ball in my right hand because I have no idea when I'll get another.

One problem with this approach is that you end up "wasting" some space on your board. Notice the large gray triangle I created. That shaded area shows the part of the board that is difficult to build in, if using your left hand.

Is this really a problem? I don't think so. I think you have plenty of room to build a big enough combo to insta someone without having to worry about that bit of wasted space. Nonetheless, you want to ensure that you're using as much space as possible and packing in your combo as tightly as you can.

Now, you can try to use up more of that space by placing some strategic shots and perhaps using some back shots. What you want to avoid, though, is getting cut off from your trigger group, like this:

In this situation, the charged yellow group on the left side is my trigger. I even have my yellow ball in my left hand so I'm ready to go. Unfortunately, I can no longer get to it. Note the charged red group on the left side - that's where the problem happens. I built too far out to the left and that charged red group started catching sprinkles. It caught so many, in fact, that I can no longer trigger my combo.

So, if you use the open side technique, try to use as much space as you can, but don't build too large or you may find yourself cut off.

A second option is to build a "fuse" to keep your trigger open. Here's an example:

In this case, the charged orange group in the center is the trigger. Notice a couple things here. First of all, I built up this combo on both sides (although the left side is built up a bit more because I was holding that orange in my right). Also, the orange group has a number of charged balls in it, extending it downward. By occasionally attaching additional charged orange balls to the bottom of my trigger group, I keep it from getting buried.

The downside, of course, is that you end up spending extra time charging balls to attach to an already charged group. If you count the charged orange balls in that picture, you'll see that I have 8 charged balls in that group. That's enough to have two more complete charged groups, had I only kept one charged ball on the orange group.

So, which method is better? Personally, I like starting a combo on the side and then keeping that side open. It's faster and there's less waste. Also, you don't sacrifice much by giving up a little real estate in terms of how large your strike can be. Note that both the open side combo (15 steps) and the fuse combo (17 steps) were enough to send a strike large enough to reach the bottom of the opponent's board. The fuse method works, but I think you waste far too much time charging balls.

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Building strikes like this has a time and a place. When you're fighting one on one, you're generally not going to have time to build strikes like this unless you're fighting a far inferior opponent. Anyone decent will be sending occasional strikes that will interrupt your combo building process.

If, however, you're certain that your opponent isn't going to send you any more strikes, you can use their sprinkle pattern against them. This works well against folks that like to turbo sprinkle or against opponents that give up striking and go to sprinkles as their board fills (lots of players have this tendency).

Here's an example:

In this case, I used the "Open Side" technique, but I intentionally started my combo using available yellows on the left. That charged yellow group on the far left is my trigger. Notice, however, that it has uncharged yellow balls attached to the bottom. How did those get there? Those are my opponent's sprinkles, of course. I knew that my opponent was sending yellow balls up the left side, so I intentionally stated my combo to match that sprinkle pattern. Then, I'd continue building my combo as usual, but, whenever the opponent would send sprinkles, those sprinkles would act as a "fuse" for my trigger group. Notice how much of the board I'm able to use with little-to-no waste because I'm using my opponent's sprinkle pattern against them.

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So when do you use strikes like this? Well, there are a few situations that come to mind. Sometimes, I do it just for fun, when I'm fighting someone without as much skill as me (read "Able"). Against turbo sprinklers, combos like this can be powerful, but you need to keep pressure on them and adding bruises to the combos can also be very potent (of course, you can always use their sprinkle pattern to add bruises, making your attacks faster and nastier). Most good turbo sprinklers will fill your board so quickly that you won't be able to build a combo large enough to insta-kill them. Nonetheless, you can, and should, use their attacks against them.

Another time to use strikes like this would be when rumbling in groups, against barbarians, for instance. One technique that works well against barbarians is for an untargeted player (or a defended player) to build insta-kill combos and pick off bots one at a time. With rumbling (especially against barbarians), creating insta-kill combos doesn't even involve that much skill - it just takes time. The more skillful players can do it faster, but it's not difficult to build a 10+ step combo in rumble, if you're unmolested.

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Another note about your question - you point out that you sometimes break only part of your combo. Sometimes, that's not a bad thing. Let's say you have an 8 stage combo. You break half of it, add a charged group and then break the rest. What does your opponent see? Back to back nasty strikes. It can be a little difficult to work out, but pulling occasional strikes like this can be a great way to keep your opponents guessing.

You see, most opponents have a definite pattern to their strikes. After fighting people a few times, you just get a feel for when their next strike will come. As such, you can time your own strikes to counter that. Doing things like turning a single combo into two smaller, rapid fire combos, is a great way to keep your opponent guessing.

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I hope that helps answer your question!