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NEWS How not to become a pirate, part one, two and three.

Luka Melehan

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This is a documentary showing of the efforts of a ragtag group of landlubbers with asperations of wealth, fame, women and rum.

Part One: Research and Preparation.

The advent of High Seas brought on many things...beautiful ships, cannon functionality, new PvP options and a spunky new way of talking. Arr...
But how do we put it all together? Many websites exist to help us along our way, including our own Startics Guide:

UO Stratics *New* | Ships Guide


Aquiring the ship was the easy part. Now for cannons. Apparently vending on Siege has not been profitable lately so I resorted to trading in game and here on the forums. THere...shiney new cannons.

Cannon supplies turned out to be more problematic and to be quite honest, a pain in the aft. Salt peter must be mined or farmed off seamarket vendors. The mystical blackpowder requires a hefty amount of alchemy skill. So between work, RL and playing in the abyss, I started to work.

Important lesson: Plan ahead.

Part Two: Peeking around the corner.

Any time I commit to a quest or certain type of hunt, I like to go scope out the area on my own to see how it feels, size up of opposition, and see what all I fogot to bring before embarrassing myself in front of others. So I set out in my tokono ship and it wasn't long before I ran across an orc ship. I discovered several things. I needed a bow with more distance. Its probably better to kill the orcs before trying to scuttle the ship. Seafaring orcs are harder to kill than thier landwalking cousins. And your corpse will stay on your boat while you sail to a healer.

Important lesson: This is not a one man occupation.

Part Three: Dry Run.

We decided to look for random NPC ships rather than grabbing a quest, again to scope things out and see how things go. I beleive the first one was a merchant ship. We had four pirates and more or less stationed one at the nose, one driving and the last two flipping sides to shoot cannons. We ran into all sorts of glitches. We had trouble with security settings so crew members could access the hold. We learned the match has to be lit... *nods sagely* Heavy cannon balls are......heavy. And at least in EC the cannon gump seems to jump around a bit. It takes more materials to repair a ship than I anticipated, and it may be worth while to assign a crew member to watching that and performing damage control on the fly. Non-quest NPC ships carry mostly materials, so bring extra commodity deeds as a ship's hold acts as a commodity box. Just remember to carry all filled deeds except what you need for the current battle in case you are set upon by other player pirates. Also, pirate orcs do carry both forms of yeast.

Important lesson: Don't leave your only experienced sailor at home.





As for the rum, the only interesting loot we found was the smuggler's liquor crate. *hic*
Next time: Bigglesby’s Pirate Quests.
 

FrejaSP

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Yes making the stuff needed to fire a cannon is a pain. Boats are very expensive here, so I believe many fear to lose their boat too.
Also many guilds are small, it's very hard to get enough online at same time to even think about doing the sea fights.
 

Petra Fyde

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You can't actually lose your boat. It can be scuttled, and you'll have to limp to shore, but only the owner can dry dock it.
Trust me, mine has been scuttled several times. Nightstalker has held my stuff in the hold to ransom, but I've never lost the boat :D
 

FrejaSP

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Ok good to know I can't lose it, I was vorried about that part.
Any captain can dry dock the boat, Tina Tink dry docked mine and replaced it and she become the owner. It removed the access list but the secure setting was the same. However, TDO lost access and NEW2 got the guild access instead. My rune did still work (After she accessed me again), even when the ship got new owner.
So be carefull who you make captain on your ship :)
 

Petra Fyde

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:) aye, you don't give captain access to anyone but your own characters.
Here's a breakdown of who can do what:

UO Stratics *New* | Ships Guide

Officer is sufficient for anyone you want to be able to access the hold and work the cannons.
 

Luka Melehan

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Officer is sufficient for anyone you want to be able to access the hold and work the cannons.
yup and as soon as the pirates stepped off the deck, I changed the ship settings. And yeah....never did get my cannons back from Nightstalker.
 

Petra Fyde

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:) I paid the ransom - I could just as easily have re-made the maps he'd looted, but where's the fun in that?
 

FrejaSP

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Oh cannons can be looted, I thought they was a kind of lockdowns.
How do pirates get access to the ship? Is that when it is scuttled?
So much I don't know.
The guide is great Petra, thanks
 

Petra Fyde

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:) yes, anyone can access a scuttled ship and loot the hold and any cannon. The same rules apply whether it's you attacking an npc pirate or merchant ship or player pirates attacking you. I learned to do fishing quests a few at a time and take my boat out of the water when I wasn't sailing it.
 

kelmo

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Excellent report. *nods*
 
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