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Bberke's Guide to Floating on the Sea (without sinking) - by BberkeSo you've read all the ship help files including the shipadmin help files, but you are still confused about how to ship. We'll you have come to the right place! The format of this guide is a loose FAQ or list of questions with answers. This way you don't have to read the whole thing. Please note detailed serpent hunting tips are intentionally left out of this guide. I will be writing a serpent hunting guide as a supplement to this guide later.Q: What is shipping? A: Shipping is the act of being on a boat either killing things, navigating or otherwise assisting in keeping the boat afloat. Q: Why would anyone want to go shipping? A: Depending of adventure you engage in while shipping, you will find yourself shipping either for xp, hero points, serpent points, player killing, ship stealing, or the wholesome enjoyment of salty air that is found in abundance on a ship. Q: How do I go shipping? A: You get on a ship, get a crew together, and set sail. Q: How do I get on a ship? A: There are several ways to get on a ship. If the ship is owned by your clan, is docked, and is less than 50 rooms away from your current position you may type ship goto If the ship is owned by your clan, but undocked or more than 50 rooms away from your current position you must be on a dragon and type fly ship If the ship is not owned by your clan, docked and less than 50 rooms away from your current position, you must type ship request If the ship is not owned by your clan and is not docked or more than 50 rooms away from your current position you must type ship request Q: Ok I'm on a ship, what do I do? A: Whatever the captain tells you to do (type ship stat to see who is captain of the ship along with a bunch of other useful info). The captain is the leader of leaders on a ship and if a ship is going to succeed in not sinking (staying afloat) then all crew members must obey their captain, not to mention he can insta-kill you with the command ship deny Q: People keep telling me to keep the hatches closed, why? A: The hatches are the only passageways that lead between decks. When monsters come on board, isolating them to a particular deck makes them less likely to run amok killing everyone, also it makes them easier to find and kill. More importantly, some mob factions, like sea ram babies, firemoth babies, crabs, and firesticks can cause damage to a ship. It is best these mob factions are kept out of the lower levels of the ship (the hull). This is because as long as the hull remains undamaged, the ship will not sink. The moment even a small amount of damage is done to the hull of a ship, the ship will have to be continually pumped of water using the ship pump command. Q: How do I handle Aquoderms? A: The most important rule of dealing with Aquoderms is do not let them get to the crow's nest. Shield room the crow's nest and the rest of the main mast. If they get to the crow's nest they will call out causing even more difficult harder-hitting higher hit point Aquoderms to crawl on board. Aquoderms don't damage the ship, but even they get out of control they can distract you from other important activities which will ultimate result in the boat sinking or at the very least being no fun to sail on. Q: How do I handle crabs? A: Crabs are unique among mob factions in that the navigator of the ship controls how many crabs come onto the ship. This being said the navigator of a ship should always strive for the balance between causing all the forms on the ship to die and having the forms become bored because too few crabs come on the ship. The number of crabs that enter the ship is determined by how long the ship spends in a room. When your ship moves from one room to another crabs will board the ship, but if your ship spends long enough in a room without moving (anchored or adrift for example), a huge amount of crabs will enter at once. Skimming the uneven border of a crab field will allow for continual crabs while also allowing a weak crew to have small breaks when the ships sails over empty (blue) rooms. The worst thing that can happen to a ship doing crabs is for the crew to allow the crabs to damage the sails. This will slow the ship down, resulting in more crabs and if the crew becomes overwhelmed a domino affect where the sails become so damaged and the ship has so many crabs that it will take the most heroic of efforts and organization to take back the ship while repairing the sails. To avoid your crew from being overwhelmed by crabs form leaders should be periodically moving about the entire main deck and making sure the mast that sits on the main deck is shielded completely along its center from its base up. Naturally it is very important not to let crabs below decks, so never open hatches when they are onboard. A ship with all hatches closed has a chance of surviving a crab infestation till reboot because even though the entire upperdecks of the ship will be destroyed, the ship will not sink. Q: How do I handle firemoths? A: Firemoths are the easiest mob faction, but they also do the damage the quickest. The moment firemoths are onboard they start damaging the sails, then they make babies that damage the rest of the ship. All bases of all masts should be shield roomed immediately to limit the spread of the fire moth infestation. Than depending on the risk level forms should be quickly dispatched to climb each mast and kill the firemoths. Repairs should be made ASAP, because you never know when you are going to need full speed from your sails. Q: How do I handle firesticks? A: A firestick is the most feared mob faction on ships. They are however very simple to defeat. Do not cast spells. If you cast any spell, any spell at all while firestick is in the room with you, the firestick will explode killing you and setting the ship on fire. Fires are really bad, destroying a room very quickly and spreading even quicker. Take solace though in the fact that the use of staffs, potions, wands and other magical equipment do not cause the explosion of firesticks. This means you should always bring oak staffs with you on ship along with orbs and green potions or healing staffs. Q: How do I handle Kraken? A: Two things make Kraken a pain. If it has any arms left, the main body of the kraken does a massive attack that does about 500-800hp damage. Also, Krakens can go right through closed hatches and shielded rooms. This makes them deadly on sloops where they can prevent almost all ship operation. In order to kill them, move to the room that is furthest away from the main body (which does not move) but is still within range of the arms (which do move). Making sure to quickly flee if you are dragged by the arms, slowly kill the arms until all or only a few are left. Once the kraken has only a few arms left it can either be left alone to be killed later or taken care of immediately. If the kraken arms will not move out of the room with the main body, one strategy is for high hp form members to run in, get in a few room spells and flee, repeating this till all the arms are dead. Once all the arms are dead the kraken is a straightforward kill. Q: How do I handle Ruby Kah? A: Ruby Kah can appear on your ship at random, but often the dungeon master gives them to you when your ship is close to sinking. If the latter is the case make sure not to kill the ruby kah they are probably the only thing between you and your ship sinking. When ruby kah first come on board everyone should go below deck to get organized. A navigator may stay below deck to steer the ship so it doesn't hit land. Ruby Kah can be scared off by several succesful vollies on a manowar from the lower deck guns, but remember organization is the key. Many ships have sunk due the impending chaos of unmanned top deck guns once the ruby kah are scared off. If you are not on a manowar or not fighting serpents, you'll probably be fighting the ruby kah off. Remember if you are above decks you must walk very very slowly to avoid the ruby kah snapping you up (doing 300+ damage in the process). Ruby kahs will also snap you up if you are above decks and fire a gun, cast a magical spell, or are carrying meat or fish. So get rid of fish/meat if ruby kah are about to come on board. If more than 3 people are in a room above decks Ruby kah will snatch up the last person. If you are in moderate or low risk, or have a particularly tough form, rushing the ruby kah with full forms is one strategy, a few people will be snatched up, but it will be the quickest way of engaging and killing the ruby kah. If the ruby kah are too tough or your forms to weak for a massive rush then you should send up forms of 2-3 people in waves to each mast. If you get snatched by ruby kah and can't solo ice them, flee and try to walk slowly out, if you have enough hitpoints you can flee, shield room (get snatched OUCH) and flee again into your shielded room. The shielded room can than be used as a temporary safe haven until either help arrives or you can manage to sneak back below decks where spell casting is an option. Note, you can cast spells while fighting the ruby kah, but the moment the ruby kah dies any spell even one without a target will cause you to be snatched by the remaining ruby kah. Q: How do I handle searams? A: Searams attack your ship by ramming it - the trick is to steer the ship in such a way that the searams' ramming attack hits your precise stern or bow. If they hit anywhere else they will damage the ship, if you manage to line them up correctly they will jump onto the ship. Searams will not move from where they land on the ship, but once you kill them there babies will run around looking for open hatches, so they can go below and start ripping your ship apart from the inside out. So, don't open hatches. Searams are straight forward, either kill them once on board or leave them alone until you have time to deal with them. Q: How do I handle sirens? A: Either have all men go below deck (careful sirens can easily dart through an opened hatch below deck) and wait till the women take care of them. An alternative strategy that is being tried now is to have two rows of females in a form and the back row males. This way the sirens are unlikely to target the males. Shieldrooming off a portion of the ship to limit the movement of the sirens is also advisable because sirens tend to move very quickly and can be hard to engage if they have the entire ship to run around in. Q: What do I do if I am unable to kill a mob faction? A: Die! The more you die on a ship the more sympathy the dungeon master has for you and pretty soon he will send along emerald kah and sea griffins to assist you on your journey. This is highly desirable because once the helper mob factions have finished their killing spree they will ride in front of the ship effectively doubling your ships speed. Q: What's the best way to fire on a serpent? A: Make an alias, you can use the alias command. For example "alias sfs ship fire serpent;get ammo;ship load". Make sure you are capable of picking up the ammo. Q: This ship is going slow, how do I speed it up? A: The best way to speed up your ship is to have your crew intentionally die or lose to mob factions, the dungeon master will usually send emerald kah or sea griffins to assist you after the first or second time your crew dies (note the captain or navigator need not die just some of the crew). Once the sea griffins or emerald kah finish killing stuff for you they will fly/ride in front of the ship almost doubling its speed. Q: Help my ships on fire! A: If someone exploded a firestick, do your best to not explode another one. If you do explode another one casting shield room, well at least you just set fire to a room already on fire. Once you are in a shielded room cast mermaid's blessing to slow down the burning/sinking of your ship. Next try to keep the firesticks contained to a particular area of the ship. If you can't safely douse the top of your ship, then let the top of your ship burn while you repair and douse the bottom of your ship. If firesticks are everywhere, then try to kill them, but have one person stay alive so that when helper mob factions come you can call them on board. Q: How do I get emerald kah to come help me? A: Someone on the ship must either be fighting a player or another mob for emerald kah to come on board. A common method is for you to go to the crow's nest engage a mob or player in combat and shout help, shouting anything with the word help in it will make the kah come on board. Make sure to not shield rooms because this will prevent the kah from moving about the ship. It's a good idea to cast sanctuary on the kah to assist them in defeating particularly tough mob factions. Hopefully this has answered a lot of your questions about shipping. Remember this is not meant as a replacement to the help files, but rather a supplement. If you have more questions about ships, or suggestions for additions to this FAQ, please contact me (Bberke) via mudmail and I will see if I can make it happen. Thanks for reading my FAQ and good luck! |
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