The first thing to know about ship navigation is how you see your ship relative to the rest of the game world. Your ship will always point to the right. Your ship remains static while the world around you turns. To illustrate this point

This ship has a heading of 0 Due North and is docked at Chepstow. However, when we cast wizard's eye:

Same ship, same position, but the world has turned.

Ships of Medievia use real world terminology which we have not covered up until now, specifically which side of the ship is where. We use these terms so we always know what location is being referred to. The guns on the left when you are standing at the helm would be Larboard but the guns on the left when looking at the helm from the bow, would be starboard. 

These are the terms you will see and use while shipping. The ship remains static to help you conceptualize these locations.

• Larboard: The top side of the ship
• Starboard: The bottom side of the ship
• Stern: The back end of the ship
• Bow: The front end of the ship

During combat or navigation, you will notice the use of words like beam and abaft. These will help you to determine the angle of the incoming serpent or ship.

Think of your ship as the center point of a 360-degree protractor. Where 0 is the bow or front of your ship and 180 is the stern or the back of the ship.

The direction you are facing is always 0. Take the helm (SHIP HELM) and to turn you use the command ship course ship co <degrees>. So I want to turn the ship to 270 degrees. I do Ship co -90. You can only turn your ship at a maximum increment of 180 or -180 keep this in mind when approaching obstacles such as islands or the edge of the world.

This same concept applies when visualizing your location relative to the Medievia map. Your ship remains at the center while the protractor rotates around you.  For example, the Heading 130.00

When at sea, if the helm is left unlashed, the wheel will turn uncontrollably and your course will change erratically. This will make firing your guns ineffective as aim cannot be maintained. Your deckhands will also not be able to snag serpent meat if the ship is not steady. To avert this, we have the SHIP LASH commands which will tie the helm off with only slight variances in the course.

You can also lash the helm into a turn. e.g. ship lash 90 will have your ship doing donuts. The ship will continue turning until you once again take the helm. (SHIP HELM)

When you're navigating you will see messages like this:

Five Points abaft the Starboard Beam at a range of 35 you see a small ruby dragon-headed serpent with a barbed tail; it barely clings to life.

What does this even mean? Beam refers to 90 degrees off of your ship in reference to the beam of your ship's sail. Points refers to points of the compass equaling 10 degrees. Abaft will mean towards the stern.

So to translate

Fifty degrees to the right on the starboard side of the ship at a range of 35 rooms you see a small ruby dragon-headed serpent with a barbed tail; it barely clings to life.

To line yourself up to have this serpent directly off the beam we would do Ship co 50 this will turn the ship 50 degrees to the right (starboard) and put the serpent at 90. Now if the same serpent was coming from the same angle toward the front of the ship you would see

Four Points off the Starboard bow at a range of 35 you see a small ruby dragon-headed serpent with a barbed tail; it barely clings to life.

So 60 degrees off of the bow (0 degrees) to put this serpent off the beam we would enter Ship co -60 we are turning 40 degrees to the left(larboard) to bring the serpent to 90 degrees

Behind you is referred to astern

Astern at a range of 15.41 you spot a wisp of smoke rising behind a castle wall.

This may all seem very overwhelming and you are probably wondering how to digest all this information but to give you some words of encouragement it's simpler than it seems! After reading this far now is the perfect time to hop into a ship train in the game put put all you;ve learned so far into practice. Try out the commands we've been over and sail around the training pen,give order your deckhands and start getting the feel of how a Man O'War handles. We can write dozens of pages explaining how to do this but they will always be inferior to practical experience. Get out there and practice, yes you will sink that's as certain as death and taxes but next time you will have learned from that setback. You will have this down in no time at all!

Remember SHIP TRAIN is free!