Memorization

Routes between islands can be memorized or memmed by playing the navigation puzzle.

Each league point in the ocean may be individually memorized. Once memorized, league points will always appear brown on your "Yer known world," and you will no longer need access to charts (on the current ship or in your inventory) to see them.

You must be navigating when the ship encounters the league point, and score at least Fine on the duty report, to have a chance to memorize the route. The number of times you have to navigate to a point is random. Most league points can be memorized in 4-6 passes, but some may take as few as 3 passes, or as many as 8. You must travel between two league points; turning about before hitting the next league point does not work.

Any league point that contains an island can be memmed without doing the navigation puzzle at all. Simply setting foot on the island (by stepping off of a ship, by going to the island on a skellie fighting mission, etc.,) counts as one credit towards the credits needed to memorize the island.

Island discovery
Islands are also 'memorized', in that once you have been to one, it has been discovered, and will always be visible on Yer known world, as a diamond shape with the name of the island. Each island has a league point, which is memorized separately. Memorizing the league point of an island does not memorize the island, you must set foot on it. This is often forgotten, as island text always appears brown on Ye known world, whether it is known because of a chart or has been memorized. Island discovery is easily performed by first compiling a list of unknown islands, by taking stock of which islands are already known, and comparing that list against the appropriate island list or ocean map. Then, board a vessel that is well stocked with charts, and whisk to the destination island(s) with the aid of a whisking potion.

Strategies
It is easiest to memorize points when you can navigate uninterrupted. Memorizing while pillaging is notoriously slow.

You can navigate with the navy after achieving broad experience in bilging and gunning, along with rigging or sailing, and carpentry or patching; you also need to be a subscriber (if you're playing on a subscription ocean) or have a Pirate (or higher) badge (if playing on a doubloon ocean). If you navigate with the navy, you won't be attacked by brigands (but make sure you are not a on an attack brigands mission) and you will have four swabbies to help you sail the ship. You won't have control over where the ship goes, so choose the mission based on which route you wish to work on.

To memorize routes away from islands (where the navies don't sail), you must navigate while pillaging, trading, or sailing solo for the purpose of memorization, also known as power memming. These methods are prone to attack by brigands, which slow the memorization time.

It is no longer possible to memorize league points when the ship is set to a swabbie ship transport or greeter pillage, as of Release 2007-12-12.

It should also be noted that league points unique to Sea Monster Hunt maps can not be memorized.

Soloing
When soloing you must, of course, be an Officer or above in your crew, and you must also have access to a ship. You must be able to chart the routes you wish to memorize, by having the correct charts either on the ship or in your possession. You can also have someone who has already memmed the course chart it for you. It is not possible to memorize extinct routes (which only exist on Midnight).

When soloing a sloop (which is the easiest to solo), you will only have three swabbies to help you sail, and brigands may attack you. As well you will also have to pay for any rum you consume or cannon balls you fire during any battles. If you are planning on memming and avoiding fights, it is best not to put up a jobbing notice, as jobbers will likely be expecting fights to pay for their time that they spend puzzling for you. However, you can always ask someone in your crew if they would like to help you.

Avoiding brigands is easy as long as there are not many attacking; however, once engaged, it can be hard to get back up to speed after the battle. Brigands cannot catch up to you while you're at top speed, so they must be in front of you, traveling slower in the same direction, and waiting for you to approach them. You should turn about and sail all the way back to the last league point, at which point you'll start going in the correct direction again after you set sail. This allows you to avoid issuing a second 'turn about' command and suffering another drop in speed.

Again, it is very useful to bring another pirate on these solo runs (though that's not a solo run, is it?) who wants to just sail, for little or no pay. You might also "hire" someone for a time. If their output is better than a swabbie, it will help pick up speed to avoid brigands.

If you are good at navigation, configuring the voyage as "Evading" would be helpful since the better navigation means a better chance of not being attacked by passing brigands, along with reducing spawns designated for you.

An alternate solo strategy is to configure a pillage with the difficulty of the brigands/barbarians turned down low. You should be able to win most of the resulting fights, even without using cannonballs. While this method is much slower and requires far more skill with the navigation puzzle than evading, this method does generate a large number of charts and can prove useful when other methods of getting missing charts are unfeasible.

Course selection
One very common method of memorization is charting a long route such that there is enough time to get up to "fine," and to keep these higher scores for a longer amount of time. Also, not porting but simply recharting to go back on the route is also very common: you do not lose speed at islands this way. However, as the navigation puzzle resets to zero on recharting, the higher speed means that there is less time to build up a good score before the first league point.

A technique of memorizing a specific route is to chart through the target route to an adjacent route that is already memorized or a map for it is available for charting. Once a navigator has gone through a league or two of the adjacent route he or she can chart back through the target route and take advantage of an extra league or two to get up to a high score and thus reduce the time it takes to memorize the target route. This technique is especially useful for memorizing a route where the chart is old and may dust soon or a crewmate is charting it and memorization needs to be completed before they log off.

Navy mission
To memorize routes starting on colonized islands, it may be simpler to take a navigation mission aboard a navy boat. You will be assigned to a sloop with four, rather than three, swabbies; rum will be provided by the navy (at no cost to you); you will not be attacked; and you will be paid wages for your performance at the navigation puzzle.

You may also use the Attack Brigands mission to memorize league points as well, but you will be attacked.

Note: These missions require that the starting island have a Palace.

Memorizing island points

 * Go to the island. Log out and back in again until the island point is memorized.
 * Go to the island. Hop on and off a crew ship ported at that island until the point is memorized.
 * If there is ferry to the island, use that repeatedly.

Charting for others
Anyone with the ability to navigate a ship can now chart the ship. This means any officer from the ship's crew or a jobber who has been ordered to navigate.

Prior to Release 2008-10-14 only officers in a ship's crew could chart a course on that ship. Officers who have points memorized could easily chart for others in their crew. In order to chart for someone who was not in their crew, the person who needed the route charted had to trade the ship's deed to the charting Officer, who would then chart the course and trade back the deed.

Historical notes
Memorization originally required sailing a route exactly five times while doing the Navigation puzzle to memorize it. Due to overanalysis by players, this was changed to the current system in.

For a while, you could memorize leagues with greeter pillaging or swabbie ship transport. This was changed with.

For a long time, it was possible to memorize extinct league points by having them charted by someone who had memorized them. This was disabled in preparation for Atlantis.

Prior to, only officers in a ship's crew could chart a course on that ship.

Other links

 * Number of league points per ocean
 * Sage memorization checklist - a checklist of all the routes in sage, with notes as to which routes charts are purchasable.
 * Memorization spreadsheets: Hunter, Midnight, Sage
 * misha's midnight memming map
 * Official navigation docs
 * Wiki maps: Cerulean, Emerald, Ice, Meridian
 * Tjj's Hunter Memming Helper
 * Memorising league points
 * See the Memming Players lists below for free charting services.
 * Enhanced Memorization Chart - Emerald Ocean