Configure voyage

Configure voyage is a menu available to officers of crews. It is a button located on the radial menu of a ship. This menu allows an officer to change the type of voyage that the ship will have. There are eight types of voyages: pillage, trade, blockade, greeter, swabbie transport, flotilla, Sea Monsters and evade. When a ship is set to a particular type of voyage, an icon appears on the vessel tab displaying the type of voyage that ship is currently on. These types of voyages can only be changed at an island either while in port or at the league point - the exception is Evading, which may be set at any time, but may only be unset at an island.

Pillage
An officer may specify the type of pillage the ship undertakes. By sliding the two arrows, the officer can decide how difficult a pillage he or she wants to take. If auto-targeting is enabled, the ship will automatically target any enemy whose might ring has a color in the range set by the officer, although an officer can also target a ship manually as well. If auto-targeting is disabled, an officer must manually target ships to attack them. However, brigand and barbarian ships can still engage the player vessel.

The officer can also specify whether to target only brigands or barbarians, or enemies of either type. Better performance by a player at the navigation puzzle will improve the chances of finding the types of enemies that the ship is set to look for.

The ship can also be set to automatically target player vessels, or to only attack them manually.

If two player vessels engage in a PvP and both ships are set to target barbarians only, or one ship targets barbarians and performs better at navigation, after grappling they will engage in a rumble rather then a swordfight.

The navigation puzzle helps to spawn the types of ships you have configured your voyage for. It is also notable that when attempting to engage in a PvP one may receive a message saying "She's outmaneuvered us!" This message will come up if there is a pirate aboard the ship you are attacking is engaged in the navigation puzzle, and is doing better than you at navigation. What does this mean? It means that you can avoid being attacked by doing well on the navigation puzzle.

Trade
When set to trade, the officer has specified that the ship is moving cargo, and will probably not pursue enemies in battle. The officer can then set an average amount of PoE that each jobber will earn per league point. The amount that a player will actually earn is based on his or her performance during that league, compared with the rest of the crew. A player who performs better than average will earn more PoE than a player who performs below average.

In order to pay players, there must be enough PoE in the hold to pay jobbers.

Better performance at the navigation puzzle will reduce brigand spawn while en route. Hinted in the Release_2007-06-14.

Evade
Evading functions in essentially the same way as the trade setting, but no PoE is offered to jobbers. It may be set at any time, but may only be unset at an island.

Blockade
A ship may be set to participate in a blockade. A ship may only be set to blockade if it is at an island where the flag is currently seeking blockade jobbers. Jobbers on board are then paid through the blockade job offer of the flag that the ship belongs to. Blockade job offers are set by the royalty of the flag.

Greeter pillage
This setting is for training missions, run by a greeter. This setting helps new players learn how to play the game. In order to set the ship to greeter pillage, the hold of the ship must be empty and you must be on a ship with a crew capacity of 15 or less (i.e. a longship or smaller.) Cannonballs and rum are magically supplied during this pillage. If there is no one on guns at the beginning of a sea battle then the guns will be automatically loaded at the start of that sea battle. During a greeter pillage, it is not possible to attack other player vessels, nor be attacked by them.

When holding a greeter pillage you should be prepared to be patient with the large amount of green players you will receive, and preferably have multiple greeters on-hand to deal with questions as they pop up. If you don't want to deal with greenies, then you should probably set your voyage as a regular pillage instead- as a greeter you shouldn't tax your patience too much.

Do not use greeter pillages (or your greeter status, for that matter) to recruit people for your crew/flag. Specifically, this means that there should be no active recruiting on training pillages. However, if you are approached by a greenie whilst on your training pillage and they ask to join the crew without any prompting whatsoever, then you have the option of signing them up.

During a greeter pillage, less loot is won from enemies. New pirates are paid an average of 10 PoE per league in addition to their share of the booty. Only new players (with green names) earn a split of the booty after battle according to the 50% booty division. Older players only receive booty at the final division of the booty at port. Expedition maps are not available during greeter pillages.

You cannot memorise league points when the ship is in greeter pillage mode.

Only players who are greeters can run greeter pillages. All players on board who are eligible to be a greeter are automatically placed on duty, and a greeter cannot go off duty while on a greeter pillage. Eligible greeters who job onto a greeter pillage are placed on duty as soon as they accept the offer to job.

New players who apply to the pillage are automatically jobbed on board without a jobbing request coming up in Ahoy! tab for the officers on board the vessel. All other jobbers will appear in the Ahoy! tab as normal.

Swabbie ship transport


A ship may be set for transport by swabbies. Swabbies will safely and automatically transport vessels along the charted route for a fee. The price for swabbie ship transporting is 5 PoE per swabbie on board per league point travelled. Each ship has a set number of swabbies that will staff it during swabbie ship transport and while you can fire as many swabbies as you'd like, you will always pay the rate as if it were fully staffed. When a player is on board, they count as one swabbie and are replaced if they leave the ship. In order to set the ship to swabbie ship transport, the hold of the ship must be empty. Once the hold is empty and a course has been charted, click the sail button. If there is not sufficient PoE in the hold to pay the swabbies, you will receive a message telling you how much is required for their efforts. This money is charged and removed from the hold as soon as you begin the voyage. Once the ship is sailing you may leave the ship. You will be replaced by a swabbie and the ship will be automatically transported to its destination. It's not possible to clear the charting and re-chart when swabbie transporting. However, if the ship's course takes it by an island, you can port your ship during the brief stop at the island's league point. PoE charged for the remaining unsailed leagues will not be refunded. NB: If you are an officer, you can only set your own vessels to swabbie transport. You must be ranked Fleet Officer or above to swabbie unlocked crew vessels.

During the course of the trip, your ship can not be engaged by brigands or by players, will not engage brigands or players, and makes only a brief two second stop at each league point before carrying on. The ship will automatically port when it reaches the destination island thus not requiring the player to be logged in when the journey is over. This makes the swabbie transport an extremely fast and straightforward way to move a ship from point A to point B without needing an active player on board or even online.

Another use of the Swabbie Ship Transport (SST) is to repair damage and pump bilge water on ships. Swabbies on SSTs are good at their duty. If the Commanding Officer would not like to sail from Point A to Point B but utilise the repair/bilging efforts of Swabbies, he/she can chart a short-distance voyage to Point B and repeatedly turn about back and forth till the damage and bilge are 0, before porting at Point A.

You cannot memorise league points when the ship is in Swabbie Ship Transport mode.

Swabbie full bilge blues
The swabbies will automatically assign themselves posts. However, they tend to avoid the bilge station entirely. This leads to the bilge filling up mid-voyage. Assigning a swabbie to bilge duty before leaving the ship will prevent this problem and drastically cut down the time swabbies need to complete the voyage.

Historical notes
Swabbie ship transport was introduced in Release 2007-06-14. Release 2009-03-18 changed the number of swabbies assigned to the ship when choosing swabbie transport - a side effect of related brigand strength changes. Two days later the cost per swabbie per league was dropped to 5 PoE from its previous 10 PoE.

Flotilla
A ship may be set to participate in a flotilla. Notice boards will signify ships that are hiring for flotillas attacks. Better performance at the navigation puzzle will reduce brigand spawn while en route.

Any job postings for flotilla attacks appear under the heading "Flotilla Attack" on the Voyages tab of the notice board.

Sea monsters
This voyage mode can only be used for trips to Atlantis and Cursed Isles. A ship may be set to Sea Monster mode only after being charted to a Sea Monster location with the corresponding map. Better performance at the navigation puzzle will reduce brigand spawn while en route.

Any job offers posted after this appear under the "Sea Monster" heading on the Voyages tab of the Notice Board.

History
Greeters were initially permitted to take out any size ship on a greeter pillage. This was restricted to ships with a single mast in, and later changed to ships with a capacity of 15 or less, to include the fanchuan.