Sailing

Who really wants to sail the seas with just a light sloop? Not me. You will want at least 300-800 coins saved up to buy your second ship(300 for a galleon, 800 for a frigate, and unless you are really desperate for a better ship and dont want to wait for 800 gold, get the light frigate). There are more expensive ships, but you need to work on your sailing skill (level five for regular ships, fifteen for war ships)before you can captain these beauties.

Buying your ship
Find the ship merchant on the beach right in front of the bow of a ship buried in the sand. The ship merchant in Port Royal is at the opposite end of the beach from where the jail and guards live. (Tortuga, Cuba, and Padres del Fuego also have have ship merchants.)

Your first ship is free after carrying out a small quest. This one is the smallest size ship, a Light Sloop.

Assemble your crew
While you can be the captain of a ship by yourself, it's going to be much more fun and effective if you have a crew to set sail with you! To invite others to join your crew, click on a nearby pirate and select Crew from that person's menu. It is also a good idea to say something about what you plan to do with your crew so that people with similar goals will want to come with you. "I am sailing to Cuba" or "Let's go sink some Navy ships" will get you more crew members than saying "Let's group up."

If you have a ship that is bigger than a Light Sloop, that will also be a selling point to mention.

Deploy and board
To board your own ship, you need one of the small dinghies you find typically on beaches or next to docks. Walk or swim up next to the dinghy until a green circle appears around it with instructions to press Shift in order to board.

After pressing Shift, you can either Launch a ship of your own or else Board a ship being sailed by another member of your crew.

Help any inexperienced pirates in your crew to get on board using chat or Whisper to guide them if necessary.

People can also board a ship already sailing by using the Go To option for anybody, captain or otherwise, who is already on board. In this way, people can and often do board a ship already sailing.

Assign positions and set sail
As the captain, it's your job to tell these scallywags what to do! Tell each crew member which cannon to man. Your strategy should either be to have everyone manning the guns on one side and leaving the other empty, or spread them out to both sides. As the captain, you'll be sailing her, so you'll need to keep in mind how many cannons you have manned on each side when attempting to sink a ship! Make your way up to the wheel on the poop deck. Everyone presses Shift to take command of a cannon or wheel. Now you're sailing!!!

Sail for plunder!
You're going to sail around the seas looking for ships to sink. To sail, use the arrow keys (or the W, A, S, D keys). The up arrow moves your ship forward and the down arrow will furl your ship's sails so that your ship stops moving forward.

Use the compass rosette in the upper righthand corner of your screen to keep track of ships. You will want to re-set the zoom level on the compass using the - option to zoom out as far as possible when looking for enemies (red ships on the compass.)

There are three kinds of enemy ships: Navy, EITC, and skeleton ships. Stick with attacking ships near your own ship's level. One hit from a skeleton ship can sink a Light Sloop and send your whole crew to jail.

Approach the enemy ship keeping in mind where your cannons are firing from. Do you want to broadside her, or "cross the T" ? you decide! Make sure you keep your crew informed what the target is, you don't want everyone always shooting everything or you might end up fighting more ships at once than you can handle!

To shoot a ship with a broadside, you want to see it at the 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock position on your compass.

Firing your cannons
If you are manning a cannon, it's your job to sink those pesky Navy ships! Aim your cannon and fire away! After three shots, you'll have to reload. As you sink more and more, you'll gain cannon skill and get to upgrade your shots, with either shooting faster or doing more damage. Like man to man combat, you can use the right mouse button to bring up special shots, however there is no chaining of attacks. One of the special moves is the grappling hook. This is used when very close to an enemy vessel for when you want to entangle the ships for some boarding action. You shouldn't just use these unless your captain tells you to "prepare to board me Hearties!"

Grape Shot/Chain Shot/Flaming Shot
There are some special ammo types that you can buy once you have "leveled up" your Cannon skill to the right level to unlock those skill. You buy cannon ammo from any gun merchant on any inhabited island (Port Royal, Cuba, Tortuga, or Padres del Fuego). You do not need to buy the ordinary cannon balls or grappling hooks.

To select the kind of ammo you want, use the number keys. Basic cannon balls are 1 and grappling hooks are 8. You don't need to remember this because each ammo type appears on your screen with the keyboard number next to is.

The grape shot is great for killing guards on the decks of enemy ships and you can get a lot more cannon skill ups by clearing the decks before sinking the ships. Chain shot is traditionally used for taking out the rigging/sails of a ship, but I don't see it really working all that well in game yet, especially since enemy ships sail around without any sails all the time. The flaming shot sets the enemy ships ablaze for a bit doing extra damage, but nothing spectacular here.

Firing broadsides
As the captain while steering the ship, you can use number keys or the mouse to fire your broadsides. These are a separate bank of cannons mounted below the deck; you can use them whether or not you have crew manning any on-deck cannons. Broadside cannons all fire more or less straight out to the side of your ship. Getting very close to another ship increases your chance of hitting it; it also increases the danger to your ship if that ship fires back at you.

It takes a relatively long time for your cannons to reload when used in this manner. The good news is that your left and right sides are on separate cooldowns, so you can fire, turn your ship, and fire again. The bad news is this makes for boring and unrealistic ship combat as you tend to just sit in one spot and turn back and forth unloading over and over. The ugly news is you make it very difficult for any of your crew manning cannons to hit anything if you're constantly spinning in circles!

It takes a long time to sink a ship with just your broadside cannons, but it seems to be the only way to increase your sailing skill.

Sailing Skillups
As you get more points in sailing, you can spend them on upgrading your broadside shots to do 5% more damage.


 * Broadside Left: Fire left broadside. Upgrade to increase Left Broadside Cannonball damage!
 * Broadside Right: Fire right broadside. Upgrade to increase Right Broadside Cannonball damage!
 * Full Sail: Coaxes a short burst of speed out of the ship!
 * Come About: Allows your ship to make a hard sudden turn!
 * Open Fire: Increase crew's cannon damage!
 * Ramming Speed: Bear down upon an enemy vessel and ram it into splinters!
 * Take Cover: Create a shield that protects your ship and crew from incoming fire!
 * Windcatcher: Create a shield that protects your ship and crew from incoming fire!
 * Tacking: Superior knowledge of the rigging allows you to turn more rapidly. Improves ship turning radius!
 * Treasure Sense: Your endeavors always seem to uncover more gold. Increases the quality of cargo drops!
 * Taskmaster: A harsh taskmaster can get his crew to reload his cannons faster. Decreases recharge time for Broadsides!

Of course, you will still have to spend a skill point in these skills for them to work!

Solo sailing
Can't find any crew? Well you can actually do everything yourself, it's just not going to be as fun or effective. Pressing ESC while at the wheel of your ship will disengage you from the wheel and then you can run over to a cannon to shoot. Pressing ESC at the cannon will disengage you from that so you can go back to sailing. However, there is a 'bug' where sometimes pressing ESC will just close down the game, so that's really a pain.

Plunder
Each time you sink a ship you can get one or more pieces of plunder. The higher level of the enemy ship, the more plunder it can potentially give you. Different ships you are sailing can hold different amounts of plunder, when you get full you should head back to a port to sell and divide the plunder. (Or if the game is really lagging/crashing, you might want to head back more often!)  Sail back close to the beach at a port and a Docking icon will appear in the lower right corner. Press this button and you will pop off your ship. The game will tally up all the killing and plundering you did and divy the treasure up amongst the crew, after all, that's why we all became pirates!!! Arrrrr!!!

Boarding Enemy Ships
So you want a little melee combat while out sailing? We'll here is how to go about boarding an enemy ship.

First, you can only board an enemy "flagship" -- that is, one with a flag hovering over its main mast. Boarding enemy flagships yields good treasure and skill points. Sinking enemy flagships is also possible, especially if someone shoots them with flaming cannonballs but also just due to bugs in the game. Sinking them is regrettable, because you miss out on treasure and skill points as well as the fun of boarding.

You must shoot the hull down to zero, and at that time, four small green vertical circles will appear across the side of the ship. Have your cannoneers switch to grappling hooks and fire at those circles. Once you get a few lines attached, you'll see the ropes extend between both boats. Then you will get a pop up saying Board ship with your crew? Press the ok button and you'll swing over to the enemy deck. Press Control to pull out your favorite weapon and get to work!

Ship Combat Tips
Don't shoot at or even sail too close to enemy ships much bigger than your own, because they will respond by firing at you and very likely sinking you.

If you are sailing and see fireballs coming at your ship, you can sometimes escape by hitting the down key and furling your sails. Your next move, however, should be to "Full Sail" to a less dangerous place!

To get more experience points on Cannon or Sailing, sail with high-level pirates who have War Frigates or Galleons because they can take on big enemies, which give you more points. Ask for a sailing lesson when you are on board and be aware that if the ship owner asks you to give back the wheel you should do so at once. The ship owner can take the wheel back even if someone else is steering, so they are only being polite by asking you to get off.

Don't just sail together, take the time to join Crew together because this raises the number of points you get by 10%.