Sailing guide
This general sailing guide will go over the tips and basis that every sailor needs to know to sail on the SS Unsinkable, regardless of your role.
More specific sailing guides: Wrangler, DeckHand.
Contents
Starting
To start, go to Chidder located in the Ephebe Underdocks, mysterious cove as a group of at least 2 players and say "help". He will ask if you and your group are up to the task. say "yes" and the ship will be loaded up with crates and dragons, after which you will be transported to the SS Unsinkable.
From then on, you cannot use the standard north, east, south, and west to walk around. Instead you need to use fore, starboard, aft, and port. To make this navigation more easy, use the sailing related aliases that can be found here.
Note: Chidder is flyable
Tip: Every role can come into contact with fire. A battered tin footbath is a fairly light alternative to the fire buckets that can be filled everywhere by using "fill footbath" and then used to extinguish fires using "pour footbath over fire". I personally use the alias "fbath fill footbath with water; pour footbath over fire" and "ebath empty footbath"
Searching
The first part of the voyage is searching for items to use during your voyage. These can generally be divided into three groups and contain the following important items:
- Fighting: arbalest, arbalest bolt, harpoon, fire axe
- Carpentry: carpenter's hammer, wooden board, iron nail, coil of rope
- Wrangling: lump of coal, shoe polish, lemon, toy balls, toy animals, control rod
Healing items such as box of bandages or towel can be used, but are generally ignored. Most players have their own method of healing: they use potions, bring their own bandages or use magic to cure their wounds if need be.
These can be found in Store A, B and C
To increase your chances of finding items, you should "look junk" to see exactly which items are likely to be found in that store. You can then "search <item>" every item that is listed.
It also helps to have a high perception bonus and to hold a quartermaster shovel while searching.
Note: it is generally good practice to search for a tank, an harpoon, and a rope at the end of your search queue, regardless of whether these items were listed when you looked at the junk. I therefore use the following alias after every round of searching: "sjunk search harpoon; search tank; search rope"
It is advisable to transport these items per type to a room different than the stores; once the boat starts moving, items on the floor of the stores will disappear back into the pile of junk.
The groups I have sailed with gather the items in the following places:
- Fighting: starboard side of the upper deck
- Carpentry: middle of the upper deck (mast)
- Wrangling: fore corner of the lower deck (plug)
- Water tanks: port boiler room or starboard boiler room
Regardless where you leave these items, please do not leave wrangling items anywhere below deck other than at the suggested location above. More details on why can be found in my wrangler guide.
Once every role has enough items to do their work and the crates are tied down, the wrangler can start heating the boiler(s).
Tip: it may help to make colour triggers for these items per category to get a quick overview of which store hold which type of items when looking at the junk and which room holds which items.
Sailing
From here on out every player fulfils their role as best as possible. For more information on how to do that, see my other guides.
Fighting
Somewhere near the end of the second leg of the voyage, or the start of the third leg of the voyage, you can encounter one of two monsters: the sea serpent and the kraken.
In any case, you need to throw a harpoon or axe (or fire your arbalest) at the monster. You can use "monster" as a target of your attack commands. This will target either the kraken or the sea serpent depending on which is present. For example, I use this alias to throw: "amon take $*$; hold $*$; throw $*$ at monster"
Tip: Transcendent Pneumatic Alleviator works great to absorb the damaged that these monsters dish out. Mama Kolydina's Instant Infestation works as well, but does not last as long as TPA.
sea serpent
The trick to defeating the sea serpent is to time your attacks when it is distracted. It is distracted when it lunges towards, strikes, or reaches for someone.
If that someone is not you, that is the moment to attack.
If that someone is you, it is best to move to a different room, before returning after about 5 heartbeats.
kraken
The kraken can always be attacked. It attacks players by constricting them with its tentacles. You can see when this happens when a "tentacle snakes around <someone's> legs and coils its way up to <their> torso, binding <them> in an unescapable embrace".
If that someone is not you, you need to "cut <them> free" with an held sharp weapon (I use a Marzipan dinner knife, but a fire axe also works).
If that someone is you, best to hope someone is there to cut you free. Otherwise it's best to tell the group that you need to be freed.
Triggers
| Group | Match | Colour codes | Regular Expression |
|---|---|---|---|
| fight_items | steel(-tipped)? harpoons? | #00BEFF | yes |
| fight_items | fire axes? | #00BEFF | yes |
| fight_items | arbalests? | #00BEFF | yes |
| fight_items | arbalest bolts? | #00BEFF | yes |
| monster | the sea serpent (lunges towards|strikes forward swiftly at|reaches for) you from (.+)\. Run! | #FF0000 | yes |
| monster | the sea serpent (lunges towards|strikes forward swiftly at|reaches for) (.+)\. | #00FF00 | yes |
Aliases
| alias | content | example | notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| boatdir | boatdirectionson | boatdir | to be used when you board the SS Unsinkable (or when the sailors are loading in the crates) and again when you finish sailing. |
| boatdirectionson | alias ne starboard fore; alias se starboard aft; alias sw port aft; alias nw port fore; alias south aft; alias east starboard; alias north fore; alias west port; alias boatdir boatdirectionsoff; | boatdirectionson | should not be used directly; use boatdir |
| boatdirectionsoff | unalias ne; unalias se; unalias sw; unalias nw; unalias south; unalias east; unalias north; unalias west; alias boatdir boatdirectionson; | boatdirectionsoff | should not be used directly; use boatdir |
| fbath | fill battered tin footbath; pour battered tin footbath on fire; | fbath | to be used in any room that has a fire |
| ebath | empty battered tin footbath; | ebath | - |
| amon | take axe; hold axe; throw axe at monster; drop every axe; | amon | to be used in the room where the fire axes are |
| bmon | take bolt; load arbalest with bolt; fire arbalest at monster; drop every bolt; | bmon | to be used when holding an arbalest in the room where the bolts are |
| hmon | take harpoon; hold harpoon; throw harpoon at monster; drop every harpoon; | hmon | to be used in the room where the harpoons are |
