Things i wish i would have known earlier...

[Caithleen]

Allright, one of my favourite Tips & Tricks Threads is "Things i wish i would have known earlier".

It's all about small and nice things you normally don't know from the start, (Not mentioned in tutorials, not obviously, not too simpel) but are fairly helpful.

Feel free to post your own findings, i'll try to keep the thread updated

News

Updated on 18.01.
Categorized & Added "New!" Indicators
German Version updated to 18.01.

General Section

1. The ^ key toggles the firing arcs and wind indicator (standard keybindings)

2. You can zoom the minimap with the mouse wheel, but you'll have to place the mousepointer in the center while doing so.

3. Private tell format is rather weird, so i'll put it in my list too : "/tell firstname lastname, Text" Don't miss on the "," since it tells the game, where the name stops (Antonio de la Sol,)

4. Marks of Victory (PvP Rewardvoucher) can be farmed PvE by doing the missions from the rebelagent or garnision commander.

5. [CutlassJack] Clicking on someones name thats spoken in the Chat window automatically sets up a private tell without having to type their name out correctly.

6. [CutlassJack] To reply to a tell, simply hit the 'Backspace' key and it fills in the information for you.

7. You can choose to move things around and resize in your UI in the Options. Its under Preferences - UI Options - Top Option "Manual xxx".
More to come as time comes

8. [dylara] Need some information and not near a potential source for it? (Career Trainer, Auction House, etc.) Hit F1. This will bring up the Help Window, which contains information on every item, recipe, book and skill in the game.

Ships

1. [NefariousCoal] When you are sunk, it subtracts 1 from your ship's Durability rating. When you are out of Durability, it is gone. You can increase the durability rating of your ship by dragging & dropping another deed of the same ship type onto your ship at the Harbor Master (while you still have at least 1 Dura left).

2. [Hans] At level 12 your fallback halifax or La Belle gets automatically replaced by a better fallback ship for free. Well, only if you don't own any other ships.

Skills

1. Theres a lvl 15 skill on the general trainer : "diplomacy" allows you to read what other nations say in Area chat. Important : Don't use area chat for critical informations like fleet strength - they can read it with diplomacy.

2. [toehorse] There are advanced versions of the focus skills sailing, gunnery, and manuevering sold on the general trainer for 1 captain point. These skills provide larger bonuses and lower penalties than the ones you start with.

3. [CutlassJack] Every 5 levels visit any Class Trainer to recieve special career missions. Do these missions right away because they often yield special rewards and abilities. The next quest wont be offered until you complete the ones before it. So dont ignore them!


AVCOM & Ship Combat

1. While the description says stoneshot is awfull, it is a nice hybrid ammo, try it out.

2. With CTRL-left click you can set things to autofire on your hotbar. You could e.g. drag Fire the cannons and Boarding to your hotbar and let them automatically trigger if they are avaible.

3. You can shoot at a ship without selecting it as target, simply right klick a ship you're capable of firing at. (Ideal if you have one ship targeted the one side, autofire enabled fire with right-clicks on ships on the other side).

4. Boarded ships allways leave a derelict, so boarding will yield you more ships to salvage. But : Ships with "Minor", "Fallback" or "Mission" can't be salvaged, sink them right away!

5. The position in the opensea combat instance is relative to the position the ships had on the open sea before engaging. The wind direction is copied as well.

6. When your ship is sunk, unsecured cargo is lost. You get free warehouses in some of the ports. you should store your unsecured loot there every now and then.

Secured Cargo : Ammo (Crates are NOT secured, unpack them if you don't plan to sell them), general outfittings, your personal inventory, consumable repairs.

7. [Gillain] Watch the icons on your loaded guns. Half-grey-circle = "Target out of Range" and a quarter-circle (like a pie wedge) means target in range but not in the gun's firing arc.

8. [Jakkin] If you hold down ALT and click on a battery that is more than half loaded you can fire a half strength broadside.

It'll kill your DPS numbers so it's not useful all the time, but is potentially useful for getting off a shot on an almost defeated ship before they shoot you.

New! 9. [Hans] You can exit a ship to ship fight if you are not hit (and not hitting) in the last two minutes.

You can also get away if you sail to the edge of the map and click on the crosshair icons on the map edge. I believe these are not available in missions, though. Only open sea "ad-hoc" fights.

New! 10. [Hans] A sword skill trainer will sell you swords, pistols, and a very expensive respec. Instead of buying a respec for 10,000 dabloons (worth more than a Bermuda Sloop), just take 10 pennants or commendations to your capital city and get one as a reward. That is far easier and cheaper. [Jake Houlihan] Works for career points respec too.

Navigation/World

1. When you click on the border of your minimap, a "small pointing hand" will appear and the ship will automatically turn to get in line with the direction of the "small pointing hand" on the border.

2. The position in the opensea combat instance is relative to the position the ships had on the open sea before engaging. The wind direction is copied as well.

3. You can use older ships (no more used) as storage or to port around. Just talk to the harbourmaster and you can drag&drop into/from the ships storage. Select a ship in a different port and switch to be teleported there. Remember all your personal equipment (Buildingsdeeds) ports with you as well.

Freetrader

New! 1. [Jake Houlihan] As a FreeTrader who tends to be more buy low and sell high then production oriented I wish I knew the following: The Trade Connections Skill under logistics allows you to see HA in all regions and make purchases without being in that region. It also provides access to the trade channel.

New! 2. Freetrader repairs require unsecure cargo consumables. Stock up on them after getting the skill or you could find yourself in trouble wondering, why the button is greyed out

Naval officer

Privateer

Pirate

1. As a pirate, be careful when you use a ship that is for a single class only (like Freetrader Cargo ships). The invalid ship tag means : You can be attacked PvP because the ship is invalid for you!

2. Pirates can't capture Ships higher their own level.

3. [CutlassJack] Pirates often cant figure out how to get their 'Scavenge' skill because they didnt listen to the last bit of advice. You need to finish the previous class quests first (lvl 5 one) (Look #3 skills)

Economy/Wares/Items

1. Need more smelling salts ? A twink leveled up to lvl 5 will have about 35 of them.

2. The Auctionhouse in potbs is different, it's a blind bid system. You should allways check the partial order option and try to buy a bit lower then the average listed price. An excellent guide on that topic by bonham can be found here (http://burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46)

3. You can use older ships (no more used) as storage or to port around. Just talk to the harbourmaster and you can drag&drop into/from the ships storage. Select a ship in a different port and switch to be teleported there. Remember all your personal equipment (Buildingsdeeds) ports with you as well.

4. [Hans] The economy tutorial gives a nice reward for completing it, a ship deed for a Chase Marie, which you can use or you can sell to the junk dealer for *unknown* dabloons.

Unsure about taking into the list (too long, too obvious)

New! 1. [Hans] You can reload specific ammo into individual gun batteries by right clicking on the gun reload indicator and getting a dropdown menu of ammo types available. This way you can have your right side upper deck loaded with grapeshot, your rightside lower deck loaded with chainshot, and your whole left broadside loaded with heavy round shot all at the same time.

New! 2. [Hans] Another ammo type not visible anywhere else is "basic round shot" It won't automatically be loaded unless you are completely out of ammo of any kind, but you can force it to reload if you don't want to waste money firing store bought ammo on a target that is helpless. The only way to load it is to right click your batteries and select it from the dropdown menu, or run out of store bought ammo.

Maintained by Caithleen aka Isabella Cruz. German version is in work on the Conquista forums

[Caithleen]

A Placeholder - hope you don't mind

[Hans]

At level 12 your fallback halifax or La Belle gets automatically replaced by a better fallback ship for free. Well, only if you don't own any other ships.

The economy tutorial gives a nice reward for completing it, a ship deed for a Chase Marie, which you can use or you can sell to the junk dealer for 3000 dabloons.

[toehorse]

There are advanced versions of the focus skills sailing, gunnery, and manuevering sold on the general trainer for 1 captain point. These skills provide larger bonuses and penalties than the ones you start with.

[NefariousCoal]

I've heard this asked often enough:

*Ship Durability-

When you are sunk, it subtracts 1 from your ship's Durability rating. When you are out of Durability, it is gone. You can increase the durability rating of your ship by dragging & dropping another deed of the same ship type onto your ship at the Harbor Master (while you still have at least 1 Dura left).

[CutlassJack]

Addendums to #16...

1. Clicking on someones name thats spoken in the Chat window automatically sets up a private tell without having to type their name out correctly.

2. To reply to a tell, simply hit the 'Backspace' key and it fills in the information for you.

[Caithleen]

Nice ones, keep them coming

[CutlassJack]

Some obvious ones people often miss...

1. Every 5 levels visit any Class Trainer to recieve special career missions. Do these missions right away because they often yield special rewards and abilities. The next quest wont be offered until you complete the ones before it. So dont ignore them!

2. Pirates often cant figure out how to get their 'Scavenge' skill because they didnt listen to the last bit of advice.

3. You can 'teleport' between ships you own in different ports by visiting the harbormaster and selecting the ship. Parking a junk ship in a far off Capital is a great way to speedily check whats available for turning in Pennants, Commendations, Pennons & Marks of Victory.

[beltpouch]

Originally Posted by Hans

The economy tutorial gives a nice reward for completing it, a ship deed for a Chase Marie, which you can use or you can sell to the junk dealer for 3000 dabloons.

This has been changed in the last patch. You now get something like 120 dbs. I don't remember the exact ammount.

[Gillain]

Watch the icons on your loaded guns. Half-grey-circle = "Target out of Range" and a quarter-circle (like a pie wedge) means target in range but not in the gun's firing arc.


Now a question... where do I find a "General Trainer"? (I play French).