Difference between revisions of "Ship"

Revision as of 17:01, 11 September 2008

For a long time, ships were absent from BatMUD, however they have now returned in a far more useful form than before.

Overview and Features

Captaining any ship provides you with the ability to build sailor reputation for stat bonuses; this also grants access to a few special areas. Captaining a good ship will tremendously speed up your ability to travel from region to region. Some guilds and backgrounds will also have a much easier time getting around without needing to hike everywhere.

Ships are currently available in six size classes. Melemkor<analytics uacct="UA-3466433-3" ></analytics> dismisses ideas of the carrier class seven "floating city", but it is anticipated that they come around sooner or later. Boats and Sloops are the smallest and relatively useless, but are a good place to learn about how ships work without investing millions of gold. Class three and higher are the expensive luxury vessels, each having certain advantages and disadvantages when compared to the others.

Boat

Boats are the smallest of ships, and can sail on swamps, rivers, and shallow seas, but cannot venture into the deeper oceans. Boats are incredibly slow and can not generally get to anywhere useful. The few real advantages in owning a boat are that you may join the sailors guild, buy incremental improvements rather than forking over the cash for a good ship all at once, enjoy the privileges that only captains have, and perhaps slowly build a little reputation.

Class 1 ships come with one set of sailors' quarters, a helm, and a gangway and supports the following features:

Console
Maximum of one (1) set of sailors' quarters

Sloop

Expanding ships to class two grants them access to the high seas, but they are no longer able to sail swampland. Sloops are not very useful due to their slow speeds, however they are relatively safe from pirates because of the penalties for sinking such a helpless vessel.

Class two ships support the following features:

Console
Crow's nest
Galley
Gargo hold
Captain's cabin
- Maximum of one (1) bookcase
Two sets of crew quarters
- maximum of two (2) sets of sailors' quarters
- maximum of one (1) set of cannonneers' quarters

Schooner

Schooners are the first of the luxury ships. Their primary advantage is that they have a far faster water speed than any other ship. They can be enhanced with a lounge and some flight capability as well. They can't fly well enough to be useful for overland transport, but dominate in oceanic travel. With a good system of way points, Schooners are the best means for traveling between continents, and to any area which lies near water. Even so, some won't like them because they can't fly well and can't hold a navigation chamber.

Class three ships support the following features:

Console
Crow's nest
Galley
Lounge
Two (2) gargo holds
Captain's cabin
- Maximum of two (2) bookcases
Eight (8) sets of crew quarters
- Maximum of three (3) sets of sailors' quarters
- Maximum of three (3) sets of speed magi's quarters
- Maximum of two (2) sets of lift magi's quarters
- Maximum of one (1) set of cannonneers' quarters
- Maximum of one (1) set of defense magi's quarters

Frigate

Though a bit slower than schooners, a well rounded frigate can gain enough lift to sail over all but mountains. Able to support many cargo holds, forges, and a teleportation chamber, Frigates are luxury ships which strongly benefit merchant activities, but are also well enough rounded to be a good generalist ship.

Class four ships support the following features:

Console
Crow's nest
Galley
Lounge
Teleportation chamber
Five (5) gargo holds
- Maximum of five (5) forges
Captain's cabin
- Maximum of four (4) bookcases
Fifteen (15) sets of crew quarters
- Maximum of four (4) sets of sailors' quarters
- Maximum of four (4) sets of speed magi's quarters
- Maximum of four (4) sets of lift magi's quarters
- Maximum of two (2) set of cannonneers' quarters
- Maximum of two (2) set of defense magi's quarters
- Maximum of two (2) set of assault magi's quarters

Warship

Class 5 ships feature significantly larger crew capacity, and focus on reasonably strong combat capabilities while still retaining most luxury features excepting the special forges that Frigates can carry. These are the first ships to be able to fly over mountains, but are slower than class 3 or 4 ships. It is up to personal preference whether a straight shot overland or fast travel via oceanic waypoints is preferable.

Class five ships support the following features:

Console
Crow's nest
Galley
Lounge
Teleportation chamber
Informative console
Four (4) gargo holds
Captain's cabin
- Maximum of three (3) bookcases
Twentyfour (24) sets of crew quarters
- Maximum of eight (8) sets of lift magi's quarters
- Maximum of five (5) sets of sailors' quarters
- Maximum of five (5) sets of speed magi's quarters
- Maximum of four (4) set of cannonneers' quarters
- Maximum of four (4) set of defense magi's quarters
- Maximum of four (4) set of assault magi's quarters

Dreadnought

Class 6 ships are largely devoted to ship-to-ship combat. They are the slowest ships in the game, and their main advantage is very high capacity for ogre pistols. Even the most skilled merchants are unable to construct this form of ship without special equipment and a great deal of hard work.

Class six ships support the following features:

Informative console
Crow's nest
Galley
Lounge
Teleportation chamber
Informative console
Three (3) gargo holds
Captain's cabin
- Maximum of three (3) bookcases
Thirty (30) sets of crew quarters
- Maximum of eight (8) sets of lift magi's quarters
- Maximum of six (6) set of cannonneers' quarters
- Maximum of six (6) set of defense magi's quarters
- Maximum of six (6) set of assault magi's quarters
- Maximum of five (5) sets of sailors' quarters
- Maximum of five (5) sets of speed magi's quarters

Tradelanes

Tradelanes are the key to fast travel between realms. Tradelanes show up as an orange glow in the oceans: "There is a faint, orange glow in the air." While cruising on a tradelane your speed will be much improved, but you'll need to chart them out and survey the waypoints where they change direction. Surveying waypoints is easier for navigators, and having a high level navigator grants a vastly superior speed from cruising on one.

Modules & upgrades

There are a large number of upgrades for ships; after all, a ship without any crew or abilities is little more than a big bucket floating in the water. It is from all of the many items that can be added to the basic hulls that ship is truly born.

There are a few places to go when looking to upgrade your ship, but the two primary places to look into when wanting to improve a vessel are Silver Lake and to have some work done in a Merchant shipyard.

Silver Lake

Silver Lake has a hodgepodge of shops which offer a wide variety of special ship related upgrades. Located in the realm of Lucentium, Silver Lake is unreachable except by ships. Swimmers are barred entrance due to the forcefield which surrounds it. Be careful to sail fully into the dock, otherwise you might jump into the forcefield when disembarking and be painfully banished, rendering you unable to reach your ship.

The shops in Silver Lake vary both in how often they are open and in their prices. All of them have a base price for their goods, but what they are willing to sell for on a particular day depends on a number of factors. The shop you should probably watch out for is the forge shop, since prices there can vary from the base of 50k to over 100k. You must dock your ship for the shopkeepers to be able to add in most of the features they sell.

Bookcase

Bookcases are located in a Captain's Cabin and they store the maps that are used for the autocruise feature. They used to be limited to 32 maps apiece, but this number was raised with the expansion of the realms to 60. To get new blank maps, you need to insert (spell) scrolls into the bookcase. Available for 57,440-66,920 gold each. You can also have one removed for 1,510-1,673 gold.

Console levers

Your console can be enhanced with three levers to fine tune how your ship sails. The three controls available are air speed, water speed, and altitude. Air and water speed controls can be purchased for 24,930-25,000 gold, the altitude control costs 37,935-37,500 gold.

Crystal Sphere

Enchanted spheres can be added to lounges to help with your spellpoint and to a lesser extent, endurance point regain. They need no fuel, and give better spell points than a player city crystal, but lesser endurance points. Crystals work best when accompanied by a lit fireplace. 37,000-40,000 gold.

Drink Cabinet

A Drink Cabinet can be added to a galley, and allows you to store saveable booze over boot. 10,000-11,130 gold.

Elixir Cabinet

These cabinets store special elixirs which help heal or boost your crew. These elixers are going to be fairly important for anyone who gets involved in combat. Each cabinet has space for ten elixers, and up to four of these cabinets can be stacked in a Captains Cabin. 77,850-84,3000 gold.

Fireplace

Lounges can be equipped with fireplaces to speed the recovery of hit points and to a lesser extent endurance points for all those in the room. Many wooden items can be dumped in to instantly catch fire. The strength and duration of the fire depends on how much wood has been added to it, but even just a handful of torches will last a decent while. Fireplaces work best when accompanied by a regenerative crystal. 37-40k.

Firewood Rack

Firewood racks offer a long term storage solution for firewood. Place wooden items heavier than 1kg in this to have them converted into saveable fuelwood for a fireplace. Just 'stoke' to add more wood to a fire. 14,805-15,000 gold.

Food Locker

The term "Chill Chest" is fairly accurate here, Food Lockers can be added to a galley and allow you to store saveable foodstuffs over boots on board your ship. 10,000-11,130 gold.

Forges

Class 4 (ONLY class 4) ships can have mobile forges and workbenches placed in their cargo holds, to the limit of one forge per hold. They take up 250kg of hold space, but can contain 500kg worth of materials. All of the forges can be bought for 47,850-123,500 gold. If you would like to rearrange their placement in your cargo holds, it will cost one tenth of the current forge cost, i.e. 4,785-12,350 gold.

Furniture

Aside from the descriptive items you can add into ship rooms for free, Silverlake has a shop that sells furniture that can be added to various ship rooms. The buyer selects the type of item, it's quality, and the materials involved and then can bolt the furniture in rooms that support it once it has been made. To the best of knowledge they are only useful for show. Prices range roughly from 8k for the shoddiest work to 30k for extremely fancy items.

Gangplank

The gangway which all ships come with can be upgraded so that it is sturdy enough to be extended when the ship is not anchored. This permits any golems on board to force undesirables to walk the plank. 47,500 gold.

Golem

Ship golems act as guards, their purpose is to toss people overboard via a Gangplank. Their ability at blocking an enemy from moving, speed of tossing, and ability to detect intruders are based on their material. Golems will never toss unless a friends list is defined for them and the character in question is not on the friends list, it is even safe to have aura of hate on while in the same room as one. Stone golems are inept and weak, whereas quicksilver golems are durable, toss people nearly instantly and can see invisible. Golems, like normal crew, do essentially no damage in combat, nearly any character can destroy your entire crew given enough time to wear down their hit points. Golems must follow a path of upgrades, beginning at stone, and moving to iron, then steel, then quicksilver. Golems require that you have deposited 100kg of whatever material they will be made of before they can be made. Golems can only be placed in one type of room, either deck, transport chamber, or cargo holds, and which room the golem shop supports varies whenever it's open, which isn't all that often. Stone golems cost from 53k-100k and each upgrade costs another 53k-100k, not counting the cost of material.

Landing Gear

Once your ship has lift magi and is able to fly, you might find it useful for it to be able to land. Landing gear gives your ship the ability to set down nearly anywhere it can get to. The Silver Lake smithy can fix up any class 3 or better ship with some gear for the price of 105,000 gold.

Ogre Pistol

Ogre pistols are cannons, which when combined with cannoneer crew and shot form the primary offensive force of most ships. Beware that they are prone do misfiring, which can have unpleasant consequences for your ship and crew. They cost in the range of 25-50k gold on any given day.

Rescue Equipment

Carried at the Silver Lake helm shop for 37500 gold, rescue equipment can be added to any class 2 or better ship, enabling the officer at the helm to have people outside the vessel pulled onboard after a brief wait.

Ship Bell

For 25,000 gold you can have the smithy at Silver Lake add a nice bell to your ship. The practical use of this is unknown, but it may call crew to combat or something similar in the future.

Teleportation Exits

Teleportation chambers provide a few advantages on their own, however they will only gain full functionality when you buy the archway enchantments at Silver Lake, enabling you to walk to the Church or your starting location as easily as you would travel to another deck. You cannot peer through your home exit, but you may peer through the church exit. Home and Church exits are 33,060-71,022 gold at Silver Lake.

Telescope

Telescopes can somewhat improve the range of your crow's nest. 8,950 gold at Silver Lake.

Water Barrel

Sold at the bakery for 10,000-10,620 gold, these barrels can be placed in any galley and provide a nearly inexhaustible supply of water for your voyages.

Merchant Work

The Merchant added features, which tend to be the bigger hull upgrades, require both someone skilled in shipbuilding and who has completed the required merchant quests, most of which require detailed knowledge of the game. Factor in the price of materials, and some of these upgrades can wind up costing a fair deal, especially if they are relatively rare. Most of the merchant added features don't carry many benefits on their own, but provide space for further upgrades.

Captain's Cabin

Every captain deserves a cabin, and the ones a merchant can build for you will provide a place for a dimensional vault, bookcases, and elixir cabinets.

Cargo hold

Most other rooms on a ship can't safely hold items. You can't drop items in some, and in others they will tend to fall overboard. Each cargo starts off able to carry 1000 kg worth of materials, and can if your ship is class 4, can also contain a forge bought from silver lake.

Console

A basic helm can be upgraded with a special console. This feature will allow you to get some information on the welfare of the ship and crew. The console can be further upgraded with controls from Silver Lake, which allow a ships air/water speed and height to be reduced, if for some reason someone would want to do that.

Crew Quarters

Adding in quarters for crew to live in is required before you actually hire them. Each of the types of crew gets its own style of living area, and each separate quarters allows up to five of that crew type to be hired.

Crows Nest

The crows nest grants an enhanced radius to the 'map' command to those who stand in it. This bonus radius starts out at only one, but can go up significantly if the ship is flying high in the air.

Galley

A galley is where you can store provisions in drink cabinets, food lockers, and water barrels. The food and booze stored in those items saves.

Helm

The helm is the tool a captain uses to guide and direct most of the important events on a ship. It is here that captains give most of the commands that direct their ships.

Lounge

Lounges provide a place to rest, and at Silver Lake you can buy healing crystals, fireplaces, and firewood racks assist in your recovery from exertion. A fully stocked lounge isn't quite as good as a player city crystal combined with a ranger's campfire, but they are still pretty effective.

Teleportation chamber

The Teleportation chamber provides three advantages for class four and higher ships. First, it offers a room onboard your ship where it is possible to raise the dead and use transportation magic (excepting dimension door). Second, it permits you to use the goto ship spell to reach your vessel, and allows you to reach other vessels with teleportation chambers much more easily. Third, these chambers are created with two archways which can be enchanted at Silver Lake to create normal exits that go directly to your start location and the Church. You cannot peer through your home exit, but you may peer through the church exit. Note that these chambers are vulnerable points to your ship, anyone with the goto ship spell can get onboard, so long as both the player and the ship are in the outerworld or in the same room. You NEED a quicksilver golem with a defined friends list if you own this room.

Other Upgrades

A few upgrades are obtained through alternate sources.

Dimensional Vault

Bob Stance will install one of these special vaults in any ship that is at least Class 3 and has a Captain's Cabin. They function as normal chests, except only the captain can ever open them. At a cost of 100k + 100k for each current slot, this is a secure but very expensive way to permanently store items onboard a vessel.

Scanner

Sometimes monsters will drop unusual emerald discs. These discs can be attached to a ship's helm, enhancing it with the ability to scan for other nearby ships. Emerald discs come in ten sizes and must be attached in order from smallest to largest. Your maximum scanning radius is equal to the number of discs installed in your helm. Scanning repeatedly will give either a reduced radius or fail entirely, depending on how quickly you try again. Characters with low wisdom may have trouble attaching higher level discs.

Emerald disc sizes:

This tiny disc is little more than a...
This disc is really a tiny ring...
This disc is really a very small ring...
This disc is really a small ring...
This disc is really a fair-sized ring...
This disc is really a fairly large ring...
This disc is really a large ring...
This disc is really a very large ring...
This disc is really a huge ring...
This disc is really a massive ring...

Stash

Every ship has a hidden safe in the captain's cabin which contains a portion of all the fees spent summoning it. Ships without cabins still have stashes, they just can't be accessed. Yes, this means if you don't care about dimensional vaults, bookcases, or elixir cabinets, you can make your ship invulnerable to stash robbery. Stash money is stored in highcoins, and if there are large amounts of it, the morale of a Merchant Navy ship is raised. Merchant Navy captains can visit their guild room to have additional money deposited directly into their stashes, minus a percentage fee. Pirates who disable a ship are able to plunder the stash, which is the only way money can be removed from it. The percentage fee removed from stash deposits is transparent for the most part, it exists so that merchants can't use the stash in a level 2 ship as a cheap and 100% effective way to transform all their gold into highcoins with the help of a pirate friend.

Navigators

You can hire ship's navigators in a tower adjacent to the navigator guild. You'll need at least a rank 5 to have much hope of creating maps over open seas.

Navigators are capable of creating reference maps, which they can then use to plot courses for a ship. The more trained the navigator is, the more likely they are to succeed at their various tasks; also, the more likely they are to be able to pilot around a minor obstacle. Finally, a higher ranked navigator is faster at plotting courses - a vital skill for ships that travel at extremely high speeds.

Navigators have six ranks with fees as follows:

800 gold
4k gold
20k gold
100k gold
500k gold
2.5M gold

Promoting a navigator gives you a 10% discount off of the cost of hiring a navigator of the next rank. Note that due to the number of students versus the number of people hiring a ship's navigator, you have your choice of name and rank in your navigator. However, once chosen, a navigator will never allow his or her name to be changed. Of course, you could fire your navigator and hire a new one.

@@ Line 52: / Line 52: @@
 ** Maximum of two (2) bookcases
 * Eight (8) sets of crew quarters
-** maximum of three (3) sets of sailors' quarters
+** Maximum of three (3) sets of sailors' quarters
-** maximum of 1 set of cannonneers' quarters
+** Maximum of three (3) sets of speed magi's quarters
-** maximum of 3 sets of speed magi's quarters
+** Maximum of two (2) sets of lift magi's quarters
-** maximum of 2 sets of lift magi's quarters
+** Maximum of one (1) set of cannonneers' quarters
-** maximum of 1 set of defense magi's quarters
+** Maximum of one (1) set of defense magi's quarters
 === Frigate ===
@@ Line 97: / Line 97: @@
 ** Maximum of three (3) bookcases
 * Twentyfour (24) sets of crew quarters
+** Maximum of eight (8) sets of lift magi's quarters
 ** Maximum of five (5) sets of sailors' quarters
 ** Maximum of five (5) sets of speed magi's quarters
-** Maximum of eight (8) sets of lift magi's quarters
 ** Maximum of four (4) set of cannonneers' quarters
 ** Maximum of four (4) set of defense magi's quarters
@@ Line 109: / Line 109: @@
 Class six ships support the following features:
+* Informative console
-sets of crew quarters
+* Crow's nest
-    - maximum of 5 sets of sailors' quarters
+* Galley
-    - maximum of 6 sets of cannoneers' quarters
+* Lounge
-    - maximum of 5 sets of speed magi's quarters
+* Teleportation chamber
-    - maximum of 8 sets of lift magi's quarters
+* Informative console
-    - maximum of 6 sets of defense magi's quarters
+* Three (3) gargo holds
-    - maximum of 6 sets of assault magi's quarters
+* Captain's cabin
-  captain's cabin
+** Maximum of three (3) bookcases
-    - maximum of 3 bookcases
+* Thirty (30) sets of crew quarters
-cargo holds
+** Maximum of eight (8) sets of lift magi's quarters
-  crow's nest
+** Maximum of six (6) set of cannonneers' quarters
-  galley
+** Maximum of six (6) set of defense magi's quarters
-  teleportation chamber
+** Maximum of six (6) set of assault magi's quarters
-  informative console
+** Maximum of five (5) sets of sailors' quarters
+** Maximum of five (5) sets of speed magi's quarters
 == Tradelanes ==