Forum discussions are now taking place on Discord. For all account questions and concerns, please continue to contact Customer Support directly.

Keep updated on Pirate101 on Twitter @Pirate101, Facebook, Discord, and @KI_Alerts!

A Ship Tutorial Guide

AuthorMessage
Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
I introduce this thread for those who seem confused about why ships go transparent, how to gain nautical experience without grinding, and just basic aspects of our ships. If you have questions or tips & tricks you would like to share please join in.
Basics
1. If you move your arrow to the top of the screen to pull down the menu, you will see a gear icon - click on that. This will give you a choice of subjects, one of which is Play Tutorials. Here you will be able to replay any tutorial tip in the game. There are plenty of the basic tips on Ships and ship combat.
However, I've recently discovered, if you've been playing this game with your tutorials turned off, you won't be able to replay them!
2. I suppose everyone knows that to move your ship you just use either the arrow keys or WASD keys.
3. The windlanes - these are the colored ribbons flowing through the skyways. While in a windlane you're safe from attack, and you can let the windlane move your ship without using movement keys ( this is very relaxing for your hand ).
4. Ship gear: by typing "E" you can bring up your page about your ship & gear. There are 7 items that you can equip - Sail, Wheel, Figurehead, Horn ( these four appear on the right side of your screen when you are sailing ). There are 3 other items necessary to the ship; Rudder, Armor, & Cannon. All these items affect your ship's health and performance. ( You can also equip a cabin but this has no impact on combat. )
I understand that this is very basic stuff and some of you don't need to be reminded "how to" do this.

Captain
Apr 24, 2016
520
anecorbie on Aug 24, 2017 wrote:
I introduce this thread for those who seem confused about why ships go transparent, how to gain nautical experience without grinding, and just basic aspects of our ships. If you have questions or tips & tricks you would like to share please join in.
Basics
1. If you move your arrow to the top of the screen to pull down the menu, you will see a gear icon - click on that. This will give you a choice of subjects, one of which is Play Tutorials. Here you will be able to replay any tutorial tip in the game. There are plenty of the basic tips on Ships and ship combat.
However, I've recently discovered, if you've been playing this game with your tutorials turned off, you won't be able to replay them!
2. I suppose everyone knows that to move your ship you just use either the arrow keys or WASD keys.
3. The windlanes - these are the colored ribbons flowing through the skyways. While in a windlane you're safe from attack, and you can let the windlane move your ship without using movement keys ( this is very relaxing for your hand ).
4. Ship gear: by typing "E" you can bring up your page about your ship & gear. There are 7 items that you can equip - Sail, Wheel, Figurehead, Horn ( these four appear on the right side of your screen when you are sailing ). There are 3 other items necessary to the ship; Rudder, Armor, & Cannon. All these items affect your ship's health and performance. ( You can also equip a cabin but this has no impact on combat. )
I understand that this is very basic stuff and some of you don't need to be reminded "how to" do this.
thank you esperanza! ill book mark this if I, somehow, forget to do this.

Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
The "tab" function:
By clicking "Tab" on your keyboard, you can leave your sailing station and roam around the deck of your ship. ( It would be a good idea to anchor first [ press the space bar ] ). This function becomes crucial in the strategy to fight the Scylla.
Healing your ship:
Use your Wheel Power to heal your ship, you can use this function while in combat or in the windlane to fully heal before you can continue your ship quests. If you're on the verge of being defeated and don't want to be boarded, then use your Mojo Potions to fully heal your ship.
Nautical Experience without grinding:
When your companions are at level 8 or higher they can be set to the "Sailin'" task, this will give you little increments of Nautical Exp. without grinding for it. Musketeers can get 2 ranks in the talent "Canoneering" which will allow them to gather more exp.
A good tip is to assign as many of your companions to this task before you log off for the day, by the time you log back on, there's a good chance that you'll gain a level in Nautical exp..

Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
Ship Tip about camera angle:
When sailing through the skyways, you'll notice that your sail will block your frontal view; here's a way to get an almost 180 degree view of what's around you:
Right click on your mouse & hold down the button, then move your mouse around until you find the view that suits you, then release the button, you'll now have a good view of what's around. If you want to return to the "average" view, no worries, just Left click and release.
Using the center wheel on your mouse will pull back or close up on your ship.

Pirate Overlord
Mar 16, 2012
10631
So nobody is going to ask a question or join in with a tip? Then I will continue......
Ship Tip - Tokens:
If a friend has generously allowed you to join them on their ship, then you can help them by standing on the deck during broadside combat and remove tokens.
There are 2 types of tokens - Traps & Repair.
Repair tokens are green with a hammer icon. Go up to one and click X to start the repair ( don't move away but wait for the token to finish ) This will give your friend's ship a bit more health than the Wheel Power alone.
Traps - these can be fire, storm or ice tokens, as with the repair token, just click X then wait for the token to go away before moving on to the next.
Special Tokens:
Monster Tokens appear on deck during the battle with the Scylla, they are yellow with a monster face icon;by removing these tokens, you will cut down on the number of Scylla Spawn appearing in the deck battle.

Dread Pirate
May 27, 2009
2131
I have a couple of other tips for you:

If your ship health is yellow, but you are very close to sinking the enemy and don't want to get boarded, direct your ship toward the rear of the enemy ship and circle them. They only turn in one direction, so you can continue to attack while sailing around them and they cannot switch direction to intercept you.

PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR FIGUREHEAD STATS -- know the accuracy/range. If you have 90% accuracy at close range, you want to attack while the crosshairs are RED. If you have 90% accuracy at long range, stay at the ORANGE crosshair range. You can back up while in combat by using the down arrow or D key, so you can actually play with heading in and out, and even backing out to gray for a couple of seconds while you heal. Granted, the enemy will follow you only for so long, so backing up too far runs the risk of reaching the end of their tether, but it can be a good strategy if used well. Back your ship parallel to the windlane so you don't accidentally end battle by entering that windlane.

There are also Obstacle Tokens, in addition to those listed by anecorbie, which end up as barrels on the deck rather than damage-dealing squares, like the fire, ice storm and traps -- and all Tokens have Ranks, from 1 to 3. Certain wheel powers have a chance to remove certain ranks of deck tokens. Higher rank deck tokens take longer to Repair.

Always take a minute to look at the enemy ships you are going to fight. If there is a group of them, try to isolate an outlier and attack it first, then back up to the gray crosshairs to drag it a little further away from its mates. Getting this one ship at a time may take longer, but it definitely reduces the chances of getting outnumbered and sunk, and gives you room to circle around it if you need to.

The best ship advice is to fight with at least one other pirate ship if you can. Combining with others makes all of this a piece of cake.