Action stations!

Ahoy there!

We are back! I hope you all had a good time during this summertime. We actually kept working on Nantucket, adding content and making few changes to existing features. Things are coming along nicely and I hope we will be able to give you more information about our release plan soon…soonish…

Now, back to our features presentation. Today I’m going to start a series of posts related to the navigation, a key aspect of our game. Every thing you are going to do (hunting whales, quests, chilling out…) you are going to do it by sailing the oceans with your ship. Before raising your anchor, you have to assign your men to their tasks, and this is the topic of today’s post.

You have picked your crew in a tavern, filled your hold with everything you will need in the weeks to come so, now, it’s time to assign every man to a task and set sail. The sailing interface will allow you to easily set a default compartment for each of your men, including yourself. The amount and type of compartments available on your ships depend on the size of your ship and the technology developed. Each compartment is related to a specific attribute, so they “work better” if you assign a man with a class related to the attribute used by the slot.

For example, it’s useless to have a harpooner behind the wheel or a carpenter healing patients in the sick bay.

What are the compartments and what do they do? Here is a list:

• Forecastle: the forecastle is the part of a ship with the sailors’ living quarters. You can let them rest there to recover some health points.
• Quarterdeck: the quarterdeck is a raised deck behind the main mast of a sailing ship where the navigator “drive” the ship. The man behind the wheel affect the sailing speed of your ship.
• Hold: the hold is placed in the lowest part of the ship and it’s where all the barrels are kept. You can put a man there to fix the ship wearing during your travels.
• Caboose: the caboose is the ship kitchen. By placing a man cooking  here, you can improve the crew morale.
• Sick bay: the sick bay is a compartment used for medical purposes. A doctor can heal injured or ill men.
• Try works: the try-works is where the try-pots are placed. Try-pots are furnaces of brick, iron and wood where whale oil is rendered from the blubber of whales.
• Crow’s nest: the crow’s nest is a structure in the upper part of the main mast of a ship or a structure that is used as a lookout point. Placing a man here increases the ship field of view.
• Captain’s cabin: the captain’s cabin is the captain’s living quarter, where ledgers are kept to maximize your hunting revenues.
• Cannon: the cannon can be used to fight incoming pirate ships.

Every slot can be improved by researching better technologies inside the various shipwrights around the world, increasing their effects, but a good sailor knows how to take the best also from an outdated ship. Since upgrading your ship takes time (and money) you will have to understand your priorities and develop your ship (and crew) according to your necessities and style. It is not an easy task.

Once every man is placed, you are ready to set sail, but this is something we will look at the next week!

See you next time.

Mex