RuneScape Forum Archive

Jul

2023

San

Posts: 4,259 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Resource Islands

On resource islands you will get some experience for each resource you put into your ship’s cargo hold.

Experience rate: slow
Profit: high
Afkability: medium high

Freighting

This is a sort of micro-quest way of training sailing – think how slayer is a way to train combat. At each port there can be a cargo hold area, where you can go and buy some goods.

You then load these goods into your cargo hold and take them to another port. There you can find somebody who will buy them off of you (either in GP, or trading them for some other goods – I’m in favour of the latter as it wouldn’t start inflation). You will also receive sailing experience in doing so.

This would also add an interesting element to the game, as it would require good market knowledge from the player. Some ports would have goods they can sell very cheaply as they have a lot of those resources. An example of this is that Port Sarim could sell cow hides very cheaply as there are farms nearby. Port Tyras on the other hand, has no such cows and so would buy them for a higher price.

The player could also use this to sell their own items, with a particular emphasis on high-quantity/low-tradability items like unstrung bows and low level runes – the sort of thing that is a product of skilling but doesn’t have any use after that. These could be loaded into your ship and traded to far off lands where they have no supply, providing a great item sink to get rid of junk items and convert them to useful ones.

Not all ports always have something to sell to prevent grinding. The player may have to go around several ports before they find something they would like to merchant.

Experience rate: medium
Profit: medium
Afkability: medium Sailing

23-Aug-2014 02:27:15 - Last edited on 23-Aug-2014 02:37:38 by San

Jul

2023

San

Posts: 4,259 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Salvage

This training method is based on thieving.

Some resource islands have a special spot where the player can go diving using the apparatus from RFD.

This will take the player to an underwater area similar to that in RFD where there will be a sunken ship that can be explored and salvaged for jewellery, coins and the like – possibly some new content rewards. You get thieving and sailing experience for all the activities.

Experience rate: medium
Profit: medium
Afkability: low Sailing

23-Aug-2014 02:27:56 - Last edited on 23-Aug-2014 02:37:48 by San

Jul

2023

San

Posts: 4,259 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Defence

You can go to either the King of Varrock or the King of Ardougne and enlist in the runescape navy.

Any player enlisted in the navy gets the option to build a 6th tier of combat boat at 90 construction – though it cannot be traded for a shipbuilding contract. The limitation of this boat is that it cannot be used to initiate a fight with an unskulled boat in the wilderness sea.

Then, you team up with all your mates like you would if you were off bossing, and go to the boat.

These combat boats are specially made for warfare; great defences, and great weaponry. The job of these boats is to patrol the high level seas and get into a fight with any of the boss monsters that roam, and kill it so that other ships are protected.

The boss mechanic is relatively similar to that of the dangers. The boss exists as a probability of being triggered, but is not kept in one square, it may be in any one of several squares. When it is killed its probability will be reduced to 0% for a while, until it respawns after which it will have a chance of triggering as normal.

Bosses primarily do damage to the ship, not to the players. The players must keep the boat afloat by repairing it, whilst killing the boss (using either melee, range, magic or the on-board cannons).

Essentially, if you want sailing to do some awesome bossing, joining the navy will be the way to go! You’ll get good sailing experience for killing these bosses, as well as some great drops.

The navy also has the role of attacking pirate ships in the wilderness.

Bosses can also be killed without being enlisted in the navy, of course.

Experience: medium (bossing), high (defending against pirate ships)
Profit: Varies (potentially very high for bossing), low (defending against pirate ships)
Afkability: low Sailing

23-Aug-2014 02:28:24 - Last edited on 23-Aug-2014 02:37:59 by San

Jul

2023

San

Posts: 4,259 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Piracy

In the wilderness sea, you’ll be able to attack other ships. So if you’re in the same square as another ship it’ll show up in your navigation map and you’ll have the option to attack.

Then, it’ll go to a sort of minigame type thing, relatively similar to that in the Cabin Fever quest. Your ships are side by side, and players can attack the hotspots and hull. Damage to these by players is exactly the same as if damaged by a danger. If a hotspot reaches 0 health the boat can*t be moved until it repaired again, and if the hull reaches 0 health the boat will start taking damage until at 0 health, it will sink. This may not be ideal though, as if you sink their ship you’ll also lose the reward!

You can shoot grapples at each other’s ships to try to get on. Attack players from the other ships to try to kill them, when they’re dead, they die (obviously!), go to their respawn and drop their items, like death is currently. They aren’t skulled, though. Anyone on the pirate ship, however, is!

You’ll want to kill all the players, after which you can plunder their ship for all the goodies.

The ship that gets attacked can make it out of combat, though. There is a certain time period in which they can** move their ship to a new square, during which time they can be attacked. After some time (the amount of time varies, as explained below) they can move to a new square, and the pirate ship will move to this next square too, where they can attack again.

During the time the victim boat is moving to the next square they cannot be attacked, except by pirates that made it onto the ship, who can continue to attack them. The victim can make repairs to its own ship during this time. Once the victim ship is in the same square as a port or a square that is attached to another sea they can no longer be attacked. Sailing

23-Aug-2014 02:28:57 - Last edited on 18-Jul-2015 03:38:10 by San

Jul

2023

San

Posts: 4,259 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

When all the crew on the victim ship are defeated, the boat now belongs to the pirate captain (not exactly the boat; once everyone is off the boat the captain will get a shipbuilding contract for it) and anything in the cargo is transferred to the pirate ship’s cargo.

The ship that does attack will get a skull – which will alert the navy, who’ll then be able to find you and take you out! The navy have some of the best equipped ships, so you won’* want to mess with them! The navy would get a great amount of exp for doing this, and any resources that were plundered will be destroyed.

The navy-pirate combat scenario is similar to the pirate-victim scenario, except the goal of the navy is to sink the pirate ship, not just kill the pirates. The pirates have some time in which they get blasted by the navy, followed by some time in which they can make repairs. Once at a square with a port they can no longer be attacked.

The scenario for ghost/ skeleton/ zombie ships is exactly the same as the pirate-victim one, except the ghosts/skeletons/zombies are NPCs and can be defeated relatively easily in comparison.

Bear in mind, though, the wilderness sea will have some of the best resource islands, fishing spots and bosses, so it’s up to you if the reward is worth the risk!

Experience: medium-low
Profit: Varies (potentially very high)
Afkability: low Sailing

23-Aug-2014 02:29:16 - Last edited on 23-Aug-2014 02:38:18 by San

Jul

2023

San

Posts: 4,259 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Boats

Obtaining the Boats

There are two main options floated on the forums for how the player may obtain the boats:
1) A GP cost
2) Built with construction

I believe there are several advantages to building them with construction instead of buying them outright.

First, A GP cost would be acting as a money sink. However, construction is by principle a money sink, and so option 2 is essentially just a more engaging way to go about option 1.

Secondly, construction lacks an amount of incentive in the higher levels, as evidenced by the fact that (at time of writing) there are a little over 1700 players with the level 69 to make a gilded altar. Pairing construction with sailing would provide great incentive to train as, provided the required level to build goes to a fairly high level, it would provide good high level content for construction that has enough use to incentivise players to train.

Thirdly, construction allows for greater customisation of boats. Boats can be similar to rooms in a POH, with hotspots where certain parts of the boat can be built. While greater customisation allows for better strategy and more diverse gameplay, it comes at the cost of requiring more memory. However, given that a boat would have the same number of hotspots as just 1 or 2 rooms in a POH, this should not be too much of a problem, even over Sailing

23-Aug-2014 02:29:51 - Last edited on 24-Aug-2014 00:07:17 by San

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23-Aug-2014 02:30:29

Jul

2023

San

Posts: 4,259 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

There’s potential for the argument that because sailing would require construction, it isn’t a skill on its own, but rather an offshoot of construction. That’s where I have an idea for *Shipbuilding contracts”. With these, a player can build a ship but then trade it with an NPC (I think at Port Sarim) for a shipbuilding contract. This can then be sold to other players, who can redeem it at the NPC and will now be able to use the boat despite not having the construction level. There can also be flatpacks for the oars/masts/sails and the like. Construction could become a profitable skill – whoever would have guessed!

You could also get shipbuilding contracts from (some ideas) monster drops, clue scrolls, quest rewards etc. That would be good news for the accessibility of people who, even in light of the added incentive of sailing, still do not wish to train their construction level.

That ought to nullify the argument that sailing is just a subsidiary of construction. It would make it similar to other paired skills. For example, smithing is trained with ores but you do not have to train mining to train smithing; you can get the ores from trading with players, monster drops, and other means.

I will now outline my ideas for how boats could be built, and the hotspots each could have. Sailing

23-Aug-2014 02:30:30 - Last edited on 23-Aug-2014 02:38:59 by San

Jul

2023

San

Posts: 4,259 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Types of Boats

Each of the training methods has a type of boat which is best suited to it: cargo ships, warships and transportation ships.

The cargo of the ship acts a lot like the swag bag of the wilderness – resources can be put into it but can only be taken out at a port. That would prevent people being able to stock up on hundreds of supplies and then being able to boss/ train slayer for hours on end. When items are not divisible by the number of people on the boat, the remainder goes to the ship’s owner, as they are the one who paid for the ship and would lose money if it sunk.

This is how each type compares to each other

Cargo: Speed-slow; cargo size-large; health-medium; no weaponry
Transportation: Speed-fast; cargo size-medium; health-low; no weaponry
Combat: Speed-medium; cargo size-low; health-high; weaponry allowed

Generally speaking, cargo and transportation boats are used for most methods of training, with the tradeoff being whether they want to get there quickly, if they want to have more cargo and how able the ship is able to deal with dangers.

Combat boats only have much use for piracy and the navy, though they might be handy for solo players wanting to traverse the higher level seas, as the extra health may somewhat counteract the extremely perilous perils. Sailing

23-Aug-2014 02:30:46 - Last edited on 23-Aug-2014 19:07:18 by San

Jul

2023

San

Posts: 4,259 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Tiers of Boats

When selecting the option “Build a new boat” you are given the following options, with further sub options in bullet points:

Small Rowboat
- Cargo
- Transportation
Large Rowboat
- Cargo
- Transportation
Small Sailboat
- Cargo
- Transportation
- Combat
Large Sailboat
- Cargo
- Transportation
- Combat
Engine boat
- Cargo
- Transportation
- Combat

Small rowboats are unlocked at level 1 sailing. Large rowboats are unlocked at level 20, small sailboats at level 40, large sailboats at level 60 and engine boats at level 80.

Successive tiers increase speed, cargo size and health.

The first 3 tiers can all be operated solo which will allow players who prefer to play solo to not be prohibited from training.

I think boats should require a lot of materials to build them: hundreds of materials for the highest tier boats. Therefore they can be built with the materials noted. This means that some of the highest level boats cost several hundred thousand to make and ensures there is some risk involved when at sea, since when a ship sinks the players wash up on shore but do not lose any items. Sailing

23-Aug-2014 02:31:29 - Last edited on 23-Aug-2014 19:07:29 by San

Forums

Sailing