Interesting! Definitely looking forward to more updates, sounds like an exciting campaign.
My own is decidely less interesting so far. You see, I am very new to the game, just discovered it actually. And I have no knowledge of sailing. So I decided to start as a freeplay castaway, which would allow me to sort of ease into the game by focussing on land stuff while I learn how things work, and then tackle the sailing aspects once I have a handle on the other aspects of the game. Land stuff is mostly familiar to me because of playing other RPGS, so it seemed sensible to learn the game first in a familiar enviorment.
My current castaway campaign began on barbados, and I spent several days huntings bandits and natives in the jungle, always at night (and plenty of monkeys too), and sleeping the days away in the tavern. Mostly solo, with a good quatermaster I hired to help me fetch a good price for the loot and left in town, and then later a tiny bit of hunting with some officers I hired to get them a couple of levels. I killed several hundred bandits in the jungle alone, and some more in the barbados cave and spreightown dungeon, and lately have been assaulting the crypts under the maltese abbey. Had saved about 150,000 gold towards my first ship from the jungle hunting (decided not to keep the gold from the maltese abbey, since it is calibrated to be unfairly much, so I only count the jungle gold), and got some nice weapons from the crypts. I'm going back to the crypts one last time to find the remaining buried treasure today, and then I'll cash out my loan shark accounts and buy my first ship.
Do you have any recommendations on what kind of ship I should purchase? The shipyards on barbados seem to primarily have a mix of luggers, barks, and sloops, 8th and 7th rate mostly. I definitally want to keep it small for my first ship, and most of all would like to get something easy to handle, very fast, and not too powerful. My budget is anything under 200,000 I would say, but I wouldn't mind buying a cheap ship like a lugger to learn at first to learn with. I'd like to experience all aspects of the game, including having a smaller ship, though maybe a bark or sloop would be that anyway.
What are your thoughts on those options for my first learner ship? I was intending to pick the one with the highest top speed, so I can run away safely, but maybe there are more things that I should consider like rigging style? Not sure if that is a big difference for sloops, barks, luggers?
Also, do you think the upgrades are worth paying for? Any other advice for someone just about to set out to sea? I know the controls from practicing in my starting Dinghy lifeboat, but my knowledge is limited to what button turns the ship.
