How do I actually... you know... sail?

[Vamphaery]

I finally have a ship. I can turn, but I don't seem to be going forward. How do I actually make the ship move?

I don't appear to have a navigator or any other crew members, but I have two characters listed under characters. They don't seem to be available to me when I want to assign them as crew.

I have zero gold and thus no way to buy anything to trade.

I'm basically TOTALLY lost. I read the manual five times and I still don't know what I'm doing.

This game is incredibly unintuitive.

ANY HELP will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Thagarr]

Ahoy Vamphaery! There are a couple of ways to issue the order to set your sails in sailing mode. Hitting the "Enter" key should open up a little menu on your ship icon in the upper left corner of the screen, you can set your sails and cannon from there. I find it much easier to use the keyboard shortcuts though. Hit the "W" key once and it will give you half sails, hit it twice and you should be under full sail. Hit "S" to strike your sails. Basically the same as map mode. This is of course assuming you haven't reassigned the default key assignments. The interface does take a bit of getting used to.

You can assign your officers to jobs that they have the ability for. Select the officer that you want in the top list, on the bottom list, scroll to the open officer position you wish to assign and select "Assign Officer".

 

[Vamphaery]

Thanks, I'm gradually beginning to comprehend it all. This is like the sailing equivalent of Universal Combat, where it took literal days to sail to another planet lol. I love that, personally.

Now I just need to find a way to make some money so I can hire a decent crew and get some supplies...

 

[Luke159]

Money in the early stages of the game is hard to come across and is very much needed, the best way is to head over to the store and ask the store owner if there's a job going the first store owner you ask about a job will tell you about the Bluebird preying on merchant ships, say yes you will hunt for it (there's no time limit so don't worry) after all the dialog has finished save your game then ask the store owner again if he has any jobs, he should offer you something, like cannon balls to XXX, keep reloading your game till you get a town nearbye and accept the job, you have a time limit on merchant jobs so don't waste too much time, now sail to the town the cargo is to be delivered to and tell the store owner there about the cargo on your ship, he'll pay you after all the cargo is delivered, if the rats have eaten any you will have to replace them before the job is done and you won't be paid till you have given all the cargo to the store owner. Keep doing merchant runs for the store owners and you will soon be making enough money to do what you need and your stats will increase allowing you to sail better ships etc etc.

When you have enough money look in the shipyard and speak with the owner there see what ships are for sale, you will won't a ship that can carry a large amount of cargo, the class 5 ship Caravel will be the first merchant ship you will be able to sail, if you have any red stats then your character doesn't have the required stats to sail that class of ship i think its 25 nav skill you need before you can sail class 5 ships.

 

[Vamphaery]

Thank-you! That will be very helpful advice!

 

[Thagarr]

Nice post Luke159, good advise mate!

CoAS does take a while to learn Vamphaery, but it is well worth the effort!

 

[Vamphaery]

Indeed. I'm taking it nice and slow. I'm finding that it's more of an experience, akin to a simulation, than a game, which is fine by me. It just means I have to climb the learning curve slowly but surely lol.

 

[Handel]

Thanks, I'm gradually beginning to comprehend it all. This is like the sailing equivalent of Universal Combat, where it took literal days to sail to another planet lol. I love that, personally.

Now I just need to find a way to make some money so I can hire a decent crew and get some supplies...

Search for my posts - I wrote at least twice some short step-by-step advices for the first few days of playng.