Cubelets

Getting Around - Whisking FAQ

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 05:14:00 +0000

Shortlink for this page: http://tinyurl.com/whiskFAQ

I actually had another use for this in mind... then of course, I got lazy.

Introduction

How do I get to a particular island?

Let’s say that you have a ship ported at Rowes (or another middle of nowhere island) and you have no idea how to get that ship back to civilization, or that you'd like to get to zombies or skellies at a particular island.

How do you get to those islands in the most cost-effective way possible?

Luckily for you, there are many ways to get from island to island (i.e. whisking)!

Of course, the regular (and most expensive) way is to buy a Whisking Potion and then clicking on the island in Yer Known World.

But are there other ways of getting around?
What if you don’t have the island on your map?

This article is here to help answer these concerns.

Thanks to Crickket for her contributions to this article!

TL;DR aka Overview

Here’s a flowchart to help you out. If you only want to read one thing, this flowchart would be it.

You may notice that if things don't work out, the ultimate option always circles back to the whisking potion. D;

The Nitty Gritties

Whether you're a new pirate on the seas or just new to the concept of whisking, you'd probably need some further elaboration.

Basic thought process is this:
1. Use the ferry if possible
2. If not, get islands on YKW and whisk to them
3. Whisk to them using alternate means

Part I: Using the Ferry

You should first check if the destination island is both colonized and in the same archipelago as the island you are on.

This can be done by first clicking on the docks, scrolling past the ships your crew has.

You will be able to ferry between same archipelago, colonized islands without charge or hassle.

Check here for islands that are...ferriable. Wait, that’s not a word is it?

Understanding Ferries

Many Archipelagos make up the Ocean. Emerald has 8 Archipelagos.
A group of islands (both colonized and uninhabited) make up an archipelago.

In very basic terms, colonized islands (in green) are islands you can set as home.

On the other hand, Uninhabited Islands (in red) are islands that only have a dock (and/or a basic fort), but you cannot ferry to or from uninhabited islands.

You may ferry between the colonized islands in the same Archipelago.

You cannot ferry between colonized islands in different Archipelagos.
(Loathe's post here elaborates more on this with actual examples)

Getting Islands to show on Yer Known World (YKW) and using Whisking Potions

Having islands on the YKW means being able to whisk to them with whisking potions.

Accessing YKW

Yer Known World (YKW) is akin to the world map of YPP.

Islands can either appear temporarily via charts on a ship, or appear permanently if you've set foot on it before.

By having islands appear, you’re then able to use whisking potions to get to islands that are inaccessible by ferries.

Understanding YKW

When you start out with a new pirate, you have none or only a few islands on YKW.

Your goal is to eventually visit (or explore) all of the 92 islands so that it looks like the wiki map of Emerald. Essentially, it creates a sense of "exploring the Ocean".

NOTE!:

You need to have actually set foot on the islands for them to permanently show on YKW.
If you got whisked there on a crewbie’s boat, be sure to hop off onto the island for a second!

Having the island and the LP (league point) of an island on YKW are different.

For the LP associated with the island to show, you can either hop on and off the island from a ship or log in and out at the island scene 4-5 times.

Having a chart to an island makes it show

You can board a ship that has charts to the island you desire.
This also works with navy ships.

However, these islands only show up temporarily until you log-off. So if you can, be sure to set foot on them to lock them in. Forever.

NOTE!:

Getting someone to chart you to an island that you don’t have on your YKW doesn't make it whisk-able.

Asking others to invite /job you there also works

As you are usually whisked straight to the island or the ship at the island, you’ll have it show permanently on YKW. See also section 4.

Using Whisking Potions for islands already on YKW

Once you have the island on your YKW either temporarily or permanently,

you can then use a whisking potion to whisk there.

To use a whisking potion, simply click on it in the booty panel, and click “drink”.

You can buy a whisking potion at any apothecary and whisk to the island you desire.

They are the most expensive way to whisk around (on the green oceans, anyway).
You can find them at apothecaries, under potions.

They’re not particularly expensive, but the delivery price is what is really hard to swallow for just 9 whisks. Trust me when I say it really builds up.

(And you know that is what makes you fork out 50-odd-k to buy a measly sloop!)

Straight whisking methods

Asking others through chat

Ask someone that has your wanted island set as “home” to either job you to a ship ported there, or invite you to a building on the island.

Some great channels to try are /crew, /fo chat, or the inn.

Well.. the man has a point.

If your crew has ships everywhere (Cubelets does!), a crewbie can stand on a ship in your crew at your wanted island.

You will then be able to board the ship and be automatically whisked there.

You could also have a friend job you onto one of their ships ported at your wanted island.

What if your friend is at your wanted island, but their crew doesn't have a ship ported there?

You can job them (while off a ship) to your crew and ask them to hop on one of your crew ships at the island.

Asking others through the noticeboard

This is only to be used as a last resort.
By clicking on the ship’s name, you can see where it is currently ported at on the Ahoy! tab.

Taken from Tinnitus' Pillaging Guide

Check to see if any ships are ported at or are at a colonized island in the same archipelago as your destination island.

If so, you can then send a /tell to the person advertising on the notice board and ask if they would mind whisking you there by offering you a job.

Note!:

Be sure to ask before applying!
If you job solely for the sake of whisking to the island you may find yourself on a “do not job” list or the recipient of less than pleasant tells!

If it says "last seen at <island>", it means that they are already at sea and won't work as a whisk.

Being planked whisks you back to your home island. You have to leave yourself.

Using alts

This is meant to be used more for repeated whisking.

Setting an alt’s home island where you need to whisk to repeatedly can be pretty convenient and cost-effective.

I myself have about 10 alts stationed across the ocean on various islands with Explorers' Halls.

It doesn't sound that troublesome as you can technically have 3 (or more if you were here during the merger!) pirates per account.

Each computer can create up to 5 free accounts (write them down on a piece of paper!), so there are plenty of alts to go around!

Using missions

Sometimes you hear others saying things like "skellies/zombies at <insert island here>".

You could use any of the above methods to whisk.

Or, if you are Renowned+ in Swordfight or Rumble, you'll be able to see "Defeat the Skeletons" and "Defeat the Zombies" missions on the board respectively.

Relevant quick links

Emerald yppedia map

YKW yppedia

I haven't forgotten xD Love you all

Squishat

Halloween Update 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 13:11:00 +0000

Just a quick video about the not-so-popular Red Sea for the Halloween Period.

Trying something new, hope you enjoy.

Will we still get the wacky hats as we usually do? :)
Don't forget the other Halloween trinkets, and to hunt those werewolves.
Will you be there for the event? Shame it isn't on a weekend.

Fish names - Part I (A-B)

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 01:59:00 +0000

Fish names are a big part of YPP.

All the vessels are named after one fish or another.

While you can find exotic fish to name your ship after, the default list is already quite extensive.

I've wanted to write this ever since I saw a picture of an Angler fish, and wondered what the others looked like... before they ended up on our plates that is.

Any ichthyologists reading this, please don't hit me :P

Alewife - pronounced ale-wife, not a-le-wife

Source

Pretty sure I've eaten this at some point... though I cannot be entirely sure.
Looks pretty normal to me.
I would love to have this deep-fried. Mhmmm.

Main Habitat: Five Great Lakes

Interesting fact: there's a transportation hub named after it located in Cambridge, Tax-achusetts.

Anchovy - Small and nutritious

Source

Okay, I KNOW I've had these before. I never knew they were called Anchovies though, I always knew them by their other name: ikan bilis (e-khan bee-lease).
Not on a pizza, but dried and crispy.

Main Habitat: Mediterranean

Interesting Fact: Anchovies are low on toxins and great vitamin-packed snacks for the health conscious thanks to their small size and short life-cycles.

Angelfish - Pretty and varied

Source for more pics! Emperor Angelfish

There are two categories of this one apparently. A seawater one and a freshwater one.

Both go by the name "Angelfish" for us laymen, but quite different.

Both are really pretty and colorful though, and both are quite distinctive fish shapes to us.

Source Silver Angelfish

Main Habitat: Shallow reefs in Atlantic, Indian, Pacific Oceans (seawater), Amazon river and fish tanks (freshwater)

Interesting Facts: They're pretty. Despite its bold colors, the Queen Angelfish is actually shy in nature.

Angler - The ultimate dominatrix

Source

And now, for the inspiration for this article.

Oh, you thought the look of the fish was the worst part? Nonono.

Only females have "anglers" (the light bulb part). The male physically fuses with the female, leaving only its testes and a female will carry six or more males.

Source Yeap, it's the one from Finding Nemo

/e shudder. Hey, at least the females don't have to worry about doing hair and make-up everyday since they pretty much live in darkness, right?

Main Habitat: North-east Atlantic where the sun don't shine.

Interesting Fact: Apparently you can eat these. Yeaaaaaa. PASS.

Barbel - No, not the weights you lift. Those are Barbells.

Source

Apparently if you googled Barbel, you get a lot of fishermen showing them huge-booty fish off.

I'm guessing they're eaten a lot. I think I've had these!

Main Habitat: Slow-flowing rivers everywhere

Interesting Fact: Barbel is also the technical term for fish whiskers.

Bass - The fish that keeps on noming.

Source Giant Black Sea Bass

Bass also has marine and freshwater varieties.

It is also an instrument and something that Dr. Dre claims to know a lot about.

Most common variety we know of is the Sea Bass.

And if you can't cook one of those, be prepared to "take off your jacket and leave Hell's Kitchen".

Source NOPE.

Because you bleeping can't bleeping bleeping cook for bleep. Blimey bleep. Bleep me.

Main Habitat: East Coast US (Black Sea Bass), restaurant aquariums all over

Interesting Fact: I eat these all the time. 鲈鱼 They're one of the cheaper varieties at the fish market.

Here's a comparison between East and West sea bass.

Source East

This is garnished with Soy Sauce, spring onions, yellow wine, and ginger. Tastes great.

It is actually very fast and easy to prep.

Simply put all ingredients in and then just 4-5 mins in the microwave on high. Great for a meal for one or two. No fat except for the fish's fat.

If you'd like specific instructions, leave a comment :P

Source Fancy Cuisine

If Alton Brown has taught me anything, it is that searing sea bass is a tart. And he has already aimed to simplify everything as much as possible.

Also that source link has some scary instructions. Why is there butter in everything?

Blowfish - Porcupine of the Sea

Source Is it just me, or does this look like a horse?

You've heard of Fugu right? It's apparently a type of Blowfish.

Blowfish can't swim very well, so they try to compensate by inflating themselves.

This fish is full of dirty innuendos.

Source

Sometimes Fugu is prepared with extra traces of the poisonous parts because it causes a tingling (read: paralyzing) effect on the tongue.

It's like getting high. On fish.

Would you try Fugu knowing you could die?

Main Habitat: Tropical Ocean Zones (Despite their name literally meaning River Pig... what -_-)

Source Bloat from Finding Nemo

Interesting Fact: 31 fatal cases of Fugu poisoning occurred in Japan between 1996 and 2005 (source) and most of them were fishermen engaging in "Russian-roulette-style fugu consumption".

Darwin Awards, anyone?

Bluegill - a type of sunfish

Source Dark spot above dorsal fin

Bluegills come in a variety of colors.

They are so named for their characteristic dark (blue?) dot at the edge of their gills.

They have special fins that allow them to turn quickly from predators, but are very popular to fish as they are very bite-y.

Oh irony, thy name is Bluegill.

Main Habitat: Originally Great Lakes and Mississippi, now entire US

Interesting Fact: Emperor Akihito (an ichthyologist by profession!) inadvertently introduced the Bluegill to the Japan ecosystem, wrecking havoc in the process.

Bream - Part of the Carp family

Source More breams this guy fished up!

Breams, Sunfish, Carps, Minnows (even Barbels) are all in the same Class and Order (ray-finned fish), so colloquially the terms used to describe the different fish are often used interchangeably.

It is the largest family of fish.

My first sloop was a Bream. I renamed it to the Cliche Bream with Pegno's help. Ah, good times.

Main Habitat: North of the Alps, and Balkans, extending towards the Caspian and Black Sea

Interesting Fact: Like other members of its family tree, it is a very popular fishing target. Well it is quite meaty.

Bullhead - Adjective or noun, it can be both!

Source European Bullhead

When referring to a "Bullhead", it is most commonly understood that it is either the European Bullhead, or a type of Bullhead Catfish. There are other types of bullheads too. Not sure why I keep having the word "bullfrog" in my head.

Either way... both look tasty.

Both varieties are quite small.

Source Black Bullhead Catfish

The European Bullhead is a fresh water stone-dweller, preferring to dart along the river beds.

Main Habitat: Native to UK Rivers (European Bullhead), native to North America (Bullhead Catfish)

Interesting Facts: Because of the small Catfish's size, the Bullhead Catfish is often kept as a pet. (Wut?)

Well that's it for the As and the Bs :) I really enjoyed reading about fish. I hope you did too!

Would you like to see more? I hear there are some wacky sex-changing fish out there.

Our New Flag

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 27 Sep 2013 01:22:00 +0000

Cubelets Needs You!

As you may know we’ve decided to leave Illusion and have been looking at the steps we need to take following this decision. As for why this has come to pass, this has been posted in our crew issues recently, but it basically boils down to this; the reasons this crew joined Illusion over a year ago now no longer hold. Our crew has always been a little separate from Illusion and so we’ve been looking at all the options available to us. Things have been moving rather quickly and we apologise for this. We’ve come to a decision however and the route we’ve chosen to go forward with is to create our own flag.

This is where this post comes in; we’d like to hear your input on what name this new flag shall have. Silly, funny, sinister, it’s your choice! After we get those names, Squish will handpick the best of the bunch and put those up for us to vote on. So the short of it is this, reply to this post and get your say! What should our new flag be called?

Happy sails,

Desonn

Interested in joining us? - Crew FAQ

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 08:04:00 +0000

What are you guys like?

Our FAQ will hopefully help determine whether Cubelets is for you!

See also Crew Perks and Rules

Q: I've never been in such a structured crew before! Will I fit in? How about stats? Will you find me too noobish?

A: We as a crew are team players. An eagerness to learn, some common courtesy and a desire to have fun as a team player is all that is needed. Plus Menoob once said that no one is a greenie, they are just pros-to-be.

Q: Are you guys a closed group?

A: This is a tricky one to answer. The short version is no. We love new players. However, we have been told that we're not as open as we'd like to be.

Here's the thing.
We have been playing for awhile, we believe in playing as a team, and having crewbies that respect that. If you can't, you're going to find it hard to "fit in".

Q: What is the demographic of your crew? Which time zone is the most active?

A: Most of us are in our 20s and we are spread out over all 6 continents!

(No, we don't live in Antarctica)

No matter where you live, you'll have buddies that play at around the same time!

Q: I just came back from a break. Are you guys based on Sage or Hunter?

A: Cubelets is a crew created after the merger, so we are a mixed bag. No matter which side you’re from, we’ll not differentiate.

If you really care, you should just stalk our trophy pages.>:)

Pandorica was created and run by a bunch of old-timey Huntards though :P

Q: What if I only log on once or twice a week for a few hours? Will this affect how much I get to rank up?

A: This is a tricky one to answer. It all depends on what you do with those hours that you are on. Are you a team player willing to help crewbies out? Are you constantly trying to improve? Do we get to know you a little bit?

If rank is the only thing you care about, we are not the crew for you anyway.

Q: I was a big deal on another/this ocean. Now I'm starting over. Can I get O immediately?

A: Hey, I'm sure you're sufficiently experienced to be an Officer. But here in Cubelets, we only promote guys we know and trust.

If you were a decent player, then getting the 3 master+ requisite should be a piece of cake for you anyway, and you'll get promoted soon enough after we run you through our O test :)

Q: The O test? That sounds scary! What if I fail it? Do I not get promoted?

A: Bro, this isn't school. It's a game, where we enjoy ourselves.

It's not a test to see whether you know everything. It's a test to see how much you do know, so we can help you fill in the blanks.

Q: How is it that there seems to be a rule for everything? I just want to log on and have fun!

A: You'll never believe it, but that's exactly what we want too! Which is why we have the rules all laid out crystal clear.

Less drama or less potential for drama = more fun!

Q: Wait, so do you guys just pull the rules out of a hat?

A: Not really. Common sense and logic man. We want it to be as simple as it possibly can be, too! It's also based on Squish's experiences of being a SO and running a flag.

Q: How do you guys run Cubelets?

A: We make crew decisions (mainly promotions past O) and discuss problems that arise as a team (i.e. The Captain and the SOs).

If you want to come in as part of the decision-making, that is fine too. As long as you want to get involved or have an idea for an event etc., just get out there and make it happen.

Q: What if I don't actually want to do anything, and just inntart all day?

A: Hey, as long as you're friendly and comply with our rules, you can sit at the spades table all day. (Which some current crewbies already do.)

We all have different aspects of the game that we enjoy more than others, and no one should be penalized for that, but do help out your crewbies once in a while.

Hope this answers most of your queries!

The Cubelets Team

BK FAQ

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Mon, 12 Aug 2013 21:37:00 +0000

Shortlink for this page: tinyurl.com/squishBKFAQ

Introduction

Did you ever find yourself on one of my BK trips only to be left wondering
“Uhh why does she have so many rules? I know they are effective for us winning quickly... but why?”
“Did I get a trinket?”
“How much are they worth?”

This article should hopefully answer most of your queries.:)

BKs are a fairly recent obsession of mine... in relative terms. I started doing them possibly in May 2012. Since then, I've gotten Gold Longship, Baghlah, Junk and diamond MB (one and only) just from doing BK Compasses.

If you think you’ve seen parts of this guide before, you probably have. It was once the BK FAQ I linked to on the crew page, before the blog existed xD

Have a question not already answered? Leave a comment for me to add it!

Longship BKs

How many do we sail with?

We start BKing with full ship, which is 15. Type /w to see how many currently aboard.

Why do we need to hop till 8 left?

The short answer is, to spawn an easier BK.
The long answer, involves understanding of might rings and spawn difficulty.

The difficulty of the bots you fight is dependent on the number of people on the ship.

So we technically spawned a BK for 8, and then fighting it with 15.

Can we hop till 7 or 5 or something?

No. If the number is too low, the spawn will be too easy, and the BK will flee (refuse to engage).

What is DND, CAH?

Do Not Disturb (needs to be off so you can hear the whistle) and Call all Hands.

I can’t hear the whistle!

Turn DND off. ‘Nuff seid.

I can’t seem to hop off the ship!

When ships are out of port (when you can see the ship on the mini map), you will not be able to “leave the vessel” by clicking the mini-map or “leave the vessel”.
Instead, click “to home”.

Who are the BKs?

Don't team on them until the end!!

Why do we need to kill BK last?

This is one that is highly debated.

Most recently, it has been added to the list of Rumors on the YPPedia, and marked as false.

This makes me a sad panda because I do believe that it does make a difference, and very noticeably too in the cases of brynhild, WQ and Barnabas.

The "minions" tend want to "avenge" their King, so they start to fight much harder and tend to become super hard to kill, doing full screen clears and instas to the humans.

This is especially true in the case of Barnabas the Pale.

I am going to ask for you to kill the BK last when on my trips, just for consistency’s sake. It isn't too much to ask to check your teaming after every kill.

I don’t think I got a trinket?

If you have a pirate badge or above, you got it.
There is no line of text that says “Ye received xxx”. The BK defeat speech is it.

Barnabas the Pale says, "Very well, I shall give each of yer dedicated hands one Ectoplasm in ransom for my release."

Which BKs are SF and which are Rumble?

Barnabas and Azarbad (Brigand King) are always SF.
Vargas (Barbarian King) is always Rumble
The rest can be either/or.

I need to leave soonish... how do I let you know?

Preferably by saying in a tell “Hey, this upcoming battle is my last” BEFORE the battle ends.
This is so I can plan around it, and thus faster battles for all.

How many of these do you have?

That’s not really relevant, but I usually do anywhere from 6-12 of them in a row depending on my schedule.

For reference, my highest record is 28 wins 3 losses in a day, and 22 wins straight. Yes, that takes a long time.

Sloop BKs

Why do we not team on sloop BKs?

They have 12...while we only have 7. We’re vastly outnumbered.

When they're maxed, they only have half a board. If we don't spread out and "waste" our resources on the same half-dead bot, then the others will have time to build "instas or semi instas".

By not teaming, we get to bring their numbers down efficiently to 6 or 7.
Otherwise, we'd only being able to knock out 3-4 at the beginning, leaving them with 8 or more still.

I also noticed that sloop BK spawns tend to stall more if you team in 3s on them.

The rest of this is more informational rather than FAQ-y.

Informational

How many wins for each of the BK trophies again?

Wins	Trophy
1	Bronze
10	Silver
25	Gold

How many types of trinkets are there?

YPPedia page on BK trinkets
total of 49 different types of trinkets

How many colors do the trinkets come in?

Either 6 or 7 colors.

All BK trinkets come in Red, Orange, Green, Aqua, Blue, Violet.
The 7th color is Yellow, and only applies to Azarbad, Brynhild, Yu Jian (a.k.a. the new BKs)
This brings the total of unique trinkets to 312.

Wow that is a lot of trinkets!

Yes, and to get them all in your name is a giant pain in the behind. (Well, the Galene Doll kinda makes up for it :P)

To date, on Emerald, I think only Everclearboy and Shooshy have complete sets all inscribed with their name.

Delores is currently missing one, and I am currently missing two.

But I have no idea which colors I got!

Blue and aqua can be quite confusing, and some of the trinkets are really hard to tell apart.

Okay, how about you just match them to my trinkets here and see which ones you got :)
Squishat's YPPedia Page on Trinkets

What is the point of the trinkets?

You can either trade them for BK eggs and banners at the Trading Post, or you can collect the trinkets on their own.
And then of course you can sell the trinkets. Different rarities have different values.

Which trinket is the rarest?

I used to keep data, then it became too tedious. So I do list the rarest/second rarest first, and the most common ones last. But everything in between is “by feel”, and loosely corrected based on ECB's numbers.

Gretchen Goldfang – Lucky Rabbit’s Foot

Rarest				Most Common	Most Common
Lucky Rabbit’s Foot	Ivory Toothpick	Wooden Amulet	Salt Shaker	Golden Horseshoe	Stained Wishbone

Widow Queen – Arsenic Ring

Rarest	Rarest			Most Common	Most Common
Arsenic Ring (HAHA I typed “arse”)	Rose Goddess Perfume	Jeweled Brooch	Silk Handkerchief	Concealed Blade	Ruffled Garter

Barnabas the Pale – Music Box of Lamentations

Rarest				Most Common	Most Common
Music Box of Lamentations	Ectoplasm	Will o’ Wisp	Cursed Idol	Spectral Chain	Key to the Nether-sea

Admiral Finius – Baby Portrait of Admiral Finius

Rarest	Rarer			Most Common	Most Common	Most Common
Baby Portrait of Adm. Finius	Porcelain Cup	Fish Eye Lens Monocle	Royal Anchovy Tin	Prestigious Naval Medal	Self-Addressed Love Letter	Pearl Pocket Watch

Azarbad the Great – Exotic Confection

Rarest				Most Common	Most Common
Exotic Confection	Ornate Earring	Jeweled Dagger	Heart of Fire	Scented Beard Oil	Golden Oil Lamp

Vargas the Mad – Siren’s Comb

Rarest	Rarer			Most Common	Most Common
Siren’s Comb	Reading Pipe	Jigsaw Puzzle Piece	Scientific Tome	Grimoire Page	Yo-Yo

Madam Yu Jian – Cut Stone Box

Rarest				Most Common	Most Common
Cut Stone Box	Jade Comb	Hand Fan	Jeweled Finger Guard	Jade Carving	Lucky Coin Tailsman

Brynhild Skullsplitter – Mjolnir Amulet

Rarest				Most Common	Most Common
Mjolnir Amulet	Engraved Wristband	Solar Compass	Runestone	Wyrm Scale	Hoard Brooch

That moment when mistyping “BKs” to “BJs” every single time when writing this guide,

Squishat

Crew Perks and Roles

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 16:35:00 +0000

Welcome aboard!

So now that you've joined our fine crew, what's next?

Or maybe you're thinking of joining, and wondering to yourself,"what does this crew have to offer?"

Fear not! This post outlines the extra little perks and expected roles in Cubelets for each rank beyond what the game naturally grants.

While most of these are cases of “well, duh!”, not being explicit has caused confusion in the past.

Just better to spell everything out :)

Needless to say, all superseding ranks will include all goodies of lower ranks xD

Cabin Person

Ruminate on why Mg demoted you.
All alts will be this rank, unless you need one for Officer rank.

Pirate

Free use of the swords and bludgeons on the crew chart ship (Victorious Carp on Admiral).*
Free use of our Crew Hall on Admiral (You can set it as home, as a quiet inn).
Be eligible for and automatically entered into the monthly crew raffle (details in Crew Private Statement).
Read Crew Private Statement
Be included in our crew intro page (maintained by Alpha).
Donate towards making Cubelets even more amazing! Crew donation ship is the Wasted Whale on Admiral.(And to fund Mg's world domination). **
Able to have an alternate pirate in the crew as a CP. ***
Answer questions other crewbies poise that can't be found with a simple search (and that you know the answer to).
Submit and have your awesome designs published in the furnishing section of the blog.
Laughing at everyone's hilarious antics.

Officer

Read all crew-related posts on the Blog, and be fully aware of our Recruitment Policy.
Battle navigate in turn on our regular Brig Roulettes after reading the rules.
Free use of (and contribute) any charts aboard the crew chart ship (Victorious Carp on Admiral).*
Have an alt as an Officer in the crew (justify reasons why it's needed to a SO+).**
Able to add your name to the list of charters in the Private Statement, and add your stall/shoppe to the Extended Crew Info.
Contribute articles under your name to the Blog (be ok with Squish editing it).

Fleet Officer

Full access to the spare items on the chart ship (Victorious Carp on Admiral) at any time, and helping other crewbies get items from it.
Adding permanent members to the crew (Letting an online SO know, or leave Squish a message on Skype).
Join the FO chat group on Skype.
Able to help with Blog maintenance, should you be interested.
Host Brig Roulettes after sufficient experience, and a prior supervised run.
Conducting Officer Tests after a supervised one.

Senior Officer

Spontaneous wenching of crew mates.
Short term demotions for naughty pirates.
Confirm recruits, vote on/suggest promotions and generally keep things running smoothly.
Able to host Brig Roulettes at any time.
Up to 3 alts if it is needed.
Main guys to approach for O tests / recruitment / stuff.
Access to and updating the various crew lists / chats.

Captain

Thinking up rules for everyone to follow.
Ordering people to read the blog more (and ~~working~~... I mean... procrastinating on the blog).
Putting out fires (metaphorical fires).
Other stuff (that no one else wants to do).

Some footnotes:

* Game mechanics require you to ask a FO+ to get the charts and swords from the crew ship for you.
** When depositing PoE in the donation ship, do note to put it in the Hold instead of the Booty.
*** Maximum of one alt per person allowed as a crewbie.

Hope this clears things up,

Desonn + Squishat

(and the rest of the Cubelets Team)

P.S. Originally, none of them had full-stops (periods) at the end, but the things got on my OCD so... now everything has a period. ~S

Furnishing - How to have it posted

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Mon, 22 Jul 2013 07:42:00 +0000

Furnishing/Decorating Section

Hey! Did you know we had a Furnishing/Decorating section on the blog?

Not only is it great for getting ideas, but it's also fun to see what others have designed :)

We'd love to see your creations!

What can I submit?

You can submit house or ship decorations... or anything really that you're really proud of and would like to show off xD

Keep in mind that it is for others to enjoy, so do try to make it have a theme, and appealing to others :)

Do I have to be a crewbie?

Not really, no xD As long as you submit your links to me, I'll be happy to share your awesome decorations!

Step by Step

I made this video a few months ago as a simple how-to for submitting albums to the blog :)

Just leave your album link in the comments, and I'll be glad to post it for you!

Or, if you prefer, I'll add you as temp author to the blog and you can submit it under your own name ;)

We reserve the right to reject any albums that do not meet the criteria or our standards.

Edit: Oh god this video is horrible and doesn't meet my standards. I have to redo this. Asap.

YPP Tip of the Day - How does "Decay" work?

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 05:16:00 +0000

Which items will decay?

Fortunately for you, only things that you "use up" will be subject to decay.

This means badges, clothes, and weapons.

What is the concept of Decay?

In YPP's sense, it means that some items have a timer to them (usually in days), and that they will disappear after a given amount of time.

Items that decay will start out at "New", and then go on to "Good", "Old" and eventually "Dust" (i.e. disappear)

This concept will initially be difficult to wrap your head around if you're used to games where when you buy something, it is yours forever.

How does it work exactly?

As always, we begin with resources that are already available.

Yppedia page on Decay - This page documents the basics, but it is rather... confusing to say the least.

Do items have the same decay rates?

Nope, you can check this page :)

YPPedia List of Decay Rates - Lists all the items too.

What about this old -barnacle- that I just got from that SMH?

All old items that you get from SMHs (HS, CI & Atlantis) degrade in 10 log-in days.

So all clothing doesn't decay the same way?

When you have clothing of the opposite gender dust(filed under misc.), they just disappear.

When Hats and Feet dust, they just disappear.

When Torso and Legs dust,

If they were the only item of clothing in your invent, they turn into new rags of their primary color.
If you had lots of other clothes, they just disappear.

When Rags dust,

Galene greeter chats, "All rags when dusting, can dust randomly into any of the 4 starter colors, regardless what color they were initially."

But in my experience...

If the old rags were of a non-starter color, they turn into new rags of starter colors (red, blue, tan, white).
If the old rags were of a starter color (red, blue, tan, white), they dust into rags of random starter colors.

So in the screenshot at the beginning of this post,

will turn into Spring Green Rags Torso.

What's the dealio with furniture decay?

Furniture does not decay when you leave it in your inventory.

Instead, it only decays when you:

place it / remove it from a scene (decays by 5 points)
move it around the scene by clicking "commit changes" (decays by 1 point)
Old furniture doesn't dust. Instead it degrades to a prop, which you can no longer move. And then when you decide to "trash your prop", that is when it will dust.

Make up your mind before you place furniture, and even old furniture will last you 5 years. (at least)

You can always use preview mode to see how it will look before placing it for realsies.

Not all types of furniture decay.

Sleeping Animals, Decennium Furniture, Various Boxes do not decay.

(Even if you move them 50 thousand times.)

What about Chart decay?

Yppedia page on chart decay - I know... they're all on different pages. Why can't it be easier?

(Look who's talking, your own blog isn't that great either. I know D; but at least I'm working on it.)

Calendar days vs. Log In days?

Log in days = only days that you logged in on.
(E.g., If you only log in on Saturday and Sundays, then the log-in dusting will only apply 2 days out of 7.)

Calendar days = every single day
(Following the above example, things that dust according to calendar days will apply 7 days out of 7, even if you only log in 2 days a week, or even not at all.)

The decay of an entire log-in day applies instantaneously to everything in your inventory the second you log onto the game after you click on your pirate.

i.e., The entire day decay applies regardless of how long you are online for that particular day, even if you only log on for 10 minutes.

How do I slow something from decaying?

The official party line is that you put that stuff into the their respective storage furniture.

The "cheating" line is that you can pretty much use alts as "storage", and put a set of clothes, charts or whatever on the alt to use for later.

This is useful for storing charts for memming and preventing them from dusting before you get around to them.

The trick is that you cannot log on the alt when you don't need it, and you have to keep in mind that everything on said alt dusts a day when you do log on it. :P

Another trick is that because things only dust when you log-in again, you can trade an item that is due to dust in a set time (e.g. A BK compass) to a pirate who isn't logging off to "keep it alive".

You can play hot potato with it for as long as you can manage :P

Why is it necessary?

In every game economy, there needs to be money fountains and money sinks.

Explained in very simple terms, money needs to come from somewhere (e.g. Pillaging), but in order to not have infinite money in the game (causing the PoE you just earned to be worthless), the money needs to "disappear" somewhere (e.g. things dusting, ships sinking).

(*plays Circle of Life from Lion King*)

In this game, there are many fountains and sinks, but in this case it means that things need to have a reason to be replenished so that the economy can move along.

Not unlike the real economy. ;o

(Oh my god, I just KNOW I definitely need that latest i-insertnounhere even though my current i-insertnounhere works just perfectly fine!!)

Hope this was an entertaining read! I know it was a bit longer than my regular YPP Tips xD but anyhow~

Squishat

Peg's Xmas In July Event - A little Recap

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 03:29:00 +0000

As you may or may not have known, Pegasiswolf's annual Xmas in July 2013 event had just concluded yesterday.

What is it exactly?

It's basically a 24h non-stop pillage with lots of trivia and prizes for the bat-barnacle insane to win a parrot at the end.

Annually you say?

Yea, Peg is a lil cray cray (we all are) to do this every year.

This year's 24h event was (in my opinion) a lot less hectic than last year's 72h pillage. Maybe that was because this year I only had to do some navving (Thanks Peg!) and didn't have to deal with people.

Mg and I had a lot of fun (read: zomfg jobbers wai u so demanding!!) last year getting special santa hats and taking charge for three 4-hour sessions. (So that Peg could go get some sleep.)

I do seem to recall that Peg always came back ahead of schedule anyway. :P

Peg's first annual event was in 2011.

Dem screenshots

The event ship's name this year was Prize Elf, and it was, very decked out.
I did a composite screenshot of the ship's top deck.

Now you can be jealous of my 1080P screen :P

I had to save it as a crappy jpeg file and lose some of the quality because of how large this file was. Sorry!

There were 150+ presents in total. Having run many box auctions and other events that have boxes, I totes understand what a pain it is to wrap them all and the costs involved.

Here are the other scenes below deck. Pretty rad!

Not very obvious with the color turned on, but if you look closely, there're Christmas garlands on the side of the wall next to the xmas tree.

Woah. I didn't even know you could buy those!

One of the secret trigger questions for a present was "Why is there a basket of apples right beyond the cannon?"

Btw, I pretty much just hit Print Screen on my keyboard to get this screencap :P

So, if you're wondering why I designed the blog the way it is (before I understood the importance of the responsive thing), it's because of my laptop's screen resolution.

Even the captain's quarters have their own Xmas elements!

Those cannons and drums are everywhereee.

At the very end, the ship reverted to its barebones state as I imagined Peg did a "reclaim all furniture" on it to give the remainder of the presents to a helper to give out.

How long was I there for? Oh.. about the first 10 hours... And then the last hour.

Did I actually do anything? Err no :P I didn't even station. Not even in battle :P

New BK Bug

So because we actually got a BK expo, but it turned out to be a cutter!! Spawned for a fully-manned WF, we didn't get to do the BKs.

The same thing happened when we attempted to spawn BKs with compasses. I was a little disappointed as I did not get to nav WF BKs (which is really why I came in the first place heh.)

But yea, I then tried to spawn them on another WB and WF respectively, and the spawn seemed to work fine.

Sooo. I decided to run a test to determine whether it was the problem with the number of people on the ship or why it was only happening on the Prize Elf.

With the help of awesome crewbies (and their alts!), as well as other helpful piruts on Emerald...

It seems as if the problem seems to be that the BKs fail to spawn correctly after 60 pirates. Oh well.

I was secretly naving the Prize Elf while trying to job people on the test WF at the same time ahaha. Multitasking. That's what ypp is all about. Ha.

Perhaps it was all for the best as honestly, I wasn't sure the team could handle 75 v 159 BK battles.. even at max - 0

TL;DR

It actually doesn't really matter because... honestly, no one does large ship BKs. Which is sad. They'd be a lot of fun :)

Some afterthoughts

The people who stayed the entire 24 hours only got about 80k ish from the entire thing.

And this is WITH the double pay that came into effect halfway. Say what? Again proving that pillaging is in a sad state of affairs.

Because of the scoring system

Points will be given as follows:
2 pts. for each Incredible
1 pt. for each Excellent

Top combined OVERALL score (regardless of station(s)) will Win a:

Green /Tan PARROT FAMILIAR!!

Someone who was only aboard for ~10 hours, but getting multiple excellents by station-hopping for the relevant DRs, actually scored more points than Emp who was able to keep incredible duty reports for the whole 24-hours.

Flaw in the system? Eh. Every event has its caveats. Like the Brigand Bash event last year, which I am pretty sure was intended to increase co-operative pillaging, but instead turned into a solo grindfest.
Having said that, I also personally try to think of every single possible caveat before I run the event. That way I have a Plan B for every situation. Perhaps if the increds had counted for 3 points instead, it would have been harder to rig the system.
It really was a lot for Peg to do all on her own. And although she had some helpers, it sure felt like she could have used some extra help in many instances, such as present giving, and dealing with "job me" tells. General ship management, especially as the hours wore on.

Final Note

At the end of the day, thank you Pegasiswolf for running this behemoth of an event, dealing with a bajillion "Can we have another trivia??" questions, asking me to nav a fair few battles, and generally bravo for pulling it off.

Were you on the ship?

What did you think of this event? Leave a comment :)

YPP Dreams - Greeter Chat version

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Sat, 06 Jul 2013 15:31:00 +0000

New type of post! I know I have some REALLY. Wacky ones.

Valderino greeter chats, "I once had a dream that Y!PP was purchased by Microsoft and they installed Bing into the sunshine widget so we could search through our booty easier..."

Not a bad dream except for the Bing! part...

Menoob greeter chats, "i have a dream that i spend half of my life here. and then i realised it wasnt a dream"

True dat.

Crickket greeter chats, "I dreamed my house was burning down but I wouldn't leave the computer because Cryo was at stake, so you should job for us so I can have calmer dreams"

Kay, not sure about the validity of this one... some sort of subliminal "Job for us" advertisement?

Islands at a Glance

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 19:09:00 +0000

What this does

Ever wanted to run a SMH of sorts and wondered "can I stock there?"

Or... just got into shopkeeping and don't know which islands spawn what commodities?

How about the time-fabled question of "Where are the Black Markets?"

This table brought to you by the combined efforts of Desonn, Grenkar, Adelaidean and Squishat.

Hope you find it useful!

Will update periodically.

How to use it

Hit Ctrl + F on your keyboard, then start typing the name of the island.

New Crew Hall~ with questionnaire!

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 21:29:00 +0000

New stately crew hall on Admiral island.

After much discussion...

Ahem. Yes I know that there are no comments there. Time to cry in the corner.

We did! Discuss... it.

Anyhow~

So we've got a new crew hall on Admiral. Personally very pleased considering I don't have to live at the inn anymore.

Here's an interesting screenshot you don't get to see everyday :)

Edit; nix that, Blogger hates me today.

Also, TIL, but also to be expected, you actually need a Captain's badge to buy one of these buggers.

Here's a questionnaire for you :)
Loading...

New layout and look!

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 21:09:00 +0000

Yeap, after nearly 3 months since the genesis of this blog, may I present... Cubeletsypp 2.0!

Or.. 1.5 Beta more like.

I don't know about you, but I am super excited about this!
(Yeap, well worth the lack of new content for the past fortnight.)

Let me introduce the new layout a bit, and why it is 100000 times better.

Yeap, one hundred thousand times.

That Banner.

Now, I know we've ooohed and ahhed at Rory's amazing artwork before, but I've moved the clock to it, and added some social networking buttons.

The first one being Facebook,

which I admit, I am still figuring out.

Apparently Facebook nixed the importing of blog feeds to the fan pages a bit ago. That is the entire reason I created a page in the first place D;

Although I see a lot of potential for polls, commenting, posting SSes and other casual things to it. So.. we shall see :P

With that said, instead of making the icon an auto-like link, I've made it into a link to the page instead.

Youtube.

Did you know we had a youtube channel? No? I didn't either.. or at least some days I forget about :P

I make a lot of videos for the blog, not all of them are admittedly uploaded to the crew youtube channel. Except for the most recent Chat Tips + Options video, as well as the videos I made for the teaming guide that I am actually very satisfied with, the rest are admittedly just crappy screen captures (albeit very tedious screen captures)... with bad sound. Well I like the one I did for how to set up ventrilo as well.

It really helps that I actually have a decent recording program now. Ah well, it's been a really fun learning curve. :)

More to come, so I definitely recommend subscribing. I would have made people subscribe to my own channel, but I didn't really want to seem... hmm.

To be honest I am also very new to the whole relationship between social media and blogs. Although admittedly I've also read extensively (yes, quite a bit ><) on this subject in the past fortnight.

RSS feed.

What is all that about you may ask? Basically it give you feed... nope.. not that fodder you give pigeons at the park, causing them to explode (or does that only happen in cartoons?) Though I am pretty sure that that is where the term originated from.

Eh. Digressing.

RSS feeds are basically snippets (or whole posts) of what you subscribe to delivered to a single "inbox".

Kind of like getting the latest issue of all the magazines you subscribe to delivered to your doorstep at the start of every month. Only online. And in real time. And you can subscribe to 1000+ magazines and not kill 100 trees in the process.

Originally, people preferred to receive their feed via Google Reader.

(Lord knows I love my "fml" feeds!)

But now that Google is retiring what I think to be one of their best features (after maps ofc. Apple, eat their dust!), there is a limbo period where everyone is scrambling to find... the next best thing, or the new norm.

Blogger HAT suggests The Old Reader as the new up-and-comer, but I am not convinced.

Soo. Unless you already know what RSS Feeds are all about and already have a feed reader, then you should.. hmm. Just sign into your gmail to view the blog, and at the top right corner you'll be able to click "dashboard", and then add blog to reading list via url.

Or, if this is the only blog that you visit, you can always add us to your bookmarks and check once in a while :)

Dat clock that we love.

start infomercial:

Ever since the Cubelets blog had a game time clock added to it, I have never had to type /info again! It has made keeping track of game time much easier!

End.

Okay, that's really the best I can come up with at 4:38 am :P

I have received feedback that the blue is a little harder to see than it was before on a white background. I'll see what I can do about that after the other 50 things on the list. xD

Btw... did you know that the date shows when you mouseover? Yeap.

That Navigation Bar.

Yes, it is now... /e le gasp. Actually easy to find what you're looking for, and easy to see what the blog has to offer! (Which is quite a bit if you ask me :P)

Those quick links ;o Really really useful. 'Nuff said.

Who needs QM srsly. (But if you are still in search of QM, I can upload my untainted version to my dropbox. Let me know in the comments!)

New and improved search bar.

Remember how there were two search bars in the old layout? One for the blog and one for the forums and Yppedia?

Wait, what? You didn't realize there was a search on the old blog? Okay. Sadface, but I'm gonna let that one go. :P

Basically I merged both into the same search box, and now you can sort results by YPPedia/Forums or Blog only! Try it nao~ GCS is the baws.

Auto Read More.

Decreased blog loading time. Happier and faster browsing for all!

Prettier to look at.

You can't pretend that it isn't more pleasant to look at with all that relevant info at a glance.

Back to top... and bottom buttons.

Oh yuh, with fancy modified JS and everything. Not sure if the images work, but hey, they do the job right!

Other stuff.

:D I'm sure you'll like it xD I mean I do :3 If you don't... well.. I can't really do much about that.

I meant. I don't want to :P

But wait.. what about the other widgets that were on the sidebar before?

My good men (and women), in this day and age, less is more. Which is saying something, considering I digress a lot in my posts. Ya huh.

I downgraded this version to 1.5 as, yes, there is definitely more to come in terms of the blog upgrading that improves both the functionality and the feel of the blog. I know that even though the old one was nice, the feel of this new one is way better :)

Stay tuned for new content as well, as we have a reference page that I will be putting up soon. (It's already done, just that as you can see here... there is a slight problem with coding tables in Blogger @_@. So it will be up as soon as I figure that out :D)

So as we approach 10,000!! pageviews (Thanks to all the readers for making this happen!), I do hope you enjoy the changes I've toiled over to make

As is the tradition with me posting about blog updates, I like to end things on a fun note.

So here is a video by Yoyomax12 making a Canadian Flag for Canada Day.

Happy July 1st everyone!

Squishat

What do you like about it? What do you still hope to see? (Without disclosing my to-do list!) What changes to the current layout would you like to see?

Comment either here or on our new FB page!

Minutes of our Crew Meeting

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 06:01:00 +0000

Promotions/Demotions
- Grenkar to SO (help with O training etc).
- Tinnitus to O (Less active, at own request).
- Bigbro to FO.
- Mex to FO (at his own request).

Promotions to Officer (using O checklist)
- Be clearer on the promotion requirements (Piracy not including TH, Rumble and SF).
- Knowing basics of bnav before promotion, how controls work etc. (on the checklist).
- Rename O test to O checklist (things that you have to know when you get promoted).
- All SOs can conduct them, FOs with a SO around.
- Follow-ups and checking up on new Os (each other).

Crew blog
- An elite pillaging guide (by Bigbro).
- Call in crewbies to help maintain and gather resources for the blog (mainly puzzling guide videos).

Crew communication
- More use of the vent and the blog to get issues across, try to cut down on new issues and changes that need to be implemented.
- Being more communicative and considerate when trying to run things, so as to cut down on drama and stepping on people's toes.

What to do with Crew Funds?
- Getting a crew hall on Admiral.
- Stately crew hall on Admiral with current funds.
- Running events to use them up (can do them but someone needs to take charge and then follow through).
- Putting them on the crew calendar, and then organizing them that way.
- Monthly/bi-weekly raffles for badges to active crewbies to help out with their badges dusting (Gren).
- Doing small crew-based artsy events (e.g., Dress a Pet event) with small prizes (Kittyy).
- Secret santa-y events.
- Sloop race event (Alpha).

Thanks to those who showed up and stuck around through technical difficulties.

~Mg

YPP Tip of the Day - What "unrated" means

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 12:51:00 +0000

greeter chats, "unrated fight counts on experience?"

Did I really just read this question on Greeter chat?

Standing and Experience go hand in hand. One cannot change without the other.

Quick recap that I wrote in the Newbie Guide:

Standing (in red): Standing, or rank, is how well you do in relation to others. You have to do better than

others to improve in rank. Rank is dynamic. It can go up or down. This is what people look at when they say “Stats”.

Experience (in green): how long you’ve played this puzzle. Exp is static. It can only go up.Pro tip: this word doesn’t really mean all that much when jobbing with others.

Standing can only have a chance to change when you do the puzzle (i.e. Experience goes up.) The two are linked, and one cannot change without the other. So, vice versa, when you do an unrated fight, there is no chance for standing to change. Which means that the Experience isn't counted.

In a similar fashion, because the Bnav standing only takes into account Pillage Bnav and not Flotillas, SMHs, etc.... even if you spend 1000 hours Bnaving Atlantis, your experience will still remain at Broad.

YPP Tip of the Day - How to Gun with the Navy

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 12:01:00 +0000

Ever wondered how to gun with the navy even when you it says you "don't have enough puzzling experience"?

Just go to the missions or Puzzle Tab, and then click on a mission that will get you on a navy ship (not a Learn to ... mission).

Once you get on the Navy ship, hit "Cancel Mission".

You can now gun with the navy.

Ravenzor's Gunning Guide

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 07:06:00 +0000

Introduction

Gunning is one of those puzzles that you either immediately get how to play, or you get frustrated and don't understand it for years on end.

If you fall into the latter category, you're likely to be stuck there as you will not get a chance to gun for others since you don't get how it works.

It's a vicious cycle.

Moreover, searching for "gunning videos" does diddly squat because they're just way too fast for you... and you're left thinking, "Sorry, what just happened?"

Hopefully we'll get you out of that rut with this guide.

In a nutshell, gunning is all about manipulating the pieces into the guns in the right order by placing arrows on the board to affect how they move.

Alright, I'm not going to lie. You gotta be fast and precise to get good at gunning. The better you're doing, the faster the pieces will move, but don't worry, the faster the pieces, also the better the rating.

Let's get started with the basics.

1. Basics

The board

A typical board

The gunning board consists of 4 guns, 2 on each side. The position of the guns will never change, but the position of the crates and things on the board will. That is what makes certain boards "good" (easy) or "bad" (hard).

All pieces turn right when hitting obstacles. More on that later.

Your goal is to fill the guns as fast as possible by directing the pieces in order into the guns.

Red, white, black.

Placing Arrows

Two ways to place them.

One way to click and drag in the direction you want, the other to use WASD and then place with a click.

There are gunners who swear by either method.. whatever works for you.

You can only place 3 arrows on the board at any one time, so you should fill guns using a loop of 2 arrows or less (you need 1 to place stuff inside the guns).

Barrel (Piece Spawner)

The Barrel is from where the pieces enter the board.

It is positioned in the center of the board, and divides the board into two down the middle. The behavior of the pieces takes a bit of getting used to, and will be outlined in the next section.

Pictured below is the barrel that spawns the pieces.

The barrel spawns one piece at a time, each piece in a specific DIRECTION clockwise, but the order in which the pieces come out is random.

The order which pieces are spawned towards is ALWAYS UP, RIGHT, DOWN, LEFT (clockwise from top), and repeated twice in that order, until 8 pieces (2 of each type) are on the board.

Pieces

The board will only have two of any one piece at the same time.

There are 4 types of pieces (outlined below), making 8 pieces total on the board at any given time.

Bucket (blue)- a waterball used to clean out booched or dirty guns
Powder (red) - Gun powder, first piece to load into cannon
Wad (white) - piece of cloth, second piece
Shot (black) - cannonball, the last piece. These cannonballs will be the ones that you will use from the ship's hold and booty.

Filling a Gun

To fill a cannon, you need 3 pieces. A Powder (red), then Wad (white), then cannon ball (black).
Pictured and fill in this order.

If you do happen to fill the gun in the wrong order, simply send a Bucket down it to try again.

A dirty gun

To get rid of a piece, just send it off the board with an arrow through the hole next to the gun. The piece will leave the board, and the spawner will spawn another.

i.e., kick a red, get a red. Kick a white, get a white.

After a cannon has been fired, you need to clean the dirty cannons with water in order to continue gunning. It will look similar to this.

A typical board

Speed Bar

This bar at the bottom controls the speed at which the pieces move around the board. There are two marks, one is a small line that indicates the recommended speed, while the slider, is one you can manually move to set the speed of the board.

Blue = slow, red = fast

When first starting out, it is advised that you keep the speed slow, so that you can understand how the pieces move, and practice placing the pieces into the guns in the right order.

As you first need to understand how the pieces move, don't worry about your score just yet when using this to practice.

Now that the basics are out of the way, here's where it gets complicated.

2. How the pieces move

The movement of the pieces may seem random at first glace, but there is an order.

How the pieces move is the most complicated part, and is the key to understanding how to gun. A slow and careful read is advised.

You can use any board and do fine (literally), but some boards can be crappy, while others can be amazing.

Good or bad boards are determined by the ease and speed at which you can fill guns with, as that is how gunning is scored.

As already mentioned in the previous section, the direction with which pieces come onto the board is always Up, Right, Down, Left.

It was also mentioned that the Bucket splits the board into two down the middle.

Pieces always travel to their right side when hitting an obstacle or a wall.

An easy way to remember where the pieces will go is:

the left side of the board sends pieces upward,
the right side of the board sends them downward.

Illustrated in the screenshots below.

This is the left side of the board. The path of the bucket will go as follows.
The water will hit the left wall, and go up into the corner, bounce off the wall, then head back down.

The water will go down to the bottom wall, bounce up, and head back up.

The water will continue bouncing up and down in an endless loop.

This is the bottom right gun on the board. The pieces will always go downwards on the right side of the board. So start at the top of the image.
The piece will come down (follow the black arrow), hit the edge, and
bounce back up, going towards the rest of the board (following the red arrow).

Below is an example of a complete board, and a fairly good one at that.
The arrows outline the path of the pieces depending on which direction they come out of.

Up - The piece will go up, hit the wall, go right. Then hit the right side wall, go down, left, up, and loop at the top of the board.

Right - The piece will hit the right wall, and then follow the same path as red.

Down - The piece will go down, hit the bottom wall, go left, hit the box and go up, then continue in the red loop at the top.

Left - The piece will hit the left wall, follow the red path, and continue in the loop.

This board is a great one because it is known as a "one arrow full board loop".

If you place a -> arrow right where the top left cannon ball is, you can see that the pieces will travel around the board in a clockwise direction.

3. Gunning Styles

There are two main ways to fill guns effectively.

Freestyle

To fill each gun individually by guiding pieces one by one into the guns.

Looping

A very common method to increase ranks with the navy, by looping guns on the same side (whether that be top 2, left 2, bottom 2 or right 2)

The best gunners use a combination of the two, regardless of the boards that they're given.

4. How it's scored

TL;DR : The rating goes by how many cannons you fill, based on how long you take.

The best chance you have, is to hop on the station, look the board over.

If you don't like the board (i.e., cannot loop easily), then hop off and try again.

You can take some time assessing the board before it counts negatively towards your score, but if you're just looking to improve your rating, you should look for a good board.

It doesn't matter how many arrows you throw on the board, but generally, the fewer the better.

However, the faster you go, the better your rating.

Throwing pieces off a board loses you almost nothing, and you could constantly have pieces thrown off and still get incred.

The only real way of doing bad is going slow, or messing up on filling a cannon.

If you don't do either, you should do well.

Don't worry about lining all 3 pieces in a row. You can fill each cannon with a gunpowder, then cloth, then cannon.

If you can fill all 4 cannons in under 40 seconds, you will be guaranteed a excellent or incredible.

So you can fill 3 cannons in 30 seconds, and still get the same rating as 4 in 40 seconds. Just remember to abandon station after, so that your "speed" isn't diluted by that extra time.

5. Gunning in Battles

Gunning in a battle has more variables for you to take into consideration as opposed to gunning with the navy.
You have to deal with cleaning out the cannon, AND you have to worry about when the ships turns.

Ship turns left = Barrel slides left
Ship turns right = Barrel slides right

If possible, you should ALWAYS TRY to get on the gunning station right AFTER the turn starts, so you don't get effected by any movements. You then have 45 seconds to clean and fill all 4 cannons. If you can do so, than you're golden. However, if you don't manage to fill them all, than hit esc. It will stop the piece spawner (barrel) from rolling around.

If you're looking to up your rating, DON'T GUN IN A BATTLE.

Additional Reading:

YPPedia Page on Gunning - Also has additional links to other gunning demonstrations and resources.

Chat Tips and Game Options

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 12:37:00 +0000

Quicklink to this page http://tinyurl.com/yppchattips

Did you know about all the chat options you could do?

Here are some of the most asked questions I get.

- How to copy chat

- Using /w commands

- How to chat while puzzling

- Whole bunch of other stuff

Experimented a lot with this video, so yes the sound is not the same for the different sections.

Well, I won't bore you with how I made it, I just hope you enjoy... and comment.

Crew Discussion - New Crew Hall?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 06:09:00 +0000

So, we've been thinking about what to spend our crew funds on for awhile. Unfortunately no one else likes my idea of buying me a blue octo (Mg happy=less demotions), but what do you think about the idea of getting a new crew hall?

We currently have a fine sized crew hall on Aimuari and our flag has a grandiose flag hall there too, but were thinking about also getting a Stately or Grandiose sized crew hall on Admiral (right facing for links).

Most of the things suggested to do with crew funds always raise questions along lines of "Who gets the deed?", a crew hall belongs to the crew so we can all enjoy it and any crew member can also set it as their home.

A stately would cost 200k and 200 dubs and a grandiose would cost 800k and 800 dubs, plus they would still need to be furnished which can also be expensive and take a bit of time, but there have been promises of more kinky rooms that are even kinkier than the last hall.

Would you use another crew hall? Which one would you prefer? Would you contribute to the cost?

Comment with your thoughts.

~Mg

Tablet release growing ever closer!

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 05:55:00 +0000

There was a sneak update a few hours ago, so I thought that it probably had something to do with the tablet release.

Back in May, I published this post with the first tablet screenshots that were released.

Today, going onto the yppedia, it seems that they've been updating all the screenshots to their newer counterparts!

Along with the iPad game documentation that was release awhile back, it seems that the release is just around the corner!

(Though, "around the corner" in YPP terms means "a long time")

I keed. I keed.

I'd like to share some of the more interesting screenshots here.

Mostly because I like commenting on them, but everyone in crew chat is ignoring me :P (except Mex :D)

Source

idk if it is better or worse, honestly. Before, I could just glance at the list to see the pirates, and now I have to click the little collapsible menus?

Source

This is actually really nice. Mostly because you'll be able to simply click on the "can I gun" pirate to see their stats right away.

The Ahoy tab

Source

The Vessel Tab

Vessel Tab

Hmm. Not much to say except that it is a lot wider. That horrid salmon color again.

The Shoppee Tab

Source

That is actually the Shoppe tab. Eh. Still not a fan of the color scheme. I guess having it wider is rather nice though.

Island Tab

source

I do like that the Go Home whisk is now so prominent! It seems that they have moved items on the Ye tab to various places.

Source

I guess I possibly could get used to this.. bland colors ><

Interfaces I really like

Most of the above can be seen on the official:Ui page on the wiki. (Does the lowercase i bother anyone else?)

Source

Interesting ordering tab. Very tablet. Props to that.

Source

As an avid decorator, I absolutely LOVE this decorating interface! Granted there is still no "search" in the "my furniture" section, it's still a lot nicer than having to scroll through the entire booty tab.

Nav Table

May I just say.. I think this is a great nav table overhaul.

Market Hold

Woah, I really like this one! I know it is pretty much the same, but having the "inventory bid tickets" on the left side really improves things. I'm sure shopkeepers would appreciate this too.

Set event cade

As a governor, these look to be far easier to set. Thanks for that!

cade offer

MAA interface!

Oooh. New MAA interface. I guess it'll be much easier to tick and untick everyone with a touch interface. Because I'm about 99.9% sure that they have not fixed the MAA bug.

Tourny

Ehhh. Is it just me, or is the new Tournament board really weird. REALLY. Weird?

Noticeboard

I wanna say... wow. It looks great. I really like it. Not sure if the whisking thing still works (to homes in the same arch).

Help Menu

WOW. Really impressed with this. Much more prominent, and easier to find. Although, it's still technically the same info :P

RIP Ye tab I guess :P

These ones below look pretty much the same:

Man... This looks pretty much the same as it always did... only with a chrome surface. How disappointing. Been wanting a dock overhaul since forever.

Others

Chat Options

This is great. The options panel looks to be a lot less cluttered. Unfortunately, it also means that the video that I just made yesterday is now obsolete :P Oh well.

Radial Menu

New radial! Groovy. I can't help but notice that the trinket one disappeared D; NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. How else will I show off my Galene Doll?

Edit: Phew. False alarmm..

only shows when one is equipped

Makes no sense

Attacking

Okay... that decorate button on the left side makes absolutely no sense. Am I missing something here?

All I could find for now. Hope you enjoyed this :)

What do you think of the new interfaces?

How to Fray Effectively

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 22:44:00 +0000

Short url for this page: http://tinyurl.com/fraytips

Part I: Introduction
1) Weapons
2) Comboing Attacks - SF
3) Comboing Attacks - Rumble
4) Managing the Board

Part II: Swordfighting

Part III: Rumble

Part IV: Fray
1) Openers
2) Teaming/Reteaming <-- MOST IMPORTANT PART!!
3) Stalling
4) Demonstrations

A while ago, I made this recording out of sheer frustration that we kept losing cits because people were fraying as if they were doing a 1v1.

Then I got remarks such as "how could you ramble on for 7 minutes about teaming?"

Well, I'll admit it was slightly rambly, but I was following an outline :P So now, expanding on that, I wrote this.

Part I: Introduction

This is a guide for how to build basic combos in SF and Rumble, and some tips you need to know to be able to fight effectively in frays.

The point of this guide is not to go into the details of all the different strategies you could employ when fighting other players -- there are plenty other guides for that, and some will be linked from here. Not to mention I'm not nearly good enough to give good insight on those subject matters, but rather how to become an effective team player even if your skills aren't that good (mine aren't).

In fact, I'm not even sure that I like SF or Rumble that much... I wasn't sure I liked them at all. But playing them is part of ypp, so you might as well learn to enjoy them... right?

If you’ve ever been on a ship in any sort of battles at all, you’ll know that the outcome of the fray is what determines a win or a loss. The bnav score naturally helps a lot, but since the fray is what ultimately determines the outcome, knowing how to fight in frays effectively is rather important for the average jobber.

All the tips given are to help you stay alive as long as possible in a team setting, while killing off the bots as effectively as possible, even when you can’t dish it out.

Any way of building is a matter of opinion, but the underlying mechanics are facts.
Develop a method that works for you.

If you can't, you can always start by copying someone else, and then going from there.

Generally, you need to understand:

Building basic combos for SF and Rumble
Openers,
Teaming/Reteaming

Very important!!!! You shouldn’t concentrate on your board so much to the point where you forget about teaming.

Stalling
Managing the board

Do I need a sword or a bludgeon for these? They’re just bots.

Having weapons is always better than not having them, because... why not?

In SF, this means no sticks or foils.

In Rumble, this means no bare fists.

Protip!>> Ask crewbies or flaggies to give you an old sword. Atlantis gives them out often enough.

Do sword types really matter against bots?

Yes and no. It all depends on what you’re using and what your teammate is using. This is where the drop pattern factors in (in terms of color distribution). If your color pattern is similar, it will have an effect on how much they break.

Do swords really matter against NPPs (bots)?

If you’d REALLY like to do some further reading, you can read this:

Which sword should I choose to fight bots with?

In all honesty though, in my experience, as long as it isn’t a foil or stick, you’re solid.

Why do I need to combo my attacks?

In essence, it is a 1+1>2 situation.

If you really want to get into the mechanics, you can find out more on exactly how large the combos will be, how much you should build on the yppedia and on the various guides. (Tzz’s ultimate puzzling guide and Dachimpy’s guide)

For now, all you really need to know is to start off your game with a combo, both in SF and Rumble.

Comboing Attacks - SF

You know how in SF you make a block (2x2 etc)? That block when sent as a single attack, becomes a very small sword (1x4).

However, if you combo it, (e.g. in a double or a triple), the size of the attack starts to compound, and becomes substantially larger.

“Combinations multiply sequentially; i.e., the part broken when it says "double" will be multiplied by two, the "triple" by three, and so forth. Thus, when you set up a combo, the smallest breaks should be at the beginning of the combo, with the biggest breaks as late in the chain as possible.”

--- http://www.black-knight.org/pp/

With that in mind, you should always build the larger parts of the combo later in the combo, to maximize the effect of your attack.

Here is a similar 2x2 block in a triple combo (the block is broken on the Triple! of the combo, thus the size is tripled) and its effect on the opponent.

Taken from http://www.black-knight.org/pp/,

For non-block breaks, the number of sprinklies is equal to half the number of pieces you broken, rounded down, multiplied by the combo factor.
For vertical swords, a combo multiplies the sword length. However, 2x2 block breaks become a 1x4 sword, becomes 2x4 with a double, becomes 2x6 with a triple, and so forth.

Comboing Attacks - Rumble

In Rumble, the balls break off if they are fired at a group of 3 or more balls. This however, only creates the equivalent of "loose blocks" in SF.

In this screenshot below, the broken red and all the balls that fall off with it will become sprinkles.
They won't send immediately, as rumble sprinkles are "queued", and will only send after a row is full.

Not very effective.

Comboing attacks in Rumble means charging the colored balls in a sequence, and then setting them off in that order. The more groups of charged balls that are set off, the bigger the attack.

This causes bruises and the board to crash down more, like so.

Managing the Board

How high should I build my combos?

That depends on how many bots are on you, and how big of a playing field you have.

Just remember that your goal is to survive as long as possible, while dealing damage when you can.

When you get better, you can build faster and bigger combos in a smaller space. However when first starting out, you should always aim to survive as long as possible with combos you can manage.

It’s a balancing act between building higher combos and being reasonable in what you can hope to send.

Two general rules:.

1. More rows of damage to you = smaller combos

2. More bots on you = smaller combos

Both strategies are intended to keep you alive as long as possible without dying, as you may otherwise overbuild (build too high of a combo) and die (accidentally).

This applies to both SF and Rumble.

In SF, the fuller your board gets (or the more heavily you’re being attacked), the more you should break as soon as you get the chance.

In Rumble, you die when the balls reach the bottom of the board. when the board gets more than half full, you should focus on keeping your board level (clearing the pieces that are closer to the bottom first), and sending sprinkles instead of combo punches.

In Rumble, you can control more of what you’re doing, because you’re not at the mercy of the random piece generator as much.

Part II: Swordfighting

Yppedia page on SF (doesn't really say anything tbh)

What are strikes and sprinkles in SF?

Loose blocks that are broken send as sprinkles.

Blocks that are formed in a 2x2 or larger send as strikes (swords)

Better explanation for Sprinkles and Strikes if you still don’t understand.

How do I build strikes and sprinkles in Swordfight?

I sort of explain it here in this video, because I find that far too many SF videos just do their thing and don't really explain it. Furthermore, because I'm more at a "newb" level SF, it's easier for you to understand. Huzzah!

In this video, you see that I mainly focus on the beginning opener, as well as strikes. Others prefer to sprinkle. It all depends on your play-style and what pieces you can get. But for bots, please start with a triple+.
When first starting out, it can be difficult to manage a triple. In that case, you should at least start practicing to build doubles, and then work your way up to a triple.
Think of a build as a Hamburger/Sandwich.
Bun Lettuce Patty Lettuce Bun
Just think of each different layer type as a different color, and then break the Patty first to get a triple. Tada! Simple.
Bun - Blue Breaker Lettuce - Green Breaker Patty - Red Breaker <-- Break here! Lettuce - Green Block Bun - Blue Block

Then of course, as you get better, your Hamburger will get more and more complex. :)

What do I do if I don’t have enough breakers?

One of the big problems people have in SF frays is overbuilding.

The metaphor also extends to "don't build (bite) off more than you can break (chew)."

Don't overdo it!

You have to remember that since you’re fighting in a team, there is no reason to go way over the top, and then accidentally killing yourself in the process.

A bingo is perfectly acceptable. If you can’t manage that, doubles and triples work great too.

Other SF resources (These are more applicable to PvP):

Everything you need to know about swords. - can’t see the pictures anymore D;

Nemo’s post on SF AI - Very old, but mostly relevant

SF Misc Q&A

Part III: Rumble

Yppedia article on Rumble (a little more useful than the SF one)

What are strikes and sprinkles in Rumble?

Similar to SF, you get two types of attacks in rumble. One type is called punches (Strikes), and the other is called sprinkles.

Strikes (punches) - are attacks that come in from the top, and can give you bruises (the black colored balls).

Sprinkles - are attacks that come in from the bottom, as loose balls.

How do I build strikes and sprinkles in Rumble?

Strikes (punches) - occur whenever you charge balls in succession and then release them. The key to Rumble (vs bots at least) is charging your colored balls.

Sprinkles - occur whenever you don’t charge balls and just do a simple break. They are the loose balls that drop off your screen at the bottom, but they don’t immediately send with each attack you make. Instead, they collect in a queue, and will only send until they are enough for an entire row.

Similar to SF, you want to build combos (groups of charged balls) to compound your attack, and you want to do it in a combination of strikes and sprinkles.

In this video, I mentioned remembering the charge you started off with. If you're really good, you can remember exactly the order in which you charged them, but that is only strictly necessary for single fights.

To set off your charges, simply hit the ball you started charging first with a regular hit. It wasn't explicitly stated in the video, but that is what I did to set off the sequence.

Protecting, what is all that about?

It’s like teaming, but on your own peeps!

Note: Protecting only applies in Rumble.

When you click on the head of one of the people on your team, you can “protect” them. Like so:

Only one person can protect another at any one time
The blue bar at the top represents how much protection you are giving them.
Longer bar = better protection.
This mechanic is usually not necessary in regular Sea Battles, but quite a necessity for CIs (right screenshot)

Other Rumble Resources:

If you feel like you want to get into more of the very detailed puzzle mechanics of Rumble, Boothook has researched tremendously on the puzzle and written Boothook’s Rumbling Guide, and Boothook’s Rumbling Guide 2 on the Yppedia. More links are also available from the Rumble Yppedia Page.

Additionally, you may also want to check out this thread by Hurtboss on in-depth Rumble tips.

Part IV: The Fray

When you first start the fray, before doing anything (before even building your combo)

1) Check if you’re teamed (if not, find your teams asap)

2) Check how many are on you (if 2+, stall)

Then, you can start building your opener combo.

Send it when you see fit, or right before you see an attack about to come in. Remember not to overdo it!

Keep building!

Don’t forget to glance at who you’re teamed on before you send an attack.

Don’t stop reteaming!

1) Openers

What is an opener?

The opener is so called because it is an “opening” (or starter) combo attack that you build up at the very beginning of the game so that you will hit your opponent hard right off the bat.

If you are fighting another person, you can employ different tactics to win the 1v1, but for bot frays, you always want to start off with a strong combo, even when stalling (but then not as high a combo as you would otherwise build.)

How do I build openers?

In SF, the easiest way is to make a 2x2 block of the color you get first, and then building different colors on top of that.

I couldn't possibly SF as well as Abieh does, so I'll just leave her video in here.

Not my video! By Abieh of Meridian Link to original video.

In Rumble, an opener of 4-6 charges is great for a start. If you're not teamed on, and would like to go above and beyond, you could try to go up to 8 or 9. Don’t forget to add some sprinkles to your opener!

Youtube is not being kind to me, so I can't find a good Rumble opener video that explains what they do. You're welcome to make one <3

But what about... "Instas"?

An "insta" refers to an "instant kill", meaning that you build your opener in such a way that it instantly kills the opponent as soon as your attack sends.

That's not the focus here, but you can always find out how to do them on your own :)

2)Teaming and Reteaming

What is teaming?

Surprisingly, this question gets asked quite a few times. There is a yppedia article about teaming.

It basically means to "gang up" on the opponents so that your attacks can stack on the bots.

Every pirate is represented by a dot next to the bots' screens. Ideally you always want to be in teams of 2s and 3s, adjusting constantly (reteaming) during the fray.

Dots represent the number on an opponent, so just team on a single or a double to make teams of 2s and 3s! Very simple indeed.

Notice how the red/red dot's colors match the red/red falchion, and the green/yellow dot matches likewise.

It's not strictly important to know, just that now you can choose to team with certain people. Or something.

Why is it always “teams of 2s and 3s”? No more, no less?

Solos, or singles, don't allow you to combine your attack with another teammate's. Thereby making it easier for the bot to break out of your attack.

If you team in 4s and above, the bots will tend to stall (slow down their play), making it tougher to kill them. Also a waste of Pirates.

Protip! >> Teams of 3 always works better than teams of 2 in Citadels.

How do I team/reteam?

Before building anything, always check who you're teamed on and reteam if necessary.

When fraying, always keep an eye out on the opponents’ side of the screen.

Use A and S keys to move up and down the opponents list, or you can click on the opponents’ head.

Always check to see who you're teamed on BEFORE you send an attack, and never stop reteaming for the duration of the fray.

Who should I reteam to?

Either reteam with solos, and always reteam to the bots/goons that have fuller boards.

This is to be able to knock the opponents out faster.

3) Stalling

What is stalling?

In very simple terms, deliberately slowing down your play.

In SF, that means don’t use the spacebar, and in Rumble, that means wait for the balls to fire on their own.

Why does it work?

Attacks are queued in both SF and Rumble, which means that every move you make, will only trigger one attack in the queue towards you.

So if you slow your moves down, it also slows down the rate at which attacks come in, thereby slowing down how long it takes for you to get knocked out.

In that spirit, you should not go full speed right after you see the number of dots on you go down.

Attacks that are queued will still continue to come in.

When should I stall?

The short answer? Common sense. Your goal is to survive as long as possible if you’re getting continuously attacked. So just use your good judgement, and you can always refer to the dots on your pirate as a reference.

You should always stall if you have 2+/3+ on you. This is especially true for citadels.

In SF - When there are 2+ bots on you, you should stall right off the bat.

You never want to be the bottom two guys in this screenshot - to die even before the straightliner due to not stalling.

In Rumble - you can afford to build and clear a Rumble opener before stalling

During mid-game, when your board gets half full, stall + quick clear for both SF and Rumble.

Below is an example of when you should stall. Just use your good judgement.

Just because you can swordfight really fast, doesn’t mean you don’t need to stall.

Queued attacks will come in regardless of how fast you can SF, and it actually propels you towards a faster death.

Do I still need to team, then?

When you’re stalling, it is always a good idea to be in a team of 3.

Logic says this is because if you’re stalling, you’re essentially not doing a whole lot of attacks. If you’re in a team of 2, you’ll essentially be letting your teammate solo. That is never good.

4) Demonstrations

Citadel Frays:

Find teams before doing anything else.
Use A and S keys to team
Never stop reteaming,

Even if you think "oh, it's all good in the hood, we have a 10 person lead".

Always reteam to nearly dead goons.
Always strike > sprinkle

CI Frays:

Video will come when I finish editing it.
Protect your thralls in rumble, Vargas and EOs first.
Hit fast in SF.

Max-Max Rumble Fray:

Keep the board level, clear fast

Hope this has helped you become a better team player!
Squishat

New Crew Background by Rory is Finally Here!

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 20:51:00 +0000

So if you haven't already noticed, we've finally got the new blog background that has been in the sidebar for weeks, if not months!!!!

Sorry Hook, you've been sidelined.

I know the formatting is all wonky, but for now, here it is in all its glory!

(Oops. Accidentally rhymed)

Link to Rory posting it

I realize it was a few days ago, but I was busy and wanted to do this post justice :)

Just in case you are wondering, there are 33 pirates in total.

I'm sorry if we couldn't fit you in, but honestly, the link was up there for weeks and if we didn't get a response from you, we assume you don't care :P

Any new members, sorry you missed out!

This behemoth of a project could not have been possible without the following people:

Rory!

The crazy talented arrrtist that was also crazy enough to deal with all the demands that we came up with for this, and then was even CRAZIER to go above and beyond to add details that we never even thought of, but made the entire thing so much more awesome! Also for putting up with my persistent "can I take a look?" Haaaaaa.

Took her a week to draw this.

Heck, give me a year, and I couldn't draw this.

Contributors!

Amazing art and great talent always comes with a price! (Not just magic)

I was prepared to pay it all myself, but in the end, I only paid about 18% of the entire thing. You guys are all amazing.

Also, ended up not taking anything from the crew funds, despite the poll.

The following are our amazing crewbies who've contributed to the cost of it xD

Desonn - 100k
Bigbro - 100k
TInnitus - 20 Doubs
Espnick - 5k
Adelaidean - 10k
Princessmg - 10k
Darkskull - 15k
Alpha - 100k
Enkei - 20k
Grenkar - 50k
Eagleofdeser - a white colored gold crossed spears (which I sold for 10k)
Intner - 750k (o.o yah)

Mg!

Gathering all the information together from all the crewbies into a cohesive excel document and then doing the stick figures with me.

Btw, that actually took a bit of time to do :P

Myself!

For coming up with such an idea to do this and able to see it through to the end :P

I've wanted something like this ever since I started this blog. YAY.

Event

Ok, since it is a lot more fun this way, the crewbie that identifies the most pirates in the portrait correctly and posts it as a comment (to this Post), gets cookies from me, and maybe some other shinies. (And an avatar from Rory!)

Mg and I are excluded from this event :P

This event runs till the 18th of June (Pirate Time)

Post answer as:-

A1 - Squishat A2 - Princessmg A3 - Benazo & Mex

B1 - Imnotmexican....

	1	2	3
A	*	*	*
B	*	*	*
C	*	*	*
D	*	*	*
E	*	*	*
F	*	*	*
G	*	*	*
H	*	*	*
I	*	*	*
J	*	*	*
K	*

Hope everyone is enjoying this marvelous piece of art as much as I am!

Pandorica Flag Calendar

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 08:38:00 +0000

How to use this Calendar

Calendar Time is set to Game Time.
All related events (birthdays, large ship voyages, other flag events) can be added to the calendar.
An added large ship event or flag event has "dibs" for that time slot for 30 mins before the "appointment" is void.
Please contact Jadde or post to the To-Dos and Calendar board for your event to be added.
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YPP Tip of the Day - What the Booty Really Means

noreply@blogger.com (Squishat) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 07:36:00 +0000

Cubelets' Crew Cut is set to 20% Even. But what does that really mean?

On the Noticeboard, we'll sort as 80% Even.

Which means that 80% of the total loot goes to the jobbers, and 20% of the loot goes to the Naver, provided that there are no losses.

What is the difference between the Hold and the Booty?

In very simple terms, the PoE in the hold will be kept. The PoE in the booty can be lost.

Commodities (items) in both can be lost, but you lose only 10% of the items in the Hold, while 20% of the items in the booty. (More at the bottom)

Scenario:

Let's say that we've plundered a total of 11,222 PoE (100%) for that battle from the Brigands.
Half of the restocking cut (in this case 10%), will immediately go into the Hold of the ship.
The other half of the restocking cut (10%), will immediately go into the Booty.

So now we have 1,111 (10%) in the Hold, and 1,111 (10%) in the Booty.

We are left with:

11,222 - (11,222*0.2) = 9,000 PoE

All that remains is the Jobber cut (80%), it is divided Evenly between all the pirates aboard.

In this case we have 15 pirates aboard, so everyone gets a cut of:

9,000 / 15 = 600 PoE

Since you only get half of your cut immediately after the battle, everyone gets:

600 / 2 = 300 PoE per person after divide

The jobber cut that isn't divided (40%), is put into the booty.

300 *15 = 4,500 PoE

So after this battle, total in Booty should be:

1,111 + 4,500 = 5,611 PoE

Or exactly 50% of the total booty plundered.

That was way too tl;dr

These percentages only apply to 80% Even division.
10% of total received booty -> Hold
40% / no. of jobbers aboard -> what each jobber gets initially
50% of total received booty -> Booty

How much stuff do we lose if we lose a battle?

The Brigands take 10% of the items in the Hold (but not the PoE), and 20% of the PoE amount in the Booty as well as 20% of the items.

25% if the battle was PvP.

Here is Galene's Post for reference on the subject matter.

And then because I was writing this, I decided to send in a petition for some clarification.

In time, I will maybe do some more googling and experimenting to see exactly how JD affects the division.