Ahoy,
I've noticed that a lot of crews promote people to officer due to their stats, this is not a bad method, but being an officer is oh-so-much more than just being able to hit other ships with cannon balls. A good officer will get other pirates to join your crew.
I'll say that again, if you have just one good officer your crew will grow.
The better your original officer, the better the new recruits.
Rinse and repeat a few times and before you know it, you're captain of one of the top ten crews without lifting a finger after the first initial flurry of officer training.
So how do you get a good officer? You can find one, ready made and entice them into your crew - but then will you ever have their 100% loyalty or will they alway s be wondering how green the grass (or ocean ) is somewhere else?
The best method of getting good quality officers, it to grow your own and train up your own pirates... an intense but very worthwhile experience that results in loyal, well trained pirates formed exactly as you want.
How to Train an Officer - Amy's Officer Test Guide - for fellow trainers and officer wanna be's
How do you turn a well meaning pirate into a lean, mean, officer pillage machine?
How can you tell if the guy with good stats and a glint in his eye will actually be a good officer?
Well... this is how I do it, part training, part test. Do I go over the top? Most likely. Are the pirates I trained some of the most well known and influential in the ocean? You bettya..
NB All I "claim" to train my officers-to-be is "How to Run A Pillage", but this seems to cover most officer-type issues in the process.
This method works best with just one officer-in-training wanna be, it is possible with two but harder.
Firstly, get on a sloop, check the hold to see how much stock is in there then go and stand innocently by the wheel.
Chart a course from your island to somewhere else
Now, over crew chat say "Newbie, jump on the Proud Spot for your officer training"
Test 1 - can they actually get onto a ship? Yes, I know this sounds very basic but people that have only been jobbed or worked on the navy will have ever jumped on a ship before.
Once you have your victim, ahem, trainee on the ship you can start seeing what they know and teaching them what they don't, I have a basic checklist for 'how to run a pilly' - numbered points on what you have to do to run a pillage. I go though this to my trainee with explanations along the way - here is it, with how to teach / test underneath - feel free to merely cut-and-paste at your victim)
http://www.cunningcode.com/ypp/basics.htm
1. Get on a ship
They've already managed that one, well done, you've taught them something
2. Check there is enough stock in the hold for the pillage, top up if necessary
Asked them how much stock is in the hold -
If they answer correctly, all is well
If they answer incorrectly tell them:
How to check how much stock is in the hold:
* Click on the Ship's Hold (hatch type thing in front of the wheel)
* Click on the "Inspect the Hold" button - in the North-East position on the menu that pops up
* Stock items are listed here
* Click the X in the top-right corner to exit
3. Chart a course
First, ask them which island they are ported at.
If they answer correctly, all is well
If they answer incorrectly tell them:
To see which island you are ported at, look in the top-right-hand corner of your screen, there will be an island with it's name underneath shown there
Ask them to check the charted course and tell you where the ship is charted to
If they answer correctly, all is well
If they answer incorrectly tell them:
To view the currently charted course, click on the ship's wheel then the "Chart a course" button in the East position on the menu
Ask them how to chart a course
If they answer correctly, all is well
If they answer incorrectly tell them:
To chart a course, when viewing the map of the islands from the wheel, click on the island you want to goto, if you have the correct map or maps, or the correct league points memmed, a temporary course will show up in blue dashes.
If this is correct, to set the course, click the Chart Course button in the bottom left of the main window
You can close that view by clicking on the blue cross in the top-right-corner of the main viewable panel
(If they disappear, they've clicked the cross in the
top-top-right-hand-corner and closed their YPP window... do you really
want this person as an officer?!
4. Get some fellow pirates to come with you - ask in crew chat, then flag officer chat, then hire jobbers if you need to
Again, this is extremely basic but...
Ask them to say hello over crew chat, they should manage this...
Ask them if they know how to talk in flag officer chat?
If they can't do either of these things, you better explain them... if you can't do either of these things you better come find me in-game.
If they are of correct rank already, get them to prove they can talk in /fo.
Also ask them to say something in the /officer channel just to prove they can.
If, up to this point, your trainee has only been talking to you in tells, now is the time to explain about vessel chat.
NB don't actually get any other crewbies on board just yet... long long way to go till we set sail, we're just teaching our trainee how to run a pillage, not to actually run one just yet.
5. Get people to their starting stations
The 5th thing an officer needs to do when running is pillage is to get people to their stations. This is the idea time to see if they know about stations, station interaction and people management.
5a. Stations
Ask: What type of ship is this?
If incorrect tell them:
To find out what type of ship you are on, goto the vessel tab and hover your the icon of the ship next to the ship name
Ask: what type of stations are available on this ship?
Answer we're looking for is "bilge, carp, sails, guns and nav" - they will often forget nav.
Ask: How many of each station are there?
Whilst they run all over the ship counting, you load up this page..
http://yppedia.puzzlepirates.com/Sloop
Tell them that rather than memorizing the number of stations each class of ship has, they can load up the yppedia page and see all the useful stats at a glance.
What's the yppedia they'll ask
This is now the point where you'll explain how stations interactThe yppedia is the in-game wikki - http://yppedia.puzzlepirates.com - almost all questions you'll have will be answered in there
Ask: Do you know how bilge, carp and sails interact?
they will wibble, I've never once had a perfect answer - very rarely a sensible answer.
Make sure they actually know what each station does if they sound really confused (Bilge pumps out water, carp reduces damage, sails makes the ship go faster)
Now it's time for my famous rowing boat analogy...
Tell them:
Each of the stations on a ship - apart from guns - is interconnected, just like real life.
Imagine you are in a small sail boat in the middle of a lake. Now imaging I shoot you with a small cannon ball making a large hole in the bottom of your boat which is letting in quite a lot of water
What is the first thing you should do?
a. try and fix the hole
b. start bailing out the water that is coming in
c. raise the sail and try and catch the wind
You'll be amazed at the answers you'll get
The correct answer is of course a, there is no way they can bail water out fast enough - and even if they could, then what? will they continue bailing till they are rescued? What about raising the sail? The water is flooding in, the ship will sink before you're halfway to shore - also with all that water the ship will be heavier and hard to handle.
It's the same on a puzzle pirate ship. There is little point in bilging if the water will just keep poring in though the holes.
Check they know what the gauges mean,
ask: What is the ideal status of the three gauges?
Ideal answer - Empty bilge, empty carp and fill sail
If they have no idea what you are talking about tell them:
The gauges are shown at the top of the vessel panel, the first one shows the speed of the ship and reflects how well the pirates on the sail stations are doing. The middle gauge shows damage, the lower this is the better, the final gauge shows the bilge level - again, the lower this is the better the bilgers are doing.
Then ask them again what the idea status of the gauges would be - keep at it till you get the correct answer.
Ask them: If you had fill bilge, fill carp and no speed and just yourself and two other people on the ship, which stations would you place people on?
The correct answer we're looking for is: 2 carp, 1 bilge, then move a carper to bilge once carp is down to about 1/3rd
If they only place the two other people, ask them what they would be doing? Do you want someone who will laze about when the ship is in dire need as an officer in your crew?
If they answer anything but 2 carp and 1 bilge, you'll have to explain the hole station thing to them again, this is fundamental to running a good ship, if they can't get it on a sloop what will they be like on a war frig?
By this half way point you may be ready to throttle your trainee, take a deep breath, the rest isn't as bad as explaining stations - although teaming can get interesting.
6. Set Sail!
The use of the deport button is purely to gain bilge without going anywhere, don't use it.
Tell your trainee:
When you have officer rank, you will see a button in the vessel tab
which will start your ship sailing, press it when you are happy with the people on your ship and they are in position. This will start your pillage - you will be able to be attacked from now on.
Tell your trainee:
Remember to load your cannons now rather than wait till you get into battle. Once loaded you can move that crewbie onto another station until battle.
7. Explain teaming to anyone who doesn't know
Tell them:
When you take out crewbies on a pillage you must make sure they understand how to team in a sword fight or rumble. Teaming = Winning, Wining = Poe. As you wont usually be engaged within the first few moment of leaving port this is a great time to explain teaming.
Ask them to explain teaming in a concise manor.
If they manage it - fantastic!
If they can't explain it because they don't know what teaming is, you better explain it to them.... NB I'm still looking for the perfect teaming explanation.
Tell them:
Now, that's teaming - next is to teach them how to command a sword fight.Teaming means the crew fight the enemy in groups rather than 1-on-1
To target someone on the other team, click on their face or mini-screen - shown on the right hand side of the screen once the sword fight or rumble has start
You can see how many people are teamed on someone by counting the dots next to their mini-screen.
A large orange dot means 5 people
you should only attack bots in groups of 2s and 3s
Tell them:
During the sword fight, not only must you fight well, you must watch what everyone else is doing. If they are in teams of more than 3, tell them to re-team.
Get into a sword fight with you trainees to explain sword colours. The dots are colour coded the same as the guard and the hilt of the sword, this will show you can tell who is and isn't teaming.
Your mission during the sword fight is NOT to fight, it's to see if they can type whilst in a puzzle... basic? yes? Necessary? Oh yes... /me rolls her eyes
If they can't talk whilst in the puzzle, explain to them how - then re-fight them to make sure they know how to do it.
You wont know if they understood this until the practical test later on, but impress on them they have to command the fight if things get out of hand.
8. Find a ship, and attack
9. Do the Battle Navigation, hitting them but not getting hit
10. Grapple or be grappled
11. Sword Fight
12. Repeate steps 8 to 11 as many times as necessary
13. Sail home
I just tell them this stuff, not a lot to teach - I don't teach bnav, they have to learn this them selfs, also I'm not very good at it myself, there are better guides out there - besides this is How to Run a pillage, you don't need to do the bnav for that.
14. Port
Once you reach your destination island you can port using the Port button on the vessel panel.
15. Divy the booty
In a sloop the booty chest is below deck, click on it and click on the 4th option - 'Divide the Booty'
16. Re-stock the ship
This we leave for the moment, but impress on your trainee that they MUST restock the ship to the proper levels. It's easier to show them this after the practical when there is some poe and different stock levels
The Practical:
Now you've taught your trainee how to run a pillage.... it's time for them to run a pillage.
Yes, I know you're knackered by now, but all of the above is totally wasted when you see that your new trained up officer-wanna be is actually hopeless at people-management.
Log on as your in-crew secret cabin person alt at this point 
Tell your trainee that in a few minutes they will be taking a test pillage - why a few minutes? trust me, by this point they'll need a pee and you'll need a glass of water.
If they aren't an officer, call out in officer chat that you will be running a test pillage in a bit and you would apreciate some fellow officers to come along when asked - and will they please behave like total morons and not do anything until asked :-) Evil? yes.... mahahahaaaa
Ok - tell you trainee that they are now in command, if they aren't an officer then they must ask you to perform all the officer things like set sail and charting courses but you will only do exactly what they tell you.
Tell them "You are now in command of this ship"
Wait.....
Tell them to check http://www.cunningcode.com/ypp/basics.htm if they need tips
Once they have announced the pillage in crew chat, get your secret alt to jump aboard, this is the biggest test - will your trainee order this lowely cabin person with bad stats to a station or will they treat them with respect and ask them to take a station?
Regular crewbies will hopefully jump on the ship too, that's good, the more real people the better
You, your secret alt and the other officers act like idiots - only take stations when asked.
Once the ship has set sail, get your trainee into a fight - it doesn't matter how the bnav goes, we can work on that later, but do they notice the cabin person (your alt) that lazed for the entire battle?
Did they tell you how to team? if not, get your alt to ask what teaming is just as the SF start.
Did they get the solos to team up in the fight?
Did they remember to load the cannons before ht fight?
Did they wait around for hours at a league point before asking you to set sail?
How quickly did they fix the ship after the battle?
Did they treat everyone under their command with respect?
Stick some poe into the booty if you didn't win any and explain how to divy - leave out the -1 part for now, they'll learn that soon enough
Get them to re-stock the ship, it depends on their level how you do this.
Conclusion
When it comes down to it, are they a good egg? That's for you to decide - but if you've been though all of this, your trainee should at least know how many beans make five.
Remember - a good crew is made up of good officers, it's better to have a few wonderful ones than a brig full of mediocre ones.
Thats ll for now, do let me know your comments :-)
Amykate
"(If they disappear, they've clicked the cross in the top-top-right-hand-corner and closed their YPP window... do you really want this person as an officer?! "
I hate to think about how many times I have closed the YPP client instead of leaving a ship/shop.
Posted by: bmlb | 07/08/2007 at 11:00 PM