Pirate guide by Deedar

1. Before joining the pirates

Introduction

Are the pirates right for you?

Before you decide to try the pirate life there are a few things you should know. Pirates are a smaller community than mainlanders who work together to gather resources and send invasions. The size of their community has lead to a few diversions from the mainlander way of life. 1^st among these is the pirate code.

The pirate code is a set of unenforced rules that exist to help the pirates feel closer as a group, and to help prevent situations that might upset the harmony on Skull Island.

Some of the rules in the pirate code include returning death drops when on skull island or to a known pirate off skull island. Not thieving players working at the hooks edge university, and not informing anyone of imminent pirate invasions.

Recommended stats before joining

Mining level 10 (there are no Tin and Copper mines on Skull, only Iron)

Smithing level 10 (minimum level required for smelting/smithing Iron)

Fishing level 10 (required to fish Herring, a key resource to make pirates with)

Cooking level 9 (required to cook Herring)

Combat level 10 (recommended combat level if you want to train combat, as you can only train against Pirates (CL 6) and Dread Pirates (CL 12) on Skull)

Magic level 5 (minimum level required for using orbs)

Other information

There is no Cave of Trades on Skull

There is no flower shop on Skull (pirates will need to use the Elven Gate or Anasco flower shop)

There is no place to train magic on Skull (pirates can use the Elven and Kanzo magic spots if they have the required levels)

If pirates die, they respawn Crabs nest (so if you die, you are still a pirate)

Pirates can not access Remer, Dearn, Mezno and Webbers island.

Pirates have their own chat: [6]Pirate chat (orange)

Pirates have their own section of the forum (not visible to mainlanders)

2. Joining and leaving the pirates

Joining the pirates

1. Buy a Keg of rum from a shop or player

2. Wait for a pirate invasion

3. Sail to Xanso (Mezno island) during the invasion

4. Check you have the resources you will need on arrival

5. Click on 'Join Pirates'

How to leave the pirates

The only way to leave the pirates and become a 'mainlander' again is by trying to escape Skull island from Crabs nest. In order to do this, you will need your own boat (can be any type). Of course the pirates do not like traitors, so if you fail to escape the island (this is random) you will be locked up in jail for a short period of time. If someone is with you at Crabs nest, your chance of escaping is pretty low. If you do manage to escape the island, you will be locked up in Sanfew jail for the crime of piracy. For every negative fame point you had, you receive 5 seconds of jail time. If you escape the pirates, you lose all your negative fame.

3. Skull island

So here it is an overview of Skull island.

[1] Crabs nest

For the first few minutes the only thing of the island you will see are the Crabs nest prison bars. You will be locked up for 5 seconds per positive fame point you had. Even if you did not have any positive fame, you will still be locked up for a while. By joining the pirates you lose all positive fame did you acquire any. From Crabs nest you can also sail to other maps that are accessible by pirates.

[2] Bonewood

By going west you will reach the evergreen Bonewood forest, the main source of wood for the pirate boats: brigantines. Bonewood is a level 1 forest.

[3] Hooks edge

Further to the west is Hooks Edge. Here you can learn about trading and constructing, and there is market where you can buy basic equipment (similar to Eully market). Lastly, there is also a tradingpost.

[4] Hawk mountain

At the most eastern point of Skull island you can find Hawk Mountain. You can only mine iron ore here. If you want to avoid crowding you can always move to other islands with iron mines that pirates can access.

[5] Barnacle Bay

North of Crabs Nest you will find Barnacle Bay, the fishing bay on Skull where you can fish with Net, Rod and Small fishing boat. You will be able to catch fish from Herring to Salmon here, which are needed to train pirates with.

[6] Toothen

By travelling upwards you reach Toothen, the cooking town of Skull. This is also the town where pirates can enter the Battlemage to compete with other Syrnians for a shiny medal.

[7] Ten Cliff

Ten Cliff is situated to the west of Toothen. You can smelt Tin, Copper and Iron into Bronze and Iron bars here. You can also smith bars from Bronze to Syriet into items here.

[8] Skulls nose

The last and best town on Skull Island is located just south of Toothen... Skull's Nose. The center of all evil. Here you can visit Greenbeards Saloon for a drink, or if you feel man enough, you can start a bar fight with Pirates and Dread pirates. In the Saloon you can also recruit pirates for the next invasion. The pirate jail and stockhouse(!) are also located in this town.

4. Invasions

Now you know all about the island, it is time to get to the essence of Syrnia piracy: launching pirate invasions. Contrary to what you may think, those small invasions (compared to NPC invasions) require a lot of resources and preperation.

Donating to the stockhouse

To create an invasion, pirate players must donate resources to the Stockhouse at Skulls nose (see the screenshot below). 

As you can see, the resources that can be donated are Iron ore, Coal, Iron bars, Steel bars, Silver bars, Gold bars. Also Herring, Mackerell, Cod, Pike and Salmon both cooked and raw.The pirates also need Wood (you also see the Brigantine, but you can not donate it because it is not an inventory item). Notice how Iron ore, Coal, Wood and raw fish can be donated but are not used to recruit pirates. Those resources however, can be processed by players using the links in the stockhouse. Iron ore can be smelted into bars and the raw fish can be cooked (using wood from the stockhouse). Wood is also used to build Brigantines, the transport boats for pirates. A Brigantine requires 3,000 wood and constructing level 15 to build, and can only carry 500 pirate units.

Recruiting pirates

Using the resources in the stockhouse, players can recruit pirates to invade the mainlands. This is done at the Saloon. Below you can see the costs of the various different pirate units.

Training pirates is done by order of your CL. You will start training the Highest level pirates that you are able to, as long as the required resources are in stock. If you have the CL but not the resources you will move down the list to the next highest pirate that has sufficient resources in to train. All players do this until the required amount of pirates has been trained. The amount and type of pirates for training is set by the current captain.

Example of an average invasion

Say an average invasion consists of 300 pirates of each type. A quick calculation shows us that such 'small' invasion would require: 

900 Iron Bars 300 Cooked Herring (300 Pirates)

1500 Iron Bars 300 Cooked Cod (300 Dread Pirate)

3000 Iron Bars 1200 Cooked Herring (300 Keelhails Pirate)

4500 Iron Bars 1200 Cooked Cod (300 Roughneck)

3000 Steel Bars 1800 Cooked Mackerel (300 Pegleg)

3000 Silver Bars 1800 Cooked Pike (300 Buccaneer)

300 Gold Bars 2100 Cooked Salmon (300 Hooked Pirate)

18000 wood (6 Brigs)

Captain Keelhail*

*Captain Keelhail is a group fight creature CL(331) HP (1000) he will attack a random town on one of the selected islands. He can NOT capture it and requires 0 resources to make.

Launching the invasion

Once the pirate captain is satisfied with the amount of pirates recruited, he (or she) decides to launch the invasion. The maximum time the captain can wait between launching an invasion is two weeks. If after two weeks no new invasion has been launched, the pirates will mutiny and a new captain will be assigned. Launching the invasion works as follows:

1. The Captain sets the stock house limit on Brigs and Pirates for training

2. The Captain selects the group of islands they wish to attack

3. All the currently built brigs will be filled with the currently trained pirates and launched.

4. The Captain can NOT choose the towns invaded

5. Captain Keelhail may choose to join the Invasion

After the invasion has been launched by the pirate captain, it will (randomly) take 2-12 hours for the pirates to arrive at the mainlands. There is also an announcement in pirate chat to notify the pirates that an invasion has been launched. The stockhouse will also close until the pirate invasion is finished.

Capturing towns

The goal of pirate invasions are to capture towns. Once an invasion arrives at a location, a timer will start. If the mainlanders manage to kill all pirates at that location before the timer hits 0, they have secured the town and it was not captured. If however, any amount of pirates is still alive when the timer hits 0, the town was succesfully captured and the pirate players that donated towards the invasion will receive a certain amount of negative fame and gold pieces. An invasion is normally considered succesful if 4/7 towns are captured.

Captain Keelhail may also join the invasion, He is a groupfight creature who does not count towards the total towns captured. The captain also has one other interesting property any player he kills will be "kidnapped" and sent to Skull, The players do NOT drop their items as they would in a usual death but are sent to the Crabs Nest jail with everything they were carrying at the time. These players will remain pirates until they choose to escape in the usual manner. Escaping is slightly easier for captured players for a short period of time.

Example of loot and fame

You added 5036 Iron bars to the stock! (5)
You added 20000 Iron ore to the stock! (5)
You added 980 Herring to the stock! (5.5)
You added 1299 Mackerel to the stock! (7)
You added 1368 Pike to the stock! (9)
You added 2374 Cod to the stock! (8)
You added 1004 Salmon to the stock! (10)
You added 10000 Wood to the stock! (2.2)
You added 5000 Coal to the stock! (4.5)

Arrr matey...
Here is your share of our loot at Kinam:
+27011 gold.

For helping the pirates you got -1061 fame.

Here is your share of our loot at Webbed forest:
+19293 gold.

For helping the pirates you got -771 fame.

5. Pirate captaincy

The pirate captain literally is the most infamous pirate player. The player with the most negative fame is usually pirate captain. Being the pirate captain you basically have absolute power. You decide what resources can be donated, which pirates are recruited and how they will invade the mainlands.

Becoming captain

Becoming the new pirate captain is not easy to do. To start with you will need to earn negative fame and lots of it. The pirate captain is usually one of the top 2 most infamous pirates. The captain is chosen 1^st by negative fame and 2^nd by activity. To become the captain you must reach at least 2^nd place in the negative fame high scores. Lets assume the pirate with most negative fame is the captain and follow from there.

Times the captaincy will change

1. The current captain waits too long before launching an invasion, this is called a mutiny and captaincy is handed over to the pirate with the 2^nd most negative fame (excluding the current captain)

2. The invasion fails completely (3/7 or less towns captured) If this happens, the player with the next highest amount of negative fame is assigned as new captain.

3. Should the new captain(currently ranked 2^nd for neg fame) fail the next invasion captaincy will be handed back up to the no1 pirate not down to the 3^rd placed pirate.

Other possibilities

Should either of the top 2 pirates become inactive they will be bypassed in the selection for example if the current captain fails an invasion and the 2^nd placed pirate has not logged in for a period of 3 weeks the new captain will be the 3^rd placed pirate this holds all the way down to the next active pirate, this is to avoid the chance of the pirates having no leader due to inactivity.

Pirate captain options

The pirate captain has three options he can use to regulate the invasions. First, he can change the "Requested" column at the stockhouse. If he sets it to 0, pirates can not donate that specific resource, or train that type of pirates. This is often called "locking". Secondly, he can set a message at the stockhouse informing the pirates about the current state of affairs. Lastly, he is the only person who can launch the pirate invasion as discussed earlier. The Pirate captian can not request over 65565 of any resource. Though it there is enough material you can smelt and cook way past that amount.