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Well, 4 of the top 5 in distance have already completed all story voyages, so i think that's the way the overwhelming majority are going. Also, cotta is hard to come by at the start of the loop and becomes increasingly easier as you move along(which has already been discussed alot). If you can only do 4 voyages a day, you should be getting more cotta than everyone else as adventurer voyages take up a bigger percentage of the overall voyages you do. Also- why would you get the cannon upgrade first? sounds like a terrible idea(short term gain for long term pain instead of the opposite). In any case, i don't think alternative gaming styles matter much with regards to this thread.

The one there would be wisp. Reason? seafaring hull has low speed and i'm planning on getting max port score with no shield crew. Also for MCS to be better than oxheads they need to be on average level 9. Don't think anyone is going to wait deep into the loop to do trio voyage.

I'm getting exactly that or 665431 if i can. Don't get rid of oxheads until you've completed the final trio. Then, yeah, only triple missions you'll do are barmaid.

It's level 6 to be equal to pincer crew. Level 6 takes around 20% distance. Good luck sitting on a ton of cotta and doing shield voyages with pincer crew. Also, you have misunderstood what has been said. Crew isn't prioritized- ship parts are prioritized. But what else are you going to do with your cotta? The goal is to put yourself in the best possible situation for the last region while maintaining maximum effectiveness throughout the loop.

The point i was trying to make is that if you have the rudder and are very organised, you can log in 3 times a day for 10 minutes and lose almost no shipping time at all. Granted, that means that every 4 days you have to be up once at a time you would normally be sleeping, but that's not the end of the world. If you didn't have the rudder, you'd have to check in 12 times a day, which is a catastrophe. Okay, that's what I thought you were saying. I agree - if you're okay being up around 3-4am regularly for your port, the rudder is a lot of help. If not, you're on a two-a-day schedule, and it doesn't matter if you have it or not. If you really don't care much and want to do ports only twice a day then yeah, the rudder will not give you much of an advantage in the loop. It would still save you time with long voyages(for example when your second check is 14,5 hours away and not 12), and it would definitely save you from a major obstacle in the next region(think max voyage times for every voyage) unless you do get it at some point. However, i'd guess that most people are able to check ships every now and then, and if they only ignore the night shifts they'd still get some of the advantages of the rudder. Keeping things in sync is important, and if you have to arbitrarily do that by not sending ships until they sync, it's a bad proposition. Also- about waking up at 4 am.... I'm an NBA fan. NBA games usually start at 2 am in my time zone.

The point i was trying to make is that if you have the rudder and are very organised, you can log in 3 times a day for 10 minutes and lose almost no shipping time at all. Granted, that means that every 4 days you have to be up once at a time you would normally be sleeping, but that's not the end of the world. If you didn't have the rudder, you'd have to check in 12 times a day, which is a catastrophe.

Trust me, I can send my ships out whenever I want. This is for maximum efficiency. Some people really do sleep just 4 hours a day. Some are just really organised. The fact that you might not be in either of those groups doesn't mean rudder doesn't give an advantage- it actually gives a huge advantage(your ships actually get back at the same time, not every hour because of different speed).

They are only good for triple voyages and there are very few useful triple voyages in the loop(all normal voyages are chimes only). Plus they cost 166% of a normal crewman(that offer the same benefit for 3/7 voyages), thus if you have the luxury of alot of cotta, you can get one, but otherwise don't even bother.

Don't worry too much, most of the cotta starts coming in at 20% when you start getting 175 and 275 cotta missions. Before 20% i was averaging 180 cotta per %, after 20% i'm averaging 350. Just get some cherry trees and start getting crew as that protects you from big cotta losses. In all likelihood, they won't update trader/black market until some people have maxed port score/distance, which is atleast a month away. The sale of RW cape took a few hours. There was a report of one selling for 23.5 instant on the same day.

The only thing they are trying to fix is their cash-flow.

Oh. GOOD LUCK with that. These morons can't even balance 3 simple attack styles working on a copy-paste system. What are the odds that they can balance 6? Yeah. 0. People will use whatever is best and this is a huge waste of development time. Giving people what they want is STUPID. No democratic government has ever survived doing that. You have to give people what they NEED.

I think mine(few pages back) was 3.5k at 19%. But it all starts going uphill from there. I've gotten the Rudder and one Terracotta Merchant at 11%, but all the bigger voyages are coming in now and I'm averaging around 70% success with a JM/TCM. Probably better to get Loop Crew at this point? Or should I look into ship upgrades (cannons)? The reason to get crew before ship upgrades(excluding rudder) is that ship upgrades are bought in big chunks and don't need training. Thus if you try to get ship upgrades first, you are likely to lose big chunks of cotta in failure and end up with untrained crew at the next region. I'm going to stop getting crew at around 55-60% trough the loop, whatever crew i've accumulated until that point. In general, i'd say the ship upgrades should be gotten in the order of lowest cost. Sold a reefwalker cape for 25m. Net getting any trio voyages for 8 days and failing one at 91% really killed me.

I think mine(few pages back) was 3.5k at 19%. But it all starts going uphill from there. Anyway, i finally managed to complete the trio missions. The answer to the question proposed on the last page is 72. It should also be noted that with 2 cherry trees and cotta merchant, 275 missions produce 390 cotta.

I think I plan on sending my last trio voyage with a TCM rather than with my JM. The last trio voyage gives 50 pearl and 50 koi scale. With a JM and FOTS that is 70 pearl and 70 koi scale. If I use a TCM and FOTS that is 71.665 koi scale and 71.665 pearl. I think ports rounds both up to 72. I'm not sure if waiting for a TCM is justified by earning only 2 pearl and 2 koi scale extra. Didn't we have that discussion before? about 6 trade goods being rounded to 7.99 and down to 7? Ports has never rounded anything up. I also managed to get a cotta mission... this time. And yeah, cherry trees are now useful.

I actually think the merchant to be the biggest upgrade in term of single crew. A level 10 TCM offers 700 morale upgrade over level 10 JM, while Morale Crew only has 600 upgrade at level 10. Also, you get a stat upgrade going from level 10 JM to level 0 TCM, going from level 10 travelling band to TCM morale only offers stat upgrade after level 8. Somehow, everyone except for us seems to think a merchants stats are worthless <_< It's also worth mentioning that cotta merchants are endgame crew, where as none of the other loop crew are.

In general, rudder, some crew, other ship parts. I will try to have as much crew as possible at the end of the loop, would like to have 4 merchants, and 565 of normal crew. Don't think i'm getting any wisps.

I had a similar situation yesterday with seafaring. Ended up sending half-assed ships with 50-60% and nailed all 3. In any case, in light of the 175 and 275 cotta missions, i think around 30k cotta total should be obtainable, but not sure the full 32k is, thus i'm keeping whisps off my crew. Another thing i'm doing is getting crew now so i don't lose any cotta when doing missions with ~60-70%. Once my crew is better i can shoot for the higher amounts of cotta more easily.

Not luck. 10% is to unlock 125 cotta(100%), 20% to unlock 175 cotta(100%). Edit: 20% also unlocks 275 cotta missions, thus the full list with percentage of distance is: 50 (70%); 75 (80%); 125 (100%); 175 (100%); 275 (100%).

Well, i've thus far managed 3.5k cotta in 19%, but i also lost 540 due to failure, which is inevitable as the missions get harder. I'm projecting myself around 25k cotta total.

Should we just skip every crewmember but the Terracota merchants then? That would put you in a very tough spot once you reach the shield but in general, that's part of the idea. Ideally, you should work out how much normal crew you can afford and buy them before getting the ship upgrades. It all depends on how much 'cotta you can bring in, and unless you are sure you can get 32k while passing trough the loop, there will have to be some cuts.

Ideal loop crew is of no consequence as you should never strive for it. Getting all the ship upgrades while still in the loop is much more important.

My guess for endgame crew would be either 676411 or 666421. One JoD would be kept for triple missions(speed is also a consideration here as the trio hull has 100 speed). Either one or two shield specialty crewman- one for triple missions, two for seafaring missions, again with speed consideration(seafaring hull has 200 speed). If there aren't too many triple and seafaring missions for trade goods, you can make do with one. One more combat crewman because combat has no on-deck shield items. This can change depending on what trade good missions require most.

You can do "quite" well even with 25 oxheads, mostly because there is no penalty for using stupid crew. However, if you want to be efficient, any more than 3 or 4 of them is not ideal for the pincers(prior to the nerf) and past pincers (and considering the nerf) they are next to useless. An ideal Loop crew would contain one nerfed ox at best(at best because triple stat missions play a negligible role in the loop). Anyway, my upgrade plan for the Loop is as follows: Rudder(already got it) One pincer morale to new merchant Upgrade 40% of normal crew and a merchant. Once i've completed last trio, sack 2 ox and get one wisp plus one extra crew. Ship(cannons->figurehead->hull) Final Loop crew would be 5-6-5-4-3-1-1 It should be noted that considering my current progression, i'd only get around 20k 'cotta total passing trough the loop, much less than the ~32k needed if i wanted to upgrade everything.

They were probably allowed to be a bit OP for pop endgame for the sake of repeat players. Then when they started working on pop 2 they saw they might need to be bumped down a bit? Maybe?... After all they are clearly your duo and trio voyage strongarms. I don't really understand why anyone would have seen oxheads as in any way overpowered or extremely useful past pincers. Frankly, JoD should have been nerfed considering they will still be useful for 3 regions beyond for trio voyages. And really, i just can't begin to understand the love affair everyone was having with oxheads before pop v2. Beyond trio voyages where you needed to have them, their usefulness was extremely limited in that they could be used as replacements in duo missions with negligible bonus. The maximum someone should have gotten was 4, and i never got more than 3, because, lets face it, you never needed more than 3. It is alot of fun though, now, when i don't have to lug around useless crew and alot of other people are still stuck with 5+ ox.

Uhh... Considering all those stats i think it's fair to say 7774 is best. That is considering there aren't any specialties as far as traits are concerned and speed isn't an issue. Might even keep a JoD and a shield trio specialty just for trio missions but that's about it. Those captains do look nice though.