¶ Sailing
¶ Overview
- Boats can only be placed in Britain & Cove at this stage (see the Boating Map below)
- Large walls are placed along the border to visualize transitions between server-regions & keep players out of incomplete areas
- Gateways are placed between Britain & Cove which you can drive your boat through to transition between the two regions (Note: double click the Gate Wheel on the left-hand side of the gateway to open the gate)
- Walls and gateways will appear as icons on the minimap
Note: When trying to cross a server boundary through the gateway, if there are any obstructions on the other side like other boats, it may prevent you from crossing there and you may need to try another gateway.
Todo The Shards of Britannia team plans to complete more Water territory as time permits
¶ Server Boundary Gateway preview
¶ Boating Map
- The green line represents the server-region boundaries
- Lines with arrows on them indicate where Gateways are located
- Red X indicates that boundary cannot be passed
- Bodies of water highlighted in red indicates water that is off-limits for boats
¶ Britain & Cove Boating Map
¶ Boat Types
Currently, there are 2 types of boats available to humans:
¶ Wooden Rowboat
This small boat is perfect for fishing and solo explorers.
¶ Schooner
This larger sized ship is perfect for 3 or more players and pets for group exploration.
¶ Orcish Schooner
This behaves exactly the same as the Schooner and has an Orc skipper and can only be purchased & deployed by members of the Orc RP Guild
¶ Obtaining & Usage
Boats are able to be purchased with gold from Shipwright vendors in Britain & Cove. Boats come in a dry-docked state and appear as a miniature boat in your backpack.
- Double click a dry-docked boat and target a place in the water to launch the boat
- A boat key is created when the boat is launched, this key should be protected as it determines who can drive and dry-dock the boat
- For the small boat, double clicking it anywhere, or for the large ship, double clicking the stern (rear) will allow you to teleport to the boat from land
- Double clicking again while on the boat will re-open the control UI
- To exit the boat right click the boat (or stern) and click Exit Boat
- Boats have storage built-in, accessed by saying “open storage” or context option on the boat
¶ Boat Security
¶ Keys
When you launch a boat, you will receive 2 keys. One key will be attached to your Keyring & one will be sent to your bank box.
To open your keyring, see your paperdoll keyring button next to the backpack or use /keyring command at any time. Keys on your keyring cannot be stolen nor will they drop to your corpse when dying.
When dry-docking the boat, these keys will be destroyed automatically if they are on your character still.
The player can make copies of the Ship Key if needed by having a blank key in their backpack, right clicking the ship-key and choosing the Copy option.
¶ Boat Locks & Boarding
When a boat is launched it will be locked automatically. While it is locked, the player must have the key in order to board the boat.
You can unlock the boat to let others board with you. Unlocked boats may be subject to piracy however, so watch out for pirates nearby.
Additionally, anyone that is in a Group with a key-holder already aboard the ship will be granted access to board.
Runes cannot be Marked while on a boat or in the water, but players can still cast Recall & Gate Travel from boats and can use Gate Travel portals to allow others onto your boat as well. When casting Gate Travel, it would be wise to keep an eye out for unwanted guests.
¶ Driving
If a key-holder is on-board the boat then only keyholders are able to drive the boat, even if they are dead. Conversely, if there are no key-holders aboard the boat then anyone will be able to drive the boat, however, they would be unable to dry-dock it.
¶ Dry-docking
Dry-docking a boat requires the player to possess the key. To dry-dock the boat you will need to right click it (or the stern) and choose Dry-dock.
¶ Lost Boats, Teleporting
If the player loses their boat or needs to get back to it at any time, they can right click the Ship Key from their backpack or bank and choose Teleport To Boat and you will be teleported to it. Todo This is currently not possible to do while the key is on the keyring but the Shards of Britannia team will work to add an option there.
Note: This is subject to change in the future, as in UO it requires Magery to recall to the key, but Shards of Britannia may do something different. For now, this is free but has a 15 minute cooldown.
¶ Controls & Speech Commands
When first boarding your boat or ship the Controls UI will open allowing you to control the boat & it’s movements.
¶ Speech Commands:
Using speech commands are optional, however while using the Boat Controls window your character will speak the commands for the buttons you press. This not only helps players learn the commands but also lets other players see what you are commanding the boat to do.
Movement commands can have the word one appended to them in order to move the boat in single movements, allowing for more precise movements. Example: forward one, right one This single-step movement will also be used when the Single movement speed is selected in the Boat Controls window.
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
| Forward | Travel Forward |
| Forward Left | Travel in a Forward Left direction |
| Forward Right | Travel in a Forward Right direction |
| Back | Travel backwards |
| Right | Travel to the right without turning the ship |
| Left | Travel to the left without turning the ship |
| Turn Left | Turn the ship to the left, turns 45° at a time |
| Turn Right | Turn the ship to the right, turns 45° at a time |
| Raise Anchor | Raise the anchor, allowing the ship to begin movement |
| Drop Anchor | Lower the anchor, to prevent movement commands from activating |
| Turn Around/Come About | Flips the boat around 180° to face the opposite direction |
| Open Storage | Attempt to open the boat’s storage container (can also open from boat context menu) |
¶ Skippers:
- Skippers will respond to commands and alert you of any issues with movement that may come up
- Skippers can be silenced by right clicking them and choosing Silence and you will see system messages for alerts instead
¶ Destroying a Ship (Scuttling)
- To permanently destroy a ship, the key-holder can right-click the boat (or stern) and click Scuttle. A dialog will appear to confirm the action. This cannot be reversed, so choose wisely.
¶ Decay
- Boats follow the same decay stage names as houses spanning from Like New to In Danger of Sinking over a 14 day timeframe
- Boats that decay will have their contents ejected and the boat will sink and disappear forever
- Owners need to teleport to their boat or move it to refresh it
¶ Fishing
Todo
- There are no changes to SOS and Fishing Net behavior for boating but we plan to make adjustments for these features. Fishing Nets currently require you to be near the coast to use them, so we will have to add inclusion for being on boats and may even require you to be in Deep Water in the future.
¶ Lockdowns
WIP - Added support to allow 1-3 lockdowns on the Schooner which currently works but is deactivated for now (will be used for cannons and possibly other items in the future)
¶ Spawns
WIP - Water Elementals and Sea Serpents spawn randomly throughout the Deep Water areas
¶ Patch Notes & Known Issues
The following changes have been applied since this article has been written, during the initial testing phase:
- the collision issues around Britain & Cove docks have been cleared up
- added Anchor toggles to + improved boat context options
- pets are no longer counted when enforcing passenger limits on boats – to clarify, rowboats allow up to 3 players (subject to change) while bigger boats allow more; previously pets were counted against this limit, but now only players will be counted
- reduced packed weight of rowboat
- improved keyring interface to show all key options (previously you’d have to remove key from keyring to teleport to boat)
- boat ownership is now limited to 2 per account (may be increased if justified)
- boats left abandoned near the server gates will automatically be unlocked after 1 hour; other players will be able to board and move the boat, but won’t be able to access the storage or dry-dock it without the key; owners will receive an account msg if this happens to one of their vessels
- increased the size of the Gate Wheel/Door Switch to improve visibility
Known Issues:
- Orcish skippers are missing speech at this time, we are counting on the players to translate for us
- Moving towards a monster in the water may allow the monster to board your vessel; this is currently intended, pending feedback whether we should block movement against creatures to prevent this or no