Ships At Sea

Ships At Sea

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Running Log of Gameplay Tips for EA
By Rusty
I was looking to create a quick reference guide other folks could use to find some helpful gameplay tips during the early access period. These notes are approaches to moving ahead in the game that many of us may have stumbled across on our own or reviewed in different forum posts - placed here for quick reference, esp. for new players.
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About Save Game Reliability
From Jigzy:
“Do NOT save your game at the fish farms with/without your boat docked. Your character WILL spawn at Røst (no matter where the fish farm is), and the only way to get your boat back is to switch back and forth between boats in the shipyard. If your farm is at Værøy, that’s suddenly a 50 minute trip to get back...”

Rusty -> I’ve encountered a different problem saving at a fish farm (closest SE of Rost). I set up a farm and got it going. My day 1 production was great! My salmon were at 4kg now, and they wanted massive food I didn’t have. I thought I’d save while docked to the fish farm as I had to go get some RL things done. When I reloaded the game, I was back on the farm where I logged off, but the farm would no longer work at all – despite loading it with food, passing time in game, etc., there was no more progression on the fish.

Result? Save games are VERY unreliable in this game at present. Your basics like money, ship purchases and km’s are saved. Maybe your skills are reliably saved. Anything else is up for grabs it seems! Try to avoid saving/reloading in the middle of a longer activity like a cargo run, fishing or fish farming! Be careful sailors!
Making Money - Quick Runs
The first idea to share for making reasonable money for time invested is to load up your first cargo boat (Roster) with 3 jobs - Deliveries from Rost to Karoya, then over to Lyngvaer, then to Kveldsbeita and a return to Rost are quick to complete and will give you a good return on your time.

Per Herby:
"When you do the "3 cargo run" the other way you could add also the trash pick up job at the end resulting in a total of NOK 95,000 per round trip." (Some pics below to help - trash spawns in the same area each mission 5-7 bags from what I've seen. -Rusty)

Q: Could you do this three-station run with the row boat?
A: No. While you can take several XS cargo jobs at once, you can only take 1 XS cargo with you in the rowboat at a time. Spend the money on the Roster :)

Q: Should I upgrade the Roster to do this run more efficiently?
A: This would be up to your preference. I've found there to be no point as this run is easy to manage with the default configuration of the Roster (I was saving for a larger boat)

Finding Trash at Rost:


Making Money - Pop-up Missions
So far, I've seen two instances on the map (one is pictured here) of a mission spawning in a location that is not Rost. These opportunities may be too random for one to hope for full cargo runs to/from different ports - but we can hope, right?

Btw - see the tip here for how to teleport back to Rost if you're on the far end of the map with no jobs to do and no need to run up more kms on your license.
Making Big Money – Fish Farms
From Jigzy:
“The farms are expensive at first, but grant you a steady and reliable side income. The replacement parts are cheap compared to the output of the farms. You need the Røster with the smolt rig attached to transport fish. 10.000 fish costs 100.000kr. Remember to not buy medium/large fish feed unless you have the tier 2 transport boat that can do medium cargo.

The Fixer can hold 10 bags of "small" fish food each trip + 2XS cargo if you can find something that fits the trip to your fish farm. E.g if you buy the fish farms outside Værøy, you can do a XS Cargo trip to Måstad, giving you a 10 minute extra diversion worth 30.000kr (if i remember correctly +/-).”

Rusty -> I’d estimate that you’d need to access about NOK 735k to start a fish farm with 20k smolt. 500k for the farm, 200k for the smolt, 15k for the smolt tank, and 20k (with 4 trips to load) food. From what we’ve seen on the forums and from landing the grown fish after sales, this can make over NOK 13,000,000! (New patch from May 26, 2024 could impact this).
Making Big Money - Longline Fishing
From Krinsh:
"When longline Fishing, set multiple lines and then wait 17 hrs and pick them up, to do this make sure you have the GPS Buoy and a hook. go along side of the buoy and hit the reel and use the hook and hit the fish as they are coming up near the mouth (will take practice hitbox is weird) ATM there is no fish or weight max for the ships (5/25/23) so load up your flippy and make money"

Rusty -> Reports on the discussion forums suggest that 2500 hook longlines are pretty successful for making cash as landing a few fish by your character's in-game hands seems to represent a much larger 'actual' haul per the game's actual economy. Some have noted landing 4-5 fish and raking in like NOK 600k in profit.
Moving Small Cargo Quickly
If you are loading your Roster up with three or more jobs worth of cargo, try double-tapping E and X to pick up and place the cargo items on the boat. This double-tapping seems to cancel the character's animation cycle allowing you to get the cargo handling work done quickly.
These waves are nuts!
I have to agree with those who have been commenting on the insane wave propagation inside protected harbours. There's clearly some optimisation required because few people are going to put in a dock where there's bound to be 8ft wave crests.

What to try?
- Use the clock on the dashboard of your boat and advance it 1-3 hours at a time and see if the weather conditions resolve to something more reasonable. I've done this for fog and silly levels of waves, always being sure that any mission or fish timers I'm on are not going to run out.
Banking - Getting the biggest loan
I've noticed that once I had about NOK 160,000 in funds, I could qualify for the NOK 300,000 loan - Enough to help finance entry into the 'Fixer' - a tier 1 Service boat at NOK 349,000.

Update -> It is possible to grab another 300k loan even if you have another one open... just accumulate another 150k-160k ish of cash. This can be a good way to fund early entry into fish farming.
Fuel Economy (in *this* economy?)
From Jigzy:
“Some people seem to have not read the tutorial or help section of the game. In all boats (except the Røster it seems), you MUST keep throttle at or below 80%. E.g on the Fixer, fuel consumption at 80% equals 4.5 l/h, whilst fuel consumption at 100% throttle = 19.8 l/h, its a massive difference.”

Rusty -> This is quite like in real life where engines have a fuel consumption curve that gets massively worse the higher your RPM’s. I have a boat IRL that can do 17-20kts … if I like burning thousands of dollars of diesel fuel. Normally, our boat does v. well cruising around 8-9kts much more cost effectively. Here in the game, I don’t think the economy is so well refined or balanced that your fuel bill is going to be the thing to kill you, but be warned 😊
Towing - Paying for Fast Travel?
Shupacabura wanted to share that you can skip trip back from some ports by using your radio (Press 1 on the PC for example) to call for a tow back to Rost. If you've not purchased an annual package of tows from MG & Sons (see pictures) your default cost is something like NOK 18k. The price per instance of towing goes way down with the annual packages.


Grinding License Km's
If you've done enough quick runs out of Rost to have about NOK 150k - 160k (see the Banking Tip) you can get a NOK 300k loan which is enough to afford the 'Fixer'.

Buy it and use all your funds to upgrade the engine, propeller and throttle to max. You might try the steering wheel upgrades too - I'm not certain if I've seen any difference in handling with the most expensive wheel on the boat, yet.

At this point, you'll be able to deftly race along at 16 knots in decent seas. Set a course for the deep sea and once you're clear of shoals, go get a sandwich and check in on your travels. You could try delivering cargo to a far off port, or just go off into the deep... Consider using the towing/fast travel tip to return to port when you've levelled up to Tier 2!
11 Comments
schutt 24 May @ 12:59pm 
Great tips. As of 0.8.1 some stuff changed, fixer is now way more affordable. Since fishing seems to yield a lot of catch (flippy can carry unlimited fish as of now....) going fishing with longline can easy rake you in enough cash to get the money needed for one fish farm run.
Tarah263_ 22 Mar @ 10:22pm 
This is really helpful thank you
danisocoolike 14 Jun, 2024 @ 10:26pm 
one long cargo trip with a short stop on the way is enough to get you the flippy and LL fishing quickly. From there i've also noticed you should be on your boat when you tow or just you will be brought to rost. your boat will be left behind. and the land is not real....i fell through when i tried exploring too far beyond port, and had to reload my save to make it back(didnt think to tow with hotkey)
PrincessButterfingers 6 Jun, 2024 @ 3:26pm 
Anyone know how to release the large bags of fish food, when using the crane?
Budshoot69 30 May, 2024 @ 11:30am 
Any idea how to deliver medium cargo? I got to the destination, got it on the crane and off my ship but the crane doesn't reach the pallet so that's not an option. The only place the larger cargo disconnects from the crane is right behind it so I'm assuming that's the right spot but wouldn't trigger either item to be delivered for the job.
Jigzy 26 May, 2024 @ 3:52am 
Fish Farms: The farms are expensive at first, but grant you a steady and reliable side income. The replacement parts are cheap compared to the output of the farms. You need the Røster with the smolt rig attached to transport fish. 10.000 fish costs 100.000kr. Remember to not buy medium/large fish feed unless you have the tier 2 transport boat that can do medium cargo.
The Fixer can hold 10 bags of "small" fish food each trip + 2XS cargo if you can find something that fits the trip to your fish farm. E.g if you buy the fish farms outside Værøy, you can do a XS Cargo trip to Måstad, giving you a 10 minute extra diversion worth 30.000kr (if i remember correctly +/-).

Do NOT save your game at the fish farms with/without your boat docked. Your character WILL spawn at Røst (no matter where the fish farm is), and the only way to get your boat back is to switch back and forth between boats in the shipyard. If your farm is at Værøy, thats suddenly a 50 minute trip to get back...
Jigzy 26 May, 2024 @ 3:51am 
If you ever spawn without your boat, or your boat is not docked and floats away (as some has reported when loading in), just switch boats in the shipyard.

Some people seem to have not read the tutorial or help section of the game. In all boats (except the Røster it seems), you MUST keep throttle at or below 80%. E.g on the Fixer, fuel consumption at 80% equals 4.5 l/h, whilst fuel consumption at 100% throttle = 19.8 l/h, its a massive difference.
|AR| Krinsh 25 May, 2024 @ 11:59am 
When longline Fishing, set multiple lines and then wait 17 hrs and pick them up, to do this make sure you have the GPS Buoy and a hook. go along side of the buoy and hit the reel and use the hook and hit the fish as they are coming up near the mouth (will take practice hitbox is weird) ATM there is no fish or weight max for the ships (5/25/23) so load up your flippy and make money
Shupacabura 25 May, 2024 @ 5:26am 
For a really quick run, you could just call help and get towed for ~2000 NOK after 3 cargo runs. Since a simple scratch with a port completely wrecks your boat, this may cost a bit but it is the most safe and fast way to do it.
Herby 25 May, 2024 @ 12:51am 
When you do the "3 cargo run" the other way you could add also the trash pick up job at the end resulting in a total of NOK 95,000 per round trip.