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In this guide, you'll find out more than just the basics of ship ownership and maintenance. You'll also discover some tips on how to make the most of your investment, tricks that will allow you to get around the server lines and map errors -- and maybe even catch some of the spirit of adventure and exploration that used to be much more common when the lands were fresh and new.

Is There A Ship in Your Future?

So, you're looking to sail the high seas? Before buying that ship, you may want to ask yourself what kind of use you're hoping to get out of your new purchase. If you're planning to use it primarily for "cheap storage", then you might want to reconsider. Because with the new housing/ship changes being programmed in, you may just find yourself on the short end of a patch and have a difficult time keeping your sea bound storage locker from decaying away on you.

What are some other reasons for buying a ship, then? There are a lot of good uses for a ship -- but the main reason most people buy one is for the ability to get to places you normally couldn't get to by walking and recall alone (not everyone has a rune to Valor Isle, for example). This ability makes ships particularly useful in the lost lands, as we'll see later.

The main thing to remember is that ships make a lot better transportation than they do storage lockers, for both their deck and hold remain vulnerable to theft in one or more forms. Once you leave your ship, you may also lose anything you left behind stored within it.. Ships are first and foremost a form of travel, and remain a poor substitute for owning or sharing a home. Remember, anything left on the deck of the ship is subject to decay. Only items stored in the hold are safe.

Buying a Ship

Heck yes, I want to sail the world and kill things! Where do I sign up?

You can start at the provisoner's, or the buildings near the town docks -- you're looking for a "shipwright". You can buy a ship from the shipwright for around 12-15k, depending on the size (small, medium and large). Large ships hold a few more people on them at once, while smaller ships are a bit easier to dock. And you can also choose between regular ships (on which you may find it a bit easier to see over the bow), and dragon ships (they have a carved dragon placed on the front of the ship). The choice is yours.

While you're there, you'll also want to pick up a "Map of the World" from the mapmaker. This will make shipboard navigation much, much easier. You may also wish to buy some smaller, more detailed maps as well (like a map for Ocllo, a map for Britain, etc). These maps make it easier to land exactly where you wish, but aren't really necessary. (Note: Currently, maps only work in the "old lands" of Britannia. There are no maps for the "lost lands"),

You may also want to pick up a Sextant from the tinker's shop. A sextant will give you your exact position in the world with a simple double-click ... some people swear by the devices, for they come in handy if you get lost while at sea. And it's easy to get lost at sea, because if you lose connection while on board you don't know what shore you're going to end up on when you reconnect.

Launching Your New Ship

I have the deed for my ship, now what?

First of all, find a safe place in your pack to store it. Thieves love getting their hands on new, unspoiled deeds.

After you tuck the deed away, find a safe place in or near the guarded zone to launch your ship from. The docks are generally full (and may be totally blocked off from the sea), so your best bet is usually to troll the shoreline for an unobstructed spot to launch you ship from. After you find a safe spot with an unobstructed path to the open sea, then scope out the area for strangers. If it's safe, double-click on the deed and attempt to place the ship (this may take a few tries, if the shoreline is rugged).

If you're especially cautious, you may wish to take this a bit further and stake out a launching point with your deed in the bank -- mark the location -- and then recall there with the deed. If you're launching a ship anywhere other than a guarded region (or near one), this is good advice indeed.

When you finish launching your ship, you will find a key in your pack (and another in your bank vault). Before doing anything else, be sure to bury this key in your pack.

When you turn your eyes to your new ship, you will find both planks locked and the anchor lowered.

Like a home, your ship key may be used to enter your ship. But unlike a home, you need to use the key manually on the lock (by double-clicking on the key, and targeting the plank. The planks are located next to the mast; there is one on each side). Once the plank has been unlocked, you can double-click on the plank to lower it. After lowering the plank, you are then free to jump up onto the ship (even from a great distance away -- you don't have to be right next to the ship). After you make it onto the deck of the ship, you should immediately raise the plank and re-lock it. If you do not lock it, then someone else may take the opportunity to lower the plank and invite themselves aboard.

Alternatively, if you are a magic user, you can simply cast the recall spell and target the master key in your backpack instead of a rune. You will then recall onto the deck of your boat. Sailors with little magery skill may wish to carry a few recall scrolls just for that. Ofcourse the downside of this convenient form of boarding a vessel is that a thief only has to lift the key out of a sailors backpack to gain access to his ship...

When on board with your key, you should be very wary about the possibility of dying with your key on your body. The ship key can be looted, and you can easily lose control of your ship this way. If you expect that you may die, place the ship's key in the hold (singly -- not on a key ring). This will ensure that only you, with your spare key in the bank, will be able to access the ship again.

Leaving your ship is a bit different, in that you do not need to unlock the plank. You merely need to lower the plank, then lower yourself to the ground. This also means that no one can board your ship while you're exiting it, as the plank (even when lowered) remains locked to any potential intruder.

You may also find that entering and leaving a ship is, sometimes, a bit tricky. You should try to stand as close to the ground/plank as you can, and then double-click on the spot you wish to jump to. If this fails, try holding down the right mouse button -- then double-click on the extended plank (or ground) with your left mouse button.

Mastering the Tillerman

He's a scrawny little runt, aint he? Well, not to worry -- he's invulnerable. Think of him as a squeaky, voice-activated rudder. You can name your ship/tillerman by using your key on him, and give him a bit of personality ... but that's about as far as it goes :)

To move the ship, you need to master a few basic commands: forward, back, left, right, forward left, forward right, port, starboard, stop, raise anchor and lower anchor. There are additional commands (which you can check out under the Commands section), but this will get you about 90% of the way.

When you're ready to go, the first command you should give is "raise anchor". After that, glide around the port for a while until you're able to master the basics.

You may want to set some internal macros to make your navigation easier. I'd suggest macroing the arrow-Shift keys with the directional commands, which has the benefit of being very intuitive -- a real plus, when that water elemental herd starts chasing you down. While Origin provides players with some default ship command macros (based on the alt-keypad arrangement), I have found that setting my own macros makes it easier for me to remember what key-combo does what. You may find the default ones work just fine, as-is, and might want to experiment with them before creating your own).

There is one other way to move your ship around, and that's by charting a course on your "Map of the World" (or, if you prefer, a close-in detail map). Double-click on your map to open it, then click on the "Plot course" text along the top. Take a look at your current position, and where you want to go -- and then plot a course. Be sure to avoid all the major islands, and be prepared to take control of the ship manually when you cross a server line -- this "turbulent water" is very upsetting to the tillerman.

Each pin that you stick in the map is a position to which your tillerman will sail. You should try to stick as few pins in the map as possible, while still charting a course that will take you around anything which would obstruct your ship's progress. (Note: When charting a course you do not need to set a pin at your current location, you only need to set pins where you want your ship to go).

After the course is set, hand your map to the tillerman. This will make him very, very happy. He may even decide to tell you a story or two. You should do your best to ignore him (remember, he's invulnerable. Can't be killed).

Once he has been given a map, there are several ways to control the tillerman (again, see the Commands section). The easiest way is simply to tell him to "start". The tillerman will do his best to make it to your final destination, travelling to each of the map points in turn. If he gets stuck, you will have to take control manually for a while and work your way around the obstacle. Once past it, you may resume your course by simply telling him to "continue".

Once the tillerman has set on a course, you should not "clear" the map and attempt to chart a new course. This will cause the tillerman to forget where he's going. :)

Maintaining and Docking Your Ship

Remember all those ships you saw along the shoreline? Well, now you're competing with them for space to park your new prize. You may need to look around for a while to find a place that's isolated enough to have open shoreline, and yet close enough to town to save you a lot of walking. (While it is possible to mark a rune with your ship's location, you may find it difficult to keep track of you ship if you are constantly moving it around and marking new "Find Your Ship Here" runes).

Once you find a good spot to leave your ship, lower the anchor to keep it from drifting and then simply lower the plank and walk off. Double-check to ensure that both planks are locked (lest someone loot your ship's hold), and remember where you left it. The items you leave in the hold (up to 400 stones) are relatively safe, but anything left on the deck will decay in a few hours or can be looted by another ship owner.

Like homes, ships will decay in 9 to 11 days if they are not maintained. To maintain a ship, you simply need to double-click on the plank (with the key in your pack). This will not unlock the plank, but it will refresh the ship and its contents.

An alternate way of maintaining your ship is to drydock it. In order to do this, you must completely empty out your hold and wipe all items from the deck of your ship (including yourself -- you must be standing on land in order to drydock your ship), and also drop the anchor. After your ship has been emptied, you will need to find a "harbormaster". Harbormasters can usually be found along the city docks; ask her to "dock" your ship for 25 gold, then click on the tillerman of your ship. You will be given a claim ticket, which you can then place in your bank vault for safe-keeping.

However, in order to get your ship back into the water, you need to use the claim ticket in the same general area where you docked your ship in the first place. It is thus very important that you do not drydock your ship in a busy or overly-crowded seaport (particularly those that can be easily blocked off from the sea, like Moonglow and Ocllo), or you may not be able to reclaim your ship when you need it. Indeed, for those who may need their ship on short notice it is not recommended that they drydock their ship at all -- for finding an open spot on a city dock in order to re-launch it is often a frustrating, if not impossible, task. This claim ticket is worth little if you cannot re-launch it, for it cannot be sold back to the shipwright. (Note: If you placed a guildstone on top of your ship (before the game was patched to disallow this), you need to turn the guildstone into a guildstone teleporter before you can drydock the ship).

An even more convenient way of storing your ship is to deflate it. Yes matey, deflate I said. To do this just follow the same procedure as drydocking; empty the deck, empty the hold, drop the anchor and leave your ship. Make sure you have the key to the ship in your backpack. From the shore you then use the tillerman (by double-clicking on him), confirm the drydock command, and your ship will turn into a tiny vessel inside your backpack. You can take it with you where ever you go, and launch it again in another area. Please note: all keys to that ship in your bank and backpack will then be deleted and any keys to that ship not in your possession will become invalid. When you launch the miniature vessel again a new set of keys will be created. Knowing all this you can understand that there is now a safe way to buy and sell used ships, just transfer the miniature vessel to be sure there will be no 'old' keys that could be used to illegally reposes the ship. You will be pleased to hear that a deflated boat cannot be stolen and will even remain with you if you should die, much like a newbiefied item. Unlike newbiefied items, boat miniatures are not subject to ultra-fast decay.

Server Lines and Map Errors, oh my!

If you spend any length of time on your ship, you will soon notice some odd errors: your pack may suddenly close, you may see a line of wandering healers and animals lined up on the water, the tillerman may complain about "turbulent waters" and stop the ship, and your shipmates may even disappear without warning. These are all signs that you have just crossed a "server line".

Each shard is controlled by eight different sub-servers. The dungeons occupy one sub-server, and the "lost lands" another. The rest of the world is handled by six sub-servers. When you cross over from one sub-server to the next, information is exchanged between the two ... but errors sometimes occur, and all kinds of weird (but usually harmless) things might happen.

On land, server lines are more of a nuisance than anything else. But on the high seas, they become a serious hindrance to travel.

First off, there is the "Great Turbulent Divide" North/South line that divides the lands. This boundary has as many odd stories associated with it as the Bermuda triangle -- travel through this region with caution. When you reach this line, you will reach an region filled with "turbulent water" where ships have been known to become foundered in the waves (or even lost entirely). To get from Vesper to Jhelom, you may wish to go the long way around and sail South. (The extent of this "Great Turbulent Divide" can be seen in Alazane's Sea Chart of Britannia, 108k). For a detailed overview, have a look at this picture of all server lines, 128k.

This divide is a server line, one of many that rule the seas of Britannia. When you hit one of these, you will need to take control of your ship manually for a moment and sail over the server line. This may require a bit of effort, as the server lines act as a solid physical barrier to "turning ships". If stuck, you should reverse course a bit -- turn to face the server line, and then plough straight ahead. Once you are past the server line, you can resume course normally.

You may also encounter some map errors on the water that will hinder your travel (for example, the "wood" sticking out of the water near the Moonglow docks). These are not server lines, but graphical glitches that never got patched. They're more of a nuisance than anything else, and can easily be sailed around.

Similarly, you may encounter some difficulty charting a course over the East-West divide. But although you cannot chart a course over this line, you can sail over it. If you were planning to sail from Moonglow to Yew, you would do so by charting a course up to the Eastern edge of the map, sailing manually to the East another a minute or two, and then charting a new course to land you on the shoreline near Yew. This, fortunately, is an annoyance that can be easily worked around :)

Lastly, be aware that occasionally the server lines will cause your companions to disappear from the ship (they will usually appear along the shoreline where you picked them up). To lessen he odds of this happening, be sure to remind your passengers to stand near the center of the ship. If they stay on the imaginary line between the tillerman and the hold, they are less likely to become casualties of the wicked server-line daemon. Also, do not place any solid objects on the deck to minimize the risk of being tossed overboard when crossing a server line.

Sailing through the Lost Lands

The good news is, there are no sub-servers in the lost lands. No more lost luggage!

The bad news is, there are no maps which you can use to chart a course with either. Travel is all "manual" in the lost lands.

The serpent pillars allow one to sail from the lost lands to Britannia, and back ... There are two pillars in the Britannian oceans and one in the Lost Lands. See the T2A Entrances List for their exact position.

If you decide to place a new ship in the lost lands, expect to find a great deal of difficulty finding a place to launch and dock your ship. I found the most luck up along the desert shoreline, and along the lighthouse peninsula.

As for navigation, you can find a labeled map here. This will help you get your bearings. However, for proper navigation you really need a good close-in detail map. For that, I'd recommend using the UO Automap Tool. With a sextant in your hand and this tool hooked to your belt, you'll have a hard time getting lost in the new lands.

Battle at Sea

Is your head growing weary of tillerman commands and map errors?

Well, never fear. For there's more to sailing a ship than mere travel. There's also the opportunity to chase after those monsters that you could never reach before, the ones that hugged the shore but never got close enough to fight ... like water elementals, sea serpents, gargoyles, harpies and more. You can often find these creatures around city docks, and along the edge of major spawn zones (check the Spawn Map for details on where you can find the best hunting).

Ship-borne battles require a different strategy than land-based battles, for several reasons:

Archery and Magery are far more useful at sea than melee weapons. If your lone weapon is a sword or mace, you will find it more difficult to strike your target (and get in that last "killing blow") over the edge of the ship.

Your movements are very limited; you must command the tillerman in order to maneuver or escape. This is where intuitive keyboard macros come in very handy :)

A high hiding skill (over 50%) comes in very useful at sea, as you can avoid most battles until you decide to initiate them yourself. This gives you time to position yourself, ready weapons and spells, and plan some basic strategy.

Certain spells do not work well aboard a ship. Teleporting onto another ship has long been disabled, firefield fizzles on contact with water (doh!), and summoned creatures are only moderately useful (they often cannot reach their targets).

When fighting ship-to-ship, Greater Explosion potions are invaluable. Their area-effect damage is very useful within the close confines of ship-to-ship battle.

Server lines are just as annoying at sea as they are on land. You cannot target anything on the other side of a server line, and any creatures that lie on the other side will appear "grey" no matter what their alignment truly is.

Recalling away from a losing battle is a final option. You can always recall off your boat key to get back on your boat.

If you die on board and no one can resurrect you, you are in trouble :) You may be able to be find a wandering healer near the shore who can restore your life, but you may also end up having to jump off the ship and walk. But please take note that while ghosts can command the tillerman and lower the plank, they cannot do either of these things once they leave the ship. In order to get back on your ship after leaving as a ghost, you will need another key to your ship (be sure to keep your master key in the bank, it's not worth the risk of losing it). Thus, you may find it wise to prepare a second set of keys before taking any risky journeys at sea.

When you have multiple people on board your ship you should assign one person to stand near the tillerman and keep control of the helm, leaving the others free to fight. This is wise for two reasons: you can maneuver and escape more easily, and no longer have to worry about spamming the tillerman with multiple (and conflicting) commands. (Note: Remember -- when you're running be sure to command the ship forward, forward right or forward left. If you run the ship backwards, that mean-looking water elemental just might chase you down).

Adventure at Sea

Back in the old days, ships used to be the only way to get around to the unique and isolated spots in the land (See Mental4's Beta Journal). But even though all the lands have since been explored and hunted many times over, there are still some interesting places to take your ship and explore.

The Isle of Fire. The path from the Hythloth to Humility is very well-worn, but the rest of the island is often a pretty desolate place. You can find spawns of orcs, orc mages and -- if you find the temple at the center of the isle, dragons and drakes as well.

The Valor islands. There's good monster spawn on most of them, and there are a few interesting structures to check out as well. In one of these, you can find a temple which will transport you to the lost lands.

Britain Isles. The islands just south of Britain offer little in the way of monsters, but you can find an entrance to the lost lands on one of them (in the smaller of the two marble buildings). On many shards, this is a popular area for housing and player-run cities.

Other small islands. There are a few other islands listed on the maps, but there are also a few that aren't. They don't even show up on the radar map, but they're out there waiting to be found ...

The Lighthouse peninsula (the entrance point linked to the Yew Prison). You'll be doing the other hunters a favor by killing off the monsters trapped at sea. You'll find lots of imps, stone gargoyles and wyverns here. This is a relatively safe place for solo-hunting.

"Wyvern Island" (the small island South-East of the lighthouse). Take along a few friends, the spawn here is fantastic.

"Cyclops Valley". You may want to get off and walk here ... at least, after you clear the shore enough to land :)

"Snake Valley" (the isolated valley just to the East of the Fire Dungeon). If you're a tailor, this is the place to be.

Remember, there are very few wandering healers in the lost lands. Dying on board your ship (or worse, on the shore next to your ship) is bad news.

There are plenty of other ways to adventure at sea, if you're willing to look for them. Recall and Gate may be the transport of choice for most, but the call of the sea has its own allure ...

- Daedalus Rising of Atlantic.

Constructive criticism and comments provided by: Brap of Stober, Brule, Kynaerth'an, Ghost, Orgazym, Mandron, Powermonger, Pryito and Tatcyn.