Thing is, I never even done the Ashen vaults only the regular ones as I have maxed out GH long time ago and never even tried them for some reason.
What would be the difference between Veil voyage (purchased from Pirate Lord) vs Captains Veil voyage? Is the loot better or something?
I guess I will try to do both and just keep a record of what gives most gold per hour.
Was thinking maybe someone has a method that not many think of doing, but would actually be very profitable :)
If you get the ones described as "favorable" they're easier. Plus you can carry up to 50 of the captain versions. Original veils you can only carry 1.
@pithyrumble said in What's the most profitable voyage for a solo sloop?:
If you get the ones described as "favorable" they're easier. Plus you can carry up to 50 of the captain versions. Original veils you can only carry 1.
Thanks for the 'favorable' tip, did not know that. But in which regard do they get easier? Smaller islands, shorter distance?
P.S. Can't imagine doing 50 in a row in same session :D. I do however put them for vote and cancel if my next island is crowded, so I sail away to the next closest possible quest location and vote again, which usually puts me on the different path for the voyage and away from those suspicious crews
It's complicated.
The enemies are a tad easier. They're more like random spawns than voyage enemies.
The game won't try as hard to make you and other players intersect. The voyage system tries to run pirates into each other.
A GH x mark, riddle map or skellies on favorable will lead to smaller islands typically but have worse loot.
Veil voyages all happen on big islands so it can't really.
Meh, I want gold, I don't mind enemy difficulty.
For the Veil I find Snake island to be super easy, also wanderers refuge is not bad or any island that does not have massive cliffs.
I have noticed another 'life hack' once you light up the brazier, and you see those pillars for a short amount of time. If you sprint, it pauses the timer until they disappear. So while this does not help much on massive islands with multiple levels and caves as much before you start remembering the locations, for smaller ones you can do all of them relatively very quickly this way, even if you have not done that island before.
@zig-zag-ltu here's my recommendation:
Raise a merchant alliance emissary flag, load up whatever commodity is in surplus at your outpost and note where it is sought after in the ledger at the merchant's dock. Purchase a voyage for a lost shipment and set sail. Do not sell the commodities yet, but run the voyage first. Take your time and make sure you don't miss any clues as the key to this is finding the captain's key.
With the key, you'll make grade 5 as an emissary by the time you've collected the lost shipment, then when you sell your crates of commodities you'll be pulling more than 2k in gold per crate. Add in whatever you've picked up along the way and it's hands down the most profitable voyage. I've made more than 150k gold in less than an hour. Then at grade 5 running to sea forts and continuing the commodity runs I've more than doubled it in the next.
In short, the merchant alliance is all about making profit. I really dislike the cargo runs and collecting animals is frustrating, but when the gold is running low they're the ones I go to.
@garbhchu Thanks dude. I'll give it a go. But this seems rather risky to have loot before even setting sail, so I'll probably leave it for awkward hours when servers are deserted.
P.S. Does the emissary bonus add on top of the commodities? Also, do you buy a few different ones or just the one sought after at the outpost your voyage will end?
I wouldn't go commodities, requires gold investment and puts you in a situation where you need to be somewhere to get the return, randomness gets in the way
I'd go merchant shipwreck voyages and small island dig captains which have a decent enough chance of mega kegs
take out skelly sloops for easy loot and megs, megs have a high chance of merchant items and often will have ancient bone dust
not too hard to work merchant into gold rush hours as well for the daily bonuses
sell gems to the merchant if you aren't using the sovereign
always go emissary when chasing gold, don't fear the reaper
just adapt to them as needed
You want to keep moving and cut down on transport time
what I listed above allows that, never be a sitting duck for a long amount of time, it's not worth it
Vaults are eh for a solo, too much island time, too much transport time, too much sitting duck time, there are more efficient ways.
Consistency is efficiency
@wolfmanbush said in What's the most profitable voyage for a solo sloop?:
I wouldn't go commodities, requires gold investment and puts you in a situation where you need to be somewhere to get the return, randomness gets in the way
I'd go merchant shipwreck voyages and small island dig captains which have a decent enough chance of mega kegs
take out skelly sloops for easy loot and megs, megs have a high chance of merchant items and often will have ancient bone dust
not too hard to work merchant into gold rush hours as well for the daily bonuses
I've done quite a bit of this last month. Just thought maybe someone knows some kind ''one simple trick'' with other emissaries ^^
Btw, for those Spanish forts, which emissary would you guys put? I feel like it gives merchant loot items the most or would it be GH?
@zig-zag-ltu In my experience for Sea Forts (Grinded a bunch recently for the painting trinket) they are only REALLY good with Gold Hoarder or Reapers. 2 or 3 sea forts gets you Grade 5 Gold Hoarder, 3 or 4 get you pretty close if not to 5 for Reapers. Merchant and Order of Souls don't get much out of them unfortunately.
In regards to original question, i do like doing Merchant Shipwreck voyages. Automatic grade 5, decent payout per mission (30,000 - 50,000) and very very chill and easy. They're one of my favourite voyage quests if i want an easy day. This on top of commodity runs COULD be good, but eh, i prefer just stacking shipwreck voyages.
@zig-zag-ltu said in What's the most profitable voyage for a solo sloop?:
@wolfmanbush said in What's the most profitable voyage for a solo sloop?:
I wouldn't go commodities, requires gold investment and puts you in a situation where you need to be somewhere to get the return, randomness gets in the way
I'd go merchant shipwreck voyages and small island dig captains which have a decent enough chance of mega kegs
take out skelly sloops for easy loot and megs, megs have a high chance of merchant items and often will have ancient bone dust
not too hard to work merchant into gold rush hours as well for the daily bonuses
I've done quite a bit of this last month. Just thought maybe someone knows some kind ''one simple trick'' with other emissaries ^^
Btw, for those Spanish forts, which emissary would you guys put? I feel like it gives merchant loot items the most or would it be GH?
Mixed loot isn't efficient when it comes to emissary gold grinding
that doesn't mean don't do them but it's not gonna be efficient as mixed loot
If you're doing sea forts I'd go order or gold because loot found along the way is going to be more likely to be order/gold items, like random pve spawns, island stuff, etc
I wouldn't recommend reapers.
it's not efficient in an environment with starving hunters, it will bring your consistency down, there are more efficient and less stressful ways.
@zig-zag-ltu -- the emissary bonus does in fact add on top of the commodity sale-price.
I generally just buy the surplus commodities, but that's because I'm usually looking to maximize my profit on every crate I'm hauling to a single outpost. One of these days I'll try sailing what I'm thinking of as the 'merchant lanes' -- running commodities to every outpost -- and then it would make sense to buy everything from everywhere. You'd just have to organize your crates so you're selling the right ones at the right outpost - which feels like a lot of house-keeping for a video game.
As for the risk, it's true that you have to be on your toes, especially when you're collecting the lost shipment. The safest way is to reef sail and drop anchor by the hulk, then immediately raise it so you can get going quickly. On one breath you can grab four crates, letting them float to the surface -- five or even six if you have fruit to eat -- then harpoon them onboard. When you're up to harpoon, check your horizon again. I've had some close calls, but only ever lost one shipment. Even leaving half the shipment behind you're making grade 5 and almost 100k in gold.
@WolfManbush It's all personal preference what risk you're comfortable courting -- even an undead sloop is a gamble in my opinion unless you've a shipmate onboard -- but commodities are completely worth the cost. They tend to run 120 gold per crate, so for about 10 you're paying out 1,200 gold, but collecting more than 1k gold per crate where they're sought after. At grade 5, you're collecting something like 2k gold per crate. 1:20 return is worth risking the random encounters -- especially if you consider a skeletal sloop an easy takedown.
@garbhchu said in What's the most profitable voyage for a solo sloop?:
@WolfManbush It's all personal preference what risk you're comfortable courting -- even an undead sloop is a gamble in my opinion unless you've a shipmate onboard -- but commodities are completely worth the cost. They tend to run 120 gold per crate, so for about 10 you're paying out 1,200 gold, but collecting more than 1k gold per crate where they're sought after. At grade 5, you're collecting something like 2k gold per crate. 1:20 return is worth risking the random encounters -- especially if you consider a skeletal sloop an easy takedown.
A solo in a situation of hopping outpost to outpost increases risk of hostile encounter/ inefficient interaction dramatically
Freedom of outpost and lack of area requirement are crucial for solo efficiency
The thread is based on gold earning efficiency so it's all about consistency and consistency as a solo is going to be bringing down encounters with players and keeping the freedom to adapt on the fly based on the randomness of the server.
Fights as a solo are not efficient, high chance of people returning, high chance of drawn out fight, higher chance of sinking, low chance of the opponents have treasure.
Thank you for the ideas guys.
I find skelly sloops easy if I manage to put enough holes into them on the initial attack. If they manage to stay afloat and start maneuvering, it gets a bit risky as I end up chasing them and positioning my ship constantly like a rabid dog with tunnel vision, thankfully did not get caught with my pants down recently.
P.S. Is there a limit of how many commodity crates of one kind you can collect from a single outpost? I'm assuming there is, otherwise alliance servers would produce billionaires daily ^^
@zig-zag-ltu said in What's the most profitable voyage for a solo sloop?:
Thank you for the ideas guys.
I find skelly sloops easy if I manage to put enough holes into them on the initial attack. If they manage to stay afloat and start maneuvering, it gets a bit risky as I end up chasing them and positioning my ship constantly like a rabid dog with tunnel vision, thankfully did not get caught with my pants down recently.
this is good, skelly sloops are a gold mine for efficient treasure and a great source of a storage crate and return supplies
I slow down with skelly sloops, I don't want to be moving fast I want a nice consistent transaction of open sea combat. Much easier to control the situation and to adapt as needed, it also brings down the random chaotic nature of their movements which are unpredictable at higher speeds.
on the random spawns/pre-spawned I always go with the keg check. middle, bottom front, then the back with cannonballs
kegs in skelly ships aren't as common as the past but they still have them.
Is there a limit of how many commodity crates of one kind you can collect from a single outpost? I'm assuming there is, otherwise alliance servers would produce billionaires daily ^^
That's right. You can buy what the merchants have in stock: 10 or so crates of surplus and one or two of all others.
Don’t forget to do all your selling during Gold Rush if you can fit it into your schedule. 1.5x multiplier for an hour twice a day every day (except Community Day).
Oops, see @wolfmanbush already mentioned Gold Rush. Ah well…
You are lucky, I think I only got it once in the past month. And I literally do every single one X marks the spot from the skelly captains, I sometimes ignore the riddle ones as I dont wanna spend 10minutes looking for captains chest with a full booty of grade 4 athenas, unless im really close to 5 and that quest might push it
@burnbacon said in What's the most profitable voyage for a solo sloop?:
No voyage. Jump from fortress to fortress and if you have time shrines.
Quick and profitable for solo
I think it's still better to put one on for the 'miles sailed for X faction' commendation. That is if you don't have 4k hours and have this unlocked years ago ^^
@zig-zag-ltu Not the skelly Captain’s Orders, the Captain’s Stash voyage you buy for 5k. I do all the Captain’s Orders too even though they usually disappoint.
I would say as a solo, anything is just as good as with a crew for money, but as for safety, as long as its not a world event that calls everyone to you, then your about as safe as you can get, beyond that, so an ashen vault wont be any safer for a solo than a duo.
Personally when im solo, which is a lot of the time, i go for just regular map quests, or order of souls stuff, but merchant manifest quests are really good money if you dont get bored of them.
@garbhchu
I do that exact thing when I need gold. I’ll also do DR cargo, the drop offs are fairly close and you get like 1400 per crate before bonuses. Easy money.
@da-german420 said in What's the most profitable voyage for a solo sloop?:
risky but i would say raise a reaper flag do seaforts n legend of the veil voyages
It's far more efficient to a stick to non-reaper faction and focus on specific loot than it is to take on what is required to make reapers efficient.
For reapers to be efficient the crew not only needs to be skilled in pvp but they also need to enjoy the environment of pvp, pvp that brings skill to the fight but very little treasure.
The crew needs to be efficient at world events.
For solo this is rarely the most efficient route, especially when it comes to things like sea forts and veils
Long term the goal is always consistency, there is not consistency within reapers in the current organic environment. Higher risk and the reward can be achieved in other ways, more consistent ways.
People often get caught up in the bigger numbers or the linear and common path rather than customizing a consistent path for themselves.
Over time less sinks and less time consuming interactions that don't yield efficient loot will be more gained.
It's what gets people caught up in things like thinking it's a good idea to stack fotd's or hard anchoring at a world event with no emissary.
This is where @WolfManbush and I agree, @sebmarely: robbery has the potential to go against you, so it's pretty inefficient with more than a fair chance of little-to-no payoff. It's fun and kinda the point of the game, but I certainly don't count on it for sheer profitability. As for vaults, I've been pretty disappointed with the payout from them considering the time they take. They're seriously cool, but in a solo situation they're pretty much the last voyage I'd pick.
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