Alone in the World: A guide for sailing Solo.

From the alpha to the Beta, I have always leaned to sailing solo, and braving the world. It seems to make me feel as I both have purpose, and that I am vulnerable at the same time. A lone wolf, if you can call it that. And I know many others out there are hoping to sail solo but either get bored, or get in sticky situations where another crew is attacking you or environmental situations. Now, I am not as good as others, but I have fought off many ships and braved many storms, which I came out on top. Now without any further adieu, I present you my guide on being Alone in the World.

1. Know your ship.
   The sloop, despite it being smaller and all parts being closer, it can be complicated sailing if you don't know how. If you don't know how to sail, the angling and setting ropes for the sail and yardarm are towards the stern. The capstan is behind the helm, you all know where the helm and cannon is. And all of the resource barrels.

2. Important Notes
   When you are sailing, take a few notes. 1, the waves tend to knock the ship off it's course if not directly facing them. So it's best to angle the helm to counter this when going for an island. 2, when setting the sail angle, what I do is to ignore the white lines and look at the flag, which is much better for telling wind direction. 3, when you come up onto an island, raise your sail most of the way, and when you are maybe 10 seconds away, raise it completely, and turn your ship's hull at an angle so it doesn't collide with the shore. And drop anchor if you want. 4, when you have chests, put them either in the cabin or below deck. takes more time to access them, which is good to get other crews before they reach it. 4, when carrying gunpowder kegs, place them either behind the capstan, or below deck away from the walls. (I got struck by lightning while standing by barrels once... I am shocked my ship was still there when I came back.) Basically, you either wanna have it to easily access and throw over, or you want it out of firing range.

3. Fighting or Fleeing.
   When it comes to fighting others, here are a few notes. 1, the barrels do massive damage and blow maybe 3-4 holes in their hull if it lands. 2, if you hit their cannons they won't be able to fire back. Aiming for the helm makes them not able to steer for a tiny bit. 3, hitting the lower part of the hull makes the ship leak. Aim for multiple parts of the lower hull for maximum holes and faster sinking. 4, the sloop has a tighter turn radius and more acceleration, while the galleon is faster in a straight line but slow turns and doesn't have much acceleration.
   Now for the fleeing, if you have more chests than you would like to give up, take these notes. 1, the sloop is faster going against the wind than if the galleon goes against the wind. 2, the sloop has a shallower draft, so you can sail between islands and rocks that the galleon can't. 3, If you go behind an island to hide, don't be predictable. Many would try going around the island or cut corners to fight you. If you know that they take short cuts, head the opposite direction while still behind the island. If they are going around, then circle the island a bit more then sail for another (And maybe hide.)

4. Bracing the Storm.
   We all know and fear the storms in this game, which is why I sailed through them a few times and came up with the safer way to deal with them. 1, face the waves. if your ship is sideways against the waves, it will blow holes in your ship bc the waves. 2, trying to keep a straight line is near impossible. even if you are fully turning, the winds/tide will turn the bow of the ship more into the storm. 3, beware of lightning. It will strike your ship/you. If your barrels are above deck, put them below deck and out of reach of the lightning. 4, lower anchor. If you are facing the waves or by an island, safest thing to do is the drop anchor and wait for the storm to pass. I think it takes maybe 5 minutes for the storm to pass by.

5. Quests and Missions. This one will be quick and simple because there's not really a challenge here. 1, digging chests is faster if you are sailing solo. 3-6 digs solo, and 8+ if you are in a crew. 2, there are more skeletons that spawn if you are in a crew. If you take the skeleton hunting missions, you fight around 3-5 skeletons each wave. If in a crew, 10 skeletons at least. (Nearly c*****d myself when that first happened.)

I hope this quick guide helps others, and have happy sailing. Umbasa.