Sailing by COMPASS
 

This guide is meant as a supplement to the utterly fantastic Ship and Sailing Guide. Specifically, it is about the COMPASS.


In every way, the compass is the most important part of the game, Pirates of the Caribbean Online. A casual observation of game play, will result in the obvious conclusion that version zero, was the compass only. The 3-D stuff was all added later, yet the game servers still "see" or "know" only about the compass view (with only nominal numeric characteristics of each "dot" on the compass.)

Many areas of the game are affected by "lag" or slowness, but rarely are updates to the compass similarly affected...even then, only when a great deal of cheating is going on. What you see in the compass, is what the game server sees. What you see rendered in 3-D is usually an after-the-fact animation of an event or action.

But this guide is a quick and easy overview, of SAILING only, using the compass only. Some people will still prefer to use the right mouse button to confound their view of enemy targets, but hopefully they will also gain some insight, from this.



Importance

Tia Dalma gave you the compass when you were level 1, instantly making your notoriety jump to level 2. Despite the "casting of claws" and prophesies about "destiny" the compass still is downplayed. But Tia doesn't tell you just how essential it is to good sailing in POTCO.

You are told that townspeople are green, enemies are red and allies are blue. You are told that rectangles are magical portals and maybe that yellow dots are probable quest objectives. The insipid yellow arrow leads your way on the ground and on the compass at first, thankfully going away after the first few quest items are done.

But all the drama around the prelude, barely touches on the importance of the compass. In normal sailing, it is best to use only what is reported by the compass. The visual rendering of a phantom's bearing and direction are flawed, but the compass view is never in error in that regard.

The compass appears in the top 130x140 pixels of your screen. One crucial aspect that Tia does not teach you about, it the bottom left corner of the compass. There are two circles, "-" and "+" that when clicked, zoom the compass in or out. Pressing "-" or "_" on the keyboard, or "-" on the numeric keypad will also zoom out. Pressing "=" or "+" on the keyboard or "+" on the numeric keypad will also zoom in.

Also note that the area of POTCO you are in, or the island you are on, or the building you are inside, appears at the bottom of the compass.

Another thing Tia doesn't tell you, is that when your chat window goes nuts, you can type "C" to make the compass come back. You can also click on your sea chest to bring it back.



Journal


When you are on a quest for a specific ship, the JOURNAL is your worst enemy. With tracking on, the enemy ship will display as a single yellow dot, making it essentially impossible to battle that enemy ship by compass. Type J to open journal, then click TRACK to turn it off. Now instead of one useless yellow dot, you have two red dots, the front one being a little bit triangular.



Aiming Broadsides


When sailing, if you picture this imaginary red line across the middle of your compass, you fire your broadsides when enemy red dots touch that line. The second image with the yellow lines, shows my approximation of what the "spray" angular range is, for most ship's broadsides. The third picture shows a ship I sunk with broadsides, right before firing (at the very top of the angular range of the light galleon I was driving at the time.)

Note that sloops aim their broadsides about 5 degrees "forward", galleons about 5 degrees "aft." The larger ship classes have slightly (negligible) more angular range, but the basic theory remains the same. Shoot broadsides when enemy dots are on the imaginary line.




Gunners

I recieve many compliments on my driving in ship vs. ship (SvS.) This is because I gear my driving towards giving my gunners a clean shot. It makes everything more fun, for everyone on board. When driving a frigate (of any class,) I essentially ignore the negligible front guns, most of the time. Less than 1/3rd of the guns on a frigate face forward - that means 2/3rds of the crew on board get very bored very quickly if you over-emphasize the front guns. The front guns themselves have absolutely pathetic angular range. So, keeping battles to the sides of the ship, more gunners get to shoot at targets, therefore more people have fun. The side guns on a frigate have comparable angular range to sloops and galleons.


Pictured here, is my approximation of the range my gunners have (no matter what boat class or size.) The little triangle thingy in the orange circle, is what I use, to line up on. If ahead of that triangle, most gunners will not be able to hit it (so turn, fool!) Again, this is true for sloops, galleons and frigates.

Note that gunners have no real range limitations. Round shot can hit targets 1.5 to 2 compass widths away from your ship's blue dots. Thunderbolt can hit enemies that are fully three compass widths away, since the ammo itself does aiming correction (voodoo lightning magic?) Chain shot, grapple hooks and explosive can reach enemies up to 1/2 a compass width away. Grape shot and grenades can reach enemies 1/4 a compass width away from you.



Broadsides Distance


The first two miss, the third one hits. Light class ships have less broadside range than regular class; regular class has less range than war class. But the difference is negligible, most of the time. If the enemy red dots are touching the edge, they are out of range. If they have one imaginary red dot of space between the edge, then you can hit.

Distance estimates are very important in regular plunder sailing. Most of the time, you do not want to come near the enemy ship. The closer to the edge of the compass you keep them, the more they have to chase you, therefore the less you get hit (if at all.) When you give your gunners a clean shot, they will "call" the enemy ships straight to you, so you can get your broadsides in. But keeping your crew happy, means you sink many more ships and get much more gold (especially with the captain's bonus.) With a happy crew, they will keep coming back to your ship (getting you to maximum gold faster than you can image.)



Mouse

If you need to pan the camera view with the right-mouse button, press the up arrow (or "W" if using WASD) to re-orient the compass. In sailing, that starts you forward again, so you may need to keyboard-mash the down arrow to stop. Remember to spin the mouse wheel out when you first take the wheel to see a larger area. Remember to spin the mouse wheel in, when getting lag-bombed in SvS (usually doesn't help, but 2 times out of 10, does.)

Note carefully, that when you pan the camera view, you completely botch the compass along with it. You no longer can use the four triangles to estimate if your gunners can still hit, until you reset the view properly by pressing the up arrow key.


Bad Driving

Ever go out to level up your cannons, by boarding a public ship? Too often, you will find the captain is a "jouster" who drives his ship straight at an enemy, then does a drive-by broadsides shot. Why they open their ship to public, is a mystery...they obviously don't want company, or are afraid their cannoneers will steal rep. Maybe, they aren't trying to be mean and are clueless, but the end result is the same - get off their boat as fast as you can.


Fun

While it could maybe be better, sailing is still the best part of POTCO. Enjoy it. The more, the merrier. The new PUBLIC boarding helps, but a million times better, is CREW MATCHING. When you crew up with randoms, you tend to get more people your level, fewer people who are clueless or malicious. So, open your friends list by typing "F", then set it to CREW, then in crew options click RECRUIT. Keep the enemy ships close to the edge of your compass and watch them sink, one after the other. Then pass the rum around and have a good time, with lots of gold and lots of reputation points for everyone.

Nice Edward. I've always sailed by compass only.

Nice guide!
Thanks Edward !!

I admit that I do mouse look all of the time when sailing but doing so doesn't ruin (at least not for me) using the compass to aim at targets. You just need to re-orient your brain and spin the imaginary lines around. Using the dots in the corners of the compass (look like mounting points e.g. bolts?) does help find the edges of where you can be assured firing range, but it's possible to find the same angles based on how your ship's icon is oriented. The theory should stay the same, it's just that the ships (including yours) spin with it. I never really seem to have a problem using the compass to aim or orient the ship for gunners.

I do agree, though, that only using what you see in 3D isn't a smart way to sail. The compass acts as a radar and when navigating in any game that offers one, it's essential to proper strategy and knowing/predicting your enemies' whereabouts and intentions.

Edward - this is a superb guide to compass sailing! Although I, too, have always sailed by compass I'd never really gotten a handle on the full spray effect of the broadsides, so I'll remember your yellow "x" whenever I play now.

Thank you!

:sailr:

Wow! Thank you for all the positive feedback. Wasn't quite sure how it would be received. <<<sighs with relief>>>

The one point I'd like to add, is that when you pan the camera, your brain now how to work overtime to estimate those angles - you no longer get the "bolts" as gunner reference points - you have to estimate instead. Sven, I've seen you drive very expertly, so I know that you have figured out some way of doing just that - but my feeble little brain needs every crutch it can get...like having the bolts as exact measurements for my gunner's aim.

The "radar" concept is also very important. For that reason, when being chased in SvS, I will often pan the camera around to see who is following. That way, I can see behind me, up to twice as far as what the compass reports. But if I forget to reset my view, I invariably run into an obstruction, such as Devil's Anvil, Isla Tormenta or Isla Perdida. So I've found it to me more important, to reset the view very frequently.

I myself use the mouse to look around my ship to see whats around me (red dots just dont quite cut it). However, when in battle, I definately use the compass to track my opponents, and to time my approaches, positioning, and broadsides accordingly.

Good guide Edward. Thanks.

Great job Edward...although I don't like the camera thingey meself...You have given me some pointers that this pirate could definitely use in the future. Since I usually sail by meself, it helps to know about the "X" for cannoners. And the journall tracking will be useful for me second pirate. Thanks again!

Maybe I was a little harsh on the TRACKING thing in JOURNAL. When you are a brand new pirate, the tracking can help, sometimes. But for most sea battles, it is more of a hindrance, if not an outright liability.

Thanks for the kind words all. Next up, my "Cannon Aiming Tutorial" but that won't be something I can knock off in just a day. Might take a couple weeks, actually, since aiming in SvS is so different and so much harder than aiming at NPCs. (Maybe I'll get lucky and someone will beat me to it.)

Thanks again to Ironhawk for inspiring this, from his Ship and Sailing Guide & Reputation Chart.

Good guide.
I don't use the compass for sailing to other islands but I use it when attacking enemy ships. It always comes in handy when there are two enemy ships attacking me.

I use the compass when I to see how I line up only: while I didn't really explain it to myself, I'd use it to make sure I'm either in line directly behind, directly in front of (both the prior for a Frigate and the front cannons) or directly perpendicular to a ship (each ship being a line that splits down the middle, the perpendicular forming an imaginary cross).

I think that the broadsides to some extent aim at ships: that is, to any certain reasonable range and angle, they'll head at that ship.

Good guide though, especially for those who have a slow 3D scape.

I chose the images in the AIMING BROADSIDES section very carefully, to demonstrate exactly that. I shot the masts off a navy greyhound then moved my ship around to demonstrate different aspects. The third picture in AIMING BROADSIDES was right before I accidentally sunk that greyhound when I pressed "1." (I had meant to turn my ship around and capture the mirror image first.) Since POTCO itself crashed at that point, I couldn't log back in to get more images (last night's "BAD ID OR PASSWORD" thing.)

I might revisit this later, to show more clearly, the difference in angles for galleons (swept aft,) sloops (swept forward,) and frigates. But all three will hit targets exactly on the imaginary line, so maybe it isn't worth the effort.

That guide is awesome, Edward :) Great job :)

Since we are on the subject of the Compass wasn't one of the past Disney updates supposed to correct the problem of the compass continually have to be reset every time your at sea?

I for one like my compass on the very lowest (closest setting) however I have to monkey with it every time while at sea now in order to get it just right and for the longest time it was always perfect?

Am I the only one to notice this?

As for using it in SVS I use the compass to locate potential enemy but not for aiming unless I am concentrating on one ship while still wanting to optimize my broadsides on any passer by enemy ships.

Since I use a track ball for gaming and not a mouse panning around to get a look at my surroundings is second nature and is so fast with a trackball it has zero negative results.

AFAIK, the bug they fixed was the compass ZOOM (i.e. after boarding a flagship and defeating the enemies there.)

EDIT: Actually, now that you mention it, one annoying thing when on a flagship, is that the zoom is wrong; it is all the way out instead of all the way in. When the officers on the colossus glitch under the back deck, the only easy way to find them is to zoom the compass all the way in (as it should be, when on the flagship.)

I use compass zoom a great deal in the boss battle; not to aim at targets (since broadsides have very little effect on most bridges) but to check crew readiness/positioning. When it is time for Goliath, compass has to be zoomed all the way out, to see if I went far enough out before turning left.

In SvS, when first boarding any ship, immediately zoom compass in all the way, then out all the way, or else nearby enemies will appear blue instead of red. (I type "===---" first thing, every time, to work-around that glitch.)

Note that in SvS as a gunner, when being lag-bombed, you often have to aim your cannon by compass only (a tricky feat, that!)

Again, panning the camera view when driving, means that your compass is not oriented towards the front of the boat, so you cannot benefit from the "bolts" as reference points (but you can guess-timate with practice.) Guessing, seems like the much harder way to do it, to me.

Does the new tutorial cover the compass zoom features any better?

(===---) ??? what is that?

what I always to when boarding ship is to click on the compass +++--- in order to reset it.

but disney at one time fixed it so wherever you had it before it would stay there.

That isn't the case any more and is just as annoying as when you had to immediately set your boarding rights when launching a ship to not include public...

plain and simple it should stay wherever you left it and is really annoying to have to reset it in svs.

The key to the left of BACKSPACE on my keyboard is "=" but pressing shift at the same time produces "+" instead. I don't hunt for the shift key, because I don't have to. If I use the "+" on the numeric keypad, that works, too. (But I very rarely do that.)

When they had auto-compass adjustment off, it was awful. Every time I was on land, it was set to sea-view; every time I launched, it was still stuck on close-up/land view. Absolutely horrible - if they bring that back, they need to do so with something in F7/Options that says NO WAY, or "save sea zoom only." Frankly, I'd be happy if they just fixed the minor problem it currently has, with flagships not zooming in when you board, (then zooming back out when the enemies are defeated.)

With the minor exception of the Black Pearl, there is no need to ever use the medium compass setting (debatable even in the BB.) I'd like the zoom to be reset all the way out, whenever I'm on a ship, zoomed in all the way whenever on land or on a flagship.


So anyway,

Anybody on test, does the compass still needs to be reset in SvS whenever you launch? (I.e. an enemy ship next to you, appearing on compass as BLUE until you reset it with ===---.)

oh.. i prefer mine zoomed all the way in regardless of on land or on sea or wherever.

and yes permanent settings for lots of things should be in the F7 menu as well as
more detailed graphics options.

as always edward..stellar work!

Wow...nice help!

Just went on to check this out.
Yes, the compass still resets when you sink in SvS.

Pictured here, the minus and plus signs are circled in red with yellow arrows. Clicking the plus sign will zoom the compass in, clicking the minus sign will zoom the compass out. When the compass is zoomed in, you can see only nearby items. When compass is zoomed out, you can see only larger enemies (such as ships.)


When the compas is zoomed all the way in, as in the example above in Tormenta cave, you can see individual enemies as red dots. All land-based gameplay defaults to this compass zoom setting. Zooming out to the middle setting on land is rarely useful; zooming out to the maximum setting does not ever seem useful, on land.

At sea, the compass is correctly zoomed all the way out, so that you can see ships on the compass. This is true, even after boarding a flagship (if you zoomed the compass in, while on board the flagship.)

Boss Battle

The rest of my compass zoom observations, are relevant only to the boss battle. There are very few situations where the game requires you to understand (and change) the compass zoom.

After the officers are defeated on the Black Pearl, you are instructed to take the wheel. Your compass is zoomed to the middle setting at this point. Generally, this is useless; you need to know where your crew is and that they are ready, before heading out to the frigates. Zoom the compass in all the way.


Seen here is a pretty typical situation: pirates milling about like ants on the compass, unsure where they should be. Higher-level pirates (boss battle vets) are on port side cannons, waiting for the lower-level pirates to find a cannon (any cannon!) The captain wisely waited for them to all get on cannons before proceeding. (Before the autumn of 2008, cannon ammo could charge all the way up, making that pause even more crucial.)


When I drive, I ask all pirates to get to the port side (left) of the Black Pearl, before engaging the frigates, for several reasons. #1) The left-forward frigate is the hardest to hit and hardest to sink of the four. #2) If the right-side frigates are sunk first, everyone will run to the left side...meaning that when the 4th frigate finally is sunk, everyone will be on the wrong side. When the last frigate is down, everyone but the captain should be on a right side cannon, to shoot at the first fort. #3) As of late-fall 2008, it takes 9 to 10 seconds to switch cannons. At that stage of the boss battle, 10 seconds can be fatal (with a large crew.)

If I am just a gunner and the captain asks everyone to get on the right side, before the frigates, I'll usually log out/close the game. Such a request is a sure sign that the crew will all go to jail; logging out before the Black Pearl sinks will prevent my pirate from getting "groggy." (The other indicator that the boss battle is doomed, is when a low level pirate grabs the wheel and barges forward before anyone is ready.)


After the frigates, I will zoom to the middle setting, back in to check crew position, back to middle, back in to check crew again, back to middle. If you are using broadsides to hit the middle bridge of the first three (you should) then having compass on middle setting helps you aim. The two pictures above show the position of the Black Pearl, relative to some of the middle forts. Note that I back up, for both middle pairs, so that only the left fort (of each pair) can hit the Black Pearl.


When all the bridges are destroyed, I'll zoom the compass back out, all the way, for the sea battle with Goliath.


Ooops. I mean, I'll zoom all the way IN first, to make sure the crew has moved from the starboard side cannons over to port side cannons and are all ready to go. Then I'll zoom back out.


Before December 2008, you used to be able to see Goliath on compass, before passing the last forts. In the picture above, the two red dots on the left-edge of the compass represent Goliath. Once you pass the last forts, the third cut-scene starts and Goliath appears next to you (approximately where it appears in this picture.)

Note that if the captain turns left, (even a tiny hair to the left) you should logout quickly. There is a law against turning left: captains that turn left, go to jail. The battle with Goliath is a measure of cannon range: the sooner you get out of range, the less damage you will take. If you go straight or even to the right a little, you can use full sail/ramming speed to avoid taking even a single hit from Goliath. Once you have enough distance for Goliath's red dots to drop off the compass, you can stop and turn...your gunners have much better range than Goliath's explosive-firing front cannons. (Stopping and turning too soon can be just as bad as turning left.)

Note that it is possible to survive, if you turn left, sometimes. But that depends on: #1) having a very large and very strong crew, #2) having 40% or more hull remaining after the bridges & forts. When you turn left, you guarantee that Goliath will hit the Black Pearl at least once, with double explosive. So, 100% of the time, it is foolish to turn left when Goliath is still on-compass.

Thank, but that wasn't quite my question. If I launch French and there is a Spanish boat right next to me, it appears BLUE instead of RED on live (currently.) Using ===--- will turn it RED. Does that still happen on test?

Again, I ask: do the new tutorials on the test servers, explain the compass any better than the old one? Or is it the same Tia Dalma "destiny" thing?

I haven't made a new pirate on test but I have a pretty strong feeling that she doesn't explain it any better.

P.S. That boss battle pause is something I try hard not to do. If I pause to wait for everyone to get on a cannon I end up getting damage from the forts.

The pause is before the frigates, not after. I've seen no difference in damage from the forts from going slow (but I've seen over a hundred lost because people rush...especially at that point.)

The other major reason to pause, is that most people (rightly) find it very rude.

Whenever I've soloed the BB, (22 times) I've stopped after the officers to get coffee, etc. After the frigates and the first three bridges were defeated, I'd normally be at around 92% hull remaining. So no, rushing gains you nothing (but an irate crew.) Checking the timestamps at http://photobucket.com/POTCO again, it looks like I waited three minutes before heading out that time...

I wait once the officers are finished off but I expect everyone to know where their cannon is once going up against the forts.
From what I've seen, if you wait three minutes after the frigates have been finished off then the forts will do quiet a lot of damage to you.

:) Indeed, as I said before, I mean before the frigates, after the officers. Guess my clarification was more confusing than the original statement!

Also, good pictures of the pearl. I use the method I see in your pictures. I'll usually stay close to the right so I'll only have one fort attacking me. I can then go up to the front of the pearl and finish off the other fort without taking any damage.

I think the hardest part is having to go past the first set of forts before you can do damage to the next.

Thank you. Yes, there are as many different methods for doing it, as there are captains. I just tried to spell out what worked for me. The only time I have trouble with the frigates & first three forts, is when there are more than 8 people in the crew.

I'm going back to the difficulty sysytem. This reminds me of The Dogfather's guide on toontowncentral. He's figured out a difficulty system for some of the bosses.

I wonder if there's any difficulty system for the boss battle. If so it would be hard to measure.

From what I noticed once again on Angel Daggerfury's "BB Island" thread, fort #1 in the diagram above, does the most damage of the three, but only if the Black Pearl moves into position. So shooting fort #1 first, THEN moving the Black Pearl over for #2 then #3 seems to result in a little less damage. But again, with smaller crews, the frigates and the first three bridges don't do any more than nominal damage. (Again, time for coffee is after the officers, before the frigates! :-)

Been using your compass method sailing by meself, Ed and it almost never fails...thanks for the post.

As of 1/30/2009, the direction of the compass is fixed toward the direction the boat is facing.

While this change does correct the "compass spinning" from panning the camera, it takes an enormous amount of "getting used to" especially if you were adept at using the old behavior. Compass is now broken for gunners; no longer a 1st person perspective, it uses the ship's bearing only...again, takes an enormous amount of "getting used to," but lost now, is the ability to aim cannon from compass during an SvS lag-bombing.

I was wondering what was up with that. It has been driving me crazy! Thanks for the 411.

:piratear:

I may be the only one but I'm finding it easier to keep my bearings both sailing-wise and cannoning, especially when transitioning between the two if I'm solo.

And I'm the opposite - I'm totally lost! LOL :D Now I can't tell which way inbound ships are coming when 'fish tailing' from other ships - I look to see where the ship should be - and there's none there - its behind me :)

I hate it as well. I use a track ball and watch what everything is doing, and when they fire. Now I track half the time in the wrong directions etc.

I sent in reports that compass is broke the entire test.

I don't think you're the only one that likes the new compass aim, but I find it terribly hard to get used to. Maybe that was because I was so accustomed to using it the old way...especially when switching from the helm to a cannon.

I wish they had a "user preferences" thing in the OPTIONS page to control which behavior the compass uses, when at helm and when at cannon.

Dang. I would have appreciated knowing that much of this would need to be redone. Oh well.

I'm thinking like a 'lock' button in the corner of the compass where you could 'lock' it from rotating, but then 'unlock' it for those times it comes in handy :)

i absolutely hate the new compass. i prefer the old way when it would spin with mouse look. i sail a lot and i still cant get used to it. it would be nice for disney to give us an option of how we want the compass to react.

Confirmed someone else's observation today: when on cannon, compass is not always "fixed" in the direction the ship is heading. Sometimes it is off by 30 degrees, other times by 180. I SUSPECT it has to do with the captain's directional attitude toward the ship's helm, that skews it off so horribly. If anyone else tests this and has more insight...enlighten us all, please!

Great stuff everyone! Thanks for the tips!

Not sure I understand what you mean.

The compass is part of the individual pirate (not the boat or the cannon). Should point in relation to the individual pirates position. Top of the compass is always directly in front of the pirate, the bottom behind them. If im up on front cannon of a frigate it would probably be 30 degrees off the captains compass, as im technically pointing that much to either side of straight ahead. On side cannon, 180 degrees off the captains compass. I never really noticed the "N" for north on it before.. so maybe that part is off?

Basically the captain may see an enemy ship dead ahead on his compass, but a pirate on a side cannon would see the enemy ship to the side on his, as thats where its approaching from, from that pirates perspective. This is at least how I understand to have worked.

With the February 2009 changes to compass, when you are at a cannon it is broken: it is no longer relative to the 1st person view of your pirate, INSTEAD is relative to the direction of the ship...but when you get off the cannon, it returns (sometimes) to your first person view.

It is FURTHER broken, in that it isn't actually relative to the ship perfectly; instead, depending on which cannon you get on, it is rotated 30 or 180 degrees from what the ship's orientation would dictate. Moving your cannon does not affect the compass (as it should) anymore.

You don't have to leave port to test it out...just launch your ship then grab a cannon to look around.

Dont need to test, I believe ya.

I just didnt understand what you meant from your first description, thank you.

Usually being the sailor I had not noticed.

Excellent thread Edward!:pirate2do0:
The compass serves not only as a navigation instrument but as a radar screen for ranging targets to be attacked.

I have always sailed by compass...

Outstanding guide! Sure has helped me in battle! Thanks Edward!