does anyone have any opinion on which is a better idea?
[spoiler alert]
turns out the blind bruiser doesn’t kill you OR take his money back if you don’t bring him his package so i’m finding myself newly wealthy…
In my opinion you should get an Elegant Townhouse, then upgrade ship parts, that done next is the ship.
The Blind Bruiser doesn’t ALWAYS get mad if you return to London without the souls. But when he does…well I hope you made a Will or have the 1000 Echoes.
The ship you start with is a terrific little steam chugger in all categories but Hull. I’d personally recommend getting upgrades for it, more powerful weaponry first, better engine etc to make fighting scurvy pirates and zee beasts when you can and fleeing when you can’t. Whats more, you can transfer these upgrades between ships.
Perhaps once you’ve scrounged up enough to purchase the Frigate or the Merchant-Liner.
I think upgrading the ship is probably the last thing you should work on, after ship parts and grinding Mutton Island and townhouse.
I still haven’t upgraded my ship yet. The increase in hull would be nice, but as far as I can tell almost all the other options also come with a drop in something else (speed, veils, turning ability, etc) I could be wrong since I haven’t actually been able to try any of the other ships yet, I’m just basing this on the stats in the shipyard. (Still trying to figure out why anyone would “upgrade” to the angry vole ship, I forget what it’s actually called. Has anyone tried it? Is the speed boost really good enough to justify dropping crew and hold space?)
If you upgrade, try to go for a good hold. You could increase your profit by a magnitude, along with the added benefit of not being forced to save hold space for fuel.
I personally spent my ‘2 first lives’ just running amock scouting, thus managing to find what I felt was a good trading ground.
Third captain decided to do a single Everbight run and then deal in wine, getting lucky with little sparkly things in the beach sand no less than 6 times… I decided to try my luck with a freighter upgrade first of all.
It can feel a bit underwhelming, but the freighter with even the basic gun and a 15 man crew can do Everbight runs for the usual 45 echoes from colonists and a decently impressive 120 echo profit from wine. If you add another 2-3 crew, you’ll be able to snatch home a prize pirate during the run as well without any problems.
You might wonder why I did not use the freighter to go down and trade the more profitable wine… well, the counter on ‘Zee changes you’ caught up to me just in time for the upgrade.
I’m rather curious about a kinda relevant thing… Do you get to keep the ship when the captain dies?