Welcome back to our Old School RuneScape Sailing Skill Guide series. We’ll delve into the core gameplay loop and the exciting activities sailing offers. But before we begin, if you missed Part 1, we recommend checking it out for a complete understanding of sailing mechanics. Now, let’s dive into the gameplay!
The Core Gameplay Loop:
The core of sailing revolves around interacting with various facilities on your ship. The most fundamental task is fastening your sail in response to the wind. While on the water, the wind will periodically change direction, causing your sail to luff. You can click to refasten the sail, like fishing spots depleting or trees being cut down. This action rewards you with a small chunk of sailing XP, and RS Gold, making your boat move faster until the next wind shift. Your boat will move even faster if you’re travelling into the wind. The wind shifts on a simple and predictable timer, allowing you to engage in other nautical activities between shifts. Alternatively, if you’re fully occupied, you can recruit an NPC crewmate to manage your speed.
Other Activities:
While managing the sail forms the core experience, sailing offers a variety of other activities that expand on the central theme. The Old School team categorizes these activities into primary, secondary, and tertiary.
Primary Activities:
Primary activities focus on training the sailing skill in isolation, similar to how catching fish from fishing spots is the core activity of the Fishing skill. Here are some primary activities in sailing:
Ship Racing: Engage in thrilling races through perilous ocean routes, dodging obstacles, and competing against others.
Port Tasks: Choose from various requests on a task board, including courier tasks, protection tasks, and investigative tasks.
Shipwreck Salvage: Discover and salvage lucrative shipwrecks to collect precious loot.
Charting: Explore new areas and document their details within a Captain’s Log, such as local islands, currents, weather conditions, and encounters.
Naval Combat: Engage in combat at sea, battling dangerous enemies, manning cannons, managing monsters, and manoeuvring your boat. (Details on naval combat will be covered separately.)
Secondary Activities:
Secondary activities involve blending sailing with other skills, similar to how Ariel and Barbarian fishing combines fishing with Hunter and Strength. Here are some examples of secondary activities in sailing:
Sea Monster Hunting: Engage in thrilling hunts for mythical sea creatures, combining sailing, Hunter, and Slayer skills.
Deep Sea Trawling: Combine sailing and fishing to take your ship and trawl for exotic catches in dangerous waters.
Mineral Dredging: Blend sailing and mining to drop a weighted net and drag precious minerals and ores from the seabed.
Coral Farming: Fuse sailing and farming to harvest from reefs, utilizing the harvested coral in crafting, fletching, and herblore.
Tertiary Activities:
Tertiary activities involve complex gameplay; sailing is just one part of a more extensive experience, combining multiple skills. While these activities may be further in the future, they showcase the potential for sailing expansion. Here are some examples of tertiary activities:
Ship PvP: Utilize naval combat skills to battle other players, sink their ships, and plunder their treasures in designated PvP zones.
Treasure Hunting: Embark on a globe-trotting adventure primarily on water, expanding the beloved clue-hunting experience.
Aquariums: Foster rare coral and fish in your aquarium, displaying your sailing achievements.
Ocean Raid: Team up with friends to face a series of terrifying new bosses on the high seas.
Expeditions: Explore new, instanced islands and seas in a dungeon crawl-style adventure.
Ship Customization:
As you level up in sailing, you’ll gain access to better and larger ships. Additionally, you can utilize skills like Construction and Crafting to upgrade and customize your vessels. Ship customization includes linear improvements such as upgrading ship materials, sails, and rudders. Facilities are similar to player-owned house hotspots can be built on your ship. These facilities fall into three categories: weapon, utility, and skilling. Larger ships can accommodate more facilities. Ship customization also offers cosmetic options to personalize your vessel.
Conclusion:
Sailing in Old School RuneScape provides a rich gameplay experience. You can engage in the core activities, such as managing your sail and exploring the open seas. Additionally, primary, secondary, and tertiary activities allow you to immerse yourself in the sailing theme further while combining the skill with other gameplay elements. Ship customization adds depth and personalization to your sailing adventures. Whether you focus on the core gameplay or explore the diverse range of activities, sailing offers a unique and exciting skill.
