Puzzle Pirates
A game we all love. It is a game without much change in the years that it has been around, but at the same time, it has had some major updates with added new aspects to the game. We will highlight and explain a few here.
Updates
Updates are posted here: Official:Releases - YPPedia (puzzlepirates.com)
Biggest changes of the past few years:
- Mercenaries
- Vampirates
- Hypers
Mercenaries
Mercenaries are NPCs that act like improved swabbies. They were introduced in the Release_2023-03-28.
There are many advantages to hiring mercenaries over regular swabbies:
- They perform better at duty puzzles than regular swabbies.
- They can perform some actions that regular swabbies cannot, such as DNav and defending in SMH.
- In addition to performing better in SF/Rumble they will team with the rest of the crew.
- They can be hired in higher numbers and don't always leave when jobbing pirates board the vessel
- They provide influence in blockades.
- Mercenaries should replace players that leave as long as there is more capacity on the ship for an extra mercenary -- then they will replace them at a 3:1 ratio.
Mercenaries have additional costs associated with them:
- They still consume rum/grog/swill like any other pirate, but in addition, they also consume a new commodity called rum spice.
- The amount of rum spice in the hold determines the total number of mercenaries you can hire (5 rum spice /per -- so if you have 54 in the hold, you can hire up to 10).
- They also take a percentage of chests earned, which is currently equal to the percentage of mercenaries. Players will get to keep the first of each chest, but won't get their next chest until the mercenaries take their cut (which could be a while on large/empty boats and when getting chests one at a time, like in TH).
- They take a regular pirate booty split in blockades and count towards influence. They refuse to work for crews that are not paid enough.
- They take a percentage of booty pillaged or awarded in a flotilla; this will not be based on the crew shares and will instead be a flat cut. They also contribute a flat rate to the restocking cut.
Mercenaries in Blockades
Mercenaries get paid like regular jobbers and provide influence as well. There is a minimum payment mercenaries need to job in blockades -- this is displayed on the notice board blockade page. The minimum is set per island and is based off the island's size. The voyage configuration of the vessel must be in blockade mode for them to enter.
Mercenaries in Sea Monster Hunts
Mercenaries can be very useful in SMH since they volunteer to defend. However, they do not treasure haul or forage. They also take a percentage of the poe and chests brought aboard.
Vampirate Expedition
Vampirate expeditions are a two-part expedition involving a sea battle with a vampirate ship, and a visit to the Vampirate Sanctum, often referred to as the Vampire Lair. The expedition can be started with a Vampire Reliquary won from vampirate frays or obtained from black boxes, or won from brigands and barbarians while pillaging during a new moon.
Cono's Vampirate Lair Guide for Puzzle Pirates is a more comprehensive resource.
Vampire Reliquary
A Vampire reliquary is a compass that is placed in one's inventory. Vampirate reliquaries are won by a random player when a player team beats a vampirate fray. This replaces the sea monster map that is normally rewarded from monster frays. They can also be won from black boxes.
Vampirate reliquaries degrade in three days from the time that they are obtained.
Fighting Vampirate Boats
Placing a Vampire reliquary on a vessel's charting table will trigger an expedition for the vampirate boat. If the battle is won or lost, the reliquary will disappear; if the player ship disengages, the reliquary will be lost as well.
Defeating the vampirate vessel awards access to the Vampirate Sanctum. As of Release 2023-10-20, this can take anywhere from one and three consecutive wins, with successive vampirate vessel expeditions generated after winning a battle until the Vampirate Sanctum is reached. Before the change, players would have to win three consecutive vampirate ship battles.
The Vampirate Sanctum
The Vampirate Sanctum expedition will be located at a nearby league point from where the vampirate vessel expedition was won. It is indicated by an X on Yer Known World and league tracker - red if the expedition is active, and grey if inactive. Upon reaching the league point, any officer in the crew owning the ship can order the pirates aboard into the sanctum by pressing the "Enter the shadows" button located on the Ahoy! tab. When the pirates enter, the following message is displayed on the screen:
Welcome to the vampire sanctum.
After a short wait, a wave of vampirates arrives to attack the crew in a swordfight. The number of vampirates in the first fray will be equal to the number of pirates on board the ship, with a minimum of four vampirates. When the first fray is done, pirates can choose to board up the vampirate coffins in Carpentry or rob the vampirates of their riches in Treasure Haul. Towards the end of the carpentry or treasure haul session, the following message is displayed on the screen:
Ye hear the sound of rustling in coffins.
A duty report for the carpentry and treasure haul session is posted, and the next fray (or getting back onto the boat) begins shortly after. More vampirates will awake for the second, larger fray - fray sizes increase by approximately 20% each time. This pattern continues, with pirates choosing to carpent or haul after winning each fray.
Carpenting
The carpentry puzzle in the Vampirate Sanctum allows you to deal damage to vampirates by boarding up their coffins. Unlike regular carpentry, the holes to be filled will are smaller, requiring only five pieces to complete. Sequential masterpieces or grain alignment does not provide any additional bonuses.
Scoring
At the end of the carpentry session, a duty report is generated which shows the performance of all pirates to the whole ship, displaying the icons of the holes each person has filled, and the total holes filled during that session at the top.
| Name | Icon | Description | Effect | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vampirate Proof! |  |
No extra pieces used | Deals 2 lines of damage | +2 |
| Creaky Coffin |  |
One extra piece used | Deals 1 line of damage | +1 |
| Slipshod |  |
Two extra pieces used | Negates 1 line of damage dealt | -1 |
The rankings and points required, from highest to lowest, are:
- Frenetic — 15 points and up
- Swift — 12 to 14 points
- Brisk — 9 to 11 points
- Steady — 6 to 8 points
- Lethargic — 3 to 5 points
- Asleep — 0 to 2 points
Treasure Haul
In the treasure haul puzzle, treasure chests will sporadically appear, with up to two chests on the board at the same time. Chests need to reach the top line of the screen by clearing coins above them to be added to the booty.
Scoring
At the end of the treasure haul session, a duty report is generated which shows the performance of all pirates to the whole ship, displaying the icons of what chests each person hauled, and the total haul during that session at the top. Unlike the scoring system for foraging in a Cursed Isles, all chests in the Vampirate Sanctum are worth the same amount of points.
The rankings and chests required — from highest to lowest, are:
- Frenetic — 8 chests and up
- Swift — 6 to 8 chests
- Brisk — 5 to 6 chests
- Steady — 3 to 5 chests
- Lethargic — 2 to 3 chests
- Asleep — 0 to 1 chests
Hyperspawn
Hyperspawns are a player-assigned name for an alternative way to play Atlantis and the Haunted Seas, it is not an official gamemode. A Hyperspawn involves bringing in multiple player-controlled ships to increase the maximum size of the enemy spawn. The extra ships generally, but not always, are used to help sink the spawn and defend the main ship that hauls the treasure. Extra ships, often called "supports", only have 1 b-nav and perhaps 1 MAA on board, otherwise filled entirely by Mercenaries.
Hyperspawns require a mimimum of 3 player ships in the same zone (elite or spectral for example). The enemy spawn is based on the size of the player ships as well - for example 1 WF and 2 sloops will not spawn much more than 1 WF by itself, using multiple WFs is the standard route. While 2 player ships does increase the possible amount of sinks, the maximum enemy size stays the same. An odd number of ships seems to have a higher increase on the spawn size than even numbers - for example, the enemy spawn from 4->5 ships is larger than the one from 3->4. It can be done in any zone, but generally is done in the highest zone for the best possible loot.
History
Hyperspawns were incredibly hard to do before the introduction of the Mercenary. During the late 2023- early 2024 war between Don't Open Till Doomsday and Late Night Hoes there were massive PVP battles inside Haunted Seas against Graveyard runs by both flags - it was at this time that players noticed the amount of enemy ghost frigates spawned increased due to the amount of player ships on the map. Initially, Pirates Rinhart, Absolum, and Tosl were testing the interaction after initial discovery. On Feb 18, 2024 pirate Aquaneer ran the first Haunted Seas Hyperspawn using 3 WFs and the zone-hopper method. On March 15, 2024 pirate Tzz ran the first Atlantis Hyperspawn using 3 WFs and the standard method.
Hyperspawns started as a way to trophy hunt quicker - more enemy spawn size means more big monsters/ships. After some time passed, players realized Hyperspawns could also be highly profitable when ran with a full ship and a large enough enemy spawn.
Methods
Standard
All player ships stay in the same zone and shoot the enemy spawn together. No zone hopping, board juggling, etc. This is the most common type of run, making up the extreme majority of Hyperspawns. It can be done in any zone, but primarily is done at the backwall.
Zone Hopping Spawners
As players were learning how it worked, zone hopping spawners were used instead of the standard method. The initial goal was also to funnel all kills on the main ship and this method runs no risk of kills being stolen by supports as the supports don't shoot. However, the kill rate is considerably lower because only one ship is shooting.
The main ship generally plays on the backwall while the supports play on the sidewall a few zones above the zone border. Their only purpose is to increase the size of the spawn. Each time new enemies spawn, there is a chance that the player ship being targeted swaps to one of the support ships - at which point they jump over the zone border for a turn to reset the targeted ship to the main one.
In-and-Out
The primary relevance for in-and-out is Zone 1 HS hyperspawns, but it can be done in Atlantis as well. The main ship plays in the zone that the support ships spawn in. The support ships enter the map for a few turns, until a spawn is triggered, and then exit again. The main ship sinks off the spawn and the supports enter, rinse and repeat. Supports can also stay in and shoot, just a low-zone Standard run, but the runner will lose a massive sum of PoE doing so because the loot in low zones is considerably weaker than that of high zones.