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The Captain’s Handbook

A short guide to the rules of Heroes of the Ocean. If you get stuck, turn here.

Getting started

  1. Sign up, pick a nation (English, Spanish or Pirate), and name your pirate.
  2. Go to work: you earn money and experience.
  3. With your earnings, buy a cheap melee weapon and a pistol in the shop, and equip them on the Weapons page.
  4. Try fighting with a training fight: you can’t lose anything there.

The To do card on your character page always shows a next step or two.

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Work and training

Work and training run on time: you choose how many hours to go for, and while it lasts you can’t do anything else (the clock in the header shows how much is left). If it’s interrupted, you still get the reward for the full hours completed.

  • Work: 5 experience points (XP) per hour plus the job’s wage. There are three career ladders: strength (from woodcutter to house builder), dexterity (from dock worker to master shipwright) and knowledge (from storyteller to bard). The more you work on a ladder, the better-paying the job you get, and every new job level gives +1 to the matching skill.
  • Training: 10 XP per hour, but no money.

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Fighting

A fight is made of rounds. Each round you pick 5 attacks in advance, your opponent does the same, then we compare them step by step:

  • Heavy blow beats parry.
  • Shot beats heavy blow.
  • Parry beats shot.

If you both pick the same, nobody hits. The winner of a step deals damage: a heavy blow’s power comes from your melee weapon and your strength, a shot’s from your firearm and your knowledge, a parry’s from your weapons and your dexterity. Dexterity also helps you dodge: a dodged blow only partly hits.

After each round you decide: fight on or give up. Whoever faints (runs out of life) or gives up loses. The winner gains experience (beating a stronger opponent is worth more), and every hit landed earns a little XP too.

The stakes: if you faint against a player, the winner takes a small share of your money (a few percent, up to a cap that grows with your level); if you knock out a local opponent, you get loot. Giving up costs you no money. A training fight has no stakes: it gives no XP, takes no money or life, and doesn’t count as a victory.

We look for opponents among pirates of a similar level; if nobody’s online, a local pirate will soon step up to face you.

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Levels and points

You level up with experience (XP), and each level costs more: level 2 takes 100 XP, level 3 takes 300, level 4 takes 600. Each level gives you 3 points to spend on the Level up page:

  • Strength: melee weapons and the heavy blow.
  • Dexterity: parrying and dodging.
  • Knowledge: firearms and the shot.
  • Life: +1 to the maximum per point.

Job levels also give skills separately (see Work).

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Shop and weapons

In the shop you can buy weapons and healing potions, and sell back what you don’t need for half price. Melee weapons need strength, firearms need knowledge: anything still too heavy for you is grayed out. Your bag holds 8 items; keep the rest in your hideout.

You equip weapons on the Weapons page: you can hold one melee weapon and one firearm at a time. Money comes in bronze, silver and gold: 1000 bronze is 1 silver, 1000 silver is 1 gold.

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Healing

Your life refills by itself, slowly: one point every 30 minutes (not during a fight). A healing potion is faster: the small one restores 25% of your maximum life, the large one 60%. Drink them on your character page, not during a fight.

If you faint in a fight, you’re taken to your nation’s healer: the English are cared for by the priest, the Spanish by the doctor, the Pirates by the shaman. You rest there for a while and come to with a third of your life.

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Ships and crew

Anyone not yet in a crew can buy a ship at the dock: from the raft (3 people) to the galley (300 people), and the buyer becomes the captain. You can apply to other ships; applicants are accepted by the captain or the officers. You can serve on one ship at a time.

The captain can appoint a first and second officer, and can send anyone off the ship. Everyone can donate to the ship’s treasury, which the captain uses to upgrade to a bigger ship; the crew stays. The crew has its own deck board. The captain can only leave the ship last, and then the ship sinks.

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Mates, Bottle Post, Tavern

  • Mates: send a mate request from a pirate’s profile (click their name, e.g. on the leaderboard). Once they accept, you can see when they were last on deck.
  • Bottle Post: pirate-to-pirate messages. If you don’t want bottles from someone, put them on your block list.
  • Tavern: the port’s shared board, anyone can post and reply. The barkeep won’t allow posting too often.

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Badges

You earn badges for certain deeds, automatically, as soon as you meet the requirement. Earned badges show on your character page and your public profile.

  • First Victory Win your first real fight.
  • Ten Victories Win 10 real fights.
  • Dreaded Pirate Win 50 real fights.
  • Armed to the Teeth Hold a melee weapon and a firearm at the same time.
  • Sailor Reach level 5.
  • Navigator Reach level 10.
  • Lord of the Seas Reach level 20.
  • Wealthy Have at least 1 silver in your pocket at once.
  • Crew Member Join a ship’s crew, or buy your own ship.
  • Captain Be the captain of a ship.
  • Merry Company Have 5 mates.
  • Tavern Chatterbox Write 10 posts or replies on the Tavern board.

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