Otherwhen

Junior Officer Lesson 5: Handling Experienced Jobbers

First ye read this entire post, then ye practice handling jobbers but using bots or yer hearties, not real jobbers. When ye feel comfortable with the information here, ask a training officer to schedule yer lesson.

After passing this lesson, ye will be allowed to have humans aboard yer ship that be not yer hearties or Otherwhen crew, as long as they be experienced pirates.

HIRING JOBBERS
Click the Hiring Jobbers box and just leave it clicked. This posts a job ad on the Notice boards of the ports near yer ship (and possibly the entire ocean, if there are very few ships hiring).

When a jobber applies ye will hear a whistle and see a pop up box. Fer now ye need to be picky, so click the info button to see what their stats be. Ye want experienced jobbers, so look fer bold Sea Battle, and fer bilge/carp/sails being above able. If one of yer crew asks ye to job his friend, type /who and the name of the friend to see his stats, and if it looks good then ye type /job and then the name of the friend to offer him a job.

Please note that if a jobber clicks Apply to several jobs at once, then only the first ship that presses Hire will get him. And sometimes they will turn ye down. Some jobbers will even come aboard, see it be a sloop (or damaged) and leave immediately.

Be able to explain how to hire a jobber
Use the /job command to give a hearty a whisk to one of our boats

WELCOMING JOBBERS
Practice with bots, crew or hearties.

When ye notice a jobber come aboard, say Ahoy, and some indication of which duty he should do. If ye remember what his stats were from when he applied, ye can send him to a station where he would be very good, but most of the time ye will need to say something like: "Bilge please" or "Any vacant station" or "What duties be ye good at?" If ye be not too busy, it's good to mention where ye be heading and if ye be pillagin or doing a cargo run. (Usually ye will not be hiring jobbers fer a cargo run!) Give the jobber a few moments to take a station. Often he is lagged and he knows he is on duty but the image on yer screen isn't showing it yet. There do be jobbers (or even crew from time to time) who come aboard a ship and then immediately go afk. What I think be worse are those who grab a station and then go afk, so it's not very obvious.

GIVING ORDERS
Fer a sloop that be not damaged ye can manage with one good pirate handling both carp and bilge (alternating) and put the rest on sails. With most jobbers (or bots), ye will need one on carp, one on bilge, and two or more on sails. Most of the time it is best to let jobbers choose the station they do best. When there is a need fer another carper say, ye can ask fer a volunteer "We need one more on carp" or "One bilger move to carp please". If ye get no volunteers, ye pick somebody and ask them by name to do it. If the person does not obey, odds are he be concentrating on his current duty and not watching the words ye be saying. Ye can wait fer the next league point and then order him using words. If ye need urgently, then ye command him the way ye would a bot. A jobber/crewman who ignores even the order whistle should be planked. A crewman can just return immediately to the ship, but the jobber would have to apply fer the job again. Somebody who lazes too long or shows as zzzzzzzzz should also be planked, because he counts as a pirate aboard when the color of the brigands is determined, so when ye get to the melee ye will be outnumbered.

PLANKING
Ye plank by typing "/plank" and the name of the pirate to plank. There be many other commands starting with / - just type /help to get a list of all of them. Then ye can type /help and the command to get specifics on one, such as /help /plank. And aye, ye can plank yerself.

Plank a volunteer. If the volunteer was a jobber then ye will have to job him again to get him back.

PRAISE
Practice with bots, crew or hearties.

Be lavish with the praise. If ye notice an excellent or incredible on a duty report, give the person who earned it some praise. Ye don't have to do the same person twice in a row of course. If it be a crew member who earns an incredible, ye can ask me to give that crew member a title in commemoration (such as SailMaster or Carpenter or Bilge Rat). Praise the whole crew when ye win a battle, or if ye make it to close to full speed on the sails and no damage on the carp and bilge gauges.

STAY IN CHARACTER
Try to talk like a pirate, and avoid mentioning Real Life things most of the time. If ye be in the crow's nest, then some of the crew will be ignoring what ye say, but the ones that be getting bored will be entertained if ye say things like "Here fishy fishy fishy!" and "Oh BRIGands! Where ARE ye??? Come out and PLAY with us!!!" If this makes ye feel too silly then don't do it.

MELEE
When the duty report before a melee shows, quickly type yer instructions. Normally this will be something like "Teams of 3, skulls first, foils last" and mebbe "Gluck mates". If yer ship be not damaged and the other ship be heavily damaged, then teams of 2 be good, if ye don't have too many greenies aboard. If yer ship be damaged, then say something like "Mind the damage - easy on the space bar" or even "NO space bar".

If ye notice the teaming be drastically out, ye can quickly pause and type "Break the 4" or "Get the SKULL" or "Get ALICE". Typing "RETEAM" helps sometimes, but when three solos all move at the same time they end up still being solos. Try to keep the during fight comments sparse because they can cause lag problems which makes teaming near impossible.

REACHING PORT
When ye reach port, divvy immediately. Jobbers want their PoE fast and some of them get impatient with ye selling booty even if it would mean they get a bit more poe. Ye can zero yer own share to give yer jobbers more. If ye lost all the battles or didn't have any battles, then it be a good idea (not required) to put some of yer own PoE into the booty chest and then divvy it.

Note: If ye get something very expensive in the booty (such as kraken's blood) then tell the jobbers and crew that ye need a few minutes to sell the booty items so that they can get more poe. Sell from the booty chest before ye divvy in this case. Most items be not expensive enough to bother doing this though.

Second ye thank all of them fer sailing with ye, while ye wait fer the voting. Invite good jobbers who be uncrewed to join the Otherwhen crew. A /tell to a really good candidate will make it more likely that he says yes, but a vessel chat to everybody is okay if there be nobody aboard that did a lousy job. If somebody be interested, then ye click their head and then the last icon to invite.

Let the crew know how long it will be before ye sail again.

Then of course ye restocks.

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