Officering is at the heart of the sailing experience of Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates. As an officer, your job is both to further your crew's aims and to ensure everybody on board enjoys themselves as much as possible. "Officer" really refers to anyone of rank officer or above, and even the developers use this convention- /flagofficer (/fo) is for SOs (senior officers) and captains, too.

Being an officer is a trusted position, as you represent your crew to the rest of the player-base, and you have power over each and every ship. You're trusted to give jobbers a good impression of the crew, to manage other players in a way that allows vessels to sail efficiently, and to know at the least enough of the economy to stock your ship effectively, and at best enough to procure rare items your crew needs or wants.

This guide is for people new to being an officer, or to help [en/dis]courage potential officers and prepare them before they actually attempt to sail alone. Officer may not be for everyone- many people prefer not to be in charge of a vessel, and to leave it to someone else, which is perfectly fine.

There is no need to climb the ranking ladder if you do not wish to- a common mistake people make is thinking that the game is only fun after you climb the ranks. every rank in Puzzle Pirates has something worthwhile about it, and if you don't like extra responsibility, being a pirate ought to be enough. The first qualification for becoming an officer is being ready to be responsible for others.

The first thing you have to realise is that, as an officer, you need to be able to deal to the needs and problems of everyone on the ship. Where before you could ignore greenies, you're now forced to either help them, or not put up job offers. An officer has to be able to figure out if they have enough time to move a ship, has to be responsible for making sure they have enough ships for any personal usage, and has to keep ships supplied.

There are up to four things you may need to make sure you have enough of before you leave- firstly maps, if you don't have the nessecary routes memorised, (if you're a captain, it's partly your responsiblity to make sure you have enough maps for your home archipelago) secondly rum, in its various forms of swill, grog, and fine rum, thirdly cannoballs (shot) in case you decide you want to fight, and fourthly, poe for any goods you wish to buy at the other end, or enough foragers to get commodities from the islands you're going to.

Swill, Grog, and Fine Rum are all rum, and there's a 2/3/5 ratio between them. If five rum costs more than 2 swill/3 grog, then buy the swill. The difference is that Fine Rum requires better work to make. Also, Cannonballs now come in three sizes. Small cannonballs are used on brigs and cutters, medium cannonballs are for use on brigs, (War Brig, Merchant Brig) and large cannonballs are for use on frigates and galleons. (Merchant Galleon, War Frigate, Grand Frigate)

As an officer, you have access to all puzzles at all times, and the ability to order people around to use different puzzles. This means it is your responsibility to make sure that people are on the right puzzles to get the ship in top shape. In case you can't get enough humans to do this, pressing the hire jobber button will fill your vessel up with swabbies- averagely performing AI players, who you can order to cover the stations you can't. If a player leaves, a swabbie will only replace them when you have a job offer up- this is why you want to make sure your crew members know they can't quite during a battle, or when you're trying to engage an enemy ship. When you order a swabbie, they automatically change station. Swabbies can only sail, bilge, and do carpentry.

This also means that you may need to be good at all of the puzzles. The essential ones, if you are to be sailing alone, are gunnery and navigation- gunnery to let you defend yourself from (or attack) brigands. (brigands is the name for AI ships) Navigation to let you memorise maps, and gain speed so that it doesn't take forever for you to get anywhere. (at default speed, even a sloop takes five minutes from one league point to the next)

As an officer, you'll also have regular exposure to the sea battle puzzle. This means figuring out how it works, knowing when to get people to change stations during the battle, when to take up a station (usually bilging or gunnery) yourself, and jobbing with other flags to see how they tackle the sea battle puzzle. Don't be afraid to learn this puzzle! It's much better to just get the learning period done with, so you can go out pillaging whenever you like.

It may also mean learning how to coach people through a swordfight without hassling them, and how to make a voyage fun for everyone involved.

On the other side of the coin, officering also offers full access to the entire economy. This means you can buy and sell goods, and that you can also mount foraging expeditions to procure much-needed commodities. This will mean you'll need to learn to judge if buying and reselling goods will give you a worthwhile cost if you lose a sea battle, and after you've paid for the rum you lost on the journey.

It means learning to avoid brigands when you have valuable cargo onboard, and how to make shopkeepers reward you for selling to them. (have large stocks ready of something that's reasonably rare, be able to promise a delivery of more goods, sell exclusively to one flag or alliance, talk to managers if you have something pretty good, make friends with your business partners and learn how to negotiate well)

As an officer, you may also be expected to start contributing to the flag. Unfortunately, at the moment, flags make no money just by existing. (now that we can levy taxes, flags with islands may make a limited amount of money, but other flags will be forced to run off donations or fundraisers) They make all their money through shoppes they own, or contributions from their officers, senior officers, and captains.

Money isn't the only way to contribute to a flag, however. If your flag owns shoppes, this could mean foraging for nessecary commodities, attracting business, meeting business contacts, managing a shoppe, or buying commodities from islands with markets. It could also mean collecting resources for colonising an island, buying ships for your island's navy, or in wartime, hunting down and sinking enemy ships, or participating in blockades or uprisings. (uprisings are the opposite of a blockade, ie. trying to throw off a flag that has you in tribute) Even puzzling to do labour could be the best way to contribute to your flag!

Contribution to a flag can also be intangible. Like helping to contribute to the flag's image or reputation, admining forums or a website, being a leadership figure, governing an island, being an ambassador to other flags, finding out valuable information or about valuable allies.

However, you also get a lot back from the flag. You have allies from other crews you can call on by using /fwho to see who's online, (or the /fo chat) a larger circle of ingame friends, people who are likely to be able to teach you more about the puzzles and the politics of the game than your own crew can by itself. You may also get an oppurtunity to manage a store, colonise an island, navy vessels to far off places, fun events, flag-wide pillages on larger ships, any many other benefits. If your flag is based in more than one archipelago, it might also mean that you can get whisked to far off islands just by contacting a member of an allied crew.