Survey of Puzzle Piece boat product requirements - not a trade or ask thread

Let's put together a list of requirements of puzzle piece boats to test my theory that SC has decided to make the PP boats extra hard going forward (after Week 1) by asking for large quantities of difficult products.

Hopefully, together we can see how we will need to adapt our farming to the new realities of PP boats. I know if something asks for a laundry list of stuff I won't give up, I just cast it off without a 2nd thought. Now I find myself filling cream and brown sugar crates for neighbors for their puzzle boats, which has me making tons of creams again.

*This is where I say :heart:THANK YOUUUUUUU:heart: and I am SO SORRY to my neighbors and in-game friends who filled 3 flagged crates on my last PP boat, which required 4 crates of:

12 Fresh pasta sheets
11 Brown sugars
4 Apple juice

Normally I'd have cast that one off without a second thought, but this time I changed my farm name to "This boat stinks sry neighbors" and flagged 3 crates.

The next NON-PP Boat is asking for 4 crates of:

12 Milk
1 Banana Splits
8 Tea leaves

I just cast that boat off. Next boat is a PP boat asking for:

3 Orange juices
2 Fruit cakes
4 Apple jam

So that's fitting the Week 1 pattern of PP boat, regular boat, PP boat. Wonder if the rest of the pattern will also hold: no more PP boats for the week?

This morning I got one asking for cream cakes (2/crate), pancakes(3/crate) and fish pie (2/crate). 4 crates each.

The ones from last week I don't remember but they don't stick out as particularly difficult in my mind.

I don't remember what my first PP today was, but it was 'normal'.

Second (no puzzle piece) I sent down the river. Nothing really awful, just too much of everything 'middling'.

Third - no puzzle piece - is 'normal'

3 (11ea) crates brown sugar
3 (1ea) crates feta salad
3 (15ea) crates milk

Corn bread
Strawberry jam
Goat cheese

Doable.

I'm not sending a boat away, regardless of what it's asking for. Will be doing all puzzle boats, even sugar and dairy. Puzzle pieces are too rare and too scarce to miss any opportunity to get one. Products are replaceable.

1st puzzle piece boat I have sent today is asking for 4 crates each, 6 cherries, 2 fruitti del mar pizza and 4 roasted tomatoes. Not the easiest but I have had much worse. I am at Level 160.

Next non-puzzle piece boat is asking for cream, cotton fabric and wool (so I won't be filling it).

Mine was horrid this week - white sugar, feathers, gnocchi.

I cast it off, and my takeaway is to simply ignore the sanctuary for now.

(I do think the puzzle boats are random. The reason I think that is because the boats themselves aren't random. I have two baby farms at level 97 and must have done the same # boats on each, because the boat requests on both farms are always identical now. So my guess it that is was just luck of the draw re. whatever boat was next up when supercell set their ridiculously infrequent puzzle piece timer to go off.)

The one I just sent was potatoes, apples and blackberry jam (just 6)... Easy

the non puzzle boat before it had goat cheese toast, fish and peach pie -I did not do that one

i would probably only skip PP boats which asked for feathers

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wussypuss

The one I just sent was potatoes, apples and blackberry jam (just 6)... Easy

the non puzzle boat before it had goat cheese toast, fish and peach pie -I did not do that one

i would probably only skip PP boats which asked for feathers

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Why? Flag it. I'll help u with it if I see it. Or place an ad in DD. There's always a Good Samaritan willing to help u with that. It will be filled eventually.

Yeah, I also have adopted the strategy of casting off all non-PP boats.

I am not yet at the point of deciding to do all PP boats regardless of products.

It will also be interesting to discuss the different decision rationales used by players when they are deciding to do or cast off PP boats AND whether it is true that we are algorithmically limited to 2 PP boats per week.

Maybe those ancillary questions can be answered here as well.

Four crates each of 3x apple jam, 2x strawberry candle, 2x cherry juice. Not one I would have normally bothered with but oh well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shepherdgirl

Mine was horrid this week - white sugar, feathers, gnocchi.

I cast it off, and my takeaway is to simply ignore the sanctuary for now.

(I do think the puzzle boats are random. The reason I think that is because the boats themselves aren't random. I have two baby farms at level 97 and must have done the same # boats on each, because the boat requests on both farms are always identical now. So my guess it that is was just luck of the draw re: whatever boat was next up when supercell set their ridiculously infrequent puzzle piece timer to go off.)

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Yes, I suspect many other players will come to the same conclusion and use the same strategy. I'm not a frequent boater, so I look at a request for some of these crates and think, I can serve 3 Townies with what each of those crates wants! Buh-bye!!

I personally do not do enough boats to know if they are random or not - but it would not surprise me if they were not TRULY random.

I know boats were changed years ago not to ask for doubles of one product ( remember those double cream boats, old timers?) and also not to ask for two kinds of products from the same machine (I remember a blackberry and raspberry jam boat :P)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shepherdgirl

Mine was horrid this week - white sugar, feathers, gnocchi.

I cast it off, and my takeaway is to simply ignore the sanctuary for now.

(I do think the puzzle boats are random. The reason I think that is because the boats themselves aren't random. I have two baby farms at level 97 and must have done the same # boats on each, because the boat requests on both farms are always identical now. So my guess it that is was just luck of the draw re. whatever boat was next up when supercell set their ridiculously infrequent puzzle piece timer to go off.)

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I plan to pretty much ignore the sanctuary too. It doesn't really add anything new to the game outside of being decorative and we have no choice which order we even get the animals. I got the one I would have worked on last for free. Ho hum. Looking forward to the next update I guess. Lol

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PerkyCox

I personally do not do enough boats to know if they are random or not - but it would not surprise me if they were not TRULY random.

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Def not random. :cool: Here's an (I think) interesting update:

On one 97 my puzzle boat just now was red smoothies, b&e, and veggie lasagna. On the other 97 the puzzle boat is onions, milk tea, blackberry jam. I must have been one boat off of them ... Filled the smoothie/b&e/lasagna boat and sent it away. Next boat coming is the onion, tea and jam boat.

So each of my 97‘s will now have the same boat at dock (onion, milk tea, bb jam). One is a puzzle boat and one is not.

Update: my next boat on main farm is another puzzle boat. It will want blue sweaters, hot choc, honey popcorn. I'll fill that one. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shepherdgirl

Def not random. :cool: Here's an (I think) interesting update:

On one 97 my puzzle boat just now was red smoothies, b&e, and veggie lasagna. On the other 97 the puzzle boat is onions, milk tea, blackberry jam. I must have been one boat off of them ... Filled the smoothie/b&e/lasagna boat and sent it away. Next boat coming is the onion, tea and jam boat.

So each of my 97‘s will now have the same boat at dock (onion, milk tea, bb jam). One is a puzzle boat and one is not.

Update: my next boat on main farm is another puzzle boat. It will want blue sweaters, hot choc, honey popcorn. I'll fill that one. :)

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THAT IS BIZARRE -- But it sure does away with that randomness idea, eh? LOL

Do your 97s have the same plentiful and rare types of EMs?

Mine was not too bad:
Strawberry Jam - 12 total
Wooly Hats - 12 Total
Strawberry Ice Cream - 4 total

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PerkyCox

THAT IS BIZARRE -- But it sure does away with that randomness idea, eh? LOL

Do your 97s have the same plentiful and rare types of EMs?

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No, one is a tape/nail farm and the other is a plank/panel farm.

I logged in a few hours ago and the PP boat asked for 3 crates of the following:

1. strawberry
2. strawberry cakes
3. white sugars

Since the boat will leave in about 15 hours, I loaded 8 strawberry cakes and 8 sugars into machines. I have plenty of strawberries and a reserve of sugar so I plan to flag two or fewer crates for help.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Haystacker

Why? Flag it. I'll help u with it if I see it. Or place an ad in DD. There's always a Good Samaritan willing to help u with that. It will be filled eventually.

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Awww... sweet, haystacker:blush:

i will keep that in mind. It is good that people can see that one has a puzzle boat. I would probably go out of my way to help a puzzle boat.

i stopped doing ducks.... Never liked the salon, but I keep 6 ducks for my hood.

it would be difficult to send off a PP boat!

i am doing a puzzle boat which asked for...

5 strawberries pb
4 goats milk pb
5 bacon pb

pb means per box.

i had a puzzle boat, non-puzzle boat, then puzzle boat.

the second puzzle boat asked for 4 crates of each item, needing 2 wooly chaps, 4 lemons, 2 onion hot dogs

the next is a non-puzzle boat asking for lobster sushi, cherries and soybeans

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wussypuss

Awww... sweet, haystacker:blush:

i will keep that in mind. It is good that people can see that one has a puzzle boat. I would probably go out of my way to help a puzzle boat.

i stopped doing ducks.... Never liked the salon, but I keep 6 ducks for my hood.

it would be difficult to send off a PP boat!

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I still have 4 free Tom boosters I haven't even touched yet. I can always get those feathers back :)

And besides, it's apparently only twice a week, what else am I saving my products for? :)

MYTH BUSTED!!!

My next boat is a PP boat and it's asking for potatoes, chili peppers and chili popcorn :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EllunaHellen

MYTH BUSTED!!!

My next boat is a PP boat and it's asking for potatoes, chili peppers and chili popcorn :P

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This is why we post these threads :) My experience was that my all my PP boats were boats I would cast off in a heartbeat, but the experience of others tells me there may be a mix of doable or happy happy boats with yuck boats.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by EllunaHellen

MYTH BUSTED!!!

My next boat is a PP boat and it's asking for potatoes, chili peppers and chili popcorn :P

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Nice one!!!!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PerkyCox

This is why we post these threads :) My experience was that my all my PP boats were boats I would cast off in a heartbeat, but the experience of others tells me there may be a mix of doable or happy happy boats with yuck boats.

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Yes, the one I had this morning was definitely a bit on the 'meh' side, so I was wondering the same thing when I saw this thread :)

My pp boat asks for sugarcane, noodle soup and egg sandwiches. So an easy one. I just started to think that I'm happy to get only two pp boats per week if that is it. I want to get the pieces, but I don't really like doing boats and it might be a bit much for me if I had to make sure I do many boats per week and do my derby tasks as well.. I often play maybe a half hour per day on work days. More recently because of the update though.

Found one in the DD asking for bacon&eggs (2/crate), fish fillets (6/crate), and carrots (28/cate). Again 4 crates per product.

I think it's just random. And collecting data this way is going to be subject to bias because people tend go post on the internet when cranky more than when happy.

My 3rd puzzle boat (arrived this morning) wasn't hard: bacon, tomatoes, and cherry juice. I'm frequently low on cherry juice and I Am Not A Boat Person, so would have normally cast that off, but it's simple enough to fill one cherry juice crate and flag the rest.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by XYZZY

I think it's just random. And collecting data this way is going to be subject to bias because people tend go post on the internet when cranky more than when happy.

My 3rd puzzle boat (arrived this morning) wasn't hard: bacon, tomatoes, and cherry juice. I'm frequently low on cherry juice and I Am Not A Boat Person, so would have normally cast that off, but it's simple enough to fill one cherry juice crate and flag the rest.

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While this is true, this thread has already served to bust the idea that they're all going to be bad boats, so it did help :)

I don't remember my first puzzle boat, but this morning's was pumpkin, strawberries and honey lobsters. ;)

Last boat was a puzzle, the next one is not a puzzle boat. It remains to be seen whether that's the last PP boat for the rest of the week.

Update: And neither is the one after the boat referenced above -- so my pattern so far is PP, non, PP, non, non.

Puzzle boat coming in wants:
Olives (not too bad)
Lemon Cake (Yuk! 2 Lemon Curds for one cake + Cream)
Bacon (good)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wussypuss

The one I just sent was potatoes, apples and blackberry jam (just 6)... Easy

the non puzzle boat before it had goat cheese toast, fish and peach pie -I did not do that one

i would probably only skip PP boats which asked for feathers

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I would try and help too if you flag it.
I can't remember what was on my first PP boat but the second one had grape juice on it. I am using a boat booster today that fills two crates which helped. I was doing a boat task when I was doing PP boats so not sending them on. Will try and note what is on them next time.

I ended up with 2 puzzle boats out of 5 total boats yesterday. The puzzle boats were the first and fifth boats of the day.

The first was fairly easy -- strawberries, pumpkins and honey lobsters. The second was much harder -- goat cheese, pizzas and tea leaves.

(why yes, I did wake up an hour after falling asleep to fill that second one!)

I had one PP boat first thing yesterday. It wanted 4 pillows, 8 fish soup and 20 peaches. Not seen another PP boat since.

It depends also with level you are in hoe hard the boats are. I am at level 113 and at the moment I have noticed the feeling that de puzzle boats are harder. I wil cast a lot of normal boats. I play the Town and the re is a in reageren in demand, lot of dairy related products.

I had 4 boats in totale, last one was 68 bread, 8 hot patatoes and 12 grape jam. Was al big order.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Haystacker

Corn bread
Strawberry jam
Goat cheese

Doable.

I'm not sending a boat away, regardless of what it's asking for. Will be doing all puzzle boats, even sugar and dairy. Puzzle pieces are too rare and too scarce to miss any opportunity to get one. Products are replaceable.

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Thats my attitude as well.

I have only only had one pp boat so far this week. It was the first boat which I did. (I forget what it wanted) I then sent the next non pp boat away as it wanted lots of white sugar. I was expecting the 3rd boat to offer a pp but alas no, it's just a bog standard boat wanting feathers. Ha, no chance!