Open letter to my friends (and anyone else who wants to read it) about Boats
Let me start by saying that I am writing this making some assumptions. If they don’t pertain to you, then ignore this. I am all for people playing the way that suits them. I am assuming that at least some of the things I am going to suggest are unknown to you and that may explain some odd behavior that I see. So before anyone wants to yell at me for being bossy or rude, that is not my intention, just trying to pass on some information that seems to be needed.
- I love to fill your crates. They give me a way to help you and also make space in my barn as well as earn some boat points.
- There are several reasons why I can’t fill your boats and from what I can see are the same reasons no one else can help your boats and why I must stand by helplessly and watch your boat sail away after its 15 or 16 or 17 hours are up incomplete. While you will get coins and XP for filling some crates, if the boat goes off incomplete, you will NOT get any vouchers or boat points
- One reason is that you are opening boat crates asking for cream, sugar butter or brown sugar, and sometimes other dairy or sugar products. In the past couple weeks a full 17 out of the 20 boats on my list were asking for cream or sugar. Even if I had any of these products, I could only help with one or two at the most.
- There are several things you can do that you might not know about that can make you more successful with boat orders
a. Before you open one crate or even fill a crate, if your boat is asking for sugar or dairy items that you don’t have in stock or cued for making, send that boat down the river. Some people refuse to fill these crates especially cream which is needed for so many other things. Some people will fill them but they are also limited in the amounts they can give for the same reason. To send the boat away, just click on the boat picture and answer yes when it asks you if you want to cast it off.
b. Do you know that there is a bonus of about 20 points for sending your boat off as soon as possible and that you don’t have to wait the full 16 or so hours to send your boat away after filling those crates to get a new one. So waiting the full time for someone to just maybe to fill those crates of cream is not in your best interest.
c. If you are regularly waiting more than four hours to send your boat away, you might be opening the wrong crates and accepting the wrong boats. This is a good indicator that your friends aren’t able to help your boats. You would be better off sending that boat off right away and getting a new, possibly easier one in four hours.
d. Did you know that you can find out what your next boat will ask for by tapping on the empty dock? That gives you four extra hours to get the items you need. At 17-20 minutes for each cream that means you can make 12 of them before the boat comes. However keep in mind that finding large amounts of almost any dairy or sugar item in the paper or from your friends is highly unlikely. So don’t figure on being able to purchase the remainder.
e. There is a guidebook (link in my signature) that will tell you about how many of each item the boat will ask for. It shows for instance that the boats usually ask for about 8 per crate for cream. So a cream boat will require 24-32 of those little gems. These will take 8-12 hours to make all by themselves. Possible of course, but not necessarily profitable. If that boat also asks for another dairy item like butter or even buttered popcorn, you can count on not being able to fill it either alone or even with a little help from your friends if it rolls in and you have no stock.
f. Did you know that even if you flagged those crates for help that you can fill them yourself. I have noticed some boats almost completely filled with 2 crates flagged. 16 hours later, those same two crates are asking to be filled. Clearly none of the neighbors are going to help. Surely in that amount of time at least some of those items have been made by you. So I am assuming you don’t think you can fill them yourself.You can.
h. There is a thread here where you can ask for boat help even if you are not doing the captain’s achievement. There is also a thread here for trading food items.
- As I said, I understand that some of this might not pertain to you. I have heard of people who let their boat just sit at the dock with no intention of filling it or sending it off because they want to focus on other things. That’s cool. If you are doing this I would like to request that you not flag crates for help so that I can focus on people who would like to send their boat off as soon as possible .
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Ok that’s all I can think of right now. Feel free to completely ignore this if you choose to and to disagree all you want. It has just been my observations and added assumptions that might not be true. I just want to help.
