Post by eminent on Jun 3, 2009 6:15:28 GMT -8
Ok since we're missing this, I figured I'd give some sailing tips.
Starting from dead:
This is something that took me a bit to fully understand. Yes big chains look great. Nothing like seeing Vegas pop up on your screen in big letters 3 times. However, most of the time, you're killing yourself working for big chains like that. And if you immediately start building big chains from the start of a voyage, then you're hurting yourself even more.
So to start, make sure you have a clean path from the top to reach most, if not all, your platforms. And mostly fill in bottom and work your way up. Remember, you're trying to chain, so you want pieces to fall and do the final clearing for you. The first break I try to set off is a triple. As long as there's a square piece in the break, then you'll score decent and be able to get your indicator up to aqua. And if you're blocked from the bottom portion of your board, this will help you clear it out also. Then next chain will be a triple also, but try to make it a platform clearing triple, or a mutliple platform one if the pieces cooperate. If you're able to fire those two off quickly, your sails should be yellow, maybe even sparkling for a period of time.
Once you're in the yellow, build for a couple quick Bingos. Look for a way to clear a couple platforms with each one. Remember when setting up chains, work from the bottom up. And always be looking ahead at the next piece, planning where that one will work into your chains. If it won't, setting aside a place to throw junk pieces is great. You can build extra chains over there, but don't build too much. Scoring is based on piece usage and efficiency per board, so use too many pieces and you're going to drag your score down.
Follow those few tips, and get good at it, and you'll be scoring Goods with the occassional Excellent for the first duty report.
Long-Term sailing:
Now sailing over time is where it gets tricky. It starts to get harder to maintain that yellow/sparkly sail, especially when you're approaching 90 minutes on sails. But this is also where larger chains come into play.
Now you're into the third league of your trip, nailed a Good and then an Excellent following the above tips. It's time to move up to working on Donkeys with the occassional Vegas built in. This is also where I tend to almost completely phase out Triples and Doubles. I say almost because you will still use them, which I'll explain later.
You're still following the "build up" approach to chains. But now, you're working more platforms and pieces into the mix. You should expect to clear 3-4 platforms per chain now. It's still a matter of planning out your chains and piece placement, but now you might have to get a little creative. By creative, you can work a few different ways to set off chains. Usually the best way to set off a chain is to overhang the piece you need to complete the platform from a starting position. However, like I said, feel free to get creative.
Lets say you've got a 2x2 platform, set up blue/white for the bottom row and white/blue for the top. You don't have any overhang areas around it, but you've got two other platforms underneath you can chain to. You build up, and get them ready to chain to each other, and you've got the 2x2 all filled in except the top blue. You get a double gold and then a gold/white piece. One possible strategy is to use those gold in the blue slot, and when you get a gold/blue, you set it off with that, and you've got a 3 platform bingo. Or if you had to use a piece other than a blue/white on the bottom, chances are you've got a way to build an overhang with some junk.
You're indicator might drop a bit while building, so try to have an extra smaller chain you can set off if you need it to keep your sails up. This is where the Triples and Doubles come in. You build smaller chains from your junk pieces and set them off as they pile up.
An alternative approach to this is, instead of using large chains, you still use Bingos and Triples, but you're clearing 3 platforms a chain. This tends to go quicker, but you also might have more junk since your piece selection is less flexible as to what you can use. However, this does come in handy if your indicator starts to slip a bit and they're giving you the perfect pieces to wipe out a few platforms. A couple platform only Triples and you'll be back up to near maxed indicator, especially if they're both quickly formed.
Ending tips:
To wrap it up, here a few other things I just remembered.
Horizontal clears can kill your chain in a hurry. Try to watch for pieces lining up horizontally and clearing the bottom out of a key place in the chain and you spend the next 5 minutes trying to get out of it. If that happens, you can either try to clear the junk out if you think you can without too much hassle, or just clear everything else out of your board and abandon and restart your puzzle. Just be aware, abandoning can hurt your indicator when you start back up.
Don't feel like the chain has to end with the last platform. Pieces will keep clearing in the chain until they can't anymore, so if you want to go for a personal record, keep building to the chain to clear after the last platform. While building, remember, platforms clear first, then junk pieces clear. My personal record is a Vegasx4, but my sails were blue by the time I was able to set that off. Yes they sparkled for a bit afterwards, but for pillaging, I prefer to keep my indicator up at max for as long as possible as opposed to record building.
Anyway, thanks for reading all this. I might try to get a couple screenshots, or get a video set up if anyone knows of a free video recorder that does more than 30 second clips, sometime to give a visual for what I'm talking about.
Have fun out there sailing!
Starting from dead:
This is something that took me a bit to fully understand. Yes big chains look great. Nothing like seeing Vegas pop up on your screen in big letters 3 times. However, most of the time, you're killing yourself working for big chains like that. And if you immediately start building big chains from the start of a voyage, then you're hurting yourself even more.
So to start, make sure you have a clean path from the top to reach most, if not all, your platforms. And mostly fill in bottom and work your way up. Remember, you're trying to chain, so you want pieces to fall and do the final clearing for you. The first break I try to set off is a triple. As long as there's a square piece in the break, then you'll score decent and be able to get your indicator up to aqua. And if you're blocked from the bottom portion of your board, this will help you clear it out also. Then next chain will be a triple also, but try to make it a platform clearing triple, or a mutliple platform one if the pieces cooperate. If you're able to fire those two off quickly, your sails should be yellow, maybe even sparkling for a period of time.
Once you're in the yellow, build for a couple quick Bingos. Look for a way to clear a couple platforms with each one. Remember when setting up chains, work from the bottom up. And always be looking ahead at the next piece, planning where that one will work into your chains. If it won't, setting aside a place to throw junk pieces is great. You can build extra chains over there, but don't build too much. Scoring is based on piece usage and efficiency per board, so use too many pieces and you're going to drag your score down.
Follow those few tips, and get good at it, and you'll be scoring Goods with the occassional Excellent for the first duty report.
Long-Term sailing:
Now sailing over time is where it gets tricky. It starts to get harder to maintain that yellow/sparkly sail, especially when you're approaching 90 minutes on sails. But this is also where larger chains come into play.
Now you're into the third league of your trip, nailed a Good and then an Excellent following the above tips. It's time to move up to working on Donkeys with the occassional Vegas built in. This is also where I tend to almost completely phase out Triples and Doubles. I say almost because you will still use them, which I'll explain later.
You're still following the "build up" approach to chains. But now, you're working more platforms and pieces into the mix. You should expect to clear 3-4 platforms per chain now. It's still a matter of planning out your chains and piece placement, but now you might have to get a little creative. By creative, you can work a few different ways to set off chains. Usually the best way to set off a chain is to overhang the piece you need to complete the platform from a starting position. However, like I said, feel free to get creative.
Lets say you've got a 2x2 platform, set up blue/white for the bottom row and white/blue for the top. You don't have any overhang areas around it, but you've got two other platforms underneath you can chain to. You build up, and get them ready to chain to each other, and you've got the 2x2 all filled in except the top blue. You get a double gold and then a gold/white piece. One possible strategy is to use those gold in the blue slot, and when you get a gold/blue, you set it off with that, and you've got a 3 platform bingo. Or if you had to use a piece other than a blue/white on the bottom, chances are you've got a way to build an overhang with some junk.
You're indicator might drop a bit while building, so try to have an extra smaller chain you can set off if you need it to keep your sails up. This is where the Triples and Doubles come in. You build smaller chains from your junk pieces and set them off as they pile up.
An alternative approach to this is, instead of using large chains, you still use Bingos and Triples, but you're clearing 3 platforms a chain. This tends to go quicker, but you also might have more junk since your piece selection is less flexible as to what you can use. However, this does come in handy if your indicator starts to slip a bit and they're giving you the perfect pieces to wipe out a few platforms. A couple platform only Triples and you'll be back up to near maxed indicator, especially if they're both quickly formed.
Ending tips:
To wrap it up, here a few other things I just remembered.
Horizontal clears can kill your chain in a hurry. Try to watch for pieces lining up horizontally and clearing the bottom out of a key place in the chain and you spend the next 5 minutes trying to get out of it. If that happens, you can either try to clear the junk out if you think you can without too much hassle, or just clear everything else out of your board and abandon and restart your puzzle. Just be aware, abandoning can hurt your indicator when you start back up.
Don't feel like the chain has to end with the last platform. Pieces will keep clearing in the chain until they can't anymore, so if you want to go for a personal record, keep building to the chain to clear after the last platform. While building, remember, platforms clear first, then junk pieces clear. My personal record is a Vegasx4, but my sails were blue by the time I was able to set that off. Yes they sparkled for a bit afterwards, but for pillaging, I prefer to keep my indicator up at max for as long as possible as opposed to record building.
Anyway, thanks for reading all this. I might try to get a couple screenshots, or get a video set up if anyone knows of a free video recorder that does more than 30 second clips, sometime to give a visual for what I'm talking about.
Have fun out there sailing!
