Duty Navigation Puzzle

[Skevington]

Duty Navigation

Duty Nav is one of my personal favorites. I'd never played anything quite like it before coming to Y!PP. In this post I'll share my knowledge, experience and love for the puzzle.

Accessing the Duty Nav Puzzle

First off, to play the Duty Nav puzzle you must be a subscriber. The puzzle is played from the wheel of a ship (or tiller in case of a Long Ship). You don't have to be an officer to play the puzzle, but must be ordered to take the station if you are not. To play the 'Navigate with the navy' mission you must first have Broad experience in Sailing (or rigging), Bilging, Carpentry and Gunnery.

The Basics

The object of this puzzle is to fill the constellations (the fixed colored star outlines on the board) with matching stars. Pieces enter the puzzle from the outside and slowly descend toward the puzzle rings. When a piece reaches the outer ring it drops into play. You can rotate the rings to get the falling stars to drop into the desired location or just arrange the pieces as you like.

For controls, use the arrow keys and space bar. The up and down arrows select the adjacent outer or inner ring respectively. Right rotates the selected ring clockwise, left counter-clockwise. Space bar will cause the entering piece to immediately drop into the board.

If you drop a piece directly on top of another in the outer ring you get a 'Booch!' and your ship automatically turns about. Be warned, it's also announced to the rest of the ship that you booched. Not that the author knows of this from personal experience.

Here we have an example of the playing board:



You can see that this constellation consists of an Orange Star and a Yellow star in the inner ring and a Blue Star in the middle ring.

This is what this board may look like as it is completed:



When the current constellation is completed, a new constellation to fill will appear on the board. Pieces on the board that were not used to fill the constellation remain on the board.

Any time you have three of more stars in a line they are cleared from the board. This includes both having three of the same color lined up on the three different levels, and also having three of more of the same color next to each other on the same ring.

Effects of the Duty Nav Puzzle

Multiplies the effectiveness of puzzling at other stations, most notably sails/rigging. If you perform well at the puzzle it can really make a difference, especially while trading/evading. You get up to max speed faster initially, reducing the chance you'll get engaged and gets you back up to max speed faster after turning about to avoid ships that do pursue you.

Allows memorizing of league points. If you are performing Good or better according to the Duty Report when you reach a League Point you partially memorize it.

Performance at Duty Nav also has an effect on what types of ships will spawn in your path. The better you do, the more likely you will have spawns in accordance with your ship setting. Fewer ships while evading, and more ships that meet your setting if on a pilly for example.

Scoring

Scoring is based on how quickly you complete the constellations and the efficiency of pieces used. Try to finish the constellations as quickly as possible, while doing so with as few pieces as possible.

Scoring is heavily weighted by the complexity of the constellations you complete. The more stars in the constellation the more they are worth. The more stars (not talking about the puzzle pieces, but the meter on the lower left of the puzzle screen) you have the more complex the constellations will be. This means that when you first start playing the puzzle, it is difficult to score very well. At first you can get around this by playing in long sessions. Each constellation you complete fills this star meter, and when it is completely full you get a new extended star meter. As you do this and perform well your Duty Nav standing will go up, and in turn will start your sessions with a larger star meter.

Strategy and Tips

Rotate the rings as much as you like, to test how your configuration matches the constellation. I don't believe these excess moves hurt your score. Just time and 'extra' pieces dropped count against you.

Fill the constellations quickly and efficiently. If you don't need to completely fill the inner ring to start working on the middle ring, don't. Rotate the inner ring to create a moving platform as you place pieces in the middle ring. In some cases you will be able to complete a constellation with stars in the outer ring without having completely filled either of the two inside rings. Doing so will help your score since you completed it sooner with fewer placed stars.

If you have a very cluttered board and are hopelessly far away from completing the current constellation, it can be better to intentionally booch and start with a fresh board. This hurts your score, but maybe not as much as abandoning the puzzle and starting over from dead or taking the time to slog through your mess to get back on track.

Be careful of accidentally lining up three stars on each of the rings as you are manipulating the board. Try to avoid placing stars of the same color on top of each other in the first two rings to save yourself some trouble later.

Sometimes you will want to clear pieces by lining up three or more though. When working on constellations that involve a star or stars in the outer most ring you may want to do this preemptively when you have a chance. Getting rid of stars that aren't need to fill the constellation earlier can save you from a tight spot later.

Combos are possible in the Duty Nav puzzle, but for most pirates will be accidental. The bonus scoring for clearing pieces in a chain is nice, but is very difficult to set up.

Thanks for reading!

If you have any comments, questions or tips of your own feel free to add them to this thread!

Author's Notes
Add more tips/strategies
Expand on memming or leave that for another post?

[eminent]

Nice guide Skev. You're right, Dnav is one of the most unique puzzles I've encountered on this game, haven't seen anything close to it. I hadn't done it in a while, but recently got back into memming, and remembered how much fun and a challenge it can be.

For people just starting, I'd say not necessarily a really long course at first. If you're able to score Goods and Fines with the occasional Excellent over a few 5-7 league sails, that should bring your stat up enough so you're able to start with 3, or even 4, star constellations, which seems to be the sweet spot for seeing some really good improvements in overall average.

[Garibaldi]

Just a few thoughts on the Duty Navigation puzzle.

This puzzle is best practiced with the navy to build skill. Navigating with the navy is also, absolutely the best way to memorize routes. Not only will you not have to buy rum and cannon balls, but you’ll actually be paid a stipend and you won’t be harassed by bots. If you're doing a bnav with the navy mission, take the Duty Navigation station. Yes, you'll be interrupted by engagements, but you'll get more practice and memorizing in.

Later, after you’ve memorized all the routes you can with the navy (not all routes are available), you’ll have to use your own ship and a chart, or, if you’re on crew pillage with a full crew, ask the commanding officer if you can duty navigate.

You can buy charts to and from inhabited islands, but not uninhabited ones. Charts for uninhabited islands have to be pillaged from bots. Be sure you check the library ship, Industrious Sprat, ported a Byrne before you buy a chart and look there for charts to uninhabited islands. You can also ask if any one in the crew can chart you. Many of us have most of the ocean memorized and some of us have it all memorized.

A Tip:
To keep track of routes you've memorized, print a map of Midnight. You can find several in the YPPedia. Keep the map near your computer and, as you memorize routes, hi-lite them.

[Linkinparkey]

Here's a little D-nav video I made

s1188.photobucket.com/albums/z413/Linkinparkey/?action=view¤t=movie1.mp4

Hope it's useful!

[MrVain]

Great and very helpfull video Link now im just need to follow yer tips and practice... practice and practice..... ;D

[Guideon]

Nice Video Link! That is very helpful, hopefully you do more

[Garibaldi]

"One of the simplest puzzles in the game."

Easy fer you to say. That's the way I play the puzzle and I don't get the constant incredibles that you get.

If you're duty naving on a pillage and you're the officer that will be hiring jobbers, expect your dnav stat to take a hit. If you want to check the stats of an applicant, you'll have to leave the puzzle and start from scratch when you reenter it. If you're just hiring any one that applies, you'll have to pause the puzzle to greet your jobber. Either way, your score is going to take a hit, but pausing is a bit less of a hit.

Edit: Very nice video and explanation,

[Linkinparkey]

If you're duty naving on a pillage and you're the officer that will be hiring jobbers, expect your dnav stat to take a hit. If you want to check the stats of an applicant, you'll have to leave the puzzle and start from scratch when you reenter it. If you're just hiring any one that applies, you'll have to pause the puzzle to greet your jobber. Either way, your score is going to take a hit, but pausing is a bit less of a hit.

That goes for all the other puzzles as well When I say simple, I mean u don't have to worry about combos or anything like that... It is as simple as gunning, but without the high speed

[DeltaQ]

Excellent tutorial :-)

lmao, one of the easiest puzzles
I've read one of the most difficults in some place... And sometimes you have boards impossible to make (like having 3 stars in the small circle and another in some other place)

Anyway, the way you do it encourages me to make it more ;D Thx

When you have 5 stars and more, It happens to me the same as when I'm trying to build a Vegas in bilge... I alwas mess with the stars, and they clear before time... lmao.

But practice is the key :-)

Excellent tutorial Linky, and thx for making it and sharing it

[DeltaQ]

This puzzle has some impossible boards (or at least so difficult that is better to booch or dismiss and start over)


This board is solvable, but I preferred to dismiss and start again.
Look more of this boards at:
YPP: yppedia.puzzlepirates.com/Dnav

[Garibaldi]

It should be mentioned that the duty navigation puzzle has an effect on the performance of the other stations and the performance of the ship based on the duty report of the duty navigator. The better your duty report, the greater the effect. The ship will get up to full speed faster and, if your set to pillage, spawns will appear more often. Likewise if the ship is set to evade, spawns will appear less often.

Because of the effect on spawns, it's a good idea to NOT duty navigate if you have excessive damage and bilge until they're under control. Do something else. Carp, bilge or sail or just sit in the nest and try to avoid spawns that might try to engage. If you set the ship to evade to get carp and bilge down you won't be able to reset to pillage unless you port at the nearest island.

[misette]

I usually play on a laptop and I have long fingers so I found the arrow keys to be a tad uncomfortable to use. I reset the "move one ring in/out" keys (up/down arrows) to Z and X instead, and I play it two-handed instead. Maybe it'll help if you're tripping over your own fingers as much as I was.