Foraging
From YPPedia
Foraging is a puzzle by which pirates can gather commodities (fruit, and rare gems and gold nuggets) from uncolonized islands. It may be accessed from a ship ported at an uninhabited island by clicking on the hold, and selecting "forage for commodities" from the menu ring. One labor hour is used for each container of goods which enters the board.
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How to Play
The objective of foraging is to retrieve fruit from uninhabited islands in order to sell it at other islands. Foraging is performed on board any ship ported at an uninhabited island at the vessel's hold. Progress in the puzzle is indicated by a column of bananas down the left-hand side of the board - each banana represents one crate of fruit that needs to be cleared in order to complete the puzzle, and each crate is worth an hour of labor. If a pirate does not have enough labor hours remaining to complete a full set of bananas, the puzzle will start with some of them pre-filled.
While a pirate still has labor hours remaining, the puzzle may be performed in practice mode at any time, by pressing the Practice button, located on the right-hand side, beneath the ships speed, damage and bilge meters. This will cause the puzzle to clear, displaying a foraging report reading "this session was not rated", and buttons allowing the pirate to continue in practice mode or to dismiss the puzzle. If there are any chests on the board when the Practice button is pressed, they must be cleared before practice mode will start. Pirates with no labour hours remaining will enter practice mode automatically.
Gameplay
The basis of foraging involves clearing tiles in order to get crates of fruit to the bottom of the screen, and hence into the ship's hold. Tiles are cleared by forming lines of three or more, similar to bilging and treasure haul, save that it involves rotating tiles with a 2x2 square instead of swapping two tiles, and working downwards instead of upwards. Pieces can rotate both clockwise and counterclockwise.
The cursor is represented by a border that surrounds the 2x2 square of interest, though when a special piece other than the ant is selected, it changes to a 1x1 square. If part of a crate, a special piece other than the ant, or empty space, is inside the cursor region, the pieces cannot be rotated.
Controls
- Move mouse/arrow keys: Move cursor
- Right click/C: Rotate tiles clockwise/use earthquake or machete rightwards
- Left click/X: Rotate tiles counterclockwise/use earthquake or machete leftwards
Note that either mouse button has the same effect on the monkey and shovel. Setting the left-handed mouse in the game options swaps the button functions.
Free Days
Like the other crafting and carousing puzzles, foraging is free to play one day a week - the current schedule may be seen here. Normally on free play days, a pirate without a labor badge or subscription is still able to produce labor while puzzling. However, with foraging it is not possible to collect foraged commodities on free days. Instead pirates without a badge or subscription will puzzle in practice mode only. In addition, they cannot accept foraging offers from the noticeboard. When pirates without a badge or subscription start foraging, the following message is displayed:
Only labor badge holders may receive commodities from foraging but ye may play the puzzle.
Whenever a container is queued for insertion into the puzzle - that is, whenever a labor hour would normally be used - the following message is displayed as a green system message:
Alas, ye need a labor badge to forage. Ye can purchase one in the palace shop of a populated island.
Pieces
There are five normal tile types in total, and each represents something that is typically found on an uninhabited island - specifically: rock, foliage, wood, sand and soil.
From left: rock, foliage, wood, sand, soil
Containers
Forgeable items enter the board from the top, and will be in one of three containers:
 | Crate - Occupies 1 tile on the board. They are common but contain low-value fruits; bananas, coconuts, limes, mangos and pineapples. |
 | Basket - Occupies a 2x2 area on the board. They are less common but contain more exotic fruits; carambolas, durians, passion fruit, pomegranates and rambutan. |
 | Chest - Occupies a 2x3 area on the board. They are rare but contain valuable gems and gold nuggets |
Clearing everything from underneath these containers will clear them from the board, and place them in the hold of the ship. Different islands have different forageable fruits - to get full value they must be sailed to a different archipelago and sold to a market. There is one gem for each archipelago, and only one island in each archipelago will buy gems.
Empty Containers
| If a pirate has run out of advance labor hours, or has elected to perform the puzzle in practice mode, it is still possible to practice the puzzle, just like any other crafting puzzle. However, instead of fruit, the baskets found will contain only cobwebs and moths. Puzzling and scoring remains exactly the same, and performance will still affect experience and standing, but clearing a basket simply generates a system message that reads "Ye found an empty basket!" rather than an announcement to the rest of the ship that fruit has been foraged, and no payment will be received. |
  
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Special Pieces
There are also various special pieces which can appear while playing:
| Machete - Clears all pieces to the left or to the right of the row. Left clicking (X) will clear to the left, while right clicking (C) clears to the right. |
| Shovel - Clears all pieces below it until it reaches the bottom of the board. A forageable item will be ignored, so this piece can be useful for clearing crates or stuck baskets and chests. |
| Monkey - A monkey will appear, dancing around on the spot. This causes pieces in a 5x5 square around him to move and be replaced with new ones. Other special pieces that are nearby will be lost, but containers are unaffected. |
| Earthquake - An earthquake strikes the board! This shakes the entire board, causing tiles to shift one place to the left or right. Clicking left shakes to the left and clicking right shakes to the right. If there are gaps underneath a container, these can be filled with pieces that move around during the quake. |
| Ant - The ant will consume one tile each time pieces on the board are moved. It will always take away the tile directly in front of it, but it can be rotated to face a different direction. The number on the ant's back shows the remaining pieces the ant will eat before it dies. The ant will starve if it is unable to move because of a container, or if it reaches the sides or end of a board. It will consume other special pieces that are in its path. |
Clearing more of the puzzle pieces in combos will increase the number of special pieces which appear.
Scoring
Unlike bilging and treasure haul, foraging does not have combos for clearing normal pieces. Instead, the scoring is based on containers cleared from the board. It's possible to generate combos by having more than one container clear from the board in a single move. It has been suggested by the developers that the clearing of containers is the only thing which is used when calculating forage scoring. [1] Little is known about whether clearing more than one container in a single move is more important than the speed in which a container is cleared from the board from the time it entered.
Scoring is exactly the same whether the puzzle is using labor hours or is in practice mode. Like the other crafting puzzles, foraging is always classed as rated, even while practicing.
Posting a Forage Offer
While all of the other crafting puzzles are only offered inside stalls or shoppes, and hence have systems of pay in exchange for work in place, the foraging puzzle does not. Instead, fleet officers and above in a crew and deed holders have the ability to post a foraging offer for the ship they are on, which pays pirates an amount depending on what they forage. Selecting the forage offer option in the hold ring menu allows the officer to set a price for each commodity that can be foraged at the current island. The pay fields are automatically set with a percentage of the estimated market value, but this percentage can be changed, and the fields can even be manually set to any number.
This allows officers to set a price that they feel the commodity is worth - for example if they do not intend to transport any foraged gems to sell, they may simply set the pay for gems to zero, relying on the fact that gems are so rare to avoid turning off any potential applicants.
The forage offer dialogue box also gives an officer the option of posting the offer on the notice board. If this option is selected, the offered pay rates will be shown on the Voyages tab. Pirates may apply and be jobbed aboard similar to any other advertised voyage. As of release 2008-08-28, pirates without a labor badge or subscription, may not apply to be jobbed, even on free play days. Pirates must also have a labor badge or subscription in order to post a forage offer.
Selling the fruit
Fruit is generated on a per-archipelago basis. Any given archipelago will produce two fruits, one cheap type worth about 15 pieces of eight and one valuable type worth about 60 pieces of eight.
In order to get full value for the fruit you forage, you must sail to a market in another archipelago. These types of voyages are generally called fruit running. Markets in the local archipelago never purchase the fruit spawned there. Players who operate a palace or fort may choose to purchase the fruit, but usually only do so at significantly lower prices.
Historical Notes
The foraging puzzle was introduced in release 2008-08-27. In this same release, all units of gold ore were broken down into 10 gold nuggets. The ten-minute prerequisite for foraging on a ship you have recently whisked to was also removed in this release.
Gold ore was introduced as a forageable commodity in release 2005-03-28.
Before it was changed (in release 'Happy Holiday Fruitcake', in release 2004-12-15), foraging allowed pirates to gather herbs and minerals, which then could be sailed to a colonized island and sold to/used by shoppes. However, some players quickly figured out the schedule on which these commodities spawned, and acquired what was felt to be a disproportionate share of the 'found' wealth, which also had a large impact on the economy. These flaws inspired the Ringers to make changes to the foraging system, creating the process that now exists.
The ability to forage until the completion of a fort on an island in mid-colonization was added with release 2004-10-21.
Advance labor hours for foraging were added in Beta release 2003-08-07.
The ten-minute prerequisite for foraging on a ship you have recently whisked to was introduced with Alpha release 2003-06-24.
Foraging, consisting of a one-click-to-forage system as it originally existed, was introduced with Alpha release 2003-06-05.
Trophies
Ultimate list
| Cobalt | Crimson | Hunter | Ice | Jade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Malachite | Midnight | Opal | Sage | Viridian |
|---|---|---|---|---|
See Also
- Jamesh's Ultimate Foraging (guide)
- Fruit running
- Gem running
- Official game documentation on foraging
- Fruit
- Gem
External/Other Links
 Crafting Puzzles
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| See also: Labor |
