Memorization

Routes between islands can be memorized or memmed by playing the navigation puzzle.

Each league point in the ocean may be individually memorized, except those which are unique to Sea Monster Hunt maps. Once a pirate has memorized a league point, it will always appear brown on "Yer known world," and that pirate will no longer need access to charts (on the current ship or in the inventory) to see them.

Pirates must be navigating when the ship encounters the league point, and score at least Fine on the duty report, to have a chance of memorizing the route. The number of times one must navigate to a point is random. Most league points can be memorized in 4-6 passes, but some may take as few as 3 passes, or as many as 8. For the pass to count, a ship must travel between two league points; turning about before hitting the next league point does not count.

Any league point that contains an island can be memorized without doing the navigation puzzle at all. Simply setting foot on the island (by stepping off of a ship, by going to the island on a skellie fighting mission, etc.,) counts as one credit towards the credits needed to memorize the island.

Island discovery
Islands can also be 'memorized', in that once a pirate has been to one, it has been discovered, and will always be visible on Yer known world, as a diamond shape with the name of the island.Each island has a league point, which is memorized separately. Memorizing the league point of an island does not memorize the island text, that pirate must set foot on it.

Discovering islands can be complicated by the fact that island text always appears brown on Yer known world, whether it is known temporarily because of a chart or has been memorized already.

Island discovery can be performed by first compiling a list of unknown islands, and taking stock of which islands are already known. Pirates can then compare that list against the appropriate island list or ocean map, and board a vessel that is well stocked with charts, allowing them to whisk to the destination island(s) with the aid of a whisking potion.

Strategies
The fastest way for a pirate to memorize league points is when they can navigate uninterrupted. Memorizing while pillaging is slower due to the numerous sea battles involved. However, since brigands and barbarians sometimes yield new charts, pillaging can also be an aid when trying to memorize largely unknown areas.

Pirates can navigate with the navy once they meet all the requirements for the navigate with the navy mission. When navigating with the navy, pirates cannot be attacked by brigands, but pirates also have no control over the course that is set. Additionally, the navy only charts to one island at a time, and will halt at each destination island; if the route is very short, then the quick burst of puzzling may be detrimental to some navigators' standings.

To memorize routes away from islands (where the navies don't sail), pirates must navigate while pillaging, trading, or sailing solo for the purpose of memorization, also known as power memming. These methods are prone to attack by brigands, which slow the memorization time.

It is no longer possible to memorize league points when the ship is set to a swabbie ship transport or greeter pillage, as of Release 2007-12-12. Prior to this release, memorizing on a swabbie ship transport vessel was the ideal strategy with minimum risk to the navigator.

Soloing
When soloing you must, of course, be an officer or above in your crew, and you must also have access to a ship. You must be able to chart the routes you wish to memorize, by having the correct charts either on the ship or in your possession. You can also have someone who has already memmed the course chart it for you. It is not possible to memorize extinct routes (which only exist on Midnight).

When soloing a sloop (which is the easiest to solo), you will only have four swabbies to help you sail, and brigands may attack you. As well you will also have to pay for any rum you consume or cannon balls you fire during any battles. If you are planning on memming and avoiding fights, it is best not to put up a jobbing notice, as jobbers will likely be expecting fights to pay for their time that they spend puzzling for you. However, you can always ask someone in your crew if they would like to help you.

Avoiding brigands is easy as long as there are not many attacking; however, once engaged, it can be hard to get back up to speed after the battle. Brigands cannot catch up to you while you're at top speed, so they must be in front of you, traveling slower in the same direction, and waiting for you to approach them. You should turn about and sail all the way back to the last league point, at which point you'll start going in the correct direction again after you set sail. This allows you to avoid issuing a second 'turn about' command and suffering another drop in speed.

Again, it is very useful to bring another pirate on these solo runs (though that's not a solo run, is it?) who wants to just sail, for little or no pay. You might also "hire" someone for a time. If their output is better than a swabbie, it will help pick up speed to avoid brigands.

If you are good at navigation, configuring the voyage as "Evading" would be helpful since the better navigation means a better chance of not being attacked by passing brigands, along with reducing spawns designated for you.

An alternate solo strategy is to configure a pillage with the difficulty of the brigands/barbarians turned down low. You should be able to win most of the resulting fights, even without using cannonballs. While this method is much slower and requires far more skill with the navigation puzzle than evading, this method does generate a large number of charts and can prove useful when other methods of getting missing charts are unfeasible.

Course selection
One common method of memorization is charting a long route such that there is enough time to get up to "fine," and to keep these higher scores for a longer amount of time. Also, not porting but simply recharting to go back on the route is also very common: no speed is lost at islands this way. However, as the navigation puzzle resets to zero on recharting, the higher speed means that there is less time to build up a good score before the first league point. A solution sometimes employed to solve this problem is to have a fellow officer chart the route while the navigator remains at their station.

A technique of memorizing a specific route is to chart through the target route to an adjacent route that is already memorized or a map for it is available for charting. Once a navigator has gone through a league or two of the adjacent route he or she can chart back through the target route and take advantage of an extra league or two to get up to a high score and thus reduce the time it takes to memorize the target route. This technique is especially useful for memorizing a route where the chart is old and may dust soon or a crewmate is charting it and memorization needs to be completed before they log off.

Navy mission
To memorize routes starting on colonized islands, it may be simpler to take a navigation mission aboard a navy boat. Pirates will be assigned to a sloop with four swabbies; rum will be provided free of charge by the navy; ships will not attack; and navigators will be paid wages for their performance at the navigation puzzle.

Pirates may also use the Attack Brigands mission to memorize league points as well, but enemy ships will attack.

Note: These missions require that the starting island have a Palace.

Memorizing island points

 * Go to the island. Log out and back in again until the island point is memorized.
 * Go to the island. Hop on and off a crew ship ported at that island until the point is memorized.
 * If there is ferry to the island, use that repeatedly.

Charting for others
Anyone with the ability to navigate a ship can now chart the ship. This means any officer from the ship's crew or a jobber who has been ordered to navigate.

Prior to Release 2008-10-14 only officers in a ship's crew could chart a course on that ship. Officers who have points memorized could easily chart for others in their crew. In order to chart for someone who was not in their crew, the person who needed the route charted had to trade the ship's deed to the charting Officer, who would then chart the course and trade back the deed.

Portrait items
Pirates who memorize specific percentages of their ocean's league points are eligible to hold certain portrait items when sitting for a portrait.

Historical notes
Memorization originally required sailing a route exactly five times while doing the Navigation puzzle to memorize it. Due to overanalysis by players, this was changed to the current system in.

For a while, pirates could memorize leagues with greeter pillaging or swabbie ship transport. This was changed with.

For a long time, it was possible to memorize extinct league points by having them charted by someone who had memorized them. This was disabled in preparation for Atlantis.

Prior to, only officers in a ship's crew could chart a course on that ship.

Other links

 * Number of league points per ocean
 * Sage memorization checklist - a checklist of all the routes in sage, with notes as to which routes charts are purchasable.
 * Memorization spreadsheets: Hunter, Midnight, Sage
 * misha's midnight memming map
 * Official navigation docs
 * Wiki maps: Cerulean, Emerald, Ice, Meridian
 * Tjj's Hunter Memming Helper
 * Memorising league points
 * See the Memming Players lists below for free charting services.
 * Enhanced Memorization Chart - Emerald Ocean