Labor

"Job" redirects here. If you are looking for the command for jobbing a person, see job (command), or for real-world employment opportunities with Three Rings Design, see Jobs at Three Rings

Labor (Commonwealth English: Labour) is needed to finish producing goods. On subscriber oceans, each account is given 36 hours of allocated labor per ocean per day. This labor pool is evenly distributed among an account's characters (one character would have 36 hours, two characters would have 18 each, three characters would have 12 each). A character's unused labor hours can be used by other characters on the same account, provided the receiving character is eligible to use them. On doubloon oceans, 24 hours are allocated for each character with a labor badge and 72 hours for each character with a deluxe labor badge. Thus, an account with three pirates with labor badges could provide 72 hours of labor per day and 216 hours of labor per day if all pirates on that account have deluxe labor badges.

Two labor hours are used when pirates work actively at a shoppe, and one labor hour is used when a container of goods enters the board while they forage.

Taking a Job

If a shoppe or stall is hiring, there is a Help wanted button on the right shoppe panel. Clicking this button allows you to take the job as well as see the wages offered. Different wages are usually given for different grades.

There are three grades of labor: basic, skilled and expert. If you play a crafting puzzle, the quality of the labor you produce depends on how well you perform. For shoppes without puzzles, the quality is allocated based on demand.

Note that you don't need to take a job at a shoppe with a crafting puzzle to provide labor. It is automatically provided when you perform the appropriate puzzle. A handy way to find a shop that actually has jobs in the order queue, is to do the appropriate mission, this will always take you to a shop with work available (however do check the wages being offered before starting the puzzle).

You must log in at least once every ten days to keep a job. If you are logged out for ten consecutive days, your pirate will automatically quit all of his or her jobs.

Crafting Puzzles

Eventually, all shoppes will have associated crafting puzzles. For now, alchemistry, blacksmithing, distilling, shipwrightery, and weaving have been implemented.

Online labor is provided by playing the appropriate puzzle in each shoppe or stall. This is the only way pirates without labor badges or subscriptions can provide labor. Two hours of labor is provided for each puzzling session provided the hours are available and the puzzle isn't booched.

You can also provide offline work at distilleries, apothecaries, shipyards, weaveries, and iron mongers. This is done by periodically playing the puzzle. Achieving an oceanwide standing of "distinguished" allows you to provide skilled labor; a standing of "renowned" allows for expert labor. You can check your current skills by clicking "Ye -> Your Name -> Employment".

You can use up to 24 hours of "advance" labor playing the crafting puzzles or foraging. These hours are then taken from your next 1, 2, or 3 days of labor (for subscriber accounts with 1, 2, or 3 pirates, respectively. Doublooners will always have just 1 day of advance labor). When playing a crafting puzzle, a rating of booch can give unskilled or basic labor, fine gives basic labor, good gives basic or skilled labor, excellent gives skilled or expert labor and incredible gives expert labor. For the reports that have multiple labor grades, the one that is assigned depends on the actual number report that is behind the scenes (better will provide the better labor).

Note that leaving a crafting puzzle without completing the session will waste an hour of labor if there are orders in the queue. You will also waste hours if you abandon a foraging puzzle board with containers still on it, as they use up an hour when they enter the board.

Free days for non-subscribers, non-badge holders Today is Friday. The freeplay days schedule is as follows:

Splitting Your Labor

Each pirate can have up to three jobs. Labor will always go to the highest-paying job a pirate holds, unless that shop has no work or too many employees.

If you are working for crew stalls or shoppes, it is a good idea to make sure each stall or shoppe gets labor by either splitting the jobs between three characters or making sure your crew's stalls and shoppes have standardized labor rates.

Wages

Wages are automatically delivered to your pirate every twelve hours, or just before a server reboot. To check how much labor you have provided, click on "Ye -> Info -> Labor Report".

Shoppes and Labor

Depending on the type and size of a stall or shoppe, you are limited to how many hours of labor can be provided per hour. You can view this number in the form of Labor per Hour under the "Manage Employees -> Staff" menu of a "Manage the Shoppe" radial menu. Multiplying this number by 24 shows the maximum number of hours your shoppe or stall can use each day.

Shoppes are also limited in the amount of expert and skilled labor they can produce. Stalls have these limits listed in their respective bazaars under the "Run your own stall". Regular shoppes are approximately two times and upgraded shoppes are three times those of a deluxe stall. For example, a Deluxe Tailoring Stall can poll up to 8 workers per hour, up to 4 of whom can provide skilled labor and 3 of whom can provide expert. This means that a corset, which only requires 30 labor units, will take at least 5 real hours to complete if ordered from a deluxe stall, because it needs 15 hours of expert labor. An upgraded tailor shoppe, however, would be able to finish the same corset in only 2 hours because it can use about three times as many expert laborers per hour.

Value For Your Labor Badge

One labor badge allows 720 hours of labor to be produced. In order to break even on the cost of the badge, therefore, one need to ensure that:

• Every one of the badge's labor hours is used.
• That you are being paid enough for your labor hours.

The first point can be helped by taking the full three jobs allowed, but the second can be harder to ensure, as it can be difficult to gauge how much "enough" is. To calculate the minimum wage required to break even, the following formula can be used, where x is the current doubloon price on the ocean:

x ÷ 144

The formula gives the minimum wage, and a job should only be taken if the lowest wage they pay is higher than that - the difference between the jobs wages and your minimum wage can be considered profit.

How Shoppes Use Labor

Labor is taken from pirates in a round-robin fashion until either the maximum labor output is reached, there is no labor left to provide, or there are not enough employees to reach the maximum output. Expert labor is always provided first, followed by skilled, and then basic.

Historical Notes

The labor hours per day available to subscription accounts was changed from 24 to 36 with release 2010-05-18.

With release 2009-08-04, you now provide two hours of labor for each labor puzzle played.

The way in which labor hours are used in foraging changed with release 2008-08-27, with the implementation of the foraging puzzle. Before the puzzle was implemented, it was possible to use up a labor hour while not managing to forage anything.

In-game labor reports were added with release 2005-01-05. Previously pirates would not know how their hours were used except by checking the (now defunct) money report. Shoppe and stall owners no longer received nightly emails with this information.

Labor limitations at stalls and shoppes without crafting puzzles increased with release 2004-02-20.

The "direct labor" system was introduced with the release of distilling, Beta release 2003-11-22.

Maximum labor throughput was introduced with Beta release 2003-10-06. The previous system had a maximum employee limit. Labor output was also reduced in this release (it had been higher in the past due to lack of jobs).

Automatic firing for players who haven't logged on in ten consecutive days was added in Beta release 2003-09-25.

Advance labor hours for foraging were added in Beta release 2003-08-07.

Labor was limited from 24 hours per day, per pirate, to 24 hours per account in Beta release 2003-07-14.

Foraging was introduced in Alpha release 2003-06-05.

External/Other Links

• German article: Arbeitskraft

• Commonly discussed ideas from Game Design
• Artemis' labor help (slightly outdated)
• Quizzical's guide to choosing a job (slightly outdated)
• How Labour is assigned