As we promised yesterday, the final round of big changes to Seafaring is now live! These focus on making Seafaring more accessible to everyone, offering bonuses to specialisations (instead of making them necessities), and further separating ship combat from PK.

The biggest change you will notice is that all the necessary abilities for sailing have moved over into Seafaring proper. Specialisations now contain some special abilities, and an aura to apply to a ship that increases in effect with rank. See ShipAuras below.

Alterations. (These are abilities you'll recognise by name.)
- Grapple:
No longer is grapple a trigger war, instead grappling has taken some cues from old forceboarding.
Those wishing to initiate a grapple can fire a hookshot from an Arcanian arm at a target ship.
The hookshot has a range, and both ships can be moving.
Once a hookshot has landed, the ships are considered 'tethered', if the ships are moving the two will slowly be drawn together until the tether breaks, or until both are adjacent and unmoving.
When tethered or grappled you cannot change direction or alter rowing/sails.
Should you grapple a fast moving ship, or if there is a discrepency in size between the ships, tethers can break.
Multiple tethers can be fired, 2 can land on a windcutter, 3 on a seastrider, and 4 on a wargalley.
Tethers can be removed via CHOP TETHER. This is faster if you have a shipaxe.
- Seaspells (various):
Removed from the Specialisations, seaspells are now tied to a ship's figurehead.
A figurehead can be set with up to four seaspells.
These are set/changed by the captain when in harbour via SEASPELLS.
The Hull and Sailsgird spells have been removed. (Damages from seamonsters and ships will be watched to adjust for this.)
Barrier
Rainstorm*
Shield*
Shipcloak*
Wavecall*
Wavescythe
Whirlpool
Windboost
* There are two pairs of incompatible seaspells, meaning you cannot set both of either pairing on a figurehead. Shipcloak is incompatible with Wavecall, Rainstorm is incompatible with Shipshield.
- Shipscan now starts at the max range that rank V Watch would previously have given.
- Shipstate contains the Emergencies and Steadygoing manoeuvres.
- Avoidance manoeuvres contains the Evasives and Jink manoeuvres.

New Additions!
- Hookshot:
The ammunition used when grappling.
These can be purchased from Maelstrom in crates of 50,
These will be stored in the ammo hold.
These will be fired from the thrower (Arcanian Arm) at other ships.
- Plundering:
Once you are bound to a ship via grapple and their hull health is lower than 50% you can order your swashbucklers aboard to PLUNDER for booty!
Swashbucklers gain experience from plundering and defending the ship from plundering attempts.
Swashbucklers no longer wander.
Success of plunder is dependant on the level of your swashbucklers compared to the swashbucklers on the ship you are trying to plunder from!
Loot from plundering can be taken from the strongbox, from the cargo hold, from the ammo stores, and from any seamonster trophies left on the deck.
A ship can be plundered no more than 3 times total in a 12 hour period.
- Smart Orders:
Earned at rank III in the Helm specialisation, Smart Orders increases your turning speed for a duration of 2 minutes. This can be activated once every 10 minutes.
- Ship Auras:
Each Specialisation offers an aura that (when activated) applies a passive buff to the ship.
Auras scale in effectiveness with your rank in the specialisation, often offering an extra buff at rank 5.
You can only activate one aura at a time, same auras do not stack.
You must remain on the ship for an aura to remain active.
Windcutters can have 3 auras active.
Seastriders can have 4 auras active.
Wargalleys can have 5 auras active.
Use SHIP AURA to activate, deactivate, or change the aura you are currently applying. (You will need to be at the ship's bow to do this.)
- Shipwho <ship>:
Earned at rank IV in Watch, you can see a list of who is on the deck of a different ship (provided it is within viewing range.)
Must have a spyglass in your possession for this to work.

The Removals.
- As noted in Seaspells above, Hull and Sailsgird have been removed.
- Forceboarding has been removed, and is replaced with plundering.
- Chopped decks are no longer needed and have been removed.

As always, if you encounter any bugs, please let us know by filing a BUG report.

Penned by My hand on the 9th of Sarapin, in the year 715 AF.