00:00good day folks ZD here over the last
00:02several days myself and my community
00:04have sent a literal boatload of
00:05shipments to each Port testing every
00:08different combination of resources and
00:10dust and the various different mechanics
00:12and theories and un testing things and
00:15retesting things and trying to build a
00:17complete picture of the mechanics of
00:20settlers of kar's shipping it's pretty
00:22approachable on the surface kind of cozy
00:24and fun but pretty nuanced under the
00:26hood and I'm very happy to say that we
00:28have indeed managed to build up a pretty
00:31complete picture of at least the
00:33mechanics so that we can start to put
00:35together some strategies together so
00:37first here's the reward types not only
00:40do specific resources correlate to
00:43specific reward types but where you send
00:45them also matters as well we manage to
00:48confirm things like for example if you
00:50send Crimson iron or or a Calum which
00:52give armor and weapons to nanu for
00:54example they'll result in strength ribon
00:57fell is mixed pums intelligence and then
01:00like calga being a more distant Port
01:02seems to factor into the quality of them
01:05that you get back but more on scaling
01:07later you can see some pretty fun and
01:09interesting stuff here like for example
01:11versium giving a mixture of stuff here
01:13at ponum as well as all sorts of
01:15splinters from calgar you can even Farm
01:17Scars by sending verisim to ribbon fell
01:20and through a lot of testing of each
01:22different food and different
01:23combinations of foods as far as we can
01:26tell all food just gives mixed currency
01:29the quality of that currency and amounts
01:31can certainly scale up outside of
01:34favored resource requests if you send a
01:36certain amount of trade value of pumpkin
01:37to one port and then send the same
01:40amount of trade value in wheat to that
01:42same port you will get a similar level
01:44of currency and it is surprisingly
01:47consistent and finally thoric dust
01:49counts as a shipment value multiplier as
01:52you can see here just a small amount
01:54will double the value of your shipment
01:56and it does scale up but it does have
01:58pretty heavy diminishing returns
02:00that said I do think there'll be some
02:01strategies that do send large amounts of
02:03dust but more on that later if you just
02:05want to know what resources where give
02:06you which rewards then you'll probably
02:08just need the cheat sheet and that'll be
02:09linked in the description below one
02:12final thing on specific rewards though
02:13and that is runes and Tattoos shipments
02:16to curan Ports that's the black flags
02:18will give runes and shipments to kuui
02:22Ports that's the green flags will give
02:24tattoos runes pretty consistently come
02:26back with almost any size of shipment
02:27but certainly the total size of the
02:29shipment the total value of the shipment
02:31as it goes up you'll get more runes and
02:33seemingly higher runes as well and
02:35because tattoos are individually kind of
02:37considered a bit more valuable than
02:39individual runes it's a bit harder to
02:41get a tattoo in the first place small
02:43shipments will often not get any tattoos
02:46like for example less than 100,000 total
02:49value will often not get a tattoo it is
02:51possible but pretty rare but once you
02:54start getting over 100,000 value and
02:56pushing up you'll more consistently get
02:58one or more tattoos and certainly some
02:59of those big shipments have gotten
03:00multiple tattoos and runes are not tied
03:03to any specific resources as far as we
03:05can tell unless there's some subtle
03:07biasing of tattoo or Rune type or
03:09anything like that as far as we can tell
03:10it just kind of scales up through a
03:12tearing system and then of course
03:14Randomness and variance all right so
03:16that's the basics on what type of
03:18rewards you get let's talk about now the
03:20nuances of how you scale them up and to
03:22do that we first have to talk about
03:24favored resources the request and
03:26fulfillment system so that is when you
03:28Mouse over one of the ports and they say
03:29they want a certain resource and they're
03:31giving you a bonus for what x volume of
03:33it so Nano here wants Crimson iron and
03:35wheat and for up to that amount of it
03:38they will give you the listed bonus So
03:4020% for Crimson iron which is quite low
03:4250% for wheat which is medium and then
03:44sometimes you can see like 90% And More
03:46do keep in mind though that Port
03:48upgrades play a big impact here as the
03:50final Port upgrade gives 50% more
03:52rewarding Port quoters so you might get
03:55135% bonus instead of 90% that's pretty
03:58big for the scaling we'll talk about
04:00but first let's just talk about the
04:01mechanics of the port favored resource
04:04system because I think our community has
04:06so far produced some of the more tested
04:09knowledge on how this system works so as
04:12you complete a list of fulfillments that
04:14is fulfilling all of the things on that
04:15list you will get back a bonus reward
04:18that is a random unique so if you're
04:20wondering why you got some random unique
04:21belt with your currency shipment when
04:24you completed a fulfillment that is why
04:26you can also get uniques just as a part
04:28of your other Rewards so for example if
04:30you send a shipment of oricalcum to
04:33calgar granting weapons and it's a
04:35pretty decent value shipment then
04:36there's a good chance that you might get
04:38a unique or even multiple so sometimes
04:40you'll do a fulfillment and you'll get
04:41some unique you'll get a so sometimes so
04:44sometimes you'll do a fulfillment you
04:45get a unique from that and you'll also
04:46get a unique or more from your other
04:48shipment as well so bonus uniques are
04:51nice but the important part of this
04:52system is actually that multiplier the
04:54ability to get 90% increased value for
04:57all of the Petrified Amber you send up
04:58to 29,000 for example that's going to
05:01result in a lot more high quality Rings
05:03a lot more rings in general and a lot
05:05more unique Rings you know or conversely
05:0870% bonus on or GS that's a food to
05:11calore is going to give a nice bonus to
05:14the currency you get back from that that
05:16multiplayer is a huge thing right
05:17because consider this you send a large
05:20volume of let's say wheat to ponum here
05:23and then you add some thoric dust to
05:26multiply that by three times or more and
05:29then you send that shipment of wheat
05:31multiplied by the dust to pum and scale
05:34all of that total value by 90% again
05:36that's almost doubling it that's a
05:38substantial bonus to what you'll end up
05:39getting back and pretty key to getting
05:42those juicy rewards sure you can get
05:44lucky just by sending some random mixed
05:46foods to whatever Port you want and that
05:48might occasionally result in someone
05:50posting a mirror screenshot to Reddit or
05:51something but the more consistent
05:53returns is going to come from leveraging
05:55those multipliers as always in Path of
05:57Exile right that's the concept of
05:58juicing is like St stacking these
06:01scaling modifiers together it's good to
06:03have a lot of quantity on your map but
06:05what multiplies that the amount of
06:06monsters in that map it's the same sort
06:08of concept here large shipments
06:10multiplied by dust multiplied by the
06:13favored resource there's some other
06:14nuances we'll talk about a little bit
06:15later but let's still just dissect the
06:18rest of the details of this favored
06:20shipment process because you obviously
06:23want large favored resource requests at
06:25Port so that you can send more of that
06:27resource there for that multiplier when
06:28higher rols like this wheat for example
06:30so it's great that this wheat has 90%
06:32that's basically as high as it rolls
06:33before you get Port upgrades but it's
06:35only for 5,000 wheat that's it's an okay
06:38amount but what if it was like 40,000
06:40right so how do you make those numbers
06:42go up some people have correctly
06:44surmised that there is some sort of
06:46leveling Port system going on we've done
06:49a bunch of testing on this and figured
06:50out what it isn't at least as you
06:53complete fulfillments the next
06:56fulfillment request will be larger we
06:59did a bunch of different tests on this
07:00but you can see just one little test I
07:01did here I converted the resources to
07:05trade value as that is a consistent way
07:07to kind of like measure different types
07:08of resources against each other because
07:10like wheat is worth less than or gords
07:12and so on so by calculating those as
07:14trade value we're able to get a picture
07:16of kind of like how those requests were
07:17going up the first request was 11,000
07:20total trade value and then the next
07:22request was 15,000 and then the next
07:25request was 20,000 and then it kept
07:27going up right and multiple tests conf
07:29confirm this kind of process what's
07:31interesting though is this seems to be a
07:33global system so doing fulfillments
07:35anywhere seems to push up a global
07:37hidden port level basically the wealth
07:38of the region consider it the way that
07:40we kind of found this out is that we had
07:43someone who had done a ton of
07:44fulfillments at one port but none at the
07:46other so they had something like this
07:4826,000 requested at nanu for example and
07:51then their ripen fill which they never
07:53shipped to had like 28 requests for a
07:56resource so tiny tiny total request
07:59Quest and then they did one fulfillment
08:01to Ry andf and it instantly jumped to
08:04the global level rather than say going
08:06up a little bit at a time as if it had
08:09independent levels it immediately jumped
08:11to that larger amount that the other
08:12Port had and indeed the other ports
08:14would do the same and that's because it
08:16seems like that's not the case at first
08:18glance and that's because they don't
08:19refresh until you complete a fulfillment
08:23so if you're sitting here with a bunch
08:24of crimson iron requests and you don't
08:25really care about doing that you have to
08:28fulfill them in order to see what the
08:30next thing is right so if you really
08:32want to do something specific to tooi
08:34then you're going to have to keep
08:35completing its fulfillments until one of
08:38the requests rolls the thing that you
08:39want so there's going to be some element
08:42here of going around and doing different
08:43requests and trying to both push that
08:45level up so that you can get bigger
08:47total ones but then also roll a good one
08:49that you are excited about doing so
08:52getting a resource that's giving you the
08:55reward you want often like food for
08:57currency or something but maybe you know
08:59something like versium for catalysts or
09:01scarabs or whatever and then getting
09:03that at the Port that you need for that
09:05specific reward and then hitting a high
09:07roll on the multiplier there so that you
09:09can then kind of cash in a big shipment
09:12so that's what I've been doing I've been
09:14really focusing on fulfilling rewards
09:15and I think this will be the early game
09:16strategy more on that later and as you
09:19can see that can still be quite
09:20lucrative this was just focused on doing
09:21a fulfillment so we have a unique but
09:24you know I also still get nice little
09:25trickle of currency back and some runes
09:28the war runes by the way worth like 10
09:29or something so not bad and as you can
09:32see I was working on an Amber request
09:33here that I haven't actually completed
09:36so I didn't get a bonus fulfillment
09:37request unique there but I did get a
09:39random unique just as part of the fact
09:41that this is Rings right that's cuz it
09:43was a pretty decent amount of Amber with
09:44a decent amount of dust and it had a
09:46nice fulfillment bonus so not only did I
09:49get like seemingly pretty well rolled
09:51Rings right it definitely has an impact
09:53on quality but also quite a quite a good
09:56chunk of runes here more so than I'd get
09:58for sending a small ship
10:00so as you can see we're really starting
10:01to get a solid understanding of how this
10:03all works so that we can start
10:04developing those strategies now we did
10:06test just c a couple other nuances about
10:08the port kind of fulfillment leveling
10:11system we tested whether that was
10:13character level bound cuz that is often
10:15the case for League mechanics and to
10:17test this we had like a highlevel
10:19character um who had pushed up their
10:21fulfillments a bunch uh swap over to a
10:24lowlevel character like a level five
10:25character and do a shipment and the port
10:28didn't go down at least so we can at
10:30least say that there's not going to be
10:31like some sort of deling or that it
10:33doesn't like reset to the level of your
10:34current character at least I think it's
10:37highly likely that it is a global Port
10:38leveling system just that's the simplest
10:40answer in the end there is a remote
10:42possibility that there are other
10:43explanations like it's character level
10:45assign but then there's some sort of
10:46like safety check against dling but that
10:49would be over complicating things anyway
10:50stop by my stream and if you want to
10:52discuss some of the testing data and
10:54alternative theories and stuff like that
10:55let me know in the comments or stop by
10:56the stream and we can work on that
10:58because that is what we've been and
10:59having a lot of fun with now here's just
11:01some additional extra thoughts on
11:03scaling and kind of getting the most out
11:04of your shipments before we go for a bit
11:06of a summary and some strategies and
11:08that is again don't forget the port
11:10upgrades not only do you get increased
11:12Port quotas and faster shipping speed
11:14but three ships with six crew each is a
11:16pretty big milestone as well obviously
11:18you're sending more ships so you're
11:20getting more stuff back over time but
11:22the six crew allows you to push the
11:23value of those shipments much higher as
11:25you level up those Port requests you're
11:27going to start stacking that with m
11:29multipliers and you're going to want to
11:31try and potentially push that risk up
11:33higher so the extra crew allows you to
11:35do that that said you don't necessarily
11:37always need to run Max crew I often
11:40found that I was pushing just for
11:42fulfillments zero risk shipments which
11:45meant that I probably had crew that I
11:47didn't really need and that was Burning
11:48Gold that I didn't need to you have to
11:49pay those wages right so if you're just
11:52doing low tier fulfillment requests and
11:53you're not really doing a lot of risk
11:54consider removing some crew have the sit
11:57Idol so you don't have to pay their
11:58wages and another thing to talk about
12:00for rewards is that people are doing
12:03things like sending large shipments and
12:04not seeing more total currency coming
12:06back and that is because there is not
12:09only kind of a scaling amount that you
12:11get back but there is also a quality
12:13roll up system one of the developers
12:15actually mentioned this to me when I was
12:16in New Zealand they said that when they
12:18kind of like were showcasing the
12:20multiple pages of loot they realized
12:21that okay sending them like 600
12:23alterations may not be the best strategy
12:26so we're going to add some sort of like
12:27quality rollup system where at a certain
12:29point your shipment value goes up and
12:32those alterations start converting into
12:33higher tier currencies like you get
12:35chaos instead right so you might not
12:37necessarily get more stuff sometimes
12:38you'll just get better stuff so instead
12:40of more Rings you might just get better
12:41rolled Rings or you know it's probably a
12:43function of both you're getting you're
12:46getting a bit more but also better
12:48rolled and at some point maybe it's
12:49going to kind of like you're going to be
12:50getting a bit less but you get better
12:51rolls and there's likely some variance
12:53on both axes another thing is it's
12:55becoming pretty clear that Port distance
12:56plays a role and that just makes sense
12:59why would you get the same rewards for a
13:0040-minute shipment to Nano as you get
13:02for a 4-Hour shipment to calgo it seems
13:04that inherently the more distant ports
13:06give larger rewards to the point that
13:08like armor and weapons from calgo for
13:10example feel quote unquote well rolled
13:13so the ideal alignment of a vents will
13:15be your perfect resource request to Cur
13:19or one of the distant ports with a high
13:21multiplier that you then send a giant
13:23Juiced up ship to now one other thing
13:27that's still kind of being tested and
13:29worked on and trying to be understood
13:31but I did want to bring it up at least
13:32kind of some theories on that is this
13:34idea of the shipment value and what it
13:36actually means so as you send more and
13:39more stuff the shipment value goes up
13:42and so too at a certain point depending
13:44on the level of your shipping people
13:47does your risk and the risk is of you
13:50losing like a big chunk of that um
13:52shipment back right like you might lose
13:5375% of the value or 50 or 25% there's a
13:56few different events like that do keep
13:58in mind updated the text here to reflect
14:00the fact that sometimes you can lose
14:02crew members or ships can be
14:03commandeered by the bosses even if
14:05you're at zero risk so there's never no
14:07risk to shipping but actually losing
14:09your return is what happens with the
14:11risk bar now this shipment value it's
14:14being kind of argued over whether it
14:16actually does a thing in terms of your
14:18Rewards or whether it's just a
14:20reflection of your kind of total risk I
14:23think it is just a ma mathematical
14:24conversion of the value of each of these
14:26things as they are represented in terms
14:29of risk so I think G just wanted a way
14:31for to say that you know a certain
14:34amount of crimson iron bar represents a
14:36certain amount of value because you just
14:38get you know armor back for them versus
14:40something like a high-end currency
14:42generating resource or indeed verium
14:45which gives a ton of stuff which
14:47generates a lot more value here to make
14:49that more risky in smaller quantities
14:51that all is to say that and this is
14:54something we've tested a bunch is that
14:57for example let's say you're trying
14:59trying to get fragments with versium
15:01sending a crapload of wheat with that to
15:04upgrade your shipment value doesn't seem
15:06to impact the reward you get back for
15:09one particular resource the amount of
15:11fragments you get back for your versium
15:13is based on the amount of versium you
15:15send not the other things that are with
15:17that shipment because think about this
15:19right you can send a shipment of just
15:21fissum and get and you know with a bunch
15:23of dust to scale and then obviously like
15:24the port multipliers and all that jazz
15:27and you'll get a certain amount of
15:28fragments back if if I took that same
15:29ship and then just added a ton of random
15:31food to it and the risk goes up the
15:34total shipment value goes up but the
15:35fragments I get from the versium won't
15:37go up at least as far as we can tell it
15:40is possible that there is some effect
15:41that this has on your overall
15:44returns but not in a way that we've been
15:46able to put down into tables yet now
15:49that said it that means now that said
15:51that doesn't mean that sending mixed
15:52shipments is a bad idea don't take that
15:55wrong because for example consider if
15:57you're putting a bunch of dust into
15:59shipment really multiplying that versium
16:02well then you can also take advantage of
16:04that investment with your other
16:06resources right that same theric dust is
16:09not only multiplying my versium but also
16:11all of these other things that I'm
16:12sending so it's getting a lot more value
16:14there and because that takes a fair bit
16:16of wages of gold to produce that is
16:19worth considering I personally think
16:21I'll probably mostly be sending the
16:23favorite resources to each port and not
16:26adding too much other random stuff
16:27unless I'm just kind of backing up a
16:29shipment for overnight while I sleep but
16:31we'll see how the strategies developed
16:32down the line so you should now at least
16:34have the mechanical understanding of the
16:36system to start developing your own
16:38strategies right I'm sure you've
16:40listened to some things that we said
16:42here and already started to make some
16:44connections and come up with some
16:45theories of your own but I did also just
16:47want to present you with some strategy
16:49theories of my own here and again these
16:51are just theories certainly take a look
16:53at the mechanics and figure out what you
16:54think will work for you early on though
16:57I think things are somewhat solved
16:59your focus should be on leveling up your
17:00ports and upgrading your town so that
17:03you can then get those big shiping
17:05shipment rank bonuses right like those
17:07are pretty significant so just run
17:10pretty low wage cost ships just good
17:12enough to not have too much risk and
17:15focus on fulfilling those Port requests
17:17while you save gold to level your town
17:19go around to each port and send them the
17:21things that they require so you can
17:23start leveling up that Global kind of
17:25favored resource system so that down the
17:28line you can start cashing in on that
17:30once you reach a desired level of
17:32upgrades on your shipping port and then
17:34I think the strategies are going to go
17:36in kind of two broad directions the
17:38first one is going to be big shipments
17:39that focus on multiplying resource
17:41quantity with thoric dust and the big
17:43favored resource bonuses and an extra
17:45bonus if it's to a distant port and
17:47you'll want to match that with sending
17:48the right resources to the right ports
17:50for the rewards that you want this is
17:52that like Mega juicer approach right and
17:54what will likely give you those
17:56screenshots of like really juicy page of
17:59currency and other rewards it'll require
18:02high level shipping people and a maxed
18:05upgrade port and also it'll require some
18:08kind of fishing for good uh favored
18:11resource requests at the right ports you
18:14won't really want to dump a ton of
18:16resources in thoric dust and gold into a
18:19shipment to a port that's not really
18:21giving you the rewards that you want
18:23likely you'll be focusing a lot on
18:25currency but also it'll be really nice
18:27when you can multiply it with something
18:29like getting scarabs or fragments or
18:31something else nice back and then the
18:33other approach is kind of the smaller
18:35lowrisk low wage ship spam approach this
18:38will be good for people who can only
18:39play like a few hours here and there
18:41this is good for the you know I'm a
18:43father of 12 and I can only play 2 hours
18:45a week players but also Jokes Aside
18:49probably a good strategy for a lot of us
18:51so this relies on the idea that perhaps
18:54there is a bit of a diminishing returns
18:55to sending large quantities of resource
18:57just the same as there is for the dust
18:59multiplier so the concept is that you
19:01take smaller shipments just focusing on
19:04kind of fulfilling lowrisk favored
19:07resource requests so for example taking
19:11some corn here to calgo for example so I
19:14would probably run potentially lower
19:16wage people than this let's see kind of
19:18what we can get away with here maybe
19:20kind of using the dust multiplier to
19:22bring the risk up to an acceptable level
19:25it looks like probably we want a little
19:26run a little bit more crew than that but
19:28not really going for the fishing for the
19:29really really high level crew just to
19:31get that gold per hour a bit lower cuz I
19:33can't play that much right and then just
19:35sending these sorts of ships repeatedly
19:37right and just getting those nice little
19:39kind of pulls of the slot lever of the
19:42where you uh you know you get some
19:44random bubble gum currency and
19:45occasionally get lucky in higher roll of
19:46divine and it acts as a nice little
19:48passive income in addition you know
19:50while you're offline or while you're
19:51doing your other mapping best thing of
19:53course is that it's just way leaner of
19:55gold so you can focus again more on Town
19:57upgrades or you can you know potentially
19:59play a lot less and still be able to do
20:01kind of multiple shipments even when
20:02you're not able to actively play you're
20:04still able to take advantage of those
20:05favorite resource bonuses but you're
20:07never really going to get those exciting
20:09pages of loot probably all right folks
20:11there you have it there's some mechanics
20:13on the settlers of calgo shipping uh
20:15gleaned from a large group of people
20:18having a lot of fun uh maybe a bit too
20:20much fun testing these mechanics I've
20:23not been so engaged in a specific aspect
20:26of a league mechanic in a while it's
20:28very fun there's obviously still more to
20:30learn and definitely the strategy
20:33element of things is something that
20:34we're going to have to develop just
20:35through testing and feeling it out as
20:37well as you know people doing large
20:39amounts of data of like doing large
20:41shipments versus small shipments and
20:43seeing kind of what works out better
20:45overall of course there's always an
20:47aspect to tailoring strategies to your
20:48own kind of personal play style like I
20:50said those you know running lower gold
20:52strategies for people who can't play as
20:54much but I hope you found this
20:56insightful if you've come up with any
20:57other interesting concl conclusions or
20:59have an idea of something we could test
21:01please let me know in the comments below
21:02or drop by the stream where we're
21:03working on this actively that's it for
21:04now I'm zigg and thanks for watching
