Sailing Update: Buffs, Changes & More

For those of you who might be locked into a raid and don't have time to read this entire newspost, here's a summary of the changes:

• •Port Tasks (Courier and Bounty) will receive a 10-15% Sailing XP boost.

• •Polling Loot Sacks, containing materials used for ship-building will be added to Courier Tasks to help increase their GP/hr.
• •Fixing a bug preventing players from taking two cargo of the same type for different tasks.

• •You'll have a higher chance of getting Sailing-specific drops while on a Bounty Task.
• •Bounty Tasks will be longer on average, reducing the time spent travelling to get a new one.
• •Every sea creature will have a dedicated Port that offers a fixed and permanent Bounty Task for a specific creature.

• •Sailing-specific items will drop more frequently from the following creatures: Armoured Kraken, Vampyre Kraken, Veiled Kraken, and Great White Shark.
• •Adding Dragon Sheets to the loot table of Orcas.
• •Polling an auto-retaliate feature for cannons while you're on them.
• •Mapping various solo spawns of high-level seaborne creatures, such as Vampyre Krakens and Great White Sharks, so you can bully them easier.
• •Exploring looting improvements, including crew-mates, visual displays, or AoE loot options.
• •Polling Bosun's Bench, a dedicated repair facility, as part of the Red Reef.

• •Facilities will be moveable within the Sailing side panel.

• •Polling a task extension and weighting increase for Frost Dragons.
• •Dragon Sheets will drop more frequently from Frost Dragons and Lava Strykewyrms on and off-task.

• •Buffs for the Aquanite Hopper and Belle's Folly are being considered as part of the next Summer Sweep-Up, however, nothing is confirmed yet.
• •Polling a buff to the Medallion of the Deep in Fossil Island's underwater Thieving/Agility activity to reduce oxygen consumption by 80%.
• •Fixing various bugs with the Horn of Plenty.

• •Sailing XP from Deep Sea Trawling will be roughly double what it currently is in-game.
• •Reducing the player default gather rate from 4 ticks to 3.
• •Fixing a bug with baited shoals. With this change, you’ll receive the 20% catch-rate and get more fish in your nets.
• •Polling various standard Fishing spots at sea.

• •Polling a new customization system for boats to unlock basic sails at Level 41 Sailing.

• •Adding a right-click Last Boat option to the Teleport to Boat spell.
• •Adding a way to unnote metal bars for cannonballs at the Ancient Furnace.
• •Adding extra functionality to the 'Special Attack' button whilst you're on a boat and attached to the Helm, allowing you to release Wind Motes. Have fun zooming across Gielinor!
• •Some boosted support facilities will be useable without needing to boost your Sailing level again.
• •Food from Sailing will be changed to be more vibrant when cooked.
• •Adding a rare chance (1 in 800,000) to get Soup from sorting Salvage.
• •Adding the ability to use Telekinetic Grab on Lost Crates to retrieve them. Maximum efficiency engaged!

• •Fixing a bug where the Boat Bottle indicator gets hidden in the Shipyard interface.
• •Sailing items will be unblocked from Death's Coffer as their prices have now stabilised.
• •Fixing an issue related to the Cargo Hold when it is moved while items are still contained within.

Sailing XP from Port Tasks (both Courier & Bounty Tasks) will be increased by roughly 10-15% across the board. Pun intended, sorry. Port Tasks will be getting a much clearer purpose within Sailing through changes set to increase their GP / hour. At the highest level, Barracuda Trials will always be the most optimal way to train Sailing due to how click intensive they are compared to other training methods. However, this change ensures Port Tasks are more strongly positioned at a medium intensity. This will mean they are more relevant for players who want something more than the completely 'AFK' Salvaging but less than Trials. As with anything XP related, we're balancing based on optimal XP efficiency. That means we look at the highest possible XP obtainable, then work backwards to see how much we can change without making other methods feel worse. Players really love Salvaging, so we don't want to mess with that!

Successfully completing Courier Tasks will award Loot Sacks, helping you gather useful boat supplies as you progress through Sailing. Loot Sacks are stackable and work similarly to Hunter Rumour loot sacks. You can open them to receive a bundle of supplies at once, with rewards scaling based on the level of the task completed and the distance travelled during the task:

• •Sheets (Dragon)
• •Nails (Bronze to Dragon)
• •Cannonballs (Iron to Dragon)
• •Other thematic drops
• •Shark Paint (currently 1/36 from Port Tasks).

The GP normally awarded to Port Tasks will also be moved to the Loot Sack. The goal of this change is to reduce the time it takes to obtain boat upgrades. High-tier upgrades such as Dragon Sheets and Dragon Nails were previously sourced primarily from content outside Sailing, such as Frost Dragons. Our original design intent was to gate these items behind higher-level unlocks so that these milestones became very exciting, however, it resulted in a feeling that these materials were excessively grindy. That's not the kind of experience we want to create for players, especially when our goal is to incentivise players to have multiple different boats. Throughout this blog, we're making changes so that high-tier materials will become more accessible through Sailing itself. Ideally, this will encourage you to experiment with multiple boats and different loadouts, such as a combat boat, a trawling boat, or a speed-focused boat! You can own up to five boats within Sailing, and we’d like to encourage you to make use of them. Plus, if you're using multiple boats, then facility slots should feel less restrictive, which will allow us more design space for new facilities in future updates. Poll Question: Should we add Loot sacks as a reward upon successful completion of Courier Tasks? These will offer additional boat supplies as a reward from Courier Tasks and scale based on the level of task you complete, and distance at which you've delivered cargo. We also picked up a pesky bug where Courier tasks using the same cargo type are currently not able to be taken together. This is unintended behaviour and it will be resolved in a future Sailing update!

Bounty Tasks will also be getting a much stronger purpose within Sailing. They're not becoming a primary way to get Sailing XP, however, the changes below will position them as the best way to obtain specific sea creature drops while on task. We also want to reduce the amount of time spent preparing for tasks or travelling between them, making the overall gameplay feel much smoother! So, what's changing? First, we’re increasing the drop rate of Sailing-specific rewards from sea creatures, and then giving a further increase to them if you're on a Bounty Task. The goal of this change is to position Bounty Tasks as the most efficient way to obtain rewards such as Dragon Cannon Barrel, Echo Pearl, Keel Parts, and similar drops. Another change is that every sea creature will now have at least one port that always offers a fixed and permanent Bounty Task for that creature. For example:

• •Deepfin Point will always offer Veiled Kraken tasks.
• •Fremennik will always offer Vampyre Kraken tasks.

This means you'll spend less time spent sailing between ports searching for a specific task, helping reduce downtime and improve efficiency. We're also going to increase average length of Bounty Tasks. This will reduce how often you’ll need to return to port to pick up a new one.

Boat combat needs to feel fun, rewarding, and in a healthy place. Take a look at the changes we've got planned!

We're increasing the drop rates of high-value Sailing items, such as Dragon Sheets and Keel parts, from high level sea creatures. The creatures that we're looking at buffing in this way include:

• •Armoured Kraken
• •Vampyre Kraken
• •Veiled Kraken
• •Great White Shark

We'll also be adding Dragon Sheets to Orcas' loot table, so that there's even more places to get them. Please note, you'll always get better rates for these items whilst you're on a Bounty Task, since we want to give players more of a reason to do them. Clue Scrolls from Sailing creatures also don't currently get boosted by Combat Achievements - we'll make sure that's fixed too as part of these changes!

Side panel frustrations, begone! Or at least… Far less annoying than before.

Ah, scrollbars. Don't you just love them? Especially when you need them for stuff that you interact with over and over again. What's that? You don't love doing that? Skill issue. Player feedback has highlighted that important facilities can be buried further down the panel, which is frustrating when you need to engage with those facilities frequently. Additionally, while facility bottles let you move facilities around your boat, there is also no way to reorder them within the side panel itself, meaning any facilities positioned lower on the side panel will remain in those awkward spots permanently. Oops. The team has been working on a change which we think you'll love: we're adding the ability to customise the side panel layout to your own preference. You'll be able to place your most frequently used facilities in an easy to reach spot, for example, putting your two cannons next to each other. Take a look! If you can’t see the image above, click here! If you can’t see the image above, click here! Here's a GIF of this working in action: If you can’t see the image above, click here! While it won’t completely remove the scrollbar from the side panel, it should make interacting with facilities much smoother and more convenient because you'll be able to customise them based on your preference. You'll be able to access this feature from the Shipyard.

We're all about pointing and clicking here, but boat combat currently asks for too many clicks. Click to disengage from the cannon, click to loot sea creatures, click to re-enter the cannon, and keep clicking. We've considered this feedback and we want to make boat combat a bit more relaxed, especially during longer sessions. First, we're adding an auto-retaliate setting for cannons against sea creatures that attack your boat. When enabled, any cannon that you're locked into would automatically fire back at hostile sea creatures that attack you. Explode those Dolphins while you're at work, go on! Naturally, there would be a short delay before the cannon responds, which will ensure that actively targeting creatures yourself will always be the most efficient option. Please note, this feature only applies to your cannon. Your player character would not auto-retaliate using normal weapons. What do you think? Poll Question: Should we add an auto-retaliate setting to cannons for sea creatures that attack your boat? We're also mapping various solo spawns of high-level seaborne creatures, such as Vampyre Krakens, Armoured Krakens, and Great White Sharks. This doesn't mean we're changing combat to be single-way in these areas, however, it will mean that you'll have a better time bullying them without several of them attacking you at once. We'll be careful not to add these creatures near any popular Trawling routes - they should exist for bullying purposes only.

We want to make the process of getting your hard-earned rewards much nicer and much faster. We're also exploring further changes, so that we're able to make boat combat a bit more AFK-able, however, we haven't settled on them yet. Let us know if you like the following ideas through comments on this blog post:

• •Allowing crew-mates to loot on your behalf. This could help reduce the amount of manual interaction needed during combat.
• •A visual display for creature loot before you click to loot. Currently, players won't know if a defeated creature has something valuable, like a Dragon Cannon Barrel, before clicking to loot it. On land, drops appear immediately on the floor, making it easy to tell whether something is worth picking up.
• •Options to loot multiple defeated sea creatures at once, AoE-style. This could help to make looting feel easier to manage and require less clicks.

What do you think about them, are we on to a winner? Do you have any other ideas?

Bosun’s Bench is a new facility introduced in the Pirate Encounters blog. When a crewmate or player is assigned to this facility, they will periodically repair your ship when it can be healed without overhealing it. This uses kits stored in your Cargo Hold and will still benefit from your crew's Deckhandiness stats. It can be built in any existing slot that currently supports a Salvaging Station. Previously, this was a Ballistic Attractor, but that's been changed later in development. We're no longer proceeding with Pirate Encounters, so it will only need a schematic (acquired from Red Reef) plus the following:

• •63 Sailing
• •54 Construction

• •6 Camphor Planks
• •24 Adamantite Nails
• •2 Lead Bar
• •Bosun's Bench Schematic (one-time unlock)

Poll Question: Should we add Bosun's Bench as described in the blog as a reward from Red Reef? This would allow you to create a new facility that, when a crewmate is assigned, will periodically repair your ship when it can be healed. Some of you have told us that this feature should just be added as a universal upgrade for all boats rather than a facility. We think that a benefit of effectively allowing you to ignore your boat's HP for an indefinite period of time is worth a facility slot over a flat buff applied to every boat, since we're generally making boat upgrades significantly more accessible.

As mentioned above, there has been plenty of discussion around the role of cannons in boat combat. They're a core part of the fantasy of being at sea. Who doesn't enjoy exploding things with a massive cannon? Combat is still in its very early stages, and the Dragon Cannon cannot compete with powerful end-game items, such as Tumeken's Shadow (despite having a Level 92 Sailing requirement). We've put some measures in place to mitigate that, such as having your cannon do more damage when you're on it, however, that hasn't fully given cannons their own identity. Boat-to-boat combat is a promising avenue for addressing this feedback, with the potential to give cannons a more impactful role in Sailing through new mechanics and encounters at sea. Our current priority is to ensure we can build a stronger foundation first, and then we'll consider expanding into content like this in future. Community feedback matters, and getting this right is far more important than getting another round of changes out quickly. For now, we're not going to change cannon damage values, flat armour, or sea creature Hitpoints. Once the updates outlined above are live, we’ll take time review your feedback and go from there. Keep letting us know how you feel about these changes and we'll balance them against the priorities of other content.

We're making high-tier materials more obtainable, so we want to ensure that Frost Dragons continue to have a valuable place in the wider game. We're proposing two new Slayer unlocks:

• •The first unlock will allow you to increase weighting of Frost Dragon tasks from 5 to 8 on both Nieve and Duradel, so you're more likely to receive these as tasks.
• •The second unlock will allow you to increase the task length of Frost Dragon Tasks, so you're able to kill them for longer.

Currently, the numbers look like this:

• •Duradel: 70-120
• •Nieve: 60-100

With the second unlock, these numbers would change to:

• •Duradel: 180-240
• •Nieve: 180-240

These unlocks would cost 100 Slayer Points each. Another change we're making is that Frost Dragons and Lava Strykewyrms will now drop Dragon Sheets more frequently both on-task and off-task. These changes are aimed to position them as a more viable method to obtain high-level Sailing upgrades for those of you who prefer to train Slayer. Creature On task Off task Lava Strykewyrm 1/30 1/75 Frost Dragons 1/40 1/100 Poll Question: Should we introduce a new Slayer unlock to increase the weighting of Frost Dragon tasks from Nieve and Duradel from 5 to 8? Poll Question: Should we introduce a new Slayer unlock to extend Frost Dragons from Nieve and Duradel as explained in the blog?

As part of the next Summer Sweep-Up, we’ll consider changes to some of the unique rewards from Sailing, such as Belle's Folly and the Aquanite Hopper. Their desirability feels lower than where it should be - we've seen a few players question what they're used for, which isn't a great sign! Discussions are still to be had around balancing, so we don't have firm plans yet. Let us know if you have any suggestions that you want us to pass on to the team. Outside of that, bug-fixes for the Horn of Plenty:

• •Toggling double catches off will correctly apply the invisible boost.
• •Hunter animals that always trigger the Horn of Plenty's double catch - such as Tecu salamanders - will no longer trigger it if the double catch toggle is off.
• •The Horn currently rolls a 1/25 chance each time you catch anything with Hunter. We're making a change to ensure it counts up to 25, then takes a charge.
• •The Horn of Plenty’s double catch effect is currently not applying consistently across some Hunter activities.
• •Will work with crab traps, including Red, Blue, and Rainbow crabs.

We're also keen to improve the Medallion of the Deep, as mentioned in the Pirate Encounters blog post. To recap, we're changing it to function throughout the Fossil Island underwater area, excluding the underwater Agility/Thieving activity. Within that underwater Agility/Thieving activity, we're proposing that the Medallion of the Deep would instead reduce oxygen depletion by 80% (previously pitched at 75%). Poll Question: Should the Medallion of the Deep reduce oxygen depletion by 80% within the underwater Agility/Thieving area at Fossil Island?

Deep Sea Trawling is a hot topic within the community, especially in light of recent discussions around Leechfin Fishing! The good news is that we think players quite enjoy the gameplay itself and the profit-making potential, but there's been a lot of feedback around how it feels from an XP perspective. So, what's changing? First, Sailing XP is getting a big boost - roughly double what it is right now. Simply put, the Sailing XP is too low for how demanding it is. We're also speeding things up a bit by reducing your gather rate from 4 ticks to 3. This keeps the ‘one-tick’ method alive for those who love it, while making things feel smoother and more rewarding for players who prefer a more relaxed playstyle. Finally, baited shoals are getting a bug-fix. They were meant to increase your catch by 20%, but due to how the bonus was calculated, they haven't worked as intended. With this change, you’ll receive the 20% catch-rate and get more fish in your nets. So, that's Sailing XP, but let's talk about Fishing XP. What do we want to do there? When we evaluate skilling content internally, we often look at three key factors:

• •Intensity - How AFK the activity is, and how much attention or skill is required to perform it efficiently.
• •GP per hour - How profitable the activity is.
• •XP per hour - How rewarding the activity is for progressing skills.

Generally, the more click-intensive an activity is, the stronger we can justify a high reward output. Over the years, many players have asked us to create profitable skilling methods. Traditional activities, like cutting Magic logs or catching Sharks, are approachable and don't require much intensity, but they offer modest XP and GP in comparison to modern PvM content. The goal of Deep Sea Trawling is to offer a profitable Fishing activity, where players could feel rewarded for their skills in both Fishing and Sailing. To make that possible, the activity needs to have meaningful barriers to entry and a more active gameplay loop. High-end Marlin trawling requires:

• •High Fishing and Sailing levels
• •Higher-tier bait created by processing valuable fish
• •A high-level boat with significant upgrade costs
• •Active gameplay

Marlin are a top-tier food source, and are consumed at a high rate, which helps us to preserve their value. Ideally, we want different skilling methods to solve different needs. Some should be profitable methods, some high-XP methods, AFK methods, and so on. This is so that one single method doesn't dominate the entire meta for a skill. If we buffed the Fishing XP from this activity, it risks being the best non-AFK Fishing option overall. We also expect that more players would engage with this activity which would substantially affect the price of the fish, cutting into its profitability. So, for those reasons, we believe Deep Sea Trawling currently fills a healthy role within Fishing, and we'd love to hear your feedback on this approach. What do you think and are you happy with some of the buffs we mentioned above?

Have you ever wanted to chill on your boat and engage in some regular Fishing? We'd like to add some regular Fishing spots out at sea to add a little more thematic flavour to Sailing. The new fishing spots would work just like existing ones, but would be larger, so instead of the standard 1x1 tile spots that currently exist in the game they would be something closer to 5x5 tiles. Unlike the shoals in Deep Sea Trawling, these spots would be fixed in place and would not move. You'll catch the same fish, at the same rates, with the same tool, bait and requirements as you're used to from land. Similar to land, you won't be able to fish while the boat is moving, or while locked into a facility. Sloops and Skiffs would support rod fishing, and the Raft will support harpoon, net, and lobster pot fishing. Whilst this has been designed in this way because of animation limitations, we actually feel that this could give rafts a cool identity as a go-to option for players who want also want to have a laid-back Fishing trip at sea, rather than just being something you use in the early game and never touch again. Although this certainly doesn't compete with established Fishing activities, such as Barbarian Fishing, we think this change might be relevant to some account types and provide a more AFK option for Fishing due to the fact that you're able to have a larger inventory of space to store raw fish in your Cargo Hold. The Cargo Hold doesn't compete with a Bank, so the spots near a bank will probably remain meta. However, this change adds atmosphere and just gives you more options while out at sea, which is always a plus! Here are the list of fish we'd like to add: Catches Uses Boats Raw SardineRaw Herring Fishing Rod & Bait Sloop and Skiffs only Raw MackerelRaw CodRaw BassUseless Junk Big Fishing Net Raft only Raw Sharks Harpoon Raft only Raw Lobsters Lobster Pot Raft only Raw TunaRaw Swordfish Harpoon Raft only Raw Karambwan Karambwan Vessel and Karambwanji (Quest not Required) Raft only Raw Anglerfish Fishing Rod & Sand Worms Sloop and Skiffs only Raw Monkfish Small Net Raft only Poll Question: Should we add regular Fishing spots at sea as described in the blog?

Fashionistas, fear not. We're still keen to launch the new range of basic sail cosmetics as outlined in our previous blog. This is mainly a systems update so that we can launch put a new system in place for future boat customisation: If you can’t see the image above, click here!

• •Black
• •Blue
• •Green
• •Pink
• •Purple
• •Red
• •Yellow

They're planned to launch alongside the Red Reef, but they won't be related to completion of the quest. Sail customisation will be unlocked at 41 Sailing and each of the solid-colour sails can be created using 10 of the matching dye. Looking further ahead, we’re keen to explore some of the community’s most popular ideas for sail cosmetics, or perhaps even run another player-designed competition in the future! Let us know what you think! Poll Question: Should we add a general system for customising boat sails, including a range of new basic sail colours? For those of you who fell in love with the Dread Pirate sails pitched in our last blog, we're keeping that in our back pocket as a reward from future thematically appropriate content.

We'll be adding a right-click Last Boat option to the Teleport to Boat spell, which will let you quickly return to the boat you most recently used.

We're adding a way to unnote metal bars for cannonballs at the Ancient Furnace, so that metal bars can be converted into regular ones. This was polled in the Gathering Efficiences poll and passed at a whopping 92%! This service only works for metal bars and will not unnote food or other supplies and costs 100 coins per bar.

By popular demand from the Sailing opinion poll, we're adding extra functionality to the 'Special Attack' button whilst you're on a boat (and attached to the Helm), allowing you to release Wind Motes. Have fun zooming across Gielinor! If you can’t see the image above, click here!

Currently, players are able to boost their Sailing level in order to build facilities, however, they can't use those facilities unless they continue to boost their Sailing level to meet the requirement. We reckon that if you've gone out of your way to build a facility by using a boost, you should be able to continue using that without too much extra hassle. We've decided to create a distinction between facility types, so that we can decide which ones are safe to use below the intended level. Active facilities - Provide direct gameplay advantages or are repeatedly used during core Sailing gameplay.

• •Cannons
• •Salvaging Hook
• •Trawling Net
• •Chum Station

Support facilities - Less frequently used.

• •Cargo Hold
• •Range
• •Keg
• •Salvaging station
• •Anchor
• •Fathom Stone
• •Wind / Gale Catcher
• •Crystal Extractor

Not all facilities are used in the same way, so we need to treat them differently and carefully. 'Active' facilities will always require you to meet the Sailing level required to use. On the other hand, 'Support' facilities will not require you to meet their requirements once built, so you're free to boost your Sailing level to create them and you won't need to maintain the boost to use them. There is one exception: Sails. If you've boosted your level requirement to create new Sails, you as the Captain will be able to use them without needing to boost again. However, other players on your boat cannot do so and will need to meet the level requirement.

Food from Sailing will be changed to be more vibrant when cooked. Credit to the RuneLite 'Food Colouring' plug-in creator who took the time to offer an alternative client-side!

We'll be adding a rare chance (1 in 800,000) to get Soup from sorting Salvage. If anyone actually does end up getting Soup in this way, please let us know... You're picking our lottery numbers next.

We're adding the ability to use Telekinetic Grab on Lost Crates to retrieve them. Maximum efficiency engaged!

• •We're fixing a bug where the Boat Bottle indicator gets hidden in the Shipyard interface.
• •Sailing items will be unblocked from Death's Coffer as their prices have now stabilised.
• •We're fixing an issue related to the Cargo Hold when it is moved while items are still contained within.
• •You'll no longer be able to replace a Cargo Hold with another facility if it still contains cargo.
• •Replacing a Cargo Hold with another Cargo Hold will correctly transfer stored items.
• •Removing a Cargo Hold with items inside will warn you that the contents will be destroyed.
• •You'll be able to bottle boats with cargo contained, with clear warnings that doing so will discard items in your Cargo Hold.

What do you think about these changes, and have we missed anything? Let us know! Some of these updates are already in progress. We're aiming to launch some soon, with others arriving as early as tomorrow, or alongside the release of Red Reef, our second Tortugan quest, currently scheduled for May. Our focus is on improving core areas of Sailing, including Port Tasks, Combat, and Deep-Sea Trawling, where we see the most opportunity for growth. Existing methods like Barracuda Trials and Shipwreck Salvaging already provide strong training options. As part of this shift, we're adapting some of the plans outlined in our Winter Summit to support this work. As we prioritise improving combat foundations, Pirate Encounters will no longer be launching as part of the Red Reef update. Boat-to-boat combat will still feature within the quest, and we're keen to hear your feedback once you’ve had a chance to try it. Pirate Encounters remain something we would like to explore as standalone content in the future. Similarly, the next Barracuda Trial is no longer a priority for this year, as we focus on these core improvements alongside community-led projects like Wyrmscraig and our Sequel Quest. We'll be sharing more news about those very soon and we can't wait to hear what you think! As always, we appreciate your feedback and the opportunity to shape Sailing alongside you. This poll is planned to go live later this week, pending your feedback and any final changes. Until then, we'll see you on the high seas!