Player-owned port

Player-owned ports is a high-leveled members minigame that was released on 11th December 2012, as announced in the December 2012 Behind the Scenes (BTS) post. Borrowing elements from Miscellania and player-owned houses, the minigames involve players building their own ports in order to manage a fleet of ships, staffed by recruited crewmembers. These ships explore the Eastern Lands on the player's behalf and return with exotic items and supplies that are otherwise unavailable. New voyages become available daily at midnight.



Access to player-owned ports requires level 90+ in at least one of the following skills: Fishing, Slayer, Runecrafting, Herblore, Prayer, or Thieving. The more of these requirements a player meets, the more content is available. Players have to visit Port Sarim and enter the portal to make their ports.

Among the range of rewards available from player-owned ports are degradable level 85 armours: Tetsu armour, which is melee class, Death Lotus armour, which is ranged class, and Seasinger's robes, which are magic class. These items can be created by players with 90 Smithing, Crafting, and Runecrafting respectively (non-assistable and the materials are untradeable). Players can create two versions of this armour: tradeable versions with slightly lower stats that crumble to dust when fully degraded, and untradeable versions with slightly higher stats that can be repaired either with coins or port resources. Other available rewards include the high level food rocktail soup and scrimshaws, items for the new pocket slot.

Mod Mark confirmed that high level Smithing would be expanded with player-owned ports.

Tutorial
'''Note that to recieve the tutorial requires either level 90+ in Fishing, Slayer, Runecrafting, Herblore, Prayer, or Thieving. '''Upon entering the port for the first time you will see a cutscene followed by a brief tutorial to play through to teach you all the mechanics of hiring crew, equiping your ships, sending them out on voyages, collecting your rewards, and upgrading your port.

Buildings
The buildings offer bonuses to different areas of the port's operations.

Bar
This is home to Surula. Upgrading it is part of the tutorial. It attracts captains and adventurers.

Icon hotspots
The three icon hotspots attract different adventurers depending on what is built on them.

Lodgings
Better lodgings unlock better crew members.

Office
Duncan and John Strum can be found in here, after the tutorial. Upgrading here is part of the tutorial. Better offices unlock more ship slots.

Portal hotspot
Portal upgrades are cosmetic only and have no effect on the performance of the port.

Shipwright
The shipwright improves the performance of your ships.

Totem hotspots
The four totem hotspots have different effects depending on what totems are built.

Warehouse
The warehouse holds your goods. Better warehouses give greater bonuses to voyage rewards.

Workshop
This is unlockable by exploring more of the Eastern Lands.

Meg the Adventurer
Meg is a wannabe adventurer who is in awe of you and your adventures. Once a week she will ask your advice on how to deal with several situations that she wishes to deal with herself. If she is given good advice, she will give you a piece of the good spoils she has reaped. If given bad advice, the spoils she shares will be rather more meagre.

Ninja Assassins
After a sucessful voyage upon completing the tutorial you may get to play a minigame that has you search for ninjas in 5 barrels around the dock then search out their targets through a series of clues. If you guess wrong you get another clue, finding all 5 targets will gain you a few small rewards. You can just guess the convict because there are no penalties for it. Also if you dont find a Ninja there will be an arrow pointing to one.

Surula's bar
After a sucessful voyage, the player may get to play a minigame where they will control Surula and will have to serve beer to 20 clients in the bar area in 10 minutes. It is quite simple as you can serve them in about two minutes without hurry. The reward shares the same simplicity, it is not impressive but it is worth the time of the random event.

Shop
The Black Marketeer in the North West corner of the port allows players to spend RuneScape coins on items such as Bamboo. The NPC can also repair ships instantly negating the wait. However, if a player is finished with the port for the day or is going to be away for the repair time, it is likely better to just let it repair on its own.

Recruiting Captains
The bar will contain the captains for the special voyages. Only one is available upon completion of the tutorial but more may be unlocked by doing discovery voyages.

Voyages
Voyages provide resources for upgrading and recruiting inside the port, in addition to unlocking new features from zones to crew members. The chance of succeeding in a voyage depends on the points in certain skills that can be increased by choosing your captain, crew roster, and ship parts. Twelve standard and 3 special voyages are available each day.

Trivia

 * Before the release players received an in-game message saying "Avast mateys, the next Runescape game update will be in approximately 30 minutes".
 * The Chinese word in the top left of the Archipalego map is "端口" (duānkǒu) which is the wrong translation of port. Duānkǒu refers to a computer port or interface. The correct translation should be "港口" (gǎngkǒu), this may be one of Jagex's notorious play on words.
 * When reading your Captains log it will say "Captains log, Runedate 3940.96". This is a a reference to Stardates from the science fiction franchise Star Trek; where, the use of this date system is commonly heard at the beginning of a voiceover log entry such as "Captain's log, stardate 41153.7. Our destination is planet Deneb IV..."