Otherwhen
Junior Officer Lesson 6: Handling Greenies
First ye read this entire post, then ye practice handling greenies but using bots or yer hearties, not real jobbers. When ye feel comfortable with the information here, ask a training officer to schedule yer lesson.After passing this lesson, ye will be allowed to have strange greenies aboard yer ship. The odds be that ye will want to keep the number of greenies low until ye get used to handling them.
HIRING JOBBERS
If ye are open to hiring greenies, then as soon as somebody applies fer a job, ye can click the Hire button without looking at his stats.WELCOMING JOBBERS
Practice with bots, crew or hearties.
When ye notice a jobber come aboard, say Ahoy. If ye see that he is experienced, then ye already know how to treat him. If he is a greenie and ye aren't too busy, ask him if he knows how to team. See below fer more on this.
If ye are busy, then either tell him to take any station he can find, or else put him on bilge. Some of the greenies won't know what a station is, and sometimes won't know what bilge is either. These greenies often have to be walked to a station. Most of them do know the bilge puzzle, they just don't remember that's what it's called.
Some greenies are very annoying. They want to play lookout, or load the guns, or "drive the boat". Fer the ones that want to "drive the boat" ye lead them to a sails station and get them into that puzzle, saying that it makes the boat go.
Fer lookout (crow's nest) ye either say "we don't need one right now, thanks" or else "that's my job" or "only Otherwhen officers are allowed to be lookout".
Fer gunning, ye can look at their stats and then say "I'm sorry, ye have to be at least Master" (or GM or whatever). Another option is "only Otherwhen officers are allowed to gun" or "We already have a fine gunner, thankee".
GIVING ORDERS
Mostly ye won't try to move a greenie from one station to another. It just confuses them. Check fer lazers every once in a while, and when ye notice a jobber lazing, ask if he is ok. If he doesn't respond, then send him a /tell asking him to take a station. If he still doesn't respond then use the order whistle. If he has been lazing from one league point to the next, then explain to the crew that clearly something has happened to this jobber, and ye are forced to plank him. Then plank him.PRAISE
Praise is even more important with greenies. If ye notice the "Learning" on a particular greenie fer a league or so, and then he gets a "Good" make sure ye praise him about that.BRIEFING
During the sword fighting at sea, there will be a white frame around the box next to one of the bad guys. That be the brigand that ye be attacking. We want to see 3 little dots next to that white frame, because we want to have three of us on him. If ye only see one dot, or see 4 dots, or a big orange dot (5), then click the box of an opponent that has 1 or 2 dots next to it. That is TEAMING.MELEETARGET means to choose the opponent to take. We want to take out their toughest mates first, and save the easy ones fer last. The Skull Daggers be the first we want to take out, and the Foils the last. If we be fighting humans, then take out the yellow names first, then the green names, and finally the white names.
Ye can't expect greenies to remember to team, or to have time to read the chat. If people aren't teaming and ye notice a greenie (or bot) is solo, then say "Solos to...." and give the name of the bot that the greenie is on.Greenies are often upset when they get knocked out. Keep them happy by saying something like "Ye went down defending yer mates!"
DIVVY
Greenies usually don't know how to vote on the divvy. If the voting appears to have hung, then say something like "Who hasn't voted yet? To vote, click on Vessel, then Vote"INVITE
If the greenie hasn't annoyed ye, and got better than just "Learning" on a duty report some of the time, then we want to try to recruit him. Go ahead and invite him to the crew. If he accepts, then welcome him to Otherwhen, and tell him that when he subscribes ye will get the captain to promote him to Pirate.ADDITIONAL HELP
Greenies often need additional help, such as how to get off the boat, how to find the boat again, how to buy clothes or a sword. If ye don't have time or patience left, try to get somebody else in either Otherwhen or Water Sleeps to assist the greenie. Some of those "completely lost" greenies turn into extremely good pirates and crew members after they learn the ropes!