I'm very new to the game, but enjoying it immensely. There's a relatively steep learning curve, however, and would love to hear any strategies that have worked well for people. No story spoilers please.

A few basic ones from me:

-Early on scrimp your echoes for fuel/supplies. I sunk one captain by spending on other items too soon.
-Port reports are a great way to earn echoes with the admiralty
-Don't be afraid to avoid fights. Repairing your ship is expensive.

Dont forget that port reports also give you fuel, and fighting sea creatures means you can eat them (thus helping to negate the cost of repairs at sea).

THIS thread (over on steam) has some good, clear tips for combat as well.

Remember that turning on the ship lamp consumes extra fuel. There are a variety of ways to reduce terror, so it can be wise to save fuel and keep the lamp off at times.

It's wise to go to that undead town north of London with a tomb colonist recent news (you can get those in london by readong the newspapers at home) and a shipment of mushroom wine (and don't think about using that as a trade route because you won't earn money from it). it's also a good idea to visit the 2 ports far up north for the 2 port reports and chance for some events (and money).

Don't be afraid to ask everyone for quests (well cept for the blind guy in london. Don't accept anything from him unless you are reay to sail the middle of the zee and beyond).

If you managed to find the salt lions and have 200 echo to spare you can ship the rubble to london for some neat profit.

Fuel is cheap in the Iron republic (south of london) so you might want to plan your trips accordingly (but the only place to sell it for any profit is Gaiders mourn so again forget about trading it) still a nice place to refuel at the beginning or end of a longer voyage).

Also keep in mind that the AI is as bumb as a brick so unless the enemy has some ability to fire backwards or can outright oneshot you you can rush past them and stay on their tail shooting their buttocks off. This works on most enemies i encountered in the first 3 sectors. The only reason not to do it is because... well your damage is kinda low and enemies tend to be giant bullet sponges with bricktons of HP so chances are you will run out of fuel before you can kill the beefier ones.

MOUNT NOMAD! FLEE!

Came across Mt. Nomad recently...terrifying. Was fortunate to escape.

Head Start:

Start with a new captain. Immediately trade your ship for a Stymphalos-class Steam Launch (the uh, floating dining table ) - dump all excess fuel. This gives you 1000 echos. Then sell everything else (supplies, deck cannon, engines). Accept the help from the blind bruiser (keep supplies over fuel) - sell all that stuff too. Then select desperate measures and abandon you ship. If you somehow survive, choose to retire/die/run away.

Choose a legacy that leaves half your wealth to your next captain (who will then start with at least 550 echos). That should cut down on quite a bit of the early grind.

But what will I tell my son in the will?

Father: "Dear son, all that has transpired in the last three weeks has been so that you may live the life that I wanted to. I gave up all my hopes and dreams and killed my crew, and my comatose ferret, and my zee-bat, all so you could have 550 echos as inheritance. I would have left you the boat, but alas it sunk. P.S. Don't spend all the echoes in one place. P.P.S. If you come across your grandfathers bones, do be a good lad and return them to London. P.P.P.S Oh, and if you find my bones please do the same".

Son: "But I don't want to be a zailer!"

The second charascter in the lineage is not the characters son but asalvager totally unrelated to the previous character so it's more of a case of someone finding half of your captains money somewhere on the street ofl London after your previous guy got beaten to death by the local mafia.

Investing heavily in Veils makes sneaking past nasty enemies (especially those "Glorious"-type pirate battleships) substantially easier, and it's helpful for various random encounters too. It's also helpful in combat, too, as it gives you a slight element of surprise on weaker enemies.

By far the one tip that cracked the game wide open for me was this tidbit on doing the "Sunlight Run" between The Isle of Cats and the Cumaeran Canal (it's kind of ridiculous how much you can make with this, even with the starter ship). On top of that, you can save a little extra money by loading up on fuel at The Iron Republic to the south, before you enter the canal to go to the surface.

Once you get this going, the game progresses much faster as you can put the money into upgrades for your home, upgrades for your ship, and other lucrative trades like Red Honey.

Another important thing to remember is that game's map is only semi-randomized between playthroughs; the Western coast and the Southern coast remain constant. Some specific ports (e.g. Frostfound, The Avid Horizon, and the Chapel of Lights, and I think Irem and Mt. Palmerston as well) are almost always going to be on the Northern Coast, but are randomized in terms of their placement along the East-West axis of the map.

I personally take notes on a notepad while playing, makes it much easier to remember some important things, like which ports uses what item as currency, or where I can buy an important item to advance in a port / officer story.

Also, don't spend items too carelessly. Like Zee-Ztory, Memory of a Distant Shores, and Tale of Terror. You can trade those for echos at the university, but they are also used as a currency on some islands.

If you have a specific destination you are trying to get to, stop at every port you can along the way, as people stated before me, port reports can end up netting you quite a large amount of echos and fuel when you come back to London.

Bat-Swarms should be killed on sight in my opinion, as they give you 1x Supplies [1x Terror as well]

Is there anyway to bring back the "Advice for Captains" book? When I first started the game, I had no idea that clicking "Sell this Book" would permanently get rid of the tutorial. Is there way to get it back?

Update: I finally figured it out. One has to click on the Green Gear at the top to bring back the menu screen to start a new game.

You two. You're awesome.

Bought the game.

lol if i ever buy the game i gotta try that XD

Sorry, but apparently is was a bug and it was fixed. It was hilarious while it lasted though :D