There’s a good thread going over in the PotBS forums called Things i wish i would have known earlier…. [Edit: This list in the forums keeps growing and getting better organized, so check back on it from time to time.] Like a lot of smaller games (especially early on), there is still a fair amount of really useful info that is still in the playerbase “lore” category rather than in a tutorial or in-game help or even on some of the fan sites (cheating! :P).
Some of these can really make your life in PotBS more interesting. Check it out and kudos to Caithleen for getting it started and to the other contributors noted below. It continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Here are a few so far:
1. The ^ key toggles the firing arcs and wind indicator (standard keybindings)
2. When you click on the border of your minimap, a “small pointing hand” will appear and the ship will automatically turn to get in line with the direction of the “small pointing hand” on the border.
3. While the description says stoneshot is awfull, it is a nice hybrid ammo, try it out.
4. With CTRL-left click you can set athings to autofire on your hotbar. You could e.g. drag Fire the cannons and Boarding to your hotbar and let them automatically trigger if they are available.
[This works in avatar combat as well. I use it to autofire my prep attacks, then launch specials as the situation dictates. Caution, just because boarding is lit up doesn’t mean you really want to if the % chance is low or the enemy’s crew is still high…]5. Need more smelling salts ? A twink leveled up to lvl 5 will have about 35 of them.
6. The position in the opensea combat instance is relative to the position the ships had on the open sea before engaging. The wind direction is copied as well.
7. You can shoot at a ship without selecting it as target, simply right klick a ship you’re capable of firing at. (Ideal if you have one ship targeted the one side, autofire enabled fire with right-clicks on ships on the other side).
[Really helpful in those furballs where tabbing among targets sets the camera swinging wildly]8. Boarded ships allways leave a derelict, so boarding will yield you more ships to salvage. But : Ships with “Minor”, “Fallback” or “Mission” can’t be salvaged, sink them right away!
9. The Auctionhouse in potbs is different, it’s a blind bid system. You should always check the partial order option and try to buy a bit lower then the average listed price. An excellent guide on that topic by bonham can be found here (http://burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46)
[Great tip on partials. Some folks dump small quantities for a song to unload them]10. You can use older ships (no more used) as storage or to port around. Just talk to the harbourmaster and you can drag&drop into/from the ships storage. Select a ship in a different port and switch to be teleported there. Remember all your personal equipment (Buildingsdeeds) ports with you as well.
[Three more warehouse slots…]
11. As a pirate, be careful when you use a ship that is for a single class only (like Freetrader Cargo ships). The invalid ship tag means : You can be attacked PvP because the ship is invalid for you!12. When your ship is sunk, unsecured cargo is lost. You get free warehouses in some of the ports. you should store your unsecured loot there every now and then.
Secured Cargo : Ammo (Crates are NOT secured, unpack them if you don’t plan to sell them), general outfittings, your personal inventory, consumable repairs.
13. Pirates can’t capture Ships higher their own level.
14. Theres a lvl 15 skill on the general trainer : “diplomacy” allows you to read what other nations say in Area chat. Important : Don’t use area chat for critical informations like fleet strength – they can read it with diplomacy.
[The general trainer is located in your nation’s capital.]
[Edit: Skills available from the General Trainer skills require at least level 15 and cost 1 Captain Skill point.]15. You can zoom the minimap with the mouse wheel, but you’ll have to place the mousepointer in the center while doing so.
16. Private tell format is rather weird, so i’ll put it in my list too : “/tell firstname lastname, Text” Don’t miss on the “,” since it tells the game, where the name stops (Antonio de la Sol,)
[Double left clicking on a player’s name in chat also starts a private tell, backspace to reply to a tell. I know… I know…]17. Marks of Victory (PvP Rewardvoucher) can be farmed PvE by doing the missions from the rebel agent or garnision commander.
18. [Hans] At level 12 your fallback halifax or La Belle gets automatically replaced by a better fallback ship for free. Well, only if you don’t own any other ships.
19. [Hans] The economy tutorial gives a nice reward for completing it, a ship deed for a Chase Marie, which you can use or you can sell to the junk dealer for *unknown* dubloons.
20. [toehorse] There are advanced versions of the focus skills sailing, gunnery, and manuevering sold on the general trainer for 1 captain point. These skills provide larger bonuses and penalties than the ones you start with.
[The general trainer is located in your nation’s capital.]21. [NefariousCoal] When you are sunk, it subtracts 1 from your ship’s Durability rating. When you are out of Durability, it is gone. You can increase the durability rating of your ship by dragging & dropping another deed of the same ship type onto your ship at the Harbor Master (while you still have at least 1 Dura left).
22. [CutlassJack] Clicking on someones name thats spoken in the Chat window automatically sets up a private tell without having to type their name out correctly.
23. [CutlassJack] To reply to a tell, simply hit the ‘Backspace’ key and it fills in the information for you.
24. [CutlassJack] Every 5 levels visit any Class Trainer to recieve special career missions. Do these missions right away because they often yield special rewards and abilities. The next quest wont be offered until you complete the ones before it. So dont ignore them!
25. [Gillain] Watch the icons on your loaded guns. Half-grey-circle = “Target out of Range” and a quarter-circle (like a pie wedge) means target in range but not in the gun’s firing arc.
26. [CutlassJack] Pirates often cant figure out how to get their ‘Scavenge’ skill because they didnt listen to the last bit of advice [#24, about doing the career missions]. You need to finish the previous class quests first (lvl 5 one)
27. [Jakkin] If you hold down ALT and click on a battery that is more than half loaded you can fire a half strength broadside.
[Great when in close action and the difference between a successful boarding or taking another broadside is your reload time.]
Good stuff. Enjoy.
potshot 
Amazing web-site sincerely, Johnna Rezak