Is sailing supposed to be an abysmal experience?

[Nosidda]

Over 1000 hours on the game and I've barely touched sailing at all. But each time I do it always feels horrible. The boats are slow and there's nothing of interest in the water. Am I just doing something wrong? All I want to do is find moon quay. 

[Flarezen]

I never bother building a sail or wheel, i just grab driftwood to make a oar then do the task for the lunar quest line. Since its less hassle then dealing with sails and steering. If you see any rocks in sea with yellow markings then moon quay is closeby 

[Mike23Ua]

DST ocean content is boring. Shipwrecked was 1000x more fun.

My best advice to you is to not build a boat at all and instead switch to Woodie, go Goose Mode, fastest way to flap about and find the Points of Interest your wanting to find in the otherwise: Empty boring (cleverly disguised loading screen) that is the ocean.

Alternatively you can die and float around as a ghost, but Goose Mode will be fastest.

[Wawchik]

The base game just doesn't have enough content in the ocean to make you not go straight to the needed island with a driftwood oar. BUT, I will admit, I really liked sailing in my modded world, even though preparing a decent boat was still very painful. 

[Captain_Rage]

Sailing is fun and it is fun to make ocean highways and look for treasure while trying to get by with limited food. To each their own.

[Captain_Rage]

Indeed. The boat tends to get overly cluttered in case you want to sail with the "intended" structures on board. Typically an anchor and a rudder is not needed. Still, if you have more than a few structures it makes for a cumbersome experience in almost every situation. :/ Personally I go for Firepit / Scaled Furnace, Ice Box / (Drying Rack) and then a Mast and a Steering Wheel at most. In case of treasure hunting a Pinchin' Winch and in case of fishing a Tin Fishin' Bin, but that's it. It is a bit of a pity that in the current game other mechanisms are redundant or work extremely bad, like the Nautopilot. At some point I really hope Klei revisits these. That being said, I enjoy sailing in DST more than I probably should. :d

[lowercase skye]

1 hour ago, Nosidda said:

Over 1000 hours on the game and I've barely touched sailing at all. But each time I do it always feels horrible. The boats are slow and there's nothing of interest in the water. Am I just doing something wrong? All I want to do is find moon quay. 

Well, this kind of explains itself, doesn't it? How good would the caves feel if you only popped down there a few times in 1000 hours, didn't learn the world gen at all, didn't know any points of interest, and just ran around with a torch looking for the ruins? The ocean isn't just an extension of the surface, it's an entirely unique area of the game which is very unlike the others. You'll need to gain experience with it, learn its patterns, learn how to approach different situations, and know what gear is right for which situation. Here are some tips to make the gameplay more enjoyable:

- Sails are for multiplayer, or repeat trips between points of interest. When exploring alone, you're better off just using a driftwood oar. Once you've found a location you'll want to go between often, like the Moon Quay or Lunar Island, that's when you get a boat together with sails and an anchor and steering wheel, to ferry yourself between the location and mainland, since you now mapped out a safe sea-stack-less route between the two.
- Do not be afraid to make multiple boats! It may seem expensive, but you will have a much much better time at sea if, when wanting to explore a far away part of the map, you are willing to pay the 4 boards for a new boat to launch from somewhere else on the mainland, rather than having to row your boat across the entire ocean to get there.
- Make sure to go out there with multiple goals. If you just want to find the Moon Quay, you're going to be frustrated each time you check a corner and DON'T find it there. Instead, consider finding a bottle and then rowing to Pearl while checking out any deep ocean near her for the Moon Quay, or make a plan to gather some barnacle plants so you've got an additional thing to do in the deep ocean that don't contain the Moon Quay.
- The more time you spend out there at once, the better. Gnarwails, driftwood, message bottles and fish shoals are all spawned around you at a randomized rate. The more time you spend on a boat, the more chances there are for these things to spawn, which can then send you off on another task that then makes you stay out at sea even longer. You can get into a really nice flow, and it'll make your ocean endeavors feel far more fruitful!
- Salt Shoals and Waterlogged biomes can spawn anywhere in the ocean, but frequently spawn in shallow water. If you follow where the shallow and medium waters meet, you are very likely to find them. If you see shallow water suddenly appearing far from land, that's a good sign you're near one of those! If you see one while exploring, consider stopping by a Waterlogged biome for knobbly seeds, or Salt Shoals for a salt box.
- The Lunar Island will spawn connected to the land by two large strips of shallow water, in a U shape. If you see the shallow water suddenly stretching out into the distance, going far from land, investigate! If you've got the full mainland explored, you can also reference it to find a place where there would logically be enough space for a whole massive island to fit in. If you notice this pattern while exploring, go check it out! Stone Fruit is an amazing plant to have, especially early in the game.
- The Moon Quay will always spawn surrounded by deep water. Check each corner of the map with a new boat, and keep an eye on the sea stacks for yellow paint. If you get a pirate raid, then you know you're in the right corner, as pirate raids only happen in a large circle around the island. Once you find it, consider waiting until night or winter to actually explore the island, as the monkeys will all be locked up in their houses during these times.
- MOST IMPORTANTLY: gain experience!! You need to feel out how things generate in order to be able to consistently find them. Consider boating in the early game, or even making new worlds specifically to explore the ocean ASAP rather than the mainland or caves. Just like how you subconsciously pick up on the patterns of generation on the mainland by simply exploring new worlds, you will pick up on the patterns of ocean generation too, and it will make future boating adventures go much smoother.

The ocean is a very content-rich place where I spend a large large portion of my gameplay. I know it can be hard to get into, but I hope these tips can help you enjoy it, or at least help you maximize your time there so you get the most out of that undesired gameplay.

[Well-met]

I think so.

[Capybara007]

I love boating, try making a donut world, branches->never, loop->always

[Ridley]

I know people prefer rowing, but I can't stand it for long. Double sails and an anchor I use to control the speed is my preferred boating experience.

[Curly Bill]

I recently got into sailing, and it is pretty fun. Like everyone else is saying, driftwood oar with a boat and maybe 1-2 structures is the way to go. Would enjoy more tiny islands with set pieces, like a very small "mushroom island" or a little island with guys to kill for meat. Stuff that are great to come across to help you keep sailing without having to return to the mainland.

 

It is frustrating that while exploring, the only very interesting stuff is the lunar island, moon quay island, and pearl's. I like the salt biome and the fig biome, but fig biome just kinda give a little bit of food which is okay, but a hassle to navigate through, and salt biome is only really good for like 3 crafts, so not super worth it imo unless i want those crafts specifically.

[Semind]

I consider the anchor essential to my go-to boat build, because it makes an enormous difference in the Malbatross fight. And naturally, I care about Malbatross because the Malbatross Bill is massively better than the Driftwood Oar. Still mostly don't touch sails though. I only start thinking of having sails when I can put on CK bumpers, but also Malbatross will probably still destroy them.

I guess I'd have to consider maintaining multiple boats for different jobs which I'm not super into.

[GenomeSquirrel]

Seastacks existing so abundantly leads me to answer with a flat yes.

I still get the impression that whoever designed sea fishing thought it would be such a hit that we'd make ocean adventures, fight Albatross, do chores for Pearl, interact with that Whale, build a station dedicated to lures ...

And the sheer amount of Pirate skins and items also gives me the impression that was meant to be a hit, instead of being great incentive to never leave land ...

The ocean tree reminds me certain yugioh or mtg cards where you can tell the designers thought it would be OP, so they killed it with qualifiers, then made it extinct by giving glommer goop better uses ...

 

 

I'd recommend trying either Flarezen's advice of using a driftwood oar, you can walk around the coast and make a grass boat or multiples to reach it.

Mike's advice of goose Woody is also great at scouting farther away parts of the ocean, especially with skillpoint investment

[-Variant]

This thread hurts me so much!

I love, love, love DST sailing. I find it a bit more fun/interactive than SW's sailing, even.

You're not gonna get into the swing of things if you don't try them. The ocean won't have a cure-all for food sources either if that's what you're looking for.
It's fun side stuff, I like sailing, I like having a mobile house.
It's like a fun little side-forever-minigame.

[Szczuku]

There isn't much to do and experience when sailing. Just find all the points of interest and craft a new boat at the closest mainland shore to those points of interest so that you can quickly travel to them, rather than sailing all the way around the mainland

[Johnny_Waffles]

Boating is kinda trash in this game especially if you don't have a fully upgraded boat. Imo if you going to boat ALOT the best boat for going around is one with sails and ck bumpers since crashing isn't that bad with them on, just make sure you got rocks to repair them. And still If you have that it's still better killing frostjaw and giving him 5 bass for 5 boots, or 5 large bass for 10 boots.

[cropo]

I think the number one thing that ruins my fun with sailing is the sea stacks. Too many darn rocks in the ocean, I can barely sail forward for 30 seconds without having to be ready to drop anchor at a moments notice and quickly shut the entire thing down. It feels like FNAF pizza simulator where you have to be ready to just power down everything at once and then spend time rebooting everything over and over again at a moments notice. Sailing never gets to a good point with the rocks everywhere and if those were gone I would enjoy it a lot more even if the sea is still a bit empty.

[lowercase skye]

1 hour ago, cropo said:

I think the number one thing that ruins my fun with sailing is the sea stacks. Too many darn rocks in the ocean, I can barely sail forward for 30 seconds without having to be ready to drop anchor at a moments notice and quickly shut the entire thing down.

Sea Stacks only spawn in medium and deep waters, so you could make it smoother by always sticking to the edges of the shallows. You'll likely end up finding most landmarks that close anyways, and you'll then have the shape of the ocean mapped out so you can make more careful expeditions into the dark waters with an oar.

[AliceShiki]

I don't think it's intended to be abysmal, but interacting with the ocean certainly isn't a good experience currently.

It's just way too open and there is basically nothing to be gained there if you can't find the points of interest. It's just not fun.

Klei obviously doesn't want that, hence why we got an ocean-focused update recently, but I don't think it did nearly enough to solve ocean's problems.

I'm not sure if a solution exists though... Well, I guess the simplest solution would be to add a lot more islands filled with basic resources and some other useful stuff in them, but I don't think that's what Klei wants for the Ocean, they seem to want it to be kinda empty, but with some points of interest in it that make the trip worthwhile to let you progress storylines or get stuff like Above Average Trees and Salt Boxes.

So uhn... Yeah, Ocean is pretty bad, but I think it's by design, tbh... Though well, it's not meant to be unfun for sure, but it kinda is rn. Hopefully future updates can make it better.

Edited June 18, 2025 by AliceShiki

[Keller Max]

I just wish boat was easier to control. Faster steering, Sharper Turns, etc... Ironically, Ocean isn't big enough for anything other than Oar.

Sailing would be much more fun if our average map gen looked like this:

[Frosty_Mentos]

The only times I used sails are when I know my ocean, or I got a captain hat and bumpers to be going out rampaging into the ocean like a maniac with breaks broken.

Otherwise there are only progression objectives as well as ocean specific resources to get from there like salt, cookie cutter shells, heaps of monster and fish meats and messages in a bottle to keepsake in case you finish pearl's quest to get treasure locations. Main things I go into the ocean are salt, treasures and lategame bosses.

1 hour ago, Keller Max said:

I just wish boat was easier to control. Faster steering, Sharper Turns, etc... Ironically, Ocean isn't big enough for anything other than Oar.

Sailing would be much more fun if our average map gen looked like this:

I wish there was a tiny starting island and archipelago alright. Only question is how would cave entrances work?

[Milordo]

20 minutes ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

I wish there was a tiny starting island and archipelago alright. Only question is how would cave entrances work?

What do you mean? Just leave cave entrances at the main land (with the only exception lunar island and lunar grotto, where lunar island has a special cave entrance that brings to lunar grotto and lunar grotto is completely seperated now from the caves and accessible via Lunar Island, as it should be......)

Edited June 18, 2025 by Milordo

[hyoton123]

OP, look for marked yellow sea stacks. Or a pirate raid.

 

The ocean is kind of love hate. I love it but i also hate how easy the boat gets wrecked or holes, and without tree jam, patches can get removed. Theres a lot of fiddly stuff and the boats are tiny. Also the large empty areas are really disappointing but sea stacks can really make travel hazardous, so you have to pay a lot of attention…

 

But it’s also fun to make a boat base.  Get some teleport boot consumables and the whole world becomes much smaller.

[Mike23Ua]

My disappoint with the ocean and dst boats as a whole is that there isn’t nearly enough wildlife out there to engage and interact with.

Like anyone who has played shipwrecked knows that there are plenty of ocean mobs that get up in your business but when it comes to DST.

Klei gave us a literal circular piece of moving land (a large cookie boat with plenty of room to walk around and move about on the deck of) and yet very few of the ocean mobs actually ever interact with it.

Like This:

[Cheggf]

It didn't used to be miserable, it just used to be unpopular. They saw it was unpopular and decided to make it really annoying and obnoxious in an attempt to make it not be unpopular.