Underocean Trading
Overview
There are currently 5 tradeposts open under the ocean. You can fly almost directly above them and type FLY DROP. Make sure you have an Aquoderm's lung (to breathe water) and a Kraken's swim bladder (hold it to move uu and dd 10 rooms at a time). You can buy these in Med City: enter cleric, 4e, 2s, e. When you fly drop, dd to the tradepost; it will appear to be on top of a pillar.
The only freight type that can travel underwater is the giant snail, purchasable at the underocean posts for 2 million gold. This guide will not attempt to cover the basics of moving around in the underocean; see the game help files for a pretty good explanation of that.
To get back to your freight if you leave, you can FLY FREIGHT and FLY DROP.
USEFUL MAPS:
http://www.medievia.com/images/livemaps/underoceantopography.gif
www.medievia.com/images/livemaps/ventsinfo.jpg
Underwater, you can c sense weather to see your approximate location. You should be heading towards a point on the continent where there is a road adjacent to the ocean; ideal locations are Med City, Trellor, and Derah. When you leave the underocean with your snail, it will act like a wagon train on land, and you can move it to any land tradepost like usual. The idea is that you take a snail from a UO post to a land post, sell your goods and buy new goods, and haul them back to the UO post. The land --> UO trip is usually worth much more, but you can't buy a snail on land.
On the topography map above, you can see a chain of broken underwater "highways" running circularly around the continent. When you're on one of these raised highways with your freight, you can move VERY quickly, so you should spend as much time at "Highway Depth" as possible.
The difficult part is getting from highway segment to highway segment. This involves moving through 20-30 rooms on the ocean floor, which is full of dangerous bottom feeders which have low hp but will kill you very quickly. There are two ways to do this successfully:
1) Flee a lot and spam past them. I recommend setting an alias to {flee;uu}; this will move you 10 rooms above your previous location, where you can heal up. Note that you selfheal for about 400 hp near the bottom, lightning spells are super effective, and acid blast doesn't work (use tremor). Killing bottom feeders is fine, but avoid killing the random fish/shark packs at all costs. When you kill fish, the game sends stronger, more aggressive fish after you. Do not kill fish. Really.
2) The ocean floor is divided into regions known as "vents" (see vent map above). In each region, there's a small corridor leading straight down into the ocean floor. The vent shaft is filled with very dangerous mobs, but it's possible to move to the bottom via math and dd spamming. Heroes can "claim" a vent and "tame" the colored region on the map, removing the bottom feeders. The ideal UO TR will stay on the highways as much as possible and only travel through tamed ocean otherwise. This feature is not in yet, so you're actually stuck with option 1 until something changes.
There are 4 types of UO mobfaction coming, but they're not in yet.
I did my first UO TR in about 2.5 hours, and made 13 mil. It can probably be optimized because I had no idea what I was doing, but most of that time was spent fleeing and healing. Until UO taming is in, this isn't really a viable way to make money. The longer runs are actually worth quite a bit (upwards of 60 mil), but they require moving your snail across the continent at wagon train speed, which you don't want to do solo. It's probably extremely profitable if you can get a full form who knows how to do the UO segments.
Worth noting is that your formation doesn't automatically follow you underwater. Both the form leader and the follower need to mount seahorses (they spawn randomly and swim up to you). The leader moves, and everyone else spams nn. When you type nn, the game moves you in the direction of your formation leader. Once there's a clear path (highways + tamed underocean), the leader can quickly spam through the underocean segment with everyone else spamming nn. As long as nobody gets confused or AFKs or kills fish, this means you can get out of the ocean and onto land extremely quickly. Please leave the fish alone. They'll quite possibly kill you before you leave the tradepost if you linger for too long and the form starts killing them. If this happens, you need to leave the area for 20-30 minutes until the DM "forgets" your terrible mistake.
Basic Valuing Aliases
/alias {valvryce} {value straedust snail;value fraedust snail;value serpentblood snail;value sharkblood snail;value krakenblood snail}{}
/alias {valmal} {value sharkteeth snail;value sulfur snail;value stingraytails snail;value seasnakevenom snail}{}
/alias {valsol} {value sirensong snail;value mermaidhair snail;value aquamarines snail;value starfish snail}{}
/alias {valjakob} {value seadragoneggs snail;value serpenteggs snail;value krakeneggs snail;value aquodermeggs snail}{}
/alias {valleaf} {value coral snail;value basalt snail;value ventrock snail;value magicrocks snail}{}
/alias {valuo} {valjakob;valvryce;valmal;valsol;valleaf}{}
Tradeposts, Tradegoods, Coordinates and Fly Directions
Jakob's Mountain Monument Trading X 0950 Y 0050 Depth 209 fly n 95 w 5
(by pship) valjakob
seadragoneggs
serpenteggs
krakeneggs
aquodermeggs
Vryce's Necromancer Trading Shop X 0100 Y 0150 Depth 189 fly n 85 w 90
(northwest) valvryce
straedust
fraedust
serpentblood
sharkblood
krakenblood
Malevolent Trading X 0111 Y 1700 Depth 208 fly s 70 w 89
(southwest) valmal
sharkteeth
sulfur
stingraytails
seasnakevenom
Soleil's Sunny Shop of Trade X 1900 Y 1900 Depth 209 fly s 90 e 90
(southeast) valsol
sirensong
mermaidhair
aquamarines
starfish
Giant Leaf Trading Market X 1900 Y 0100 Depth 209 fly n 90 e 90
(by trellor) valleaf
coral
basalt
ventrock
magicrocks
