Trouble Brewing

Trouble Brewing is only available to RuneScape Members. Please subscribe to get this feature.

Please note this is a 'Safe' activity. There is nothing to kill you here, unless you are poisoned.


Fearing another time when their rum supply is threatened, the pirates of Mos Le'Harmless have decided to set up their own still. After a number of arguments, however, they have ended up with two stills, both of which are attempting to shut the other down as they fight over the rare ingredients. Due to the pirates' code that effectively states that 'no pirates can fight in port' they have to resort to sabotage, arson and monkey fights.

This is a activity heavily based on teamwork. It may be wise to organise your team and decide what everyone is going to do to maximise your chances of winning.


The entrance point for Trouble Brewing is found on Mos Le'Harmless. You will need to take Bill Teach's ship from Port Phasmatys to get there. You can only sail to Mos Le'Harmless if you have completed Cabin Fever.

When you arrive on Mos Le'Harmless, head north into the open jungle area of the island, and then head due east until you see the activity buildings/area.


You must have completed Cabin Fever to access Mos Le'Harmless, the island on which this activity is located.

You must have a Cooking level of 40 or more to participate in this activity.


All the items you will need for this are found in the activity area. You are not allowed anything in your inventory when you enter this activity. There is a deposit box outside, should you need to put items from your inventory into your bank. You may still wear/wield whatever you want, with the exception of a helmet or hat.

As you are likely to do a lot of running about, it may be wise not to bring armour and wear either Ikov's Boots of Lightness (obtained during the Temple of Ikov Quest) or the Hunter falconry capes to subtract kilograms from your total weight, making your run energy drain at a slower rate.

All the items you will need are found on the tool store table. Each team is given 10 of each repair section. When this supply is depleted, you will need to craft more pieces by using logs on the nearby workbench.


There are two shacks outside the brewing compound where you can join the teams. One team will work for Fancy Dan, and the other will work for San Fan. There has to be at least three players on each team before the game begins.

You will not be allowed to wear hats, or have items in your inventory. If you need to put any items from your inventory into your bank then locate the deposit box next to Honest Jimmy.

Brewing the rum

There are five ingredients for the rum that each team has to grab. Take note of the interface overlay that shows how your team is doing, both in terms of bottles, burning equipment and ingredients. The following map shows the location of the main ingredients.



The hoppers for each team are found above the brewing compound

Bitternuts

The first ingredient is bitternut. This is a coconut-like plant, which can be found in abundance in the area. Unfortunately, you cannot get up the trees to get the nuts.

At the centre of the arena, there are several monkeys wandering about. If you manage to successfully use your Agility and 'catch' a monkey, it will go into your inventory (you can only ever hold two monkeys at a time, and each team can only ever have 12 monkeys total at any one time).

When caught, a monkey is pretty much useless, as players from either team cannot tell them apart. To make the monkey work for you, you have to use a bowl of coloured water to turn it the same shade as your team. This water is made by adding flowers of your team's colour to the kettle, then using an empty bowl on the kettle to collect some water.

When you have a coloured monkey, use it on a bitternut tree. The monkey will climb up and pass you a bitternut before vanishing. If two monkeys are in the tree at the same time, then they will fight.

If you talk to the monkey while wearing a Monkeyspeak Amulet then you can either tell it to hurry up or be careful (this directly effects the speed and probability of getting a bitternut). It takes one Bitternut to make one bottle of rum.

Sweetgrubs

There are a few sweetgrub mounds scattered around the map. You can get a piece of meat from the table/tool store in your main compound. If you use the meat on a sweetgrub mound, you may get some sweetgrubs.

Each use of a piece of meat has a chance to 'use up' that mound for a short duration, and a small chance of setting off a swarm of angry sweetflies (similar to the 'swarm'). One load of sweetgrubs is needed for one bottle of rum.

Scrapeytree bark

Scrapeytree bark can be found, but you will first need a hatchet to get some. If you search the tool space, you can find one in the supply.

From here, you will need to locate a rather ugly scrapey tree, which are a little less common than the bitternut trees.

These have no Woodcutting requirements to cut, but a higher Woodcutting level results in a quicker cutting speed. One load of bark gives one bottle of rum. Please be aware there is a small chance you will get diseased while obtaining scrapeytree bark.

Coloured water

Red or blue water is needed, depending on what team you are on. You will need to grab a handful of a type of flower growing around the other team's still. This flower needs to be used on a kettle in your own still to extract the colouration.

Following this, you will need to use a bowl on the kettle to get the coloured water and then pour it into the correct hopper. It takes three bowls of water to make one bottle of rum.

Water

Buckets of water. Each still has a pump that can be sabotaged, and there is a large body of water that you can use buckets on to get the water. It takes 5 buckets of water to make one bottle of rum.

Wood

While not needed for the rum, the various jungle trees can all be cut down and used to fuel the three main boilers in which the rum is distilled. Each team will have to use logs on the boilers to fill the fuel hopper, and then light them.

The hoppers then need to be maintained in order to keep the temperature at the right level. There is a log store in each hut that you can use to store logs, and thus one group of players can cut trees while the others feed the boilers.

The main brewing overlay shows whether the furnace is at the right temperature or not. On average it takes ten logs burning to bring the boiler up to the correct temperature, and it consumes one log per minute.

Brew the rum

When the number of hopper ingredients reaches the necessary amount, then all the players on your team (that have provided ingredients) will be informed. It takes one minute for a bottle to be produced, so if the team is working efficiently then they have plenty of warning to stop what they are doing and grab the bottle before the other one arrives and the first falls on the floor.

Packaging the bottles

If there is already a bottle of rum at the end of the still then the first bottle will drop to the floor and smash. You will need to wait at the end of the still to collect the bottles. Each bottle collected (and automatically put in the crate) scores one for that team, and the score is displayed on the screen to show both teams how they are doing.

Sabotage and Repair

While the players cannot attack each other directly, due to the pirate code, they can sabotage each others' stills.

Most of the locations in the still hut, and most of the stills themselves, can be set on fire. You will need to have a lit torch (available in the huts) to do this and use it on the still.

If you are successful, the still will catch fire and will continue to take damage until it is put out. The still can take five levels of damage before it is destroyed.

To repair the still you need to use a bucket of water on the burning section, stopping the fire. You will then have to click the repair option on the broken part while holding a number of either timber sheets or wooden pipe sections.

Wooden planks are used to repair larger parts of the machine, such as the hoppers and the main body of the still. Pipes are used for everything else.

The repair parts are taken from a limited supply. Each team starts with 10 of each piece on a table. They can craft replacements from logs by using them on a workbench. This brings up a small interface where you can choose to craft pipes, sheets or bridge sections in the usual 1, 5, 10 and X way.

Bridges

Between the two stills are a number of bridges. These can be set on fire in the same way as the stills. Being a lot larger than the still parts, though, these need more water to put out. You will need to use one bucket of water for each point of damage on the bridge to extinguish it totally. If your team does not put it all out, then it will begin to burn again.

Each team can only torch their enemies' bridge, and can only repair their own bridge when it burns down. The bridge must be fully repaired before it can be walked across again. There are three islands, each of which has a bridge for each team on it.

Trees and Flowers

Wood is needed to repair the stills, fuel the brewing process and build the bridges. You can set fire to the other team's trees, forcing them to have to put them out before they can cut them down. If the trees are left to burn, then they take longer to regenerate than if they had been cut down normally. Trees do not need to be repaired, they can simply be put out with water, and then cut normally.

Still Defense

To defend the still against attacks you can work a large steam pump (if you have enough run energy). This feeds off the three boilers. If you pump, you will add pressure. When the pressure reaches full, you will automatically stop pumping.

You can stop pumping at any time, releasing the pressure through the pipes of the still to defend it. Each area that is on fire is extinguished, and takes an extra level of damage. Also, each of these pieces vents steam at the closest enemies.

Experience

Activity	Experience
Buckets of water added to hopper	0 (but a required ingredient)
Coloured water added to hopper	40 Cooking
Sweetgrub added to hopper	40 Cooking
Scrapeybark added to hopper	40 Cooking
Bitternut added to hopper	80 Cooking
Each log put into the boilers	40 Firemaking
For each flammable thing set on fire	50 Firemaking
For each repair item crafted	12.5 Crafting
For each successful repair	12.5 Crafting
For each burning location put out	50 Firemaking
For each monkey captured	15 Agility
For each point of pressure pumped	10 Strength

Bottle collection

If you have provided enough of an ingredient to make a bottle of rum, you will see the bottle of rum and be able to pack it away. If you provide ingredients for more than one bottle, you will be able to see the next few bottles.

Bonus experience

At the end of the game, you will receive some bonus experience depending on how well your team did and how hard you worked.

You will receive 100 Crafting exp, 250 Cooking exp and 150 Firemaking exp for every bottle of rum that your team produced, as long as you contributed enough ingredients. To receive this experience, you will need to have contributed either: 1 scrapey-bark, 1 bitternut, 1 sweetgrubs or 3 coloured water per bottle of experience claimed.
Please note: Adding buckets of water to the hoppers does not grant this experience.

If you have not contributed, you cannot see and hence cannot take the bottles produced, and as a result of this you will not receive the experience.

Items

Each player on a team gains two pieces of eight for every bottle of rum their team produced. They also gain an additional piece of eight for every task they complete (such as gathering ingredients, sabotage etc). These can be traded at Honest Jimmy's for ragged navy uniforms, tricorn hats, piratical banners and 'The stuff' to increase the chance that your own brews will reach maturity.

Treasure Map
If you speak with Honest Jimmy, he will sell you a medium level treasure trail map clue for 5,000 pieces of eight.


Developer: Tony W
Graphics: Damian C
QA: Kevin D, Jennie T
Audio: Ian T

More articles in Activities Stealing Creation Temple Trekking / Burgh de Rott Ramble Trouble Brewing TzHaar Fight Cave TzHaar Fight Pit

Further Help Need more help? Come chat with us! Discord