Using a stronghold key on a different fort

@writerinthedark out of curiosity were the other 3 ships 2 galleons and a sloop?

@katttruewalker would they buy it?

@katttruewalker most people I join rather get the mass of gold in treasure and trinkets rather than test things I think but soloing a keep is neigh impossible without ppl coming

@writerinthedark Thanks for sacrificing about 10k gold to get us this informations lad!

+1 vote from me, now i don't need to sacrifice 10k gold to test it out myself! ;3

@katttruewalker My crew and I tried this, no option to sell. Very interesting adventure though!

If you are being pursued, it isn't a very good idea to bring the key onto the ship with you - much, much better to hide it somewhere on the island (though you risk getting a server merge, but if you're being chased then you're not the only 1 on the server for sure) Hide it on the island and come back for it, I'm sure there is some kind of cut-off point where it disappears, but not for a very long time.
Today I learned that the key will not disappear if you leave it on an uninhabited island for more than an hour, and that even if another skull fort comes up on that same server (like if enough time passes) you can still open up the original skull fort [however, when I opened it the other skull was still 'active' so I'm not sure if it'd still work when the other fort got looted, probably though] Story below:
Earlier, I was playing solo just doing some merchant voyages until my main crew got on for forts. As I'm doing them a skull fort pops up next to me so I think hey why not, I can try and if a galleon comes I can just leave. I managed to sink a 2 man sloop, and cleared the whole fort. Right when I got the key I looked to the horizon and saw a galleon coming in fast, maybe 5 minutes away. I knew that I would not have enough time to loot the island at all, but enough time to get to another island.
I then set sail for the nearest island (Thieves Haven) and parked my ship inside - as soon as I got there, the galleon arrived, but had to go around to get in from another entrance. In the meantime, I ran ashore, and hid the key in a corner behind some trees and bushes and headed back to my ship - not 10 seconds later one of them kills me.
The galleon then spent the next 20 minutes camping me, finally leaving (and didn't sink my ship) I knew that I could not just go loot the island, and I didn't want to risk sinking with the key, so I set sail for the nearest outpost to get chicken cages. I then went and captured chickens, to the islands nearby so I could keep track of the galleons position / when the coast was clear. The galleon came for me again, this time taking my decoy chickens, and sinking my ship.
I messaged them through gamertag, pretending to be a noob asking them why they kept killing me (I also had no sails/figure/hull on at the time) and taking my chickens, I then got in like a 15 minute conversation with them, where they accused me of having the key, and I insisted that I was just doing merchant voyages and had no idea what they were talking about. Finally, they believed me and apologized for having attacked me, and sailed off.
My ship came back up on the other side of the map, so I sailed around in a HUGE loop that took more than an hour (getting more decoy animals on the way)
At this point I'm terrified that the server will change, or that I'll get the "ethernet disconnected pastiebeard" error and be backed out.
Finally, I get to several islands away from the fort, I come around the corner and there they are camping the fort (it's been more than 1 hour and 30 minutes..) I park my ship there and I get a message from them saying "I see you" - they then come over again, and kill me repeatedly (not sinking my ship) talking endless @#$% to me, while I continued the completely innocent noob act "Why are you doing this to me, what did I do?" After they sunk me again, I went back around to Thieves Haven to see if the key was still there (it had been sitting there for more than an hour) and it was.
They then camped the nearby islands for no joke another hour, I continued my 'merchant act' going to the animal islands and raising sail. They came over and sank me again, and I continued to try to talk with them (like a noob), asking why they had been camping me for literally 2 hours, that I only had one night off every two weeks to play and if they could please leave me alone, everything in the manipulation arsenal. They apologized again, saying how they had just thought I had cleared the skull fort and taken the key and now they were just killing me for fun and to quote "take my drumstix"
30 minutes later they are still camping the fort. I had heard before that the key becomes worthless when the next skeleton fort comes up - at this point (my time estimates above may have been a little off) it has been literally 2 hours and 45 minutes since I initially picked up the key. Why oh why would you sit and camp a fort for that long? Why wouldn't you just play the game l**o? They could have cleared 3+ forts in the amount of time it took camping.
Thinking that my time was short for the treasure to become void, I picked up the key and began swimming from Thieves Haven to Crows Nest, a HUGE swim - constantly looking over my shoulder for any sharks coming at me. My plan was to sneak onto the island, open the door, move all the treasure outside of the keep and hide it somewhere, and then come back for it later. When I make it about half way, I look to my left and there's a skull fort up.
"*&%%$@# *)%#(&" I thought, thinking that my entire 3 hours of patiently waiting had been for nothing. (At this point my main crew had already gotten on, but I was too deep 'in the hole' to bail now. On top of that, the guys were all incredibly rude and it became a thing of principle) I swam back to my ship when I saw that the galleon headed off to that skull fort. With destroyed morale, I headed to Crows Nest and put the key in... and Wah-Lah! A really nice haul. It took FOREVER to load it all solo (never something I had to do before) and I'm still super paranoid that they're going to come for me / another person just seeing me parked there. I load everything up, and go to the nearest outpost, and sell it all.
3 hours. For 15k loot. Definitely not worth it lol. Lesson learned: just because you can take the skull fort solo does not mean it is worth taking the skull fort solo.

To the crew who camped the fort for literally 3 god $%@! hours, we both lost.

So yes. You can drop the key and come back for it even an hour later. And you can also open up the same skull fort that you cleared, even when the next skull goes up (but again, I opened it while the next skull fort was still active)
FIN

You can just look in the vault from inside the fort's main room to see if any loot is inside. Or what loot you can expect to get once you clear a fort.

No idea why anyone would use a key on an empty vault.

But yeah, i've used the key from a vault to successfully loot another vault, due to circumstances on that particular server and session.

Next time just do what my crew did the other night.

After you obtain the key G**O!

Make a pass by an island (But not too close as to give away your plan) and dump off a crew member with the key. Make sure you know in your head which fort you killed and which island your buddy was dropped at.

The rest of your crew is now going to sail right off the other end of the map. As far away from the outpost as possible.

They should be chasing right behind you thinking you have the key.

Once you get fairly deep into the red ocean off the map edge, but before your ship starts breaking apart jump off.

Swim back to whoever is chasing you and anchor them. Once you anchor them keep em busy as long as possible.

If you die and return back to your still alive boat vote to scuttle it. Catch a mermaid back to your fresh ship.

The guys chasing you are now anchored in the red ocean and far away from your respawn.

This gives you an easy 5 minute lead (Probably more as they will be looking for that key still).

Pick your buddy up on the way back and claim your treasure!

We hatched this plan the other night and it went off flawlessly. Never saw the galleon thathe was chasing us again after we respawned.

I'd like to think they were eaten by sharks in the red ocean while searching for the key that wasn't there.

Happy sailing!

@writerinthedark said in Using a stronghold key on a different fort:

The key works and opens the vault below...

The vault is empty though :/

Thank you, for Science!