8. Ships

Ships are the vehicles that carry single or multiplayer crews out to sea.

What you sail

Every pirate holds a Sloop, free. She is a real ship: guns on both sides, which the captain can fire from the wheel, room for a crew of three, a hold of 60 and a deck to fish from. Your first voyage is sailed in her.

Everything bigger is earned. Above the Sloop is the ladder, smallest first: the Cutter, the Brig, the Frigate and the Man-o-war. Each is crafted at the shipwright. Apart from the Sloop, no ship is granted: none at signup and none at a war reset. Every other hull you sail is one you paid for.

Building a ship

Each hull costs doubloons and materials, and each one needs the hull below it. To build a Cutter you must own a Sloop, to build a Brig you must own a Cutter, and so on up. The hull below is not used up: you keep it.

The materials are ordinary trade goods. Oak logs lie around the docks as wood branches and come up with the commonest fish. Linen cloth and copper ore come up with the next tier of fish, the linenfish and the copperfish. All three sell at every trade post, Coffer Cay at the docks included, so you can buy them too.

Your first voyage pays you 5,000 doubloons towards the Cutter.

Hulls reset at the end of a war, so each war the climb starts again from the Sloop.

The older hulls (the Clockwork Brig, the Wraith Brig, the Freeblade Sloop, the Merchant's Brig, the Tidesong Brig and the Phoenix Frigate) are retired. They are not crafted or sold any more and do not appear in the loadout.

At the wheel

Push forward at the wheel to let out sail and pull back to take it in. If you keep pulling back once the sails are in, she backs away slowly. That is how you get her off a beach or away from a rock she has run into. The wind plays no part in it, and every ship backs at about the same slow pace.

The hull

A ship's health is its hull. There are no shields. A ship that used to carry one now carries those points in its hull, so it lasts about as long in a fight as it did.

The hull for your ship shows in the loadout.

Holes and water

A shot that strikes the hull cuts a hole in it, or widens one already there. Water comes in through every hole below the waterline, and the more holes and the lower they sit, the faster it comes. Water in the hold slows the ship and lists her toward the side it came in on. When the hold is full of water, she sinks.

Two jobs keep her afloat, and anyone aboard can do either:

• Patch: take a plank from the lumber pile with the interact key, go down to the hole and press it again to nail the plank over it. A patched hole lets in no more water.
• Bail: take a bucket from the rack, fill it from the water down in the hold, and empty it over the rail on the main deck.

The crew hands who join your ship patch and bail too. On your first voyage Barnaby's colours keep her from going down, so it is a safe place to learn both.

The hold

Every hull has a fixed hold, measured in cargo units. Each unit of goods takes one unit of space, and doubloons in the hold weigh too: every 250 doubloons aboard fills one unit.

When the hold is full, it is full: chests you sail into stay in the water, and a fish you cannot stow gets away. Sell or extract to make room. The hold for your ship shows in the loadout, and the map screen shows how much of it you have used.

To see what is aboard, open the Ship's Hold: walk up to the cargo hatch on deck and press the interact key.

Ownership

Ships are ordinary inventory items. They are not NFTs and do not need to be, and no ship is gated behind a purchase.

Ornaments

Ornaments dress your ship: a figurehead down the stem, a fixture round the wheel, carvings on the quarters, a new look for the whole hull, masts, nets and pieces for the deck. Fit them in the loadout under ORNAMENTS. They change how your ship looks and nothing else.

An ornament is yours for good. Unlike hulls, ornaments never reset at the end of a war, and one ornament fits every ship you sail, each built to that hull's size. You can only own one of each.

Eight can be had now.

At the shipwright:

In the shop, for nuggies:

Six more show in the loadout with how each is earned: rare finds at sea, and the top reputation bands. They cannot be earned yet.

Customization

More ships and classes are planned.