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11 Crew and Population is the haven's labour layer in Corsair Cove. Buildings need workers; ships need crew; expeditions burn through both. The same pool of survivors covers all three demands, and the haven only grows when the player goes out and recruits more bodies. This page consolidates worker tiers, specialist crew roles, and the recruitment pipelines, with cross-references into City Building, Naval Combat, and Cohesion and Morale.
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3-Population Types
3+Hands and Crew
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5+Pirates come in two distinct types. Hands live on the island and keep the economy running; crew sail with the fleet, where they raise the ship's stats and keep it afloat. Each occupation carries its own upkeep, so the shape of the population is something the economy has to be steered around rather than a fixed cost.
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6-The Steam store page lists four worker tiers covering everything that happens on the island. Each tier has distinct needs, and the upper tiers will not show up for work without provisions and accommodations that match their rank.
7+HandUpkeep per MinuteOccupationDrifters1 HousingAssigned automatically to whatever jobs are openBuilders1 HousingConstruct production buildingsFetchers1 HousingCarry goods between buildingsGreenhands1 Housing, 1 StewStaff simple production buildingsMasterhands1 Housing, 1 Roast Bird, 1 BoozeStaff advanced production buildings
8+Drifters are the pool everything else draws from, and they take open jobs on their own. Pausing construction or production frees them up again, which is the usual lever when a new building has nobody to staff it. Fetchers are assigned automatically in some cases, but specific work such as stocking a Warehouse needs a route created by hand in the building menu.
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8-TierRoleNotesDriftersBottom-tier general labourCheap to house and provision, the default arrival from rescue missions and shipwreck recovery.FetchersLogistics carriersMove goods between producers, depots, and piers. Demand on fetchers scales hard with how vertical the haven gets.BuildersConstruction crewErect new structures, run repairs, and rebuild after raids or storms.SpecialistsSkilled workers and ship rolesThe top tier covers specialist production jobs and the named ship roles below. They expect better provisions and quarters than drifters.
9-Specialist Ship Crew
10+All Hands on Deck doubles a building's fetcher and greenhand usage, so it is worth spending sparingly when drifters are scarce. The best targets are buildings with few staff and a large footprint, such as Sugar Cane Farms or Campfires.
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11-On the water, four named specialist roles change what a ship can do in combat and on expeditions. They are recruited and provisioned out of the same haven economy.
12+Upkeep is always demanded in the Pirate Camp that a worker's building belongs to, which means a Galley and Tavern have to exist in that same camp rather than merely somewhere on the island. A building can be reassigned to another camp in range, and that reassignment is often a cheaper fix than duplicating the supply chain.
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13-RoleFunctionTied ToBombardiersOperate heavy guns; turn cannon stats into real damage in combat.Cannon Foundries; iron supplyNavigatorsPlot routes through dangerous water, extend safe expedition range, mitigate at-sea events.Exploration expeditionsMaraudersBoarding and shore-action specialists; tip the balance in close engagements and raids.Raid expeditionsRenegadesFourth specialist role listed alongside the other three on the store page. Specific in-combat function not yet detailed publicly.Unconfirmed pillar tie
14-Elite specialists require richer provisioning than rank-and-file workers. Public coverage names tobacco, pistols, spyglasses, medicine, sabers, and eye-patches as the consumables and equipment a haven must stockpile to keep elite ship crews in service. The set of consumables for any given specialist scales with the role: bombardiers lean on cannon supply and powder, navigators rely on spyglasses and charts, marauders consume pistols and sabers in close action, and every specialist on a long voyage demands medicine.
14+Ship Crew Roles
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16-Specialists are the layer where the four Progression Paths bleed into ship loadouts. A Notoriety run leans on Marauders for raid throughput; a Seafaring run wants Navigators for long-range routes; a Wealth run uses Bombardiers to escort smuggling routes against interception. Renegades' pillar affinity has not been disclosed.
16+Ten crew roles serve at sea. Swabbies sail on everything; the other nine are tied to specific ship tiers and classes, and each one wants goods that a haven of that size should already be producing. Crew types unlock automatically together with the buildings that supply them when a new ship tier is reached on the Compass.
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18+CrewUpkeep per MinuteServes OnSwabbies1 Stew, 1 BoozeAll shipsPicaroons1 RumTier 2 and 3 Destroyers and ReaversScallywags1 Cassava BreadTier 2 and 3 Prowlers and HuntersBombardiers1 Medicine, 1 BootsTier 3 and 4 Destroyers and HuntersCrow's Eyes1 Turtle Soup, 1 SlopsTier 3 and 4 Prowlers and ReaversBuccaneers0.5 Tobacco, 0.5 EyepatchTier 4 and 5 Prowlers and DestroyersNavigators0.5 Wine, 0.5 Tattoo InkTier 4 and 5 Hunters and ReaversMarauders0.2 Sabres, 0.2 SpyglassTier 5 and 6 Destroyers and HuntersRenegades0.2 Prosthesis, 0.2 HardtackTier 5 and 6 Prowlers and ReaversCorsairs0.1 Fancy Clothing, 0.1 Pistols, 0.1 JewelleryAll tier 6 ships
19+Hiring a crew member costs a fee equal to their upkeep. Dismissing one is worse than it looks: firing any crew member other than a Swabbie costs a point of Cohesion, so it is a last resort rather than a routine way to trim expenses.
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21+Crew upkeep is drawn in the pirate camp their pier belongs to, which means every community building feeding that crew has to sit in the same camp. A pier can be reassigned to another camp in range, and doing so is a common way to hang a new set of production chains off an established harbour. See Ships for which roles each hull carries.
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1823 How Drifters Behave
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2025 Drifters cannot be picked up and assigned by hand. There is no manual transfer between camps, and no way to order a specific worker to a specific site. What they do follow is simple logic: a drifter looks for a job and a bed, and settles wherever it finds both.
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2227 That makes population routing an indirect problem. To populate a new camp, make it attractive, put jobs and beds there, and drifters will funnel toward it on their own. The corollary is that an over-provisioned older camp will keep holding onto workers a newer one needs.
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2429 GoalWhat Actually WorksMove workers to a new campBuild jobs and beds there and make it the most attractive option. Direct transfer is not possibleRaise total populationTrigger immigration events, and recover drifters found out at sea during voyagesSupport higher crew tiersProduce advanced drink. Basic swabbies need only booze, but better crewmates want goods such as cider or moonshine, and meeting that need raises ship stats
2530 Recruitment Pipelines
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2732 Population does not grow through passive birth ticks. Every new resident is actively recruited at sea or rescued from a wreck, which couples the builder loop tightly to expedition planning.
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2934 Shipwreck Survivors pulled from wrecks scattered across the archipelago.Raid Recruits crew won, freed, or coerced into service during raids on enemy shipping and settlements.Sea Catches the in-fiction route that lets the player fish whole crew members out of open water.
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3136 Because most recruitment is at-sea work, the city-builder loop and the naval layer are not separable. Expeditions that look like resource runs on paper are also population missions; expeditions that fail at sea pull bodies off the haven's roster as well.
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3338 Population Loss
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3540 Crew lost in combat does not respawn. Sailors who die at sea reduce the haven's labour pool because the same population that lives on the island crews the ships. A botched engagement does not just cost the ship; it pulls bodies off the roster. Recruitment payouts from successful Expeditions are how the population gets back up after a hard run.
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3742 Provisions and Housing
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3944 Workers and crew need somewhere to sleep and something to consume. Living quarters scale with population; taverns, kitchens, and depots feed the comfort and supply economy. Higher worker tiers expect richer provisions: drifters take basic shelter and ale, specialists expect specialist quarters and the better goods. Failing to keep ahead of provisioning drives Cohesion and Morale down, and a fully-emptied cohesion meter ends the run.
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4146 Unconfirmed Details
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43-Exact provisioning thresholds for each worker tier.Specialist sub-jobs inside the production economy (named beyond the four ship roles).Renegades' specific in-combat function and which pillar they slot into.Whether worker tiers promote internally or only arrive at their final tier.Population caps and how housing tiers interact with them.How long lost or injured crew remain out of the labour pool.
48+Worker and crew roles, their upkeep, and their ship assignments are all published. Still open:
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50+Whether hands promote between tiers internally or arrive already sorted into their role.Population caps and exactly how housing tiers interact with them.How long crew lost in battle stay out of the labour pool, if they return at all.