Ships

Ships are how a haven reaches past its own shoreline in Corsair Cove. Every hull has to be paid for twice: once in construction goods at a pier, and again forever after in the upkeep its crew eats. That second bill is the real reason the settlement keeps growing, because each new tier of ship demands provisions the island cannot yet make. See Naval Combat for how these hulls fight, Progression Paths for how they unlock, and Crew and Population for who sails them.

Tiers and Classes

A ship's strength is summarised by a tier number from 1 to 6. Higher tiers need far more investment in the haven, and they repay it with the ability to take on harder work out at sea. The haven's first hull is the Landlubber, a starter ship strong enough only for the first few missions and events just outside the harbour.

After the starter ship, the remaining 28 hulls are each aligned to one of the four progression paths, and every path's ships share the same stat specialisation. Empire ships are Destroyers, built around gun damage and armour. Notoriety fields Prowlers, Seafaring fields Hunters, and Wealth fields Reavers.

Eight further hulls sit on the diagonals between two adjacent paths and are unlocked by spending points in both. These hybrids carry a plus after the class name, as in Destroyer+, and are noticeably stronger than the ordinary ships of the same tier. They appear at tier 2 and again at tier 4.

Ship Stats

Three general stats scale up in large steps with tier: Health, Crew, and Supplies. Health and Crew are both lethal thresholds, and if either hits zero during a battle the fight is lost and the hull is destroyed. Supplies can be topped back up mid-battle, but only by spending the other two.

Five specialised stats vary sharply by class rather than by tier: gun damage, boarding damage, speed, manoeuvrability, and armour. The gap is wide enough that tier alone is a poor guide to whether a ship suits a job. A tier 6 Hunter carries 24 armour, less than the 26 on the tier 2 Destroyer Iron Fist, because armour is simply not what Hunters are for.

Work out at sea is signposted the same way. Quests aligned with a path list a recommended ship of that path and lean on the stats that class excels at, so a haven that fields only one class will eventually run into work it cannot do well.

Building and Upgrading

New hulls are not researched individually. Spending points along a path on the Compass unlocks the next ship automatically once the point requirement is met, and that same unlock opens a matching set of buildings. Reaching the tier 3 Hunter, for example, opens six new buildings alongside it, because the crew of a tier 3 ship cannot be fed and equipped by the industry a tier 2 haven has.

Hull size also dictates where a ship can be laid down. Tier 1 to 3 ships are built at a Shallow Pier, tier 4 and 5 need a Trade Pier, and the tier 6 ships need a Deep-Water Pier, which is itself one of the more expensive structures in the Buildings catalogue.

Full Ship Roster

Construction costs below are the goods consumed at the pier. Crew types are the roles the hull can carry; each has its own upkeep drain on the haven.

Sustaining a Fleet

A hull sitting at anchor still eats. Crew upkeep is drawn in the pirate camp that its pier belongs to, so every community building that supplies a crew type has to exist in that same camp, not merely somewhere on the island. Reassigning a pier to a different camp in range is the usual fix when a new fleet outgrows the industry around its harbour.

That is why the fleet and the settlement grow in lockstep. A tier 5 crew wants goods that need several production steps behind them, and each of those steps is more workers who need feeding themselves. See Goods and Production for the chains involved.