Boarding Combat

Boarding Combat is the ship-to-ship engagement mode in Windrose that lets the player forcibly enter an enemy vessel rather than sink it. It is the single most efficient way to generate Piastre in the current Early Access build, because cargo haulers keep their full loot tables while sunk ships lose most of it to the sea.

How to Initiate

Boarding Combat - Windrose gameplay screenshot

Boarding is gated by damage. Reduce an enemy ship's hull to the "disabled" state: it stops moving, ceases firing, and a Board prompt appears on screen. Pressing Space triggers the boarding action. Grappling hooks fire automatically, and the player plus any NPC crew jump to the enemy deck.

Community estimates place the prompt around 30% hull remaining, but the game displays no numeric threshold; the UI prompt is the authoritative cue. If Chain Shot was used to slow the target first, the standard cannonballs need to stop the moment the prompt shows. Continuing to fire risks sinking the target and losing the loot.

Required Prep

Before boarding is possible, the ship must be equipped with Boarding Party Gear crafted at the Shipwright's Workshop. Upgrading this gear scales the NPC crew's HP, Defense, and Attack during boarding engagements; uncommitted gear will see the player's crew fall quickly on a Ketch deck.

Combat on the Deck

After boarding, combat switches to close-quarters melee and ranged on the enemy deck. It plays like land combat: weapons, dodges, and blocks all behave the same, but deck space is much tighter.

On a small Ketch, space is so tight that melee dodges are unreliable. The community consensus is to hold the railing with a Blunderbuss or Musket and let NPC crew absorb the melee swings. On larger ship decks (Brig or Frigate boardings), the player has room to use melee normally.

The engagement ends when a set number of enemy sailors are killed. The remaining crew does not flee; all hostile sailors must be defeated before looting.

Loot Phase

Marked containers on the enemy deck become interactive after the crew is cleared. Documented loot types include Naval Supplies, Medical Crates, Contraband, ammo, trade goods, faction reputation items, and raw Piastre.

Contraband and luxury cargo are worth far more when sold to the matching faction provisioner. Smugglers of Port Royal pay best for Contraband and are the only faction that pays Guineas for gold treasures. Sorting looted containers by buyer before sailing home cuts down on wasted trips.

Target Priority: Haulers

Boarding Combat - Windrose gameplay screenshot

Any enemy ship can be boarded in principle, but the efficient targets are Haulers (Transport ships). A hauler is flagged by a small gold chest icon above the ship's nameplate or next to its silhouette on the minimap.

Regular patrol or combat ships carry much lighter loot and are usually not worth the boarding time; sink them for cargo crumbs and experience instead. Community reports on a single boarding session of three Level 12 haulers plus several Level 7 escorts yielded approximately 1,244 Piastre in one run, making this the highest-density legitimate Piastre farm in the launch build.

Recommended Technique

Open with Chain Shot to strip target speed. Sail management matters more than DPS once the target is slowed.
Switch to standard cannonballs and damage the hull to the disabled state. Aim for the stern to avoid return fire.
Sink the escort ships first when possible, so the hauler is alone when the boarding prompt appears. Boarding mid-fight puts the player between the escort's cannons and the hauler's crew.
On a Ketch, hold the railing with a Blunderbuss or Musket. Ranged weapons dominate the tight deck space.
On a Brig or Frigate, melee works normally. Rapier of a Thousand Cuts bleed rotations in particular keep deck clears quick.

Ideal Ship Setup

The community-consensus boarding ship is a late-game Blackbeard Frigate with Devastating 36-Pounders on the main battery, a Keelhold hull modification, and Naval Tactics III: Stretch The Supply equipped. The speed and firepower let a single captain engage two or three ships at once, which is where the Piastre-per-hour rate becomes strongest.

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