Revision 8

Ship Design: Brig is the blueprint item for the Brig hull in Windrose. It is sold by the Brethren of the Coast Provisioner at Reputation Rank 2 for 1,000 Piastres.

Purchase Details

Design vs. Craftable Ship

Purchasing Ship Design: Brig does NOT immediately give you a Brig. The blueprint unlocks the recipe at the Shipwright's Workshop. Actually building the Brig requires Foothills-zone resources including Foothills Iron Ingot and Hardwood. Buying the design before you have access to these materials wastes 1,000 Piastres, because the design sits inactive until you can feed the recipe.

Strategic Warning

Community reports consistently warn about this gap: players spend 1,000 Piastres on the Brig design right when it unlocks at Rank 2, then find themselves unable to build the ship for many additional hours of play. The practical sequence: clear a Foothills expedition, bring back a healthy stockpile of Foothills Iron Ingot and Hardwood (exact recipe quantities are not documented in community sources and should be verified at the Shipwright's Workshop recipe list), THEN buy the Brig design, then immediately craft the ship at the Shipwright's Workshop.

See Also

• Brethren of the Coast — vendor faction

• Ship Types — full ship progression

• Shipwright's Workshop — crafting station

• Ship Design: Frigate — higher-tier design

Why Move Up From the Ketch

The Ketch starter ship is designed for the tutorial and the first round of Blackbeard Transport engagements, not for sustained mid-game combat. Once the main story pulls you toward level 4 enemy ships (Transport Ship 4, Interceptor 4, Blackbeard's Pirates' Ketch variants), the Ketch's 12-pounder loadout begins falling short. Each broadside does less damage than a 4-rank enemy deals back, and the Ketch's lower hull HP means two missed volleys can already put you within boarding-threshold distance of sinking.

The Brig closes that gap. It mounts more cannons (6 versus the Ketch's 3), carries more hull HP, and fits higher-tier hull bracings and naval tactics. Crew capacity is fixed at 50 across every hull and variant, so boarding party size itself does not scale with hull class. The Brig is also the first ship that can reliably survive a 1v2 against level 4 enemies without needing to kite behind islands.

Cannon Class Upgrade

The most immediate combat benefit of the Brig is the doubling of broadside volume: the Brig carries 6 cannons versus the Ketch's 3, so each trade shifts in your favor. The stock Brig still uses 12-pounders out of the box; the Blackbeard Brig is the only Brig variant that can mount 24-pounders, so the caliber jump is a faction-progression benefit rather than a baseline Brig upgrade. Full weight-class detail is in Cannon Types, but the practical effect is that twice as many 12-pound hits per pass meaningfully shortens the time-to-boarding on every enemy ship. Fewer rotations around a target equals less incoming return fire, which compounds the survival advantage alongside the raw hull HP increase.

The stock Brig carries 12-pound cannons out of the box; the Blackbeard Brig is the only Brig variant that mounts 24-pounders. No Brig variant can mount 36-pounders, which are reserved for the Blackbeard Frigate. Stick to the caliber the hull was designed to carry; pushing a 36-pound fitment is not an option at launch.

Material Signal

The transcript-confirmed rule of thumb for Windrose's progression: if a recipe asks for a material you have never seen, the game is telling you to push further into the story before attempting that upgrade. The Brig blueprint itself (1,000 piastres at Brethren of the Coast rank 2) unlocks relatively early, but the materials to actually craft the Brig (Foothills Iron Ingot and Hardwood) require a Foothills expedition. Buying the blueprint before the Foothills run is how 1,000 piastres ends up idle in inventory.

The correct sequence: progress the main story until the first Foothills trip is stable; farm at least 20 Foothills Iron Ingots and 30 Hardwood; return to Tortuga; spend 1,000 piastres on the blueprint; craft the Brig at the Shipwright's Workshop; sail it immediately to begin backfilling Ketch-era engagements that were too hard at 12-pounder firepower.

Naval Tactics Slots

The Brig gets more Naval Tactics slots than the Ketch but fewer than the Frigate. Tactics are whole-ship passives purchased from the Smugglers of Port Royal provisioner at rank 3 reputation. More slots means more stacked passives, which is another reason to switch from the Ketch to the Brig as soon as the Foothills materials are in hand: every extra slot is a compounding combat bonus for the remainder of the playthrough.

When to Skip Straight to Frigate

It is theoretically possible to skip the Brig and save the 1,000 piastres toward the 3,000-piastre Frigate blueprint, but this is rarely efficient. The Brig's mid-game combat uplift buys back its cost in a handful of mid-game engagements, whereas skipping it means every fight between the Foothills and Cursed Swamps progression points takes meaningfully longer in an underpowered Ketch. Community consensus is to buy the Brig blueprint on the first return trip to Tortuga after a successful Foothills expedition, use the Brig for the entire mid-game, and hold the Frigate upgrade until Cursed Swamps materials are a reliable farm.