A Comprehensive Guide to Naval Action (Up-to-Date)

Best ways to make money, gain experience, choose the right ships, and more.

Introduction

Welcome aboard Captain.

Naval Action is a beautiful, complex game. It has a steep learning curve, and regular updates have meant that the metas have changed drastically without much corresponding updates to most of the commonly available guides online. Because there is so much players need to know, this can often seem overwhelming to new entrants - I'm hoping this guide helps keep people from getting discouraged by this and sticking with one of the most incredible single games I've ever put my hands on, and of course, speeding you on your way to becoming the next loup des mers.

If you have questions for me specifically, you can find me either in-game or on the discord as FearAndLoathing. Please feel free to reach out if you need any additional guidance or have suggestions for the guide.

I will start by laying out the basics of Naval Action ("NA") for new players and then will break down topic specific guides that are more in depth and can help answer questions for players down the road. If you have a specific question just skip to that section of the guide.

NOTE: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO COMPLETE THE TUTORIAL BEFORE YOU START PLAYING. I explain why and when to do it below.

You’re going to lose ships and cargo, and its going to hurt. That’s okay. The game is very forgiving and if you follow this guide you’ll have enough money that you won’t sweat it.

How to Use This Guide:
As steam does not permit intra-guide links, I will do my best to lay out the best way to use this guide beyond cntl+f.

1. Guide to the Basics
These sections will cover the fundamentals of playing. Some things may seem obvious to you, some may not. In either case, it is important to understand the tools at your disposal (covered in Basics I & II) - such as the information you can obtain from each screen you'll encounter, where you'll find ships being bought and sold, activating your chat boxes, bringing the correct amount of repairs into battle, and using windboosts.

I also cover Sailing and Combat (Basics III), with instructions on manual sailing, and best "points of sail;" tips for levelling and loot (Basics IV); which Perks to use and when (Basics V), Establishing outposts, Teleporting Ships, Upgrade Chest/Money Chest, New Looting Mechanics, etc. (Basics VI).

2. Guide to Making Money
Reals and Doubloons are the two primary in-game currencies. These sections discuss the best ways to obtain them.

3. Guide to Ships
There are plenty of guides out there which will tell you basic ship info, so instead what I've done is try to tell you what all that information really means - and what you should be looking at when evaluating and crafting ships. How to best equip them, and sample builds being used in the meta right now.

4. Guide to Crafting
The crafting mechanics can seem a little opaque at first. I go through basic information you'll want from the start, including where to build up your shipyard, the best way to obtain your materials, info on manufacturing buildings and recipes, and provide a roadmap new players can follow as well as sample crafting chains you may want to consider using.

5. Miscellaneous Topic Guides
There are a lot of topics that don't fit as neatly into the above framework. I have created a list of distinct sections where I will cover such things as:

• pros/cons of playing solo or with a clan
  
• rankings and analysis of DLC content
  
• Game update reviews and analysis
  
• Essential links and tools

Notes:

• Game Update Section - Because the game is being regularly updated, the Updates section at the bottom will contain my analysis of updates that occur since the guide has been posted.
  
  
• Parts of this Guide are still under development - Please bear with me while I work on completing it.
  
  
• If you appreciate the content and want to help me keep this updated, feel free to send me comments or messages and give the guide a thumbs up.

Character Creation: Picking Your Nation

Before you even enter the game, you will have to decide what your name will be and what Nation you want to play for. This decision cannot be changed easily and will force you to completely restart your character. As this is an international game, the timezone and language of the faction you pick will matter – and you may have a hard time finding others to play with if you come into the game picking a Nation that doesn’t speak your language.

Beyond timezone and language, here are some things to consider:

• Where are you from – many people play in the nation where they hail from.
  
  
• Size of the Nation – In terms of both population and number of ports, this question is important. The ports that a faction controls will determine the trade routes it has access to, and how proximate it is to various events that occur on the map. The number of players will factor into how active its markets are, etc.
  
  
• Location of its Ports - Check out the Map[na-map.netlify.app] to see how central (or not) the faction is
  
  
• Player Development - The three nations with the most new players are GB, US and Pirates. See comments below on the specifics.

Nation-Specific Notes

2021 May Update: The map has never been more evenly distributed and clans have positioned themselves well for pretty even RVR. New players can be comfortable picking almost any nation in the game right now. However, I'm still keeping the three "common new player" nations tabbed together, as they are a bit unique for both their pros and cons.

Most new players:
These nations have the most new players to level up with, some of the largest internal markets, and get ganked the most often.

• Great Britain (GB) - Lots of very strong pros and cons for new players. English speaking with a great community/clans for development, very big/active markets and centrally located near all the action. Has above average trade routes but a more dangerous economy due to its central location. GB and Pirates get near constant attention from every other nation on the map. Good if you want the action to come to you, but can be tough for new players. A solid starting choice.
  
  
• Pirates - Like GB, pirates are centrally located with alot of new players and some very good clans for development. Economy is a bit worse - a lot of russian and spanish spoken in Pirates, but theres a few english groups as well.
  
  
• United States (US) - Has a lot of new players, places to develop and above average trade routes. English speaking, and like the two above, has issues with attracting gankers, especially now that Russia has moved in. Solid starting choice, with some interesting player movement over there recently.

The Rest:
You'll find a lot of vets who have moved on to these nations, or players who started there for language reasons. As I indicated above, you won't be going wrong if you choose to go to a nation with vets - it has different pros and cons. You'll be able to develop more or less in peace, and have good clans that can help bring you up - but they may be harder to get into and more suspicious of new players being potential spies.

Good Combo Nations:

• Russia - Russia has some of the better clans in the game and relatively active internal markets but for new players it may be hard to find english speaking starter clans. They have good trade routes and crafting ports.
  
  
• Netherlands (VP) - An interesting choice right now, as they have kind of taken over the role France had with limited but profitable/safe trade routes, good crafting and a strong, active community. Pretty much all the groups there speak english, and they've had a number of players move over lately.
  
  
• France - France has struggled since its breakup with VNGD. Still a lovely place to trade/craft in a nice corner part of the map. Mostly speak french now, but a few above average trade routes that are safer than most. Its a decent spot for new player economy, but language and choice are limited.
  
  
• Denmark - Smaller nation with a great community and a good mix of excellent clans and developmental ones, with a few that speak english. Its a solid choice, but its trade routes are a little less safe than France/VP, and its been getting hit hard in RVR.
  
  
• Sweden - Sweden has been getting picked apart a bit after de-zerging the map. They still have great crafting, but their trade routes are greatly diminished. There are still some good clans here that speak english.

Small Elite or Niche Nations:

• Prussia - One of the more interesting picks right now - Strong pros/cons: Very limited internal markets, but some of the best trade routes in the game but they get ganked a lot. Basically only one english speaking clan, but its one of the best in the game.
  
  
• Poland - Like Prussia they have seen a lot of development recently from top tier clan movement. Like Prussia, they have limited internal markets, limited clan choice, and one extremely good clan. A key difference is that Polish trade routes are a bit worse than Prussian imo, making them a harder pick for new players.
  
  
• China - Good LORD VNGD! They have been a ton of fun to watch recently, taking on all comers and actively engaging across the map. Basically the same pros/cons should be listed as with Prussia/Poland - they are basically a single clan nation, except unlike the other two their focus is US timezone rather than EU.
  
  
• Spain - Spain was doing great last year before it collapsed again. They are a niche nation for spanish speakers right now, but you can expect them to get back on their feet again in the future.

Entering the World - First Steps

You enter the world of naval action in a basic cutter without much to go on. Fortunately, the basic cutter is free to buy in any port – and you can easily grind early 7th rate missions with it at zero risk. All that said, when starting off you won’t have a lot of money, or an easy way to obtain it. At this point you have three tasks, and they overlap. Without paying particular mind of the order yet:

1. Making Money - You need to be able to trade to make enough money to comfortably allow yourself to build up your fleet, develop outposts, and take the inevitable losses.
   
   
2. Gaining battle experience - You need to experience the battle mechanics as early as possible because there will be pirates you encounter – and it’s the only way to level yourself.
   
   
3. Finishing the tutorial - the tutorial will act as a way of fast forwarding your progress by boosting your level a great deal after you finish the final exam (with a few other less noteworthy perks).

Most people will tell you to always do the tutorial and final exam first. While that’s a fine way to approach the game, it isn’t my recommendation. For returning players, it can make sense particularly if you already have a group but it isn’t an efficient way to level. The tutorials can be a useful way to learn the basics (and the first few I might do anyway just to learn the controls) – but, they are boring, the final exam is quite difficult, and you are actually getting less XP rewarded if you rush it.

Here’s why: The final exam bumps you up to either Rank 6 (GB: Master and Commander) OR Rank 7 (GB: Post Captain), depending on what level you are when you complete it. If you do it right out of the gate, you get a boost of 5,000 xp (at max), if you do it after you reach rank 5 (GB: Lieutenant Commander) you’ll get a boost of 8,000xp which takes you straight to post captain.

You might hear people tell you that levelling up is easier once you are rank 5 (so making up the 3k difference lost is quicker than not doing so), but this is simply not the case. As discussed in the levelling section, you get the most xp when you bring as low a BR ship as possible against as high a BR enemy as possible, and the safest route when starting is going to be the same one whether you did it right away or not.

As such, my recommended order is to do a blend of Kill Missions (which you can find in port by accessing your journal), and Economy Missions (to begin to build some reals), until you get to rank 5 (Lieutenant Commander, or the equivalent) which takes 5k XP and rewards 8k, as opposed to one that takes zero xp but rewards 5k (or less).

Basics - I - The Port

If you have not already begun the game (and even if you have) you may also want some help figuring out where things are and what they mean.

This is not intended as a full and comprehensive explanation of things that are obvious – I am going to try and point out things that may not be and will add more as I think of them:

The Port Screen

1) The Tavern [Shortcut: G]

This is your basic communications overlay. When you start out, you’ll only see the option for Trade and Combat Reports, and things will seem very quiet.

On the far right side of the tavern menu you will see a “+” sign, click on it to open other chat rooms, notably Nation Chat.

This is your portal to asking for help, and meeting people. There is no longer a global or help chat so you will use this when you have questions for people – In my experience, there are a lot of players who will go out of there way to help out. Use them.

You will also be able to private message people on here and can tab back and forth or expand the screen to see more communication. This is particularly helpful when trying to join a clan.

2) Your Navy [Shortcut: N]

This is an essential screen. Here you will see where all your ships are, and get important information about them including your…

REP CYCLES:

A Rep cycle is the amount of repairs needed to complete one full repair on any particular ship whenever you click repair during battle (5->1, 2, or 3 for hull, rig and crew, respectively). Hull repairs repair your hull, Rig repairs repair your sails, and Rum refills your crew numbers.

By hovering your cursor over a ship in the Navy screen (or fleet screen at sea) you will be able to see how much repairs you need to complete a rep cycle on any particular ship. (NOTE: You cannot see this when you are in the equip screen for that ship.)

Essentially, it will say “Hull Repairs x” or “Rig Repairs x” and that is the number of hull or rig repairs you will need to complete a full repair whenever you click on it during battle.

A good rule of thumb is to bring:

• 10 hull repair cycles
  
• 10 Rig repair cycles
  
• 4 Rum cycles

Know what enemies you might encounter when prepping rep cycles. For NPC fleets, you can expect a lot of hull damage and very little rig damage, so bring more hulls than rig repairs. If you think you are going to be encountering enemy players (who will likely try and demast you), you will want more rig repairs, probably an equal amount as Hull.

For crew, you heal 25% of your total crew capacity every time you repair. Since Rum weighs less than rig or hull repairs, you can afford to bring more. Many people like to bring their exact crew capacity (4 cycles) with them. Since the cool down is long, I usually only do this when I am expecting very long engagements but I always take at least 2 cycles (half crew).

3) The Shop [Shortcut: J]

The shop is the place where you can buy and sell goods (not ships). Don’t be too hasty to sell upgrades until you understand how much theyre probably worth – some of the early upgrades you receive are the best in the game and can be worth 500k-1million each.

Selling directly into the shop window will not net you much money and you will usually be selling for WAY UNDER VALUE. Don’t do it unless you don’t care about the item and are trying to get rid of it.

If you are trying to sell for a profit, you need to place a “Sell Contract” which you will find on the bottom right hand side of your screen in the “Place Contracts” menu. Understand that you can only place a limited number of contracts (10 or so), not all items can be sold here, and that people don’t want everything. So before you sell something, try and find out what it goes for on the market and then match or undersell by a short amount.

4) Auction House [Shortcut: V]

This is where you’ll buy and sell ships. You can always buy a basic cutter for free at any port. To understand where you’ll find the best ships, you need to know a bit about what ports do what, and because the game is dynamic that will take some time to figure out.

November Update: The Auction house now will not show you all ships available in a particular class - you must select a Quality filter option based on how many "slots" a ship will have. Your best bet right now is to select 3-4, as 3 is the default number of slots for most ships. You can read more about ship tiers and slots in the Ship section below.

Ports
Ports (other than the capital and home region ports) are developed by clans, and will be developed with different roles in mind. Some are there to produce different products (like woods or coal), and some are developed for shipcrafting. As far as the Auction House is concerned, this is what you’ll be looking at:

• Capital – Your Nation’s capital will likely be the hub of most trade, there will likely be a ton of ships for sale at varying prices and even 1st rate and up ships built by the admiralty – it will take time to figure out how much a ship is worth, but I’ll put in some rough ship price guidelines in the Ship section for certain basic ships everyone uses. In GB, the capital is Kingston Port Royale (KPR).
  
  
• Shipcrafting Ports – Ports where a clan has levelled up shipcrafting bonusses. While these ports tend to have fewer ships than your capital, you will often find ships with very good port bonusses here. Shipcrafting ports are good places to find ships with highly developed port bonusses (which cannot be added on later). You can find out more about your ports by reviewing the NA Map in the links or asking players. In GB, these ports include Santiago De Cuba (SDC), Port Au Prince (PAP), Belize (BEL) and Salamanca (SALA).
  
  
• All other faction ports – These ports have very little to do with ship trading. You will likely be able to buy only lower rate ships from the admiralty at these ports and they will likely have less in the shop as well.
  
  
• Free or Neutral Ports – Sometimes people will sell various good ships at free ports, but usually at very high prices. A few of these ports can be a goldmine, and can be very helpful if you need something specific, but youll have to travel there and figure it out since it depends strongly on the particular port (La Tortue is a good example). Recommend using very fast lynx or basic cutter to do this sort of exploring or outpost (OP) building.

5) The Admiralty [Shortcut: B]

The Admiralty is the only place you can buy certain important upgrades: Most notable Marines – which are basically a requirement for boarding.

6) Crafting [Shortcut: C]

The Crafting screen will be very helpful when you want to begin to buy and sell various items or ships for yourself. You can make good money doing this if youre patient and understand what ports produce which items and where there are particular needs.

The only way to level up your crafting is to build ships – when you level up you will have access to more labor hours and more ships.

Crafting items other than ships usually does not require that your crafting level be higher than zero, When you craft ships, they will tell you specifically what items are needed and how much experience you will gain.

To know your crafting level, click on the crafting screen and put your cursor over the Red Circle with a number on it in the top center of the crafting screen. Hovering over it will show how much XP you need to get to the next level.

7) Journal/Quests [Shortcut: Q]

This is where you will find your kill and economy missions when you’re starting out. Right away, I’d also recommend looking at the events and participating in the “Weekly Light Ship” competition as well, since you are likely to be fighting a bunch of them when you begin. Its an easy passive way to earn more doubloons.

Basics - II - Map and Sea

The Map [Shortcut: M]
You can access the map at port or at sea. The map will allow you to see where you are in the world, what port battles are going on, what ports sell what items, and it will allow you to create a course for yourself by selecting the protector tool in the top right of the map screen and placing it on your ship then right clicking on the map to set yourself a course.

The map is the best way to see where nearby Windboosts are while sailing.

• Windboosts are items you can see while at sea that will give you massive speed boosts when you sail close enough to them that you can click on them and press “Use.”
  
• The longer the duration of the boost, the wider the circle where it can be grabbed. Usually shorter boosts you have to sail right underneath have faster boosts.

[Under Construction]

Basics - III - Combat and Sailing

Sailing
NA has the best age of sail combat mechanics you can find out there, but it will take time to get used to.
Battle sails have been boosted in combat - you will use much less crew, recieve less sail damage, and fire more accurately when you have them up.

This is a windmap:


Ships will be at their fastest based on their Sailing Profile. You can find your specific ship's sailing profile here[arcws.com].

Turning through the Wind

• To turn through the wind most on a Square Rigged ship you will need to learn how to turn on manual sailing (most staysail rigged ships/smaller crafts can turn through the wind without ever getting off automatic pilot just fine).
  
• Use the R/Q buttons to turn front sails and the Z/C buttons to turn bottom sails.
  
• Turn off Staysails/Depower by pressing [T] to turn more quickly
  
• To put your sails back on auto press [F] and make sure to restore your Staysails with [T].

Wearing
This is what the V will look like when wearing left through the wind:

• To turn through the wind with the wind at your stern (back) you will want to convert to manually point your sails in a V shape with the point facing the wind.
  
• To put your sails back on auto press [F].

Tacking
This is what it looks like:

• To turn through the wind with the wind at your bow (front) you will want to manually point your sails in a V shape with the legs spread to the wind (direction you're going).
  
• So looking at the tacking image below, you can see us tacking to the right with our V open to the right.

For a breakdown on different Sail Bonus Settings and Cost, Redman2971 posted these helpful images on Discord:



Combat:

• Angling your ship so that incoming fire will not hit you directly will greatly mitigate the damage you take and can cause shots to bounce off you.
  
• When sailing a ship with multiple gun decks you can turn them on/off by pressing [F1-4]
  
• Its near pointless to target sails while they have rig repair up, just hit hull during this time. When youre escaping and know the enemy will try to hit your sails down, a good idea is to pop a sail rep even before you need it to greatly decrease the effects of damage.
  
• Good rule of thumb: Once youre in the 50-70% hull damage on a side, its time to protect that side and to consider a rep cycle.
  
• Turn off your cannons during rep cycles (press 7)

Firing Modes

• Water - Best for normal hull attacks/causing leaks. This will be your standard firing mode.
  
• Parallell - Use for sail damage/demasting.
  
• Random - Don't use this regularly; only really useful for sail damage attacks. Use with care.

Boarding

• For the definitive guide on boarding, use Freddy Krueger's[docs.google.com].
  
  
• Understanding the information screen at the top is essential (will add screenshot promptly):
  
• Marines/Muskets are straightforward how many you have coming into the battle
  
• Firepower - How much firepower you and the enemy will use THAT TURN. This is an essential thing to look at when figuring out what the enemy is going to do.
  
• Melee - Just like firepower, if the number is high you know the enemy is trying to attack you and you should defend.
  
  
• You can fire your broadside cannons while boarding by pressing the '[' and ']' keys.

General Tips:

• Marines are basically essential for boarding and can be bought at the admiralty for doubloons
  
• Change Firezone Visuals in Graphic Settings to Geometric over Projected.
  
• The various options will tell you what they counter if you forget
  
• Because of timing and last minute switches, the boarding game is a chess-match with particular moves that you will see happen over time and counters based on them. Begin by boarding NPCs, but beware - they are now doing last minute switches as well, although usually only in response to your own actions.

Basics - IV - Levelling Guide

There is only one real way to level up, and that’s to get in a ship and fight. Sailing to distant locations and the like will only provide very marginal xp gains. But anytime youre in a relatively equal battle you have a good chance to gain xp, and hitting npcs on the map can yield good rewards when you loot them.

Combat XP is governed by:

• BR the enemy has as compared to you
  
• damage done
  
• kills and assists.

There is also a slight bonus given for fighting against players as opposed to NPCs.

So assuming you want to maximize XP (not always the case) and can win whatever battle you enter, you want to have brought the least BR you could have against the highest amount you could take on.

7th Rate Chest Farming:

• Starting out I recommend taking 7th rate kill missions in your basic cutter. At first, you will want to gain some experience so start with the easy missions against 7th rates, and work your way up to taking on 6th rates, etc. At its best you want to be taking on 2 6th rates for a max reward 7th rate mission.
  
• To maximize xp, drop the basic cutter for a privateer (ideal) or pickle (still works) - and continue farming 6th rates.
  
• To maximize your time, do this in a port that spawns gold chest 6th and 7th rate missions - ask in Nation Chat if anyone knows of any in your faction. They won't spawn all the time but keep an outpost there and just farm 7th rate missions in a privateer against 2 sixth rates. You should net 400xp a go. This is a solid safe way to build up.

Gold Chest Spawns

• Gold/Silver chest missions are rare spawns that get determined after the server reset. That means if a port has a gold chest mission available that you can take, you can farm it continuously until the server resets.
  
• Certain ports appear to have "gold chest" days more regularly than others (some appear not to have them at all). Find out by talking to other players which faction ports tend to have 7th and 6th rate gold chest spawns and make an outpost there.

Using 5th Rate Ships

• For awhile after getting your final exam promo you will be stuck in 5th rates, which is a fun class even if slightly disadvantaged in the meta right now. But xp grinding becomes most difficult here.
  
• Doing 5th rate missions against 4th rates is usually not my advice during this period unless you really know what you're doing; theyre better ships and can't be camped easily.
  
• As Trincos will likely be your bread and butter ship here, my advice is to find an indefatigable spawn route and camp it mercilessly.
  
• You can net about 1000x per battle, and picking your 4th rate targets will make your life much easier than the random spawn you'll see in mission.

Elite Solo Farming

• Find yourself a friendly/free port near large enemy areas where you can create an outpost.
  
• If you ask in Nation chat you may be able to get some advice on where enemy elites seem to spawn or sail more regularly. This does not pertain to HDFs, discussed elsewhere.
  
• Take as large a ship as you can crew fully and farm elites of comparable size either solo or in smaller fleets. If you are taking on a bunch of ships much smaller than you thats fine - you will get a bonus to xp based on the increased damage you are doing to the elites, and they will have elite drops for you so make sure you loot them.
  
• This is an extremely profitable way to level up and a good use of your time.

1st Rate Missions/NPC Grinding

• Once you can crew one of the meatier third rates, i.e. a redout or implac, you can grind 1st rate kills solo and net a ton of xp per battle (if i recall, about 2400xp per battle).
  
• Doing the missions is perfect for this if you want a set amount of dbls and upgrades
  
• You can sometimes get better drops if you hit NPCs on the map
  
• If you have the redout dlc, you can do this with a crew as low as 500 but you have to be much more careful. Remember you can repair and they can't.

More coming.

Basics - V - Perks Guide

Generally:

• Perks can be managed in port by clicking on the button at the top right of your screen or by pressing . You will access additional “Perk Points” as you level to a maximum of 10.
  
• Perks can be reset by purchasing a perk reset permit, which usually run about 400k.
  
• There are various perk setups you can use the value of which varies depending on what you’re trying to do. I will lay out the basics.
  
• For new players or players focused on trading your perk order should be: Sextant, Fleet Control 1. If you want Hold Optimization, that should come next but its optional if your main ship is going to be an escort. Then you can work in the others like determined defender and prepared.

Core Perks:

1. Sextant – Keep it on. This perk is almost mandatory, and by the time you take it off it will be for very specific reasons late in the game when you are running RvR. It is good for everyone, and especially for traders. [uses 2 points]
   
   
2. Determined Defender – Excellent Perk. With the recent buff requiring an enemy to have 30% higher crew capacity than you in order to board, it is basically a requirement if you are doing pvp or elite NPCs – as it allows you to prevent/control boarding actions. I love this perk and always have it on. [uses 2 points]
   
   
3. Prepared – Excellent Perk. Starting with all guns loaded can be an enormous advantage in almost any engagement. I love this perk and always have it on. [uses 1 points]

Good Situational Perks:

1. Fleet Control 1 – Excellent Perk. The first fleet control perk allows you to put two ships in your fleet which is useful for trading. More than that is usually not worth it; too hard to crew and prevents you from using other important perks. If you don’t trade at all and are just doing pvp, you don’t need this ever. [uses 4 points].
   
   
2. Expert Carpenter – Excellent Perk. If you want to be a seal clubber, this is core. +5% repair to hull repair is substantial. But it now costs 4 points, which is also substantial. Only take it if you aren't trading and can use it instead of Fleet Control 1. [uses 4 points]
   
   
3. Area Control - Good Perk. If you are hunting smaller/faster ships, this can be a key perk for keeping them in. But its expensive. Best if used when hunting in packs, with only one person taking it.
   
   
4. Rigging Specialist - Good Perk. 5% rig repair in the current demasting meta is awesome and it only costs 2 points. You can run it even with fleet control on in a general perk setup. Not needed at all if you are just fighting NPCs, even elites, which don't target your sails. Can replace prepared. [uses 2 points]
   
   
5. Hold Optimization – Excellent Perk. Allows your main ship to carry 20% more items. If you are doing primarily PvP it isn’t always needed, but if youre trading with a tradeship main, involved in elite NPC fleet actions (to pickup loot), or hunting traders far from a friendly port you'll want those reps without the speed loss. Even when not at max cargo capacity, it will allow you to go faster as your speed decreases based on hold capacity used up and not weight. [uses 1 points]
   
   
6. Emergency Master – Reduces cooldown of urgent repairs by 50%. This is extremely helpful in fleet NPC engagements with elites, but tends to take a slight backseat in regular engagements or even PVP. Not a bad perk though. [uses 2 points]
   
   
7. Double Shot – Allows you to fire two balls at a time with long guns (or medium guns), but not carronades. This can be devastating if you are primarily using larger ships and fighting slower enemies. [uses 1 points]
   
   
8. Double Charge – This perk loads more gunpowder into a single shot allowing more penetration. It can be very helpful for demasting, but given that demasting and penetration have been boosted in recent updates, its use has become more limited and I don’t keep it on. [uses 1 points]
   
   
9. Defense Drill – Not bad. This perk only helps during boarding actions by reducing the cost of the defend command. If you are farming gold chest missions by rageboarding (for instance on a lareq against 5th rates), this can be an awesome perk to throw on. [uses 2 points]

The Rest:

1. Crafting/Economy Perks – As far as the crafting perks go, they can be pretty powerful but you won’t need to worry about them until you’re pretty far in the game at which point you’ll have a better idea about what you’re crafting and how much you’re relying on it for income. If you are doing a lot of it, you may want to consider putting one or two on.
   
   
2. Fisher - The boost to drops is significant and if you want to farm sealed bottles then absolutely use it, but I don’t think fishing is generally worth your time. Just keep it on passively and you’ll collect this stuff without giving up on very powerful ship perks. [uses 2 points]
   
   
3. Morter Officer – Extremely situational. If you are using this, its because someone is asking you to take on an extremely specific role. [uses 2 points]
   
   
4. Trimming Expert/Pump Inventor/Carronade Master – Not worth it.

Basics - VII - Outposts, Tows, Looting and More

Outposts [Shortcut: Z]

• Outposts give you access to a harbor (ship storage), warehouse (item storage), and allow you to teleport your character (without any ship) between your other outposts for a few doubloons an unlimited amount of time per day. They also provide destinations for "Tows" (aka Ship Teleporting), which you can do once per day.
  
• Outposts can be placed in any faction or free port on the map.
  
• You can have up to 8 outposts at a time
  
• If you close an outpost, all ships in the harbor and items in the warehouse will deleted forever.
  
• To teleport your character, press z and then select which outpost you would like to go to.

Teleporting ("Towing") Ships

• As indicated above, you can tow any of your ships to any other outpost you have opened but you only have one tow per day and more cannot be purchased or sold.
  
• To tow a ship, right click on it while it is docked (ship cannot be set as your main) and click "tow" - a screen will then open up with a list of your other outposts. Click on the desired outpost to tow it there.
  
• Ships cannot be towed with items in the hold, however, all items equipped on your ship are towed with it - cannons, upgrades, etc.
  
• It will cost you some reals based on the distance teleported (usually less than 10k).

Upgrade Chest [Shortcut: U]

• You can store and/or transport your ship upgrades anywhere you go without keeping them in a warehouse by placing them in your upgrade chest.
  
• I recommend keeping the upgrades you typically use or plan to use in this chest so that you don't have to waste doubloons teleported back to the place where you store them.
  
• Cannot be looted when sunk.

Money Chest [Shortcut: Y]

• Your doubloons and combat medals are automatically sent here when completing missions
  
• When looted from enemy ships, they cannot be moved from your ship hold to your money chest until you return to port.
  
• Cannot be looted when sunk.

New Looting Mechanics:

• Once an enemy ship's hull health (center bar in combat) goes to zero, there will be a short wait while they finish sinking.
  
• If you are in a ship with much less crew than the enemy, do not approach them until they actually sink or you risk being boarded and taken before they sink - even NPCs will do this.
  
• After a ship has been sunk, there is a limited period where the ship can be looted before it disappears underwater (at which point it can no longer be looted).
  
• To loot enemies with the new mechanics while a battle is ongoing you need to be nearly on top of them before the x will appear, and you need to be going below 2.5kn (still testing, could still be 3.5 but have seen mixed results - 2.5 will guarantee you are slow enough). Depower your sails with [T] to aid in slowing yourself down.
  
• If that is the last or only enemy remaining, you can loot ships from a much farther distance with the new mechanics - allowing you to loot multiple enemies from a single location if they have not sunk too far.

Basics - VIII - Understanding the Economy

The price of goods and ships in this game can seem arbitrary to many new players - and it takes time to understand whats being produced at the port versus an item recently sold there, or sold by a player via contract.

In this section I will attempt to highlight some key information about the economy that players can use as a reference point. Just remember that if you are in a free port used to farm enemy npc's and you see repairs going for 500-1k per rep, theyre pricing in scarcity. They know those goods aren't produced nearby for many of the players farming there, and that they are frequently needed.

For a faction whos npc ships are being farmed there, this is a good method of jacking up the price on basic goods at a short distance to their own ports.

The key thing to understand is the base cost of the goods required to produce that item, how difficult or rare the item/ship is to obtain, and/or the difficulty of creating that particular craft chain in that region.

[Under Construction]

Basics - IX - Final Exam

So you are at the point where you need to do the final exam - as discussed above, the two strategies for completing it are either when you are just starting out and have done nothing, or as soon as you reach Second Lieutenant.

The rewards include one of the two rank boosts, and a Cerberus note, which allow you to build a Fifth rate ship in any port using Seasoned woods (i.e. Sabicu (s), with the (s) standing for seasoned).

While there used to be a couple different approaches new players could take to finish it (there still are), with the pen update, there is really only one "best" way to finish the tutorial quickly and easily and it involves Demasting both enemy ships. The difficulty of the tutorial after the pen update has been decreased because of how much easier it is to demast enemy ships.

Approach:

• Run Upwind Ahead of Them - You want to stay just ahead of the enemy ships, using your stern chasers to hit their masts. This will reduce the amount of damage they can do to you, and allow you to repair easier while still demasting them. Going as much against the wind as you can will make your life easier once their ships are canoed.
  
• Focus Fire - In two ways. First demast one ship, then the other; but also, fire single shots and not broadsides anytime you are to the side of the enemy ship to carefully and meticulously gun down their 3 masts. Stern or bow raking the cerbs are the only time youre timing might be such to warrant a broadside bc youll lose your firing zone more quickly and can hit more of their sails/masts at once.
  
• Repairing - NPC enemies will not repair - and you can. You have 15 hull cycles you can use to finish the tutorial. Even though it takes time and patience you can always run and repair because youre faster, should be aiming at their masts, and can go get better and come back. You have time!
  
• Do not use chain shot - you do not need to rip down enemy sails, you want to use cannons to strike the puny cerb masts into oblivion. Cannons are more accurate, reload faster, and can be shot from further away.
  
• Firing Mode - Switch the firing mode to Parallel or the 100/250 ranges and do not use water line mode until you are trying to sink them.
  
• Graphics Mode - switch your graphics setting "Firezone Visuals" from projected to Geometric, which will not blur your lines and give you better reads on shots.
  
• Finishing - Once the two ships are floating hulks, sail to their stern or slightly off their broadside range and just finish them off at your leisure.

Making Money - I - Starting Out

Types of Currencies:

• Reals - The primary form of currency in the game, allows you to basically buy anything else in the game except for specific improvements and buildings.
  
• Doubloons - An important currency in the game used primarily for building craft buildings and port improvements (shipyards, etc.) but can also be used at the Admiralty store (notably for buying ship knowledge items you can't get elsewhere). Doubloons are farmed primarily through missions or looting NPC ships.
  
• Combat Medals - Important for buying port improvements and can be used at the admiralty store. Farmed mainly through events like the Patrol Zone.

Note - Victory Medals appear to be getting phased out. Do not purchase them if you see them available in the shop.

Starting Out

While trading is the simplest money maker in the game, it isn’t simple to do. Below are a few of the many different ways to make money in NA, as well as a progressive order I would consider.

You’ll need a good foundation of reals before you can even START to trade, let alone do it safely. And you’ll want a good amount before you start actively losing ships in pvp or even pve regardless. The kill missions in NA are designed to be difficult. They’ll seem easier to you as you move along and understand the ships and mechanics but to start out, you only have what you have and you need to make do the best you can.

The best and safest way to make reals (and dubs) to begin with is trade missions. But before you do anything – understand that YOU CANNOT ENTER ENEMY PORTS WITHOUT A TRADE SHIP. Seriously I cannot emphasize this enough (and you shouldn’t be going anywhere near enemy ports regardless). This will change when the reputation update lands, but we do not know how far off that is. Every single player makes this mistake – they take a trade mission for an enemy port and can’t enter it in the basic cutter because it is not a trading vessel.

Trade Ships will usually have “Trader” in the name, and include:

• Traders Cutter – 500 Hold Capacity
  
• Traders Lynx (Tlynx) – 500 Hold Capacity
  
• Traders Snow (TSnow) – 900 Hold Capacity
  
• Traders Brig (TBrig) – 1750 Hold Capacity
  
• Le Gros Ventre – 1900 Hold Capacity
  
• Indiaman – 4000 Hold Capacity

The last two being upper level trading ships and the only ones which don’t include Trader in the name.

So, to begin with:

1) Cargo and Passenger Missions

• Start by working on economy missions and work towards getting yourself a fast cheap trading ship.
  
  
• In the beginning, while using a basic cutter, you won’t have the hold space for cargo missions (800 hold), and will have to ferry a few passengers around before you can afford a trade ship. Only TSnows and above are able to perform cargo missions - and your staple in the beginning will likely be Traders Brigs.
  
  Tlynx are better late in game when you want to ferry high value blueprints, etc. without getting caught.
  
  
• As soon as you have enough to get an adeqaute trade ship (or 2), you should start running cargo missions that go TO PORTS IN YOUR OWN FACTION. These can be difficult to find, but the best bet is to go to either Free ports or friendly ports a little ways away from your capital, where they will regularly have missions that go to your own faction’s ports. Take these.
  
  
• Don’t be worried about getting rid of these missions. In fact, in the beginning the only missions you should ever try and hold onto are gold chest missions which you think you can do by yourself.
  
  
• Try to save your money up while you do this until you get to a minimum of 200k. 400k if you want to play it more safely. At this point you have enough to buy 2 Traders brigs which makes the time investment more worthwhile. Try to buy them for less than 30k if you can, and make sure they are as fast as possible.

Making Money - II - Trading

2) Trading
The simplest, most lucrative way to make money in the game is to start trading. Once you have some savings and a few traders brigs, you can begin.

Trading involves buying specific products that are produced at specific ports and taking them to a place that buys that product at high value (use the trade tool link below). The best trade routes will go both directions with high value items that you can stock up. With time, you will understand what ports sell what and when to buy the items.

Don’t just buy any item that a port is selling. Very often, those are the very same products that were brought from somewhere else and are now being sold at a premium. You only buy the items that the port produces itself, and even then, you only want a certain quality of item or it isn’t worth the time and risk.

Some Basics:

• Rule of Thumb: Don’t trade when the server pop is over 450, if you can help it. Experienced players know the good trade routes and will often camp them or the wind boosts near them. This won’t prevent you from getting ganked, but trading when server pop is low will boost the likelihood of success. If you do, try shorter safe routes or routes that involve using shallow water trading ships.
  
• Great Trading Tool: This tool[www.natradetool.com] will help you understand good trade routes and prices
  
• Be wary of Alts: Enemy players will often keep an Alt character in your nation to do things like monitor nation chat and keep an eye on common trading ports. They will often keep their hunting ship logged off nearby to jump on you when youre close. Be wary of saying anything revealing in nation chat, and if you see someone talking about doing a run where you’re going perhaps its time to switch to a kill mission bc alts will monitor this. Alts at sea are often players of low-ish rank and no clan or some random clan which you will never have heard of. When you see them, consider altering course to go back to a nearby port.
  
• Sailing Profile: For many of the smaller trading ships, you will have a different sailing profiles than enemy hunters. Use this to your advantage, sail off of their best profile and on yours. For instance if you get “tagged” by a Le Requin, you know that they can beat any ship sailing upwind, but are horrible going downwind. Sail with the wind directly to your back and you can usually outrun them. For more on sailing profiles look at this link[arcws.com]
  
• Crewing Your Ships – While you always want your ships crewed to the max possible, you can gamble on speed by maxing your escort main ship and putting the remainder in Indiaman under fully crewed. In all likelihood, you’ll be pressing [M] and telling them to retreat. In that case they won’t be using their guns anyway so the harm is mitigated.

Escorts and Setup:
Once you have the capital to start trading more seriously, you need to focus on levelling yourself up so you can crew your trade ships and run a decent escort. This means skipping down to the levelling section.

While it may be tempting to run 3 indiaman everywhere and make max profit, having one capable escort ship as your main can save your cargo and punish enemy hunters who often prey solo or in small groups. Try to make sure it has a similar sailing profile as whichever trade ships you’re using (so don’t use a Le Req with an Indiaman).

In my experience, the most typical ships that people hunt traders in are:

1. Endymions – Very mobile, and pack a punch.
   
2. La Reqs – Can sail very fast upwind and are boarding nightmares with their super high crew capacity. Try to sail with the wind to your back and outrun them.
   
3. Constitutions
   
4. Pirate Frigates/Frigates
   
5. Trincos

When you’re starting out, your escort ship is going to depend a lot on what level you are. Early on, you just want to be fast and to be crewed. If you have DLC, use the DLC for this. If you don’t, check your capital or shipcrafting ports and review the Battle Rating/Ship Details in the arcws link above. Try and find ships near the top of the class where you can comfortably crew them.

Personal Favorite Escort Ships – I like ships with higher BR and lower than average crew requirements. But one thing to note here is that expendability is an important aspect of an escort ship. Hunters are frequently just looking to take down your main ship and will leave your trade ship (obviously, not always). So when looking at these, understand that you may not want to use these ships but if you find a cheap or decent one that you want to unlock, you can take them with you on escorts. DLCs are great because they use seasoned woods and are solid in the role/expandable. In order of preference:

1. Constitution – very valuable, but they can usually 1v1 any pirate ship.
   
2. 3-5th rate DLC ships – use ones that are expendable, i.e. not gold, or ones that you would break down for parts the next day. They can be used to block enemy hunters and will still pack a punch.
   
3. Aggies – High crew requirements but they are great ships that can usually be found at reasonable prices and don’t require a permit to build.
   
4. Indefatigable/Inger – Like the connie they aren’t expendable but they do a good job of requiring little crew, and can pvp well.

My preferred setup is to run 1 escort ship as a main. This must be fully crewed. Then I liked to run 2 Indiaman (can be undercrewed) or tradersbrigs fully crewed depending on the level of danger I was seeing on the server while trading (looking at server pop, combat reports, nation chat).

Getting Ganked
When you notice someone is coming for you, use the sailing profiles tip above to see if you can escape. Keep an eye out for friendly ships/fleets, as well as nearby forts (near faction ports) which you can use for protection if you can’t reach the actual port in time.

When you inevitably do get ganked, set yourself up by determining where you’re going to sail, where you have an immediate shot, etc. If you need to turn, put your sails in the appropriate position and double click the direction you need to turn. Once battle begins immediately press the [M] key to bring up your orders, and tell your traders to retreat. Then your goal is to either take down the enemy, run from him, and if possible protect your retreating ships which may go in stupid directions.

Use Forts whenever possible. Ports will often have fort upgrades that can quickly demast and even destroy small fast pirate hunters. Sail under them without getting in the crossfire if you can.

Making Money - III - Other Methods

3) Analysis of Other Methods of Making Money

There are so many ways to make money in this game, and not many of them will rival trading – but some do, and bring other benefits as well. Two that I particularly like are: 1) Chest/Upgrade Farming and 2) Crafting.

Farming for Upgrades – Profitable

• Chest/upgrade farming can be done at any time – and it is a particularly good way to level up when you are just starting out, which I will cover it in more detail in the levelling section.
  
• The basic idea is to find a method of obtaining upgrades, determining how much they are worth, and selling them. This isn’t my preferred method because you will eventually want many of these upgrades and I like to make sure I have a good personal stockpile. But many upgrades can be sold for 500k or more so it’s a good way of earning money when you need it.
  
• Route 1: Gold Chests – find ports that drop gold/silver chest missions and farm them – particularly good when they are 7th rate and 6th rate missions because they are usually the easiest to farm. Talk to people in your nation and find out what ports drop gold chest missions (doesn’t happen all the time, but sometimes it can last for a week when it starts and the ports will always be the same).
  
• Route 2: Attacking NPCs/Fleets – NPCs holds will be filled with random items, but even low level ships can have good upgrades that you can sell. Fleets are a particularly good way of hitting

Crafting – Profitable, but can be expensive and time consuming.
Crafting is profitable, but to craft ships it’s a pain in the behind to set up, requires a lot of reals and potentially doubloons, permits, etc. (See Crafting Section below for costs, roadmap, and more). However, there are basic crafting items like repairs and guns that can be sold at major premiums and are easy to produce. This is a solid source of money if you have a free port near your production center.

• I’ll cover this in more detail in the crafting section but in brief: You need an outpost, then you need to build the proper structure for the items you want to craft, then you need to stock it with the ingredients, then you need to get the product where you want to sell it. You may also need various permits along the way. Any of those links in the chain can be disrupted by gankers.\
  
• You need to know where people need which items and for that you need to play the game to get a feel for shipcrafting ports, HDF ports, etc. You also need to know what ports produce the items you’ll need.
  
• The NA map is a good resource for this and it also includes the recipes you might need, but it doesn’t include faction port upgrades – so a port where you can produce coal may not say it on the map if it was a faction upgrade.
  
• Have an outpost at all these points, and in particular, where you’re putting up Sell Contracts – so you can tp there and collect it when its done.

Some basic ideas:

• Selling cannons and repairs at a major premium in ports where you know people farm for experience (targeting npc fleets, running HDFs, etc.) can be a good way to make money. Create an outpost at free ports close to your own production facility and haul your cargo the short distance there and sell at a premium. There are never enough and they usually go for a ton.
  
• A second but also good place to do this is at shipcrafting ports where people will often buy ships but be unable to equip them. I wouldn’t recommend selling cannons/reps at the capital because the market is likely oversaturated already.
  
• Sell ships with good port bonusses (from shipcrafting ports) at places with a high volume of players (capital is great, some free ports, and really good trade route hubs, for instance) – especially if you know that that location won’t have a lot of ships with good port bonusses.
  
• NOTE: To craft ships with port bonusses you need your shipyard to be in a port that a clan has upgraded, and to be in that clan or in a clan that is on their friends list. Most of the major clans will be on each others friends lists, so basically this just means if you want to craft your own ships, you’ll want the port bonusses that being in a clan brings.

Fishing – Not Profitable

• Many new players will try to explicitly go fishing to earn a profit and they’ll base this on outdated guides that say how valuable certain items like bull sharks are. Yes, some random people will buy these from you but by and large you’re talking about 200 reals per RARE fish.
  
• Fishing is still very useful and when you are sailing most of the time you can just keep it on while you are doing other things. Fish can be broken down into Provisions, which are used for shipcrafting. So selling them at shipcrafting ports is a good way to make a lot of money on them.
  
• The only item of real monetary value is the Sealed Bottle, which usually sells for around 1million reals on the market (DO NOT SELL IT DIRECTLY INTO THE STORE – use the place contract system or else you will get next to nothing for it).
  
• Sealed bottle drops are extremely rare/random and will contain the location of a shipwreck. You can only pop 1 at a time. A traders brig will be large enough in most cases to claim the shipwreck. Just be aware that your main ship must be large enough to collect the entire load. You cannot separate the shipwreck cargo up until after it has been claimed. I have heard but have not confirmed that in some rare cases, you may need a le gros ventre or Indiaman to claim the shipwreck. If you go in a brig and can’t claim it, that’s not a big deal (other than time wasted). Go back and get a bigger trade ship (or just go in an Indiaman and save yourself the hassle).
  
• Only claim shipwrecks when server pop is low or you know there are never enemies in that area.

Ships - I - How to Evaluate Them

There is a lot that goes into evaluating whether a ship you have or want to buy is going to hold up against other ships in its class. For combat ships, the most important consideration will always be the wood used for the frame and planking; IMO this is followed by its craft tier, then its port bonusses.

Wood Selection:
The type of woods used for a ship’s frame and planking are the single most important quality components you can look at. While all ships have base stats and will tend to fit specific roles, the woods used can mitigate flaws, alter roles, or enhance tendencies. Please note – the wood meta has changed regularly over the past year, so putting too much stock into the current meta should be done with some degree of risk in mind.

The three things you wanted to pay most attention to are Hull Health, Speed and Armor – the importance varying based on type of use.

Specific wood specs for the current meta can be found here [docs.google.com]– make sure to select the July 22 page and not the July 15 timber stats.

Woods Tiers:

1. Tier 1 – Unseasoned Standard Woods – can be farmed around the map where they are naturally occurring (can be found here[na-map.netlify.app]) or where they have been created by port improvements. Since port improvements are not tracked in the NA map, you have to find these out yourself. Most clans will have a list of the port improvements for specific regions which are very helpful.
   
   
2. Tier 2 – Seasoned Standard Woods – These are standard woods that have gone through a seasoning shed. On top of the construction costs, these woods require a permit for both the seasoning shed and the specific seasoned woods themselves. Both of these are rare drops and are usually hard to find/expensive to buy. DLC ships can pick any of the seasoned woods when they are redeemed.
   
   
3. Tier 3 – Rare Woods (Cannot be Farmed) – the new tier 3 woods can only be used on crafted ships (not DLC), and cannot be farmed – they will spawn randomly in specific ports and are quite expensive – use the NA map to see where they most often spawn. These woods include: New England Fir, Riga Fir, Rangoon Teak, Italian Larch, African Teak, Malibar Teak, Danzic Oak, African Oak, and Greenheart.

Wood Types:

1. Heavy Woods – These are the oaks of the world, they boast slow speeds but good health and armor. Can be used for frames or planking.
   
   
2. Light Woods – The fir/pines of the world, they are the fastest woods in the game boasting little health and armor.
   
   
3. Hard Woods – These are the teaks of the world plus Mahogany. They boast good speed and armor but lower HP. These were typically great woods for swiss army knife builds that don’t want to sacrifice too much of anything. They have been somewhat nerfed by the recent updates which greatly increased armor pen, putting an emphasis on total health over armor. They can be used for frames or planking.
   
   
4. Framewoods – Cannot be used as planking and are almost always very solid choices for tanky ship builds. Framewoods include: African Oak, Live Oak, Greenheart, and Locust.

General Notes:

• Seasoned woods are very expensive to craft and will significantly enhance the ship, as well as increase its price.
  
  
• Teak/hardwoods have been nerfed slightly in latest update but they are still your best swiss army knife frame.

Craft Tier (Color Ranking):
By pulling up the ship auction screen you will notice that most ships show up as blue, but can also appear as grey, green, purple or orange. This relates to the crafting rarity of the ship, and each color allows a different number of permanent upgrades, either to be placed on the ship via slots or through ship characteristics. That does not mean that a blue ship (standard) is necessarily worse than an orange (Exceptional) of the same ship type – a lot of other factors come into play, such as the woods used and its unchangeable port bonusses. However, the permanent upgrades you can place on a ship can provide sizeable bonusses, and the more slots the better.

1. Grey - 1 Permanent Upgrades/Slots. Only found in admiralty crafted ships or captured npcs.
   
   
2. Green (Substandard) – 2 Permanent Upgrades/Slots. Only found in admiralty crafted ships or captured npcs.
   
   
3. Blue (Standard) – 3 Permanent Upgrades/Slots. The vast majority of the ships you craft or see available will be blue, and that’s fine.
   
   
4. Purple (Rare) – 4 Permanent Upgrades/Slots. Usually you won’t want to throw away good purple ships, and you can often sell them at a premium. For DLCs, you typically will want to keep these around and not break them up for parts.
   
   
5. Orange (Exceptional) – 5 Permanent Upgrades/Slots. These are the unicorns, they sell for a ton – often even when the woods are very average.

Port Bonusses:
Ships crafted at clan upgraded ports by members of that clan or a clan on their friend list will receive set port bonusses that give material advantages over ships that don’t posses them. Ships crafted by the Admiralty (or through DLC) receive random port bonusses or none at all.

The beautiful part of naval action is that nearly every rate of ship will perform specific roles at any stage of the game – but even once you’ve determined which ship you want, you need to be able to look for certain things when evaluating them.

Ships - II - Upgrades & Equipment

Table:

• Purple Box (left) - "Guns:" indicates the total number of weapons that can be placed on the ship (i.e. the minimum amount of them you need to buy to equip that slot.
  
  
• Red Box (left) - the "g:" indicates the number and size of the cannons that can fit
  
  
• Green Box (left) - the "c:" indicates the number and size of the carronades that can fit
  
  
• Blue Box (center) - Permanent Upgrades that can be placed on this ship, the number is based on the crafting tier level (see Crafting Tiers in Ships - Part I). They can be destroyed and replaced but the upgrade will be lost.
  
  
• Yellow Box (center) - Ship Levels, unlocked by fighting in the ship, are where you can place knowledge boosts obtained by reading books. These can be changed anytime in port.

Permanent Upgrades
There are obviously a ton of permanent upgrades that can be purchased, looted or crafted in the game. Keep in mind the same considerations you would re wood selection and ship choice when choosing which of these you'll add to your ship. Elite speed and repair upgrades are common on many high level ships for the same reason you see those books sold for such high prices.

This is a list of many of the highly valuable upgrades you should either save or use only on your best ships once you have a firm feel for the game. However, the speed and survival upgrades are basically all useful so I will list more of them.

Speed:

• Naval Clock - Huge increase in speed (3.6%) and crew transfer.
  
• Navy Hull Refit - Bought at admiralty, big increase to speed (3.4%)
  
• Copper Plating - 3.3% speed increase
  
• Improved Sextant - 3.2% speed increase
  
• Basic Quadrant - 2% speed increase
  
• Bovinwinds Refit - 1.7% speed increase and yard power, but big increase to sailing crew requirements .
  
• Cotton Sails - Common speed increase mod 1.7%.

Repair:

• Northern Master Carpenters - best in game, elite. +8.5pp
  
• Northern Carpenters - elite. +5.5pp
  
• Navy Carpenters - elite. +5.3pp
  
• Steel Toolbox
  
• Sea Service Toolbox
  
• Navy Orlop Refit - repair time decrease
  
• Journeyman Carpenters - +2.0pp
  
• Basic Carpentry Toolbox
  
• Apprentice Carpenters - +1.0pp

Structure:

• Navy Planking
  
• Cartagena Caulking Refit
  
• Navy Structure Refit
  
• Strong Bow and Stern

Gunnery:

Always nice to throw on if you have space for it, usually valued slightly less than the structure/speed upgrades but I like to keep at least one one, depending on my books.
• British Gunnery Sergeant - Elite
  
• British Gunners - Good
  
• Guacuata Gunpowder - Elite
  
• Almeria Gunpowder - Good

Boarding:

• Double Hammocks - highly valuable, always sought after.
  
• All "Boarders" upgrades - replace crew with high level boarders.

Repairing Ships:
Use my rep cycle guidelines to determine how many repairs you need to bring with you, which are posted above in the section: Basics - I - Port (Navy Screen).

For Guns, see Section below.

Ships - III - Books/Ship Knowledge Level

"Ship Knowledge" aka How to Level Your Ships
As you use ships, you will gain experience with that specific ship type allowing you to equip some of the most powerful upgrades in the game. This is referred to as "unlocking" your ship.

• This carries over across all ships of that kind. So if you battle in a rattlesnake, even if you lose it your next rattlesnake will have the xp you gained earlier, etc.
  
• Each ship can be levelled up 5 times, unlocking 5 "Knowledge Slots" (shown in image below) where you can put book upgrades in.
  
• Unlike permanent upgrades, ship upgrades can be changed at port at any time
  
• Ship upgrades are based on the books you have "read" already.

Look at the Yellow Box: This is where you'll see how many ship levels you've unlocked.

On this La Req, all the knowledge slots have been unlocked and therefore 5 books can be used on it at once.

There are four types of books which you should be aware of, in order of rarity and value are:

1. Encyclopedias - Crafted by putting together other rare books to give your ship a singular advantage.
   
2. Rare Craft Books - The books YOU SHOULD NOT READ which you will use to craft encyclopedias. Once you have the encyclopedia you can sell these for usually 1m or more. They are listed below in the requirements for encylopedias.
   
3. Rare Standard Books - Very few of these, includes: Seeferkel Last Log
   
4. Common Standard Books - Books that you should find and use without worry found through normal drops or the admiralty.

Encyclopedias and Their Crafting Books:
The crafting books and encyclopedia blueprints are primarily found in Gold and Silver chests.

1. Art of Ship Handing - Improves Sailing; Improves ship speed 2%, turn speed, and ruddern turn time.

Costs:
- Art of Proper Cargo Distribution - Rare Craft Book
- Notes on the Best Rudder Angles - Rare Craft Book
- 50k Reals
- Art of Ship Handing Blueprint

2. Gunnery Encyclopedia - Improves Gunnery; Reduces reload 5%, and cannon dispersion (7%/6%).

Costs:
- Means of Directing Fire - Rare Craft Book
- L'Horizon Balistique - Rare Craft Book
- Sur le Canonnage a Bord - Rare Craft Book
- Table of Parts of Ships of War - Rare Craft Book
- 30 Labor Hours
- 75k Reals

3. The Book of Five Rings - Improves Boarding; Increases Morale, attack, defense, and reduces crew damage and melee penalties.
- The Water Book - Rare Craft Book
- The Fire Book - Rare Craft Book
- The Wind Book - Rare Craft Book
- The Ground Book - Rare Craft Book
- The Book of the Void - Rare Craft Book
- 125k Reals

The last rare book that you should target is:
4. Seeferkel Last Log
- Reduces reload 3.5%, Repair Time 3.5pp, and increases Morale +15.
- Does not require crafting.
- Very powerful across a range of ship types helps gunnery, boarding and obviously repair.


Using Ship Upgrades
Your book choices depend greatly on what you plan on doing when you leave port. Obviously once you have any of the four rare books discussed above, you should use them in conjunction with standard books to help with that particular type of action. Seeferkels can basically always be used but rarely are you going to be using both the gunnery enyclopedia with the book of five rings as one is for a combat plan of action and one is for a ship rigged for boarding.

I will sort these by Type, and Rank them generally in the order I value them - as always, your mileage may vary and I encourage you to play around with the book combos. As a note, you do not need to minmax these. For instance there is a cap on reps of about 20%, which you don't want to go over.

Sample General Loadout (putting aside encyclopedias for now): Expert Carps, Combat Carps, Instructions au Cannoneers, Old Flag Officer, and Seeferkels Log.

Survival Books:
Still extremely important in the current meta, especially for hunters who will be solo or in small groups deep in enemy waters. Keeping your repair times more efficient will allow you to use your crew better in combat. Increasing the amount repaired is huge.

Best Survival Books:

1. Expert Carpentry Handbook - Excellent Book. Increases Repair Amount by 2.5pp and reduces leak repair time by 7.5%.
   
   
2. Carpenter Combat Reports Book - Excellent Book. Rare pvp book with 2.5pp increased repair amount.
   
   
3. Book of Repairing - Excellent Book. Increases repair amount by 1.8pp and crew transfer speed; reduces repair time by 3%.

Situational Survival Books:

1. Carpenter - Good Book. A worse version of the expert book above, can be stacked. Increases repair amount by 1.0pp and reduces leaks by 7%.
   
   
2. Survival Book - Good Book. Reduces repair time and crew needed; good for hunters but does gets knocked down a bit because no increase to repair amount.
   
   
3. Planking - Highly Situational. Because of the steep cost to speed, this is only for true floating battery builds.

The rest aren't worth it.

Speed/Turn Books
The books cherished by many pirates/hunters. They are powerful for pretty much everyone.

Best Speed Books:

1. Art of Cargo Distribution - 2nd best speedbook behind the encyclopedia (use it to craft first)
   
   
2. Navy Loodsman Reports - Excellent Book. Increase speed 1.3%
   
   
3. Trim - Speed Book - Excellent Book. Max Speed 1.2% but reduces turn speed and sail hit points.

Situational Speed Books:

1. Treatise on Square Sail Trim - Excellent Book. Massive boost to square sail power, with large reduction to staysails. You will be more effective going directly downwind.
   
   
2. Treatise on Staysails Trim - Excellent Book. The inverse of the above, with massive boost to staysail power allowing you to be more effective off or upwind.

The rest are usually not worth the slot, or theyre going to be less powerful variants you use until you get these. You may consider turning books on ships where you plan to stern camp, etc.

Gunnery Books:

1. Instructions au Canonneers - Excellent Book. Reduces reload, crew requirements, and dispersion. Especially good for newer players who will want all the forgiveness they can get if they miss shots.
   
   
2. Old Flag Captain - Excellent Book, for the same reasons listed above. Can be used in conjunction or until you get the above.
   
   
3. Reloading Book - Reduces reload time and crew requirements. Its good, but not as good as the other two.

Boarding
The most important things for boarding are marines and crew capacity. Beyond that, its just gravy. Try to increase morale, splinter resistence, melee, etc.

1. Marines 15 - Essential Book. Bought at the Admiralty and usually paired with Marines 5, this book converts 15% of your crew to marines for boarding purposes.
   
   
2. Crew Shifts - Excellent Book. Although it has an unfortunate hit to morale, its one of the earliest books you can use to boost your ship crew by 7%.

Ships - V - Ship Builds

Putting it Together
I’ll post some example builds and tips below. I’ll be using seasoned woods, but just note that the unseasoned equivalents follow the same logic. If youre comparing seasoned woods vs. unseasoned woods, it can become more difficult and you need to consider the HP/Armor/Speed.

I am focussing primarily on standard woods. Elite woods are rare and need to be used strategically. I will update with the elite wood corollaries below.

NOTE: When you see someone say the build is LO/WO or some other variant the first wood (LO) refers to the frame, and the second (WO) refers to the planking.

---

2021 Jan-May Update:

• Mandatory Elite Spanish or Pirate Rrig Refit on fast builds - Meta for Open World PVP is speed. Expect large ships to be going 17kn downwind, etc.
  
• Use Teak/Mah type builds to give yourself the ability to angle, with all speed mods maybe Navy Planking (Thickness) or Northern Master Carpenters (Repair) in your off-speed mod slot.

Best Tanky Builds:
Tanky builds are ideal for situations where you know the enemy won’t be running away or to an objective you need to defend. This means it is perfect for most NPC fleet tagging and the patrol zone where you are restricted to a small circle and mobility is somewhat less important. The costs need to be considered more heavily in Raider PBs, etc.

Woods:

• Framing: Live Oak(s) or Locust(s)
  Locust has more HP than Live Oak, which is powerful in the current meta – but it is slower, has less armor, and repairs much less quickly. All of these are pretty important – so consider how often you’ll have to repair in battle when making the choice between these two great woods.
  
  
• Planking: Sabicu(s)
  Sab is a personal fav right now, although White Oak is a good backup option (and can work decently for the frame in a pinch).
  
  
• Elite: Greenheart/Danzic Oak.

Upgrade Slot Recs (Amount):

1. Carpenter Slot (2) - i.e. Northern Masters Carpenters (NMCs)
   
2. Structure Slot (1-2) - i.e. Navy Planking, Naval Mast Bands (NMB), Cartagena Caulking Refit (CCR)
   
3. Gunnery Slot (1-2) - i.e. British Gunnery Sargeant

Book Slots Recs (Amount):

1. Survival Slots (2-3) - i.e. Seeferkels, Expert Carpenters (ECs), Combat Carps (CCs)
   
2. Gunnery Slot (1-2) - i.e. Seeferkels, Gunnery Encycopedia, Instructions au Cannoneers

Hunting Builds:
Hunters are slightly different from pure speed builds because they are usually operating deep in enemy waters, and need to extremely fast to chase down prey or run from counter gankers. As such, they rely on hardwood builds (providing armor and speed) and angling to avoid damage. When they recieve it they rely on quick repair times, and forgoe any fleet control perks for expert carpentry perk.

• Framing: Teak(s), Mah(s)
  
  
• Planking: Teak(s), Mah(s), Sab(s)
  You can throw white oak on for planking if you're unlocking the ship - will give you a bit more staying power without reducing your speed. You can also try bermuda planking if you really need that extra speed and are willing to sacrifice a bit. Sabicu is my preferred build if you have speed books unlocked, as itll give u a nice HP boost.
  
  
• Elite - Malabar Teak/Malabar Teak

Upgrade Slot Recs (Amount):

1. Speed (2-4) - i.e. Elite Spanish, Naval Clock, Navy Hull Refit, Copper Sheathing
   
2. Survival (1-2) - i.e. Northern Masters Carpenters (NMCs), Navy Planking (NP).

Book Slots Recs (Amount):

1. Speed (2-3) - i.e. Art of Ship Handling, Navy Loodsman, plus context specific choice
   
2. Survival (2-3) - i.e. Seeferkel, Expert Carp, Combat Carp

Best Speed Builds
Speed builds are tricky for combat ships, especially for beginners. If you are using a mobile hitter or pirate it is often better for beginners to split the baby and use some hardwoods for framing until you are incredibly comfortable navigating your ship and are willing to risk paper tigers.

• Framing/Planking – Bermuda(s) for both.
  The cheaper backup being fir/fir.
  
  
• Elite - New England Fir/New England Fir

EDIT: 9/8/20 Update Has boosted speed by 19% across all ships. Hardwoods are back with a vengeance. Teak/Teak, and Teak/Bermuda and Teak/White Oak are now more viable than ever. I do not believe these changes will last so enjoy the super speed lynxes while you can.

Trade Ship builds:

• You won’t be fighting your trade ships if you’re doing it right. What matters is speed.
  
• For Indiaman, try and use ones with at least 11.46kn which is a fir/fir build.
  
• Bermuda is fastest standard wood, and new England fir is the fastest wood in the game. You can use for frame and planking, but I wouldn’t recommend putting elite woods on any trader unless youre absolutely rolling in the game.

Actual Sample Builds by Players:
Redman2971 notes that these builds were before many of the wood changes, and that:

• On the Santi build: The mods on the Santi were to test the HP cap given the new changes to pen making HP more important.
  
• Greenheart/Danzig Oak is still the most raw hp you can get from 2 woodtypes in game
  
• On the Endy build: he would remove the elite french for navy mast bands now or even another speed upgrade. Elite French doesn't have the stats that it used to.

Floating Battery
Here is a Santi build by one of the most well known players in the game, Redman2971, who posted it on the discord using Seeferkels, Expert Carp, and Combat Carp Report Books:



Notice the Bridgetown Frame, Basic Hull Refit and floating battery decisions which give up all speed for tank/gunnery output.

Hunter Endy
Here is a hardwood hunter endy build (teak/teak) by Redman which is right up near the speed cap of 18kn even before books are on it.



Notice the naval clock, naval hull refit and copper all boosting speeds with elite french refit providing a major boost to Sail hp/thickness - a weakness of many fast ships, like Endys/Snows, etc. when demasting can be the difference between winning and losing.

Gunnery/Repair Combo
Le Buc by Galactic Halo over on the Discord. Boasts elite woods, gun and repair mods.

Ships - V - Which to Use

Naval Action makes it such that nearly every rated ship from 7th on down will be useful to you at every stage of the game. Moreover, ships do different roles particularly well so telling people which one is the best is impossible - often, they do different things. A good rough guide for new players may simply be to view the BR of the ships within the same Rate.

All that said, I'll make some suggestions for new players concerning best ships in that tier to level up. The first section will be Combat ships with a section at the bottom on Traders.

Combat Ships:
7th Rates:

1. Best - Privateer - with 30 BR, you can get good ones which will net you the most xp when running 7th rate gold chest missions and will allow you to take down 6th rates with ease. Will sometimes be used for shallow water PBs.
   
   
2. Runner Up - Pickle - 35 BR and rides high out of the water, but will do the same job as the privateer if you cant find one or there is a big difference in cost.
   
   
3. Useful - Basic Cutter - 10 BR, but for those starting out the elimination of ANY risk of loss is amazing, plus infinite repairs.

Sample comps between Privateer, Pickle, Cutter (Teak/WO):

6th Rates:

1. Snow - still the meta, great for practicing stern camping against larger slower ships and will often be used for shallow water defense. Great XP grinder if you can take down large foes.
   
   
2. Niagara - new to meta, and seen in some PBs.
   
   
3. LaReq - Rageboarder, massive crew capacity for boarding 5th rates quickly in 6th rate gold chest missions. About the only time you want to use Crew Capacity planking is for a mission-boarding lareq.

Sample comps between Snow, Niagara, LaReq:


5th Rates:

1. Endymion - Expensive and awesome, this little guy packs a punch and is incredibly maneuverable. If you find one for less than 500k even if the woods aren't great, it makes sense to pick it up simply in order to unlock it. Most commonly used by trade hunters and in the PZ.
   
   
2. Trincomalee - Great for 5th rate NPC kill missions, these are carro machines. They are tricky to handle because of their heeling but are excellent ships.
   
   
3. Shallow Water PZ Specialists: La Renommee, Hercules, and Surprise are all favorites as 5th rates who can tangle in the shallows. All three are good ships, with the Ren getting a slight nod due to her speed and beautifully round sides that facilitate shots bouncing off her, the Surprise going more as the heavy hitter.

Below are some comps of Teak/Teak Endy and Trinco and a LO/Sab Surprise:


4th Rates
There are almost no bad 4th rates, and all of them can be usefully levelled up with the exception being the Leopard (see DLC review below). The Wapen von Hamburgis useful and wildly different looking, it is by far the most difficult to use well with its 4 elevated decks and turnstyle mobility. The Indefatigable has fallen out of favor a bit recently as a carro machine, it fits the pvp speed meta a bit odd because it require close contact with the enemy. Not a bad ship though but usually not worth unlocking right away.

1. All-Rounder - Agamemnon - Amazing ship, can be built to do a ton of different roles.
   
   
2. Patrol Zone - Rattvisan (DLC) - Great tank pvp ship.
   
   
3. Hunter - Ingermanland - Fast, low crew cap, packs a punch. The inger is great going downwind and is a favorite for pvpers, plus has uses in some PBs.

Below is a LO(s)/SAB(s) the Ratt and Aggie with a Teak(s)/Teak(s) Inger:


3rd Rates
Lots of great 3rd rates almost any of which can be usefully unlocked, with the exception being the actual 3rd rate, which is basically just a worse version of the Bellona.

1. Generally - Implact/De Ruyter/Redout - The Implac and Redout are two of the best, most frequently used ships in the game. The Du Ruyter is a rarer ship but also quite good - if you have your hands on one, handle it with care.
   
   
2. Hunting - Constitution

Below is a LO(s)/SAB(s) comp of three popular 3rd Rates (Implac, Bellona, Wasa):


2nd Rates
Second rates are a bit out of step in the meta. Too small to take on first rates effectively, often too slow to fight down. Upgraded for speed though, they can bring awesome firepower in pvp/hunting groups. In these roles, they're all pretty good, just follow the BR.

1. Christian - The best second rate still, but rare permit-wise. Best turn rate and sailing profile of any of the ships.
   
2. Le Buc may still be the best to unlock first, as it is used in PBs as well.

Below is a LO(s)/SAB(s) comp of all three 2nd Rates:


1st Rates

1. Santísima Trinidad - The best first rate in the game may look like a pretty square box, but she is a beast.
   
   L'Océan - The other primary line of battle ship which you'll unlock first, bc PBs. Great ship though.
   
   
2. Victory - With far less crew capacity, the Vic has a different role than the other two - she outclasses smaller ships but isn't usually used against other first rates unless its with DLCs to mitigate loss. She is a PZ favorite though, and is incredibly good for players just able to crew her 850 in order to get them into HDF actions. She is also great for solo farming elites.

Below is a LO(s)/SAB(s) comp of all three 1st Rates:


Trade Ships:

1. Indiaman - 5th Rate - 4,000 Ton Hold: The massive ship of largescale traders carries over twice the cargo of its peers and can carry some pretty heavy carros. Still, its slow plodding pace makes it an easy target for pirates. Best used with an escort. No other ship can replace it in terms of capacity. Even with seasoned bermuda and decent speed upgrades it tops out around 14.7kn.
   
   
2. Le Gros Ventre (LGV) - 5th Rate - 1900 Ton Hold: A ship you may find yourself using regularly when starting but gets replaced by Indiaman very quickly as a square rigged trader and fast enough to outrun most pirates. On its best point of sail with ber(s)/ber(s) and decent speed upgrades it maxes out at 15.3 without anything in the hold. Nothing to sneer at but many hunters can hit 16kn, so not as good as the actual speed traders.
   
   
3. Traders Brig - 6th Rate - 1750 Ton Hold: Very similar to the LGV, except usually cheaper and with the same woods/upgrades you can see better results sailing upwind, making it a preferred option for some who want the best of both speed and hold space.
   
   
4. Traders Lynx - 7th Rate - 500 Ton Hold: The best speed trader, with upgrades it can hit absurd upwind speeds that can only be matched by a La Req. Even with its restrictive cargo capacity, it will be your go to for high value item moving when you don't have a large group of friends helping escort.
   
   
5. The Rest - Trader's Snow really doesn't fit the meta that well but will likely be a target for very new players running cargo missions if they find a cheap one. Tcutters are hardly seen but are basically just the tlynx.

Comps for Indiaman, TBrig, TLynx (Ber/Ber):

Crafting - I - Basics

Become a dedicated ship crafter is a pretty major decision and heavily restricts your use of outposts to the region you're crafting in (beyond the time requirements and perks). In addition to the crafting info posted in Basics - I - Port, this section will contain the basics of crafting.

The ability to craft ships is determined by your Shipyard level, Crafting Level, and Resources. You need to be sufficient in all three to craft any particular ship.

1. Crafting Level

• A higher crafting level gives you a higher labor hour limit and the ability to craft better ships.
  
• The best way to level up crafting is by crafting ships.
  
• Hovering over the ship you want to craft in your shipyard will tell you how much experience you will recieve when crafting it.

The following chart indicates the craft experience requirements and attending benefits, posted by [VCO]Wraith on the Discord:


2. Shipyard Level
Straightforward, the higher your shipyard's level is the more advanced ships you can craft.

You can get a rough idea of which ships require which shipyard levels and/or blueprints by looking at the NActionWiki[naction.info], although it has not been updated (also good for finding "Van Veen's guide for new players,"[naction.info] which is great.

3. Resource Requirements
And then there are the resource requirements. Beyond the straightforward mats, you need to understand...

Ship Blueprints

• Certain ships require a blueprint to craft, use the NA Map tool (linked at bottom) for updated info or the wiki linked above for a rough check on multiple ships.
  
• Every blueprint you obtain will permit you to craft 1 ship of that type.

Crafting - II - Shipcrafting Ports

If you'd like to become a crafter or simply want to know where you're likely to find ships at the auction with good bonusses, these are some of the current ports. If you want to become a crafter, you may want to consider building up around one of them from the outset. Just keep in mind that the game is dynamic and port control can change, clan friends lists can change, development can be wiped out, etc.

• To make sure you information is uptodate, use the NA Map Tool[na-map.netlify.app] and select port bonusses.
  
• The best port to begin developing might change based on the clan you join or its likelihood of being lost, and doesn't matter at all if you're playing solo (I suppose you could make your own clan, and get added to another's friend list but I'm not sure about the mechanics of it).

Current top crafting ports for nations based on development and use (Sept 6, 2020):

Port Bonusses - Numbered from 0-4 with 4 being the highest

Order: Crew / Gunnary / Hull / Mast / Sailing

Russia:

• Vera Cruz - 4/4/4/3/4
  
• Nouvelle-Orléans - 4/4/4/3/4
  
• Santo Domingo - 4/4/4/2/4
  
• Campeche - 4/3/4/2/4

Sverige

• Saint John's - 4/4/4/1/4
  
• Oranjestad - 4/3/3/2/4

Great Britain

• Santiago de Cuba - 4/4/4/1/4
  
• Salamanca - 4/4/4/1/2

Danmark-Norge

• San Juan - 4/4/4/1/3
  
• Santa Marta - 4/4/2/1/4

France

• Bridgetown - 4/4/3/1/4

Verenigde Provincien

• Caracas - 4/4/3/1/4

Pirates

• Baracoa - 4/4/3/0/4
  
• Nuevitas - 4/2/4/0/4

United States

• San Agustin - 4/3/4/0/4

Espana

• Remedios - 4/3/3/2/4

Kingdom of Prussia

• Batabano - 4/3/3/2/4

Crafting - III - Seasoned Woods

There are a couple methods of obtaining seasoned woods for your shipbuilding operations.

1) Buy seasoned woods
Buying seasoned woods is usually too expensive to be worth it. They usually run around 5k per log.

For example, if you were to make a Teak(s)/(Teak(s) connie, it requires 1170 seasoned teak, at 5k per log that would run you 5,850,000 reals. Just for the teak. And you'd likely have to transport it to the port itself which is always a risk. Then it also requires a more moderate amount of oak, fir, lignum, coal, hemp, iron ore, and stone, plus the crafting costs of 250k reals, 450 provisions (roughly 150k reals on market), and an expensive level 3 shipyard. You're costs easily exceed 6m. So you can understand why individuals are selling these ships at a premium on the market.

If you need something in a hurry, it can work - but it certainly isn't an optimal approach long term even if youre traders are busy.

2) Season the wood yourself
At base this requires a seasoning shed (permit usually runs 1m) and the seasoned wood permits (usually even higher).

Each seasoned wood requires: 1 log / 1 tool / 3 dubs / 43 labor hours.

So to craft the connie used in the example above, you'd need:

• 1170 Tools, 3510 Dubs, 50,310 labor hours or 101 labor contracts (worth 500 hours per contract).
  
• If you're not crafting them, labor contracts usually go for about 100-250k per on the market - So just this ship in labor could cost you over 25million reals just for the labor contracts. At 100k per, it may be worth buying (since value of materials to craft is about 50k), but much beyond that and it is better to do it yourself.
  
• Tools, at their cheapest, go at around 1.8k and are often much more - so even if you were to buy all the tools at 1.8k, it would cost you over 2million reals.
  
• As you can see, this is expensive to set up but it can be worthwhile if you have people helping you out - but it is usually a team effort.

If you want to find the permits yourself, you'll need to get wooden chests, which leads us to the final way to supply your shipyard...

3) Attacking Home Defense Fleets (i.e. "HDFs" or Privateer Fleets)

• This is by far the most time/cost efficient way to obtain seasoned woods (or the permits themselves).
  
• The "Wooden Chest" is only one chest in the game that (to my knowledge) drops seasoned woods and seasoned wood/shed permits. Highly valuable for a variety of reasons because it is also used to improve clan owned ports.
  
• Dropping them are elite NPC fleets which guard enemy ports and which will attack player ships. They will have a skull next to their name identifying them as Elite.

What you will need:

• At least 7 people using first rates for optimal success/hold capacity. And more is definitely better.
  
• When you open the map, hover your mouse cursor over an enemy port - a circle will show up around that port. This is the defended circle wherein HDFs will spawn and hunt.
  
• You need to find a spot in that circle to be grouped up where the HDF will see you and attack.
  
• Typically you will be attacked by extremely fast 1st rates and trincs. They can all drop wooden chests so make sure to have someone grab them as soon as an enemy is sunk.
  
• Be careful to not get boarded - these ships will have every boarding mod equipped.
  
• Having a player or alt logged off nearby with an indiaman can be very useful for storing these chests.

4) Breaking down ships
Breaking down ships will usually not yield very much - and as such, this will not work to supply your shipyard. However, you will occasionally get lucky and regardless it is a nice way to supplement your materials - particularly if you have DLC ships you are getting rid of.
Its helpful to redeem and breakdown the ships in your shipyard port so you don't have to transport the materials later.

Crafting - IV - Buildings and Recipes

Manufacturing Buildings:
Beyond the shipyard and seasoning shed, there are several important manufacturing buildings you will want to consider investing in: The Workshop, Forge and Academy.

I recommend building them in this order unless directed otherwise by someone in part of your craft chain or clan. My reasoning is as follows: Most players don't specialize in crafting, its something they do in addition. As such, getting self sufficient with reps and guns early on is usually more important than becoming more efficient with your use of labor via labor contracts at the academy (as labor regenerates naturally over time). If you are a pure naval yard crafter, it is probably with an alt in which case you can forget the forge entirely if you prefer more production buildings to streamline ship building.

1. Workshop
Produces consumables and upgrades. I would consider doing this first so you can become self-sufficient with repairs early on.

Hull Repairs
Cost:
1 labour hours
2 Oak Log
1 Iron Ore
1 Coal

Rig Repairs
1 labour hours
1 Fir Log
1 Hemp

Rum
1 labour hours
1 Sugar

Tools
5 iron
5 coal
6 labour hours
1000 reals

2. Forge
Produces the essential (Non-Elite) ship guns i.e. long guns and carros. Specialty guns can only be obtained in random drops from looting elite npcs.

Long Guns & Carronades - Varies based on size of the gun, but will always need:
Iron
Coal
Reals
Labor Hours

3. Academy
Produces ship knowledge items (books) as well as some rare upgrades.

Extra Labor Contracts
500 labour hours
200 Provisions
20 Tools


Note - These buildings produce other items as well, I am just zeroing in on the most common ones you'll need for the shipcrafting chain. You can find a complete list by using the NA Map tool[na-map.netlify.app], linked all over this guide.

Crafting - V - Roadmap & Sample Crafting Chains

As you can see from the prior sections, a lot goes into the production of top end ships and benefits greatly from a team effort.
All your crafting ports should be as proximate as possible to your shipbuilding port to reduce the length of time and risk caused by shipping.
If you are doing this solo, or if you are in a clan but want a complete chain, the 5 extra building slots from the Admiralty DLC is an enormous boost to your ability to create an effective crafting chain. Without it, you may want to consider what parts of the chain you can do most effectively.

Roadmap for new players:

• The longer you wait to start creating resource reserves the more labor hours you're wasting. Start early with cheap basic resources you know you will need down the road and use all your labor hours each day starting to build up your stockpile.
  
• Identify which port you will use as a shipyard (don't need to build it yet)
  
• Identify which (2) woods you plan to use for frame and planking. Find the closest ports to your shipyard with these woods.
  
• Create outposts at these ports and build at least a level 1 forest - tp to these ports every day and begin to use your labor hours to build up these wood reserves.

10 Building Slot Chain:

1. Shipyard
   Build at a location where you recieve best port bonusses.
   To get lvl 3 Requires: 85k Doubloons 4.25m Reals
   
2. Workshop
   Requires 500k Reals and 5k Doubloons.
   
3. Forge
   Requires 500k Reals and 10k Doubloons.
   
4. Academy
   Build at capital or shipyard depending on safety of port.
   Requires 1m Reals and 10k Doubloons.
   
5. Seasoning Shed
   Build at Shipyard. Requires:
   15k Doubloons
   500k Reals
   Seasoning Shed Permit.
   
6. Forest 1 - Frame Wood.
   Between 450k-850k reals depending on wood type to get level 3.
   
7. Forest 2 - Planking Wood.
   Between 450k-850k reals depending on wood type to get level 3.
   
8. Coal Mine
   600,000 Reals to get to level 3
   
9. Iron Ore Mine
   1,750,000 Reals to get level 3

Considerations for final slot (or final two slots if you skip forge):

1. Fir Forest - You need fir to craft every ship, and even if its cheap to buy you won't always have it available when you need it. Having your own source of fir is a good way of remedying this problem. Or just buy it at good prices whenever you see it and build up a stockpile.
   
2. Oak Forest - You will also need oak to craft any of the larger ships, like 1st rates. So having a stockpile can be helpful.
   
3. Hemp Farm - Same logic as above. Hemp you don't need much of and its usually cheap to buy.
   
4. Stone Mine - Same as above.

Cost Summary:
In all, you're looking at spending close to 11million reals to get these buildings up and running, 125k Doubloons, and the seasoning shed permits.

Misc - I - Solo vs Clan Play

Solo play is certainly doable, even before the Reputation Update lands (which will make it even easier).

• The reputation update will allow you to enter enemy ports in any ship and build there, as long as your reputation has not been decreased by participating in RVR (realm vs realm) battles against that Nation. Solo players, not being forced into RVR defense of ports, will have the entire map at their disposal.
  
• The admiralty DLC is a good consideration for solo players as it will expand your warehouses and give you more dock space.

There are, however, benefits to playing in Clans, in particular:

• Crafters - Will not recieve port bonusses unless they are in a clan that is friends with the port owner
  
• Easier Access to Party-Based Action - Clans make participating in RVR (Realm vs Realm), HDFs (Home Defense Fleets of elite NPCs), etc. more easy, and in some cases mandatory, since you won't be able to join certain battles unless you are on a clans friends list (port battles, for instance).

The good news is, numbers are power - and many active clans are happy to accept new players, get them started with ships or resources, and support/train them.

Selecting a Clan

• A good way to narrow your selection of clans is to open the Leaderboards screen [Shortcut: L], and select Clan Leaderboard. This will show you basic information about the largest/most active clans in your Nation. It won't provide all the important information and could leave out some elite small groups, but for someone with absolutely no idea what clans are in their nation this is a much better way to look for a group than simply by asking in Nation.
  
• Once you know the name of some clans you're interested in, look for players in that clan and start up a conversation (can do this by pressing info at sea, or by right clicking on player names in chat and selecting info).

Getting into a Clan:

• Most clans want you to have finished the final exam first
  
• You will likely need access to Teamspeak, Discord or both - and having a mic is important.
  
• Use nation chat to ask if clans are recruiting, find information out about which clans are most active, etc.

Misc - II - DLC Guide: To DLC or not to DLC

TL;DR

• The non-ship DLCs are some of the most powerful in the game. Especially Naval Connections.
  
• You probably want at least one ship DLC.
  
• The vic is the one you'll use the most in the endgame.
  
• The redout is the best dlc ship you can get as compared to its peers and does everything.
  
• The laReq can be used the entire time you play and is unique.

------

A frequent refrain from some players is that the game is pay to win. It isn’t. DLC ships will not be the top of their class, and when you’re playing the best players you simply don’t see them. When you’re using your best ships, it won’t be them.

So why are they so useful? Because they give you a pretty good ship, that costs no in-game money, that are usually pretty expendable (unless you roll an extremely good one, in which case the typical rules apply). This saves you in-game time, that you don’t have to grind trading or worry about losing.

Here’s what you need to know when deciding whether to purchase them – in general:

• Your main in-game bottlenecks are Crew Capacity and Money, and the former has an impact on how useful the DLC ships will be to you. You won’t even be able to use the Redoutable until you can crew at least 500, and even then it is going to be very undercrewed. So keep that in mind. If you buy a DLC out of the gate, it will only be good as a way to get a few resources from breaking it down and hoping for good rolls you can save for later.
  
  
• DLC ships can use any of the Tier 2 seasoned woods (not the rare tier 3 woods but extremely good) and you can redeem a new one every 24 hours.
  
  
• By putting your current DLC ships in your Fleet and clicking Redeem, you can get another DLC ship in your shipyard. That means you can keep 3 (or potentially even 4) DLC ships around at any given time.
  
  
• DLC ships are not at the top of their respective classes, but they are almost all pretty decent and give you an expendable ship that you can always fall back on.
  
  
• DLC ships have the same RNG as when you craft a ship. Meaning you can get 5 slot orange DLC (rarest), a purple (rare) or blue (common), just as you might when crafting, and your port bonusses will be random as well.
  
  
• DLC ships can be broken down just like any other ship, so you can get resources from them. This isn’t as great a bonus as it sounds, since good breakdown rolls are very very rare. Usually youre looking at like 12 coal and 20 fir, or the equivalent.

So no, they aren’t going to be the ships you win with. When maximizing potential, using the same woods and getting the same item roll/port bonusses, no one would pick a DLC vic over a Santisima or L’Ocean. No one would pick a DLC Redout over an Implac. No one would pick a DLC Ratt over an Aggie or Connie. No one is taking any of the 5th rates over an Endy or even a Trinco. And while the La Req has a unique role that isn’t easily replicated, within that tier no one is defending their shallow water ports with them. They’re using crafted snows or niagaras. But they are still very useful for saving your in-game time and giving you good ships to use for things like trade escorts and the Patrol Zone (where all ships go to die).

My personal rankings of the DLC ships in order of usefulness:

1. Redoutable – An incredibly good ship that is better than all 3rd rates but the Implac and perhaps the Du Ruyter. If you’re going to spend money on any DLC, it should be this one. Just keep in mind what I said before – it requires 690 crew, so even if it can be fought with 500 crew, its at a disadvantage.
   
   
2. Victory 1765 - After discussing this with Freddy Kreuger, he's convinced me to move this up. Its the perfect ship for getting new players who can't crew first rates into HDFs for training and wooden chests much earlier than otherwise bc of its low crew requirements or as a throwaway ship to use around the PZ (note - you need a 4th rate or lower to get PZ combat medals). I'll leave part of my original take below, and i'm going to remove the "outclassed" language:
   
   "The Victory (DLC or regular) is a great ship but like the Leopard below, it doesn't really comp well with other first rates and acts kind of like a kind of larger 2nd, fitting the meta weird. That said, it is beautifully designed, and it can be good for farming Elites (single or fleets of enemies that have a skull next to their name, and are much much more difficult to kill but will drop great items like elite cannons)."
   
   
3. La Req – A ship that fills a particular role like nothing else in the game because of its high crew capacity (for boarding) and its ability to run upwind. It can be used for port battles later on as a screening ship or scout, it can be used as a hunter, and it can be used to quickly grind gold chest missions by boarding 5th rates.
   
   
4. Rattvisan – A good 4th rate, which is one of the most useful classes of ship in the game. You’ll be able to use this as a swiss army knife – as an escort, pvp/Patrol zone, or simply to hunt NPC fleets. Understand that it is the least mobile of any 4th rate, but with the right seasoned woods you can either try and overcome that deficiency or make it a very solid tank.
   
   
5. Hercules - Nice ship for people who love Shallow water patrol zones, and its the least expensive. An awesome way for new players to begin getting pvp experience at low risk.

Beyond that, they aren’t always worth it on a pure gameplay basis – but they are beautiful and buying them supports the developers who did a wonderful job with this game.

• Victory - moved up.
  
  
• The Leopard is another beautiful ship, and it isn’t bad, per se, but its role doesn’t really fit its class so its in an awkward position. It can take on slow heavier ships better than the Ratt or even the Aggie, but that isn’t saying much – no 4th rate is going to take on 3rd rates+ and live to tell the tale without some elite play/build, etc. and its not like the Leop is great at stern camping either. It does have VERY good base speed, so you can use her as a trade hunter in a pinch.

Non-Ship DLC

1. Naval Connections Probably the most power DLC in the game, this is a real ease of life DLC with more tow permits allowing you to move your ships around the map with ease, more outposts allowing you greater crafting and war-time flexibility, etc.
   
   
2. Admiralty Connection – Very helpful if you're a crafter or play solo but not mandatory. Once you’ve put a lot of time in, the 20 Ship limit is pretty tough if you run a lot of trade and have DLC ships, and the 5 extra building slots makes shipcraft chains more efficient even it can be more time consuming. Definitely a good ease of life purchase though.
   
   
3. Painter – I love it, but its not cheap and you can only paint 1 ship per day. This is truly an aesthetic dlc and the devs did a nice job with it. Just understand what you’re getting before you purchase!

Misc - III - Game Update - Analysis

September 8: Speed Update
Update Description:

• Speed was increased across for all vessels to get Endymion to their target speed. (19% increase)
  
• Bonuses to sail presets tweaked (all turning bonuses removed, mast bonuses reduced for stationary ships, and penalties were slightly reduced at full sail)

Analysis:

• Hardwoods are back baby. Expect to see a lot more teak endys/trincos. teak/teak or teak/bermuda for speed armor combo. Bermuda/bermuda may work on some of the default tanky ships but its still gonna give you a paper tiger that you likely want to avoid.
  
• We're going to be seeing a surge of people relying on the speed upgrades such as: Copper plating, Navy Planking, Navy Hull Refit, etc. because the percentage increase is now much more powerful.

September 10: Speed Fix
Update Description:

• Raised speed cap to 18 knots.
  
• Reduced speed by about 6%

Analysis:

• Keeping hardwoods viable without nerfing slower builds, this was obviously needed if they wanted to keep the hardwoods viable after the pen update without making them obsolete.

Misc - IV - Keymapping/Controls

Image pulled from the NA wiki[naction.info]:

Misc - V - Important Links & Tools

NA Tools and Information

• The NA Map[na-map.netlify.app] - An incredible tool designed by iB aka Felix Victor (BSTD). Provides a TON of information based on the server data, from port production to route mapping to item recipes and ship comparisons.
  
  
• NA Trade Tool[www.natradetool.com] - Essential tool for figuring out trade routes, designed by Ryanjuk over on Reddit which tells you items to buy/sell at the ports your at, and where to sell your goods for highest amount. As his note indicates, this tool uses the API data from the server reset, so it is updated daily not minute to minute.
  
  
• The Naval Action wiki[naction.info], containing a ton of good information but be careful as some of it may be outdated.

• Mike's NA Assistant[arcws.com] - A lot of good ship info including frame/planking data, sailing profiles, etc. Some info may be outdated, use with care or in conjunction with the NA Map.

Unfortunately this site appears to be down for good. Will keep here in case it ever returns.

Other Guides and Tutorials:

• Lord Michael Sharp's NA Youtube Channel - Top notch video tutorials, game update analysis, dlc ship reviews, and more.
  
  
• Freddy Krueger's Boarding Guide [docs.google.com] - Top notch work by Freddy giving players all the essentials they'll need to know for boarding enemy ships.

Community Interaction:
You'll find most of the community interaction on Discord these days, and most clans run their own as well so depending on where you are you may want to check that out.

• Unofficial[discord.gg] NA Discord
  
• Official [discord.gg]NA Discord

Ships - Guns

Weapons Guide

• There are three categories of guns: Carronades, Medium Guns, and Long Guns - the descriptions are detailed below.
  
• Make sure that you purchase both the correct caliber of weapon for the ship, the correct size, and the correct amount.
  
• After a brief description of their names I will provide a quick update on Captain Collister's excellent gun guide at bottom.

Cannons (fit in "g:" slots, shown above)

• Medium Guns - Bad. Average Accuracy, Average Range, Fast Reload.
  
• Edinorogs - Elite, dropped by elite NPCs. Cannot be produced.
  
• Congreves - Elite, dropped by elite NPCs. Cannot be produced.
  
  
• Long Guns - Good Accuracy and Range, Medium Reload. Can be produced by players.
  
• Navy Guns - Elite, dropped by elite NPCs. Cannot be produced.
  
• Blomefield Guns - Elite, dropped by elite NPCs. Cannot be produced.

Carronades (fit in "c" slots, shown above)

• Carronades - Can be produced by players.
  
• Obusiers - Elite, dropped by elite NPCs. Cannot be produced.

Morters (fit in "m" slots)
Only one type.

Generally:

• As soon as you can move on from medium guns, do so. Both longs and carros are significantly better. Personally, I will equip long guns anytime I can fit 18pnders or higher. Below that, I’ll frequently man carros.
  
• 6-7th rate ships are usually better off with carros.
  
• If you want a ship to perform a specific role, use this link to see what its broadside weight is for carros or longs.

[JJWolf]

Amazing guide for a game that doesn't exist anymore, just it's rotting hulk beached on a reef with the odd patch job here and there trying to make it seaworthy again.

[sept7777]

fuck this shitass game

[Jungfaha]

this guide is for the original game and is no longer updated, since the devs took 2 servers and closed them so NO, i mean NOT a single new account made can join the pvp or pve server. thus it will die along with the players base and then they opened up a free to play server that gets wiped every 3 to 6mo... so yah.. this guide can help some but is limited.

[Shepherd Book]

I don't see the "Prepared" perk, so, I'm guessing it's been removed? (I'm on the Caribbean server, so, maybe it's not available there.)

[HUBERT THE ROCK]

its not letting me auction my redoutable...

[Jungfaha]

yah, how long the war server and the peace server gonna last?

[Jagick]

@Rexous those other nations are only available on the War server and Peace server, which are servers only open to players who bought the game before it went F2P. A lot of this guide is actually extremely out of date despite what the title says. The guide seems to have been last updated in 2021 but a lot has changed since then.

[Rexous]

Hello! I recently got the game and find that i am only able to chose between pirates, spain, france and britain, every single other nation mentioned is not possible for me to join? Why?

[CAT_life2]

Nope cannon balls only work on hull chain can dismast but do not expect to get any more then one ship for the chain aboard. For how limited your supply of chain is I recommend raking and firing the cannon one at a time, other wise you will hit the sea more then the target

[Jungfaha]

is it still possible to use cannon balls to shoot down masts even after the jank update? um noob player started yesterday