Managing Your Loot In Sea Of Thieves (Legacy Guide)

This Mini-Guide is here to teach you that Loot Management is a super important tactic to help you sell loot not only easier, but also have an easier time keeping track of items in hot moments such as being attacked.

*UPDATE* This guide is now a Legacy Guide, meaning it's no longer being updated, however the infomation here will still be useful for a lot of players, so please keep reading, but be aware somethings might have changed since this was updated, there are no plans to update this guide due to constant Steam errors.

Why loot mangement is important

Loot Management brings a ton of benefits for an extra couple minutes of work on your end.

1. You're able to separate more expensive treasure from the more cheaper treasure, meaning when you dock up and are going to sell, you and your crew have easy access to the more expensive treasure, to get them sold asap.
   
   
2. You're able to separate Emissary Loot from other loot, for an example as a Gold Hoarder Emissary, you will earn more loot from Gold Hoarder loot, than Merchant loot as you will earn the Emissary Bonus when selling as a Gold Hoarder Emissary, so you want to separate them from the other loot so you can sell them first easier and faster.
   
   
3. Some treasure are dangerous and/or are fragile, and need to be looked after properly, so bundling them with regular loot can result your ship being sunk or the treasure being destroyed.
   
   
4. Due to the size of some loot, they can blend in with the ship or even clip into it's floor, you can use this to your advantage to hide them.
   
   
5. You can keep track of loot easier in case someone plans to steal your loot via rowboat or if you're being attacked by their ship.

How you should seperate your loot into piles

Where you put your loot is up to your and your crew, but you should never bundle everything together as it makes tracking more important loot harder and making it harder to sell.

Always make separate piles of loot you find in Sea Of Thieves.

• Gold Hoarder Pile
  
• Order of Souls Pile
  
• Merchant Pile
  
• Athena Pile
  
• Reaper Pile

These are the main piles my crew and others often use, however depending what you have on board, you might want to make new piles, for an example if you want to farm for Shipwrecked Chests, it might be wise to separate them from normal Gold Hoarder loot so you can sell them as soon as possible.

If you're a Reaper, piles aren't need as much like the ones listed above

However you might want to pile up all the smaller loot together, like skulls and coffers, or larger loot with other large loot like with Chests and Crates of Silk, it doesn't matter as much since you're only selling to one person, unlike other Emissaries.

The Sovereigns make a lot of work redundant

Being on a Captained Ship gives you access to The Sovereigns, who take nearly anything as long as it can be sold to the Gold Hoarders, Order Of Souls, Merchants, or to the Mysterious Stranger, so piles aren't as important since you can either park right next to them, or use the Harpoons in the tower to rapid fire loot from the ship to the elevator.

However if you're on a non Captained Ship, you can't use them! So don't start commenting "BuT jUsT uSe ThE SoVeRiGnS pIlEs ArEn'T nEeDeD" for the 90th time because not everyone can use them.

Plus you might still want to put certain loot to the side due to how dangerous or how rare they are, which I go more in the next section.

Special loot you want to separate from the others

Some loot shouldn't be bundled with other loot due to their rarity, how fragile they are, or how dangerous they are, there are some locations you can place these items on your ship to make sure they stay safe.

Gunpowder Kegs

You should never have Gunpowder Kegs on your ship unless.

1. You need them for a Commendation or Voyage
   
2. You're planning to sell asap

Kegs are extremely dangerous as they can instantly kill you if you're close enough, and the rarer Stronghold and Athena Kegs can wipe out entire crews and their ships with a single blast, so it's a very high risk high reward treasure.

Regular Kegs should be avoided as they have 0 benefit to be sold other than Merchant Voyages, that's the only time you should EVER have them on your boat.

Stronghold and Athena Kegs however can be sold for a lot of gold as an Emissary and they have Commendations tied to them, however only bring these to your boat if you're going to sell asap.

Kegs should go into the crows nest, nowhere else, as anywhere else they can be set of by anything, from a misclick sword swipe, a Kraken's Swipe attack, to well placed cannon shot and more.
Also while in the crows nest, it might be wise to bring some treasure chests to block them from view, as the chests can absorb gunshots that would trigger the Kegs.

There is no safe place to put Kegs, but the best for now is in the crows nest (or on someone else's boat!)

Chests Of Legends

A highly desired item and targeted by a lot of thieves, you want to hide this somewhere that is either well hidden or takes a while to get to.
The best places for me are on the bottom deck of your ship at the very front, as it gives you and your crew more time to attack any intruders who are on your ship .

You might even want to make a special pile just for this chest with random bits of loot you have found to keep it covered, however this isn't guaranteed to work as the shape of the chest often makes it stick out and make it touchable by enemies in most piles.

Snakes

Snakes hate everything that moves, and will bite and spit at you whenever your close causing poison damage, in addition to any other animals including other Snakes you have on board can take damage from Snake attacks, but they do like one thing, music, so play some music whenever you need to pick them up to chill them out for a bit.
The best place to put Snakes is on the Bowsprit, far away from the crew and any other animals on board.

Snakes can also be used as guards for ladders if you're planning to go onto an island, as they will hiss and spit at intruders that come on board, just remember to play some music before you come on board!

Pigs

Pigs are easy to accidentally kill and make a ton of noise, the best place to put them is in your ship's Captains Quarters on the Sloop and Galleon, while on Brigs, there isn't a really safe place to put them sadly.

Pigs unlike Snakes or Chickens need feeding, they will start crying when hungry, and you can feed them fruit like bananas to make them happy, make sure you feed them as they will die if you don't feed them intime.

Chickens

Chickens don't need any maintenance unlike Pigs, and only need to be brought on board, like with Pigs, they're fragile and thus the best place to put them is in the Captains Quarters.

Chest Of Rage

There are two places you can put your Chest Of Rage.

Firstly is the most popular one and requires some maintenance, and that's on the Ship's Bowsprit, when it gets angry and unleashes it's fire, you can bucket the Bowsprit before the fire spreads onto the main deck, just a heads up that other ships can steal the chest via a harpoon.

And Secondly this one requires a set up but doesn't mean you have to deal with the chest exploding, get out of your boat and bucket some water from the ocean into the ship, around 6-8 buckets should do, and now there's enough water to keep the chest cool and from overheating in the ship's bottom deck.

Just remember with the second option to bail out the water before you get into a fight and move the chest, as you are easier to sink with the extra water below deck.

Crate Of Plants

The Crate Of Plants degrade overtime, however you're able to stop this by having the crate placed in water, so the best thing to do, like with the Chest Of Rage, you should bucket some water into the ship, 6-8 should do the job, then place the plants in the water.

Crate Of Rum Bottles

Crates Of Rum can be damaged by literally anything, the simple act of jumping damages them, so you need to place this treasure in your ship's Captains Quarters in a corner so they have the least chance to be hit by attacks from enemy pirates and cannonfire.
Remember when delivering these items, jump into the water and use a nearby ladder to get onto a pier or walk to a beach to deliver this item.

Crate of Luxurious Cloth

Crates Of Cloth are vulnerable to water and will start to rot in contact with water, keep these items in the Captains Quarters and on somewhere of the ground incase you start flooding, place these on a shelf or the Captain's Table.
These crates even rot in rain, so be careful while in storms!

Broken Emissary Flags

Due to their size and height, Broken Emissary Flags can hide in spots either tactically or by accident, to avoid the latter, place these flags under your ship's main mast, for the Brigantine it's the back mast, while the Galleon it's the middle mast, the wood used to hold the mast is big enough to hide Broken Emissary Flags from view, right now it's the best spot to hide any Broken Emissary Flags as it's super easy to get to and super easy to use if someone is eyeing up your loot.

Mermaid and Siren Gems and Breaths Of The Sea

All of these items can be sold to anyone, you should sell them as the Emissary you're playing as obviously, however if you can also sell these to the Hunters Call which give a lot more reputation compared to Fish, so if you want to level up Hunters Call a bit faster than normal, you might want to put these on the side to sell to them, especially selling Breaths Of The Sea on Gold and Glory weekends or Community Days to the Hunters Call will sky rocket you in levels.

Avoid massive stacks

Seen something like this? Maybe on Reddit? The Forums? YouTube? Don't do this.

1. You are asking to be sunk, either by a ship or some random encounter like a Kraken, sell all of that loot asap before you lose it all!
   
   
2. Server Stability, the more treasure is on the server, the more unstable the server becomes, and having huge hoards like this can really cause the game to struggle, and even at times cause the server to crash!

Listen, Le Epic Reddit Gold is tempting, but don't do it, sell your stuff asap!

When should you sell your stacks?

You should to aim to sell the stacks on the following.

1. If you started as an Emissary, as soon as you reach level 5.
   
   
2. If you're doing World Events or Voyages that rewards a lot of loot or rare loot, such as a Gold Hoarder Vault or Veil Voyage, sell for every 2 you do, or as soon as possible if you're close to an Outpost.
   
   
3. If you feel like you're hoard is starting to get a bit big, go and sell as fast as you can.

There's only one time you should do a massive stack

And that's during Gold Rush, it happens twice a day and gives you a bonus 1.5x multiplayer on everything sold during Gold Rush, if you have a fat stack of loot and it's close to Gold Rush, it might be worth waiting until it starts to earn a lot more gold! All of the IRL times when Gold Rush starts can be found here on the Sea Of Thieves Wiki![seaofthieves.fandom.com]
Just be careful as you can still lose everything while waiting Gold Rush to start.

Priotising your loot

Some loot should be sold straight away before others due to their danger or rarity, this is the type of list you and your crew should be following.

Sell Straight Away

• Stronghold/Legendary Kegs
  
• Chests Of Legends
  
• Cursed Chests
  
• Ashen Winds Skull/Reapers Bounty
  
• Extraordinary/Remarkable Captain's Logbook (highest tiers of Captain Logbooks)
  
• Broken Emissary Flags
  
• Chest Of Tribute
  
• Merchant Manifests
  
• Breath Of The Sea
  
• Stronghold Chests/Skulls
  
• Ghost Captain Skulls

Stuff That Can Wait

• Mermaid/Siren Gems
  
• High Tier Regular Emissary Loot (Captain's Chest, Villainous Skulls, Spices etc)
  
• Damned Loot

And then everything else in order of rarity

So like sell Seafarer Chests first instead of Castaway Chests for an example.

Your loot sell order might change depending on your ship, due to Commendations or depending on the situation where some loot might be damaged due to outside forces (players, npc or weather), however most of the time, you want a list like I put above.

Thanks for reading!

I hope this guide teaches you the importance of Loot Management and what benefits it will bring!

Please check out my other "In Sea Of Thieves Guides!"

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2517518271
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2634856148
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2626074704
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2683786705
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2796687468
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2810294399
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2847522185
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2851036598
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2675719064
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3256143964

Don't forget to rate this guide, more is on the way if you like my work! Thanks again for reading!

[Surtr Bubingi]

FINAL UPDATE

A new guide has been released "What Your Title Says About You And Others In Sea Of Thieves 2024 Edition!"
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3256143964

As of now, this guide is now a legacy guide and will no longer be updated by me.

[Surtr Bubingi]

Update 2

Speaking of new guides, a new one has been released! "Dealing With Cheaters In Sea Of Thieves" it can be found in the "Thanks for reading" section!

[Surtr Bubingi]

Update 1

Due to the sheer amount of people who lack the basic understanding that not everyone can sell to The Sovereigns, I updated the "How you should seperate your loot into piles" to include a more detailed part that mentions them, because what I put in before was clearly being ignored numerous times.

I'll admit I should have updated this sooner, but I've been busy working on other guides, IRL stuff and having a break from SoT, so this has been on the backburner.

[retr0]

Selling to sovereigns? 1 huge pile, stop separating shit, park your boat so the harpoon picks the item and drops it in the platform without you having to move it.

Selling to reapers? three piles: Collectors chests, Regular chests and small items that go in the collectors chests. Fill up the collector chest with 3 pieces of loot but don't sell the chest itself, go back and fill it again.

[CapitalistLord_1234]

Nice Guide Good Work on it

[shambo]

killer guide my man, lots of help

[Surtr Bubingi]

No need to be a dick.

While admittedly piles are now sorta outdated due to them fixing selling to Sovereigns now counting all the other Emissary Commendations and Milestones on captained boats, you still have new players who don't have access to Captain Ships and thus no access to the Sovereigns too, so piles still benefit them.

[flabben]

the imesne retardation I got from this post is insane. put all in pile sell to same guy, quit crying

[Surtr Bubingi]

Yes and no

Yes because for most players, you can just sell to The Sovereigns and be done with it.

No because you if you want Milestones tied to the Emissaries, you have to sell to the Emissaries, selling loot to The Sovereigns will only level up The Sovereign Milestones.

Plus if you're an Emissary, you want to sell the Emissary loot first so you can get your main gold maker out of the way first, then sell whatever, so piles still help in that department.

[Nantes]

Nice guide, isn't the need for separate piles for each company obsolete now, since with the Captaincy update there is a now a company that accepts treasure from all the others?