10 Essential Ship Tips for Windrose: Upgrades, Rare Gear, and More

To upgrade your pirate ship, you must first complete the "I need a bigger boat" main quest, which unlocks the ability to build a shipwright's workshop at your camp. This workshop is crucial for building, upgrading, and ascending cannons for damage, hull bracing for defense, and boarding party gear to boost crew damage. All these upgrades require copper, with hull bracing also needing nails made from copper. You can acquire copper by mining, destroying shipwrecks for nails, or disassembling weapons collected at points of interest. A wharf is necessary to equip these upgrades. Once built, you can equip items like cannons from the wharf menu or while on your boat if a wharf is nearby. Wharves also allow you to customize your ship's colors and name. To further upgrade cannons, you must unequip them at a wharf, upgrade them at a shipwright's workshop, and then re-equip them at a wharf. While basic gear is essential for early survival, don't overinvest, as rare gear can be unlocked later. Traveling to Tortuga, located above the middle of the map, will lead you to a merchant town. Here, the Rogue Buccaneers sell rare cannon plans, including powerful 36-pounders. The smugglers of Port Royal offer tactics books that provide ship bonuses like increased damage, extended consumable duration, and health. Notable choices include "Ship Shape" for out-of-combat health regeneration and "Silence the Guns" to reduce enemy reload speed and damage. They also sell plans for better hull bracing, though boarding party gear upgrades are only available at the ship's workshop. Rare upgrade plans require both piesta, the game's currency, and a certain reputation level with factions. Reputation is gained by giving insignias (from killing Blackbeard pirates) or letters of favor (from faction quests) to bounty hunters. Letters of favor are more efficient for gaining reputation. The Brethren of the Coast faction offers plans for the epic rarity frigate, the best ship in the game, which costs 3,000 piesta and requires reputation level four. To earn piesta quickly, sell artifacts and supplies to smugglers, especially pricey epic rarity artifacts found in ruins. Also, keep an eye out for lost cargo beams, which can contain extra currency and valuables.