Combat
informed gambling: the odds are on screen before you ever cast off
Combat is bounty-hunting, not a war. Pick an enemy tier at the docks, and the voyage runs as a timed action — a handful of minutes, consuming rations — that resolves into a win or a loss when it completes. There's no positioning, no button-mashing, and no way to peek at the result early: just a captain, a target, and a chance worth knowing before you take it.
The four tiers
Tougher enemies live in tougher waters, so the ship you're sailing gates what you can even pick a fight with, on top of your Combat level:
| Tier | Level | Waters | Rations | Voyage time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rowboat Rats | 1 | The Shallows — any ship | 1 | ~5 min |
| Merchant Sloops | 10 | Tier-2 waters — Sloop or better | 2 | ~10 min |
| Corsair Brigs | 25 | Tier-3 waters — Brigantine or better | 3 | ~15 min |
| Ghost Ships | 40 | all waters — Galleon | 5 | ~25 min |
Beyond these four sits The Leviathan, a level-50 boss tier saved for post-launch group content — not something you're meant to solo, and not one of the four tiers above.
How the odds work
Your power is built from exactly the things you'd expect: your Combat level, your equipped weapon, and your Gunner officer's bonus, plus a little from your ship itself. The enemy tier has its own power. Before you commit a single ration, the game shows you both numbers and your exact win chance — power vs. enemy power, never hidden math you have to reverse-engineer from patch notes.
That includes your very first voyage. A brand-new captain with no gear yet still has real, sailable odds against Rowboat Rats — combat is designed so there's no dead level where the only honest advice is "don't fight yet." If the number on screen looks bad, the answer is simple: don't sail, go level up or gear up first, and come back when the odds favor you.
Win or lose is always shown as a probability before you leave port. That's the whole design promise: informed gambling, not a mystery box.
Winning and losing
A win pays out the tier's full loot table — gold, and depending on the tier, trade goods, salvage, gear drops, or rare materials. A loss means the voyage was for nothing: no loot, some hull damage, and a small trickle of consolation experience for the attempt.
- You keep every voyage's rations spent, gear equipped, and officers hired — a loss changes nothing about your roster.
- You never lose gold on a loss.
- You never lose cargo or items on a loss.
- There's no permadeath and no gear loss, ever — the worst a bad fight costs you is a repair bill.
Repairs
Hull damage only comes from choosing to fight — nothing decays while you're away, and a bad voyage is the only way to dent your ship. Repairs are available at any port's Shipyard, any time, no waiting. The bill scales with how much damage you took and your ship's tier: bigger ships cost more per point of damage to patch, but they also carry far more hull to begin with, so they can absorb a lot more punishment before a repair trip is even necessary.
See Skills for how Combat levels and gear fit into the rest of the loop, and Officers for what a Gunner actually does to your odds.