Getting Started
one captain, one plan, and a sea that keeps working while you're gone
The core loop
Everything in IdlePiracy runs through the same shape:
plot a voyage → wait (even offline) → collect what the crew found → sell, provision, or fit it → plot a slightly better voyage
You don't queue five separate skills. You plot one voyage — a plan of up to twelve legs, each a destination and a focus: sail fast, work the ship, salvage a wreck field, hunt a target, or push into the fog. Commit it, close the tab, and your captain keeps working while you're away. Come back, see what the crew brought home, and decide what's next: sell the haul to a port's Trader, provision for the next leg, or plot a longer voyage now that you know the waters better.
That's the whole design test. We call it two-day legibility: a new captain should understand the entire cycle within two days, because it's the same loop everywhere, just with a different focus and a slightly better ship.
Your first day — the Harbormaster's Ledger
New captains start at Gullport, classless, with half a chart Aunt Maren never finished and a leaky Shallop she left behind. The Harbormaster's Ledger — a set of one-off gold rewards, not a separate quest UI — completes lazily as you play the ordinary loop, walking one full lap of it, 625g total across nine steps:
- Sail the shoals — plan a voyage, pick the salvage focus for a leg, put to sea.
- Sell the haul at the port's Trader.
- Speak with the harbourmaster — choose your class. Captains start classless; this is where you pick a flag to sail under, and it sticks.
- Provision rations — cook a batch from your first catch, or buy a few at the dock.
- Visit the tavern — hire your first officer, or just look at the offers.
- Raid a merchantman — a hunt-focus leg against a merchant sloop, sailable from your starting Shallop. This is the promise: plunder in session one, not a grind away from it.
- Sail an explore-focus leg — push into an uncharted ring of the fog. "Maren never finished the chart. You will."
- Name an island — if you're the first captain ever to land there, it's yours to name, permanently.
- Plan a voyage past dark — chart three legs or more and let the crew sail through the night. This step's reward doesn't land right away: it settles the next time you check in, at least a few hours later — the ledger's own hook to bring you back tomorrow.
By the end, you'll have felt the whole loop: what a voyage costs in rations, what a focus is worth, what a first officer does for your chosen lane, and what raiding actually pays. See Voyages for the full mechanics behind each focus.
Beyond day one
| Milestone | What's happening |
|---|---|
| Day 1 | The Harbormaster's Ledger, a first officer, understand the loop. |
| Week 1 | Upgrade your first hull tier, sell or buy your first chart, build real standing at a port. |
| Month 1 | A mid-tier ship, a specialty focus, chart access sold or traded for. |
| Month 2+ | Chase the Galleon, hunt tougher tiers, hunt legendary officers. |
Your ship is the account spine — six hulls, Shallop up through Galleon — and a bigger one means more officer berths, more cargo, longer voyages, and access to farther waters. See World for where you can sail and Officers for who you can hire to get better at your lane. Nobody expects you to do everything yourself, and the design would rather you didn't: officers make you noticeably better at one focus, and trading with other captains for what you don't make yourself is the intended path. See Combat for how odds and loot work on a hunt-focus leg, and Trading for how standing and gold move through the ports.