Skills
five skills, level cap 50, no free-floating stat sheet
IdlePiracy runs on five skills: Fishing, Salvaging, Sailing, Shipwright, and Combat. That's the whole legibility budget — no sixth skill, no hidden stat sheet. Every number you see on screen traces back to skill level, gear, or officers, and nothing else.
Actions run in batches — queue "Fish Herring ×200" and each rep takes a fixed duration. A batch stops when your free idle cap (current design value: 4 hours of queued work) runs out, or your hold is full, whichever comes first.
Level cap in v0.1 is 50 (long-term cap 99, current design value). XP to complete
level n is ceil(80 × 1.10^n), cumulative — the curve is gentle at first
(minutes per early level) and steep at the top (level 40+ takes days of idle play; level 50 sits
around 940k cumulative XP). Every rep grants roughly 8 × tier XP, tier running 1–5.
Every skill level also grants a flat +0.6% action speed to that skill, so leveling
always feels like something even between tier unlocks.
Fishing — food & entry money
The earliest way to make gold and the primary source of ration ingredients.
| Tier | Level | Rep time | Yields |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sprat | 1 | 20s | Sprat |
| Herring | 10 | 30s | Herring |
| Cod | 20 | 45s | Cod |
| Swordfish | 35 | 70s | Swordfish, rare: Trophy Fish (vanity/market) |
| Leviathan Eel | 50 | 120s | Leviathan Eel (top ration ingredient) |
Salvaging — the "mining" skill
Wreck fields yield raw materials that feed Shipwright. Ironreef and the fog islands of the Thousand Isles have the best fields.
| Tier | Level | Materials |
|---|---|---|
| T1 | 1 | Driftwood, Scrap Iron, Sailcloth Scraps |
| T2 | 20 | Oak Planks, Iron Fittings, Canvas |
| T3 | 40 | Teak, Steel, Silk Rigging |
Sailing — travel & expeditions
Sailing levels by time spent at sea. Rather than a tier table, this skill gates what routes you may sail, your maximum expedition length, and — combined with ship tier — which waters you can reach. It's the skill that turns the map from a menu into a place actually worth crossing.
Shipwright — the crafting skill
Shipwright consumes salvage and market goods to make things. Rations are deliberately folded into Shipwright rather than given a sixth skill — five skills is the legibility budget. Recipe classes:
- Tools — rods, salvage hooks, cook pots. Equip one to boost yield or cut rep time on the matching skill.
- Weapons & gear — cutlasses, pistols, hull plating: combat power.
- Ship parts — the big material sink: components for shipyard upgrades (Hull Sections, Rigging Sets, Cannon Mounts).
- Rations — cooked from fish (plus Saltmarsh ingredients); consumed by expeditions and combat voyages.
Combat (PvE) — bounties & boarding
Pick an enemy tier at the docks. The voyage is a timed action (5–30 minutes) that consumes rations; the outcome resolves as a power check plus RNG. There's no permadeath and no gear loss — a loss costs you the voyage and some hull, nothing more.
| Tier | Level | Power req | Loot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rowboat Rats | 1 | — | gold, sprats |
| Merchant Sloops | 10 | low | gold, trade goods, T1 salvage |
| Corsair Brigs | 25 | mid | gold, gear drops, T2 salvage |
| Ghost Ships | 40 | high | rare materials, cosmetic drops |
| The Leviathan (boss) | 50 | party-tier | best-in-slot materials (post-v0.1 group content) |
Power = gear + Combat level + Gunner officer bonus. Fail a fight and you get no loot and a repair bill (a gold sink) — never death, never gear loss.
A player can level every skill solo, but officers make you 15–25% better at your chosen lane — specializing and trading with other captains beats trying to be self-sufficient. See Officers.