Complete Shipbuilding Manual
Many of you already know me from the game, or from my other guides, but for those who don’t, my name is Kubrius. I am a 7-nation SB, invested in every port, with all production skills maxed. I have spent over 20bil in SSIP’s and parts testing nearly every aspect of Shipbuilding and dissolving several myths along the way. I know many people have claim to have ‘tested’ things, but then you find out there were 8 different variables in their ‘test.’ When I test something, I test 1 variable at a time, and ALL OTHER FACTORS are the same. It needs to be done like this or you don’t get accurate results.
I have modded well over 200 ships, have spent over 100b of my own money on fusion, and even more than that of other people’s money. All of the information in here, unless stated otherwise, is either accepted by everyone as fact, or it has been tested by me personally.
In this guide, I will cover every aspect of shipbuilding. Note that I will introduce and use many abbreviations. If you want to be a SB you will need to know them anyway. Due to the vast amount of information in here, I have colour coded it to make it easier to find the section that applies to you. Beginner stuff will be in green. More advanced stuff will be blue, purple, and finally black. For the most part I also tried to organize it so it progresses from beginner to advanced as you read. In addition, I will put anything I consider to be especially important, in red. Furthermore I tried to be selective in what information I present. There is some information that just doesn’t need to be explained (for example, when it says: “Success Rate: 38%,” I don’t think I need a diagram explaining where the success rate is listed, or what it means), and some stuff that just doesn’t require 5 pictures to understand. I also, though it pains me to do so, tried to leave my opinions out of it, except where I really feel you will benefit from it.
There is no substitute for experience. I’ve been SB’ing for 3+ years. I could go on for 100 pages about it, but without the experience, you would be unable to absorb the knowledge, so in the interests of keeping the guide effective and concise, I have been selective in the information I present. Too much information, especially with something as complex as SB, can be very confusing and overwhelming, and would tend to discourage people from even taking the skill.
First of all, you need to be at least level 18adv/9trade/9maritime to get the Shipwright job. Once you have sufficient levels, get the quest “Latest tactics”from Lisbon maritime guild. You need 5k battle fame, rank 7 tactics, and spanish and english languages. If you don’t have enough fame, someone else can pull the quest for you and share it. You will need the r7 tactics to talk to the Naval Officers. If you don’t have it, Jr. Officer job has tactics favoured, and then you can obtain the tactics skill in Naples (maritime guild) or Athens (La Valette). Easy cheap booster items include Scipios Helmet (+2), Paekche Small Sword (+2), Paekche King Amulet (+2). The quest itself is very easy, but you can click here if you need help. Once the quest is complete, you need to travel to either Tunis, Istanbul, or Calicut maritime guilds, where you need to change job to shipwright, and then you can pick up the shipbuilding skill.
Now to level shipbuilding, you will want Secrets of Shipbuilding. This will be enough to get you started, but you will want to also get Shipwright’s sawand an aide with shipbuilding. Igor is a great astro aide (available with Aide Employment Ticket #1 from astro shop) that gets SB (shipbuilding) at lv21. Chester gets SB at lv30, and that is the lowest of the non-astro aides. The other aides are listed at the bottom of the shipbuilding page. Get the aide as early as you can, as he will take time to level. Another helpful purchase would be the +1 SB Ruqun from astro shop. It’s costly, but helpful at higher levels when you can make Turkish Galley a rank earlier.
Find a company colony with a R2 shipyard (the one with the Shipyard Master) to register if yours doesn’t have one. TopTierTraders has a great one for shipbuilding, with a college and shipyard master both right next to port, and job change, and +1 SB building. Anyway, find one you like because you will spend a lot of time there.
Click ‘Build Ship’ at Shipyard Master, and select ‘Schooner.’ Select the material. For now, stick with beech, as it is the cheapest and you will only sell the ship back to SY (Shipyard) Master when it’s done. Next, you have the option to change the capacity. The higher your SB level, the more you can raise/lower it. The lower your capacity(within effective range only) the faster the ship will accelerate. Taking it outside of the effective range will apply a penalty to sails/wave/row that cannot be removed without a complete dismantle.
Note that it costs more to change the capacity, so again, for leveling purposes, leave it at the default. Name your ship, and go out to sea for 6 sailing days (6 minutes). Repeat this every 6 minutes until you can reach rank 14, and then go to Tripoli and make Turkish Galleys until max. This is the fastest way to level shipbuilding. There are other, more expensive/more time consuming ships that some people prefer, due to more buid time per ship, so they don’t have to be there every 6 minutes. Other ships you might consider along the way would be: Emigrant Barque (close to the same XP as schooner, but 5X as expensive), Cutter (built in seville), Sambuk, Xebec.
At r5 Shipbuilding, you can make minor adjustments to crew/cannon/cargo of any ship, and change the sail configurations on certain ones only. This is called a refit.
You’ll notice the only way to add cargo is to lower the crew and/or cannons. It is because of this that many people add cannons “unnecessarily” on ships. They just want to have the option to use cannons and still have as much cargo as possible. Adding crew and cannons to your ship doesn’t hurt anything. Many SB will try to steer you away from it because they mistakenly think it lowers acceleration, but it does not. The only thing that affects acceleration that you can change (outside of the minor increase from adding sails) is the total capacity (we’ll get to that later). Refitting also has no bearing on acceleration. Choose the option that best fits your particular play style.
Now that you’re well on your slow ride to r20, you will want to play around with some of the many other aspects of SB. There are 3 general types of ships, Astro/NC ships (cash ships), FS (freestyle) ships (use a hull and 4 parts to build), and regular build ships (like the schooner you’ve been doing). All of these are classified as Adventure, Trade, or Battle, depending on which level requirement is highest (see below). They can be either Combined (row ship), or Sail ship. In addition, ships are also all classified by size. There are Light, Standard, and Heavy.
FS ships are another way to gain SB skill proficiency (SB exp), though it should not be considered a viable means to level it. FS ships are expensive compared to regular build ships. They each require a certain hull to make. Hulls require Handicrafts, as well as Shipbuilding, to make. As you get up to the higher hulls, you will need rank 17 Handicrafts and 16 Shipbuilding at the same time, which is not possible for a single person, in any job, without astro items. Many people just have a friend go with them to make the hulls, and one covers each skill, but you can also do it in Handicrafts job with a +3 SB Manual. You can also buy the hulls you need most of the time. You can look the ship up on Ivyro or UWOtool to find out which hull it needs, and where it needs to be built. Once you have the right hull, you will need to gather a FS sail, FS gunport, and two FS armaments. You’ll notice a range on most of the FS parts. The midpoint of those 2 numbers is a normal result. You can also either get a Great Success (GS), which would yield the higher number instead, or a fail, which would yield the lower number.
Although it’s not shipbuilding, and probably belongs in a production guide, some of you may want to know how to make your own parts, and so I will touch on it briefly if any of you are so inclined. Ivyro can tell you exactly where and how to make each part, and what skill you need to obtain to do so. Most of them are made with either Handicrafts, sewing, or casting. Just find the part and click on it for more info. Once you get established, it’s much more efficient to have someone else make these for you. Many people will do this for 5m/part.
Go to the SY Master, and select ‘Special shipbuilding’. Click ‘Build ship’ (see below), select your hull, and it will bring up the ships that you can make with your current SB rank from that hull. Pick the one you want, then add your parts. Note it will show on the right the stats you can expect from the parts you added. For most ships, you can expect it to come out directly in the middle of the range. For higher rank ships, you will be more likely to fail and be on the lower end of those stats, and vice-versa for the lower rank ships.
You can also add a skill to FS ships during the build, by adding certain parts. UWOtool can tell you what skills the ship can get, and what parts you need to add. In the example below, I used Large mast and Set of repair tools to add WRM (Wind-resistant mast) to a large carrack. When adding a skill, you need to use the exact parts that it requires or the skill will not take. Augmented mast, even though it is ‘better’ than Large mast (adds more sails), would not work to add the skill. (Please note all ship skills also have skill requirements. You will need to attain a certain rank in either Arms, Navigation, or Management Skill, or sometimes a combination of two of them, before the skill will be effective).
I also added a sail, and a gunport, which you need to add to build the ship, but you would probably want to add them anyway (at least the sail) for the extra stats. Be careful when doing this that you don’t inadvertantly add a part that would add a different skill. Only one skill will be chosen if this happens, and from what I’ve seen, it’s rarely the one you actually wanted.
Note that it starts as 1/5, and gets the stats from those parts AND the skill. All FS ships start with 1 improvement, which is decided by the parts you put into the build. If I had used better parts (astro parts), the stats would have been better. All ships can have up to two optional skills before fusion.
So now that you know how to build ships, you will need to know how to improve them. The large carrack above started at 1/5 as FS build. As you can see above, you can also buy this ship at 0/5 from the SY Master. The numbers indicate improvements. It can have a maximum of 5 improvements as it is now.
If you take it to a company colony, you can add extra improvements to certain ships. Heavy Carrack can get +2 improvement slots, so can go to 8/8 if you want. Each improvement slot you add in this manner costs 1 SSIP (Special Shipbuilding Improvement Permit), and more importantly, raises the ship’s highest level requirement by 5!
UWOtool will tell you how many improves your ship gets. Are you seeing a pattern here? You will use UWOtool and Ivyro for almost everything. Keep the links handy. UWOtool has a very nice interface where you can plan your improvements and learn how to realize your ship’s potential. It takes a little getting used to, and it isn’t perfect, but it’s the best there is.
Now, before you can mod a ship correctly, you must have a basic understanding of fusion as well. It is usually necessary (or at least easier) to store all your non-essential ships somewhere while you fuse. I like to cut right back to 1 ship so I have 4 open slots to fuse. Fusion consists of 6 total ‘grades.’ (g1, g2, g3, etc…) For each grade the ship goes up, it can gain a small amount to the upper limit of each stat, and add to certain stats depending on the ship form (called ‘Type’ on UWOtool). In addition, at g1, g3, and g6, you are able to add certain extra skills or stats to ships. The options are as follows:
- -Durability Improvement – Adds about 80% of allowable dura (+200/+250 on a heavy ship). Very common for battleships.
- -Vertical Sail Improvement – Adds vertical sail. Rarely used. Not a good option for most ships.
- -Horizontal Sail Improvement – Adds horizontal sail. Rarely used. Not a good option for most ships.
- -Improve Sail Speed – UWOtool calls it ‘Row Power Improvement.” It adds roughly 45% of your row limit.
- -Turn Speed Improvement – Adds roughly 33% of turn limit, not a very wise choice
- -Wave Resist Improvement – Adds roughly 33% of wave resist limit. Not a wise choice.
- -Armour Improvement – Adds roughly 45% of upper limit
- -Cabin Capacity Improvement – Adds roughly 75% of upper limit. Very effective if you need to add crew.
- -Cargo Hold Capacity Improvement – Adds roughly 75% of upper limit. Commonly used on trade ships.
- -Broadside addition – Adds an extra cannon slot on your ship. Cannot have over 5 on a heavy, 4 on a standard, or 3 on a light ship.
- -Bow/Stern Turret Additions – Adds Bow/Stern slot respectively if your ship does not already have one
- -Skill Slot Addition 1 – Allow the possibility to add a 3rd optional skill to the ship during the improve. **Please not this does NOT add an actual skill to your ship, it only adds the slot. If your ship is maxed out on improvements, it would be useless until/unless you remod the ship.
- -Skill Slot Addition 2 – Allow the possibility to add a 4th optional skill to the ship during the improve. **This is the same as the first one. You need to add the actual skill through SSIP improvements.
- -Skill Inheritance – ***This will show up as a skill name with a star next to the icon (see below). Using this option it IS possible to inherit an optional skill that another ship currently has (you have to use said ship as the mat ship) and add it as an optional skill onto your ship. This skill does not count toward your optional skill limit.
- -**Gunboat refit – 5% damage increase for your cannon shots, and +5% damage taken from cannon fire. Also take more damage in melee battles. Counts toward your optional skill limit.
- -**Armoured Ship Refit – 5% reduction in armour-based damage, 5% reduction in turning/max speed. Counts toward your optional skill limit.
- -**Melee Battle Ship Refit – 5% Increase in melee damage, 5% decrease in melee damage taken, +5% increase in cannon damage taken. Counts toward your optional skill limit.
- -**Exploration Ship Refit – Gives +10% exp for all discoveries made while sailing, Reduce dura damage taken from salvaging, Increase raise rate of salvage. Counts toward your optional skill limit.
- -Ship Speed Up 1/2/3– Adds acceleration only, not top speed. 1st one is around +3%, 2nd is around +7%, and the 3rd (pure speculation, nobody has taken all 3 yet.) should be around +10%
**Refit values are generally accepted by the community, but I have not fully tested all of the effects yet. I have filled the holes with info from Ivyro.
Fusion is basically destroying a ship to make another ship stronger. You have what is called your base ship, which is your good ship that you want to KEEP and make stronger, and the mat ship, which is the ship that you will be destroying. When you look at a ship, both in inventory, or in ship information, you will see a progress bar at the top, with Grade (a number 0-6) next to it. This indicates what grade your ship is (obviously).
Usually it is a good idea to use a mat ship that is at least 1 grade higher than your base ship, to have a respectable chance at success. If you are using Astro/NC mat ships, you can use the same grade as your base ship. If you are using an identical ship as your mat ship, you can also use the same grade. Note, it must be EXACTLY the same ship type, word for word. “Modified First Class Vaisseau” IS NOT the same as “First Class Vaisseau.” If your mat ship is an identical ship, AND happens to also be an astro ship, you could theoretically have a successful fuse at 1 grade lower than your base ship, but it is not advisable in most circumstances.
OK so how do you actually DO it??
Go to the Shipwright and click ‘Ship Rebuild.’ Highlight your GOOD ship, the one you want to keep, and improve, and click ‘Next.’ Now highlight the ship that you want to destroy. THIS SECOND SHIP WILL BE DESTROYED. MAKE SURE IT IS A MAT SHIP YOU ARE PUTTING HERE. Click next. This will bring up a screen that shows you what percentage chance you have at success, and when trying to get g1 (grade 1), g3, or g6, will bring up a list of skills to choose from (the ones listed above). Choose the skill, if applicable, check quick to make sure you have the correct ships in there, and click through.
On the fail, you will notice it says ‘grade exp. increased.’ The ‘grade exp’ is that bar next to the grade. The more grade exp you have (the fuller the bar is), the better chance you have to succeed. At g0, if you completely fill the bar, it will add +30% to your chance of success. At g1, it will add +45%. Please note that it also takes much longer to fill the bar at higher grades.
An alternate method of filling the grade exp bar is by using blueprints. Blueprints can be small, meium, or large, and are created by dismantling (destroying) a g1 or greater ship that is of the appropriate size (light=small, etc). The more full that ships grade exp bar is, the more BP’s (blueprints) it will make. There are the actual BP’s, which are designated by 3 stars, there are BP PARTS, which have 2 stars, and BP PIECES, which have 1 star.
Basically each BP is 100parts, and each part is 100 pieces, but it’s not possible to make one into the other. Dismantling a g1 with full exp bar will yield 5 BP’s, and like 20 parts. Since g2+ takes much longer to fill, and only gives 10 more parts (maybe it’s 20, but its not much) for each grade, it doesn’t make sense to use more than a g1 ship for making BP’s.
The most efficient way I’ve found to make BP’s is to buy the cheapest ship you can buy from the Shipyard master that is the appropriate size (light/standard/heavy), and get it to g1. Buy as many of the ships as you can, and go to the Shipwright with them. Click ‘Ship Rebuild’, and fuse 2 of them together. If it succeeds, great, you can sell the others back to SY Master. If it fails, try it again with another mat ship, using the same one as your base ship (you can tell which one it is by the grade exp bar).
Anyway repeat until you have a g1, and buy a bunch of the next cheapest ship to fuse into that same initial base ship. Please note these new ships should be of a different type than the g1. This is a situation where you WANT to fail. Using the g1 as a base ship, keep sacrificing ships to it until the grade bar is around 60% (it will take around 80). This will make 3 BP’s. You can see the progress by clicking the dismantle option on Shipwright. Click your ship and hit OK. You can see what you will get if you dismantle it before you actually click to dismantle.
I recommend dismantling when you have 3, because about 6-7 attempts before 4, it becomes a 1% chance, and keeps increasing from there if you try to get 5. The most efficient way is to dismantle at 3 and start another. It ensures you never have a freak success that wastes 100+ ships worth of money and time.
Now that you know how to make BP’s, you may never want to. Usually you can buy large BP’s from people cheaper than you could make, so it’s only small or medium BP’s you would have to make for yourself if you needed. BP’s are popular for inheriting skills at g1, since it only takes 5 of them to completely max the bar at g0. At higher grades it takes many more. At g5, it takes around 180 in total to max it. Because they do quite a bit less at g1 and above, many people don’t use them as often for g1-3. Once the ship is g4+, it has a chance to critically fail and retrograde back to g3, so many people also like to use BP’s for g5 or g6 attempts to minimize the chance of failure.
Now that you have a basic understanding of how fusion works, it’s time to start planning your ship. First, you work out your budget. I usually advise against spending more to improve it than the ship is worth in ticket form, but I am also a hypocrite as I have done this with almost every ship I have owned. Just know that you will likely not get your money back when selling the ship even following this rule, and you will lose much more if you don’t. It is very rare to sell a ship for more than what you have into it. Next, determine your fusion skills.
People usually inherit skills at g1, if they are going to, because that is the cheapest way. It typically costs between 500m and 1.5b depending on your luck and what skill you add. Direct Hit Prevention, Rowing Assistance, and Evade Melee Battle cannot be inherited. g2 costs another 500m or so, and I usually plan on 2-3b for g3, but I have personally spent as little as 250m, and as much as 12b, to take ships from g0 to g3, so you can never truly know what it will cost. Once you have determined if or how high you want to grade your ship, you are ready to visit UWOtool and plan your build.
Here is my build plan for my CCCorvette.
1. This is the Ship Information. You can see which skills the ship has, as well as other useful information.
2. This is the base stats of the ship (what it starts as)
3. This is the amount added by the grade options you have selected.
4. This is the stats of the improvements you have planned PLUS your stats from fusion. The middle, highlighted number, is the standard. If nothing fails or gets GS (great success), you can expect these numbers to be added onto your ship’s base stats.
5. This is your upper limit. You cannot benefit from improves above this number. Your stat is “maxed” when it reaches this amount.
6. This is the total stats you can expect to have after all upgrades.
7. Revise – This section allows you to adjust the stats manually. You can type in +15, or -15, and it will add or subtract it from the total. This is often used to account for fails or GS as you go, so you can change the plan as needed to adjust for them, but you can use it for anything.
8. This box shows other adjustments to stats that were caused by your selections. Because I selected -25% cargo, it factored in the penalty I would receive for doing so. It also factored in the turn I would gain by doing so. Often it isn’t worth having -25% build just to have 1 more turn (get +1 turn @ -20% anyway, with no penalty), but because of the specialty (astro) parts (the parts listed as ‘xxx’ and ‘xx935’, and the Shipside Tank) I added, and by taking it to g6, I was able to max all the stats still, even with the penalty, so it is worth it in this case.
9. Your fusion information goes here. It automatically factors in durability improvement or whatever option you choose.
10. The ‘Select Armaments’ button brings you to the screen where you pick your other ship parts (see Below).
11. You can use these arrows to move your individual improvements up or down as needed.
These are the steps I take when planning to mod a ship for a customer:
1. Screenshot after the trade, to capture everything that he passed to you, in case there is any dispute later. Change the ship name to the customer’s name, so I make sure to give ships back to the correct customers. Take notes, on paper, of everything the customer wants, or have him send me a mail.
2. Determine what grade it will be planned for, what type, and what will be added, even if it isn’t being graded right away. If it is NOT being graded right away and it is planned for dura at g3, for example, you will want to make sure the customer realizes that he will not have the dura until the grading is done at a later time. Once I know, I enter the fusion information into UWOtool.
3. Determine what skills will go on the ship, and add them into UWOtool.
4. Determine what the ship will be used for, and any other pertinent information, and see what stats the customer wants on it. Most customers want the same thing, if they know what they want. If someone wants to do something that you think would be a bad idea, most of the time it’s because they don’t know any better.
I usually try to explain to them why I think it would be a bad idea, and offer a better suggestion that would still accomplish what they want, if possible. Sometimes the customer is just stubborn and wants what he wants. Usually I will accommodate them, but I have refused jobs before from people that just wanted to do stupid things that I knew they would regret later.
5. Find out what specialty parts (d’sails, augmented cabins, etc) they are willing to purchase, if any, and start planning the build. Please note UWOtool sometimes doesnt update right away, and so some of the specialty parts don’t have names, or just aren’t in the database yet. You will have to find them by stats, or add the stats from them manually. Don’t forget you can change the “Type” in the fusion section of UWOtool for minor adjustments of certain stats. A battleship doesn’t necessarily have to be battleship type.
6. Once I find the best possible combination of parts, and OK the stats with the customer, I go through and organize the improvements. I group them together how I want, in order to give the most chance of saving an improve slot for something else if I get GS in the right place(s), and I move the ones that would be most beneficial to have GS on toward the top, because the chance of GS is greatest at lower improves (due to requiring lower SB rank.
I find the 2nd improvement to yield the most GS, followed in descending order by 1,3,4,5,6,7,8, etc… Many people will tell you to just do the skills last; and as a general rule for someone that doesnt understand it, that’s not a bad idea, but once you understand how the system actually works, you will see that is not always the best option.
7. Next I do a final review of everything, including: Making sure you know what the customer wants for cargo (Important! Do not assume a customer wants what everyone else wants.) Many people mistakenly think -25% cargo (full penalty) adds more acceleration than -20%, and want you to -25% their boat, when in fact they are considered the same for accel purposes. the only advantage to going to -25% instead of -20% is that sometimes (like in the case of my corvette), you can gain an extra (base) turn out of it.
A few ships don’t benefit at all from doing this, and a few give more than 1 extra turn. If you are doing a heavy battleship, you will want to make sure it has enough cannons to fire all of the gunports (multiply 16 X (number of gun slots) = 80 for most heavy battleships, plus 12 each for bow and stern cannon slots, which will fit the largest of each). It should have at least 104 cannons, and it doesn’t hurt anything to have more. Most battleships have enough cannons, so many people tend to overlook this step, or base how many cannons they need on the type of bow/stern cannons that they themselves use. Crew is also important.
If your ship doesn’t have enough crew to fire all the cannons, your damage will be affected adversely. HERE is a link to tell you how much crew you need, at a minimum. Make sure the customer is aware of any changes that will occur to the ship during the process. This one also is easy to overlook, especially in a low level ship. You raise it from lv30 to 40 trade by adding 2 improvements, and the guy might not be able to ride in it for awhile. Not the end of the world, but less than ideal, for sure. Finally, review any correspondence or notes to make sure everything is correct.
8. If their prof (ship handling proficiency) isn’t maxed already, I take their ship to a company colony with an arsenal (picture below), where I have a bunch of alts, and I pass the ship around 2-3 times until it has full prof. Each character can do this once a day, and it adds around 33% of the prof each time. This seems to help with success rates. It is also necessary to have max proficiency in order to receive the full benefit of your improvements.
If you have 100/200 proficiency, you will get up to half of your upper limit from any improves you have done. If you have +21 turn, and your upper limit is +22, only +11 of that +21 would be effective at 100/200 proficiency. When you take the ship to 200/200, you would get all +21 of it.
Now you are ready to actually start the mod.
People will say all sorts of things that they claim help with mods, but in reality there are very few things that actually seem to help to increase GS/decrease fails. I have tested many different things, one at a time, many different times, and while it is difficult to prove or disprove anything that is based on luck, I have come to the following conclusions:
The following seem to all increase GS and reduce fails (listed in order from most help to least):
1. Actually having the r20 SB skill yourself, rather than leeching the skill to do an improve.
2. Moving the cargo as much as possible each mod. (It’s usually smart to stay within effective range while doing this to avoid penalties. The only way to remove a penalty is to reset the improvements, so be careful when doing this. I have seen many people ruin ships attempting this.
3. GRADING seems to affect SSIP improvements success rate. Based on my results, a graded ship will have fewer GS, and/or more fails than the same ship would if ungraded. The higher the grade, the lower the chance of success.
4. Having aide in Surgeon job, and other aide in Paymaster job, both at 100. This is a minor difference.
5. It sounds stupid I know, but if you use equipment for +1 SB, it is better not to have it damaged. Shipwright’s saw and Ruqun are the only ones that take dura damage, but Ruqun can be repaired. The saw I just throw away now when it gets low. This also isn’t a huge difference, but after extensive testing, there is still a difference.
Even the last two were close enough that it could be just luck, but basing it on the consistency of the results, I would say they actually help, and so they are part of my routine.
After extensive testing, the following seem not to help at all, despite numerous claims to the contrary:
1. Magician Tarot (Even making sure it was active both on the build, and when picking the ships up.)
2. College production skills
3. Sitting at sea for the EXACT number of days, and not more
4. Using ESBR’s (Emergency Shipbuilding Requests). These also do not increase fails, as I’ve also heard spread about.
5. Doing the improvements in a ship with Workshop skill.
People are always trying to find patterns with anything that involves luck. If they had tarot on when they got GS once, now they think that was why.
Once you are all set, the Paneling (Ship material) is the first thing to look at. You can see it in the inventory screen. If it is not the material that the customer wants, then this will be your first improve (improvement):
In general, most people like the following:
Trade/Adventure ships: Teak or equivalent wooden panel
Battle ships: Military Paneling
***Please note not all ships are worth dismantling. A dismantle costs around 4-500m, so a lower end ship with 8 improves, or a ship that started as iron, or with a useful skill, may not need to be dismantled. Furthermore, FS ships have hull bonuses, which you would lose by dismantling.
Panels can be added without dismantling. If you are going to do this, skip the 5 steps below. If you do plan to add a panel and dismantle, you will need SSIP’s (see chart below), and a dismantle (Special Shipbuilding Improvements Reset).
1. Go to the SY Master, and click ‘Special Shipbuilding.’
2. Select your ship, and add the Panel and any other FS part. I usually just buy a gun port or sail from the craftsman.
3. Click through, and wait the required time.
4. Pick up the ship, and click ‘Special Shipbuilding’ again.
5. This time, after you’ve checked to make sure the Ship material is correct now, click the ‘Reset Improvements’ button.
Now the ship will be 0/X (the X is the amount of possible improvements on your ship, 0/5, 0/6, 0/8, or whatever), and you will be ready to add the real improvements.
Look at the ship and determine how you want it, cargo wise. High capacity will let you hold more trade goods/supplies, but low capacity will make your ship accelerate much faster. Supposing you have a battleship, and you (like everyone else) want low cargo for fast acceleration. The ship is 0/5 and you plan to take it to 7/7.
You would set the capacity to the minimum effective number during the first improve, so that when you switch it each improve, it will end as low. You would set maximum effective capacity on the even mods, and minimum effective on the odd mods. Penalties can only be removed by a dismantle, so be sure to stay within EFFECTIVE range so as not to incur one.
Improvements are done just like building FS ships, with the exception that you don’t necessarily have to have a gunport or sail. Again there are all sorts of myths out there regarding improvements, and just to clear them all up right now, the ONLY things that matter toward great success are what I mentioned above, the rank of the SB, and the rank required for that particular improve/ship.
It will take time to get good at modding ships. There is no substitute for experience, but here are some tips:
– Revisit your mod plan each time you get a GS or fail, to see if you want to change things up based on the results.
– Mod the ship before you grade it. You know exactly what you are getting from grading, and you still have a chance to change it up and maybe fix it if the mods go wrong.
– Pay attention to what you are doing. Many parts look the same, and it is easy to mess up if you are inattentive.
– Check your SB rank before every improve, just in case. Saws get destroyed, equipment gets changed, skill notes expire, etc…
– Dont take just anyone’s word for anything. There is a lot of bad info out there, especially in (all) chat. If it has anything to do with SB and it isn’t in this guide, there is probably a reason.
Alright! now you are ready to put an OS (Original Skill) on your ship. Each ship can have 1 original skill. Many new people mistakenly think the skill an astro ship comes out of ticket with is the “original skill,” which would make sense, but this is not the case. If you look closely at the deed in inventory screen, you will see it says “Optional skill’ next to it. An original skill can be put on a ship at any time before or after improvements or grading.
They all require from 1-3 OSP’s (Original Ship Permits), and 2 other, relatively inexpensive items. Because some of them can only be put on in your nation’s capitol city, I usually just make it a point to put them all on there. OSP’s can be obtained by turning 200 PA’s (Patriot Awards) in to the Secretary in your own nation’s palace. Unfortunately, even if you have invested in other nations capitols, you cannot make OSP’s there.
1. Go to the SY Master and click 
2. Select the ship you want to add a skill to.
3. Select the skill you want. If you are in your nations capitol with enough invested (I invest 5m everywhere), it will show all original skills that are available for that ship that you can put on at your current SB rank (there is no benefit to being above the required rank on an original skill.) You can see how many OSP’s it requires. If you do not have the required amount, the skill will be greyed out and unable to be selected.
4. Add the other parts. They wil be shown on the left if you have the right items. Just click them to move them over.
5. Click through and wait the required # of sailing days, just like any other improve, pick the ship up after.
Original skills, unlike optionals, can be overwritten (changed). If you get sick of your original skill, you can put a new one on the same way you just did.
OK now the only thing left is fusion. You know a little about it already, but there is a lot to it. First you need to know about Types. Here is a chart that can explain it much better than I.
Think if it like a game board. When you fuse a mat ship into your base ship, it will move you you one spot in a certain direction that is determined by the type of ship you used for a mat ship. If it was expedition, it would move 1 spot toward expedition, via the quickest route. If it is ALREADY expedition, we have to refer to the chart below, which shows more of the chart.
Expedition, Cargo, and Battleships all can keep going back infinitely if you use the appropriate type of mat ship. The more you use of one type, the more of another type it would take to get it back to a different type, so think about this as you’re fusing your ships, some of which can cost almost 50mil per attempt. I have seen people spend billions to fix a mistake like this. The ships all start at different spots on the chart, but the astro ships tend to be closer to the center than some other ships, like Explorer Barcas, for example, which start 7 ships deep in expedition.
The way to change the type, is to buy the cheapest g0 ship of the type and size that you need, and fuse it to your base ship. Repeat this until you get what you want. This shouldn’t be done if your ship is g4 or higher, because it can retrograde if it gets a critical fail, and I think 0% guarantees that. I would highly suggest playing around with different Types of barcas to give you an idea of how exactly this works. Try to change it to every Type.
The type of ship is what determines what extra stats you gain from fusion grades. As there are 7 possible types in 5 different sizes, each with 6 possible grades, I won’t bother listing the 210 different possible combinations. UWOtool has most of them anyway. If they don’t have one that you need, send me a tell in-game and I will probably be able to tell you what stats you can expect. Other changes that go with grading are more constant. The following is what each grade on any ship will always add to the upper limits of your ship, no matter of type or size.
g1/g3/g5 raise upper limit by: +5 prof/dura, +2 vert/horiz sail, +1 wave/armour/cabin/cannons/cargo
g2/g4/g6 raise upper limit by: +5 prof/dura, +3 vert/horiz sail, +1 turn/cabin/cannons/cargo/row (on row ships)
The listed amounts are individual bonuses for each grade, not cumulative, so at g5, you would receive not only the g5 stats, but also the stats for the four grades before it also.
These stats are the same for all ships.
Before you start fusion you should know the things that make success happen. The following things add to the success rate of a ship:
+0-30% and up – Grade EXP bar of either ship adds to success % – Fill this by failing at fusion (only adds to the base ship’s EXP bar of course, the other is destroyed), or by adding blueprints/parts/pieces
+10% – Ship Refitting Handbook – Specialty limited supply item adds +10% for an hour.
+4% – Max Prof (also called SHP/Ship Handling Proficiency) on the mat ship – 199/200 adds nothing. It needs to be maxed.
+2% – Each improvement on the mat ship adds +2% to the success rate. A 7/7 would be +14%.
+1% – Each skill on the mat ship adds +1%. This applies to anything that is listed as an optional skill on the ship deed, including refit options and inherited skills. Original skills also add +1%, but Speedups do not.
OK the FIRST thing we need to do is learn to make mat ships. There are people that sell them, but you will eventually have to know how to make your own. It would be smart to fuse a few barcas until you get the hang of it, since they are cheap and easy.
1. Find the cheapest ship available to buy from the SY master. It must be the same size as the other ship (light/standard/heavy). If you are fusing in seville, I would recommend the following ships as mat ships:
Light (Expedition) – Explorer Barca
Light (Cargo) – Trading Barca
Light (Battle) – Battle Barca
Standard (Expedition) – Galley
Standard (Cargo) – Trading Galley
Standard (Battle) – Battle Galley
Heavy (Expedition) – Large Carrack
Heavy (Cargo) – Big Trading Carrack
Heavy (Battle) – Large Carrack (Heavy Carrack or Refitted Heavy Carrack if you need a skill from them, but otherwise LC is cheaper.)
So use whatever ship you need, and buy as many as you can from SY master (ideally 4). Use one as base ship, and just start fusing them until you get it to g1 (should be 38% chance). You will usually want to add one of the refit options as the skill, to give it an extra 1% for the next grade. If you plan to do this for profit you will ALWAYS want to. Store it in the docks, shared storage, or on an alt, if you need to make room, but you will need to make another one, and then fuse the two g1’s together (Should be 32% chance if you added refit).
Keep doing this until you get a g2, and at this point you will have to offload the ship into dock/shared storage, etc… I’m sure you see the pattern here. Make another g2, fuse them together until you get a g3 (25% chance). Again, you want to add another refit option (which ones you pick dont matter). Once you have a g3, you are done. It is worth about 500m, but can cost anywhere from 40m to 1.5bil+ to make. Cost to make mat ships is, on average:
And to make them, it takes, on average:
g1 ~3minutes, g2 ~10minutes, g3 ~30minutes, g4 ~3hrs, g5 ~30hrs+ (hope you packed a lunch!)
By this point some of you no doubt have begun to experience some of the frustration fusion can bring with it. Fusion is like this:
You have a bucket of 10 rocks. 4 of them are red, and 6 of them are blue. You have a 40% chance to pick a red one, and if you pick 10 times, you WILL GET 4 of them. Now take 100 more buckets like that and mix them all together. Now you have 400 red rocks and 600 blue ones. It’s still a 40% chance of picking a red one, but the chances of you picking 4 red ones out of 10 went from 100% to significantly less.
FUSION is like a bucket with one million rocks in it, and you’re picking, trying to get a red one. I was convinced the rates weren’t right, and I kept track of success rates vs actual success, but after 100 fusion attempts it was surprisingly close. I saw lots of ridiculous successes and fails, but it all did seem to balance out in the end. I was actually a little ahead.
OK the next step is Skill Inheritance. Find a ship with the skill you want. Here are some commonly used ships/skills for heavy ships:
Refitted Heavy Carrack – APN (Attack Prevention Net)/RSM (Roaring Sea Mine)
Heavy Carrack – WMB (Welcome Melee Battle)/SSM (Special Sea Mine)
Heavy Explorer Carrack – EA (Emergency Acceleration)
Caoyun Ship (Korea) or Custom Siam (Astro) – Nanban Skill
If your inherit mat ship is g2 and 1/6 with 2 skills and full prof, you will have around a 50% base chance to succeed. Blueprints would each add 6-7% or so, to a maximum of 30%. I personally only use these when it makes sense to. I weigh everything in terms of how much it will cost vs how much it will help. If you are adding a skill with an expensive or time consuming mat ship, it might be helpful to use some in hopes of getting it the first or second time. I know many people use g1 inherit mat ships, but I find g2 to be more efficient.
If you use an astro mat ship, a g1 gives the same percentage as a g2 regular ship, but again, if you are spending the money to use an astro ship, I recommend a little bit extra to get it to g2 first. If you must inherit a skill at g3 or g6, you will want to use a g3-g4 astro mat ship (for g3) or a g5-6 astro ship (for g6). If I can, I look to use ships that can be both FS built, AND purchased from shipyard, so it’s easy and cheap to build one FS with the skill you want, and then grade it with empty purchased ones.
If you fuse a bad skill onto a ship, it can make it go down considerably in value, even lower than ticket price. The best way to avoid this is to ask around. People are always happy to tell you their opinion, and if it’s truly a bad skill you will know it quickly.
If you are NOT inheriting a skill, just use normal g0-g1 mat ships to increase your base ship to g1, adding whatever other option you decide on. Again, remember that a poor choice can reduce the value of the ship. If fuse attempts for your base ship are cheap (1-2mil), you can use g0 mat ships. If it’s very expensive (40m+), you might even consider using a g2 mat ship.
The rest of it is the same. In general, as a rule, you will want to use a mat ship that is 1 grade higher than your base ship, unless it is an astro mat ship or an identical ship.
Before you take a ship past g3, remember at g4 and above, critical fails come into play. If you fail, it’s just like any other grade, where your grade exp bar increases, but if you CRITICALLY fail, your ship will go back one grade. If it was a g5, it will become a g4. Since it can cost over 50b to get a ship to g5, this is no small matter. Blueprints play a larger part at these higher grades, and Ship Type cannot be changed so easily, so you need to be conscious of that as well.
One thing I like to do at g3, if I have a ship I know I want to take higher, is to fuse a bunch of ships to it of the Type I need it to be. It gives grade EXP toward g4, and it also makes it so you don’t have to worry about what Type of ship you are fusing and if it will change the Type or not.
At this point most people steer away from regular mat ships and start using Astro mat ships. The most effective way to do this is to get a lot of the same astro ship, and grade them all to g2 or g3, depending on how many ships you have and what grade you need to get to. Then you fuse them all together to hopefully get your desired result. I usually figure 3 of the same grade astro mat ship yields 1 of the next grade up, so if I need a g5 astro mat ship, I would want 3X g4’s, and I would need 9X g3’s to get them, in theory.
It always boils down to luck anyway but you plan the best you can. If you plan on modding the ship, which you probably will if trying for g5-6, the best way to grade these astro ships is with skill inherit + extra skill slot. This will enable you to have as many skills as possible on your astro mat ship, for the best possible results. When adding improvements to a ship that will be a mat ship, the stats don’t matter at all, so I usually just put the 2 cheapest FS parts I can find in, and click next. You don’t need to fill all four slots.
An important thing to remember when using astro mat ships is, like any ship, when they grade up, they gain +5 to ship handling proficiency max, but not to the actual proficiency. If your ship was max prof, and you graded it, you need to get 5 more prof on it before you can get the +4%.Remember this only adds 4% if the MAT ship is maxed. The base ship doesnt matter as far as improvements, skills, or prof. Only the grade and grade EXP matters on the base ship.
Some commonly used astro mat ships are: CS (custom Siam, CAS (Custom Ambush Siam), MF (Modified Frigate). All three of these have very low fusion costs (1.25m/attempt). There are some, like CLR (Custom LaRoyale) that are cheaper to fuse (<600k), but are not as common, and cost more to purchase.
If this guide was a little too late and you already screwed up your grades, there is an astro item called ‘Ship Grade Reset’ that will reset all of your fusion mods. ONLY things gained through fusion will be stripped, and ALL of it will be. Stats, stat maxes, skills, grades, grade EXP, and it will revert to the ship type it was originally. Please note this will not affect any improvements you made with SSIP’s, nor will it affect the original skill. To reset SSIP improvements you need a Dismantle (Special Shipbuilding Improvements Reset). Please note, THE DISMANTLE AT THE SHIPWRIGHT WILL DESTROY YOUR SHIP! Do not attempt to reset anything here.
If you do well at all of this you can look forward to your chat log looking like this when people know you are on: (below)
1. Does an inherited skill go away when I dismantle (Special ship improvement reset)? No. Any upgrades at all that are gained through fusion persist through an improvements reset. It also does not affect the original skill.
2. Can I inherit an inherited skill? Yes. You can inherit a 3rd or 4th optional skill, or inherited optional skill, just like any other optional skill.
3. Can I add a 6th Gunport? No. The maxes are: Light: 3, Standard:4, Heavy:5. You also cannot add a second bow or stern.
4. Will a Dismantle (Special Ship Improvements Reset) reset my extra improvements from colony? Good question, but no, it will not. If you took your ship from 6/6 to 8/8 at colony, your ship would be 0/8 after the dismantle.
5. Does SB rank matter for fusion? No. It does not, except of course the rank that is required for your ship.
6. Do I need an r20 to do improves? As long as you are 5 levels UNDER the required rank, you will technically be able to do the improve. The reason most people want an r20 is because there is a much higher chance of success. If you do an improvement at 5 ranks under, you will usually have a lot of fails.
7. Can I build a ship at 5 ranks below too? Unlike improvements, you do need to have the required rank or above in order to build any ship.
8. Do I get SB exp (skill proficiency) from fusion? No. You don’t.
9. Does armour added through mods add to acceleration? No it does not. High BASE armour on a ship will add to acceleration, as will armour plates equipped on the ship, but armour added through fusion or SSIP’s will not. This is a common misconception.
10. Does -25% cargo help my ship go faster? For speed/acceleration purposes, -20% = -25%. There is no benefit to taking a ship to -25% except that most ships gain 1 more base turn from it than they would have at -20%. Usually this is not worth doing because of the penalty.
11. What does wave resistance actually do? There is a lot of false information out there about wave resistance. Wave has one basic main function. The higher your wave resist, the closer your top speed with cargo will be to your unladen top speed. Normally, lets say your ship can do 20 knots. It might only reach 16 knots with full cargo, but with max wave, it might reach 19. In addition, wave helps to prevent waves washing over the ship on ships with certain (low profile)hull styles.
Sir Thomas Gresham 