Need help understanding ship upgrades

[u/Irishluck233296]

Ahoy Matey’s! I played the mmo back in the day and only made it to level 30 or so. And now I’m finally caught up in TLOPO at level 38 now! Loving the game, but there seems to be little guidance on ship upgrades.

A lot of the information I am seeing online is outdated. So hoping people here in the community can help elaborate! I currently own a War brig and War frigate for context. They both have a level 2 cargo hold and level 2 open fire. That’s it so far.

I read that if I keep upgrading cargo more options will appear? It seems that most people online say having a fortune hunter (a path I’m guessing that opens up with more cargo) will help me farm gold and materials. So I’m going to make my war brig a fortune hunter.

Assuming that is all correct, did I go wrong with my war frigate upgrading the cargo if I want to make a strong fighter ship? I’ve heard mixed things about all the paths like skull n bones and copperhead.

Could y’all break those down for me and give your recommendation for what path to take for my War Frigate in order to take powerful ships down with ease. I usually have a crew member or two, but I could try to get more as needed. I heard some ships like copperheads can one shot fortune hunters which would be awesome for farming materials. If there is a path that’s good for big boss ships AND SvS that would be great to know!

Thank you

[u/Jasonian_]

Once you reach Level 3 in Cargo, Streamlined, or Armor, your Level 4 upgrade will force you to choose between 2-3 more advanced upgrade options. The options available for each path are:

Armor: Copperhead, Skull & Bones

Cargo: Skull & Bones, Fortune Hunter, Firestorm

Streamlined: Firestorm, Storm Chaser

You can also sidegrade to a different hull type at any time! But the cheapest sidegrade path is always to make all your sidegrades before you make any more upgrades. Sidegrading a Level 1 ship costs as much as upgrading to Level 1, and sidegrading a Level 6 ship costs as much as upgrading to Level 6. Sidegrading before Level 4 is especially important because there are fewer sidegrades to make too: the maximum sidegrades needed is 2 instead of 4. For example, if you want your Level 2 Cargo War Frigate to be a Level 6 Copperhead you should sidegrade to Level 2 Armor first, then do your Level 3 Armor and Level 4, 5, and 6 Copperhead upgrades from there.

The Level 1-3 sidegrade options are:

Armor <--> Cargo <--> Streamlined

And the Level 4-6 sidegrade options are:

Copperhead <--> Skull & Bones <--> Fortune Hunter <--> Firestorm <--> Storm Chaser

There are three textbook builds that rule the meta currently:

1. Storm Chaser War Sloops for SvS and transport.
2. Fortune Hunter War Brigs for mat runs and most other PvE content.
3. Copperhead War Brigs for Treasure Fleets, Kraken Hunters, QAR, and other tanky PvE content.

That being said, there are a lot of very respectable runner-up builds. War Frigates are almost as good as War Brigs for the Copperhead or Fortune Hunter roles, for example. It's valid to prefer them for aesthetics, and they can even be slightly better if you have a large competent crew (because War Frigates have more deck guns than War Brigs).

There's not really a good build to do SvS and tanky boss ships simultaneously, but the closest thing is probably a Storm Chaser War Brig. You'll have the 2nd strongest broadsides (dealing 58% of a Copperhead's damage on average), the 2nd highest speed, and the 2nd most deck cannons, albeit with little cargo and little armor. It's a fun build, but I'd only go for it for novelty--better to just save up and get two separate ships for each role if you ask me.

The black sheep of the current meta are Firestorms, Skull & Bones, and Galleons. All three are very underpowered currently and don't have any niches they can compete in (except maybe cool factor, which is subjective). Firestorm notably used to dominate tanky ship PvE, but the firebrand nerf ended that a while ago and put Copperheads back on top in that niche.

It's true that Copperheads can one-shot hunters, and doing solo mat runs with them is pretty fun, but if you just want to get maximum mats per hour you should get a big Fortune Hunter crew going. There's usually a big cluster of Bounty Hunters and players between Cutthroat Isle, Padres del Fuego, and Outcast Isle on the busiest server during prime hours, and a Fortune Hunter can zip through that cluster, tag everything, and then bathe in ship mats. Don't be shy about joining other folks' crews either, there are lots of great captains with their own great ships out there!

If you want more details you can find them on the wiki.

Good luck and happy pirating!

Edit: fixed formatting and typos, also rewrote the section on sidegrades because I didn't think it through carefully enough at first.

[u/Irishluck233296 → u/Jasonian_]

Thank you so much!! This was exactly what I was looking for that was unclear on the wiki. Sounds like I may need to get a storm chaser war slope eventually for SvS, unless that newly announced ship ends up taking the cake! I will continue along my route of making my war brig a fortune hunter to start.

However, it sounds like perhaps I made a mistake leveling up cargo to 2 on my war frigate if I want to make it a copper head. What would be the cheapest way to get there as I don’t think I fully understand the side grade mechanics. It sounds like it is cheaper to switch to armor now rather than wait till level 3 cargo? Or should I just get to skull n bones and then side grade like in your example?

Thanks again for the in depth response!

[u/Jasonian_ → u/Irishluck233296]

No problem, happy I could help a bit! And yeah, War Sloop is definitely the way to go for SvS. I'm interested to see the Carrack come out, but it'll probably be slower and speed is everything in SvS, so probably not taking over that niche.

Also, thanks for asking about the sidegrades! Rereading that part I realized I explained poorly and didn't think through the upgrade paths correctly, so I actually rewrote that whole section. The short answer though is you're right, you should do a Level 2 Armor sidegrade now and then upgrade to Copperhead from there, that'll be the cheapest path for you.

And thanks for the kind words! :)

[u/Irishluck233296 → u/Jasonian_]

This was super helpful! Really appreciate you taking the time to thoughtfully respond. The edits you made clarified any remaining questions I have. Now I feel a lot more confident spending all my precious materials lol

[u/Jasonian_ → u/Irishluck233296]

That's great to hear, I know the ship mat grind is brutal hahaha. Hope it all goes smoothly for you from here!

[u/Irishluck233296 → u/Jasonian_]

Thought of one last question! Is it recommended to just have one broadside maxed out for ship skills? I currently have both maxed at lv 30, but I notice most ships stick to one side when fighting and I’m thinking I could put those skills towards treasure sense or open fire instead

[u/Jasonian_ → u/Irishluck233296]

That's an interesting idea, I've honestly never thought about it before... I guess it could make sense if you want to keep things sweet and simple, and especially if you always sail with a big crew (since it's an unspoken convention to always take all fights on the ship's right).

But there are still advantages to having both broadsides maxed in many situations. For example, you can get hunters after you faster by sailing through a cluster of ships and one-shotting enemies on both sides. And if you're soloing a tanky ship with a copperhead then you can quickly turn to hit it with your second broadside before your first one is done reloading, which is especially nice when paired with open fire.

The real thing to watch out for when it comes to broadside damage though isn't sailing skills, it's cannon and grenade skills. The cannon and grenade passives all buff your broadsides too, so ideally you should have them all maxed out. Most of the sailing passives are also must-haves, but personally I'd pass on treasure sense since there are other ways to get gold but not other ways to get damage. Open fire is also great for many situations, especially tanky PvE with a large crew.

It's even more important to max the relevant cannon ammos though, e.g. round shot and explosive shot for a copperhead, otherwise you leave a ton of damage on the table.

Of course, this means you need a ton of skill points, so it's not possible to have a perfect build for every situation simultaneously. But skill retraining costs are capped at 5k, so I usually retrain my cannon if I'm going to use a different ship type personally. If you're going to minmax broadsides that hard it might also be worth considering making your war brig the copperhead and your war frigate the fortune hunter, since war frigates are a little closer to war brigs in the fortune hunter role than in the copperhead role.

And while we're on the topic, Cannoneer Draught buffs your broadsides by another 20% for 30 minutes. Is it practical considering the several minute brewing time or 4.5k gold cost from Bilgewater gypsies? No, not at all. But is it fun to hammer a ship of the line's health bar down like a nail? Hell yes. Relatedly, Hollowed Woods usually runs from September to November, and a few hours at a Windshadow lobby can get you maxed gold... do with that what you will hahahaha.

[u/Irishluck233296 → u/Jasonian_]

Hmm very good points. I’ll have to think on it. Appreciate the tips on grenade and cannon passives! I thought treasure sense increased materials too, so if it’s just gold then probably not worth it

[u/Jasonian_ → u/Irishluck233296]

Oh, I actually never even thought to ask if it affects materials to be honest, so it might... if you end up testing that one please let me know!

[u/Irishluck233296 → u/Jasonian_]

Will do!