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Invasion plans
This article is a strategy guide for Player-owned port.
Information on mechanics, setups, and tactics is on this page.

This strategy guide is used for optimal efficiency in obtaining all possible rewards. Adjust it to your specific circumstance and personal goals.

Background concepts[]

In ports, you send out voyages that have a chance (controlled by the success percentage you see when assigning crew for the voyage) of the voyage returning with exotic rewards. Regardless of success, your voyages will increase your total distance travelled. Since distance travelled unlocks new regions and greater resources, it's important to send as many voyages as possible, upgrading your office to allow up to four voyages at a time. Crew, captains, and ship/ports upgrades are then bought to improve the chance of success on these voyages.

Voyage List interface

The different types of voyages you can send, each manned by a captain and up to 5 crew, can be thought of as standard and special voyages.
Standard voyages:

  • Resource voyages (Chimes iconBamboo iconGunpowder iconSlate iconCherrywood iconJade iconStainless steel iconTerracotta iconAzure icon) - give the resources you need to buy and upgrade everything in the port
  • Trade good voyages (Ancient bonesSpicesChiPlateLacquerPearlsKoi Scales) - let you craft items to sell or use

Special voyages, requiring adventurers to appear and be sent from your port:

  • Trade good voyages (Ancient bonesSpicesChiPlateLacquerPearlsKoi Scales) - let you craft items to sell or use
  • Scroll voyages (Scrimshaw scroll piece 4) - learn how to create tradeable and usable items
  • Story voyages (Story progress) - progress through ports lore with a trade good final reward
  • Clue voyages (Clue reward icon) - progress through a puzzle with the final voyage being repeatable for rewards
  • Experience voyages (Experience reward icon) - reward experience books
Region Distance requirement Distance to next unlock Standard distance per voyage[1] Avg # voyages to unlock next region Voyage speed and time[2][3]
Min speed Time at min speed Max speed Time at max speed
The Arc - 5,000 250 20 300 33 min (00:33) 500 20 min (00:20)
The Skull 5,000 35,000 600 59 600 80 min (01:20) 1,000 48 min (00:48)
The Hook 40,000 100,000 1,200 84 900 160 min (02:40) 1,500 96 min (01:36)
The Scythe 140,000 310,000 2,400 130 1,200 320 min (05:20) 2,000 192 min (03:12)
The Bowl 450,000 750,000 4,800 157 1,500 640 min (10:40) 2,500 384 min (06:24)
The Pincers 1,200,000 1,100,000 6,000 184 1,875 800 min (13:20) 3,125 480 min (08:00)
The Loop 2,300,000 1,800,000 6,800 265 2,325 906 min (15:06) 3,875 544 min (09:04)
The Shield[4] 4,100,000 1,900,000[5] 8,000 238 2,625 1,066 min (17:46) 4,375 640 min (10:40)
  1. ^ Story missions give 0 distance.
  2. ^ For voyages with speed below the Min speed, the voyage time at min speed is used. For speed above the max speed, the voyage time at max speed is used. For speeds in between, the time varies smoothly; e.g. if the speed is half-way between the min and max speeds, the time will be roughly halfway between the time at min speed and the time at max speed. Scroll, trade goods, and unlock item missions take 50% more time and the min and max speed limits are 25% higher.
  3. ^ These are base times only (the predicted times shown while planning the mission). Actual times may vary (by ± 7 minutes in The Arc, to ± 12 minutes in The Pincers).
  4. ^ The A Place for Everything voyage (awards a worldbearer ring) has a speed range of 4,750 to 6,250.
  5. ^ Reaching 6,000,000 total is required for some additional voyages.

Upgrading captains and crew[]

Crew Roster interface

Although the first few regions are fairly forgiving, there is a sharp increase in the stats needed to succeed going from the Scythe to the Bowl. Plan accordingly. Ending regions with captains and crew with levels of at least 7 will make the transition dramatically easier.

Because captains and crew have stats that increase with experience gained by completing voyages, the earlier you buy them, the more beneficial they are. Buying crew first when you enter a new area means that you will have the highest possible stat total when making the transition out of that area. Upgrading captains and crew should be your first priority when entering a new area.

Crew members available for hire are kept through reset. Whenever you are hiring crew members, you should use your crew rerolls to find the crew you wish to hire whether you currently have the resources to buy them or not.

For ideal crewmen on a voyage, it's healthy to have an even spread of available Morale, Combat, and Seafaring crew. Each voyage should contain the captain, a merchant, and four crewmen to increase chance of success up to 100%. For voyages with multiple requirements, you'll want to use a crewman with the Solidarity trait, like the First Mate, Bureaucrat, Judge of Dice, or Kharidian Exile. On story, crew unlock, scroll piece, and clue voyages, there's no resource reward so those do not benefit from a merchant.

Levelling up crewmen and captains[]

The current experience of each crew member can be seen in the Crew Roster interface. All captains and crew members begin levelling quickly and then slow quite a bit. When choosing crew for a voyage, use the lowest-levelled crew member that does not adversely affect your chances of successfully completing the voyage, because they will be the most likely to level up and increase your stat total.

Captains level more slowly than crew members. There is no great remedy for this except to do more voyages. Captains can unlock the trait Fast Learner in the Scythe, and you need a lot of cherrywood for upgrades, so you will be doing a lot of voyages there. It may be a good idea to leave one trait slot open so you can take advantage of this to help offset the captain's greater experience requirements.

Experience gained by captains and crew is proportional to distance. Although exact numbers are unavailable, a level 0 crew member will gain 3 levels on one trip to the Bowl (base distance 4,800) or on two trips to the Scythe (base distance 2,400 each). However, if you are in the Bowl, the two trips to the Scythe will generate only half the distance toward unlocking the next area. This can increase your level gain before entering the next level and give you more chances to complete special voyages.

Captains[]

Like crew, captains should be upgraded as soon as they become available.

You may very rarely be able to skip the 2,500-chime captains completely. You advance fairly quickly through the Skull, where they are the best available captain upgrade. Oftentimes, due to the rarity of 10,000-chime captains even in the Bowl Region, you will need to purchase a 2,500-chime captain or be stuck with the 100-chime captains. Considering you likely have a surplus of chimes by the time you hit regions after the Bowl such as the Pincers where 10,000-chime captains become more popular, the 2,500-chime captains are well worth it. You will very rarely be lucky enough to get a 10,000 captain before the Bowl region.

Do not buy speed-based captains. One exception is if you are waiting for a better captain and you have extra chimes; a 2,500-chime speed-based captain will beat out a 100-chime captain in all stats.

35,000-chime captains become available in Shield region. 10,000-chime captains progressively get more common as you progress through the regions, being most common in Shield region.

You should save your captain rerolls until 10,000-chime captains are available in the Hook region; however, they are very rare and newer regions have higher chance. Even with captain rerolls available, it may be a long wait between good captains. It is probably better to take the first captains you see until all of your ships have 10,000-chime captains and then look for captains with the specialty you want later rather than passing up the opportunity to upgrade a captain while you wait for the perfect match.

Captains only have 4 slots available for traits, and once a slot has been filled with a trait, it can only be removed with difficulty. Voyages to add captain stats become available beginning in the Skull. The voyages offering the best traits only become available as you progress deeper into the Wushanko Isles. You should not add low-value traits to captains that you intend to keep for a long time. Traits unlocked in the Scythe can improve a captain's experience gain or odds of surviving a failed voyage. In Pincers, Loop, and Shield regions, players can find the +1% traits (Leader, Seafriend, Tactician), the best traits in the entire game. Make sure to synchronize the traits for the type of captain; for example a captain with predominantly seafaring stats should be sent on missions to guide it towards having 4 Seafriend traits.

Crew[]

To achieve the highest possible chance of success for a single-stat voyage, you will need 5 of the crew with that stat from the current region. Your core crewmen, therefore, will consist of 5 each of the Morale, Combat, and Seafaring crew members.

You should plan on upgrading this core group first each time you enter a new level. This may take 15 to 25 voyages at the lowest resource payout, depending on the region you are in. You may be able to reduce this number by completing more difficult voyages or by purchasing goods from the Black Marketeer. Although the crew you carry forward from the previous area may have higher stats than those you can purchase in the new region, they will have passed their peak growth and the new region's crew will surpass them after gaining a few levels.

At every area, your Seafaring total lags behind Morale and Combat. If you have a choice between upgrading a Seafaring crew member or one of the other types, you should probably upgrade Seafaring first.

Running four ships will require more core crew members unless one ship is only used to run voyages to areas that can be completed by your support crew. Adding more core crew will also give additional flexibility to complete multiple missions to your most difficult region.

Good crewmen
Type Why? Should you bring more
than one on a voyage?
Core crew
Travelling DrunkStowawaySmuggler (Player-owned port)
Highest stats in a single skill
Can be upgraded the cheapest
Yes check
Two-stat crew
Cyclops (Player-owned port)Siren WhaleriderWisp (Player-owned port)
Total stats often higher than that of core crew Yes check
Merchant
Ardougne ShopkeeperTraderTerracotta Merchant
Increases the number of resources rewarded[1] X mark
Solidarity
First MateEastern OverseerKharidian Exile
Increases all stats for the number of unique crew and captains on voyage X mark
Rallying cry
Cyclops (Player-owned port)Siren WhaleriderFeral Chimera
Improves leveling speed X mark
Bad crewmen
Type Why?
Good fortune
PalmistSoothsayer
Increases chance of a random event, but also reduces chance of success
Golem
Bamboo GolemExploding Golem
Suicidal, they destroy themselves on voyage failures
Lifeboat from random events far more useful
Speed-only
Dwarven Engineer (Player-owned port)Reef Rider
Can reach near the speed cap without the crew, making them a waste
Resurrect
Sea WitchDrowned ghost
Ghost crew is bugged, won't level up, don't have trait benefits
  1. ^ Rounds down, though there is at least one bonus. Doesn't work on clue/xp/story voyages.

To make back the chimes and resources spent on the unit, they will have to successfully complete voyages worth an amount equal to their cost divided by the bonus (or to put it another way, the inverse of the bonus times the cost: a 1/10 bonus would require voyages worth 10 times the cost to pay for itself). The break-even amounts are shown in the table below along with the minimum rewards for voyages in their home area and the number of those minimum-reward voyages it would take to pay off the unit. Using them on voyages with greater rewards will pay them off faster. Of course, they may also be used in later stages and trading resources from an old area for resources from the new area is a great deal.

Cost Break-even point Minimum per voyage Minimum # of voyages to pay off
Name Chimes Resource Bonus Chimes Resource Chimes Resource Chimes Resource
Ardougne Shopkeeper 60 30 Bamboo 10% 600 300 Bamboo 40 40 Bamboo 15 8 Bamboo
Trader 400 160 Slate icon 20% 2000 800 Slate icon 250 80 Slate icon 8 10 Slate icon
Merchant 500 220 Cherrywood icon 25% 2000 880 Cherrywood icon 200 125 Cherrywood icon 10 7 Cherrywood icon
Jade Merchant 1200 450 Jade 30% 4000 1500 Jade 300 120 Jade 14 13 Jade
Terracotta Merchant 5550 1250 Terracotta 33% 16818 3788 Terracotta 440 50 Terracotta 39 76 Terracotta

Traits[]

Avoid units that hinder the ship's capabilities. Sometimes, players may receive units that have problems. For example, it is possible for a Crow's Nest Sniper (Scythe) to have the Cowardly trait. This prevents it from levelling up stats and has a decreased combat rating, which is not helpful to you. Units with good traits should be kept until you reach the next region. For example, a Multi-Talented unit helps the ship in all of the ship's stats.

Traits to look for in units are:

  • Leader, Tactician, Seafriend, Multi-Talented, Workhorse

Traits to avoid for in units are (think about dismissal if you can afford it):

  • Gluttony, Cursed, and negative traits that give -1%

Upgrading ships[]

Your Seafaring total can only be significantly boosted by upgrades to your hull and deck hotspots. Because your Morale and Combat can also be boosted by upgrades to the Ram/Figurehead spot which provides an insignificant boost, your Seafaring total will always be the lowest total of the three. The Deck upgrades give you the largest bonus per resource spent of any of the hotspots, and the most flexibility in how to apply the upgrades. Although your needs may depend on which voyages you receive, your Morale and Combat totals will generally be higher than your Seafaring, so that will usually be the first deck upgrade you should upgrade.

Unless you badly need the bonus provided by the Ram/Figurehead spot to complete a mission, Hull upgrades should be your next upgrades purchased. They give a better bonus per resource spent than rams or figureheads. There is an exception to this general rule in the Bowl. Purchasing the Hull of Glory is a better Morale investment than Eastern Treasures, although this does depend on your problems. Two Eastern Treasures is equal to 2,400 Morale; however, there is no Morale based hull other than the Golden Hull.

Because they directly affect your ability to successfully bring back resources, all ship upgrades should be purchased before moving on to port upgrades, apart from upgrades to the Office, which unlock additional ships and allow you to complete more voyages per day.

Upgrading buildings[]

By the time you reach the Scythe, you will not be able to complete all of the voyages available each day using only 2 ships. Office upgrades let you increase the number of voyages that you can complete in a day, increasing the resources you bring in and the number of captains and crew members who can gain experience, boosting your stat totals. Upgrading the office should be a very high priority.

The Shipwright is the only port upgrade that directly affects the success or failure of your voyages. The effect is small at first, but will amount to hundreds of points by the time you reach the Scythe and beyond. You should purchase all upgrades up to and including the Nautical Shipwright. However, your Seafaring stat will always have the lowest maximum bonus of the three that determine success. The Pincer-level upgrades do not improve the overall bonus, and shift the extra 2% off the stat that needs it most.

If you are swapping out crew at the start of each new level, the Lodgings upgrades are an investment in the quality of crew you purchase in the next area. You should be sure to purchase each lodging update up to Daredevil Lodgings before you begin purchasing crew in the next area.

Bar upgrades give you better captains, but if you play your cards right, you won't be buying very many captains. The bigger benefit is to increase the port's attractiveness to adventurers. Attracting more adventurers means that you will have more days with two adventurers, giving you more options for special voyages. Upgrading the bar should be your next priority after upgrading lodgings.

The Workshop upgrades are really only useful after you have collected a complete scroll and the trade goods to build the reward. Until then, don't upgrade the workshop if you need the resources for anything else. A bank deposit chest is nice, but Edgeville bank is only a home teleport away.

The Warehouse upgrades do not pay for themselves within a useful time frame. The break-even point for a 5% bonus to resource rewards is 20 times the resource investment. In every area after the Arc, 20 times the resource cost for the warehouse upgrade is more than the combined cost of all ship and port upgrades using that resource. With a 5% return, you will only recoup the cost of the upgrade after there is nothing left to spend it on. After entering the next area, upgrading the warehouse again will halve the remaining resources needed to reach the break-even point for the previous region's resource, but it does so at the cost of delaying more useful purchases in the current area. The break even point for a 1% net increase in chime reward is 100 times the chime cost of the upgrade. If you choose to upgrade the warehouse, you should upgrade it last. Only the Refitted Warehouse actually pays for itself when you still need the resource you have spent.

Three most useful totems, in likely order of use
Map table Pandora's box Jade statue
Map table
(Clue voyages)
Pandora's box
(Random events)
Jade statue
(Trade goods)

The progression from Arc to Shield[]

Arc[]

Collect all the free crew you can, slowly driving your crew towards the model for ideal crew setup discussed above.

Recommended buying priority is Sturdy Rudder > Refitted Office > Small Crate of Food > Single Cannon > Sturdy Rigging > Reinforced Hull > Polished Figurehead > Sturdy Ram > Large Crate of Food > Sleek Hull > Refitted Warehouse > Refitted Shipwright > Refitted Bar.

Skull[]

Make sure to complete scroll voyages as early as possible. Remember to set your scroll destination in the Ports interface so the voyage is not wasted.

Recommended buying priority is Polished Rudder > Entwined Rigging > Small Crate of Riches > Cannon x2 > Golden Hull > Enchanted Figurehead > Reinforced Ram > Battle Hull > Renovated Shipwright > Refitted Lodgings > Renovated Warehouse.

Hook[]

With the new office, you can expand your crew setup from two merchants to three, and ensure to bring a merchant on every applicable mission.

Recommended buying priority is Gilded Rudder > Heavy Cannon x2 > Oxskin Rigging > Large Crate of Riches > Hull of Tides > Armoured Hull > Renovated Office > Skeletal Figurehead > Armoured Ram > Renovated Bar > Renovated Lodgings > Refurbished Warehouse > Refitted Workshop.

Scythe[]

Once you reach the Scythe, you will find that you can no longer put new crew members directly into mainline service without taking a hit to your chances of success. Fortunately, you should have upgraded to three ships while you were in the Hook. By using your port focus settings (Found under Port Management at the top of the screen, the click an arrow to move to the Region Focus option), you can use two ships to gather resources to hire new crew, while the third ship trains the new crew that you've hired on a safer, less difficult voyage. Once all new crew have caught up, you can stop making "milk runs" until the next area is unlocked.

Recommended buying priority is Enchanted Rudder > Eastern Artefacts > Cannon x3 > Ornate Rigging > War Hull > Hull of Storms > Ghostly Figurehead > Battle Ram > Nautical Shipwright > Refurbished Bar > Daredevil Lodgings > Spacious Warehouse.

After finishing priority upgrades, you need to save up as much cherrywood as possible, to be used along with jade once you reach Bowl region, for very important upgrades including the Refurbished office and totem hotspot upgrades which will all be used through endgame.

Bowl[]

Once you are in the Bowl, if you have been following this guide, you will probably need to gain about 3 levels to catch a new unit up the crew you carried over from the Scythe. One voyage to the Scythe with an experience-boosting unit aboard will generally raise a level 0 unit directly to level 2. A second voyage to the Scythe will usually get them up to level 3. When they get back from that mission, your ships should be roughly in sync again and your new units should be ready to transfer into mainline service. The experience gain will not be as great when doing this in the Hook/Scythe, but you also won't need to gain as many levels for them to catch up.

With the new office, you can expand your crew setup from three merchants to four, and ensure to bring a merchant on every applicable mission.

Obtain three to four Judges of Dice, as these will be used until the final (Shield) region.

Recommended buying priority is Skeletal Rudder > Hull of Glory > Eastern Treasures > Cannon x4 > Whaleskin Rigging > Refurbished Office > Storm Rider Hull > War Ram > Intrepid Figurehead > Luxurious Bar > Pristine Warehouse > Renovated Workshop

Pincers[]

Recommended buying priority is Rudder That Parts the Seas > Heavy Cannon x4 > Dragonskin Rigging > Eastern Relics > Golden Katana Hull > Blazing Lantern Hull > Spitfire Cannon > Inspiring Figurehead > Luxurious Shipwright > Luxurious Lodgings > Imperial Warehouse > Refurbished Workshop.

Loop[]

The Loop is the longest region to unlock the next upgrade, and has low resource rewards per mission. You'll want to do all you can to rush distance through this region, while protecting your crew with Lifeboats from random events.

Due to the small improvement from terracotta merchants, they are a low priority to buy and should be upgrades near the end of the region to allow them to level up somewhat going into the Shield.

Recommended buying priority is Mist-Dancing Rudder > MCS > Wisp > 2 MCS > Overwhelmingly Large Cannon x4 > Terracotta Merchant > MCS > Terracotta Merchant > Blackwater Hull > Figurehead of the Spires > 2 MCS > Opulent Bar > Dynastic Warehouse > 2 Terracotta Merchants.

Final ideal Loop Crew is 6 Morale/Combat, 5 Seafaring, 4 TCM, 3 JOD, 1 Wisp.

Shield[]

Shield is the final region in ports. Although there is no other region to unlock, multiple unlocks require the maximum distance of 6,000,000 to be reached. After all Shield buyables are obtained, it's recommended to temporarily return to the Scythe and Bowl for resources to manipulate rewards with totem changes.

Recommended buying priority is Tengu Rudder > MCS > Exile > MCS > Exile > Bladewing Rigging > Fineglow Lanterns > MCS > Exile > Shimmering Azure Hull > Ram of the Bladewing > 3 MCS > Ostentatious Shipwright > Ostentatious Bar > Fearless Lodgings > Sovereign Warehouse > Refurbished Workshop > Totems as needed > Legendary Portal.

The ideal endgame captains are 2 Morale, 1 Combat, and 2 Seafaring captains (each with 4 appropriate +1% traits).

If your goal is all voyages for maximum resources and trade goods (doing every voyage much as possible):
You should have 6 MCS, 4 TCM, and 3 Exiles.

If your goal is just scroll voyages, Completionist Cape, and maxing out crew/captains to level 10 with no care for trade goods:
You should have 7 MCS and 4 Exiles.

Other details[]

Leveling priorities[]

Voyages to your current region will earn approximately the same amount of experience as two voyages to the previous region, but will generate twice as much distance toward unlocking the next area. Unless you need resources for an Office or Totem upgrade, you should always send voyages to the current region.

Choosing special voyages[]

Scroll hunting[]

Port management scrolls

Setting target scroll

Although the return from trade good voyages is better the farther you progress, the reward for a Forgotten Scroll voyage later on is exactly the same, but with higher requirements and more time required. You can maximise your return on voyages by earning scroll fragments as early as possible, then focusing on trade good voyages at the end when they provide more trade goods.

One can gain scrolls starting at the Skull Region. Scroll requirements vary for your adventurer. It is impossible to get high success rates for scroll voyages when you have just unlocked a new region. For example, you are unlikely to complete a scroll voyage offered by the Assassin in the Scythe region with units from the Hook due to their combat levels and ship upgrades. With a decent Speed rating, one can bring down the time needed to obtain the scroll. Decent speed in the Scythe region, by having units with decent speed, hull and rudder can bring down the timer on a Scythe scroll by 1 hour.

Trade goods[]

Trade goods are gained in the Hook region. Their requirements are hard for your current region. Trade good voyages take just as long as the Scroll/Trade good voyages offered by an adventurer. Here are the goods and their descriptions:

  • Plate: Plate Used for making tetsu armour and the superior version. Plate can be gained from The Whaler and The Memory's voyages, and a reward from the final storyline (individually) of The Missionary and The Convict. It can also be offered in the Hook, Scythe, Bowl, Pincers, Loop, and Shield regions, each giving 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 plate respectively.
  • Lacquer: Lacquer Used for making Death Lotus armour and the superior version. Lacquer can be gained as a reward from the final storyline of The Assassin, and from The Convict and The Exile's special voyages. It can also be offered in the Hook, Scythe, Bowl, Pincers, Loop, and Shield regions, each giving 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 lacquer respectively.
  • Chi: Chi Used for making sea singer robes and the superior version. Chi can be gained from The Occultist and The Tengu's special voyages, as well as from completing the Memory's storyline. It can also be offered in the Hook, Scythe, Bowl, Pincers, Loop, and Shield regions, each giving 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 chi respectively.
  • Spices: Spices Used for making rocktail soup. One can gain it from The Assassin's voyages, and from the final storyline of The Whaler. It can also be offered in the Hook, Scythe, Bowl, Pincer, Loop, and Shield regions, each awarding 10, 15, 20, 30, 35, and 40 spices respectively. Spices are gained in greater numbers than other trade goods.
  • Ancient bones: Ancient bones Used for making scrimshaws and Death Lotus darts. One can gain it from The Biologist and The Missionary's voyages. It can also be gained from the final storyline of The Biologist. It can also be offered in the Hook, Scythe, Bowl, Pincers, Loop, and Shield regions, each giving 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 ancient bones respectively.
  • Koi Scale: Koi Scales Used for making reefwalker's Cape/superior reefwalker's cape. Requires 80/100 respectively, and 90 Crafting.
  • Pearls: Pearls Used for making leviathan ring/superior leviathan ring. Requires 80/100 Respectively, and 90 Crafting.

Story Missions[]

Voyage Storylines
Quin Hyu-Ji Eastern Curiosities Guardians of the World
The Assassin icon The Occultist icon The Whaler icon The Biologist icon The Convict icon The Missionary icon The Chef icon The Trapper icon The Architect icon The Tengu icon The Memory icon The Exile icon
Requirements
  • 90 Slayer
  • 90 Runecrafting
  • 90 Fishing
  • 90 Herblore
  • 90 Thieving
  • 90 Prayer
  • 90 Cooking
  • 90 Hunter
  • 90 Construction
  • 90 Agility
  • 90 Divination
  • 90 Dungeoneering
  • 6,000,000 distance travelled
  • Unlocked the island Exile's Point
Rewards 25Lacquer 25Chi 100Spices 25Ancient bones 25Plate 25Plate 18Pearls
28Spices
18Pearls
7Koi Scales
12Pearls
12Koi Scales
20Plate
10Pearls
20Chi
10Koi Scales
15Lacquer
10Ancient bones
50Chi 50Ancient bones 50Plate 50Lacquer 50Koi Scales 50Pearls 1Gemstone kaseki 1Tengu tsuba 50Plate 50Chi

Story voyages can be attempted several times until successful, and only one high-level voyage attempted at any one time using the highest crew. However, once this is done, the trade goods are very valuable and are worth "farming" as a regular exercise.

Story missions focus on a single then trio of adventurers, and they need to be:

  • Not currently on or returned from a mission when you login after reset
  • All attending in the port (for trio missions, any two of the three need to be in the port)

for the next story voyage to be available.

For that reason, there are multiple things you can do to increase the chance of the story voyage you desire:

  • Do not have your target adventurers out on any voyages by reset
  • Send other adventurers out on voyages and leave them out, to decrease the possible number of adventurers for the day often from 12 to 8-10
  • Build an icon of each of the story adventurers you need
  • Build Ostentatious bar in the Shield region (or luxurious bar in the Pincers region)
  • Use the Motherlode Maw everyday for chance at Player-owned ports enhancers
  • Exchange 10 crystal motherlode shards everyday for chance at port enhancers
  • Exchange unfocused reward enhancers for port enhancers

The highest possible chance of getting trio voyage at reset/adventurer reroll can be achieved with 7 adventurers stuck on ships (3 duo voyages and 1 single voyage). This works out to a chance of trio at (6/8)*(4/6) = 24/48 = 1/2 (50% chance of trio voyage at reset).

Clue Voyages[]

Adventurer Regions 4th Voyage Reward
First clue Second clue Third clue
The Whaler The Arc The Skull The Hook Seasinger's Bottled Cry Seasinger's Bottled Cry
The Trapper The Skull The Skull The Hook Powder Keg Powder Keg
The Chef The Arc The Skull The Hook Ration Pack Ration Pack
The Exile The Loop The Pincers The Shield Worldbearer ring Worldbearer ring
The Tengu The Loop The Loop The Loop Gift of Gu Gift of Gu
The Memory The Arc The Hook The Bowl Captain trait removal[1]
  1. ^ Removes the first slot containing a trait, but does not move the other traits forwards. If you promptly send the captain on a trait voyage before removing all bad traits, the new traits will appear before the old traits.

These missions advance an adventurer's progress towards finding a unique reward. Adventurers must be sent to the correct island and the voyage must return successfully to make progress on the clue. When spoken to in Surula's bar, adventurers can be directed to different islands. If not directed before the voyage is sent, adventurers will go to a random island.

Map tables are essential as they provide the appropriate island destination (which varies from player to player) at regular intervals when clicked on, regardless of if the the clue voyage is ready to be sent. For example, if The Tengu is in your port when the map table announces the destination, you can direct him to the proper destination, to be saved for when the voyage itself is finally available. Having more map tables increases regularity of announcements from once per four days to every day, and buying a map table resets the cooldown to instantly provide the target destination.

Once an adventurer has located their island, they gain access to a new special voyage with unique rewards (such as Powder Kegs, Gift of Gu, etc.). These hidden missions require region focus to be at or beyond the region that they are set in.

Farming trade goods[]

"Completing" a player-owned port (max port score: 4664) takes enormous effort and dedication - at least 6 months of daily effort to get the all level 10 crew/captains, with the captains all being tier 35,000 chimes (Shield region tier).  However, once completed and with an optimized crew, it can be seen as a very high-level Throne of Miscellania minigame, generating millions of coins per week for 5 minutes of gameplay per day.

Although trade goods can not be sold directly, crafting ancient bones into tradeable scrimshaws values, with each ancient bone valued at 270,000-300,000 gold each (when crafting scrimshaw of vampyrism/cruelty/elements), and it is quite possible to gather 30-40 ancient bones per week (plus similar amounts of the other valuable trade goods), for very little effort per day. In order to do this efficiently, the Crew Roster needs to be optimized to undertake several trade good voyages (and scroll piece voyages) simultaneously, all with a high probability of success.

All merchants (from Trader to Terracotta Merchant) increase resources and trade good yields if the voyage is successful. After multiplying (up to 1.33x with Terracotta Merchant), it rounds down, but you are ensured at least 1 bonus trade good.

Maximum ship upgrades[]

The following table contains an overview of the maximum contribution of the best ship upgrades to the success rate of a voyage.

Figurehead Hull Deck Item 1  Deck Item 2 Total
Morale 950 1400 2000 2000 6350
Combat 1100 1400 1750 1750 6000
Seafaring 100 1700 2000 2000 5800
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