Welcome to Fantasy One Piece! Since the game itself actually doesn’t really have a tutorial for this, I’ve chosen to make one, given that it took me a solid few minutes to figure out how to fire a cannon.
The first step to naval warfare is getting a better boat. The Rowboat you start with is tragically weak, incapable of damage. You’ll need a sailboat at least to start equipping cannons to do some real damage.
Once you’ve got that sailboat, buy a basic cannon from a Shipwright, as there’s no other way to get one initially. Go to the Shipyard button at the bottom of your screen. The Sailboat should already be the main ship, although you can switch to a Rowboat at any time with the “CHANGE SHIP” option (why you would want to is beyond me)
This is the largest currently available ship, the Ketch, though the base attributes are very similar. You won’t be able to fill most of these slots for a while. This is not optimized at all, don’t take this as an end goal!
Equip your cannon and any cool sails you might’ve gotten from Sailor’s Chests. Aesthetics are important. You can name your ship with a Ship Name Plaque as well. If your ship is already spawned, go to a Shipwright, enter the Ships tab, and hit “RE-DOCK”, which refreshes the ship to include your new shiny stuff.
Sailing starts by pressing R while at the helm of a ship. This game has wind direction, and you can look around your ship to see which direction that is. Going in the same direction gives you a speed boost; going against it reduces your speed.
Go to Redwake, and on the southern side of the island there’ll be a man with an icon of a group of people over his head. This guy is actually a whole crew of people! Pay him, and he’ll become a Crew item. Equip them as well. There are others like this on Sailor’s Lodge and Ravenna, with different statistics.
Also, go to Elm Island. A man named Edward Kenton will tell you a tale about being a former Grand Navy member, and send you on a short quest. Complete it, and he’ll become a quartermaster. Equip him for some boosts as well, and make sure to do his later quest (it’s story-dependent, might take a while)
Your Sailboat has one set of cannons, which is something at least. You’re now able to sink ships.
When you want to fire, click “ARM CANNONS” in the middle of the screen. Hover your mouse over the sides of the ship (I find this to be a bit finicky myself) to see a white firing line. Move the mouse up to fire higher and thus aim for targets further away. After firing, the line will turn black for several seconds (based on your Cannon’s Reload Time). It will turn white again when you can fire.
(Crude red lines generally depict your possible angles, although I’ve had trouble with this before.)
Different types of ammo do different things. A Heavy Cannonball doesn’t travel as far as a normal one, but does far more damage, for instance. You can check the stats and effects of ammo by looking at it in your Shipyard, or hovering over it on the ammo window.
The real gameplay comes down to actually sinking an enemy. Generally, don’t try to sink larger ships than yourself. “Reinforced” and “Fortified” ships have more health, but offer more loot.
Your Quartermaster will inform you in chat if an enemy ship is attacking you. You’ll probably have to fight back unless you’re close enough to an island.
Tips for sinking a ship:
- Your cannons have a load time (“fuse length”), which is a delay between when you order to fire and when they fire. In addition, cannonballs have a travel time. Keep these in mind when firing.
- Try to be ahead of your target, when parallel to them. Your target’s cannonballs are more likely to miss, and yours more likely to hit.
- Pay attention if the Quartermaster informs you that the other ship is preparing to ram. With AI ships, you can usually avoid this (if you have enough speed and turn rate and you’re paying attention)
- Heavy cannonballs aren’t usually that much worse for the extra damage.
- Firing cannons takes as much ammo as cannons on that side. Still, feel free to use better ammo if it helps you farm enemy ships faster.
If you have a Caravel, and a Ram on the front of your ship, you can ram into an enemy. Just drive straight into them! You’ll take some damage from this (reduced by Ram Durability), but they’ll take even more.
Damaging a ship to 0 health is sinking it, but if you want the loot, you’ll have to also kill their crew. If you kill the crew first, you don’t get as much loot. The game warns you about this when you do it.
Every enemy ship has a captain, a quartermaster, and a bunch of weak crewmates. Their levels are dependent on the strength of the ship. The captain and quartermaster both know magic/weapon techniques, and the captain is pretty tough.
If you have a Caravel or Ketch, and stand at the back of the ship, the captain sometimes gets stuck in the water beneath the ledge. On a Sailboat, you’ll have to fight fair.
Once all the crew members are dead, a bunch of chests will appear on the enemy ship! Loot everything you can, and turn your attention to the Sealed Bronze Chests. You need to take these to a Shipwright. Pick them up with Q, then climb back onto your ship and set them down with R.
(Tip the game didn’t bother to tell me or you: You can swim faster by pressing CTRL. It’s a toggle. It’s also for running on land. I don’t know why this is obscure information.)
Sail to civilization, and pick up the chest again. Hold Q near a shipwright when the prompt appears to get loot, which is mostly ship equipment and money. You sink boats to get equipment so you can sink bigger boats so you can get more equipment.
You’ll also get Blueprints for equipment, which can be taken to a builder. Pay them to turn the blueprint into a real item. Equip more stuff.
…If you still have trouble getting boats down, there’s another way to get Sealed Chests: Get some Treasure Charts. Starting at level 40, you can dig up treasure to get these Chests without fighting (mostly).
This isn’t that guide, though, instead use this very helpful one:
Treasure Charting Guide & Help [V1.11.9]
Guide to equipment, from top of the Shipyard menu down:
Ship Equipment
Hull Armor: Adds extra HP and Stability to the ship. Different varieties exist that increase other stats as well. Can be enchanted. If you equip a level 90 or higher set, your ship will gain a “Reinforced” title, like image 1.
Ram: Currently only equipable to the Caravel. When equipped, if your ship is going fast enough, you’ll get a “Ramming Speed” hotkey (F). Your ship has the ability to run straight into another ship, dealing massive damage, though your ship will be damaged as well. All Rams give HP and Ram Strength. Ram Defense will reduce the damage you take doing this, although it doesn’t protect you from enemy rams. Can be enchanted.
Quartermasters: Give a variety of stats. During the story, you’ll get two: Edward Kenton and Enizor. Edward initially gives HP (and later gets an upgrade for HP, Stability, and Resilience), Enizor gives nothing but acts as a portable Alchemist.
Light: It’s a light. Spawns light sources on your ship. You can approach them and turn them off with the E key.
Cannons: The bread and butter of any naval battle. Your cannons have a damage multiplier, a range, and fusing/reloading times. These are different depending on the exact cannon type. Equipping cannons reduces your ship’s speed slightly. Can be enchanted.
Add-ons: ???
Sail Material: Generally, sail materials offer your ship Resilience or Speed. They vary based on the exact type. Can be enchanted.
Sail: Entirely cosmetic. Make your ship pretty! Make it ugly! Who cares? It’s yours.
Crew: There are currently 3 types of crew, in Redwake, Sailor’s Lodge, and a small island off Ravenna. They have different statistics. Choose whichever fits your playstyle.
Figurehead: Entirely cosmetic. I recommend the anglerfish.
Deckhands: You’re probably not going to touch this system unless you’re Evil. The requirements for actually hiring and upgrading these is far too steep to make them usable at this current stage of the game.
Ship Stat Overview
- Durability: Directly added to ship HP.
- Turning: Improves ship turn rate.
- Stability: Improves ship survivability in heavy weather, such as rough seas.
- Speed: How much zoom do you have?
- Resilience: Resistance to going against the wind.
- Ram Strength: Damage you do when ramming.
- Ram Durability: Resistance to damage you take from ramming other ships.
Cannonball Overview
Normal Cannonball: Basic. Is a cannonball.
Light Cannonball: Travels further, less damage
Heavy Cannonball: Shorter range, more damage
Dense Cannonball: ^^^ but moreso.
Grapeshot: Fires a bunch of small shots, these do more damage to NPCs on the ship to soften them up before you go in.
Heavy Grapeshot: ^^^ but heavy.
Chainshot: Makes the enemy go slower for a short time.
Exploding Shell: Like a normal cannonball, but with an even shorter range. Explodes on contact.
Heavy Exploding Shell: ^^^ but heavy.