Capturing ships

Sinking an enemy is only one way to end a fight. If you play your cards right, the beaten ship is left floating and empty, and you can loot it or even sail it home. This guide explains how that works.

Four ways a fight can end

You sink it. The hull goes under and takes part of its cargo and its fitted outfitting with it, so your loot is reduced.
It surrenders. The losing captain hands over a share of cargo and sails away. You get goods, not the ship.
You capture it. The ship is abandoned as a floating wreck called a derelict, and you take it.
You leave it. An ignored derelict rots and disappears on its own.

The key rule: you can only capture a derelict. A ship you blow apart is gone.

How a ship becomes a derelict

You capture ships that give up, not ships that sink.

Computer-controlled ships will strike their colors (surrender and abandon ship) when they are badly damaged, clearly losing, and about to go down. The empty hull is left behind for you.
Boarding is the other common route. Grapple the enemy, win the fight on deck, and the hull is left as a derelict. If the ship sinks during the brawl, there is nothing left to take.

Where you can capture

Capturing is an open sea activity, mostly against computer-controlled ships.

On the open sea, any enemy that strikes its colors can leave a prize.
A defeated player can leave a derelict too, but never one you can take from your own side, and only if that player actually lost a point of durability (the number of times a ship can be sunk before it is lost for good).
Ordinary missions, skirmishes and port battles do not allow capture. A few missions built to teach capturing are the exception.
Forts can never be captured.
Not every ship type can be taken. Only ships that have a Captured deed listed on their ship page are capturable.

What you can do with a derelict

Sail up to the derelict, slow almost to a stop, and get within about 100 metres. Depending on your skills you then have up to three choices:

Scavenge / Claim Prize — strip the wreck for loot. You get cargo, not the ship. Buccaneers, Cutthroats and Privateers have a skill of this kind.
Seize Ship as Deed — pack the whole ship up as a deed (the inventory item that becomes a ship) and carry on sailing your current ship. Any Pirate can buy this skill.
Take Command of Ship — a Cutthroat career skill. You climb aboard and sail the prize away on the spot. Your crew and secured items come with you, and your old ship is sent to your nearest friendly port.

All three share a 2-hour cooldown, so you cannot chain captures. Pick your prize carefully.

Take Command has two extra conditions:

your level must be at least the level of the ship you are taking, and
you need a free dock slot for your old ship. If your docks are full, you cannot take command.

What a captured ship is like

A captured ship is a beater, not a showroom model. Compared with one built in a shipyard, a captured ship:

can only be sailed by Pirates,
pays out no insurance if you lose it,
has slower crew recovery, and
usually has fewer durability points.

See Understanding ships for how the different deed types compare.

Surrender is not capture

A losing player can offer you 25%, 50% or all of their cargo to be left alone. If you accept, they sail away intact and you do not get the ship.

Quick tips

Want the ship? Wear it down and let it strike, or board it. Do not sink it.
Cutthroats: keep a dock slot free before you go prize hunting.
Check the ship page first to see whether the hull has a Captured deed at all.
With a 2-hour cooldown, save your capture for a ship you really want.