Crafting step by step

Almost everything players use is player-made. The production chain runs in three broad stages:

1. Harvest raw materials (ore, timber, fibre, food) at structures in ports that have the matching natural resource.
2. Refine them into intermediate goods (ingots, planks, canvas, rope) at workshops such as the Furnace, Saw Mill or Rope Walk.
3. Assemble ships, outfitting, cannons, ammunition and consumables at a Shipyard, Outfitter, Munitions Shop or Provisioner.

Structures

A structure is a building you own in a port. You buy the deed, deliver the construction materials, and pay an upkeep every couple of weeks. Most structures need a Warehouse in the same port first, and harvesting structures need the port to have a specific natural resource — a Logging Camp for oak only works in a port with oak forests.

Each structure page lists:

• construction cost and materials,
• upkeep,
• the natural resources it needs and every port that has them,
• every recipe it can run.

Craft time and the queue

Crafting is timed. Every recipe has a craft time per batch. When you start a job the materials and doubloons are taken up front, the structure works through the batches on a real-world clock — whether or not you are online — and you come back to collect the goods.

• You can queue several batches at once, up to about 6 hours of work per structure (48 hours for subscribers). A single batch longer than that, such as a big ship, can always be started on its own.
• Finished batches can be claimed while the rest are still cooking.
• Cancelling keeps whatever is already finished and refunds the materials for batches that have not been made yet.

This replaces the old labor hours system: structures no longer store up labor. Time — not gold — is still the real limit on production, so keep your queues busy.

Recipes

A recipe card reads left to right: Requires (materials and doubloons) → Produces (the output and quantity). The footer names the workshop, the cost, the craft time and — where relevant — the recipe book that teaches it.

Most basic recipes come with the structure. Advanced ones must be learned from a recipe book, which you read once; the recipes it lists are then yours permanently.

Following a chain

Open any output item — say a ship deed — and the How to get it section shows the shipyard recipe. Each ingredient in the recipe’s Materials in detail table links to the recipes that make that ingredient, and so on down to raw materials. In the other direction, an item’s Used for section shows everything that consumes it, which is handy for deciding what to sell.

Ship building

Ships are the top of the tree. A hull recipe at a Shipyard needs a large bill of timber, canvas, iron and provisions and produces a deed. Some hulls come in timber variants (Cedar, Oak, Mahogany, Roble) with different stat trade-offs; each variant has its own recipe and deed, and its ship page links to its siblings.