Best Ship Upgrades in Windrose

When you think of pirates, the first thing that comes to your mind, other than fierce battles with a cutlass and pistol, is sailing the seven seas. In Windrose, there are plenty of ship battles to be had as you explore the game's many islands.

Of course, with ship battles being so prominent in the game, there are multiple ways to upgrade your vessel. You can unlock additional ships, and you can even enhance your ship with different types of cannons and hulls.

Which of these upgrades is the best, though? What ship upgrades should you focus on buying first in Windrose to help you survive on the high seas? Let's get to it.

How to Get Ship Upgrades

Very early in Windrose, you will get access to a ship. Specifically, you will unlock the Ketch, allowing you to start your journey as a pirate, and take on other ships sailing the seas.

However, you will eventually want to purchase upgrades for your vessel, and this is done via the game's several factions. You will want to progress on the side missions that lead you to meeting the smugglers, buccaneers, and so forth, as this will give you access to Tortuga.

With the factions unlocked, you will be able to start earning a reputation with them, and eventually, purchase items from the provisioners. Each faction specializes in specific ships and upgrades.

• Rogue Buccaneers — Sell plans for different types of cannons.
• Smugglers of Port Royal — Sell naval tactic book upgrades for ship combat, and plans for different hull types.
• Brethren of the Coast — Sell plans for different ship types.

The only faction that you don't want to upgrade for ship upgrades is the People of Tortuga, as they are focused more on merchant upgrades and structural plans.

The upgrades will require you to attain a specific reputation level with each of the factions. You will also need to obtain the necessary amount of silver coins to purchase the plans or upgrades from the faction provisioners.

Best Cannon Type

There are three different cannon weights in Windrose: 12-pounders, 24-pounders, and 36-pounders. The greater the weight, the more damage the cannons will do, but the longer it will take to reload them. For instance, 12-pounders will take around 12 seconds to reload, while 36-pounders will take around 16 seconds to reload.

The reload speed doesn't matter very much during battle, especially since there is only a four-second difference between the weakest and strongest cannon. The main thing you want to focus on is the cannon's ability.

For this, we recommend taking the highest weight cannon your ship can support. This is 12-pounders for the Ketch. Those with the Brig can support 24-pounders, and so on.

As for the effect, we recommend purchasing the Devastating Cannons. This cannon type has the ability to apply the rake effect to a target if you hit it with more than 50% of a volley — something that is very easy to do. This effect increases the damage dealt to the target by 10%, which is a big difference when you are dealing thousands of points of damage.

Best Hull Type

There are three types of hull plans that you can purchase from the Smugglers of Port Royal faction: Keelhold Hull Bracing, Iron Resolve Full Bracing, and Standfast Hull Bracing.

While each of these has a decent effect, we recommend taking the Keelhold Hull Bracing. The effect of this hull makes it so that taking damage no longer affects the duration of repair kits.

Most ship battles will require you to fight multiple opponents, leading to some drawn-out fights that will take some time. Because of this, you will need to use multiple repair kits, making this ability invaluable.

In addition to this, upgrading the hull to its epic rarity will increase the effectiveness of the repair kits by 30%, increasing your survivability even more.

Best Naval Tactics Upgrades

There are five different naval tactics books that you can purchase from the Smugglers of Port Royal: Ambush, No Quarter, Stretch the Supply, Shipshape, and Silence the Guns.

While each of these has a good effect, the best of these is Naval Tactics V: Silence the Guns. This allows you to apply the Broken Rhythm effect to enemies that you hit. This decreases their reload speed and damage by 20% for 30 seconds.

If you keep hitting the same enemy, you will continually apply this effect, keeping their damage decreased for the entirety of the fight, putting them at a severe disadvantage.

The second-best book is Naval Tactics I: Ambush. There are many times that you will be sailing for an extended period of time. This book increases the damage of your next volley by 130% if you haven't dealt damage or been dealt damage for two minutes.

If you wait out the two minutes, you can deal a massive amount of damage to an enemy, giving you a huge advantage at the start of the fight.