How to steal a ship

Steal a ship by forcing an NPC vessel to surrender, winning the fight on its deck and choosing Claim in the prize window. A claimed ship becomes your own sailing vessel. Merely winning the fight or taking its cargo does not put the ship in your Fleet.

For a first capture, consider a Pirate Sloop. Taking a pirate avoids the piracy penalties attached to lawful ships. A sloop becomes a Large Boat; capture a Pirate Brigantine if you want a crewed Small Ship. Both still require a deck fight.

Before you set sail

This guide covers NPC vessels encountered on the sea. Bank ships are furnished interiors managed through Banks; they are separate from the vessels captured by boarding. See Ships — Buying and selling for purchasing a starting boat.

Owning an armed ship is useful, but it is not the only route. If pirates board your boat, you can defeat their raiding party and then board their surrendered vessel. You can also board a surrendered ship from the water; see Boarding without a ship alongside.

Choose the ship you want to keep

The encounter's name does not determine the name of the hull you receive. These common Bay encounters become the following owned vessels.

Navy vessels are lawful too. Compare ship statistics before choosing a larger target. Pirate crews remain hostile even though defeating them is lawful, and a flagship's captain is a stronger commitment than a small sloop's crew.

Step by step: disable, board and claim

1. Find and identify the target. Inspect ships with the Spyglass before attacking. Check the vessel's faction and hull, and look for other hostile ships that could interrupt the approach.
2. Take the helm and bring your guns to bear. Look toward the battery you want to use, hold Attack to aim, then release to fire. The display shows the firing arc and range. Use the mouse wheel while aiming to change ammunition; see Naval combat — Firing and ammunition.
3. Force the target to surrender. Reduce its hull to 25% or less, or remove all of its ship crew. The vessel strikes its colours and stops fighting. Cutting its sails alone does not make it boardable.
4. Stop firing when it surrenders. Further attacks can sink a vessel you intended to keep. Cancel an aim you are still holding before trying to board.
5. Approach until the boarding prompt appears. At the helm, the base boarding reach is 32 m of water beyond the ships' combined half-beams. Captain's Stars can extend it. Face the vessel you mean to board and use Activate, the interaction control named by the prompt.
6. Let the grapples bring the ships alongside. Your sails lower and your boat slows while the target is drawn alongside. You do not need to stop first or ram the target to begin boarding. The game moves you onto the enemy deck.
7. Defeat the captain and the defenders. Win by killing the captain and defeating at least 70% of the boarding defenders, or by defeating every defender. The remaining defenders surrender when you win. Stay near the ship: moving more than 160 m from it abandons the boarding fight.
8. Review the prize window. Take cargo and, if useful, choose one benefit for your original ship. Read Looting before you claim before stripping repair materials from a vessel you want to keep.
9. Choose Claim under Fate. The captured vessel becomes your own boat where it lies. A crewed ship's title goes into Holdings → Fleet. A captured Large Boat remains at the capture location. Remaining cargo stays in the captured vessel's hold.
10. Check the capture before sailing away. Confirm the new ship's condition and location. The game normally returns you to your original boat after the claim; claiming a ship does not automatically switch you to its helm. Arrange repairs and hire crew before taking the prize into another battle.

Saving is blocked during boarding and while you stand on an NPC sea vessel's deck, including an unsettled prize. Finish the capture and return to an owned vessel or shore before saving.

Use ammunition to preserve the prize

Choose ammunition for the part of the ship you need to disable. These are tactical uses; exact damage depends on the gun, hit location and upgrades.

The ship's crew bar and the defenders in the boarding fight are separate. Losses at sea reduce the boarding muster, but the game still creates defenders for the deck fight. Emptying the crew bar does not give you an uncontested claim.

A crewed ship can send hands to help you board. Available crew, morale, standing orders and the First Mate affect that support. An uncrewed Large Boat supplies no allied boarding hands; see Ship crews.

Another route: repel the pirates first

Pirates can grapple your vessel and send a raiding party onto your deck. This gives you a way to capture a ship without first shooting its hull down yourself.

1. Defeat the raiding party on your own deck. On crewed vessels, the attack can use the Warm Ashes raid sequence, so finish the raid rather than assuming the first enemies are the whole fight.
2. Wait for the victory message. The defeated raider's ship is left surrendered alongside.
3. Face that ship and use the boarding prompt to cross onto it.
4. Win the boarding fight on the pirate ship, then choose Claim in its prize window.

Repelling a raid does not transfer ownership. You still need to board the pirate ship and claim the prize. Some legendary ships can send another wave before the raid is over; see The Eltheric Ocean — Legendary ships.

Boarding without a ship alongside

A surrendered NPC vessel can also be boarded on foot from a nearby deck or while swimming. Look toward the vessel and use Activate within the base 14 m reach beyond its half-beam. There is no grapple haul from your own boat on this route; you go directly onto the enemy deck.

You still have to win the boarding fight. If you have no owned boat nearby, cargo goes into your pack as capacity allows, and the benefits intended for a captor's ship are unavailable. Claiming can give you an owned deck to remain on; scuttling or casting the prize adrift can be refused when there is no safe return deck.

Looting before you claim

The prize window separates the hold, an optional benefit for your original ship and the captured ship's fate. Taking cargo does not spend your benefit choice. You may select only one benefit from each prize, and you can claim without selecting one.

Timber and cordage takes the restored materials out of the prize. The hull and sail points actually restored to your original ship are deducted before the captured ship's remaining condition is transferred. Skip this benefit if preserving the new vessel matters more than repairing your current one. Taking Powder and shot also leaves the claimed vessel without fire barrels.

Pressing captured crew replaces losses on your original vessel. It does not staff the ship you are about to claim.

Closing the window with the back control also leaves the prize unsettled, but can leave you on its deck. Face the prize and use Activate within reach to reopen it. Choose Claim before leaving the encounter if you want permanent ownership.

After claiming: make the ship usable

Hire crew at a shipwright. A crewed prize with no hands aboard does not perform automatic crew repairs. Use repairs to restore condition, then review Fleet management and Ship cargo and cabins before setting out.

Captured vessels have a lower recorded value than purchased vessels. These are title values, not guaranteed sale offers.

Each value is 25% of that hull's base purchase price. Condition, refits and the shipyard's trading offer affect resale; see Ships — Buying and selling for the sale requirements. Capturing an expensive hull does not award its full shop price in gold.

Piracy penalties

In the Iliac Bay, merchants and navy ships are lawful targets for the piracy system. Taking pirates is lawful and can improve legal and knightly reputation.

For example, shooting and then capturing one lawful ship adds 45 notoriety before reductions. Starting from zero, that is below the navy's 50-point threshold, but a nearby navy can still react immediately if it witnesses your attack. Cargo taken from a lawful ship in the Bay is marked as stolen goods.

A letter of marque does not remove the rival crown's piracy charges or notoriety. It lets the commissioning crown reward action against a rival; attacking the commissioning crown's own ship revokes the letter. Beyond the Veil Map, Eltheric Ocean Map captures do not incur the Bay crowns' piracy charges or notoriety. See Naval combat — Piracy and Notoriety.

If boarding or claiming does not work

This capture route is for NPC sea vessels. Open-sea PvP has separate wreck and cargo-looting rules; looting another player's wreck does not award that player's ship title.

Checked against app-v0.1.13063. The boarding, prize and ownership-transfer rules come from the released game source linked below.