Some Tips For Beginners
Last Updated: January 2024
There are plenty of things that Sea of Thieves doesn’t tell you starting out. It’s a sandbox game that just throws you in at the deep end and it’s up to you to find stuff out. The game’s community is pretty good about sharing knowledge and you can pick up a lot of stuff from forums, Reddit, or watching streamers play the game. Although I could write a whole book on such things, here are just some tips and tidbits I’ve picked up that might make for smoother sailing…
You can’t change your pirate after you pick them, without spending premium currency…
When you first boot up Sea of Thieves, you have to pick a pirate from a carousel of 8 random models. You can favourite ones you like and reroll for the other pirates to whittle it down to ones you like and eventually pick one.
However, unless you are willing to pay for an appearance potion with the premium currency, Ancient Coins (see below for more on currencies), once you pick that pirate you are stuck with them in terms of basic look. You can change hair, beards, clothes, scars, and other cosmetics for free but you can’t change gender, shape, or face. So pick carefully if you care about that sort of thing!
If you are on PC push-to-talk is off by default
By default, the push-to-talk is turned off in Sea of Thieves, so you will be talking in-game and may not realise it. Go to the audio options, turn on Push-To-Talk, and below that the chat indicator so you get a visible icon when you are heard in-game. There is also the option to use a toggle instead of Push-To-Talk.
Tip: if you are having issues getting your mic to work in-game, right-click the sound icon on the bottom right of your taskbar and go to Sounds. On the Recording tab in the Sound Control Panel, right-click your preferred mic input and enable both "Set as Default Device" and "Set as Default Communication Device". Disable any inputs you are not using. This setting is known to reset after a big Windows update, so be sure to check it when you do one. If you are having issues with your mic sounding distorted or warbled in-game, try changing the samplerate to 48000Hz. In the Sound Control Panel, right-click on your device and go to Properties and the Advanced tab. The dropdown will give you various quality options.
Trust. No. One.
It kind of goes without saying but it’s true – Trust. No. One.
There are tools in the game to make friends and be friendly (like alliance flags) but they can also be used to trick other players and, this being a pirate game, pirates gonna pirate. So always be wary.
That said, from time to time, you might meet some genuinely nice players on the High Seas, and that’s a pleasant surprise when it happens.
If you want to break the tension, never sail directly at another player ship without announcing your presence (you can hold the speaking trumpet item to talk farther) and never board another ship without asking, that’s a big no-no.
Progress Is Purely Cosmetic And Session-Based
Progress in Sea of Thieves is purely cosmetic, there is no vertical progression based on levels. All weapon skins and other cosmetics are purely there for flaunting and offer no boosts to damage or anything like that. There are couple of gun skins (such as the Mercenary flintlock and its variants) that have some design choices that might be beneficial to some players, however.
What this means is that veteran players have no measurable advantage over new players beyond knowledge and practice. You can however find items and supplies in your session that can give you an edge in a fight – such as better food or cursed cannonballs.
The game is session-based, this means supplies don’t carry over between session and you are reset at the start of each login in terms of any you have gathered. However, you do keep currency earned (gold, doubloon, etc…) and any reputation or renown you have earned, as well as cosmetics you unlock or buy.
How many players on a server…
It’s often asked “how many players are on a server?”. Currently, High Seas servers are limited to 5 ships or 16 players – whichever fills first. Server matchmaking tries to balance between all ship types in order to optimise for the most players possible.
If you find you are not running into other ships, it’s not necessarily that the server is empty, they just might be in another region, and low-level voyages will usually keep you in the same region you started them. If you want to find other players, sail around and sail further. Truly “empty” servers will try to merge with other servers, so you are never really alone for long!
Legend of Monkey Island vs Adventure servers…
Following on from “A Pirate’s Life” Pirates of the Caribbean crossover added in Season 3, Season 9 introduced “The Legend of Monkey Island” Tall Tales which features a crossover with Lucasfilm’s Monkey Island series. Along with their introduction “The Legend of Monkey Island” was added as a game mode option on the main screen. However, functionally, “The Legend of Monkey Island” and Adventure servers are identical, and they both include other players on the server when you spawn in initially.
The main difference with selecting “The Legend of Monkey Island” is that you and your crew will spawn in front of Capsize Charters, ready to pick a Tall Tale, instead of spawning in the outpost’s tavern. The game will also automatically select a closed crew when picking this mode, which prevents random players being added to your crew (this is a manual option in Adventure when starting).
Unlike a lot of previous Tall Tales, all three Monkey Island Tall Tales are instanced. You start in a shared world with other players but, once you sail through the portal shortly after starting, it will be just you and your crew for the rest of your adventure.
Safer Seas
In December 2023, Rare added Safer Seas servers to the game. These are essentially private servers for players with lower progression, intended for new players to get to grips with the mechanics of the game or complete Tall Tales, free from the threat of PvP.
Players can sail, along with up to 3 friends, on one chartered ship on Safer Seas. Progress is capped at level 40 in Order of Souls, Gold Hoarders, Merchant Alliance, and Hunter’s Call. Athena’s Fortune and Reaper’s Bones factions are not available on Safer Seas, and players will need to join the High Seas (classic PvPvE servers) in order to progress these or any Hourglass faction, as well as any related commendations.
Gold and reputation are capped at 30% of base value on Safer Seas and Emissary flags cannot be raised. Special events are not active either, though Gold Rush (5pm-6pm UTC/1am-2am UTC) does still boost gold by 1.5x.
Currently, Captaincy and Guilds (see below) are not available on Safer Seas. The Fort of Fortune, Fort of the Damned, Skull of the Siren’s Song, and any PvP-related commendations are exclusive to the High Seas.
For more information on Safer Seas, you can read the FAQ from the developers here.
Skull of Siren’s Song
Introduced in November 2024, the Skull of Siren’s Song is a competitive voyage that you can opt-in to by interacting with Briggsy’s note that appears on your ship’s main mast from time to time. This voyage is shared with all ships on the server so may involve PvP to complete.
The voyage involves digging up a key and a chest buried on separate random islands. Both are marked with a beacon when dug up, which is visible to any other ship currently opted in to the voyage as well.
When the key is used to open the chest, the player receives the titular skull. This skull is also marked with a beacon and slows down your ship with a curse when it’s aboard. It can be wielded as a weapon and causes damage with its shriek – though the damage against players is not significant. At the point at which the chest is opened, no other ships can opt-in to the voyage.
The player must bring this skull to Briggsy on a random large island which will be marked with a purple swirl on the horizon, as well as on your ship’s map. When you get to the island, Briggsy will also be in a randomised location, further adding to the tension. In addition, any ships opted-in to the voyage will get a closer spawn if they sink than they would otherwise.
Currently, this voyage rewards 50,000 gold for any opted-in crew delivering the skull to Briggsy (75,000 at Gold Rush), as well as progress in the specific commendations that unlock exclusive cosmetics. Rare’s Mike Chapman has confirmed they plan to add reputation as a reward in future.
What Skull Clouds And Ship Clouds In The Sky Mean…
You will often see glowing skull or ship clouds in the sky and you might be confused about what they are. Skull clouds appear above active Skull Forts. These are special fortified islands where you can face waves of skeletons to unlock a vault full of valuable booty, using the key the boss drops.
There are three types of Skull Forts: standard, the Fort of Fortune and the Fort of the Damned. The standard skull forts (white skull with flashing eyes) are activated randomly and can despawn if no-one attempts to do them within a certain time.
The Fort of the Damned (solid red eyes), however, is activated by someone on the server who collected all six Flames of Fate to light the lanterns inside, and then placed a Ritual Skull on the altar caged remains. The Fort of the Damned is a much harder fort than the standard ones and requires the use of different coloured lanterns to defeat the skeleton waves. Adding to the risk, the key for this event is geotagged, meaning it can be tracked on map tables until it is used to open the vault. This vault will contain a lot of highly sought after loot – including a Chest of Legends.
The Chest of Fortune can also be found in the Fort of the Damned during Season 10, but it will move to other events in future Seasons.
The newest fort, the Fort of Fortune (red skull with scars on top), is similar to a standard fort but with much higher rewards, including Legendary loot, and difficulty. The Fort of Fortune also spawns with a really loud horn sound heard across the server. Just like with the Fort of the Damned, the key for this fort is geotagged.
Ship clouds appear above an area where a fleet of skeleton ships (“Skalleons” and “skoops” as the community calls them!) appear. These ships appear in waves and are a mix of skeleton galleons and skeleton sloops. Each ship drops some loot when it sinks but the captain’s ship will drop the most valuable loot.
Another cloud type you might see is a fire tornado. This will be the location of an Ashen Lord encounter. This is a boss fight which lasts three waves and spawns a lot of skelly adds. When defeated, the boss drops a lot of Ashen loot – including an Ashen Winds which can be used as a flamethrower of sorts (though it’s sale value drops the more it’s used).
If you see a green tornado on the horizon, it may be Flameheart’s Ghost Fleet haunting an island. This event is similar to the Ghost Fleet voyages you can obtain from the Order of Souls after hitting level 25. The green tornado is very like the tornado used for the final part of the Legend of the Veil voyage (a Pirate Legend voyage type). However, the tornado for Flameheart’s Ghost Fleet has a thicker cloud above it, can be seen at a greater distance, and will always be over a large island.
With all these World Events, you might face competition from other players on the server and they can be hotbeds of PvP. If you see a cloud disappear, it has either been completed by players or [with the exception of the Fort of the Damned] it might have just timed out because no-one did it.
Excluding the Fort of the Damned, only one event can be active at any one time and the Kraken (“Karen”) cannot spawn if the cloud is in the sky, so if you see the cloud vanish that means you have a chance to “get krakened” when sailing on the open seas.
Trivia: In Season Nine, the world events were rebalanced to scale to the number of players at them, from one to four. This means solo players will have a significantly easier time of completing them than they had previously.
Mermaid Statues
You’ll sometimes hear ominous music coming from the water around islands. If you dive down you see it’s coming from a glowing mermaid statue. You can destroy these statues for a mermaid gem, which can be sold to any faction (Gold Hoarders, Merchant Alliance, Order Of Souls, Hunter’s Call) for gold and reputation. At base value, blue gems are worth 1000 gold, green gems are worth 1500 gold, and red gems are worth 2000 gold.
Season Nine increased the payout for selling to Hunter’s Call to 1.5x compared to selling to other trade companies, and this boost also applies to gems.
The statues increase in difficulty to break and how much damage they cause you the more valuable they are. They heal themselves over time as well, so you do need to keep a sustained attack on them to break them. Season Nine rebalanced the statues, so they are now a lot more easy to break than previously. They also have a chance to drop more than one gem at a time.
Season 3 added Ocean Crawlers that will randomly drop Siren Gems, they look aesthetically slightly different to Mermaid Gems but they sell for the same values.
Tip: you can use a gems to easily tell if a multiplier is active, such as Gold Rush, as the value is fixed. If you sell a blue gem to a non-Hunter's Call trade company, for example, you can easily see the multiplier as its base value is 1000. If Gold Rush is active, the blue gems will sell for 1500 gold. Gold Rush stacks with the Hunter's Call bonus, meaning that selling to them during that boost will net 2.25x the base value! Sea of Thieves Partner streamer Flotsam created a handy website for tracking when Gold Rush is active, it can be found here.
Currencies: Gold, Doubloons, And Ancient Coins
There are three currencies in the game: Gold, Doubloons, and Ancient Coins. Gold is earned doing voyages and selling loot and can be spent on cosmetics in the shops at outposts or to buy more voyages.
Doubloons are primarily earned by doing Bilge Rat Adventures commendations (see reputation menu under Pirate Log) and through Seasons levels. They can be used to buy limited-time cosmetics, and other stuff from Larinna outside any tavern at outposts.
Legacy “Black Market” (formerly available from Larinna) items can be bought from some outpost stores for Doubloons as well. You can also use Doubloons to buy “letters of commendation” (limited to one per month) from Larinna to increase a faction level by 1 but most players will agree this is not recommended until you get to at least level 40 or 45 in a faction when the grind becomes more tedious. Larinna can also convert Doubloons to Gold, though the conversion rate is not phenomenal.
You can also earn Doubloons from selling Ritual Skulls (Larinna also accepts these) or by turning in Reaper’s Chests to The Reaper’s Hideout. These chests appear randomly at shipwrecks on the map, marked with a red “Reaper” icon (until they’re picked up by a player, you’ll also see swishy red and green pillars of light showing their location). When you collect a Reaper’s Chest, the red icon stays with it, meaning other players will know you have it and could come to try and steal it!
The premium currency in the game is Ancient Coins. Although these can be earned by killing rare Ancient Skeletons on islands or in small amounts via the season pass and Plunder Pass (more on those below), they are typically earned by spending real world money in the Emporium shop. Ancient Coins can be bought in various bundle sizes ranging from 150 to 4250 coins, and can be spent on buying cosmetics such as pets, emotes, costumes, and exclusive ship designs.
Sword Lunging, “Super-Lunge”, And Dashing Through Water
You can do a sword lunge attack by holding your sword-swipe button for a few seconds (M1 on mouse or RT on controller). You can’t cancel this animation, you are vulnerable during the charge time and, should you miss an enemy, you’ll incur a short “out of breath” cooldown. However, you can still aim it as you charge up and you’ll cause a lot of damage and stun if you do land it.
A “super-lunge” can be achieved by holding block before doing the normal sword lunge. If you press jump just as you start moving with the super-lunge, you’ll also jump a long distance. To get the right timing on this, aim at the ground and jump as soon as you hear the contact sound. After a few tries you should have the timing down an be able to do this without aiming down.
Both lunges can be used to dash through water but the super-lunge and jump is far more effective here, but you need to make sure your lunge lands in deep enough water so momentum carries through. Practice the lunging a bit and you’ll soon be dashing about like the pro streamers.
Emissaries
Emissaries were added to Sea of Thieves in the Ships of Fortune update. You can buy a licence from the Gold Hoarders, Order of Souls, Merchant Alliance, Reaper’s Bones or Athena’s Fortune to represent their faction. Representing a faction in this way gives bonus loot multipliers when loot is sold after reaching higher grades.
The Order of Souls, Gold Hoarder and Merchant Alliance require a level of 25 to be able to buy the licence. The Emissary licence for Reaper’s Bones must be purchased from their faction NPC at Reaper’s Hideout but can be bought before levelling that faction. The Athena’s Fortune licence must be purchased from the Pirate Lord and you must be a Pirate Legend (Level 50 in 3 factions) to do so.
You only need to buy an Emissary licence for each faction once, but you can raise the flag as often as you’d like to represent them. When you sink, you will lose your flag, which can then be claimed by another crew and sold to the Reaper’s Bones at Reaper’s Hideout. Note: Sinking and losing your flag does not mean you need to rebuy it.
The Reaper’s Bones faction is PvP-focused and representing the Reaper’s Bones Emissaries will mark you on the map, including showing your current Emissary grade.
Upon hitting the maximum Grade 5 in with an Emissary, excluding Reaper’s Bones, you can claim a special high value Emissary voyage from the NPC (Reaper’s Bones at Grade 5 get the ability to see any Emissaries on the map). Once you hit Grade 5 you can also “cash out” and lower your flag for bonus gold and reputation, though your grade will be reset when you raise it again. You will also lose your Emissary voyage if you sink or choose to lower your Emissary flag.
Representing a faction as an Emissary will also add value to your Emissary ledger rank and can be tracked on the leaderboards section of the Sea of Thieves website. Finishing in the top two ranks within the time period will reward special cosmetics.
Seasons
In January 2021, Rare added Seasons to Sea of Thieves. At no additional cost, players can rank up through the season pass and unlock exclusive cosmetics, gold, doubloons, and even a small amount of Ancient Coins. Pirate Legends can unlock additional cosmetics at certain milestones. Mike Chapman, Creative Director, reckons the season will take the average player 40-50 hours of play time to unlock fully. This can be sped up by doing optional challenges presented as “Trials” or “Deeds”.
As well as the free season pass, there is an optional premium “Plunder Pass” in the Emporium to augment the season rewards with items either from the Emporium or coming to the Emporium at a later stage. Rare claim the value of the “Plunder Pass” is somewhere in the region of 4 times the cost of it. The Plunder Pass can be purchased at any point during the season to unlock rewards that would have been earned up to that point.
Captaincy
Season 7 introduced “Captaincy”. Players can purchase ships which will save certain things – such as vessel name, Captaincy voyages, cosmetics, decorations, and damage. Captains will also unlock the ability to sell to the Sovereigns (purple tent on the secondary dock), and will be able to buy voyage bundles and extra supplies from the Shipwrights. Captain voyages store on the ship, so will only be available when sailing on that specific ship.
To buy a ship, you will need at least 250,000 gold for a Sloop. A Brigantine will cost 375,000 gold, and a Galleon will cost 500,000 gold. You can name your ship and have the name displayed on the ship’s nameplate, as well as on a banner when another player spyglasses your ship. Be careful to keep within TOS for ship names as getting reported can result in you permanently losing naming privileges.
You can initially buy one of each ship type but a new slot will unlock when you get a legendary title for a ship. Damaged Captained ships will retain that damage (though patched) but can be repaired for a gold amount relative to the damage.
A milestone system was also introduced which will track certain stats. These stats can be displayed in the logbook which sits on your voyage table. You do not need to be a Captain to progress Pirate Milestones but you do need to be sailing on a Captained ship – so you can sail on a friend’s Captained ship and still progress these. Some milestones will unlock decorations for your ship, such as trinkets, which you can purchase from the Shipwrights and place on your ship. Ship Milestones will unlock some decorations specific to that ship which don’t need to be purchased – such as titles, nameplates, logbook covers, and banners.
Another bonus of owning a Captained ship is that you can save the cosmetics for that ship at the shipwright’s chest. Initially this had a cost but Season Nine made this feature entirely free to do.
Guilds
Guilds were added in Season 10. Players can create or join up to 3 different Guilds and work towards shared rewards. You must have at least one Captained ship already before you can create a Guild but that’s not a requirement for simply joining an existing Guild.
When creating a Guild, you can set the Crest, Mark, Colours, Name, and Motto of the Guild from a selection of preset options.
After creating a Guild, the Owner will then be able to pledge the first ship and invite friends. The owner can also set roles and permissions within the Guild, such as Guild Leaders – which would be essentially moderators for the Guild.
Guilds can have up to 24 members, including the Owner, and you have to be friends with the Owner or a Guild Leader (on Xbox Live or Steam) before they can invite you to their Guild. Guild Invites will expire after 7 days and cannot be re-sent within this time, in order to prevent spam – though you can see pending invites on the invite screen.
Guild mates have the option to pledge a Captained ship (see Captaincy above) and whether to allow other Guild members to use that ship or not. Sharing options on your ship can be changed by selecting your ship from the Guild list of ships.
Note: A pledged ship will be removed from your "My Ships" list to the Guild it is pledged to but, otherwise, you will still have all the same ownership rights over it and you can un-pledge it at any time. If you want the ship to be available for only you to sail, then pledge it but turn off sharing.
If a pledged ship is borrowed by a Guild mate they can level up that ship’s Ship Milestones, their own Pirate Milestones, and make use of some Captaincy perks – such as being able to sell at the Sovereigns tent. But they cannot over-write the ship owner’s saved cosmetics or make any saved changes to the Ship.
In order to progress a Guild’s reputation, you must select a pledged ship before setting sail under the Sail for a Guild section. Most activities that would earn you gold (selling loot) or faction reputation should help contribute to the Guild reputation.
Once a Guild reaches reputation level 100, it earns a Distinction and the level is reset to 1 again – ready to level up to 100 over again. The Distinction level will be reflected on the Guild plaque on your ship’s mast and it will change from bronze to silver and then gold as Distinctions rise. There are 10 Distinction levels in total marked with a Roman numeral, from I to X.
If you need to delete or leave a Guild, you can find the Guild Management settings in the main game Settings menu.
For more information on Guilds, check out the official Deep Dive video on YouTube here.
Battle for the Sea of Thieves (Hourglass)
Season 8 introduced the Battle for the Sea of Thieves (commonly referred to in the community as “Hourglass” or “HG”), the new opt-in PvP mode, and with it the Allegiance system for Servants of the Flame (Reapers) and Guardians of Athena (Athena’s Fortune). These new factions can only be progressed through PvP against players opted in to the mode. It’s important to note that this doesn’t remove the threat of organic PvP in Adventure, it just gives a quicker and more consensual way for players to find PvP fights.
The two factions offer access to a new hideout area and curse once the player reaches level 100 Allegiance for their side, but players can continue to level up to 1000 for a highly exclusive gold curse variant. Reapers unlock a skelly curse at 100, whilst Athena’s Fortune players unlock the ghost curse at 100.
To join the fight, choose a faction at the Hourglass of Fate on your ship. Once activated, you can be invaded at any time. If you unfurl the war map and decide to search for a fight, your ship will dive underwater once in open seas and the game will matchmake and merge you into a battle against a rival ship and crew of the same size.
Once merged, your ship will surface up from the water facing your opponent – who may have also dived for a fight, or be defending in Adventure. A defending ship in Adventure can increase their multiplier for sinks by hoarding loot onboard. However, they will lose that loot or any multiplier if they sink or choose to dive for a fight. A successful defense will add a cooldown of around 20 minutes before that ship can be invaded again.
The battle will take place within a circular arena marked on your ship map. Losing a match will net you a small amount of Allegiance, however, sinking another crew will gain you a much, much larger amount, which increases as you increase your streak – up to a max of 5. You can choose to cash in at any point in that streak by opting out at the faction table on any outpost (Reapers can also opt out at Reapers Hideout). The losing crew will be merged out of that server shortly after they sink, preventing any chance of a quick vengeance.
A ship opted-in to this mode can also be engaged on the open seas organically, but you will only earn Allegiance if your ship is also representing.
While not essential for the mode, raising an Emissary flag can give you a small boost in Allegiance and Emissary ledger when you sell an opposing crews’ flags to the Stranger in the Taverns (Athena), to the skelly in the cage above the Reaper’s Bones Emissary table, or at Reaper’s Hideout.
Happy Sailing
