Ocean Fleets

The open sea is not empty. Hostile NPC fleets roam the navigable ocean — themed crews under their own captains, each on a real ship with mounted cannons. Sail out far enough and you'll find one to hunt; sink it and another will appear somewhere else, so there's always a fleet out there to chase.

What's out there

Fleets come in six flavours, each with its own crew and difficulty:

Theme	Flavour
Pirate	The classic cutthroats — the baseline fight.
Lizardman	Reptilian raiders, a touch tougher than pirates.
Orc	Brutal orcish boarding crews, a touch tougher than pirates.
Skeletal	Undead crews — a real step up.
Daemon	Demon-crewed hulls — among the hardest.
Minotaur	Minotaur warbands — among the hardest.

Each fleet sails one of three hull sizes — small, medium, or large — with a bigger crew (and a bigger bounty) on the larger hulls. Small hulls are the most common sight; large hulls are rare.

Hunting them

Sail up, trade cannon fire, and board to clear the deck. A fleet's captain steers and fires back, and the crew throw spears across the water and defend the deck if you board, so they're a genuine fight — not a sitting target.

Sinking a fleet pays a bounty. Every player who helped bring it down is rewarded — a stack of doubloons, resonance XP, bonus Ocean talent progress, and a tick on the public Fleet Hunters leaderboard. Tougher themes and bigger hulls pay more. See Fleet bounties for the details.

A living sea

There are always around fifty fleets afloat across the ocean at once. Sink one and the sea quietly replaces it — a new fleet appears elsewhere on open water, never on top of you, your ship, another fleet, or land. You won't see them pop in beside you; they fill in out in the empty stretches of sea, so the ocean stays populated without ever feeling crowded.

During the playtest the sailable sea is confined to its eastern stretch, so the fleets you meet are concentrated there. The full ocean — and fleets spread across all of it — opens up at launch.