How PerpeNaval works

A real fleet on the real ocean

PerpeNaval is a free, browser-based multiplayer game about running ships on a model of the real world ocean. You pick one of six callings (Cargo, Tanker, Fishing, Shepherd, Pirate or Cruise), get a starter hull at a home port on the continent you choose, and take work from the board of whatever port your ship is in. Then you send her, and she sails in real time along a real sea route, whether your tab is open or not.

The loop is simple: pick work, plan, dispatch, come back, then reinvest in tree upgrades, modules and new hulls. Nothing needs to be clicked at the right second: standing orders decide what a ship does while you are away, and the log tells you what happened.

The clock: 25 real minutes is one game day

Every ship and every storm runs on one shared clock. One game day lasts 25 real minutes, so a real day holds about 57.6 game days. Speeds are in kilometres per game hour: a Coaster makes 30, so a 1,000 km coastal run takes roughly 40 real minutes including her time alongside. Ocean crossings take a few real hours, and the longest hauls are something you send before bed.

Port boards are redrawn every two game days (about 50 real minutes). Storms keep the same clock, so a hurricane that lasted a week in reality plays out over about three real hours.

One shared world

Every captain sails the same sea. The world has 256 ports, real coastlines, 85 named sea zones, territorial seas and exclusive economic zones drawn from public map data, and the four canals (Suez, Panama, Kiel and Corinth). Routes never cross land.

Shared means shared. Every captain in a port sees the same cards, and a card one captain takes is gone for the others. Fuel stock falls when ships buy and rises when tankers deliver, fishing grounds are depleted by every fisher, pirate heat rises where pirates collect and falls where shepherds patrol, and a storm that closes a port closes it for everyone.

How a voyage is priced

Before you send a ship, the planner shows a receipt, and the numbers on it are the numbers you are paid. The rule is that nothing that can charge you is hidden:

• Pay: for cargo, a freight rate by hull tier times the tonnage and the distance, with a bonus for long hauls. Pay is always worked out on the fastest sea distance, so a scenic detour never raises it.
• Fuel: burn rate times distance, heavier when the ship is laden, bought at the port each leg starts from. Prices follow each port's fuel stock: a port below 35% charges a scarcity premium of up to 60%.
• Port fee: 5% of the gross (at least $200), less at a developed port.
• Tariff: customs paid where the cargo is landed, 0%, 2% or 5% by the size of the destination port. Passing through a nation's waters is free.
• Canal tolls: Suez, Panama, Kiel or Corinth, scaled by hull size. The biggest bulk hulls (Capesize, VLCC) fit no canal at all and round the capes.
• Refuel calls: $200 each, plus the time spent bunkering.
• Crew and upkeep: per game day at sea, from $285 on tier 1 to $1,665 on tier 5.
• Tribute risk: an estimate from the pirate heat along the route.

On landing, voyages over 5,000 km add a maintenance bill, every voyage wears the hull a little, and a rare incident can cost part of the pay. Insurance, a switch on the ship card, costs 2% of each voyage's pay and covers incidents and storm damage in full.

Range, refuel calls and route presets

Every hull has a range, shorter when laden. Tier 1 hulls are coastal (a Coaster reaches about 3,300 km fully loaded), tier 2 hulls cross seas and most oceans, and tier 3 and up are ocean-going. When a leg outruns the tank, the planner finds refuel calls itself and checks every leg. If no chain of ports works, the job is not offered: the board never sells you a voyage your ship cannot make.

Where you refuel matters, because the next leg's fuel is bought at that port's price. You can choose the Fastest or Safest route (Safest avoids pirate heat), drag waypoints and remove calls.

Taking work and working while you are away

All work comes from the Charter board of a port where your ship is docked. Each card shows the route, the load, the profit after costs and the real time. Every calling has its own cards: charters, fuel runs, fishing trips, patrols and escorts, toll shifts and prey, cruises and lines.

Each ship holds a queue of two jobs (more with Queue Slot upgrades) from the board of the port she is bound for, so she sails again the moment she lands. From tree tier 5 a ship can Keep working, taking the best profitable job herself at 90% pay (Pirate and Shepherd patrols renew by themselves instead). Coming back after time away earns shore leave: 2% per real hour away, up to 25%, over your next three landings.

Elo: one rating per calling

Your reputation is an Elo rating kept separately for each calling. It rises with work done well, such as a relief run or a hot patrol, and failures cost points. Pirates read theirs upside down as infamy.

Elo opens premium cards: at 200, 400, 800 and 1,200 a better version of the best card on the board appears for you, paying 25%, 45%, 70% and then 100% more, with a bigger rating swing. The next locked level is shown too, so you can see what you are working toward. Elo gates nothing else.

The rookie shield

New captains sail under a shield for their first 10 landed voyages. While it is up you pay no pirate tribute, cannot be seized, are invisible to pirates, and get a Charter board of your own that nobody else can empty. Time away never uses it up, and within your first three landings you may change calling once.

The tenth landing is your graduation: the shield lifts and you receive $5,000 and two 30-minute speed-ups.

The economy: Exchange, warehouses, ports and yards

Every port quotes prices for the goods it trades, within 0.6 to 1.8 times the world price. Selling pushes a price down, buying pushes it up, and the push fades over the days. The Exchange lets captains list goods or post wanted orders at any port (3% fee), and NPC merchant houses keep it busy.

Warehouses hold goods between ships at about one port in three, leased by the week or bought once you have completed a tech tree. Port development lets anyone invest in a port for faster cranes, lower fees and a bigger board for every visitor, with a share of the port's fees paid back. Shipyards at 25 big ports build tier 1 and 2 hulls everywhere and up to tier 5 at the larger yards, from about a real hour for tier 2 to a day for tier 5.

Companies

A company (or Brethren, or Watch) is a flag captains of any calling sail under together. Founding costs $25,000 and gives room for 10 captains; the treasury, filled only by missions, buys room for 20 and then 50.

Each week twelve missions are offered, two per calling, and the head picks the ones the company works: three, four or six by company size. Members take mission jobs from the company panel with a ship in port. The company keeps 80% of a mission voyage's net and the captain 20%, and filled missions raise the company's Elo and tier. Ordinary charters stay the captain's own.

The server owns every number

Everything that pays or costs money is decided on the game server. When you press Send, the server re-plans the voyage from your choice of card, route, waypoints and refuel calls, and ignores any other figure from the browser. The same rules run in your browser so you see the result ahead of time, but the server's receipt is the one that pays. Ships are never destroyed or confiscated.

Free to play, no pay-to-win

PerpeNaval is free. Ads are a closable pop-up after every second Send, never in your first 20 minutes, at least 10 minutes apart and at most 12 a day, with no banners and no reward ads. An optional No-ads plan removes them. The only other purchases are cosmetic looks, which change nothing about speed, cash, odds or rank. Money, hulls, upgrades and time cannot be bought.

Daily gift, invites and the album

A daily gift can be claimed once per UTC day in a seven-day cycle. Days 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 give money that grows through the week, sized from a quarter of a typical voyage at your fleet's tier. Day 4 gives a 30-minute speed-up and day 7 a 45-minute one, and each week in a row adds 15 minutes (up to 75 and 90). Miss a day and the cycle restarts at day 1. Speed-ups are saved and spent on a ship at sea (not on a pirate chase).

Inviting a friend pays you both $5,000 and a 30-minute speed-up when the friend lands a third voyage; accounts sharing a device or network do not count. The album has a page for each of the 256 ports in 15 sea-region chapters: a stamp on your first landing, and by chance a postcard, a sea creature and a keepsake, each guaranteed within a few landings.