How to play
Four moves, repeated for as long as you like. Your ships sail on the real clock, and they keep sailing when you close the tab.
1 · Pick work.
A contract from the board, or your calling’s own work (patrols, grounds, itineraries).
2 · Plan.
Choose Fastest, Cheapest or Safest. The receipt shows every cost the sea can charge: fuel, tolls, fees, tariff, tribute risk, and whose waters you’ll cross.
3 · Dispatch.
She sails in real time. Every second Send shows one closable ad first (none with No-ads). Your standing orders handle whatever the sea throws at her.
4 · Come back.
Collect, earn Elo, grow the tree, fit modules, buy hulls, queue the next job.
Everyone profits from someone.
Pirates tax traffic, Shepherds are paid to stop them, Tankers keep the ports full, and maydays pay whoever answers.
What you never lose
Ships are never destroyed or confiscated. Your titles, trees and achievements are yours for good; Elo moves with your results, up and down, but no loss can take a ship. The worst that the sea can do is cost you money and time, and both are capped.
What the money is for
The tree makes a ship who she is, permanently. Every node costs a share of her hull price, and the share climbs by tier (2% at the keel, 120% at the apex), so a whole tree costs about four times the hull: the first days buy the cheap nodes fast, the last ones take real weeks of work. Modules are what she wears, swapped in port. Hulls are bought at a shipyard, one per fleet slot; tree levels 8, 17 and 25 open the next slots, two achievements add one each, and every completed tree adds one more (that slot takes any class). Bigger hulls take time to build: T2 about an hour, T5 a day. A docked ship sells back to the yard for 55% of her hull price.
Glossary
Every term of the game, from Elo to tenders, is explained in the glossary. For the long version of how the sea works (pricing, routes, storms, the economy), read How the sea works, or a guide to your calling on the guides page.