In Tortuga: A Pirate’s Tale, these upgrades will make your ship the scourge of the Caribbean.
The most important thing in Tortuga: A Pirate’s Tale are the ships. You won’t be able to steal from the Caribbean if you don’t have ships. A good ship is almost the best thing you can have in the game, and upgrades are a big part of making it your best pirate ship.
Upgrades will make or break your strategy on the high seas, whether you take over a fully upgraded ship or change a standard ship to fit your needs. Some upgrades are better than others, though. If you don’t know how to equip your new purchase, try one of these top ten upgrades!
Ram
Rams aren’t useful on every ship, but they are absolutely necessary for some builds. As the name suggests, rams let a ship sail right into an enemy ship, doing a lot of damage and taking a little damage to itself in the process. The damage is based on how heavy each ship is, so a big ship with a high-tier Frame can use this move to destroy smaller ships.
If Charles Vane is on your team, he should always have a ram with him. He has a special move that lets him automatically board a ship after ramming it. This lets you get rid of important targets quickly. You can also choose the Bloodthirsty Ability for your player character to learn this trick.
Lookout
Upgrades to the crow’s nest are one of the few ways in the game for a ship to help nearby allies. Friendly ships that are within three tiles of a Lookout don’t lose accuracy because there are things in their way.
Even in the best conditions, a single cannon rarely has a better than 70% chance of hitting, so reducing penalties whenever possible can save a lot of shots that would otherwise be wasted. Charles June-May is a great captain to give a Lookout to, since he can also help other ships improve their accuracy.
Hammocks
Every ship needs a minimum number of crew members based on its size. Without that minimum number, the ship starts to lose badly in battle and is easy to board. Hammocks let more people live on a ship, which helps it stay above that critical number.
Hammocks are mostly used to keep your action points from going down, but they can also help you capture better ships early in Slope Game. Even a small number of extra sailors is a big improvement over the small ships you’ll be using at the beginning of your adventure, and can give you enough people to beat a bigger enemy.
Don’t forget that more people on board means more food and rum will need to be bought. Make sure you have enough money to keep the hold full of food and rum.
Cabin
When you’re in charge of bigger ships, it’s time to move up from hammocks to a cabin! A cabin is like a hammock for a ship. It lets more people live on board. At higher levels, a cabin also gives a morale boost during boarding battles.
This makes it especially useful for big ships like Galleons and Carracks, which should be led by a captain like Charles Vane or Dayron Esposito who is good at boarding. The morale bonus is based on the whole crew, so in this case, “the more, the merrier” is really true.
Handguns
A rack of handguns gives the ship a flat advantage when fighting on the deck. Early on in the campaign, it’s a good idea to put one of these on each of your ships, since even a small boost is a big deal for starting crews.
Handguns become less useful when you have hundreds of people on your crew, but they can still give you just enough of an edge to win a fight that is close.
Hold
When you steal from a convoy, the last thing you want to do is leave loot behind. There is such a thing as being too successful in Tortuga. If your hold is already full, you might not be able to take all the treasure your most recent victims were carrying. Upgrading the holds of a few ships can help solve this problem, giving you just enough space to find a friendly port and sell your stolen goods.
It’s always a good idea to have at least one big ship like a Trader’s Fluyt that can’t fight and doesn’t have a captain in your fleet. You should be able to fit plenty of finely carved tobacco pipes and crates of spices on it if you upgrade its hold to make it as big as possible.
Grappling Hooks
Trying to get on an enemy ship is a risky move, but it won’t be worth it at all if your sailors can’t even get there. A failed boarding maneuver is basically a wasted turn, so it’s usually best to wait until you have a high chance of success before giving the order.
Grappling Hooks make it more likely that a boarding maneuver will work, which starts a fight. Make sure the same ship has handguns, sabers, or both so that you can win the next fight.
Armor Plating
Ships don’t start to get hurt by enemy fire until their hulls get hurt, but once that happens, things go downhill very quickly. If you give your ships more armor HP, they can take more damage from cannons without getting hurt.
The best thing about armor is that it gets refilled automatically after a battle, so you don’t have to pay for repairs if the hull doesn’t get hurt. Captains with Beloved Ship take less damage overall, so it’s always a good idea to give Armor Plating to a defensive commander like Seamus Walsh.
Sabers
Sabers are kind of like handguns, but they work better when there are more people around. Having sabers on a ship gives it an advantage in boarding battles based on the number of people on board. This makes it easy for big ships to beat smaller ones.
This means, of course, that sabers are literally a double-edged sword, since each crew member lost in battle makes the battle less effective. Overall, though, sabers make captains like Dayron Esposito almost impossible to stop, and they are well worth the money.
Hull And Frame
When a ship sinks, there are no second chances. When a ship’s hull points go down to zero, it and all the goods in its hold are gone for good. This means you must do everything you can to make sure your ships stay on the right side of the water. Upgrades to a ship’s hull and frame make it able to take more damage before it sinks. This makes them very important parts of any build.
Most ships you capture will have hull and frame upgrades of some kind. Check for high-tier versions of these important pieces of gear even if they don’t have anything else. If a ship seems to take less damage than it should, this is often a sign that it has them. When you capture such a tough ship, you have a great place to start building anything you want.
