“You’ve got yer Halcyona Pirates, yer Growlgate Pirates, yer Bloodhands, Blackbeards, and all manner of traitorous privateers. Not to mention the giant seabugs, jellyfish, and gods-forsaken Kraken poppin’ up whenever he gets peckish. I’ll tell ya, friend: if you don’t have a stout ship and a brave soul, you don’t stand a chance.”

– Mudskipper Captain Rumi

Dread Prophecies is bringing a wave of changes to life-at-sea in ArcheAge, starting with a completely new ship customization system that lets you tailor your vessel into a high-powered destroyer, cloaking speed-trader, or anything in between.

Read on for a leg up on customizing your ship in Update 1.7A, and stay tuned to Friday livestreams and the ArcheAge website for the latest news and Q&A!

New Ship Interface

Soon every captain, pirate, and wind-beaten smuggler with a sea-worthy vessel will have access to the Dread Prophecies ship customization system via a new button on the ship info window. Opening it will reveal a diagram of your vessel and its slots for custom components.

The new interface displays your ship type along with its base stats and the amount and type of custom components it can support. Each of the slots are interactive, showing which items and upgrades you’ve equipped to your ship. (Just mouse over your hull slots for more info!)

Of course, the new UI is just a shell to hold the heart of the new system: the custom components themselves. With access to armaments, sails, masts, boarding equipment, special abilities, and more, you can create the Kraken- (or player-, or treasure-, or fish-) hunting ship of your dreams.

Ship Components

With the launch of Dread Prophecies, all existing ships will be outfitted with default-level components, and nearly 100 additional components will be added to the Machining Proficiency for you to craft and collect. These include:

Armaments*: Armor, Harpoons, and Cannons used to deal damage to enemies and ships.

Armor, Harpoons, and Cannons used to deal damage to enemies and ships. Sails*: Foresails, Mainsails, and Rigs that improve your ship’s speed and turning capabilities.

Foresails, Mainsails, and Rigs that improve your ship’s speed and turning capabilities. Figureheads*: Sculptures mounted on the front of your ship that provide unique abilities.

Sculptures mounted on the front of your ship that provide unique abilities. Masts: Sail supports that improve your ship’s durability and resistance to damage.

Sail supports that improve your ship’s durability and resistance to damage. Steering Gear: Rudders used to improve your ship’s turning speed.

Rudders used to improve your ship’s turning speed. Navigation: Telescopes, Compasses, Fish Finders, and Sonar that help identify your immediate surroundings.

Telescopes, Compasses, Fish Finders, and Sonar that help identify your immediate surroundings. Lighting: Lanterns; Shroudlights that provide detection avoidance when enabled.

Lanterns; Shroudlights that provide detection avoidance when enabled. Storage: Trade Pack Containers, plus an Explosives Workbench that allows mid-sea ammunition crafting.

Trade Pack Containers, plus an Explosives Workbench that allows mid-sea ammunition crafting. Boarding Equipment: Boarding Planks that prevent unwanted entry to the sides of a war vessel.

Boarding Planks that prevent unwanted entry to the sides of a war vessel. Miscellaneous Apparatus: Breathing Devices, Portable Harpoons, and Decorations.

Breathing Devices, Portable Harpoons, and Decorations. Sound Equipment: Bells and Drums you can use to warn an opponent of their impending doom

* Can be regraded with a Ship Component Regrade Scroll.

Customizing Your Ship

Before adding or swapping components, you must summon or sail your ship within range of one of your faction’s Ezi’s Light towers. These beacons rise from the sea off the coast of major ports:

Austera (Harani and Firran)

(Harani and Firran) Ezna (Nuians and Elves)

(Nuians and Elves) Growlgate (Pirates)

(Pirates) Diamond Shores (All Factions)

To equip a component, simply drag it from your inventory to the slot you’d like it to fill, and watch as your stats, gear, or abilities are augmented on the fly. Note: Equipping a ship component will bind it to your character.

Regrades, Weight, and Top Speed

Certain components can be regraded with a Ship Component Regrade Scroll obtained from ocean-dwelling creatures, Shipwreck scavenging, and specific quests. Note, however, that ship components regrade differently than Weapons, Armor, and Accessories!

During the regrade process, a component either increases in grade or is destroyed.

A higher-grade ship component provides a stat increase and also increases the weight of your vessel.

The weight of your ship determines its top speed – so ships that support grand-heroic components will travel more quickly than ships with celestial and higher grade parts – as well as the maximum collision damage you can deal when ramming an opponent’s vessel.

In addition, each ship will be rated with a maximum number of players it can carry before reaching its crew capacity.

Over-burdened ships will lose momentum and begin to sink during travel.

Enemy players who board a vessel also contribute to the ship’s maximum occupancy.

This is an important mechanic to consider when dividing your infantry across multiple ships in a fleet!

Machining & Multiple Crests

Machinists are perhaps the most eager to embark on Dread Prophecies adventures, excelling as they do at building components and making (new) mid-sea repairs.

Anyone can use Shatigon’s Sand (available from General Merchants) to repair ships at sea, but highly-skilled Machinists will enjoy the best results.

Certain ship components have minimum Machining Proficiency requirements to craft.

Note that ships which are completely destroyed must still undergo the normal repair cycle.

Custom Crest stamps that have been applied to ships will be also be removed with the Dread Prophecies release to make way for a new and improved system:

After the update, you can apply images directly to your ship’s sails rather than using a scroll.

Ships that support multiple sails will also support multiple images!

More than anything, we look forward to seeing how you end up customizing your ships. Will they become massive traders, nimble warships, or something completely different?

Discuss this article on the forums.