Be a Pirate Beginner Guide

Collecting your starter raft and setting sail

Your character arrives on the docks at Starter Port with a cutlass and a flintlock pistol. Walk toward the waterfront dock to find Finn, the shipyard elder. Talking to Finn starts the opening sequence and puts an old wooden raft in the water beside the pier.

The raft answers WASD once you take the helm. Steer into the bay until the onscreen objective confirms you have reached open water, which ends the introductory navigation check and clears you to explore the nearby shallows.

You also carry a fishing rod from your first moments on the dock. Casting off the Starter Port pier catches basic fish such as coral snappers, and the port merchant buys your catch if you pick the sell option in the dialogue. Island chests still pay faster toward a first hull upgrade.

Digging your first chest on Coral Island

Coral Island sits just past the harbor mouth behind Starter Port. Steer your raft straight at the sandy beach.

The recording below runs the whole trip in one take: the raft beached, the crabs cleared, the chest dug and carried back to the hold.

1. Nose or anchor the raft against the shoreline so you can jump ashore without drifting away.
2. Kill the island crabs that scuttle toward you. Two cutlass swings or a single pistol shot clears them.
3. Walk the marked dig area on the beach until the interact prompt appears.
4. Hold the interaction key to dig the sand until a wooden chest surfaces.
5. Pick the chest up and put it on your shoulder. Carrying a chest costs 18% movement speed.
6. Walk back to the raft and stow the chest in the hold.

Your starter raft has four cargo slots, and a fifth chest forced into the hold makes the hull take on water and sink with the cargo aboard. the cargo hold rules covers the ways players move extra salvage without losing the raft.

Opening chests at the Treasure Broker and buying a Sloop

Return to Starter Port with the chest in the hold and walk up the main stone pier to the Treasure Broker booth.

Interacting with the broker cashes the chest in on the spot. He opens the box on the counter and hands over currency and wearable gear in one transaction: one recorded early chest paid $280 and a torn bandana, and another produced a pocket pistol.

Payout depends on chest type and luck. Recorded early values run $155, $275, $280, $450, and $750 for a golden parrot chest. Once your wallet reaches about $2,500 gold, walk past the broker booth to Barnacle Bill at the shipwright yard. A Dinghy sits between the raft and the Sloop, so you may upgrade twice before the Sloop is in reach.

The Sloop counts as your first big progression goal and unlocks a task to install a module. Upgrades such as the Lookout's nest can be bought straight from the port module interface. If chest runs are not paying for the purchase, how gold is actually earned covers daily rewards and combat bounties.

Starter progression benchmarks

After the Sloop, the next step is preparing for mid-tier hulls such as the Cutter or Schooner, which you can compare on the ship ladder.

To speed up early progress without spending Robux, open the Daily Rewards screen each day you log in. The Quartermaster near the docks also hands out daily missions, and one recorded task paid 400 coins. Players keep hunting promo codes, but nothing we could check shows a working one, so read the codes check before spending time on a code list.

Early mistakes that sink new players

Cargo overload floods the raft. A four-slot hold reads four out of four when it is full, and dropping a fifth chest in makes the craft take on water, capsize and discard the cargo into the sea. Carrying that chest in your hands instead of stowing it is the trick players use to get one more box home.

Enemy ships outside Starter Port hit harder than a raft can take. Rogue sloops at level 2 and pirate cutters at level 4 patrol the water, and their broadside cannons chew through an unarmored starter hull. Keep your distance until you have installed swivel guns and hired a tavern crew member.

Sharks patrol the deep water between islands and bite the player directly. A starter pistol does too little damage to stop one before you take heavy health damage, so travel inside the boat rather than swimming a channel.

When a run stalls, the cause is usually one of three things: