Crimson Desert Ship Guide for Charting the Unknown

Crimson Desert’s Charting the Unknown DLC introduces shipbuilding and sailing, opening up an ocean filled with islands, pirates, and hidden treasure. Your first small vessel gets you started, while larger ships offer more power and room for additional crew.

Getting the most out of your ship means understanding construction, equipment, crew assignments, and the quests that unlock more ocean activities. You can also obtain a teleportation device that makes returning to your vessel much easier.

This guide covers how to unlock ships, build or buy larger vessels, manage your crew, and find useful rewards while sailing.

For diving equipment and aquatic mounts, visit our Crimson Desert underwater exploration guide.

With Charting the Unknown installed, complete the main story quest Howling Hill and develop your Greymane camp to unlock the ocean questline. Camp expansion is required alongside the story milestone.

Progress through the Grounds of the Sunrise faction quests until A Wider World becomes available under Charting the Unknown in your quest journal.

Follow A Wider World to begin a dispatch mission that constructs your first small ship. Supply the required resources and comrades, then wait for the mission to finish.

Continue the questline after receiving your vessel. It introduces more of the ocean’s activities and leads into island pioneering and further exploration.

If you still need to develop your camp, our Charting the Unknown preparation guide covers useful preparations before setting sail.

The main crewed ships come in three sizes: small, medium, and large. Larger vessels generally have stronger stats and more firepower, but they also require more crew.

You can obtain bigger ships through construction dispatches or direct purchases.

To build a ship, check the shipbuilding missions available at ports. Delesyia offers missions for both medium and large vessels.

Construction requires standard resources alongside materials found in the ocean. Underwater mineral veins and floating salvage crates can provide these materials, so collecting crates during your travels helps you work towards your next ship.

To buy a ship, visit a ship manager and pay with camp funds. A large ship costs 6,000,000 camp funds, making a direct purchase the quickest option if you already have enough saved.

Building requires fewer camp funds, but you must gather the materials and wait for the dispatch to finish. Whichever route you choose, remember that a larger vessel also needs more Greymanes to fill its crew roles.

Ship equipment vendors sell parts that improve your vessel’s combat and sailing performance. Check the available equipment at the ports in Delesyia and Demeniss.

The available parts include:

• Cannons for improved naval firepower.
• Sails with sailing bonuses.
• Bow and stern equipment that can improve protection, handling, and other ship stats.
• A dual forward cannon attachment for the prow.

Compare each purchase with your existing equipment. Some options in Delesyia are alternatives or relatively small improvements over the default parts on a large ship.

The equipment available at Demeniss is more expensive, but offers stronger upgrade options if you have the funds.

Buying the largest vessel is only part of improving your ship. Its fitted equipment and assigned crew also determine what it can do at sea.

Your ship needs crew members assigned to its roles for its different functions to work properly.

The main roles to watch are:

• Gunners, who operate the cannons.
• Carpenters, who help repair the ship when its durability drops.
• Deckhands, who catch fish while the ship is stationary.

Fill the available slots where possible. A ship without assigned gunners cannot use its guns, while leaving the carpenter roles empty means missing out on their repairs.

Crew members’ combat stats also matter when enemies board your vessel. Some pirates can even descend onto your deck from above, turning a naval encounter into close-range combat.

Larger ships need substantially more crew. If your Greymanes are already occupied with dispatch missions, use robot workers for suitable assignments elsewhere. This frees up comrades to serve aboard your ship.

There are several ways to fight hostile ships. You can fire cannons from either side of your vessel, ram an enemy ship, or approach closely enough to board it and fight its crew.

Destroyed ships can drop salvage crates containing useful resources. Floating crates also appear throughout the ocean, so you can collect materials without entering combat.

Alongside crafting resources, these crates can contain relics. Exchange them at dedicated vendors, including one at Delesyia’s port.

For more places to spend your relics, check our Crimson Desert Relic Exchange vendor guide, covering merchant locations, diving equipment and Abyss Gear blueprints.

Check port bounty boards for named pirate targets. These ships patrol particular areas around islands and are separate from the ordinary pirates you encounter while travelling.

Defeating bounty targets can award treasure maps, leading to buried rewards beyond the salvage from the fight itself.

If you have already unlocked Blackstar, your dragon provides another option for travelling across the ocean and attacking enemy ships.

The ocean questline introduces pioneering, which allows you to develop suitable uninhabited islands.

These missions leave some of your crew on an island to establish an anchorage. Once construction finishes, the new port gives your ship somewhere to dock on future visits.

Explore the island while you are there. Hidden caves can contain useful rewards, giving you a reason to search beyond the landing point.

After completing A Wider World, look for Remote Islands in the Great Ocean section of your quests.

This follow-up directs you towards a pirate-held island to the east. You will fight enemy ships, clear the outpost, and restore the settlement to a friendly village. Completing these objectives leads into further ocean quests.

The Ship Teleportation Device allows you to fast travel back to your vessel, making it one of the most useful early ship upgrades.

Its blueprint is inside a buried treasure chest on the island visited during the early pioneering questline. Bring a shovel to dig up the chest at the treasure location.

Once you obtain the blueprint:

1. Check the recipe at a workshop.
2. Gather its required materials, including Shiny Ore.
3. Craft the teleportation device.
4. Install it on your ship.

With the device fitted, your vessel becomes a fast-travel destination similar to an Abyss Nexus. You can leave it offshore, travel to a town for supplies, and teleport back to continue your voyage.

Floating salvage crates can contain Shiny Ore. An in-game clue also points towards the waters south of Pywel, relatively close to the coast, as an area to search.

Collect crates while completing the introductory ocean quests so you can build up materials before crafting the device.

For another naval encounter, investigate the Sea of Silence to the east.

A special ship can appear in this area, and defeating it rewards a unique treasure map. This gives you another destination to investigate once you are comfortable sailing and fighting with your vessel.

The encounter adds another treasure-hunting opportunity alongside the pirate bounties available at ports.