Summoning ships

Ships (excluding raft caravans) can only be summoned from a port or harbor.

You can summon your ships up but you'll need to summon them from land, which means that if something happens to your armada out at sea you won't have backups to just summon immediately in the middle of the fight... They'll have to do so from shore somewhere from some port or harbor. – Steven Sharif

• Only the player who has the ship item in their inventory can summon that ship.

Rivers can only be used by caravan rafts. Ships that are intended for the ocean cannot travel upstream in a river. It is too shallow. – Steven Sharif

• Rivers can only be used by raft caravans. Previously it was stated that ships may be able to be summoned in rivers (or other bodies of water) depending on the depth of the water.

• Raft caravans are capable of transitioning to and from land caravans at the point of intersection of land and water.

Harbors

Alpha-1 harbor early preview concept.

Harbors that are located in specific areas around the world along the coast and those are points of interest that get adopted by a node when they reach certain levels in proximity to that harbor, or if the node gets vasseled by a parent or sovereign node in relationship to their vassal owning that harbor. – Steven Sharif

Harbors are initially dilapidated points of interest that appear in coastal areas. Harbors have a significant amount of influence over the waters.

Harbors are where ships get built and launched and harbors are essentially dilapidated points of interest that progress when a node nearby, coastal or not, adopts that point of interest or that harbor. Then the node can contribute towards building up the harbor; and players who may not be citizens of that node can still go to that harbor and access its services. – Steven Sharif

• A nearby node, coastal or not, will adopt the harbor point of interest and will contribute to its progression.
  • Ship building, ship upgrades, and other services offered by the harbor can be utilized by citizens and non-citizens of the node.
  • Previously it was stated that harbors would be controlled by a nearby Village (stage 3) (or higher) coastal node. It was also stated that ship workstations are only unlocked by the advancement of that coastal node.

• Harbors have a disembarkation zone that merchant ships can cross to be guided into the harbor.
  • Merchant ships can only be launched and received at harbors in a similar way that land caravans can only be launched and received at a caravansary.

• Harbors will grant quests that are related to naval content.

• Coastal nodes are not directly siegeable by sea. Instead, harbors offer objective-based naval gameplay during node sieges.

Ship classes

Alpha-1 naval concept art.

Ships are divided into classes of vessel, which relate to their size and capabilities in battle and in transportation.

Size	Type	Usage.	Crew.
Small	Personal vessels.	Solo/personal content.	1-3
Medium	Frigates.	Group content.	Group size (8)
Large	Galleons.	Raid content.	Raid size (40)

The amount of crew required in order for a ship to be effective depends on the ship's class.

• All ship classes minimally require a captain to drive the ship.

• Certain ship classes will have the ability to render Crowd control (CC) effects on other ships, such as a harpoon effects.

Ships have their own class of vessel and the class that is related to the vessel has a certain purpose both in battle, in PvE raids, in transportation. – Steven Sharif

Galleons

The Wonderwisp pre-order pack cosmetic ship skin.

Galleons (also called Capital or Raid ships.) is a class of ship in Ashes of Creation.

• These are targeted at naval raid content.
• Galleons have a crew size of 40 players.

Raft caravans

Alpha-2 raft caravan in the Riverlands biome.

Caravans are capable of transitioning from land to raft caravans. So if you start out as a land-based Caravan and you move to the coast and you want to move into the water there's gonna be a little transition period there; it's gonna be a little construction site: You're not gonna have to do anything it's just gonna be a timer right so that you can't quickly move between land and water. It's gonna be probably in the matter of a minute to two minutes. There's a little bit of vulnerability in that regard. – Steven Sharif

Raft caravans (also referred to as Naval caravans) allow the transportation of cargo over the water.

• Unlike merchant ships, raft caravans are capable of transitioning to and from land caravans at the point of intersection of land and water.
  • Raft caravans may only be used in rivers.
• Currently the stats of the raft are informed by the components of the caravan. This may be changed based on testing.
• By default, raft caravans have a racial appearance. Players will be able to apply caravan skins to change this appearance.

Ship building

Naval concept art.

Ships are going to also have classes. Those classes are going to dictate the type of of attachments that can be applied and in what quantity. A military vessel type may have more capacity for weapon based attachments. A transport ship might have more capacity for defensive based attachments. And then you'll have more versatile ships that can share across those types. So in that sense you are constructing a componentized ship for the types of activities you intend to do: Are you a raider? Are you a mover of goods? Are you an adventurer? These types of things are going to inform your decision of what the attachments you're going to have in those three categories. – Steven Sharif

Ship building can be carried out by any player in possession of the right components, recipes, and an advanced enough node, coastal or not, with a harbor.

• Various professions can craft ship components. These components can be sold to other players.

• Ships may only be crafted or upgraded in harbor ship workstations that are unlocked by the advancement of nearby nodes. Previously this was stated to be coastal nodes.

• Players can choose which "joints" get populated with either offensive weaponry, defensive, or utility attachments they want on their ship prior to construction completion. The types of attachments that are available are dictated by the ship's class.
  • Movement, Durability, Speed, Turn rate, Hit points, Defensive and Damage abilities.
  • Weapon slots.
  • Aesthetic customization.

• Ships will likely not have closed spaces or internal compartments such as Captain's quarters.

We are trying to stay away from internal compartments within the ships because that presents a whole different type of user interface and flow that can be a bit cumbersome and problematic, especially in combat and in closed spaces. So we're trying to stay away from that under deck aspect and keep things all on deck for better readability on the player side. – Steven Sharif

Ship repair

Ships may be repaired but it will be a lengthier process than in other games.

• Ships can be repaired at sea if players have the correct materials.

• Ships that are completely destroyed will incur great costs to restore, and may only be re-launched from land.

See also

• Ships
• Naval