You can build and manage a whole fleet of ships in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. This guide shows you how to make the most profit, choose the right ships for your fleet, and explains how to raid warehouses more often!
How to unlock Fleet Planning
You can unlock Fleet Planning fairly early on in the game. All you’d need to do is to successfully storm a Fort and you’ll gain access to Fleet Planning in the Jackdaw’s Cabin, or in your Manor at Great Inagua.
If you’re doing more story quests over side activities, then you’ll likely unlock Fleet Planning after completing the main story mission “The Forts“.
By using the Fleet Planning table in either the Jackdaw’s Cabin or your Manor, you’ll receive a quick tutorial popup. There’s only so much information they could squeeze into the pop up window, so this guide will go more in-depth.
Fleet Mission Types Explained
On the Fleet Planning table will be a map that’s divided into five sections: Northwest, Northeast, West, Southwest, and Southeast. By taking over a fort in one of these sections, you’ll be able to send ships from your fleet onto missions in those sections.
Different mission types will require specific ships. For example, you can’t do a trading mission with a Man O’ War. You will need to diversify the types of ships you have available in your fleet.
Trade Missions
Trade Missions are represented by the Scale figurines on the map. Trade Missions require a Schooner where they’ll sell Trade Goods in your inventory at a much higher rate than you’d receive by selling them manually at a vendor.
For example, the Northwest section has the Trade Mission “Pretense” that lets you sell 480 reales worth of Trade Goods for 2,460 reales in 30 minutes. Meanwhile the late game Southwest section’s Trade Mission “Trade Hub” lets you sell 1,000 reales worth of trade goods for 4,500 reales in 1 hour.
Piracy Missions
Piracy Missions are a great way to passively collect Trade Goods and Ship Materials. You’ll find Piracy Missions with the Skull with Swords figurine on the map. Use these missions to send a Brig to gather materials for Trade Missions. It’s also a good way to stock up on Trade Goods to purchase items and services from the Treasure Dealer on Great Inagua.
Scout Missions
If you like raiding Warehouses, then you’ll love Scout Missions even more. Typically Warehouses take around an hour to resupply. With Scout Missions, you can send a Frigate to scout a Warehouse in a section to resupply it in 15 minutes. The Scout Missions are represented by Spyglass figurines.
Patrol Missions
Missions have a chance to increase a section’s Risk Level when completed. This results in your ships taking more damage during future missions, so sending a Man O’ War on a Patrol Mission will reduce the Risk Level by 1 for the selected section of the map.
Art Collection Pieces from Fleet Missions
Some missions can allow you to earn a decorative item for your Manor on Great Inagua. If you see a reward for a quest that’s not Trade Goods and appears unique, complete it! This will help fill out your display shelves to give it a more complete look.
Fleet Management Strategy
As you acquire ships, you’ll run into issues such as repairing them, replacing them if they were destroyed, or dealing with a limited amount of Berth slots. Manage your fleet properly to minimize overhead costs while maximizing profit!
Acquiring Ships
Whenever you incapacitate and successfully board a ship, you’ll have the option to “Send to Kenway’s Fleet”. Selecting this option will send the ship you boarded to your fleet if a Berth Slot is available.
Where you captured the ship and how many stars the ship had will affect the quality. Ships you’ve acquired will have somewhere between 1 to 3 astroids (4-pointed star). For example, a 1-star Schooner found in the easy waters will most likely be a 1 astroid ship in your fleet. If you instead commandeered a 2-star Schooner in mid-game waters (such as Castillo de Jagua), it’ll likely be a 3-astroid ship in the fleet.
The more astroids a ship in your fleet has, the more health it will have. This plays a role with end game sections of the fleet map dealing more damage to ships on missions. The extra durability comes at the extra cost of reales to repair your ships.
Repair Costs
As your ships get damaged, you’ll need to pay in ship materials and reales. Repairs take a total of 4 seconds per ship. The material costs such as wood, metal, and cloth depends on the class of ship being repaired. The reales cost depends on the quality of the ship being repaired.
Schooner
| Tier |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | 300 | 4 | 16 | |
| II | 700 | 4 | 16 | |
| III | 1,500 | 4 | 16 |
Brig
| Tier | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | 300 | 12 | 8 | 12 |
| II | 700 | 12 | 8 | 12 |
| III | 1,500 | 12 | 8 | 12 |
Frigate
| Tier | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | 300 | 24 | 18 | |
| II | 700 | 24 | 18 | |
| III | 1,500 | 24 | 18 |
Man O’ War
| Tier | | | | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | 300 | 12 | 30 | 18 |
| II | 700 | 12 | 30 | 18 |
| III | 1,500 | 12 | 30 | 18 |
Lowering Mission Damage
To get a bit more mileage out of your ships, you can lower the damage done to your ships during missions. You can capture more forts in a section or reduce the risk level of a section. You can find your current risk level, damage level, and forts captured for a section in the lower right corner of the screen
A neutral amount of damage for a section is 100%. If there are more forts and a higher risk level, the percentage will exceed 100% and appear red. Keep it low with Patrols and controlling forts in an area and it’ll appear green for reduced damage.
Unlocking Berth Slots
By default, you’ll have 3 Ship Berths available. You can acquire a maximum of 10 but you’ll need to unlock them by paying for them directly and upgrading your Hideout. More specifically, you can unlock:
- 2 Berth Slots by restoring the Campfire for 6,000 reales
- 1 Berth Slot by purchasing the Facade for 4,000 reales
- 1 Berth Slot by purchasing the Tower and Garden for 8,000 reales
- 1 Berth Slot by purchasing the Guesthouse for 20,000 reales
- 1 Berth Slot in the Fleet Planning Menu for 5,000 reales
- 1 Berth Slot in the Fleet Planning Menu for 10,000 reales
Salvaging Ships
If you don’t wish to repair a ship or need to open a slot for a better ship, you can salvage a ship for a few ship materials. It isn’t much and if you’re looking to upgrade the Jackdaw, it’s better to board ships yourself for upgrade materials.
Fleet Composition Recommendations
There are a couple of good ways you can go about building a fleet. The following two methods are going to be for different purposes, use whichever suits your needs!
General Purpose Fleet
If you’re looking to do a bit of everything, you’ll need a bit of every ship class. A good general purpose fleet would be comprised of:
- 4 Schooners
- 3 Brigs
- 1 Frigate
- 2 Man O’ Wars
You’ll want at least one Tier III Schooner to sell goods in the west section to negate the chance of it getting destroyed. With 4 Schooners selling goods, you can make 11,450 reales per hour while you’re out completing the main story, doing side activities on land such as treasure hunting, or relaxing at a tavern playing Checkers, Nine-Man Morris, or Fanorona.
The Brigs and Frigates are used to supply the Schooners with Trade Goods. While the Brigs passively collect them, the Frigates refresh Warehouses in 25% their usual time to allow you to raid them yourself.
The last two remaining slots will be Man O’ Wars to patrol waters to keep threat levels low. This in turn decreases the damage done to all of your ships during missions. To cut down on costs, use Tier I Man O’ Wars as they can still do a couple of patrol missions while being the cheapest to repair.
Piracy Fleet
Go with this setup if you’re looking to keep Trade Goods for yourself. This is useful for purchasing legendary gear and map restoration services from the Treasure Dealer on Great Inagua.
- 5 Brigs
- 2 Frigates
- 3 Man O’ Wars
Use Brigs to raid all five sections of the map as you cycle through all the Warehouses available. Refresh recently looted Warehouses with your Frigates while the Man O’ Wars clear up the threat in multiple regions.
