Mods, Books & Perks

Two captains in the same ship, built from the same wood, can be wildly unequal — because the hull is only the starting point. On top of it sit three separate layers of customization: modules bolted into the ship’s slots, ship knowledge (the “books”) learned for a whole class of ship, and captain perks that follow you personally from one command to the next. They work in completely different ways — one is fitted to the hull, one to the ship type, one to you — and understanding which is which is the difference between a thoughtful build and a bag of random bonuses.

Modules (mods)

Modules — also called upgrades, or just “mods” — are components you fit into a ship’s upgrade slots in port to change how that specific hull performs: more speed, thicker armour, faster reload, better turning, and so on. A ship bought at auction or captured from an NPC arrives bare, with nothing fitted; a ship bought from another player may come with modules already installed, which you can keep or strip out.

Modules come in three sizes, and the size a hull accepts depends on its rate:

• S (small) — for the little ships, ranks 6 and 7.
• M (medium) — for the mid-rates, ranks 4 and 5.
• L (large) — for the heavy hulls, ranks 1, 2 and 3.

You acquire them the usual Naval Action way — bought in port shops, crafted, looted from wrecks, or pulled from mission reward chests — and you can hover any module in your shop, warehouse, or hold to read exactly what it does before committing.

The full catalogue of modules changes with patches and is far too long to reproduce here; the in-port tooltips and the community module tables are where you check current effects. Which mods suit a hull depends heavily on the wood it’s built from — see Woods & Trim.

Books (ship knowledge)

Ship knowledge — the “books” — is the layer most newcomers miss, and it behaves unlike modules in two important ways. First, knowledge is tied not to one ship but to a whole ship type: as you sail a given hull and earn experience in it, you unlock knowledge slots for that type — up to five — and any ship of that type you own benefits. Second, books are learned permanently, not slotted and swapped.

You obtain a book the same scattered ways as modules — from mission chests, bought from other players, looted from ships you sink or capture, or crafted — and then, with the book sitting in your hold or warehouse, you learn it into one of that ship type’s knowledge slots. Learning consumes the book.

Captain perks

Perks are the only layer that is about you rather than the ship. They follow you from hull to hull — switch ships and your perks come with you — and you spend a limited budget of perk points to slot the ones that suit how you fight. Common choices reshape a whole playstyle: Combat Repairs shortens your repair cooldowns (and, as of recent patches, sinking an enemy immediately knocks several minutes off your hull and sail cooldowns); Bravery boosts repair amounts and turning; boarding-focused captains favour perks that strengthen their marines and crew. There are perks for trading, exploration, and survival too — the set rewards specialising over trying to do everything.

Crucially, perks are not a permanent commitment the way books are. You can re-spec — clear your perks and choose again — by paying a price in doubloons, so it’s cheap to keep a combat loadout for the open sea and respec into a trading or port-battle set when the job changes. Treat perks as your flexible layer.

Putting a build together

The three layers stack, and the art is matching all of them to a single job rather than chasing every stat at once. A few principles tie it together:

• Decide the role first. A long-range line-fighter, a fast chaser, a boarding predator, and a trader want different mods, different books, and different perks. Build toward one and the choices make themselves.
• Match your investment to the risk. Perks are flexible and books follow the ship type, but modules die with the slot when you swap them — and the whole ship dies if you lose it. Don’t gold-plate a hull you’re about to risk in a fight you might not win.
• Books are your long game. They take the most effort to earn and can’t be recovered once learned, so concentrate them on the hulls you actually sail, and let mods and perks do the fine-tuning around them.