The Compendium · Open Beta v0.1
Solana Seas: A Captain's Compendium
One shared ocean, six ports, and a simple cruelty at the centre of it: everything in your hold is lost the moment you sink. This is the complete guide to the world, how it plays, and where it's going.
- The ocean
- 8,000 × 8,000 leagues
- Home port
- Tortuga, dead centre
- Ports
- 6, each with its own trade
- Captains
- 40 per shard · 6 shards
- Ranks
- Deckhand → Sea Legend
- Cost
- Free. No download.
§ 01 The Premise
Plunder is easy. Keeping it is the game.
You are a captain on a shared ocean, sailing alongside every other captain online. You sink Navy patrols and skeleton galleons, you take their cargo, and your hold fills with $PIRATES.
None of it is yours yet. Loot in your hold is lost entirely if you sink — to a Navy frigate, to a cursed hulk, or to another player who decided your ship was worth more than your goodwill. It only becomes yours when you sail back to a port and put it in the vault.
So every voyage is the same question, asked with rising stakes: one more wreck, or turn for home? The further you sail from Tortuga the richer the water gets and the meaner it gets with it. Most captains die with a full hold and a short distance left to run.
Vault gold is permanently safe. Hold gold is never safe. Upgrades are bought with vault gold, so every refit you own was a voyage you finished instead of pushing your luck.
§ 02 The World
Eight thousand leagues square, with Tortuga at the middle and trouble in every direction.
The ocean is one continuous world — no loading screens, no instances. Scattered across it are twelve named isles (Isla Perdida, Skull Rock, Kraken Cove, Devil's Anvil, Marooner's Rock, Padres del Fuego, Serpent's Coil, and others) and six ports. Islands block cannon fire, so a skilled captain uses them as cover.
Danger scales with distance
Within 1,500 of Tortuga. No captain-vs-captain fire. Enemies won't spawn or target you within 700 of the harbour itself.
The next 350 leagues out. A no-camp margin so nobody can park on the safe line and pick off returning captains.
Everything beyond. Piracy is legal, hulls get heavier the further you sail, and the plunder is worth the trip.
The six ports
Every harbour does the same four things — bank, repair, refit, take contracts — but each one is good at something different, and the sailing time between them is a real cost.
| Port | Known for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Tortuga | Home port. Fair prices, safe water, always a fallback. | Best at nothing in particular. |
| Port Royal | Naval yards — refits 20% off and the cheapest repairs at sea. | Harbour dues are double. |
| Rumrunner's Bay | Free banking, no questions asked. | The chandlery marks everything up. |
| Smuggler's Den | Black-market refits at a discount. | Repairs cost a premium. |
| Skull Harbor | The bounty hub — richer contracts are posted here. | You have to survive the trip out. |
| Gallows Reach | The magistrate sells pardons. Wanted captains welcome. | You'll only need it if you've earned it. |
Who else is out there
The Navy hunts in disciplined patrols and gets heavier the further out you sail. Skeleton galleons are cursed hulks — slower, tougher, and worth considerably more. Both come in four temperaments that fight genuinely differently: broadsiders hold their distance and trade cannon fire, hunters chase you down, kiters refuse to close, and rammers aim to hit you rather than shoot you.
Above them are the named elites — Cutlass Kate, Iron Bart, The Gravewind, Salt-Blood Sam, Hollow Jack, and Widow Moreau. They carry real money and they don't sink easily.
§ 03 Sailing and Gunnery
Cannons fire sideways. That single fact decides every fight in this game.
You do not aim in Solana Seas — you manoeuvre. Broadsides fire perpendicular to your hull, so winning a duel means getting your flank onto the enemy while keeping your bow or stern toward theirs. Chasing someone directly is the fastest way to take fire without returning any.
| Control | Action |
|---|---|
| A / D | Steer to port and starboard |
| W / S | Let out and take in sail — your speed |
| Space | Fire broadsides, both sides at once |
| 1 – 4 | Abilities |
| R | Use a repair kit at sea (restores 40% hull) |
| E | Dock, when close enough to a port |
| Enter | Chat |
Abilities
Six abilities unlock as you rank up. Cooldowns shorten as you hire veteran crew.
| Ability | Unlocks | Cooldown | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Volley | Lv 1 | 6s | A concentrated broadside. Your bread and butter — powder charges supercharge the next one. |
| Chain Shot | Lv 3 | 9s | A spread of chained rounds that shreds sails and slows what it hits. |
| Brace | Lv 5 | 15s | Hunker down and cut incoming damage. The difference between limping home and not. |
| Ram | Lv 7 | 8s | A burst of speed that turns your bow into the weapon. Finisher, or escape. |
| Smoke | Lv 10 | 22s | Break pursuit and go briefly untargetable. The pirate's exit. |
| Grapeshot | Lv 14 | 14s | A short cone that melts light hulls at knife range. |
Fights also carry critical hits and burning hulls, and the whole ocean runs a shared day-night cycle — every captain online sees the same sunset.
§ 04 Piracy
You can rob other captains. It will cost you.
Outside Home Waters, any captain of level 5 or above is fair game and so are you. Sink another player and their hold is yours. Captain-vs-captain fire lands at 75% damage, so player duels last longer than fights against the Navy and reward manoeuvring over ambush.
Piracy is deliberately not free. Every captain you sink adds a point of infamy. Reach three and you are Wanted: visible to every captain on the ocean, with a Navy bounty on your head that scales with how bad you've been. Infamy decays slowly as you keep your head down — or you can sail to Gallows Reach and buy a pardon from the magistrate.
Captains under level 5 cannot be attacked by other players at all, anywhere. New captains get to learn the ocean before the ocean learns about them.
Crews
Captains can form crews, talk on a private crew channel, and are routed to the same shard so you actually sail together rather than sharing a name tag in different oceans.
§ 05 Progression
Seven ranks, five refits, and a ship that gets meaningfully meaner.
| Rank | Level |
|---|---|
| Deckhand | 1 |
| Buccaneer | 3 |
| Corsair | 6 |
| Captain | 10 |
| Dread Pirate | 15 |
| Pirate Lord | 22 |
| Sea Legend | 30 |
The shipwright
Five refits, bought with vault gold, each one costing sharply more per level.
| Refit | Levels | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Reinforced Hull | 8 | +60 maximum hull per level |
| Heavier Cannons | 8 | +6 damage and crit chance; extra barrels at levels 2 and 4 |
| Bigger Sails | 8 | +40 top speed per level |
| Veteran Crew | 6 | Faster reload and shorter ability cooldowns |
| Pirate's Fortune | 6 | +18% $PIRATES from all plunder |
Ports also sell repairs, repair kits (carry up to five, use at sea with R), powder charges that supercharge your next Volley, and pardons at Gallows Reach.
Contracts
The bounty board posts hunting contracts — sink two ships of any flag, sink four Navy vessels, put down three skeleton galleons — paying gold and experience that scale with your level. Skull Harbor posts the richest ones.
§ 06 The Economy
$PIRATES is in-game plunder. During the beta it is worth exactly nothing, and that is on purpose.
The doubloon you fill your hold with. In the beta it buys refits, repairs, powder, and pardons — and nothing outside the game.
Everything you earn, bank, and spend today is a number on our server. Beta $PIRATES has no monetary value, cannot be withdrawn, and balances may be adjusted or reset before full release. We would rather say that plainly than imply otherwise and disappoint you later.
You can link a Phantom wallet if you want to. It proves you own the wallet and ties it to your captain — nothing more. No balances are read, no funds move, and no transaction is ever requested. It exists so that when ownership does arrive, your captain is already who you say they are.
Where it's headed
The plan is ships you genuinely own — minted, customizable, tradable, and losable in the waters that warn you first. Your hold stays fungible and at risk; the ship becomes the permanent thing you build across hundreds of voyages. The full economic design, including where every coin paid out actually comes from, is published in the ship ownership dossier.
Nothing is for sale today. There is no presale, no allowlist, no token, and anyone telling you otherwise is running a scam. When that changes, it will be announced here and on @solanaseas first.
§ 07 The Road Ahead
Everything before ownership is about proving the game is worth owning something in.
| Phase | What arrives | Status |
|---|---|---|
| P0 · Foundation | Shared ocean, naval combat, banking, progression, contracts, chat | Live |
| P1 · Piracy | Captain-vs-captain, infamy and bounties, crews, pardons, six ports | Live |
| P2 · The Fleet | Hull classes, five component slots, visible customization, ship identity | In build |
| P3 · Ownership | Minting, the marketplace, chartering, Blood Water capture zones | Designed |
| P4 · The Long Voyage | Seasons, crafted ships-of-the-line, the hundred Named Hulls | Planned |
What P2 adds
Five hull classes from the free Commissioned Sloop up to the Ship-of-the-Line, with component slots for sheathing, rigging, armament, figurehead, and wheel. Every component changes your silhouette, because the point of a rare ship is being recognised on the horizon before you're in range.
What P3 adds
Ships become genuinely yours, and Blood Water arrives with them: opt-in zones behind a marked boundary and a blocking confirmation, where plunder roughly triples and a ship that founders can be boarded and claimed outright. Ordinary seas stay as they are — you lose your cargo, never your ship.
What we will not do
- Sell the top of the ladder. The best hulls are crafted or earned, never purchasable. A leaderboard of wallets drives out every player worth having.
- Gate the game behind a purchase. The free hull stays competitive — total spread from free to best is capped under 2×.
- Promise returns. We're building a game. Anyone selling this as an investment is not us.
§ 08 Weigh Anchor
It's free, it runs in your browser, and there's nothing to install.
Pick a captain name and a secret phrase — that pair is your account, and it works from any device. You'll spawn docked at Tortuga in calm water. Sail out, sink something, and bring it home.