Ys X: Nordics allows you to sail the high seas on your ship as you strive through naval battles, defeat the undead, and explore the islands in the Obelia Gulf. However, you are given the Sandras, a ship that can barely set sail and serves better as a monument than a sea vessel.
But, fortunately, the game allows you to upgrade and refit the ship to enhance its abilities as you progress through the story, allowing you to make it a worthy companion on your journey through the Obelia Gulf. While the upgrades may seem minimal initially, you’ll quickly notice that even the smallest update can drastically improve your ship.
How To Upgrade And Refit Your Ship
To make any changes to your ship, you’ll have to head over to a shipwright. The first shipwright you encounter is Ulvar on Balta Island. During your first meeting, Ulvar will make some necessary adjustments to Sandras, so that you can safely complete the rite of shield brotherhood.
However, once you’re done with all that, you can return to Ulvar. Now, you’ll be able to upgrade and enhance your ship for a price, and you can also dress your ship in adornments if you have the Sandras Pack DLC. For now, Ulvar will be the only shipwright you’ll have access to until you progress further into the story.
After you’ve saved Cruz on Termina Island, he’ll join your crew. Once you’ve progressed to Chapter 4, Cruz will be available on Sandras as a shipwright. After that, you can access the ship upgrades and refits from anywhere in the open sea by heading over to the common room table below the deck.
How To Unlock More Upgrades
As you progress through the story, you’ll automatically unlock several upgrades for your ship. However, the best way to unlock more upgrades is by finding Carnac villagers.
Every time you rescue a Carnac villager, you will get a corresponding upgrade on the Shipwright Shop’s Upgrade/Refit menu. The upgrades that you receive for rescuing these villagers also reflect their role in the crew. Note that upgrading your ship requires gold, alongside other materials.
The most common material for upgrading your ship is the Basic Craft Stock, so make sure you’re stocked up on that whenever you want to upgrade your ship. Alongside the Basic Craft Stock item, some upgrades will require additional materials such as Celadon Clay, or Aged Wood.
One of the best ways to gather these items is by taking part in naval battles, and by collecting the scattered items in the open sea.
Some blueprints and upgrades can only be unlocked after you’ve done a certain part of the story or can be purchased from merchant ships. These blueprints may unlock a new type of ammunition upgrade, which can be bought repeatedly to increase the capacity.
However, you have to make sure you only purchase the capacity upgrades according to your needs. If you buy too many capacity upgrades, you won’t have any resources left for other more useful upgrades early on.
There’s a little priority icon next to the upgrade request. The upgrades with higher priority provide more bonuses compared to the ones with lower priority, but they also require more materials to be unlocked.
How To Manage Ship Loadout
There are a total of six options in the ship’s loadout. The first spot is for the normal artillery. You can get several types of ammo for this slot by purchasing upgrades, but you’re only allowed to choose one at a time.
The default ammo for the normal artillery allows you to inflict a moderate amount of ship damage and break damage, while the Smasher Shot ammo allows you to inflict high break damage, but moderate ship damage.
The second slot in the loadout allows you to choose your heavy attack ammo, where the default ammo is the best in most cases, and the rest of the four slots in the loadout are for special ammunition. Note that special ammunition is limited, but the capacity can be increased by purchasing upgrades from the Shipwright’s Upgrade/Refit menu.
If you scroll down in the Loadout tab, you will notice the adornments section, which is where you can dress your ship using all the cosmetic upgrades that you have received from the Sandras DLC Pack. Once you have your loadout ready, you can head out into the open sea to conquer any stray undead ships or to recapture any island under the Griegr’s influence.
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Ys X: Nordics – All Runestone Locations
If you want to learn the whole backstory of Rollo in Ys X: Nordics, you’ll have to find all 12 runestones scattered in the seas.