It's About Pirates Weapon Builds: Harpoons, Mortars, and Ram Loadouts That Work

Why Planning It's About Pirates Weapon Builds Beats Blind Upgrading

Every run in It's About Pirates hands you a ship, a captain, and a pile of questionable decisions. The gap between sinking on day three and carving through a boss fleet usually comes down to how deliberately you assemble your loadout, which is why It's About Pirates weapon builds deserve more thought than "buy the shiny thing." This is a survivors-like dressed in salt spray and cannon smoke, and the genre's core rule applies: stacking synergies beats collecting random power.

Elderwoof Games released the game on Steam on November 6, 2026, after roughly two years of development. The official It's About Pirates Steam page describes a loop of blasting waves of enemies, collecting loot, and upgrading your ship for naval battles. You aim automatically or manually, sail through 30 adventures, and pick from 10 captains and 6 factions. Every decision feeds the same question: what is this ship actually built to do?

How It's About Pirates Weapon Builds Come Together

Understanding the ingredient list matters before you start copying loadouts. The game layers four systems on top of each other.

Level-up choices. After surviving a day at sea, you pick an officer or a weapon upgrade. Launch-window footage shows options like a flat cannon damage increase, a Powder Monkey that raises reload speed and adds elemental damage, a Spotter that boosts range and critical chance, and a Carpenter for armor repair.

Hardpoints. Weapons mount in specific positions. In the gameplay referenced here, the player could equip a cannon at the front and later slotted a flamethrower onto the rear mount. That layout matters, because a short-range weapon on a rear mount plays very differently from one facing forward.

Items and relics. The store page advertises over 140 items to shape your build and over 150 unique ship parts. Items the player picked up included a Flintlock Pistol (base, pierce, elemental, and crit stats), a Shark Tooth Pendant (base and pierce damage at a morale cost), a Voodoo Doll (pierce damage and life), and a Turtle Shell Armor (armor plus blunt damage).

Factions and crew. Six factions carry unique abilities, and crew members add passive bonuses. Taking heavy damage can cost you crew, so a build with no defensive layer bleeds value even while it kills.

Weapon Roles at a Glance

The table below summarizes what each weapon family appeared to do during launch-window play and on the official store description. Treat the roles as a starting framework rather than fixed tiers.

Three It's About Pirates Weapon Builds Worth Testing

1. The Pierce Harpoon Line

Harpoons reward commitment. In the launch footage, the player pushed a harpoon to level two and kept taking pierce and base damage whenever the screen offered it. Pair that with a Spotter for range and crit, then layer in a Shark Tooth Pendant and an Eyepatch for crit chance. The logic is simple: pierce damage ignores the armor problem that makes late-wave creatures feel spongy, and crit multiplies a weapon you are already leveling. This is the cheapest of the It's About Pirates weapon builds to assemble because it leans on common level-up screens instead of rare drops.

2. The Ram-and-Grapeshot Brawler

Ram builds are the most misunderstood archetype in the game. The recorded run showed a spike ram performing surprisingly well against tough crab enemies, and a Puffer Fish item that granted bonus gold for enemies killed with ram attacks. That economy engine funds the rest of the build. Add a Grapeshot Swivel for close-range burst, a Turtle Shell Armor for blunt damage and survivability, and vitality picks whenever they appear. Play this build aggressively: you want to be inside the wave, killing with contact damage and converting those kills into gold. If you prefer to keep distance, skip this one — it will not work at range.

3. The Mortar and Flame Area Lockdown

This is the crowd-control answer for storm-heavy adventures. A multi-shot mortar provides projectile volume at mid range, while a flamethrower covers the rear mount and punishes anything that closes in. Matchsticks add elemental damage plus reload speed, and a Powder Monkey stacks reload and elemental on top. The goal is to keep a constant damage field around the ship rather than aiming at one target. When a wave spawns from two directions, this build does not care which side you face.

Upgrade Priorities That Make or Break a Run

A few practical habits separate clean runs from messy ones in It's About Pirates.

• Equip what you buy. After buying the Grapeshot Swivel, the player's own reaction was a reminder that purchasing a weapon does not automatically mount it. Check your hardpoints before setting sail.
• Do not skip the auto-upgrade reflex. Auto upgrade is convenient, but the recorded run lost gold several times by forgetting to spend it before leaving port. Spend first, then sail.
• Reroll when a screen offers nothing. The reroll option exists and is worth using when every card is off-build.
• Take repair and life steal seriously. Crew loss and armor damage compound. A run that ignores sustain eventually collapses mid-wave.
• Protect your heart. On a first adventure, the game grants a second chance to carry on without losing progress. Later adventures are less forgiving, so practice the positioning habits early.

On higher adventures, remember that environment hazards do real work against you. Volcano zones and creature-dense waters punish slow ships more than weak cannons do.

Launch Snapshot: Price, Reviews, and Version Context

The numbers below are dated observations from the official store listing, not live figures. Check the store for the present state.

That "Mixed" summary is normal for a niche roguelike days after launch, and the sample is small. Read a few of those 34 reviews yourself rather than treating a percentage as a verdict on It's About Pirates weapon builds.

FAQ

What is the best weapon to build around on a first run in It's About Pirates? Cannons. They scale with the most common level-up option — flat base damage — and every captain can use them. Harpoons are the best second investment because pierce damage handles armored creatures.

Do weapons equip automatically after you buy them? No. Buying a weapon from the shop does not mount it on a hardpoint. Open the ship screen, place the weapon in a slot, and only then set sail.

How many items can shape It's About Pirates weapon builds? The store page lists over 140 items, more than 150 collectible ship parts, 30 adventures, and 6 factions as separate feature counts. It does not state that the 150+ parts are distributed across adventures or factions or that they alter weapon loadouts; any such effect is for reference only until verified.

Can you change a build in the middle of a run? Yes. Level-up screens, shops, and rerolls let you pivot mid-adventure. Expect that around half of your It's About Pirates weapon builds will end up as hybrids rather than pure archetypes, and that is fine.