Skeleton Fleet

This article is about Skeleton Ship Battles. For Ghost Ship Battles, see Ghost Fleet.

Skeleton Fleet
Details
Type	World Event

The Skeleton Fleet is one of the possible World Events in Sea of Thieves Adventure Mode, indicated by a large grey Galleon shaped thunder-cloud. A Skeleton Fleet generally appears in the central areas of The Sea of Thieves.

The World Event

A Red cloud variant active during Ashen Treasures

Skeleton Fleets are one of the rotating World Events with Kraken attacks in between. A Skeleton Fleet is indicated by a large thunder-cloud in the shape of a Ship. The cloud shows where the Fleet will appear and gets larger the closer a crew is to it. When there is no World Event present, the Kraken will appear and attack one ship before the appearance of the next World Event. If a Skeleton Fleet Cloud is not present, Players will have to complete the currently active World Event, or if either isn't present, sail into open seas to get a Kraken to spawn and move on to the next World Event.

Skeleton Fleets always appear in the center of The Sea of Thieves (around the Map Coordinates K-11).

To activate a Skeleton Fleet, players have to sail close to the cloud, after which, a title card indicates that the battle will commence and Skeleton Ships will appear. An inactive Skeleton Fleet will vanish within 30 minutes of appearing, moving on to the next World Event.

The Battle

Once the Fleet Event has been activated, waves of Skeleton Ships will arise by the Crew's Ship. There are 3 waves, with each wave containing up to two Skeleton Ships. If the player crew is next to larger landmarks, like rocks, then the Skeleton Ships won't spawn until the crew sails out into the open seas. All of these waves can spawn 1 or 2 Skeleton Ships that can be either Skeleton Galleons or Sloops. The third and final wave has one Skeleton Ship with a Skeleton Captain. The Fleet event ends once the ship with the Captain is sunk. All regular tactics against Skeleton Ships apply for these fights, with the main difference being that you have to take on two ships at a time. As of Ashen Treasures, some Skeleton Ships in the Battle can carry Firebombs, but will not use them in combat.

Rewards

All of the regular Skeleton Ships in the Fleet fight have the same loot pool as regular emergent Skeleton Ships Encounters. This means that they can drop up to 12 different pieces of random Treasure.

When the ships sink, the players need to keep an eye on the general direction of the sinking locations of the Skeleton Ships as they can still move while sinking and move the loot out of range of the general fight. As most of the Skeleton Fleets spawn around larger rock structures in the sea, it is possible that the ships can sail into the rocks and sink themselves, so the players need to keep an eye on their general locations if they don't want to miss the loot.

The Skeleton Ship manned by a Skeleton Captain will drop the following Treasure:

• Ritual Skull (1)
• Ashen Key (2)
• Ashen Chest (2)
• Skeleton Captain’s Chest (8)
• Skeleton Captain’s Skull (6)
• Additional Treasure equivalent to one Skeleton Ship

Notes

• Skeleton Ships that spawn during the Fleet do not give Emissary Grade Reputation like emergent Ships do. Instead, a large amount of Emissary Reputation is rewarded to Emissary Ships that complete the Fleet event itself.
• During the Ashen Treasures Bilge Rat Adventure, Skeleton Fleet Clouds appeared red.

Patch history

• 2.6.3 (October 20, 2022)
  • The ominous ship cloud in the sky signifying an encounter with a Skeleton Fleet has returned to the rotation of world events.

• 2.5.2 (May 12, 2022)
  • With the wreck of the Killer Whale now cleared, the area has been reclaimed by the skeletal hordes. Crews may once again spy the ominous ship cloud in the sky, signifying an encounter with a Skeleton Fleet.

• 2.5.1.1 (April 21, 2022)
  • Removed Skeleton Fleets since the Killer Whale was in that spot.

• 2.5.0.1 (March 24, 2022)
  • Crews will now find a steady rotation of World Events taking place across the seas.
  • The ominous ship cloud in the sky signifying an encounter with a Skeleton Fleet has been returned to the rotation of World Events.

• 2.5.0 (March 10, 2022)
  • With the arrival of Sea Forts, Skeleton Fleet World Events will only appear in a single location near the centre of the world.

• 1.4.0 (November 28, 2018)
  • Skeleton Ship Clouds will no longer be hidden by other clouds.

• 1.3.1 (October 10, 2018)
  • Skeleton Ship Rewards - Skeleton Captain-led ships at the end of ship battles now give four Skeleton Captain Chests and four Skeleton Captain Skulls instead of two each.

• 1.2.4 (August 30, 2018)
  • Emergent Skeleton Ship Battles - The accursed skeletons and their salvaged ships now sail the seas, posing a continued threat to the world. Periodically, a skeleton ship cloud may be seen on the horizon, heralding a ship battle location and the chance to seize the plunder aboard.

• 1.2.0 (July 31, 2018)
  • Introduced.