Corsair Cove
Corsair Cove production chains: planks, rope, sails, and the order to build them
Corsair Cove has 50+ goods, but you only need a handful of chains to get out of the early game. The ones that matter are the ones that gate something else: planks gate construction, rope gates ships and ziplines, and the shipwright chain gates your first Tier 2 hull.
Planks — the chain everything waits on#
You start with 65 planks in the shipwreck. Move those to a warehouse first, then get the chain running before you spend them:
Woodcutter (placed at the trees) produces Logs → Sawmill (placed immediately beside the Woodcutter) refines Logs into Planks → Warehouse in range of both.
Adjacency is not a style preference here. Walking time is simulated and the island is vertical, so a Woodcutter and Sawmill separated by a cliff produce dramatically less than the same two buildings side by side. See the layout guide for why vertical distance costs more than horizontal.
Planks gate almost everything you build afterwards, so a slow plank chain slows your entire run. This is the one to over-build rather than under-build.
Rope — the chain people miss#
Rope is needed for ships and for ziplines, and it is the chain new players most often have not started when they need it.
Leafcutter placed on a Fibre Deposit produces Fibre → Rope Maker converts it automatically once Fibre arrives.
The conversion ratio is 4 Fibre → 6 Rope, which is unusually generous — you get more rope out than fibre in. That means a single well-fed Rope Maker goes further than you would expect, and the bottleneck is nearly always Fibre supply rather than rope conversion.
Start this chain before you want a ship, not when you want one. Rope is also what your Notoriety ziplines need, so it serves both the fleet and the cliff logistics fix.
Sails and the deeper chains#
Sails come from sailmakers, which appear as you progress. Prowlers and Reavers in particular demand deeper chains that run through sails.
The full advanced list that later ships pull from: Sails, Fittings, Naval Guns, Figureheads, Steel Chains, Copper Lamps, Silver Lining, Jolly Rogers. Each is a chain you must have built and staffed before the ship becomes buildable.
This is the real gate on fleet progression — not materials in a warehouse, but whether the production infrastructure exists at all. See the seafaring guide for how ship families map onto what you have invested in.
The shipwright buffer#
The chain that gates your first Tier 2 hull is Planks + Rope + Sails, buffered beside the Pier or Dry Dock.
The word doing the work there is buffered. It is not enough to produce these goods somewhere on the island — they need to be accumulating next to where the ship gets built, or your shipwright spends its time waiting on deliveries that are crossing the whole cove.
Practically: put a warehouse near the Pier and let it fill with ship materials before you commit to the hull.
Build order that avoids stalling#
- Move the starting 65 planks to a warehouse so they are not stranded
- Woodcutter → Sawmill → Warehouse, all adjacent, at the trees
- Stone Cutter for Stone Blocks — the other construction material
- Campfire + Galley (stew) and Moonshine Still + Tavern (booze) — upkeep before growth
- Leafcutter → Rope Maker — before you need rope, not after
- Warehouse near the Pier, buffering ship materials
- Sailmaker and the deeper chains, as ship tiers demand them
Keeping chains actually running#
Three things stall a chain that looks correct on paper:
Full containers. A production building whose output has nowhere to go stops, and its workers enter failed pathing loops — one of the most expensive idle behaviours in the game. Keep warehouse capacity low, not maxed; overfilled warehouses also let resources rot.
No distributor. Producing a good does not deliver it. Every consumable needs a delivery building — the Still makes booze, the Tavern serves it.
Route length. A building can report as working while producing far below capacity because the green path to its warehouse is too long. When fetcher routes turn red, that is a layout problem, not a staffing problem — adding workers to a bad route multiplies the walking.
FAQ#
How do I get rope in Corsair Cove?#
Place a Leafcutter on a Fibre Deposit to produce Fibre, then feed that into a Rope Maker, which converts 4 Fibre into 6 Rope automatically. The usual bottleneck is fibre supply, not the conversion.
What should I produce first?#
Planks. Woodcutter at the trees, Sawmill immediately beside it, Warehouse in range. Planks gate nearly every later building, so this chain sets the pace for your whole run. Stone Blocks from the Stone Cutter are the second priority.
Why is my production building idle when it has workers?#
Usually a full output container or a route that is too long. Both present as "the building has staff but nothing is happening". Check storage capacity first — and keep warehouses lean, since maxed storage causes resources to rot.
What do I need for my first Tier 2 ship?#
Planks, Rope and Sails, buffered beside the Pier or Dry Dock. Producing them elsewhere on the island is not sufficient — the shipwright will stall waiting on cross-cove deliveries.
How many goods are there in total?#
More than 50, but you do not need most of them early. Chains matter in the order that something else depends on them: planks, then stone, then upkeep goods, then rope, then the ship materials.
Sources: Corsair Cove Wiki — production chains · Corsair Cove Wiki — supply chains · allthings.how — how to get rope · KosGames — shipbuilding materials and chains · Corsair Cove — production chains recipe list