A pirate's life is all about treasure and sweet, sweet booty. Though all money earned can only be used for cosmetic purposes alone, everyone's main goal when playing Sea Of Thieves is to cash in some big coins. Doing the measly beginner voyages and quests won't get you anywhere. You need to aim higher.
By upgrading your voyages and taking larger risks out on the sea, you'll receive greater rewards worthy of a pirate legend. Once you understand what it takes to get big loot hauls, you'll understand what being a pirate truly is. The more you put yourself in life-threatening situations, the more you'll get lots and lots of loot.
Updated May 29, 2022 by Christian Pellegrino: The world of Sea Of Thieves is constantly evolving with the introduction of new items, mechanics, and locations. With these new features come new ways to earn gold; some proving to be more efficient than others. If you're looking to maximize the gold you earn while trying out the latest content that Sea Of Thieves has to offer, we've got you covered.
15 Complete Sea Forts
The recent addition of Sea Forts in Sea Of Thieves provides players a quick way to acquire a variety of loot and plenty of gold. Players can visit any of these six locations at any time to start this encounter, not requiring you to obtain and begin a voyage like most other activities in this game. These six Sea Forts and their locations are provided below.
- Imperial Crown Fortress - B11
- Mercy’s End Fortress - P14
- Ancient Gold Fortress - F19
- Old Brinestone Fortress - K12
- Royal Crest Fortress - J6
- Traitor’s Fate Fortress - F6
When visiting these locations, players will be required to defeat waves of Phantoms and the eventual Sea Fort Captain, providing you with the key to the Sea Fort Treasury. This is where most of this location’s gold and rewards will be found, but there are a couple of additional ways to add to your spoils. Make sure to check all cupboards and crates for additional valuables, including the Fortress Store Room Key; used to unlock another loot stash on the roof of the Fortress.
14 Visit Siren Shrines
Siren Shrines provided players with a relatively quick and unique way to quickly increase their gold. There are currently six different Siren Shrines found throughout the Sea Of Thieves, each differing in visuals and mechanics. These six locations are provided below with their map coordinates.
- Shrine of the Coral Tomb - H5
- Shrine of Ocean’s Fortune - D14
- Shrine of Ancient Tears - N20
- Shrine of Tribute - G18
- Shrine of Hungering - Q5
- Shrine of Flooded Embrace - N12
You may visit these locations at any time, but they will yield significantly more rewards if you possess a Coral Message in a Bottle quest for that specific Siren Shrine. Depending on which location is visited, you will have to solve puzzles and defeat a variety of enemies to gain access to the different rooms containing valuable items. Make sure to investigate these Shrines thoroughly and complete all puzzles; typically rewarding you with 20 to 30 valuable items to cash in for Gold.
13 Complete Lost Shipment Voyages
Although it’s not the most popular Trading Company amongst players, you can earn plenty of gold when completing the right voyages for the Merchant Alliance. When attempting to maximize the gold and Merchant Alliance Reputation gain, it is best that players obtain and complete Lost Shipment Voyages from this Trading Company. Once initiated, players will be given the intended course of the Lost Shipment; requiring you to follow this path and several clues in order to locate this sunken vessel.
To maximize the gold earned through this method, it is essential that you recover the Key to the Captain’s Quarters by the time you have reached the Lost Shipment’s location. Players can find this by following the clues left along the path of these lost vessels, giving you more specific directions on where to travel as opposed to solely following the route provided at the start of this voyage.
Once you have followed these clues and obtained the Key, head to the sunken vessel and use this to unlock the ship’s Captain’s Quarters; revealing dozens of valuable Merchant Alliance items. Collecting and selling these items, in addition to the Manifest also found on these ships, will not only provide you with tons of gold, but almost guarantees achieving Merchant Alliance Emissary Grade 5; adding even more value to these items when sold.
12 Sell Reaper's Bounty Chests
Reaper’s Bounty Chests are amongst the most valuable items found throughout Sea Of Thieves, selling for a base price of 10,000 gold. Unfortunately, the reward can potentially come with a great deal of risk involved. Reaper’s Bounty Chests will spawn at random locations on an hourly basis, indicated by a Gold Reaper’s Mark on the map and a colorful beacon emitted from its location.
Following this will lead you to a sunken ship, containing a Reaper’s Bounty Chest found somewhere within the wreckage. Once acquired, the glowing beacon will disappear, but the Gold Reaper’s Mark will remain on the server’s map; allowing other players to track the location of this valuable item even after bringing it onto your ship. This, paired with the limitation of only being able to sell this at Reaper’s Hideout, makes this a risky endeavor when on a populated server; rewarding you handsomely if completed with success.
11 Participate In Community Events
Sea Of Thieves hosts several community events for their players, offering either one or a combination of increased gold, Renown, and Reputation during these event windows. This serves as one of the best ways to get gold in Sea Of Thieves, so make sure to log in and take advantage of the events that specifically increase the gold that you earn.
Players can check if there are any active events when in-game by going to the “Events” page found in the “Pirate Log” tab of the pause menu, providing both the active bonuses and event window. That being said, it is recommended that you follow the Sea Of Thieves Twitter account for the most up-to-date information and news on Community Events.
10 Follow The Season Pass
Each season rewards you with various treasures. By completing the Sea of Thieves season pass you can get free cosmetics and currency. You don't have to buy the Plunder Pass for this. Progressing through the pass is as easy as sailing your ship and looting treasure. Every little thing you do in the game will be gradually rewarded from the season pass whether you intend it to or not.
Some ways to progress include:
- Sailing for 50 miles
- Speaking to specific NPC's
- Looting treasure
- Killing skeletons
To look at your progression, go to your Pirate Log and click Trials.
Rewards include:
- Ancient coins
- Gold coins
- Doubloons
- Ship cosmetics
- Pirate cosmetics
9 Find Floating Loot
You're able to find lost booty out in the seas. If you see a bunch of seagulls surrounding one area in the sky, that means there's treasure beneath them. Go toward the seagulls to find floating treasure.
These are generated loot that anyone can find. If there aren't seagulls but there is treasure floating, then that means someone's ship just sunk. Either way, you get rich. Floating treasure will have skulls, mermaid gems, and barrels full of materials and food. People usually collect these with their ship's harpoons.
8 Loot Sunken Ships
Seagulls congregating above a random area don't just mean floating loot. Sometimes it can reveal a sunken ship instead. These aren't player ships. They are generated, abandoned ships meant for players to loot and fight over. Inside them, you can find gems, skulls, chests, and barrels full of goodies. These are trickier to completely loot because you have to hold your breath for a long period of time. Along with the risk of drowning, sharks may come and attack you as you float up the treasure you find.
TIPS:
- If you find a sunken ship with no seagulls, someone has already looted it.
- Sometimes these ships will be half above water and half underwater. At other times, they will be completely submerged.
7 Buy Coins With Real Money
As a last resort, you can always just pay up. By going to any storefront page in the game you can find an option to purchase coins for your pirate in bulk. This option will be at the bottom right. By paying for the coins, you can complete the look of your crew's ship without the hassle of grinding for money.
Sometimes people don't have enough time to grind day and night in video games. If you prefer to mess around with other pirates and get into fights, then buying the cosmetics you want may be the best option for you.
6 Raise A Trading Company's Emissary Flag
Doing voyages for the trading companies is honest work that gets you enough coin to survive, but pirates don't just want to survive. Instead of buying quests from trading companies like the Order Of Souls, you can team vote to raise a flag in their honor and do their bidding. By doing this, you get double the cash for what you find.
To be able to raise an emissary flag of a trading company, you need to upgrade their voyages enough so that instead of seeing any upgrade voyages, your only option left is to buy the right to raise their flag.
For Order Of Souls, you'll want to take on more than one captain, and you get more money for their skulls. For Gold Hoarder's, instead of finding one treasure chest, you have to find ten. The more you collect for your selected trading company, the higher your emissary grade gets. The higher your emissary grade, the more reputation and rewards you get for that company.
5 Sink Ships, Any Ships
It can be frustrating when you're a new player and all people seem to do is blow you up without question. Sometimes people don't even do it for loot, but if loot is what you're after, this is fair play. Intercepting other pirates who have a lot of loot is another way to get big bank.
Everyone playing the game is trying to get a lot of loot. If you get good at controlling your ship, crew, and cannons, you should definitely try stealing goods from other ships when the time is right. It may seem mean at first, but it's part of the culture of being a pirate. Not everyone is toxic and aggressive, so you will end up hearing a "GG" or "Better luck next time" from the people you fight.
If you go into the fight with nothing to lose, it won't hurt to try. This is also where the most excitement comes from in Sea Of Thieves. The adventure and action of battling another player ship in real-time is something other games can't recreate.
You don't have to face player ships if you don't want to, though. There are always skeleton ships sailing around just waiting for trouble. These ships will also drop a good amount of loot. If you get good enough, you can farm these skeleton ships for money. They are the easiest to spot at night from their bright blue and green lanterns. By day, your only indication is ripped sails.
4 Complete Skeleton Forts
Skeleton forts can be found by looking into the sky. Any cloud that strangely looks like a skull with glowing eyes is your destination. There are many skeleton forts around the map, with cannon towers that look like ships from a distance, often scaring new players. These forts are always empty unless there's an event over them.
These forts consist of waves of every type of skeleton, so you need to understand them all and be prepared. There will be a queen skeleton after every wave is complete. Some of these enemies will drop skulls to sell, but that's not all. Once you've defeated them all, there will be a small vault full of goodies.
The risk factor here is that everyone can see the skull cloud and will want to try and get the skeleton fort loot. Note: if the cloud's eyes are green, no one is there. If they are orange-red, someone's fighting them already.
3 Do The Gold Hoarder's Vault Voyages
If you upgrade your voyages with Gold Hoarders enough (the creepy guy in the tent), your quests will be to open vaults. Vaults contain heaps of gold mounds, multiple chests, multiple trinkets, and one big and rare chest. Completing a vault voyage takes time at first because you're sent on a goose chase to find pieces of a map. This map only shows you the location of the key, not the vault.
Once you get to the vault, the only way to get the most expensive chest is by doing a puzzle in the middle of the room. All the while, the door is inevitably closing at a rapid countdown, with the room waiting to kill you. Despite the risks, you get a lot of loot from these voyages and it gives you the feeling of adventure.
2 Take On Phantom Fleets
The Order of Souls Trading Company offers a voyage requiring you to take on the Phantom Fleet. This task is no "walk in the park," and is recommended to be attempted when sailing with other crew members. To earn the rewards provided by this quest you will have to kill waves and waves of ghost ships from minions to captain ships.
In the midst of fighting them, they will drop storage crates here and there. This gives you a chance to recuperate if you've lost resources during the fight. Toward the end of this perilous battle, the last ship will drop lots of Ghostly-themed loot for you to sell.
1 Go Towards That Scary Red Tornado (Ashen Winds)
This is another world event that everyone will try to get at. World events give you a lot of loot, for greater risks. This tornado indicates a skeleton ritual taking place. As soon as a player joins, an Ashen Lord will be summoned and the team, or any pirate nearby, must defeat the skeletons.
This fight is long and difficult, so like with any journey, make sure you're stocked up. Once you defeat the Ashen Lords and their minions, heaps of unique Ashen loot will be dropped.