5.1 Rates & Classes

Letters of Marque uses naval rates as a quick description of a ship’s general scale. Rate helps you form an initial expectation about firepower, durability, handling, and fleet role, while the hull’s equipment and materials determine the particular ship you actually sail.

5.1.1 What a rate means

The rating language runs in the opposite direction from many game tiers: a lower number generally indicates a larger and more powerful warship. A first rate belongs near the top of the line of battle, while a fifth rate is a smaller cruising warship. The system is broad classification, not a promise that every ship of one rate handles or fights identically.

The scale runs from 1st through 7th rate, so it extends further down into small craft than the ships usually discussed in development posts. Your own ship’s rate is shown on its Stats tab in port — see Reading a Ship’s Stats.

Rate gives the outline of the threat. To understand the actual ship, also inspect its guns, sailing characteristics, protection, cargo space, installed components, and present condition. A favorable matchup on paper can still become poor when the larger ship cannot bring its guns to bear or the smaller ship controls range and wind.

5.1.2 Ships in the playtest build

The playtest build examined on 28 July 2026 carried six sailable hulls. That is the whole roster for that build — a snapshot of one patch, not a permanent list.

Rate is a separate matter. The developer has publicly assigned a rate to only some of these hulls, so the table below records what is documented and marks the rest as unknown rather than guessing.

Check the ship’s own Stats tab in port for its rate rather than relying on the two blanks above being filled in elsewhere.

Development posts have also shown or discussed ships during integration and testing. A hull appearing in a development post proves that it existed in that development sequence, not that it remains selectable in the build you can install.

5.1.3 Rate and Battle Rating

Battle Rating, usually shortened to BR, is the value used to express combat strength for encounter limits and fleet comparisons. The developer has stated that ships within a rate share the same BR. That keeps participation rules focused on broad fleet composition rather than rewarding players for finding a hull with unusually favorable rating arithmetic.

Fleet BR can be displayed in the open world, and convoy battles can impose strict BR limits. Ordinary open-world fights have not always used the same restriction. Read the encounter’s current rules instead of assuming that every tag or battle applies an identical BR cap.

BR is a balancing tool, not a prediction. Equal BR does not make two fleets equivalent in every situation. Wind position, range, fitting, damage, player coordination, and whether the ships’ roles complement one another still decide how much combat power can be used.

5.1.4 Hull class and role

Rate describes scale; role describes the work expected of the ship. The same rate can contain hulls that solve different problems. Useful broad roles include:

• Line combat: survive concentrated fire and deliver a heavy broadside as part of a fleet.
• Cruising and interception: combine speed, range control, and enough armament to threaten lighter ships.
• Escort: protect trade ships and deny attackers easy access to the convoy.
• Trading: devote more of the design to carrying goods, accepting that avoiding or surviving combat may matter more than winning it.
• Specialized fitting: use components and materials to emphasize protection, speed, heel control, gunnery, or another purpose.

The visible hull should make its broad class legible, but fitting adds variation within that outline. The Constitution, for example, was described as a fourth rate intended to evade ships of the line and defeat fifth rates. That statement describes a design role, not an automatic combat result.

5.1.5 Guns and battery

Larger rates tend to carry more or heavier guns, but gun count alone is incomplete. Different decks can mount different calibres, and a ship may have bow or stern chasers in addition to its broadside. The position of the guns, their firing arcs, reload state, and the ammunition aboard determine what the nominal battery can accomplish in the present moment.

The ship’s Stats tab makes this concrete: it lists guns per deck as a count and a poundage, then totals them split into Centre, Side, and Stern groups. Read the split rather than the total, because guns that cannot bear contribute nothing.

Flexible loadouts have been part of the design, so a familiar hull may not always carry an identical battery. Inspect the active ship rather than memorizing an old development loadout. See Gunnery & Aiming and Ammo & Damage Model for using that battery.

5.1.6 Handling and sailing role

A larger ship usually carries more mass and requires more time and space to change its state of motion, but rate alone does not supply a complete sailing profile. Hull form, sail plan, fitted components, load, damage, wind, and water all influence the response.

Choose a ship whose handling supports the intended task. A heavy broadside is wasted if the ship cannot reach or face the target; speed is of limited value if the hull cannot survive the fight it must enter. Practice tacking, wearing, stopping, and gunnery stability with the actual ship before judging it from its rate.

5.1.7 Trade ships and escorts

Trade convoys separate carrying capacity from protection. Trade ships move the goods while escort vessels establish the convoy’s military strength. Convoy size controls how many of each role can participate, and the escort component contributes to the BR used for an interception battle.

A trader should be judged by more than the guns it lacks. Cargo slots, route, exposure time, escort plan, and the fraction of goods at risk all belong to its effective class. Likewise, an escort is useful only if its speed and combat role let it protect the ships the enemy is trying to reach.

5.1.8 Choosing a ship

1. Start with the job: line combat, hunting, escort, trade, or general practice.
2. Use rate to narrow the broad scale of ship appropriate to that job.
3. Inspect the current hull’s guns, protection, sailing information, cargo, and equipment.
4. Check the BR and composition rules of the activity you intend to enter.
5. Test the ship’s turn, tack, stopping distance, heel, and firing arcs before risking valuable cargo or equipment.

A ship’s rate tells you what neighborhood it lives in. Its hull, fit, and captain decide what it can do there.