Ships

Build a ship, sail it out, and hold the sea.

Last updated: 2026-09-05 11:58 AM EST.

1. What counts as a ship

You construct a vessel out of ordinary building blocks, and the server measures it automatically when you take the helm.

Most decorative and structural blocks are permitted, including glass, stairs, slabs, doors, fences, chests, furnaces, lanterns and beds. Dirt, stone, cobblestone and sand are refused, and a single refused block anywhere aboard prevents the entire vessel from moving. Obsidian is limited to roughly one percent of the hull.

2. Build it on the water

Construct the hull on your own town's claimed territory, because a voyage may only begin there. You may assemble one in the wilderness, but launching remains impossible until somebody claims that shoreline.

Everything you leave inside a chest accompanies the vessel.

3. Add the ship sign

Place a sign anywhere on the deck, write Ship on its first line, and leave the remaining three empty. Right-clicking that sign takes the helm. It remains optional, because /pilot Ship achieves the same thing from the deck. The wheel you steer with is a separate sign.

4. Take the helm

Right-click the ship sign. The server examines the hull and answers Successfully piloted craft. If you prefer commands, stand on the deck and type /pilot Ship instead.

A voyage must begin inside your own town's claimed land. That launch position also becomes the harbour your vessel returns to.

5. Steer the ship

Type /cruise north, or south, east or west, and the vessel sails onward by itself until /cruise off halts it. That is how you cross the open ocean.

For close manoeuvring, hold an ordinary stick. Right-click while facing where you intend to travel and the vessel advances one step.

Left-click with that same stick and you enter direct control. The vessel then follows you as you walk, rather than advancing one step for every click. It is the smoothest way to manoeuvre inside a harbour, or alongside another hull. Left-click again to leave it.

While you hold the helm, nobody else can break its blocks.

Fit a wheel

Write [helm] on a sign and the server redraws it as a genuine ship's wheel. Right-click it to turn the vessel clockwise. Left-click it to turn anticlockwise.

Position that wheel deliberately, because the vessel pivots around the sign itself. Mounted in the middle of the deck it turns almost on the spot. Mounted at the stern it swings through a far wider arc.

/rotate left and /rotate right perform the same quarter turn by command. Those two always pivot around the centre of the hull, wherever your wheel happens to sit.

6. If you fall in

Type /manoverboard within thirty seconds and you reappear on deck automatically.

It does not work inside a capture zone. A zone refuses every teleport, and this command is one, so your only option there is to swim back.

Dying does not forfeit your vessel. It normally teleports home without instruction, and if it remains at sea instead, section 9 explains how to recover it.

7. Reach a capture zone

Open map.tamriel.quest and look for a marked area out in the ocean. A sword icon marks a zone nobody holds, and a banner marks the town holding it. Selecting the area on the map reveals the rest. /cap list names every zone in the world.

Sail until your vessel rests inside that area. You do not have to release it before the capture begins.

Certain restrictions apply inside a zone permanently, and inside one chunk around it, whether or not a capture is running. Nobody may place or break blocks there, explosions are prevented, and no teleport reaches it, so /home, ender pearls and /manoverboard are all refused.

8. Capture it

You must belong to a town. A capture is claimed on your nation's behalf, so a player with no town is refused before anything starts, so join one beforehand.

Sail your entire hull into a zone that no enemy vessel is guarding, and the capture commences by itself within a few seconds.

The attempt is one minute of preparation followed by fifteen minutes of holding position. Everybody online is notified the moment it begins.

Boarding

A zone an enemy vessel guards cannot be captured, and the refusal tells you which captain is holding it. Sail in regardless. The two hulls dock themselves alongside and freeze in position, so the boarding crews settle the engagement on the decks. Protect your captain. The moment they fall, the vessel teleports home carrying the surviving crew, and the zone is surrendered.

The boundary protects both directions during a capture. Nobody outside the zone can harm you, and you cannot harm them.

9. Hold it

Your nation receives payment every day that it controls the zone. The payment is a mixture of septims, brews, ores and other useful materials. Each zone pays its own particular selection, and the map lists exactly what that location delivers.

There is no protected period. The next attempt may begin five minutes after a successful capture, and a town can never capture a zone it already holds. Your only defence is a crew stationed at sea.

10. End the voyage

Use /shiphome and the vessel teleports back to the harbour it departed from. You must be holding the helm at the time: if you are not, stand aboard, type /pilot Ship, and repeat the command.

Disconnecting sends your ship home as well, and so does being kicked, although occasionally the vessel remains where it was. Rejoin, stand aboard, take the helm and use /shiphome, and it returns to your harbour.

If your captain is killed during a boarding, the vessel teleports home and carries the surviving crew with it. A lost battle therefore never strands you on an enemy deck. A captain who dies at any other moment sends only the ship home, and the crew must find their own way back.

Serious damage sinks a ship, and you are warned to abandon it immediately. A wreck disappears approximately ten minutes later. /scuttle sinks the ship deliberately.

Every command you need

Signs you can place aboard