Black Flag Resynced Ship Upgrades: Best Jackdaw Upgrades to Buy First and Full Cost Breakdown

Black Flag Resynced ship upgrades work differently than they did in 2013, and the Jackdaw you inherit is not ready for what the Caribbean throws at it. The remake moves every purchase to dockside Harbourmasters, gates the upper tiers behind rebuilding Great Inagua, and swaps the old elite plans for 12 Ultimate Upgrade Plans pulled from shipwrecks and treasure maps. If you are still deciding whether to sail at all, our breakdown of everything new in Black Flag Resynced covers the full remake.

This guide covers the upgrade order that keeps you ahead of the story’s difficulty curve, the two free upgrades most players miss, the complete cost picture, and the fastest ways to fund it all.

How Black Flag Resynced Ship Upgrades Work

Every Jackdaw upgrade is bought at a Harbourmaster, marked with a ship icon in major port towns, and only while your ship is docked. That is a real change from the 2013 original, where you could buy upgrades from the captain’s cabin at sea. You can still open the ship menu anywhere to review costs and plan purchases, but the transaction itself needs a dock.

The catalog splits across weapons (Round and Heated Shot, Heavy Shot, Mortar, Bow Chasers, Swivel Guns), ship systems (Broadside Cannons, Front Cannons, Armored Hull, Ram, Crew Quarters), storage, and harpooning. Your first Armored Hull tier is purchased automatically during the Prizes and Plunder tutorial, so the real decisions start right after.

Higher tiers stay locked until you claim the manor at Great Inagua, which happens in Sequence 4 during This Old Cove. From there, rebuilding the island’s Harbourmaster costs 500 Reales, upgrading it to Level II costs 2,500, and Level III costs 5,000, which opens the full catalog. Money spent on the island’s other facilities also feeds a passive income box, so Great Inagua investment pays for itself over a long playthrough.

Best Jackdaw Upgrades to Buy First

The early game rewards damage over defense. Fights end faster, you eat fewer volleys in return, and quicker kills speed up the boarding loop that pays for hull armor later. Here is the order that holds up across the opening sequences.

Priority	Upgrade	Why It Comes Here
1	Round and Heated Shot	Cheapest damage spike in the game: the first paid tier costs 900 Reales and raises broadside damage per cannonball
2	Mortar + Mortar Storage	Longest-range weapon; buy the storage soon after since base ammo is tiny, and forts eat mortar rounds
3	Broadside Cannons	Adds more guns per volley; the early tier wants 70 Metal on top of Reales, which boarding provides
4	Armored Hull	The most important line long-term, but expensive; feed it whenever Reales allow rather than all at once
5	Bow Chasers + Front Cannons	Front damage after your broadsides hit hard; Chain Shot fills an anchor icon that immobilizes targets
6	Crew Quarters	Bigger crew makes boarding faster and safer, which matters against Man o’ Wars

Why Round and Heated Shot Leads

Round and Heated Shot raises the damage of every broadside cannonball, and it works together with Broadside Cannons, which adds more cannons per volley. One upgrade makes each shot hit harder, the other fires more shots. Fully upgraded to Round and Heated Shot V, the line pushes broadside cannon damage to 160%, which is why nearly every completed-playthrough guide puts it first.

The mortar deserves its high slot with one caveat: shots take real travel time, so aim at where the target will be, not where it is. Learn that lead early and forts become far less painful.

What to Skip Early

Harpoon and Rowboat Armor upgrades can wait indefinitely. The harpooning minigame is optional, and the animal materials it produces can be bought from shops instead. Fire Barrels and cosmetic items are also safe to ignore until the core damage and hull lines are in a comfortable place. Swivel Guns are manually aimed in the remake and useful for finishing weak points, but they upgrade fine later.

The Two Free Upgrades: Lucy Baldwin and the Padre

Resynced adds recruitable naval officers, and two of them hand the Jackdaw permanent upgrades that cost no Reales. Both unlock the moment This Old Cove wraps up in Sequence 4, and both are worth chasing before you spend heavily at the Harbourmaster.

Lucy Baldwin joins through the quest A Proper Shipwright, which sends you to free her from a British fleet near Salt Key Bank. She grants Perfect Brace, a defensive timing tool for shrugging off incoming volleys. The Padre joins through A Second Chance, found in Caracol in the map’s southeast corner, and his questline ends in a hard fight against the armored HMS Demolition. He enables Ram Dash, the charge attack that veterans of the original earned by sinking all four legendary ships. In the remake you get it far earlier, and legendary ships now pay out cosmetics and Reales instead.

Full Upgrade Cost Breakdown

Here is what each upgrade line runs from its first paid tier to its last, based on the community-compiled upgrade database. Individual tiers scale steeply: the last tier in a line often costs more than every earlier tier combined.

Upgrade Line	Reales Range	Also Requires
Round and Heated Shot	900 to 35,000	Ultimate Plan (top tier)
Heavy Shot	900 to 25,000	Ultimate Plan
Mortars	800 to 25,000	Metal + Ultimate Plan
Swivel Guns	700 to 15,000	Metal + Ultimate Plan
Broadside Cannons	up to 20,000	Metal + Ultimate Plan
Armored Hull	1,000 to 30,000	Metal, Wood + Ultimate Plan
Ram	500 to 15,000	Metal, Wood + Ultimate Plan
Storage lines (Heavy Shot, Barrel, Mortar)	500 to 5,000 each	Ultimate Plans (top tiers)
Harpoon	up to 4,000	Ultimate Plan
Rowboat Armor	600 to 1,800	Wood
Diving Bell	up to 5,000	Joins the Jackdaw during Sequence 6’s Diving for Medicines

The grand total to fully upgrade the Jackdaw: about 315,800 Reales, 4,755 Metal, 2,750 Wood, 550 Cloth, and all 12 Ultimate Upgrade Plans. Completing the set also unlocks the Ship This trophy. Two quality-of-life notes soften the number: Broadside Cannons II upgrades automatically through story progression, and nothing on the list is missable, so post-game completion works fine.

All 12 Ultimate Upgrade Plans

Ultimate Upgrade Plans replace the old elite plans and gate the final tier of most lines. Six sit in underwater shipwrecks, which open up once the Diving Bell joins the Jackdaw during Sequence 6’s Diving for Medicines mission. The other six come from treasure map digs.

Ultimate Plan	Source
Hull Armor	San Ignacio shipwreck
Mortars	Antocha shipwreck
Ram	La Concepcion shipwreck
Swivel Guns	Devil’s Eye Caverns shipwreck
Broadside Cannons	The Blue Hole shipwreck
Round Shot Strength	Kabah Ruins shipwreck
Heavy Shot Strength	Treasure map dig
Fire Barrel Strength	Treasure map dig
Heavy Shot Storage	Treasure map dig
Mortar Storage	Treasure map dig
Harpoon Strength	Treasure map dig
Fire Barrel Storage	Treasure map dig

The shipwreck six are the ones to plan around, since they need the Diving Bell and a stomach for underwater stealth. If naval fights are blocking your progress toward any of these, the game lets you lower naval combat difficulty separately without penalty.

How to Earn Reales and Materials Fast

Boarding is the whole economy. Sinking a ship forfeits most of its cargo, while boarding hands you its Metal, Wood, Cloth, and Reales, and on Frigates and Man o’ Wars you can crack the Captain’s Lockbox for payouts that reach several thousand Reales on high-rated ships. Use the spyglass before engaging to see exactly what a target carries, then hunt the ships holding the material you are short on.

• Naval convoys: currency convoys scale with region difficulty, topping out around 10,000 Reales in hard waters like Serranilla.
• Fort captures: one-time payouts per fort. The easy trio of Dry Tortuga, Eleuthera, and Gibara pays 3,000 each, mid-tier forts pay around 6,000, and Fort Charlotte and Chinchorro pay 8,000 apiece.
• Great Inagua income: the 4,000-Reale Facade upgrade unlocks the Protection Money Box at your manor, which accumulates Reales passively as you play and grows with further island development.
• Kenway’s Fleet: worth setting up eventually, but early on the ship repair costs often outrun the mission returns.

⚡ Quick tip: The waters south of Great Inagua make a reliable early farming loop. Ships there frequently fight each other, so you can swoop in, finish the survivors, and board everything left floating.

Frequently Asked Questions

Gear for Long Naval Sessions

The Caribbean is an ultrawide kind of game, and long plunder loops are easier on a setup built for them. These three deals fit how Resynced gets played: wide horizons, evening sessions, and a lot of hours. Prices are current as of July 2026.

Between voyages, Berry Finds tracks real-time Amazon deals on thousands of everyday products across home, kitchen, beauty, and more, so the non-gaming side of your cart never pays full price either.

Summary

The short version: buy Round and Heated Shot at 900 Reales the moment you can, add Mortar and its storage before your first fort, then alternate Broadside Cannons and Armored Hull as boarding income allows. Recruit Lucy Baldwin and the Padre for the two free upgrades, rebuild the Great Inagua Harbourmaster to Level III, and save the 12 Ultimate Plans for a post-Sequence 6 sweep with the Diving Bell. The full 315,800-Reale bill sounds steep, but boarding-first piracy covers it well before the credits.

Still picking a version to buy? Our Black Flag Resynced editions guide compares Standard, Deluxe, and Collector’s. And if the remake has you eyeing the rest of the series, every Assassin’s Creed game in order maps the full timeline.