Fighting Skeleton Forts in Sea of Thieves are some of the most fun I’ve had so far in the game, and they house some of the best loot for the work required as well.
Sure, they’re just seemingly endless waves of skeletons, but holy cow the loot in that Vault is pretty! I’m averaging about 10-11k in gold per fort, and a lot of reputation along with that.
You’ll notice an active Skeleton Fort on the map by a large skull shaped cloud in the sky with flashing eyes. This can be a huge beacon for any ships in your lobby, so always approach with caution.
The locked vaults on a Skeleton Fort are full of items of value to each guild. There’s always one Stronghold Chest (worth about 2,500 gold), several chests of other sizes, skulls, boxes of tea, and various other nicknacks. There’s also gunpowder barrels scattered around the fort that you can sell , assuming you don’t use them to blow up groups of skeletons, which I always prefer to do because it’s fun as hell!
Most importantly, they’re not impossible with a small group, or even solo if you’re really careful and do it properly. Each time that I’ve beaten a Skeleton Fort, it’s been on a 2-man Sloop. My next adventure will be trying to do it solo, but with my tricks here it should be extremely doable, it will just take a little extra time and be a bit more painful.
So let’s get started on how to do this properly. YARR!!
What You’ll Need for a Skeleton Fort Run
The main thing you’ll need to stock up on is cannons and bananas. Now you don’t necessarily have to go out of your way for this, you don’t need hundreds, but the more the merrier. I usually just raid the Outpost I land on completely and that’s typically more than enough.
Be mindful of your supplies though and don’t be wasteful. The last thing you want to do is run out of cannon balls, they’re the most important in my opinion.
As far as weapons go, I always start with a pistol and the long range rifle. I’ll explain more on this shortly.
How to Get Setup at the Fort
The approach to the fort is very important. You’re going to get bombarded by cannon fire as you approach, so scope out the map before you get too close and try to find a spot on the map that looks like an open gateway, or a bay of some kind. This is where you’ll want to get setup.
When you find the spot you want to park, make sure you take a good angle at it. You want to line up your broadside to the area where you’ll be funelling skeletons to. This can be tricky, and getting it wrong can turn bad really fast, since you’ll likely have a lot of cannons flying your way. Make sure you’re practiced at timing your anchor drops to stop in the exact spot you want.
One thing to keep in mind here as well is the range of the cannon towers. Some forts have spots right near the beach that some of the cannons can’t shoot at, which is extremely helpful. If you can clear out the nearest towers with a cannon shot or two on your approach, even better.
If you can make it to a good spot without sinking, congrats! You’re on your way to toppling the fort. Right as soon as you get parked, whip out your long range rifle and start sniping those skeletons that are manning cannons that are still within range of your ship. They’ll take a lot more shots than you’re used to, so keep it up and keep repairing your ship.
If you can get parked and get the skeletons off of the cannons, you’ll pretty much be set to start clearing waves of skeletons in the fort. Before you start you might want to use a cannon to make sure the spot you’ll be funneling skeletons to is reachable. The downward range is not great on the cannons, so this can be a little tricky. Most of the time in my experience, I approached a bit too close and couldn’t hit the closer parts of the beach. Be careful if you have to reposition though as you might get into range of another cannon.
If your first try isn’t a success, don’t give up! It usually takes us at least a try or two to get into a good position without having our ship destroyed by cannon fire.
Setup Tip: On your approach, it can be very helpful to drop the anchor most of the way and catch it before it drops completely. This allows you to hold the anchor up just slightly and drop completely at the exact spot you want to stop.
Clearing Waves in the Skeleton Fort
Once you get your ship in a good spot to fire cannons onto a funnel spot, it’s time to start clearing those waves.
Run into the fort and gather up as many skeletons as you can and pull them back close to your ship. It’s best to have other crew members already mounted onto a cannon (or more if you’re in a Galleon of course) to start blasting them. Watch your cannonball reserves though, remember not to be wasteful.
If you didn’t pull the entire wave, go in for some more and pull them back again. Be careful when you’re pulling as a fair number of skeletons might be wielding ranged weapons, so always make sure you’ve got a good route back, and always bring some bananas.
At this point it mostly becomes wash, rinse, repeat as you’ll continue to defeat wave after wave until the boss spawns. Just like the Order of Souls quests, the boss’ will appear with their name in red. Defeat them and you get the key to the Vault and all the loot inside!
Skeleton Types and Their Weaknesses
At the time of writing, there are three primary types of skeletons besides your standard run of the mill skeletons:
Gold (Armored) Skeletons – These skeletons have gold armor that is nearly impervious to standard damage, but they walk very slowly and group up nicely. They are weak to water, so lure them into the water or throw buckets onto them to weaken them and slow them even more, then blow up groups of them with cannons or gundpowder barrels.
Shadow (Black) Skeletons – These skeletons are veiled in shadow, and completely immune to damage at night. These can be a total pain to fight at night, especially if you’re trying to do this solo. In the daytime they’re basically just normal skeletons, but at night you’ll have to shine a lantern on them in order to do any damage.
Grass (Green) Skeletons – These skeletons are covered in bits of grass, and are weak to sword damage. They seem a bit resistant to ranged damage, but still blow up easily with gundpowder barrels or cannon fire.
Remember that all of the skeletons at an active Skeleton Fort will have a lot more health than your standard skeletons, so be wary to take on a group in melee combat.
Keep An Eye Out for Other Ships
Obviously, all of this can go out the window if an enemy ship strolls in and starts firing on you, which they probably will. So far I’ve been pretty lucky on this regard and only ran into one aggressive ship at a skeleton fort out of several tries.
We’ve also had one ship stroll up and start helping us out, which is always a nice change of pace in this game. Be wary here though as they can easily kill you once the key drops and try to take the loot for themselves, but this didn’t happen to us luckily. We graciously let them take a portion of the loot and parted ways amicably.
Even though we’re pirates, we don’t always have to be assholes, right?
That being said, I have no qualms against revenge if a ship comes in and just starts fighting you. If they sink my ship, I’m quick to load up and go straight back to harass them at the very least, if not destroy their ship and/or pull up the anchor to set it sailing, etc. All is fair at that point, and they know this going into it.
Clearing the Vault
Once you see the boss skeleton spawn, you’re just about done. Give them everything you’ve got left and don’t spare anything. Cannons and gundpowder barrels make quick work of them, so down them as quickly as possible.
Once the boss goes down they’ll drop the vault key. You’ll find the vault entrance beneath the main building. Have someone reposition your ship closer if possible as all skeletons will despawn once the boss goes down. Clear out the vault as quickly as possible and get the hell out of there to the nearest Outpost to cash in your rewards.
Extra Tips
I probably sound like a broken record here, but don’t forget about the gunpowder barrels scattered around the fort. Not only do they do a massive amount of damage, but they’re fun as hell to use. Drag a group of skeletons to your designated spot, drop the barrel and keep running, then turn around and shoot it.. and watch the skeletons turn to a pile of dust!
Keep an eye out for skeletons spawning back in the cannon towers. It doesn’t seem to happen a lot, but they can wreck your ship quickly if they catch you unaware.
Make sure to stock up on ammo and switch out your weapons if needed every time you go back to your ship.
Keep an eye out for ammo boxes in the fort. There are usually only one or two, one of them being up around the top of the main building, but they can be extremely helpful in a pinch if you’re running out of weapon ammo during a pull and one is close by.
If you have any additional tips, feel free to leave them in the comments below.
