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Build and Defend Your Raft — How to Raid
PvP Updated 2026-09-03

How to Raid

Raiding is the end of the game’s own tutorial: raid other players and steal their loot. Wood you’d spend an hour collecting is sitting in someone’s chest right now. This guide covers target selection, entry, the steal, and getting home alive.

Read a raft before you hit it

Scan the lobby the way the promo art teaches: the frowning solo player on a bare pallet is a target; the plated box with roof cannons is a project.

Green flags (raid these):

  • Chest visible from the water, or parked on an outer deck
  • A missing wall, an open door, a long exposed dock
  • No cannon covering the approach side
  • Owner AFK at the Crafting Table
  • One player, no crew tags

Red flags (come back later):

  • Turrets on the deck — you will die on their planks
  • Reinforced walls and a closed ring
  • Two or more players online in the crew
  • A chest room you can’t immediately locate (they’ve read the defense guide)

The approach

  • Come in from the side without a cannon silhouette. Auto-cannons need line of sight — don’t give them one.
  • Travel light: a weapon, empty bag space, and nothing you mourn. You are there to steal, not to furnish.
  • Wait out the Lock Raft. It doesn’t last forever — circle at cannon range until it drops, then board. Impatient raiders feed fish.

Breaking in and the steal

  • The prize is the chest itself — you can grab the whole chest and carry it off, contents and all. Chests can be empty; check before you commit to a firefight over nothing.
  • Extra doors work in your favor: players have pulled spare doors off enemy rafts mid-raid to open new entries.
  • If the owner is home, this is a fight, not shopping. Reinforced sword beats wooden sword; disengage if the ring closes behind you.
  • Watch the ocean: the swim home is where sharks collect their toll, and a stolen chest doesn’t help the shark’s victim list.

Third-partying: the meta nobody admits

The most profitable play in the game is letting two other rafts fight, then sweeping the loot while they reload. It’s openly called scummy in the official Discord — and openly recommended. The pattern:

  1. Spot a fight already in progress.
  2. Hold just outside cannon range until both sides are damaged and distracted.
  3. Board the loser’s raft, take the chest, leave.
  4. Do not linger. The winner noticed you the moment you boarded.

Video walkthrough — 38 minutes of raids: target reading, waiting out locks, chest grabs and the getaway — every tactic in this guide, executed live.

## Escape discipline
  • Steal and leave. Every extra second on their deck is time for their cannons to find range or their crew to log on.
  • Cut your wake: turn before they do, use islands to break line of sight.
  • If you’re chased into a corner of the map, remember pursuers are faster unloaded — jettison what you can carry without.
  • Death costs you time, not your chest. A failed raid stings less than a greedy one.

Defending against this guide

Everything above is also your audit checklist: one door, chest deep inside, turrets on the deck, cannons with clear sightlines. See the best defense guide for the builder’s side.