Data basis: the Corsair Cove Wiki’s Compass page (wiki.hoodedhorse.com/Corsair_Cove/Compass)
and its transcluded List of Compass unlocks sub-page, last edited 2026-08-22, read 2026-08-22,
against game version 1.1.4.242868 (Patch #4, 18 August 2026). This is Hooded Horse’s own wiki, run
by the publisher, but it is a community-editable page and the numbers below reflect what has been
filled in as of that edit — some of it, as shown below, has not been filled in at all.
Corsair Cove’s Compass system runs four parallel advancement tracks — Notoriety, Empire, Seafaring and Wealth — each unlocking its own ships, buildings and production boosters as you spend points earned through play. The wiki lists all four as separate pages with separate tables, which makes the natural question (“which path should I push first?”) hard to answer without opening four tabs and cross-referencing by hand. Doing that cross-reference is the entire point of this page.
The headline finding: all four paths cost exactly the same
Before comparing what each path unlocks, the more useful fact is what doesn’t differ at all. Every path uses the identical point curve to reach each tier:
| Tier | Points required |
|---|---|
| Tier 1 | 0 |
| Tier 2 | 3 |
| Tier 3 | 7 |
| Tier 4 | 12 |
| Tier 5 | 20 |
| Tier 6 | 30 |
That last row is worth flagging on its own: the wiki’s own “Required Points” table stops at Tier 5 (20 points), but every one of the four paths ends in a Tier 6 ship unlock costing 30 points (Notoriety’s Prowler Wraith, Empire’s Destroyer Wrath Bringer, Seafaring’s Hunter Neptune, Wealth’s Reaver Loki). The 30-point threshold only appears inline on those four ship rows, not in the tier table itself — a Tier 6 the wiki documents by implication, not by listing it.
Because the cost curve is identical, “which path opens cheaply early” has a flat answer: none of them is cheaper than the others in Compass points. The real difference between paths is what you get for those points, not how much you pay — which is what the table below normalizes.
Path-by-path unlock composition
| Path | Total unlocks | Boosters | Buildings | Ships | Free (Tier 1, 0 pts) unlocks | Booster rank cells left as ”?” by the wiki |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notoriety | 28 | 10 | 13 | 5 | 3 | 38 |
| Empire | 27 | 11 | 11 | 5 | 3 | 41 |
| Seafaring | 27 | 11 | 11 | 5 | 3 | 39 |
| Wealth | 27 | 11 | 11 | 5 | 3 | 43 |
Two things stand out. First, every path gives you exactly 3 free unlocks at Tier 1 (0 points, no grinding required) — the paths are symmetric at the entry point, each handing you one booster and two buildings (Seafaring instead front-loads two buildings and one booster in a different order, same total). Second, Notoriety is the outlier in composition: it trades two boosters for two extra buildings compared to the other three paths (13 buildings vs. 11, 10 boosters vs. 11), while still matching them at 5 ships each. If your priority is opening more building slots early rather than stacking production-rate boosters, Notoriety is structurally the path built for that — not because it’s cheaper, but because it allocates its 27-28 unlock slots differently.
Booster ceilings: another asymmetry, and the wiki’s biggest gap
Every booster in the game has a “Max rank” — most cap at Rank 5, but a handful cap lower:
| Path | Boosters capped at Rank 5 | Boosters capped at Rank 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Notoriety | 10 | 0 |
| Empire | 11 | 0 |
| Seafaring | 10 | 1 (Pearl of Wisdom) |
| Wealth | 8 | 3 (Easy Being Green, Bird Bombs, White Gold) |
Wealth has the most Rank-3-capped boosters of any path, meaning three of its production multipliers
top out earlier than the Rank-5 norm elsewhere. That would matter more if the actual Rank 3-5
numbers were public — but here is the honest limitation this page has to carry forward rather than
paper over: for every single booster in all four paths, the wiki lists Rank 1 and Rank 2 effect
values and then leaves Rank 3 through Rank 5 (or Rank 3 alone, for the lower-cap boosters) as a bare
?. That is not a gap in our extraction — it is a gap in the source. Out of 43 total boosters
across the four paths, zero have a fully documented rank ladder past Rank 2. Wealth has the most
unresolved cells (43) simply because it has the most Rank-3-capped boosters plus unresolved
Rank 3-5 on its Rank-5 boosters; Notoriety has the fewest (38) for the mirror reason. We are
reporting that gap as a gap, not filling it with a guess, because a wrong booster number is worse
than an admitted unknown for anyone using this to plan a build order.
Combined (dual-path) unlocks
Beyond the four single-path tracks, 8 additional ship unlocks require points in two adjacent paths simultaneously — the compass wheel treats Notoriety/Empire, Empire/Seafaring, Seafaring/Wealth and Wealth/Notoriety as neighboring pairs, each granting a hybrid ship at the combined Tier 2 (3+3 points) and Tier 4 (12+12 points) thresholds:
| Combined unlock | Tier | Points required (both paths) | Requires |
|---|---|---|---|
| Azimuth | 2 | 3 and 3 | Notoriety + Empire |
| Vulture | 4 | 12 and 12 | Notoriety + Empire |
| Steel Edge | 2 | 3 and 3 | Empire + Seafaring |
| Ravager | 4 | 12 and 12 | Empire + Seafaring |
| Huracán | 2 | 3 and 3 | Seafaring + Wealth |
| Catshark | 4 | 12 and 12 | Seafaring + Wealth |
| Goldseeker | 2 | 3 and 3 | Wealth + Notoriety |
| Bedlam | 4 | 12 and 12 | Wealth + Notoriety |
This means a pure single-path rush (dumping every point into just one of the four tracks) forfeits 4 hybrid ships that a balanced two-path split would unlock at the same total point spend — the compass rewards spreading points across adjacent tracks, not hoarding them in one.
Why this matters for build order
None of the four single paths is objectively “faster” or “cheaper” in Compass points — the curve is identical. What differs is the shape of the payoff: Notoriety buys you building slots, the other three buy a slightly heavier booster stack, and Wealth’s booster stack is the least verified one on the wiki as of this read. If chain depth and building costs matter more to your early game than production boosters, see the 77-resource production chain matrix and the building cost and production matrix — several Compass-unlocked buildings (Gambling Den, Sawmill via Walk the Plank, Powdermill via Powder Monkey) show up directly in those chains.
What we could not confirm
- Rank 3, 4 and 5 effect values for any booster in any path. The wiki itself has not filled these in as of the 2026-08-22 read; we are reporting the gap, not estimating a number to fill it.
- Whether the Tier 6 “30 points” threshold is an intentional, documented tier or an inference from four ship rows. The wiki’s own tier table stops at Tier 5; we inferred Tier 6 from the pattern across all four paths’ final ship unlocks, which is consistent but not stated outright.
- The exact reason Notoriety’s tier-column value renders oddly for its Tier 6 ship (the source data shows “(tier col shows 1 as rendered — likely display artifact)” for Prowler Wraith, while the other three paths’ Tier 6 rows render cleanly as “6”). This looks like a wiki template rendering quirk specific to that one row, not a design difference, but we have not confirmed it with the wiki’s edit history.
- What each named building or booster actually does in play, beyond the “Unlocks” and numeric rank columns — the wiki’s building and booster pages carry icon links rather than prose descriptions for most of these entries.
Sources
- Compass and List of Compass unlocks, Corsair Cove Official Wiki (Hooded Horse), last edited 2026-08-22, read 2026-08-22.
- Game version at time of read: 1.1.4.242868 (Patch #4, 18 August 2026) — see the patch timeline tracker for the full changelog history this value is tied to.
