DREADMOOR Crafting & Boat Upgrades: Hull Armour
Dreadmoor crafting and trawler upgrades: Hull Armour, engine variants, fish storage, the lantern, ship maintenance and the Ship Upgrade Skill Tree.
Last updated: September 25, 2026
Your trawler is DREADMOOR's progression hub. Official material confirms a full crafting-and-upgrades loop: salvage materials, process them at workbenches, and reinvest everything into the boat that keeps you alive on the Submerged Lands. This page covers what is confirmed — and clearly marks what isn't.
How crafting fits the loop
Official descriptions of the game chain crafting directly into survival: salvaged materials, blueprints, fish resources, and workbench systems are the inputs; equipment, bait, lures, and ship upgrades are the outputs. Fishing is a resource engine, scavenging is the other half of it, and the workbench is where both pay off.
Confirmed inputs:
- Salvaged materials from ruined locations on land and at sea.
- Fish resources — fish are resources, not just cargo.
- Blueprints referenced in official descriptions of the crafting system.
Exact recipes, material lists, and workbench tiers are not published and will be verified in the October 6, 2026 demo.
⚠️ Playtest crafting data is historical
The September Open Playtest (Sep 10–14, 2026) ran on reworked systems, and its content does not carry to the demo or full game. Any exact upgrade cost or recipe from the playtest — ours included — is obsolete.
Confirmed trawler upgrades
Official demo news names four trawler upgrades and one upgrade system. These are safe to plan around:
| Upgrade | What official material says |
|---|---|
| Hull Armour Mk I | A confirmed hull upgrade — the "Mk I" naming implies a series. |
| Engine variants | Multiple engines exist; exact stats are unconfirmed. |
| Fish storage upgrade | Increases how much a trip can bring home. |
| Roof-mounted lantern | Supports night operation — and nights are dangerous. |
| Ship Upgrade Skill Tree | A confirmed progression track for the ship itself. |
How these upgrades are acquired (purchase, blueprint crafting, or quest reward) is not confirmed.
Ship maintenance is a real system
DREADMOOR treats the trawler as a ship that wears out: ship maintenance is explicitly confirmed. Hull Armour exists for a reason, and official material frames the loop around surviving the return trip. Practical implications for planning your first demo sessions:
- Damage and wear between trips appear to be part of the economy — maintenance likely competes with upgrades for your resources.
- Pushing farther from safe harbors raises the cost of a failed trip, not just the chance of one.
- The lantern plus hull armour together define whether night expeditions are sane.
Exact durability rules and repair costs are unconfirmed — we will measure them in the demo.
Engine variants and travel range
Multiple engine variants are confirmed, but official material has not published their stats (speed, fuel use, noise — all unknown). The safe conclusion until the demo: engine choice changes how far and how fast you can reach good fishing grounds. We'll benchmark each variant once the demo is live.
Ship Upgrade Skill Tree
The Ship Upgrade Skill Tree is the confirmed progression track for the vessel. Its nodes have not been revealed, so this page will not invent a perk list. Given the confirmed upgrades above, expect it to gate hull, storage, engine, and utility improvements — that is inference until we can verify it node by node.
💡 Verification plan
On demo day (October 6, 2026) we will re-verify this entire page: every upgrade cost, the maintenance loop, engine differences, and the full Ship Upgrade Skill Tree. Values marked unconfirmed above get replaced first.
These topics now have dedicated pages with the latest verified detail: the crafting guide and the boat upgrades guide. This page remains the combined overview.