You're sitting there, staring at a half-finished hull in the Port of Hamburg or Kure. The cranes are moving. Sparks fly. It looks cool. But if you’ve played this game for more than a week, you know the World of Warships ship building process—better known as the Dockyard—is basically a high-stakes math problem disguised as a naval construction project. It’s not just about clicking buttons. It’s a grind that involves timing, Doubloons, and a whole lot of combat missions.
Building a ship from scratch in World of Warships isn't like buying a Premium ship from the shop. It's an event. Wargaming doesn't just hand over the keys to a Wisconsin or an Anchorage because you're a nice person. They want your time. Or your money. Ideally both.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Dockyard
A lot of players jump into a new Dockyard season thinking they can just "play naturally" and unlock the Tier X reward. That's a trap. Honestly, it’s the quickest way to end up with a Tier VIII hull sitting at 28/30 phases when the timer runs out. You have to understand that World of Warships ship building is gated.
You cannot finish a Dockyard ship for free. Period.
Every single Dockyard event requires you to purchase a certain number of phases with Doubloons. Usually, it’s anywhere from two to five phases. If you don't buy those "Starter Packs" early, you’re basically paying full price at the end, which is a massive waste of resources. I’ve seen people grind 30 hours of missions only to realize they still need to cough up 5,000 Doubloons to actually sail the thing. It’s a bitter pill to swallow if you weren't expecting it.
The math is simple but brutal. If an event has 30 phases, Wargaming might let you earn 25 through gameplay. Those last 5? Those are the tax. You’re essentially buying a high-tier ship at a deep discount, but the "price" is your soul for about eight weeks of combat missions.
The Evolution of the Grind: From Puerto Rico to Now
We have to talk about the Puerto Rico. If you weren't around for the 2019 winter disaster, count yourself lucky. It was the first real attempt at World of Warships ship building on a massive scale, and it was a train wreck. The requirements were so high that players calculated you’d need to play the game as a full-time job—literally 40+ hours a week—to finish it without spending hundreds of dollars. The community erupted. Reddit was a salt mine.
Wargaming learned. Mostly.
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Since then, Dockyard events like the ones for Odin, ZF-6, and the massive Wisconsin anniversary event have become more manageable. They shifted the focus. Now, it's less about "impossible" grinds and more about "consistent" play. You get these stages. You complete some base XP missions, some torpedo hit missions, and maybe a few "potential damage" tasks.
But here is the nuanced part: the missions are tiered. The first few weeks are easy. You'll breeze through them. Then, around week five, the requirements spike. Suddenly, you need 20,000,000 potential damage or 150 "Set on Fire" ribbons. If you aren't diversifying your port with different ship types, you’re going to hit a wall. You can’t build a Tier X battleship by only playing Japanese destroyers. The game forces you to branch out.
Why some ships never come back
World of Warships ship building is often a "one and done" deal. Ships like the Hizen or the Marlborough don't just pop up in the Armory the next month. They become rare. Sometimes they end up in Santa Crates a year later, but the Dockyard is usually your only chance to get them for a "reasonable" price. This creates a massive FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) effect.
Is the ship actually good? Sometimes. The Wisconsin is a monster—basically an Iowa with surgical accuracy and a "Funny Button" (Combat Instructions) that resets your cooldowns. Other times? You’re grinding for a ship like the Canarias, which is... fine. It's okay. But was it worth ten hours of your life? That's the gamble of the build.
The Strategy of the Starter Pack
If you’re serious about World of Warships ship building, you buy the Starter Pack the second the update drops.
Wait. Don't do that yet.
Check the rewards first. Every Dockyard has "intermediate" rewards. You’ll get Steel, Coal, Research Points, and usually a lower-tier Premium ship halfway through. For example, during the West Virginia '44 build, you got the ship itself as a mid-way reward. If you already owned it, you got compensated with phases or Doubloons.
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Experienced players use this to "game" the system. If you know you’re getting a duplicate, you can sometimes shave off the grind or get your Doubloons back. It’s about efficiency.
- Step 1: Look at the total phases.
- Step 2: Look at the "minimum" purchase required.
- Step 3: Evaluate if you have the ships needed for the specific missions (e.g., do you have a high-tier carrier for the plane-kill missions?).
- Step 4: Buy the small starter pack only if you’re 100% sure you can finish the missions.
If you miss a week, you’re in trouble. The missions stay open until the end of the event, but they stack. Trying to do four weeks of Dockyard missions in the final three days is a recipe for a burnout-induced uninstall.
The Visual Spectacle: Is it Just Fluff?
One thing Wargaming gets right is the presentation. Watching the ship actually come together in the Port is satisfying. You see the hull plates being welded. You see the turrets being lowered into the barbettes. For history nerds, it’s a cool look at the sequence of naval construction.
But don't let the shiny cranes distract you from the UI. The Dockyard screen is designed to make you feel like you're almost there. "Only 2 more phases!" the game says. But those two phases might require 50,000 Base XP. Base XP is the "pure" XP before modifiers, and it is the ultimate gatekeeper. It doesn't care about your fancy camos or your economic boosters. It only cares about how well you played in the match.
When to Walk Away
Not every World of Warships ship building event is worth it. Honestly.
If the final reward is a Tier VIII cruiser and you already have a Mainz or a Bayard, why are you stressing? The power creep in this game is real. Some Dockyard ships are "port queens"—they look pretty, they sit there, and you never take them into Ranked or Clan Battles because they just can't compete.
Take the Daisen, for instance. Fast battleship, big guns, but made of wet paper. If you ground your heart out for that and expected a tank, you were probably disappointed. Expert players look at the ship's armor scheme in the Fitting Tool before committing to the Dockyard. If the "citadel" is exposed or the "sigmas" (accuracy) are bad, they skip the grind and save their Doubloons for the next ship.
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Actionable Steps for Your Next Build
If you're looking at the current or upcoming Dockyard and wondering how to survive it without losing your mind, here is how you actually handle World of Warships ship building like a pro.
Inventory Check: Make sure you have at least one "strong" ship for every class at Tier VIII or higher. You will need a destroyer for spotting/ribbon missions, a battleship for tanking/damage, and a cruiser for fires/AA defense. If you lack a class, you'll get stuck on specific mission chains.
The "Double Dip" Method: Never play just for the Dockyard. Always overlap your missions. If there’s a personal challenge or a seasonal event (like the Anniversary or Christmas events), time your Dockyard grind to coincide with those. You should be hitting three or four different mission sets with every single battle.
Watch the Clock: Use the first two weeks to get ahead. The missions are easy, and building momentum is key. If you fall behind in the first half, the "wall" in the second half will feel insurmountable.
Calculate the Cost: Before you spend a single Doubloon, look at the final phase. If the ship costs 5,000 Doubloons in starter packs and you value your time at $0, is that ship worth the $20-ish dollars plus the 40 hours of play? If the answer is no, just play for the free rewards (the Coal and Steel) and let the ship go.
The Post-Completion Bonus: Here is a pro tip—if you finish the ship early by buying phases, any Dockyard missions you complete after the ship is in your port will reward you with Steel. For veteran players, this is one of the most reliable ways to farm Steel for ships like Stalingrad or Bourgogne. It’s expensive, but it’s a shortcut for the most valuable resource in the game.
World of Warships ship building is a marathon, not a sprint. Treat it like a project management task. Check your progress, don't ignore the math, and for heaven's sake, don't forget to buy those starter packs before they disappear from the Armory. You'll thank yourself when you're finally sailing that Tier X behemoth out of the harbor.