Ingredient gathering is a surprisingly large part of Skull and Bones. Even the most formidable pirates cannot steal everything, it seems, and must sometimes turn to the honest task of harvesting raw ingredients to upgrade ship parts.
The ingredient gathering system here is actually relatively simple it becomes counterintuitive quite quickly—in most crafting games, raw ingredients are combined en masse to craft into new items, and those raw ingredients might have a few tiers of quality.
Skull and Bones has a variation on this system that makes getting items like Fine Hemp feel more challenging than it actually is.
Where to get Fine Hemp in Skull and Bones
It makes sense that ores are refined into Ingots. What doesn’t really make sense is that Hemp is refined into Fine Hemp. Not Hemp products, just Fine Hemp. To get Fine Hemp, or any other type of Fine Fiber, all you need is the regular version of that Fiber. After you have that, you take it to the Refiner shop in Sainte-Anne to turn it into a Fine material.
This means you can’t track Fine Hemp on the map, but also means you don’t need to. Instead, you should be tracking Hemp.
How to get Hemp in Skull and Bones
Getting Hemp is just like getting any other Raw Material in Skull and Bones. Go to the Knowledge tab, select Codex, then Raw Materials. You will then see Hemp as the fourth Fiber entry. Select Hemp to track it on your map, which will make all Hemp nodes show up as icons regardless of whether or not they are in a location you have discovered.
In the case of Hemp, you will see after tracking the Material that all the harvesting points are on the northwest portion of the map, near Jiwe in the Coast of Africa. Make sure you have the Sickle, which is needed to gather any kind of Fiber, and then sail to any Hemp node. Complete the gathering minigame, or save yourself time by disabling the minigame entirely in your settings menu and turning on auto-gathering.
Once you’ve gathered enough Hemp, you can fast travel to Saint-Anne to refine it into Fine Hemp.
How to refine Hemp in Skull and Bones
Each piece of Fine Hemp requires five Hemp, so you’re going to want to be sure you stock up properly, especially given how far off the beaten path Hemp is. Once you’re satisfied with the amount you’ve got, return to Saint-Anne and go too the Refinery shop, which is directly across from the Blacksmith.
Select either of the empty refining slots from the shop, and then find Fine Hemp on the list. You should be able to quickly locate it, as the Materials that can currently be refined have a little yellow anvil next to their icon. Select the amount of Fine Hemp you’d like to have refined, and then confirm and pay the small fee in Silver.
It takes a moment for the Hemp to actually be turned into Fine Hemp, and afterwards, you need to actually take it out of the Refinery shop item slot. Otherwise, it will just sit in the Skull and Bones shop forever and can’t actually be used.
