Epheria Carrack: Balance and Epheria Carrack: Advance were introduced in the The Great Expedition Update on 23 October 2019. Both ships are upgrades from Epheria Caravel and require an Epheria Caravel to craft.
Carracks are a great improvement over the Caravel, with almost every ship stat increased to create the best Barter ships available.
Upgrades on Balance & Advance:
- 5000+ more Weight Limit (69% increase in LT)
- 20 more Cabins for Sailors
- 5 to 10 more Inventory
- 7 additional cannons on each side
- 5% improvement in Turn/Brake
- 10% to 15% greater Speed
Caravel Upgrade Comparison Chart | |||
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T4 | T5 | ||
Ship Stat | Epheria Caravel | Carrack (Advance) | Carrack (Balance) |
HP | 1,000,000 | 1,350,000 | 1,300,000 |
Rations | 1,100,000 | 1,300,000 | 1,400,000 |
Base LT | 10,000 | 16,500 | 15,000 |
Speed | 100% | 110% | 115% |
Accel | 100% | 100% | 100% |
Turn | 110% | 115% | 115% |
Brake | 110% | 115% | 115% |
Inventory | 30 slots | 40 slots | 35 slots |
Cabins | 30 | 50 | 50 |
Cannon per Side | 2 (captain) | 9 (captain) | 9 (captain) |
Reload | 13s | 13s | 12s |

Upgrade to Epheria Carrack (Advance):
- the best Carrack for Inventory space (5 more than Balance)
- greatest base LT of all Carracks (1,500 more LT than Balance)
- slowest cannon speed (1 second slower than Balance)
- 5% improvement in Speed (5% lower speed than Balance)
- 200,000 more Rations (100k less than Balance)
- possibly less time cost? (requires more Brillant mats that are obtained via Barter after obtaining a 5.1k Barter count. Could be bad if your RNG is bad and no Brilliant Barters spawn.)
Upgrade to Epheria Carrack (Balance):
- faster cannons (1 second faster)
- 15% more Speed (5% more than Advance)
- 300,000 more Rations (100k more than Advance)
- 5 more Inventory Slots (5 less than Advance)
- possibly greater time cost? (requires 15 more Tear of the Ocean. This item can’t be obtained via Barter. It is obtained via a Daily Black Rust quest. 1 per day. It has a steep 3,900 Crow Coin cost for each. The good news is you would be guaranteed to have enough Tears from questing after 50 days)
Carrack Advance & Balance: Best in Barter Ships
The upgrade ships from Epheria Caravel are NOT considered best for battle and manuverability.
They are considered best for Barter and Trade.
When you compare them to the upgrade line from the Epheria Frigate, you can see why.
These Barter ships have more Inventory and Weight Limit, but less damage and Speed/Accel/Turn/Brake.
Note that the Carracks all have 50 Cabin space, which allows you to strengthen areas you feel are too weak in Speed/Accel/Turn/Brake.
Barter Carracks vs Battle Carracks | ||||
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Barter —————- T5 Carracks ————- Battle | ||||
Ship Stat | Carrack (Advance) | Carrack (Balance) | Carrack (Volante) | Carrack (Valor) |
HP | 1,350,000 | 1,300,000 | 1,250,000 | 1,300,000 |
Rations | 1,300,000 | 1,400,000 | 1,400,000 | 1,500,000 |
Base LT | 16,500 | 15,000 | 13,500 | 13,500 |
Speed | 110% | 115% | 120% | 115% |
Accel | 100% | 100% | 110% | 110% |
Turn | 115% | 115% | 125% | 125% |
Brake | 115% | 115% | 125% | 125% |
Inventory | 40 slots | 35 slots | 20 slots | 20 slots |
Cabins | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 |
Cannon per Side | 9 (captain) | 9 (captain) | 9 (captain) | 9 (captain) |
Reload | 13s | 12s | 12s | 11s |
The Best Carrack: Advance or Balance?
Which Ship Should I Choose?
Both Carracks are almost identical. For me, I would choose the Advance because of its superior Barter capacity. If you’ve done any Bartering lately, you know the value of 1.5k extra LT and 5 more Inventory. I do like sailing fast, but meh. I’m willing to give up the 5% extra Speed that Balance would give me. But if you value speed and that 1 second faster cannon reload speed, go for that!
Players like to make fun of the Carrack Balance and many consider it a potato ship, because it attempts at being a middle ground between a battle and barter ship. Most players are choosing Carrack Advance at the moment. But Balance is still an awesome barter ship that takes lots of time and effort to obtain. Congrats if you have taken the work to get one!
Epheria Carrack (Advance) vs Epheria Carrack (Balance): Materials
The materials for the Carrack (Advance) and Carrack (Balance) are almost the same.
The only difference is in the amount of three different materials.
Carrack Balance requires 8 more Tear of the Ocean. This item is obtained via a Daily Black Rust quest and may extend your goal by 8 days. But it requires 5 less of each the Brilliant mats. (Ingot and Shard). Black Rust are often spoken as being the most difficult sea monster to defeat.
Carrack Advance requires 8 less Tear of the Ocean, but 5 more of Brilliant Rock Salt Ingot and 5 more Brilliant Pearl Shard. These two items have a cheaper Crow Coin cost of 1600. There is no repeatable quest for Brilliant mats.
To aquire the Barter Routes for Brilliant mats, you have to have 3k Barter count.
You can exchange one type of Brilliant mat for another, but it will cost you 200 Crow Coins at Ravinia.

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Ship Mats | Additional Info | |||||
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Moon Vein Flax Fabric x180 |
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Deep Tide-Dyed Standardized Timber Square x144 |
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Brilliant Rock Salt Ingot x35 |
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Tear of the Ocean x42 |
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Brilliant Pearl Shard x35 |
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Epheria Caravel: Black Dragon Prow +10 |
View details in Caravel Blue Gear
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Epheria Caravel: Upgraded Plating +10 | |||||
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Epheria Caravel: Mayna Cannon +10 | |||||
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Epheria Caravel: Stratus Wind Sail +10 |
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Ship Mats | Additional Info | |||||
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Moon Vein Flax Fabric x180 |
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Deep Tide-Dyed Standardized Timber Square x144 |
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Brilliant Rock Salt Ingot x30 |
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Tear of the Ocean x50 |
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Brilliant Pearl Shard x30 |
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Epheria Caravel: Black Dragon Prow +10 |
View details in Caravel Blue Gear
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Epheria Caravel: Upgraded Plating +10 | |||||
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Epheria Caravel: Mayna Cannon +10 | |||||
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Epheria Caravel: Stratus Wind Sail +10 |
SOURCES & ADDITIONAL INFO
- Info searches on bdocodex.com
- Great Expedition Guide Google Doc – Thank you to BDO family name: Airie (SEA), Akiri (Global-Lab), Discord: Kiri Airie#6217
- Official BDO The Launch of a Great Expedition
- Official BDO The Great Expedition Update
- BDO Sailing/Vell Discord – talk and chat web app for everything Sailing