My apologies in advance if this is a bit dry, it's only text for now as I can't really think of good pictures to insert. This will (maybe) change in the future

To begin, lets start with one big, important thing that you will need to understand before continuing. As rough as it may sound, if you're playing on a dubloon ocean, you are probably not the target audience for this game.

There are two kinds of people who are the active target audience for Puzzle Pirates. The first being the subscribers, who pay a monthly fee and in turn have their own server without dubloons, and the second being the big spenders on dubloon oceans (The 'whales' of free to play if you want to use that terminology)

If you have a deep wallet and do not want to spend any time waiting to buy your ships, homes and stores, as well as plenty of limited edition pets and cosmetics, you will be able to do that, and the game will cater to that.

There we go, that's out. Now to move on to actually enjoying the game.

The first, and best way to enjoy the game is to enjoy the puzzles. As the name implies, you will have plenty of puzzling to do in this game. And in fact, not puzzling while on duty on a ship is considered very rude.

Luckily, the tutorial will introduce you to the basic duty puzzles, and you can always practice this basic puzzle with the navy(Read: NPCs) if you feel so inclined. Keep in mind that this is way less interesting and profitable than joining trips with players, but it will allow you to puzzle undisturbed for as long as you want.

As long as you enjoy your puzzles, you will have a good time. And don't be afraid to tell the captain (If on a player ship) that you're tired of puzzling and about to leave. It is considered rude to leave a ship while in combat, but combat will not last long under most circumstances so you should be free to come on, and leave the game almost any time you want to. But of course, if you find yourself a good puzzle that you genuinely enjoy, you will be playing it for a while.

A worthy note here is that you will have an easier time finding an open sailor puzzle station thanks to the amount of sailing stations on a ship being more than that of other stations. If you enjoy one of the two sailing puzzles(Sailing or rigging), you will have an easier time finding your favourite.

Another thing to note is that on a majority of puzzles efficiency is more valuable than speed. For the best results you will need both, but if you have to choose one over the other then most of the time efficiency will be the better choice.

If you are not a fan of the three duty stations (And 5 puzzles) the game normally offers then you may consider gunnery (Loading cannons is the one puzzle based almost entirely on your speed of loading the cannons correctly), and navigation. (Duty navigation and battle navigation are different, although you will be very unlikely to find yourself battle navigating on a ship of players unless you own the ship. Entire guides can be written just about the battle navigation, but I will skip that for this one)
Keep in mind, that to unlock gunnery and any sort of navigation missions for the navy to try them out, you will need a pirate badge or a badge of a higher rank. These badges will cost you at least one dubloon.

If you do not find the puzzles to your liking, the inn has parlor games that are well done, though this does limit you to parlor games as the majority of Puzzle Pirates is....Puzzles.

And there we have it. Dubloons.

Dubloons are the currency you can buy with your actual physical cash. No, not by throwing it at the screen, by buying it from the dev.
But aside from that, there is an other way to obtain these valuable coins, you can buy them ingame, for your ingame earned money (The Pieces of Eight). A bank building will hold a dubloon exchange that will offer you to buy dubloons from other players. This entire system is intended to be 100% player based, with players doing both the buying and the selling of dubloons for PoE.
You can find a button in your interface to do this as well, if you do not want to move to the bank.
(This button is found in the 'ye' tab, if you click your name you will go to your pirate's page, listing your stats, trophies, and experience, but above that there is a button for the dubloon exchange and palace shop.)

This means that, like any market, there are price fluctuations. I'm not a market economist, but I do know that there are people who play this game who earn a profit based on their dubloon buying and selling, as well as those who use their wealth to effect the market.
This, combined with the inherent design of needing dubloons for everything big means that the price is likely to go up much more than it will go down. Everyone on the server needs dubloons, but only a few people are willing to pay to provide them.

Dubloons are used for almost everything in the game. To unlock your privileges granted to you by your crew rank, to unlock parlor and labor puzzles outside of their free days, to buy a new house you will need them, and any shop that sells you any item you would like to use, be it a sword, a bed, a ship or even a fancy hat - will need dubloons to deliver the item. Do note that the dubloons you pay for a delivery fee will not go to the shop you're buying from. They are removed from the game. It is not unusual for the dubloons to deliver an item to cost more than twice the cost in PoE to buy the item from the shop.

You will need to buy dubloons with physical currency at least once to avoid your account being deleted if you leave for over 4-ish weeks.
If you can not, or do not want to buy these, you will lose your account if you do not play for a long time. You can save your items and money by getting a friend who did to make you their roommate(Possibly in a separate house of the size you want to have) and putting the money and items in storage containers in the house. Chests for your PoE, wardrobes for the clothing, sword racks for swords, bludgeon trunks for the bludgeons, and a shelf for drinking mugs.
Be very careful with this, as your friend will be able to take all your stuff, it is recommended that you only do this if you trust your friend on this.
By making you their roommate, you can do the same to your friend, so your friend trusts you not to do this if they make you a roommate. Do not accept random roommate requests from people in the game.

And then of course, you will want the most profitable activity you can do to get as much PoE as you can in as short an amount of time, to maximise your wealth and get those dubloons out of the way.
Or to avoid using/needing them. But I'll get to that later

Of course, you will want to make money so you can progress your pirate-y self.

So you may be blinded by all these oppertunities to make money, free labor puzzle for the day(They rotate on a schedule, and you can get paid for your labor puzzling even without a badge), navy work, begging, pillages, flottillas, sea monsters, card games and betting and challenges and..Well, there's a lot out there.

So I'll take these things one at a time and explain the profit potential of them all.

First up, honest hard work for a shop or shipyard.
While it may be interesting, with a unique puzzle to play and plenty of stores seeking people to work for them, most of what you will be earning is change. You will be paid between 20 and about 100 pieces of eight for your puzzling performance, but you will find that this is not that much compared to the price of a dubloon.
Dubloons will cost you several thousands each, after all, and your labor is limited per day.

Navy work
The same. While based on your performance at your puzzle of choice, you will not be paid much. None of the navy missions do, to earn money you need to do things with players.

Begging
No. Don't do this. This will get you ignored or muted by most people. Don't even consider it.

Pillaging
A good start. A pillage will reward pieces of eight after each won battle, and at the end you get a share for the final division once the ship ports. You do not need to be present on the ship to get this share. A good pillage will earn you a decent amount of cash, and you will get to enjoy puzzling in a casual place that likely won't mind if you leave after a few minutes of playtime.
Just don't leave during a battle, this is very rude and will get your share's size reduced by an officer during the final division.

Pillages are also considered the basic thing to do in the game. Vanilla Puzzle Piates, so to say.

Flottillas
There we go, these are a great way to earn money without ever owning any dubloons. A flottilla will reward you based on every ship sunk by the ship you're at, and you may even be able to haul up shipwrecks for even more money. This is what you want to do if you want to get rich quick and have nothing invested.
The problem? They are rare. Very rare. You may not find any ships going for a flottilla in weeks.

Blockades
The best way to earn money, usually. And you don't even need any badges or dubloons whatsoever. In fact, entirely new pirates are accepted on these with no credentials whatsoever. The stated pay may go up to 9999 Pieces of Eight per round(10 minute section of blockading), and often based on your performance you may get more than the stated pay.
The drawback? You don't get paid unless you're actually in the blockade, and they are only held during the weekend and at a few select timezones. If you are unlucky or have other things to do during the weekend you may miss out on these entirely.

Poker and other betting games
You can play poker, you can play parlor games, you can bet your PoE on them and earn a profit.
Technically.
You will most likely not earn much, or end up losing most of your wager. Parlor games also limit your betting by experience. You need to have at least a certain amount of time in these games before you're allowed to join or host games with a high wager. In addition, you will need a parlor badge to play most of them if it isn't their free day
They are enjoyable though.

Tournaments
A decent way to earn cash and the occasional interesting prize, most tournaments feature a cascading pot, which means you will get a bit of cash even if you don't win. That said, the biggest share goes to the winner, and they usually aren't a massive amount. The bright side is that they happen decently often, and that they tend to not last very long.

Sea monster hunting!
Ranging from exceptionally profitable, to barely a profit, sea monster hunting is what many people do the most. However, this needs a bravery badge, and a lot more than just being willing to play. So onward to the next section...Sea monster hunts!

Also known as that thing a lot of people spend a lot of time doing.

Sea monster hunting comes in several forms
-Atlantis
-Haunted Seas
-Cursed Islands
-Kraken Hunts

I'll list the more common kinds of expeditions into these as I explain them. Keep in mind that you will need a bravery badge (5 dubloons) to join any of these.
Key here is that most of the people do these not for the cash, but for the potential to get a familiar - Familiars are incredibly expensive if bought or sold, and many just want to collect them or have them just for the sake of having them. If you find yourself with a familiar, you've won the Puzzle Pirates lottery.

Many sea monster hunts are selective based on your puzzling standing. Often a trophy will help swing the balance in your favour if there is any doubt about whether or not to accept you on the voyage.


Backwalling
Found mostly in the Haunted Seas and sometimes in Atlantis, Backwalling is when the ship makes its way to the furthest back part of the map and hangs out there while shooting, and subsequently treasure hauling the enemies in the sea monster hunt. It is the simplest way(From your point of view, at least) to do a sea monster hunt. To be accepted on a backwalling trip, you will usually only need to be willing to work the duty puzzles, but being a good gunner is always in high demand, and being good at swordfighting as well.
Be sure to go to your ahoy tab and check yourself for defending. Even if you're not a good swordfighter. You will usually not be called upon to defend the ship unless the crew really needs you to do it.

You will often be asked to stay for at least 90 minutes once the ship enters, with leaving in the first 10-30 minutes often meaning you will be muted by the officer in charge(Meaning that you can no longer join their voyages)

Just sit back, relax, and puzzle on these trips. Haul when the officers say haul, and work the duty puzzle when the officers say you should get to work
On hauling, try to get chests with three locks, they absolutely love those. They're the kind of chests that can hold the familiars everyone wants. They, and other chests also hold cash, trinkets, clothing, furniture, and other items you may be awarded after the ship returns to port.


Citadel runs
Also shortened to 'cits' on the notice board.
These are found in Atlantis, and usually are a lot more selective than the backwalling trips. A citadel run will enter the area and avoid contact with the hostiles there. Once a citadel spawns, the ship moves over to the citadel and enters it, starting a ship-wide swordfight against Atlanteans with equal number.

The main thing here is that you will need to know your swordfighting. Know how to build a combo, how to attack, how to team, and when to stall. It sounds easy, but many citadel runs fail because they just can't win this one group swordfight. There is no good way to measure someone's ability in a group swordfight, as the swordfighting skill only measures one-on-one and parlor game swordfighting. However, it is the closest to a measurement that the group swordfighting has, so most citadel runs ask that you are at least a certain rank in the swordfighting game before allowing you to join them.
Alternatively, displaying the silver citadel or golden trophy(25 and 100 citadel fight wins respectively) on your pirate page shows that you are experienced and will usually allow you onto the ship

Once again, you may be asked for at least 90 minutes of your time.

You may notice that the Haunted Seas have a similar fight in the ship graveyard, often shortened to GY. Instead of loading your ship with loot on winning, the graveyard will spawn 4 wrecks around your ship that can be treasure hauled for a LOT of pieces of eight. However, nobody really goes for the graveyards, as PoE is not what the ones running the trip are after. And also not what most people joining the trip are after. They want the chests, and these graveyard wrecks tend to have very few chests compared to any of the other haulable wrecks.

As before, pick a station you enjoy and tag the defend checkmark. A bit riskier of a run that may sink occasionally, but also a fair bit more of those sweet fancy chests.


Cursed Islands
Opposite to the previous runs, which feature large ships running into large groups of opponents, Cursed Islands features small ships, often just sloops avoiding combat.

The ship will sail to the island, often after picking up as many thralls as they can(This is called 'thralling') and then proceed to fight and forage before leaving and sailing out.
Once on the island, you are greeted with swordfights and rumbles with foraging sessions in between. The longer you stay on the island, the harder the fights get, but the better the loot from the next foraging session.
The big thing here is tokens. You will need a puzzle standing of Respected or above to even get tokens, so you will not be hired on these unless you have that or better. Most often, they will ask for something even higher.
Things they look for are

-Swordfighting
-Rumbling
-Foraging
-Your duty station of choice

As four things is a lot, you can usually get away with not having one of the requirements(Or two or three, if they are getting impatient). In addition, they may ask for seals of (duty station here) trophies to show that you are capable of producing tokens, as well as Frenetic Forager which shows that you have A. Already been to the cursed islands before so you know how to act, and B. are good enough at foraging to get a great score on the island.
Keep in mind that foraging on the island is a timed thing. You will want to be -fast-, your move efficiency doesn't matter so long as you bring in the loot.
If you need to forage to practice your skill, wait for a day with free foraging and then send a private message to the officer in charge of a foraging vessel on the notice board asking if you are allowed to practice a bit on their ship. You won't be producing anything, but you will be able to play the puzzle and get better at it.

The Cursed Islands often don't give you a lot of cash, or items, for a single run. But the items that are there are shared among only seven of you, instead of the 30+ on the trips mentioned before, so it evens out.

Get your station and produce tokens while keeping your job performance up. Don't bother tagging the defence checkbox on this one, if you ever get into a ship wide fight something has gone terribly wrong. A quick in and out and you'll have your loot before you can think up a good joke about prematue ejaculation.

Because the guide has a limit on how much text you can add per section. Who knew?

Kraken Hunting
At the moment the most profitable, Kraken hunting has players embarking in rowboats to loot the kraken's treasure and eggs. It is unique in that way as you do not puzzle on the same ship, but rather find yourself each controlling your own little ship as you try to make your way to the loot and back to the starting point to load it into the actual ship, all the while avoiding the tentacles trying to stop you.

It is very similar to battle-navigation, yet you need plenty of different skills to succeed at the kraken hunt, mostly related to not bumping into other people and the maps being much more of a puzzle with whirlpools and winds all over.

For almost all of these you will need a rowboat kit(Costs 2 dubloons to deliver, buy them at furniture stores), however, not all rowboat kits are equally viable.
Kits to avoid:
-Chum
Does not really do enough to be considered an upgrade by most. Chum attracts tentacles to where it's dropped. You know where you drop it? Right next to you. Where do you not want tentacles to be? Right next to you.
In addition, many people have no idea how tentacles really react to the chum, so it may cause confusion.

-ink
Ink is a fairly valueless commodity as far as kraken hunts are concerned, to the point where many don't even bother to sell the stuff after porting because of how low value this is.
And the ink kit can only carry ink, not the much more valuable treasure

-Bomber
Unless you're the bomber for the ship, in which case you will know how to use this one. Usually there is only one bomber. If there are ever three or more bombers, something has gone very wrong and you are probably not going to earn a lot. Going in with a bomber kit when you're not the designated bomber is a good way to get the officer in charge annoyed at you. Bombing your own team is a good way to get kicked off the boat. Do not do this. Don't even buy this unless you are going to be bombing a more often amount, otherwise you are wasting your money.

If you are new to battle navigation and/or kraken hunts, you will probably want the bumper kit, which will allow you to survive more bumps and even a few hits by tentacles.

If you are experienced, you will probably want to switch over to a speedboat kit, allowing you to move further in one turn and thus bring in more treasure. You can skip the bumper kit entirely if you are a fast learner or feeling confident about it all, but even then, the bumper kit remains an accepted kit on almost all runs thanks to its slow but steady approach. It comes down to personal preference in all but the most elite super selective runs.

Your performance on these runs is usually graded by the amount of eggs you collect, with trophies for every 12. These trophies is what the more elite kraken hunts look for before allowing you onto their trip. The eggs are the most valuable, both in terms of PoE they bring and in the chance for a Krakling familiar that comes from them. Many runs want you to gather eggs exclusively, as it is the highest PoE/time ratio they can get out of a kraken hunt.
If you are new, you may wish to practice with the somewhat easier chests before heading out to the eggs. Especially since one misplaced bump on your end can send one of your teammates sinking.

Join one of the non-selective or all-welcome runs if you want to play casual, need the practice, or are working on getting your trophies to get into the other selective runs. But do not underestimate the random chance of everyone working together amazingly and suddenly pulling in 20 eggs on a run with mostly newbies, it was a surprise to me, but it happened.

Kraken hunts ask for 30 minutes of your time per time entering, and usually have an officer entering as many times as they feel like, sometimes going for hours on end. You will still be paid if you're only there for a few entries, but the big money is in spending several hours doing this.
It is considered rude to leave during an entry

But maybe you're not after the big money. You're not playing to be rich and showing off, but you do want to look decent and have the basics?

Well, you can. Not everyone can, or wants to spend several hours puzzling to buy themselves a virtual house, or own an armada of ships.

Starting with some of the more common sense tips, I'll help you make the best of it.

Badges. There is no way around paying dubloons for these, if you want to do gunnery or anything crew or rank based, you will need one. My advice - It is rare that you will ever need more than an officer's badge if you're an officer, so you can save some dubloons by buying only that one. The captain does not need to have a captain's badge unless he is doing captain things. If you are not an officer, you will only need a pirate badge at most. And those are only one dubloon instead of the 8 you need for an officer's badge.

The labor badge will require that you find a place that pays well and uses your labour to make a profit- Make sure that your labour isn't going to waste or paying too little. The exact amount you need to get for this to be profitable depends on the price of a dubloon
A parlor badge is entirely optional, a different parlor game is free every day, and you can always send personal challenges for a swordfight or rumble match to someone.
A warning though, sending a challenge without first talking to the person is rude.

While profitable, a bravery badge is entirely optional if you have no plans of joining sea monster hunts.


Tournaments
Many tournaments feature old clothing, swords, mugs, furniture, and so on placed there by pirates who no longer want them. You can earn yourself a few decent things with a good tournament performance


Clothing
There are two ways to go about clothing, but the simplest way is to go through the racks of tailor stores and shops, and going through those. You can find a lot of old clothing on the racks that you can buy for just pieces of eight, but beware, old clothing will break much quicker than anything new.
The main source of old clothing is sea monster hunts, but sometimes you may find yourself getting new or good condition as well. Always check the prices to see if you're better off somewhere else or buying the item new.

As alternative to the racks, consider humble outfits. You don't need a massive hat, a fancy conquistador armour or coat, black or gold clothing, and so on.
Consider checking for other colours, to see if they're cheaper. Lime, green, dark green, three different colours with different prices. Find a set of colours that match with how you want to look, and play with the preview of the tailor stores.
And what is wrong with plain but functional boots? Grey instead of black, a clean striped set of pants, and a matching shirt. You don't have to buy expensive things to look good. A modest outfit, with good thought put into it is more impressive to many than spending a fortune on a black and gold outfit with all the bells and whistles. Plan out your outfits and buy them complete, you can minimise your dubloon spending if you don't go for the largest items. Many people in this game seem to think that the most expensive clothes they can find are always the best.

Prove them wrong.
It's easy, if you try. But if you're not good at it or just don't know how or where to start you may want to check online for colour coordination charts or ask a friend to help
Red and black is fairly common. Few people will really remember the Xth red and black wearing pirate unless it's for other things.
Avoid trying to look 'cool', it is very hard to do with the artstyle. Look good instead


Furniture
And housing. Furniture is hard to get without spending dubloons, so here I recommend you either skip buying any furniture at all until you have the house you want(Check the wiki for screenshots of your house interiors. You can plan ahead), or only buy the cheapest stuff and plan it out before buying.

Keep an eye on the events section of the notice board, often you will find sales on used furniture, though this is mostly sea monster hunting stuff. You can get some good bargains if you are patient and look around, and if you avoid buying things you don't need you won't be spending money on things you'll regret spending money on.

I hope this helped you enjoy Puzzle Pirates, it's a great game but it's greatest drawback is the dubloon system. It has turned away more players than I can even remember introducing to it specifically because of the dubloons and their price.

Maybe with this guide, I've helped people find enjoyment in an otherwise flawed game

Also, I play on Emerald, if you're not sure what ocean to play on. It's always nice to see new people join in, and even better if they genuinely like the game.