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Cannons are a ship's primary weapon using gunpowder to propel projectiles - commonly known as "shot" - at an enemy ship, in the hopes of damaging its hull, sails, or men. Cannons are loaded onto a ship like other types of Cargo, although they are more difficult to acquire. Each Ship Type can only carry a certain amount of cannons into battle, and each cannon requires a certain number of men to reload it in a timely fashion. Cannons are fired in Broadsides, with all loaded cannons discharging in unison to maximize their effect.

Sufficient Damage to a ship can render it unable to sail properly, unable to defend itself, or even sink it altogether. Depending on a Captain's plans for the battle, cannon fire may conclude with the deliberate sinking of the enemy, or with a Boarding to exploit the enemy's weakened state and capture the ship or its precious Cargo.

Maximum Cannons[]

Although most ships can carry a huge number of cannons in their cargo hold, a ship can only use a certain amount of those Cannons in combat depending on its type. This is determined by the ship's design and configuration - I.E. the number of gun ports on the sides of its hull. For example, a Pinnace can carry up to 25 cannons in its hold but can only use 8 cannons. A Flag Galleon can carry 100 but only uses 40 in battle.

Once it goes into combat, the game automatically sets up as many cannons as possible on the selected ship. If the Player's Fleet has more cannons than the ship can use, the excess cannons will remain in the Cargo Hold and cannot be used until the battle is over.

Broadsides and Reloading[]

Cannons are fired in "Broadsides". In other words, all cannons on the side of the ship that is facing the enemy will fire simultaneously. This is done to maximize impact: cannons are inaccurate at range, so it is better to fire all of them at once in a "spread" pattern to ensure at least a partial hit, rather than fire each gun in its own turn.

Broadsides are fired perpendicular to the ship's heading: either 90 degrees to the left or 90 degrees to the right, depending on which side the enemy is on. This means that the captain must align his ship in a way that it is facing perpendicular to the direction of the enemy ship, in which case the broadside will fly at the enemy. The skill of doing this is paramount to all Naval Combat, even when simply anticipating an enemy's Broadside.

Once a Broadside has been fired, the crew begins reloading their cannons. Every cannon is (ideally) manned by three crewmen, each with his own responsibility. If fewer than three crewmen per cannon are available, some (or all) cannons will take significantly longer to reload.

In some of the games, you can only fire a "full" broadside, meaning you need to reload all your cannons before taking another shot at the enemy. In others, you may decide to fire a "partial" broadside with any cannons that have already been reloaded.

Note that during the changing of Sail States, all men on the ship are busy releasing and re-tying the rigging, and thus cannot reload any cannons until the Sail State has been changed. It is possible to initiate the reefing and filling of sails while cannons are being reloaded, and it is possible to fire the cannons while changing Sail States, but the act of reloading is put on hold until the change of sails is complete.

Cannons as Cargo[]

Outside of Naval Combat, Cannons are considered one of several kinds of cargo carried by a ship. They can be sold but not bought for a certain price at a Merchant, and take up space in the Cargo Hold like any other type of merchandise.

This means that ships loaded with Cannons have less room for Food or other Cargo. Therefore, it is not wise to fill one's cargo hold with Cannons, as a ship cannot use more than a certain amount of Cannons in battle. Extra cannons in the cargo hold will, at most, serve as replacements, though in some games they can also be sold for a nice sum of money.

There are only two sources for acquiring cannons:

  1. From enemy ships. Any ship that has been captured in Naval Combat can be looted for all its remaining cannons.
  2. From enemy forts. Once a fortified Port has been Raided, you can strip the fort of its remaining cannons.

Losing Cannons[]

One way of losing cannons is Naval Combat: For both the player and enemy captains firing at an enemy ship destroys its cannons and weakens its broadsides. These cannons are not immediately replaced, even if extra cannons are available in the cargo hold. Moving a cannon into position is a long, difficult process, which can only occur once battle has ended.

As with all other cargo, cannons can also be lost if one of the ships in your Fleet has been sunk by natural phenomena, by non-combat enemy fire (like Forts opening fire as you try to sail into a harbour), or taken away during a Munity. Similarly is also possible to accidentally lose cannons when selling or Scuttling a ship voluntarily..

Icon Pirates1987 Header Pirates1987Pirates! (1987)[]

Cannon use in Pirates! (1987) is far simpler than that of later games. The following section of the article explains only the differences between the original game and later games. For common properties, read the above section on General Information.

Acquiring and Selling[]

As with all other games, cannons are acquired by looting enemy ships, or by raiding Forified Ports. There are no other sources for Cannons. Cannons are always acquired and sold in pairs as you need one cannon for each side of the ship. Subsequently, cannons are also lost in pairs due to combat damage and you will never have an odd number of cannons on board.

A pair of cannons takes up only 1 ton of Cargo-space. Therefore, a ship with 40 tons of cargo space can carry 80 cannons as cargo.

Unlike later games, the sale of a pair of cannons is quite lucrative. Cannons can sometimes fetch more money than any other cargo. The average price for cannons appears to be around 50 Icon GoldCoin per pair, though this depends greatly on the economy at the port where you are trying to sell them.

Broadsides[]

All cannons on the side of the ship facing the enemy will be fired simultaneously as a broadside. Regardless of how many cannons the ship has on board, they will be shown as a group of three red dots flying towards the enemy. If these red dots hit the water in very close proximity to the enemy ship, a hit is registered.

Range[]

1987 Combat CannonRange

These two ships are approximately at Maximum Cannon Range of each other.

Broadsides have a certain maximum range, which is identical regardless of Ship Type or the number of cannons on board. This range is hard to measure accurately, and there is no in-game indication as to whether a ship is within cannon-range of the other at any given time.

The approximate maximum cannon range is around 2/3 of the screen's width, as shown in the image on the right. This may be easier to determine when the ships are aligned vertically on the screen, and much harder to determine when they are at any diagonal angle to each other.

If a broadside is fired outside its maximum range, the cannonballs will disappear as soon as they have flown as far as allowed by said range. No splash will occur - the cannonballs simply vanish.

Damage[]

The Damage caused by the hit is based on the number of cannons the firing ship has on board, the same amount of cannons will always cause the same amount of damage to the enemy ship's Hull, Cannons and Crew. The more cannons it has, the more damage is caused.

The fixed damage allows the player to predict how many hits their ship can take from opponents, or how many shots it will take to sink a specific enemy Ship Type.

Misses[]

A Miss is registered when cannonballs fall too far away from the enemy ship. However, the system is slightly quirky, so on occasion a near-miss may register as a hit, and vice-versa. Low Difficulty settings and/or the Gunnery Skill can change this behaviour. In particular, on low Difficulty it is more likely for enemy shots to miss your ship if they do not land directly on top of it, while hits on enemy ships may be registered when the cannonballs land some distance away from the center of its hull.

Reloading[]

Once a broadside is fired, the cannons will take a certain amount of time to be reloaded. With an ideal number of men (determined primarily by Ship Type and the number of cannons you have on board), the process should take about 4-5 seconds. While this process is taking place, the readout at the bottom left of the screen will read "Reloading" (just below the Damage readout for your ship), unless a change of Sail States is in progress.

You can only fire again once all available cannons have been reloaded, indicated by the words "Guns Loaded" appearing in the readout at the bottom left of the screen.

Note that you do not have any indication as to whether or not the enemy ship's cannons are reloading or ready to fire. You must learn to anticipate how much time it would take for the enemy to reload all his cannons.

1987 Combat BlindZones

An enemy ship in the "Blind Zone". Since broadsides always fire at 90 degrees off your heading, and there are only 16 possible headings, situations like this are common.

The Blind Zones Problem[]

Unlike later games ships can only turn towards one of 16 different headings in combat, and no more. Broadsides are always fired at 90 degrees off your heading and so only have 16 possible directions.

This limit creates "no hit" positions called blind zones. When two ships are positioned this way, neither can hit the other at all. This is especially prevalent at long range.

As a result, correct positioning is paramount before taking any shot. It is also useful to learn how to position yourself in the Blind Zone so that the enemy cannot possibly hit you if they decide to fire.

Icon Pirates2004 Header Pirates2004Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004)[]

In Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004), cannons behave slightly more realistically than in previous games. Not only do you have the possibility to fire three different kinds of Shot, but each cannon can be fired separately (and, with some skill, using a different type of Shot!). In addition, the problem of Blind Zones has been eliminated thanks to a much more analogue measure of ship headings.

Acquiring and Selling[]

The Player's only source of cannons is now looting enemy ships as it is now impossible to loot Cargo after a Raid on a Port, fortified or otherwise.

Unlike previous games, cannons can be acquired piece-meal (I.E. one cannon sold/taken, rather than pairs of cannons). Each cannon takes up 1 ton of cargo space.

Unfortunately, cannons are extremely "cheap" when sold, normally fetching only 1 Icon GoldCoin or 2 Icon GoldCoin at most. However they are sometimes sold at 4 Icon GoldCoin in port that are low on cannons (0-50). In some locations, cannons are sold for 0 Icon GoldCoin, so watch out!

Broadsides[]

In this game, the notion of a broadside is played more realistically and less rigidly than previous games.

Each cannon on the ship fires individually, creating an individual cannonball that flies on its own trajectory. The trajectory of a shot is generally perpendicular to the heading of the ship (I.E. 90 degrees left or right, depending on where the enemy ship is), with some randomness introduced, so not all cannonballs in a broadside will fly in the same direction.

This is called a "spread". Since not all cannonballs fly at the same exact direction, there will be many points of impact. The more cannons a ship has on board, the larger its "spread" will be, increasing the probability of some cannonballs hitting the target, rather than all of them missing.

A ship will only fire half as many cannonballs as it has cannons on board. This is to emulate the idea that half a ship's cannons are aimed out one side, while half are aimed out the other side. Therefore, a Ship Of The Line carrying 48 cannons will only fire 24 cannonballs with each broadside. Note however that for reloading purposes, the ship is assumed to have fired all of its cannons in each broadside. So, if you manage to quickly turn your other side towards the enemy, you will not be able to fire a full broadside unless all cannons have been reloaded since the previous broadside.

Damage[]

Each individual cannonball is treated independently with its own trajectory, and can potentially hit the target even if all other cannonballs in the broadside have missed. Regardless of its type a single cannonball can only cause one of the following types of Damage, selected randomly at the moment of impact:

  1. Damage to the hull.
  2. Damage to the sails.
  3. Destruction of a single cannon.
  4. Killing one or more crew members.
The probability of inflicting each of the above types of damage depends on the type of Shot the cannonball belongs to. See more on this below.

As a result of individual damage distribution per cannonball, when several cannonballs hit the ship simultaneously they can together cause more than one type of damage as described above. However, each individual cannonball still causes only one kind, it is only together that they appear to cause diverse damage.

Shot Types[]

In this game, it is possible for cannons to fire three different types of shot.

  • Round-Shot: More likely to damage the enemy's hull or cannons rather than its sails or crew.
  • Chain-Shot: More likely to damage the sails and somewhat likely to kill crew but can't damage cannons or the hull. Has a range of half that of Round-Shot.
  • Grape-Shot: Kills crew, but can't do any other form of damage. Has a range of a quarter of Round-Shot's range.
2004 NavalCombat MixedBroadside

A large "mixed" broadside. Round-Shot is visible at the bottom, about to hit the English ship. Chain-Shot is on its way, seen flying high near the centre.

While Round shot is standard for any ship with cannons, for a ship to be able to fire Chain-Shot or Grape-Shot, it must have the appropriate Upgrade installed.

Enemy ships will often use a mixed broadside where they switch ammunition types mid way through a single shot, often mixing Round-Shot with Chain-Shot during close-range.

While difficult it is possible for the player to pull of the same manoeuvre by switching types while the broadside is being fired! Naturally, this can be exceptionally difficult with ships that have few cannons, as the time between the first cannonball and the last is extremely short. However, larger ships such as the Ship Of The Line have so many cannons on board that it can take half a second or more to fire all of them, giving enough time to switch shot types once or even twice!

Range[]

2004 NavalCombat Range

Approximate range comparison.
Red = Basic range.
Green = Range with Fine Grain Powder installed.

The range of cannon fire is the same for all Ship Types, regardless of how many cannons are on board. Once cannonballs have flown their maximum allowed distance without hitting the enemy ship, they will splash in the water.

A broadside's range is affected by Shot type (Round-Shot = 1, Chain-Shot = 0.5), Grape-Shot = 0.25).

Every ammunition type's range is increased by the Fine Grain Powder Upgrade (Roughly a 30-40% increase).

Unlike previous games, this game features a range indicator. Whenever a ship is outside cannon range, the "number of cannons loaded" indicator at the bottom left of the screen will read "Out of Cannon Range". While it is still possible to fire the cannons from out of range, unless the enemy ship moves closer while the cannonballs are in the air, they still won't hit.

2004 NavalCombat Spread

This schematic shows the accuracy bias obtained by Upgrading a ship with a set of Bronze Cannons.
Note: The Ship Of The Line is used here only because its broadsides are the most dense and visible. All ships are similarly affected.

Spread and Accuracy[]

When each cannon is fired, the trajectory of the cannonball is determined separately with a small random factor involved. Shots are fired at a 90-degree angle from the ship's heading, towards the opponent's ship with up to 10 degrees of variation.

Due to this randomization, it is possible though unlikely for all (or at least most) of a ship's cannonballs to fly at the same spot, though more often they will "spread out" to hit multiple locations.

More cannons in a broadside generate a larger "Splash area", increasing the likelihood that an enemy ship in the area will be hit by at least a few cannonballs. Targets larger than the spread area can of course be hit by every shot.

In addition, the length of the firing ship has an influence on its spread. Normally, the longer a ship is, the larger the "splash area" of its broadsides will be. This is thanks to the game trying to keep the splash area no wider than the length of the ship that fired the broadside.

Both the Gunnery Skill and Bronze Cannons upgrade have an important influence on cannonball trajectory however they do not stack. Both give a small bias to each cannonball, increasing the likelihood that its trajectory will carry it to the anticipated position of the enemy ship. This effectively moves the centre of the splash area slightly towards the enemy's expected position, thereby increasing the likelihood of each cannonball to hit the target. While the effect on individual cannon balls is very small, there is a significant cumulative effect.

While only enemy ships can have Bronze Cannons installed, the Gunnery Skill is unique to the player's character, if chosen at all.

Reloading[]

During a battle at the bottom left of the screen is a large bar indicator superimposed with a numerical count shows the number of cannons currently loaded. When the bar is empty, no cannons are loaded and cannot be fired. Over time, this bar will slowly fill up. When it is fully red, a full broadside is available. The same bar is used to warn the player when they are out of range.

While the player doesn't have to wait for every cannon to be loaded can fire a partial broadside with any that are a partial broadside will obviously contain less cannonballs than a full one, and the number of loaded cannons will again reset to 0.

Cannons are reloaded one-by-one rather than all at the same time. Each cannon takes a fraction of a second to load depending on the number of crew on board relative to the number of cannons. Ideally, 3 men per cannon will give the best reload rate possible, while any less than that will cause slower reloading. Enlisting the Gunner Specialist makes reload times considerably faster for every ship in the Fleet.

Also note that all ships have a "Minimum Crew" requirement, indicating the number of men required to just keep the ship sailing properly. These men do not count towards the number of men you have available to reload your cannons. For example, a Sloop Of War has a minimum crew requirement of 10 Icon Crew. If the ship only has 11 men on board, it will take a long time to reload even a single cannon, since only one man is available (with the rest occupied with sailing the ship itself). If the ship has only one cannon and 13 or more men on board, that cannon will be reloaded with maximum speed thanks to having at least 3 men available to tend to it.

Importantly changing Sail States puts all reloading on hold. You can still fire any loaded cannons freely but any further reloading will not occur until the change has been completed.

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