Somebody brought up retractable ladders in another thread which gave me an idea.
Grapple Shot.
Its essentially an ammo type used to board ships.
Its also a mechanism that could accommodate other requested features like the ability to retract your ladders etc.
So what is grapple shot?
Grapple shot is basically mix between a rope and a harpoon.
When loaded into a cannon you can see the rope sticking out of the cannon and trailing out and down where you will see its tied off by a sailors knot directly onto the ship.
Fire the cannon and make contact, the harpoon end (inside the cannon you fired) will penetrate the enemy ship hull.
Interact with the sailors knot like you do your sails and you will start reeling in the ship. But beware, you are vulnerable to their cannons and ranged weapons. Essentially loading grapple shot creates a new interactable station on your ship only 1 person at a time can use.
Ships cant simply break free by turning, the ships will move as one even if you slam the anchor down and do anchor turn, you'll both anchor turn together (which could be fun if you in an alliance, tie 4 ships side by side and see if you can actually go from A to B 😂)
How do you break free?
Just like how you created a new station by loading grapple shot allowing you to reel a ship close.
As a defender of a ship being attacked you will have a new station too dedicated to cutting.
As with every station only one person at a time can interact.
At the 'cutting' station your pirate kneels down towards the harpoon and a very cool animation happens where your pirate whips out a dagger, skillfully twirls it in his hand before its near the harpoon head.
There will be onscreen prompts about which buttons to press. You have to mash the button it tells you to. The buttons will change to a new one, you must keep mashing the correct buttons. The faster and more accurate you do the minigame the faster you cut the rope. The rope will visible look more distressed and you can physically see the progress in how much further you need to cut, followed by a very loud audible SNAP sound when free.
GOOD NEWS FOR DEFENDERS
The posture of your cutting pirate is a low kneeling stance as if he is taking cover and cutting making it more difficult to interrupt his cutting by sniping. Still possible but you need to be a good shot if far away, the closer you are reeled in the easier it will be to hit him tho making exchanging of shots from pistols and EOR between both ships a big part of the boarding system.
The grappling ship will wanna protect the crew member reeling the enemy ship close. The defenders will wanna protect the crew mate cutting the rope. This will make people exchange fire with pistols etc. Get a guy to fire peace balls too so it makes it easier.
Taking damage wont stop the minigame but you can die if you lose all your health. But while cutting you can exit the station, eat a banana and jump back onto cutting continuing from where you left off. Just continue to mash the button sequence after.
You also will NOT be under cannon fire. If your crew fires a cannon ball and it hits the harpoon you have dug into the enemy ship, it will dislodge it. They can still fire of course but they wont wanna hit the harpoon if they intend to board because it will sever the connection between both ships.
Multiple cannons with grapple shot wont increase the speed of the reel. Only the amount of ropes need cutting. Better use those blunderbombs in the cannons to push them back slightly!
CHARACTERISTICS OF SHOT
Grapple shot is very very low range to have the best chance of success, you must be close to be effective because the further away you are the more 'cutting time' they have.
Its a pretty cool way to board.
WHY grapple shot and retractable ladders?
It will force ships to battle if they wanna board. No more will it be viable to get them to chase you and repeatedly jump off or mermaid back. Still good for kegging tho.
If you want on their ship you gotta give them a cheeky broadside and engage in an epic tug of war, exchanging pistol and EOR shots with the crew. As your grappling, get someone to chainshot the sails so you can raise yours so no ships slams into any rocks.
Not only will it make boarding deeper, but it will create that very tense pirate moment where a pirate is slowly reeling your ship closer and closer, and you all scrambling on deck returning fire with pistole, frantically cutting yourself free and so on.
Feel free to give out a loud YARR as your reel in your enemy closer and closer.
CREATIVE WAYS TO USE GRAPPLESHOT
In an alliance? Make sailing harder and hilarious by tethering your ships together. Imagine, 4 galleons side by side. Thats kinda like a Man O War right there.
Control of the ships change slightly when tethered. Steering is halved per ship. So lets say you are tethered and you are on full left lock and they are full right, the ships will go straight ahead. But if you are left lock and they left lock, they will turn left fastest. Steering compensates for the wheel of the other ship. Meaning you all gotta steer together or you go in a straight line. (In pvp rocks are your friend, try and fight with their wheel and steer them into danger)
Same goes for sails too.
You wont go quicker if you all have sails in best position but any ship that doesnt have the angle properly will slow everyone down.
Grapple skelly ships too. Board them and take their supplies, their cargo. Drag them around with you and use them as a shield of sorts. Be careful though, skelly ships will despawn if grappled too long. They will break themselves free by going under the water, and take your ship with them! Causing instant sinking. So do not linger on those cursed ships!
Boarding enemy ships and ship chases is somewhat neglected feature. Theres no tension.
This will create a very intimidating "oh my god they are reeling us in" moment, giving you a real epic side by side confrontation, a tug of war.
What better way to celebrate this too by new taunt emotes on the emporium. Loads of intimidating gestures and new cheering emotes to give a sense of dread to either ship.
