How Do You Sink Ships!?

@salixstorm look up actual naval combat before manowars existed. Basically all combat was decided through boarding so you'll need to get good at hand to hand but if your lucky you can use the wind to your advantage and drop ancor at the point where your opponent is heading straight at you windward (so ramming does little to no damage) and you can unload into their bow. I would not suggest using cannons at any point while in motion as you have to adjust for your speed their speed and the direction of both.

@tre-oni if your crew knows what you're doing raising ancor takes no time. I have defeated many crews that outnumbered mine this way. And have not lost with this particular tactic your ship can be shot back if you are side long theirs

So a couple of things that should help you

1. Don't drop anchor if you're going to do that. Raise your sail/s instead. This will make it so you can start moving again much faster if things go south and it means you're not locked into circling the anchor.

2. Aim as low on the boat as possible.

3. Not all shots are equal. If the boat is close to shallow waters the game won't pour as much water in through holes that are barely in water. My crew and I beached our boat once and had it tilted a good bit. Even though the tilted side was in a bit of water it wouldn't sink our boat as it simply wasn't enough(or it glitched out) to really put any water in our boat.

4. Make sure you aren't hitting the same spot. Hitting the same spot doesn't make the hole wider or make more water come through it. It's basically wasting ammo.

5. Always scout first to make sure how many are on a boat. Even one person on a galleon can stop a ship from sinking to cannon fire.

6. If it's a sloop docked usually it's easier to just put your boat in cruise control(solo) or hand the wheel off(crew) and go crash their ship into land. Hide in their boat and even if you can't kill them you should be able to hold them off long enough for it to sink.

@nanach said in How Do You Sink Ships!?:

@salixstorm
Boarding happens when sailing mistakes are made. I hate boarding another ship, I'm here to sink ships not play CoD. If guns had realistic reload times, and the swordplay was more spectacular i probably wouldn't mind. Anyway A good helmsman and crew can keep the crew shooting cannons and minimize boarding to very low so it stays a cannon fight.

Causing those mistakes to board or bomb is the best and easiest way to sink a ship in open waters. The way that repairing works right now makes it stupidly hard to actually sink a ship with only cannons during a fight. Even solo it takes so long to actually sink that you can course correct and bucket for a long time. Much longer than is needed to get full speed and head in a clear area to repair. The crew would have to be newborns(either actual newborns or people that are new to the game) to actually go down from just cannon fire in this game at the moment.

@salixstorm Aiming below water is half the work.
Now comes the other halve, make more holes!
If you shoot at the same area, or too close to that same area, you'll only make the same hole.
You need to get a nice row of holes to sink a ship fast.
Also if they have 4 people, 1 could shoot you while 2 repair and 1 buckets, switching to 2 bucketing and 1 repairing when holes are all fixed, and then back to shooting you with more people.
If it comes to sinking big ships, try to make at least 4+ holes in the bottom and then when satisfied make a row on the 2nd floor for when the water is on that level. (Edit, after making the 2nd floor like a swizz cheese, switch back to the lowest part cause those will be on the repair by then)
They'll sink like a rock if done in quick succession! :D
Ofcourse in the meanwhile they get to do the same to you, so I geuss it also comes down to luck sometimes, as cannonballs are hard to aim on rough sea's or while going in circles.
Skill can beat luck on this though, just practice hard! ;)

Like i said tactics of the time were decided by boarding, cannons were only meant to weaken or distract the other crew while you got onboard. Most consistent way of destroying another ships hull is with a powder keg. Which, often times storing on your ship gets you destroyed rather than them since cannons and regular guns can destroy them. If you plan on kegging the crows nest seemed the safest place to store.

@seraphim-grdian keep in mind if you are holding a keg the moment you touch the hull of a ship it will explode. With practice they can be thrown off the back of your ship while you're being chased.

Am I the only one that can easely sink a ship with just cannonballs?
Really, there are more ways then just boarding.
Actually, boarding taking longer, for you have to kill the crew first, get back to your ship and shoot cannonballs.
Unless you have the gunpowder ofcourse, but lets say you don't have gunpowder.
Quickest way to sink a ship is not by killing the crew, but by actually sinking the ship.

Ofcourse their crew is pesky though, so a bit of both is what's perfect:
1 Man preparing a swizz cheese with cannons, 2 men on their ship to fight the crew/drop their anchor, and 1 man on your ship for repairs, is the way I'd do it with a crew.
Or 2 men on the cannons and 1 man boarding instead, it does depend.

Even more perfect, just drop 2 gunpowder barrels of your ship and keep going on your journey! XD

A lot of useful tips here, thanks!

There will be some tried and true techniques for sure, but imo the core non negotiables are

1. A good ,vocal crew , working together
2. Precise orders from the captain
3. Smart angles of engagement
4. Swiss cheese below the waterline
5. Deploy the gun powder !

Of course , how it all pans out will be dictated by how each side adapts to the changing situation.

@nanach said in How Do You Sink Ships!?:

@booogieboy Yes boarding is the easiest way to sink ships, this is why good crews try to avoid it happening to themselves. And solid cannon fights with a good sailing crew dont take long at all, when you have 3 ppl on cannons and you put 30 holes in the enemy ship in about about 10 seconds it only takes about 1 minute to sink the ship, by that time its too late for the enemy. Getting those numbers is about how good your crew can adjust sails while in a fight, and a good helmsman calling out commands so that you can keep your cannons going while fighting at a angle where they cant shoot those cannons back at ya. Those super long fights are caused by crews only interested in manning the cannons and ignore the sails once the fights happen, so only at little opportunities can you shoot the cannons, then a long wait time in between for both ships to repair, those fights are about who has the most resources.

I prefer to always assume both sides are of equal skill when talking hypothetical. Unless discussing something so broken it can let the bad demolish the skilled. So if your crew is good enough to put 30 holes in their bottom deck in 10 seconds they'd do the same. If not all they have to do is sail away for a moment and have three people on repair duty. Each grabbing a bucket and focusing on repairs until they can start going above to dumb the water. On a sloop you can dump water so fast that even if the entire bottom was full of holes as long as they got on it right away they could recover.

@fraggle13 Did you come back and win? :D

@salixstorm i really enjoy if i can take a gunpowder barrel and blow it up in the enemy ship. its like a suicide but it works :)

@fraggle13 Haha bet you instilled a great fear of sloops in them that day!