Ship combat

A sea battle is a contest of position. Your guns point out of the sides of your ship, the wind decides how fast you can move, and every enemy ship has strong and weak faces. Learn those three things and the rest follows.

Wind and points of sail

The wind indicator shows where the wind is blowing from. Your speed depends on the angle between your heading and the wind, called your point of sail:

Upwind (pointing into the wind) is the slowest heading for every ship.
Close hauled is sailing as near to the wind as you can while still making good speed.
Beam reach (wind from the side) and broad reach (wind from behind and to one side) are the fastest headings for most ships.
Running is sailing with the wind directly behind you. Some ships love it, others lose speed.

Every hull has its own best angle, so a ship that outruns you downwind may be slower than you close hauled. Compare hulls on the ship pages.

Broadsides and firing arcs

Cannons are grouped into batteries, and each battery covers one arc: port (left), starboard (right), bow or stern. A battery can only fire at a target inside its arc and within range. Most of your firepower is on the sides, so fighting well means turning to bring a loaded broadside onto the target, firing, then presenting the other side while the first reloads.

Range and cannons

Every cannon has a damage value, a reload time, a comfortable range and a maximum range. Accuracy falls off quickly once the target is past the comfortable range.

Heavier guns hit much harder but reload far more slowly, and their comfortable range is shorter than that of light guns.
Long versions of a gun hit a little harder and reload a little slower. Short versions do the reverse.
Small, nimble ships are harder to hit than big ones, and a fast-moving target or a fast-moving shooter both reduce accuracy.

Damage areas

A ship is not one health bar. Damage is tracked in separate areas:

Hull armor on four faces: port side, starboard side, bow and stern. The face you are looking at is the face you hit. Side armor is the thickest, the bow is weaker, and the stern is the weakest of all.
Structure is the ship’s core. When structure reaches zero, the ship sinks.
Sails and masts. Light sail damage barely slows a ship, but the penalty grows rapidly as damage mounts. Shots from astern are most likely to hit the rearmost mast.
Crew. Losing crew slows your reloading and weakens you in a boarding fight.
Guns. Damage to a side, or to structure, can knock out cannons in your batteries.

How armor works

Armor reduces the damage of each hit and soaks up most of a shot’s force before anything reaches structure. As a face wears down it lets more and more through. That is why captains turn a fresh side toward the enemy, and why a rake (a broadside into the thin stern or bow) is so dangerous.

Shot types

Ammunition comes in sizes (Small, Medium, Large, Huge) to match your ship’s guns. Browse it all under Ammunition.

Round shot is the all-purpose hull smasher. Use it to break armor and structure and sink ships.
Bar shot and chain shot are dismantling shot. They tumble through rigging, tearing sails and masts to slow a target. They do little to the hull.
Grape shot is a bag of small iron balls for killing crew.
Canister shot is a tin of musket balls that bursts at the muzzle. It is a short-range crew killer.
Basic Round Shot never runs out, but it is weaker than proper ammunition.
Swivel guns fire their own anti-personnel shot at enemy decks.

Any hit does a little damage everywhere, but the shot type decides where most of it lands. Many slowing skills require dismantling shot.

Repairs

Your crew repairs hull, sails and guns during a fight, and they work faster when more of them are healthy. Repairs are quicker still once you are out of combat. For emergencies, carry consumables such as a Hull Patch (armor), a Mast Brace (sails) or Spare Guns, and learn the repair skills under Skills.

Grappling and boarding

Close to boarding range and throw grapples. Your grappling offense is measured against the target’s grappling defense, and the relative speed and size of the two ships matter too. Skills and fittings can improve either side.

If the grapple holds, the fight moves to the deck and you fight it out sword in hand, in waves. Win and the enemy ship is left abandoned for you to loot or take, with its full cargo. A ship that is sunk gives up only about half its loot, so boarding pays. See Capturing ships.

A losing captain can also offer to surrender part of their cargo in exchange for being let go.

Quick tips

Fight with the wind on your side or behind you, and force the enemy to turn upwind.
Alternate broadsides so one side is always reloading while the other fires.
Cross the enemy’s stern whenever you can.
Slow a faster ship with chain or bar shot first, then switch to round shot.
Thin the crew with grape before you board.