Let's Talk About Guns

[Legate Nullus]

So, guns. Choosing the right guns to mount on your ships is obviously an important part of the game. What's less obvious are the right choices to make. What guns are best for particular types of ships or roles? When to prioritize range or damage? Should ships have fairly uniform gun types or is a mix effective? I'm still experimenting so I'd like to hear what more experienced players have to say.

[Ninjasquirrel]

Since the AI will come at you almost all the time, you wanna go for shorter range guns. They typically weigh less and fire faster than longer range guns. Less weight means more speed and tonnage left to upgrade your ship with. Faster firing rate not only means more pure damage but you'll also be lowering enemy morale faster, making them more likely to waver or surrender to gunfire.

The problem with longer range guns is their extra weight. If you're gonna be doing a long range strategy, your ship needs to be faster than the enemy's, and the extra weight means you'll need to either get upgrades to negate that or less crew. Less crew means less capability for your ship to absorb damage and still function effectively. Longer reload is less of a problem at long range but it will take you a lot longer to finish your mission and some missions in this game already take too long.

Don't mix long range and short range guns. As I said, the AI will always come alongside to trade broadsides so you will never find yourself in a position where the AI is kiting you outside your range. The only time I ever used long range guns were on the American campaign where my ships were so small and fragile compared to the enemy that I couldn't approach them without getting blown out of the water in 1 or 2 broadsides. Those missions typically happen early and then you don't invest in long range anymore after that.

One thing you might wanna look into when choosing which guns is reload time. It's advantageous to have all of your guns firing at the same time or at least have similar reload times because of its effect on morale damage. All of your guns firing at the same time will lower morale in a larger chunk than if your decks are firing staggered broadsides. When enemy morale is low or is suffering from morale shock, they'll shoot slower as well which will help preserve your ship and crew. The 2nd rate Barfleur class is a good example of a ship that can mount uniform armament as it can mount 32-pdr congreve gunnades (my favorite gun) on all decks.

[Malkor2]

For me it comes down to penetration being the most important stat (if you can't penetrate the armour on a SOL you're done for) followed by weight, rate of fire and range. Now i am a little confused about what you mean with roles? Yes, in the historical context ships did have different roles. Frigates were the eyes of a fleet, used as escorts for Merchants, Transports etc. and to raid the enemies shipping lanes. SOL were the ships that would form the spine of a fleet and duke it out with enemy ships one on one or worse while holding their place in the line of battle.

But this is a game, so the historical roles don't matter for us. We don't have a need for Frigates or smaller ships as scouts, escorts or raiders because we already know where the enemy is. All we have to do is sail to the enemy, open fire and make sure we win. That is it. If you are thinking about turning one of your ships into a close combat ship for boarding actions then i have to say don't do it. On medium and hard difficulty boarding actions are extremely costly for you. And in certain situations even downright impossible. On hard difficulty your SOL with a crew of 1k men has a good chance of losing a boarding action against another SOL with a crew of 700. Not to mention that capturing your first SOL will be the biggest challenge you will be facing because of the height difference between the SOL and your 5th rates.

In the early missions of a campaign you can and should board ships but once you reach that point where you want to capture your first SOL you need a different approach. And that is to force the enemy ship to surrender. Which is done best by what Ninjasquirrel said: bring down the morale of the enemy ship by constantly firing on it. So grab 3 or 4 5th rates, use them to surround a SOL and open fire. If you can park one of your ships behind the stern even better. Just make sure you can put 24pdr Woolwich or Congreve Gunnades (32pdr work even better) on those ships and go ham on that poor SOL. The first time you encounter a SOL in your campaign i would suggest to use a Fireship to burn it down. Simply because you won't have the firepower to force it to surrender, let alone having the manpower to simply board and capture it.

The guns that i always end up using on my ships are the following: Woolwich, Desagulier, Congreve Gunnade and the 32pdr French Re-Bored. In the US campaign you will gain access to the Borgard's Long Gun which is also good to use. Those are the cannons that i use, everything else is, at least in my eyes, not worth the money. Either it is too expensive (like the 42pdr French Re-Bored) or utterly useless like the Armstrongs. You will mostly be using the Woolwich and Congreve Gunnades because those cannons offer a really good mix of the things you want: penetration, less weight, good rate of fire, range and damage. The French Re-Bored are hands down the best cannons you can buy for your ships. Like i said before, the 42pdr French Re-Bored is way too expensive to be useful but there simply is no better cannon in the game right now. If you can afford those and put them on your SOL then the AI is in big trouble. Really big trouble. You want to demast a 1st rate SOL? No problem with these big boys. Just have a 2 or 3 star crew, manually aim for a mast and bring it down. But even the 32pdr French Re-Bored are really good and much cheaper which makes them way more useful than the 42pdr version. The Desagulier only goes up to a 9pdr caliber but the 9pdr Desagulier offers a much better penetration than the other 9pdr cannons in exchange for a slower rate of fire. I tend to use them on my 5th rates and even for the main deck of a 3rd rate SOL.

As far as mixing different cannons on a ship goes: You won't have much of a choice in that. Most 5th rates will only allow anything up to 9pdr on the main deck while you can put 18, 24 or even 32pdr (only the Congreve Gunnades, Woolwich and French Re-Bored don't fit) on the lower deck. There are very few ships that will allow you to use only one type of cannon, like the 2nd rate Barfleur that Ninjasquirrel mentioned but those are very rare in the mid part of a campaign but become much less rare in the later part of a campaign. And in the example of the 2nd rate Barfleur you probably won't get enough 32pdr Congreve Gunnades to use on two of those ships.

[Legate Nullus]

Thanks for the detailed replies. It looks like at least some of my assumptions were on the right track. I mentioned different roles because I thought it might be useful to have a few light, fast ships for pursuing fleeing or kiting enemies. If the AI will never do that then I suppose there's no reason not to always use the most powerful ships I can get.

No one's mentioned carronades yet. Since NinjaSquirrel says range isn't really important, but a high damage total and fast reload are, then they should be the next best thing after gunnades. Malkor recommends Woolwich guns though. They do have higher penetration at range but if most fights are going to be up close is that really enough of an advantage to prefer them over carronades?

[JaM]

Gunnades right now are overpowered... for some strange reason they have penetration better than long guns of the same caliber.. which is not what their description says... Overall, in game, some balancing is due with guns in terms of penetration, where medium guns needs to be better than short guns, and short guns needs to be better than carronades... yet right now, some medium guns (normal Borgard) have same penetration as carronades, while short Gunnade is superior to Bloomfield guns... In reality, Bloomfield and Armstrongs were much better than Gunnade, Royal Navy refused to use Gunnades on their ships because they found them to be inferrior to medium length guns one caliber lower (so 18pdr was superior to 24pdr gunnade)

[Malkor2]

Now i get what you meant with roles but no, you don't need faster and lighter ships to chase down enemy ships. In the early part of a campaign you will only have small and fast ships, then come your 5th rates like Unity, Diana and Dedaigneuse, then your first SOL and in the later part of a campaign it is all about SOL. The AI will come at you with entire fleets of SOL and if you bring anything smaller than a SOL yourself you're doomed.

The thing with carronades is: they're only useful when you board enemy ships but useless for anything else. You will unlock the 68pdr carronades during the later part of a campaign and by that time you will only fight SOL and nothing else. In the british campaign it means dealing with something like 6 1st rate Santissima Trinidad or the 1st rate Ocean class plus a dozen 2nd and 3rd rate SOL. The 68pdr carronades can penetrate around 37 inches of armour on a ship at a range of 250 yards. After that the penetration drops. So in order to make use of those carronades you first have to get close enough to the enemy ship to deal damage or you will deal no damage at all. While you are busy sailing closer to the enemy, the enemy will fire broadside after broadside at your ship. If you're unlucky you lose a mast, which will slow you down and give the enemy time to pour more fire into your ship. And during all that you can't shoot back because you have to get within 250 yards because your carronades will deal no damage at all because the shots just bounce off the armour. The better rate of fire and more damage mean nothing if you can't shoot back at the enemy.

For comparison, let's assume that our enemy has a 2nd rate Barfleur class SOL: The 68pdr carronades have a reload time of 154 seconds and deal 24 damage but you can only use them at a range of 250 yards. The 32pdr Congreve's Gunnade deals 17 damage, has a reload time of 150 seconds and you can open fire at 500 yards. The 32pdr French Re-Bored also deals 17 damage, has a reload of 213 seconds and can open fire at a 1000 yards, even against a 1st rate SOL. Probably not against a Santissima Trinidad because the side armour is too thick but the Ocean and Victory class are no problem.

TL;DR for carronades: It is literally the equivalent of bringing a knife to a gunfight. 0/10, would not recommend to put only carronades on a SOL. If you want to create a SOL for boarding though you can mount some carronades on it but don't forget to put on some long range firepower too or you will probably start hating the game and yourself.

[Legate Nullus]

So the brass long guns are the best general purpose guns. Always use those, unless you also have access to gunnades. That's about what I've been thinking. The Woolwichs have already become my default gun.

But carronades should be useful for use by small ships against other small ships though right? Investing in them early should give you a big advantage against your early enemies. Even if they become less useful later they might have a niche. This comes back to my question about mixed guns. Say I have a SOL with four gun decks. Would mounting brass long guns on 3/4 for general engagement and carronades on one deck for extra close range firepower be a good idea?

[Ninjasquirrel]

Malkor2 brings up some good points and covered the con; I'll put in some pro arguments for them.

Carronades are great for when you're facing ships roughly the same class as yours. If you're duking it out broadside for broadside there's nothing better. You'll be able to punch way above your weight so If you're armed with carronades you just close with the enemy ship and you're guaranteed to win the shootout every time.

Situations where carronades are not so good for me are when you're facing a ship too powerful for you to sustain a few broadsides at close range, or facing ships you need to capture. Ships that are too powerful, you'll probably get sunk even if you do major damage to the enemy ship so that's not a good idea. Ships you need to capture, carronades do so much hull damage its hard to avoid sinking her sometimes.

One notable exception is the mission with the Arrogante (fireworks?). Being a 2nd or 3rd rate Barfleur/Bellona class SOL, you don't have much choice than to bring the most powerful guns you have available if you want to capture her.

For small ships, carronades are insanely powerful. Like for a brig or corvette size ships, 2 or 3 broadsides from your similar size ship is enough to basically take them out of the fight, or even sink them. Which is a problem in the early game because you'll want to capture as much as possible. But it WILL let you go up against odds of 2 to 1 or more sometimes.

For ships of the line, fighting in line of battle, you'll be under 200yds anyway so don't worry about the range. Just get the fastest firing, hardest hitting guns you can. Don't be afraid to get close, the closer you get the more of an advantage you'll have. Your SOLs can take a few broadsides even from a Santissima Trinidad class ship (well, maybe not the Ardent class but Bellona class on up can tank broadsides). Also, you'll be dealing a lot of morale shock to the enemy ship, limiting their ability to fight back so you won't be taking as much damage as you might suspect.

One situation in which carronades might not be good in a line of battle fight is if you decide to do a double line formation with the further line from the enemy shooting thru the gaps of the closer line. Then the closer line should get all the carronades while the further line would want some EIC pattern carronades or gunnades. This takes a lot of micro though.

Malkor2 brings up a legitimate concern that you wouldn't be able to reply with your shorter range armament while on the approach. It is true you'll be under fire without being able to respond if you're going to attempt to cut their line. But after playing thru the British campaign where several later battles with SOLs recommend you cut the enemy line, the enemy simply can't do enough damage to your ships or sails before you cut their line even when their line is in a crescent concave shape as at Trafalgar.

I also notice that maybe only half of their shots or less are hitting since I'm showing a narrower profile, but I think it mostly has to do with the AI having poor gunnery skills due to only having 1-star experience and/or just bad officers (devs said the officer thing will be addressed next patch). Once you cut their line, 1 raking broadside into their stern with carronades and they're pretty much done for right there. Most of the time that's enough to cause them to already start wavering, so they're not in any shape to shoot back while you just keep pounding them or even start boarding right away if you want.

As for your question on mixing guns, as I said before I'm always in favor of guns with the same or approximate reload times for their effect on morale. Doesn't matter if they're long or short, as long as they shoot at around the same time. Just also remember the long guns weigh more so you might wanna play around with the upgrades, gun loadout, and number of crew in custom battle where you can figure out an optimum build.

[Ninjasquirrel]

Originally posted by JaM:

Gunnades right now are overpowered... for some strange reason they have penetration better than long guns of the same caliber.. which is not what their description says... Overall, in game, some balancing is due with guns in terms of penetration, where medium guns needs to be better than short guns, and short guns needs to be better than carronades... yet right now, some medium guns (normal Borgard) have same penetration as carronades, while short Gunnade is superior to Bloomfield guns... In reality, Bloomfield and Armstrongs were much better than Gunnade, Royal Navy refused to use Gunnades on their ships because they found them to be inferrior to medium length guns one caliber lower (so 18pdr was superior to 24pdr gunnade)

Agree

[SpardaSon21]

Yeah, I really hate how the Gunnades are hands-down the best guns you can get. They should be between an EIC pattern and a standard cannon in stats. I'd also like to see proper long guns get added, as well as the Re-bored French guns get damage appropriate to their new shot weights. The French pound was a bit larger than English ones, so a 32 pounder French would in essence be a gunnade, with a shorter barrel and a lower powder charge relative to what would be typical for the shell.

That said, carronades were in fact quite handy, since while they had terrible velocity, they were light enough to be mounted in quantity on higher decks, and that large, heavy projectile gave them surprising penetration power up close, not to mention what loading that up with grape or chain could do. There's a reason the US superfrigates mounted 32 and 42 pounder carronades up top, since even a razee would find it hard to withstand 42 pound shot up close and personal.

[JaM]

Also French re-bored guns were not really made of brass as their icon suggest... French stopped using brass quite early, and at the time this game starts, 95% of all naval guns on their ships were iron made guns.

[SpardaSon21]

Oh man, talk about a big (and much needed) nerf to their weight then! Its disgusting how superior to everything else they are thanks to the absurd accuracy and weight from their "brass" casting. That said, the fact the later, more "advanced" iron guns don't actually improve on anything over the lesser ones is a big mistake, since as you said, most guns were made of iron, and as casting and forging techniques improved, windage decreased for better accuracy and the iron got less brittle so less was needed for safe firing.

[RaNdOmKiLs666]

The weapon balance in this game is all over the place. Half the guns are just straight up inferior to others even though they're in the same calibre. They should make all the guns have advantages and disadvantages vs each other in their respective calibres.

At the moment it seems like the "derp guns" outclass the longer ranged weapons by quite a bit, since the enemies love to get as close as possible to you even though they're using some slow firing long cannon.

I'd balance them into 3 classes and then each manufacturer would have their own unique thing they're good at, like one could be good at accuracy, one good at reload, one good at penetration etc.


Anyway i'd split them up into these catagories.

Derp guns: So basically the Carronades and other short barrel guns would go in here. They'd be good at close range and have the highest damage numbers, and fastest reloads, however they'd lack accuracy, range and their pen would start to suck beyond the 300 to 400 meter mark

Intermediate/Mid length Guns: These would act as jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none type weapons with average/decent stats across the board.

Long Guns: These would be your sniper weapons that have very long range, great accuracy, highest penetration in the game and average damage, however their reload speed would be quite slow.

Now you might think: "But that's basically how the cannons are already balanced" No they're not, they tried to balance them like this, but failed in catagory 2 and 3, the only thing i listed that seems to work as intended is the derp guns, everything else seems inferior, which is based off of how the ai functions in this game. They just rush up to you, even though they have superior range with their long guns.


Anyway, i hope we see a re-balance (and ai improvements) across the board, because the amount of viable weapons is laughable at this point. Lots of cannons are just straight up inferior to others or have super similar stats and just feel samey.

[SpardaSon21]

Keep in mind that the iron guns have a definite tiering system to them already. Lowest are the Borgard's Guns, then next up are the Armstrong's Guns, and then the Blomefield's and then finally the supposedly brand-new and experimental Dickson and Millar's Gun. What should be actual technological improvements in casting and cannon design... aren't.