Cannons

Cannons can be attached to Ships in designated cannon ports and will assist in naval battles by eliminating crew members from the opposing ship, slowing ships down by tearing apart their sails and even sinking them by destroying their hulls. Cannons will only fire during the first phase of a naval encounter, spread over 3 rounds. Cannons can be attached by clicking the status link of a ship in the Ships list, and then clicking the [attach cannons] link. Once a cannon is attached it cannot be removed by the user, and that ship cannot be sold. Only once a ship is sunk will the cannon detach from it where it can be salvaged by a Fisherman.

Cannons and ammunition can be dug up from the Cannons mine in Daigard

Attributes
Cannons have 2 attributes - Rate of Fire and Damage.
 * Rate of Fire determines how many rounds the cannon will fire in.


 * 1) The cannon will fire once, in the second round
 * 2) The cannon will fire twice, once in the first and once in the third round
 * 3) The cannon will fire three times, once in each round
 * Damage determines how much damage (to crew, hull or speed) a successful hit will deal.

Ammunition
The ammunition used in cannons determines the type of damage it will deal.
 * Cannonballs - Hull damage: Only useful if you want to take someone off the sea entirely (say, a high-level pirate). Fair for Hunters, not really anyone else.
 * Grape Shot - Kills crew members: A useful alternative to Cannonballs, lets you win a battle but keeps your opponent's ship seaworthy. Useful for Pirates who want their enemies to live, so they can pillage them again.
 * Chain Shot - Tears at sails to decrease speed. Good for Traders wanting to escape nasty Pirates.

The type of ammunition that is loaded into a cannon is initially picked at random from the available boxes on board. Each box contains 10 shots, and once opened the leftovers from the box will remain with the ship, primed to fire.

Critical Hits
When a Pirate runs with cannons on a ship, they receive a 25% chance of dealing a critical hit, where the damage normally done by the cannon is doubled. This can be improved a further 10% by using a Whetting Stone.