Many asked me why i have so many cannons on my ships, how i work around the small Crewcap on brigantine and smaller, as well as how i give orders to my Crew.

Due to the amount of questions i've received, aswell as posts ive read on the forum and on reddit, i decided to immediately share this guide while i finish it over the next few days (01.2019).

Stay tuned while i polish up this guide and add many more pictures!

Commanding your ship is pretty straight forward. The basics are written down in a tooltip in the top left corner of your screen, but what are those icons on the right doing you might ask?

Here is a complete list of each ship function and its default Hotkey (QWERTZ Layout):
Check yours at Options - Keybindings - Page 2

A: Rudder left
D: Rudder right
W: Open Sails
S: Close Sails
Space: Fully open sails
unassigned: Fully close sails
Shift+A: Rotate sails left
Shift+D: Rotate sails right

On fully closed sails and raised anchor:
A: Rotate left
D: Rotate right
S: Reverse

W: Raise anchor
X: Drop anchor

1-9: Command Groups

Captain Order 1 - 6:
C: Cease Fire. Selected Groups will stop firing.
V: Fire at will. Selected Groups will start shooting at marked target.
RMB: Release to mark target.
LMB: Manual Fire. Hold to aim, release to fire. RMB to cancel.
N (Hold 5 sec): Selected Group dismount and melee (Crew set to aggressive). Counter boarding parties but can be used to unseat. Be aware of aggressive stance or your crew might run off to punch a shark. See Chapter: "Groups" for correct usecases.
RightShift: (Hold or Spam): Selected Group on Battlestations

Captain Extra Action 1 - 3:
O: Toggle All Lights
unassigned: Switch ammunition.
J: Show currently loaded ammunition

Not shiprelated but important:
, (COMMA): NPC Move over there (or "use" when pointed at object like sail, cannon, chair, ...)
T: Quick whistle menu (used to whistle
RightStrg: Orbitcamera (used to quickly check specific angles of your ship you cant see, for example when your helm is higher up)
K: Toggle Orbitcamera (same as above but not practical in fights, since its a toggle and when activated you cant give any orders/steer)
Delete: Yell. Long range voicechat draining stamina. Useful for ship to ship communication.

Taminggroups. When crew is added to taming group, its easier to give whistle orders like "all passive" only to your crew and ignore your animals or crew from other ships.

What are the benefits and when should you consider managing your crew instead of capping your crewlimit?

+ More guns for more concentrated fire.
+ Less idle Crew.
(important on smaller boats with low crewcap)
+ Even more guns due to limited crewcap on warships.
+ Lower crewcount needed for full "regular" fighting power.
+ Lower crew upkeep cost.
+ Less AI doing less retarded physics stuff.
+ Less weight on smaller boats (Crew + Gold).

- Micromanagement
- Limited firing angles (no more 360° coverage, which is countered by smart positioning and should never be needed)
- More vulnerable when losing crew.
- Helm/Lieutenantpost has to be manned.

If you are building a more classic ship, instead of some insane cannonwalls (all cannons on one side builds) chances are high, not all are in use when engaging in combat. So why not move the unused crew over to support even more guns and rotate your "Firing-Sectors" as you pass your enemy, to keep guns on target all the time.

While you loose or limit the ability to fight multiple sides at once, because moving crew between groups takes 3 to 7 seconds, it wont matter much, since in case you find yourself getting hammered from all angles at a regular basis, you should reconsider your strategic decisions as captain.

There are different Roles you can assign your Crew to. Keep in mind that NPCs have limited collision within your ship when you assign them tasks. This means if you give an order (Hotkey: Comma) they will climb through closed doors, walls and ceilings and even teleport if they cant reach it in time. this means it will at most take 3 seconds to move a crewmember from one end of the ship to another, but only if you give an order. Letting them follow you wont work.

Your crew will repair the ship while anchored but wont have much use while sailing. They can fight boarding parties, but they are in general pretty weak.

ALL unassigned crew will follow your call, when you give the order to mount a sail for example, doesn't matter where they are, as long as they are in a certain range. This means they even will swim over from a different ship.

Crew on sails will give the helmsman the ability to control the sails directly, otherwise they have no automated function. Depending on where you place your sails, the assigned NPC can sometimes end up in strage locations, like hanging of the side of your ship. While it wont affect its performance, be careful when unseating it,

Let a NPC take over the steering wheel to gain access to the Autopilot. More testing is needed, but it seems the Autopilot can only be configured at the wheel when talking to the NPC, rather than anywhere at the ship. This of course limits it abilities to only a few useful applications like "follow the wind" or "set ship bearing".

This is extremely useful if you beached yourself and are now stuck. Especially when sailing at shore during a storm, the waves can beach you very easily.
It seems NPCs have way more keel depth tolerance than players, so assign an NPC to take over the wheel and admire its parking skills.

Set an NPC to man a turret. Keep in mind that the NPCs behavior and the cannon settings are two entirely different things. Even when you set it to aggressive, this doesn't mean it will fire the cannon at everything, it only means it will run off to punch a shark after dismounting.

Sounds stupid? Well it kinda isn't ... as you may have noticed, physics in this game can be "funny".
Leaving crew on cannons is expensive, a chair under deck (or even on land) is a perfect option to "park" your unused crew, safe from crazy physics and hungry animals.

Also useful when operating at multiple ships close together, since a chair counts as "mounted", so when calling to sails on the other ship, that crew wont swim over. Wardrums also count as seat, although i haven't found a way to let them play a song.

Your ship has 10 groups, 4 of which are already predefined in Front, Right, Left and Back.

To assign a crewmember to a group, simply order them to "use cannon". Now this Cannon is saved for this crewmember. You can save cannons from multiple groups, altough i would recomment keeping it simple for fast switching times and to avoid glitching the AI. Use the same NPC for the same cannons on multiple sides.

Example:
NPC 1-6 on Below-Deck-Cannons 1-6 (left) and 7-12 (right).
NPC 7-12 on Deck-Cannon 1-6 (left) and 7-12 (right).
NPC 13-16 on Bow-Cannon 1-4 (front) and Stern-Cannon (back) 1-4.

Keep the path short!
Example:
NPC 1: Cannon Left1 and Right1 - Avoid crossing paths like Cannon Left1 and Right6


Rotating sectors is best shown on an example:

Enemy straight ahead. Crew to battlestations:
Plan your approach. Wind favors portside (left) metalexchange.

Select all Groups, press V to enable autofire for all guns. Hold N for 3 Seconds to unseat all assigned Crew. Press T, whistle passive.
Deselect all Groups. Select Front and Left. Hold RightShift to man all cannons. Hold RMB and click on the target. Manualfire if neccessary, but NPCs have near perfect aim, so dont bother.

As you pass the enemy ship and you lose angle on your bow guns, deselect Left (only Front now selected). Hold N, whistle passive to avoid Crew yoloing offboard to choke a turtle, deselect front, select back. Call battlestations (RightShift) again. Crew will run back and start fireing.

This is not a guide on battletactics, but use your enhanced Fireing-Sectors as advantage. Make them turn against the wind and broadside them on their weakest angle. Most likely laterally to the rear between their broadside angle and the straight line of fire of large cannons in the back.

Comming soon