Ship combat: why do I keep hitting sails?

[Jayd]

In earlier playthroughs I've used the Junk to blast down ships with cannonballs. It's always worked fine. To try something different this playthrough, I've tried using the Voyager. It would be fine except for one big problem: I use cannonballs (the ammunition which the game says almost always hits hull, which has been my experience before) but they are hitting sails more than hull. It makes the ship combat impossible because I have to get through much more HP (sails+hull) to get the kill while the other ship just tears my lightweight ship apart.

What is going on here? I tried using different types of cannon. My cannoneers are tier-3. I keep clicking cannonball and getting sail hits. Should I report this as a bug?

[Gromnir]

have never bothered with a voyager to initiate combat, so am having no experience with your problem.  the value o' the voyager would be to avoid combats as it may run away like no other ship class in the deadfire.

what sorta sample size are you talking 'bout? 

might as well go ahead and report, but am not able to bring self to test this.

HA! Good fun!

[Boeroer]

That shouldn't be the case with a Voyager. I used it many times but never had that.

However, using any type of flame based cannon will result in exactly that behavior you described.

[MaxQuest]

8 hours ago, Jayd said:

I use cannonballs (the ammunition which the game says almost always hits hull, which has been my experience before) but they are hitting sails more than hull.

Could it be just a sequence of 'bad' luck? or it's very persistent?

Also, could you swap the ammunition to something else, wait a bit, and switch back to cannonballs?

 

P.S. Just in case, here are the chances from ships.gamedatabundle:

• SHA_Cannonball has: 80% chance to hit Hull; 10% Sail, 10% BelowDeckCrew
• SHA_Chainshot: 75% Sail, 25% AboveDeckCrew
• SHA_Fire has: 40% Hull; 40% Sail, 10% AboveDeckCrew, 10% BelowDeckCrew
• SHA_Grapeshot has: 25% Sail, 75% AboveDeckCrew

Edited May 8, 2019 by MaxQuest

[Jayd]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

However, using any type of flame based cannon will result in exactly that behavior you described.

This must be it. I tried it most with Wyrmtongue, then when I switched I probably got bad luck and assumed nothing had changed. I started boarding instead so I'll check again another time. Does the game tell you flame cannons behave this way?

[Boeroer]

No unfortunately not. It's very confusing.

[MaxQuest]

1 hour ago, Jayd said:

This must be it. I tried it most with Wyrmtongue

Wyrmtongue has:

	"AllowStandardAmmoTypes": "false",
"SpecialAmmoTypesIDs": [
  "d960029f-39ab-494b-bd3e-cb23902a7645"
]

And that ID stands for SHA_Fire.

Thus I guess, it consumes whatever ammo you have selected, but deals fire damage anyway. And fire has 40% chance to hit the Hull; 40% Sail, 10% AboveDeckCrew, 10% BelowDeckCrew.

So that's why your cannonballs were hitting sails so often.

 

P.S. And no, the game doesn't show explicitly that Wyrmtongue behaves this way. Although there is a hint in it's description:

Quote

The recent rediscovery of the alchemical formula for Magran's Breath, an ancient Engwithan form of liquid fire, has allowed the production of new and devastating weapons. Artillery foundries developed this cannon for naval use, as fire is particularly dangerous aboard a ship. Primed with a concentrated mixture of Magran's Breath and runepowder, the gun fires cannonballs wreathed in flame. This prototype has inferior range to most shipboard guns, but up-close it is capable of setting entire decks, riggings, and crews alight with nigh-unquenchable flame.

Edited May 8, 2019 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

And that's the confusing part: you can still pick cannonball, chain shot etc. - but internally it will say "Lol screw you, I will fire with my own stuff anyway - and I will tell nobody".

I guess it has to because how is a flamethrower supposed to shoot anything else than fire. But this should have been made more clear. Would have been fairly easy to add another type of ammunition called "flames" (or fire or however you want to call it) that also consumes the ammunition you bought (because we don't want to buy different types for every cannon) but can't be fired with other cannons and gets auto-equipped (and is the only option) once you install a wyrmtongue, flamethrower or such.

[Jayd]

Thank you for helping figure this out. I was baffled and frustrated.

Weird decision to begin with since it's such a huge nerf to the cannon. Much worse to not tell the player.