How do you sail?
 

Ok, I feel like the biggest bonehead in beta! I need to sink some ships, and I haven't a clue how to do so!
Can I do it alone, and if so, how do I fire? Do I need to be on a crew? If so what's a good way to find one?
Aside from taking pleasure cruises all over the map, I haven't made much progress.

Any help would be appreciated, I'm getting nowhere on my own!

Thanks!
~el tig

To start sailing, get into the water, click the 'ships' button click deploy for the the ship you want. Sail next to a ship (a good angle to fire from) Hit escape to exit from the wheel go to the cannon and fire away.

Fire by moving the mouse and right clicking when you want to shoot.

Thanks Stella Ruby & Reillysix! I got it figured out!

I would never have gotten it without you!

~el tig

well just for your knowlege next time, plz remember they dont wan't you to post anything about how the game works or pics of it or what it looks like thx

~Cpt.Sea

I'm aware of this, you'll notice my question was vague.

I actually got a very detailed IM telling me all I needed to know, so I think everyone does their best to be circumspect.

Disney should provide a protected beta testers forum so we can help each other out. It could only benefit them and us.

~el tig

I agree, we can test out more things if we can figure out better ways to do things or learn what is working for other people that isn't for us and how to fix it if possible.

well I tried that and when I hit esc to move to the cannon the game shut down.

Did I do wrong or just hit a bug............

I guess I need a lesson on getting away from the helm and on the cannon and as well getting away from the cannon and back on the helm? Esc shuts down the game, is there another method to switch back and forth?

I just discovered this
 

So if everyone already knew and no one told me.....

To fire your broadsides you have to be steering your ship. Then use the right click menu after you pull up next to a ship and fire either left or right.

I've been able to fire but ships are not sinking. Can anyone PM me with how to do this? Thanks:)

I'd also be interested in this info. last night I sat beside a navy ship, quite large but not sure of the level or name, the masts had been blown away and all that was there was the hull. I fired on it for 25 minutes along with another pirate and nothing.

What is the meter that appears on the right of the screen, it says -50 of 7200.

I thought that was the damage being inflicted and the total amount needed to sink the ship. I am quite sure I alone hit this ship the needed 144 times to inflict 7200 damage pts and as I said I was not alone and still nothing.

Help! Sinking ships is required and I can't seen to accomplish this unless the ship looks like a dingy in size.

There is a bug/feature where sometimes when you get a ship down to negative health, it wants you to board it. You'll know when this happens because a) no amount of shooting the ship will make it sink, and b) there will be a bunch of vertical green circles along the edge of the deck for you to shoot grapping hooks at. These are very small and hard to see unless you're close, but they are there. If you shoot the grapping hooks at each of the circles and hit them, you can press Control to swing over to the other ship for some sword fighting.

I don't know what happens after that. Since I'm perputually sailing alone, I just skip that ship and move along to a new ship. There are too many weird pathing bugs fighting on decks, not being able to get back to your ship issues, client restarts, etc. I've never successfully captured a ship in this fasion, so I just stopped bothering with it.

No idea what makes the game decide between sinking the ship and making you board it. Anyone else know?

25 minutes? I was on last night trying to sink a level 3 Navy ship to complete a quest, and I was follow it around trying to sink it for 45 minutes! No joke, I was there forever!
They really need to fix this bug, it's really annoying.

I'm having the same issue, once I see the green circles I figure it's a loss. As a general rule I kill the crew before I sink the ship anyway so I can have their loot. The one time I did actually get my grappling hook to stay and allow me to swing over I had to exit the game because I couldn't get off the ship afterwards to get back on my own or even into the water.

Of all the ships I have sunk I've only had maybe a half dozen of these problem ships.

I saw an interesting ship last night, it had to be a dev having some fun. It was a Navy ship with red sails, level 24 (level 27 is the largest I've encountered so far) and it was running speedy circles around me. Just around and around until I finally hit my power boost and went elsewhere.

For those trying to sink those tiny ships, don't bother with them. Head for the big ships, you get way more reputation points and at this point in the game they don't fire back a whole lot so why not take advantage of it? If you're still sailing in a sloupe, pony up the gold for a frigate or galleon so you can have some broadsides and more cargo room.

Has anyone been able to successfully board another pirate's ship as a crew member?

Thanks for the info and thanks to Stella Ruby for the PM:) I was able to bring down ten ships tonight! Whoo hoo:D

I had a full boat of 5 last night we got into some nice PVP battles.. I have something to shoot out to u all since this is locked area of the site and we can say stuff like this

I went out bought a gallion with broadsides and i can atack while sailing to increase my sailing points.. but has any earned any other skills yet I am ship lv 4.. just wondering thanks guys

The speed boost is the only other thing I've earned from sailing. My cannons are on ten but I've not been offered anything else. I thought we would have the option of firing different types of cannon balls when we hit level five because we get different cutlasses, dolls, etc. at level 5.

you do have access to grape shot, chain shot, and even the flaming shots by level 8! you must first buy them from the cannoneer in port royale, then while shooting your cannon instead of the right mouse button, use the mouse scroll wheel to cycle through your available shots.

oh and the next thing you learn for sailing is "Turn About" (i think is the name) that lets you spin extra fast for a few seconds.

sweet thanks all.. now only if lag let me I would do some saling tonite I couldnt even get in last night it stunk

Oh good. I tried like heck to read what it said for experience on the different cannon balls at the Cannoneer but that red writing is just too small and dark.

I'm going to go stock up on the new stuff. Does it appear to earn cannon points faster?

well if you use grape shot to kill everyone on deck first, you'll get a few extra cannon points more than if you don't.

i thought i had noticed that if you shot a ship with a flaming shot first that it seemed to give more points than if you didn't, but that's probably just the rum playing tricks on me! :D