leveling up canons
 

is there any tips to doing this? im at lvl 14 canons and it just seems to take for ever to get rep for it. get on average 20ish rep a kill. sometimes ill get 60-100. but rarely.

What I do is take my ship out just past padres and lure in phantoms, take out there sails as soon as they are in regular cannon shot range, and then pound them with cannon shot till they go down. If the reps go down... then I find bigger ghosties. Ive also found that you can switch to helm and do a few broadsides and get some sailing reps out of it too.

But be careful!! always best to attack the phantoms from the left side of your ship.. (they always turn left) so if you need to move fast you may be able to stay in front of them.

Also chain shots give great rep.

Being part of a crew helps a lot too with the extra points you get on crew rep!

I think you want the Sailing Reputation Chart.

Once past level 12, you can use thunderbolt to hit ships way outside of your compass range. Once hit, they come straight at you, making the masts trivial to strip away.

A spot that I used to practice my aim (have I mentioned I hate using the mouse?) was launching from Padres del Fuego but not sailing out. Just park there in a frigate (any class) and take pot shots until you learn how to aim cannons with mouse. They approach but rarely engage in battle, when you are still parked.

Yep that's all you need.
Get grapple shoot 10-15 times and
you get 100 rep! :]

Ah i Find chain and grape shot rather useless.
On Super I dont plan on him learning it, it doesnt use much. If you really want rep, just use round shot :)

Aye, however I keep a skill point available in case Im gonna need grapeshot for the Kraken... hehe.

Agree with the using roundshot. Fun to lure in the Phantoms and pound them as they come straight at ya... helps you get to the advance cannon shot, like lightning, then its easier because you can lure them in from farther out. :)

Agreed!! You never really know what you may need as the game advances. Putting one point in everything really can't hurt you.

I agree also with this statement. This is how you learn to use your cannon. Friends are not always going to be on, so you need to learn how to use your cannons effectively. Shooting from afar with lightning has always been the way I have done it. It gives you the opportunity to shoot the sails down or just blast it with whatever you like as it comes straight at you.

or u can always have a frigate of some kind and have someone back up as they come at u its alittle safer

Yes, that's like the best sailing technique there is!

Starting a Crew or a Guild helps a lot! Last night, I got Grape Shot, thanks to my crew!

5 points in Shoot, 5 in Rapid Reload, one to unlock each shot: that gives you respectable options yet keeps damage per shot down, although it does allow a heck of alot of shots. Buy the barrel upgrades, you'll burn through them shots asomethin' real quick. Grapple will reload faster as well.

As well, if you can do the Boss Battle, you'll have lotso time to level the cannon.

Getting on a crew with a captain who just likes going out sinking ships for fun can help. I maxed my sailing and cannon first. I found it easy. Now I will go out and just sink for fun, I don't need any gold. I like it when someone comes on and they just want to level cannons as then I don't have to keep going back in. I will park out far leave the wheel and tag 2 or 3 go back to the wheel keep a watch on them as those on cannons start sinking them. If they start to get close enough I will go back over and hit the masts to take out the sails and let those on cannons just finish them off.

It is true you get the most rep for ghost ships. But when I help others level up cannon I tell them all if you can hit I will stop and we sink it. I have taken sometimes 5 minutes just to drop anchor at padres cause the cannoneers keep tagging more. I know I have gotten annoyed by a few ship captains that are too eager to drop anchor and not let the guys at cannons finish off a ship even when the ship we are on has a near full hull and we are out of range of the enemy ship shots.

One more thing I do is try to keep everything on one side of the ship, so no one has to move. I also make sure I position the ship so everyone on the one side can hit something. If there are enough crew on board I try to get them on both sides.

The thing I just did was go after the Spanish/French War Sloops, disable them with Chain Shot, grapple a few times (making sure the red -1 pops up), and then send them down with Round.

They only have one sail, so once that goes, they're crippled as can be. Once they're sunk, you can grapple then leave--they should vanish once the distance between you is good enough--or board.