Npc svs?
 

Have I been oblivious all this time (9 months) or have NPC ships recently started battling each other? I never noticed it before but I was sailing for plunder a few minutes ago and was targeting an Ironwall off the coast or Port Royal heading for PDF. A Revenant was close by and all my broadsides kept hitting the Rev despite being aimed at the Ironwall. At the same time the Wall was shooting at the Rev and sunk it before I could. After that I noticed a lot of shooting between NPC ships and saw some sinking masts where no pirate ship was around.

I've never seen this but my freind has. Maybe one accidentaly shot the other and that treated the first one as an enemy and shot back. Or maybe Disney is hinting at some sort of future conflict.... or mabe its a glitch.

NPC ship ammo hurts NPC ships: that I know.

really? ive tried to use NPCs as sheilds, but the broadside just went right through it.
Is this a rare glitch?
This is a definate mystery only the GMs can solve...

I've had ships shoot broadsides at me and ship another ship that I had engaged: I'd say so, because I don't recall shooting a broadside at those moments.

If you have substantial windcatcher, the NPC ships trying to shoot at you will shoot far behind you to give you the impression that you are going faster. If another NPC happens to be in the way, they get hit (but I didn't realize their shots did damage to other NPCs...interesting.)

The update to make broadsides "aim better" simply selects the closest bow of an enemy ship, instead of the closest ship. Takes quite a bit of getting used to, if you got used to the normal way broadsides used to fire.

I've never seen NPC ships battling each other, but I have seen them hit and damage another enemy ships numerous times. In fact I've used this a number of times to save myself by keeping one enemy between my ship and another enemy.