1) Only 2 of the three crew were able to take a cannon - the third was never able to (since we really didnt plan any success at getting the cannons and were only going for the wheel of the ship itself - they were a tiny bonus)
2) Our playn was to take the Warlord 'plain' - without attacking it at all and try for capture... but it is a Catch-22... The ship is moving so fast that to kill the Captain Sailing and Take the wheel while a ship is flying by at quiet the clip just wasn't working - but then after hitting the ship to 'make it pause' and begin the trek towards us almost makes it go into 'robot mode' and even killing the captain then doesn't allow for takeover - shes on auto-pilot to get ya...
3) In reading this thread we have a feeling that taking a Flagship is do-able... if the conditions were right - so we went big and tried a non-flagship first to see if we could get one of the biggest NPC ships in the game (without totally commiting sucide over at Padres for the Jugger or something with 50 ships hanging around just waiting to pick you off at a moments notice
) Our plan for the Navy Frigate Flagship Man-O-War which sails to Rums from Padres will be our next target where I can basically find a 'safe spot'' for the boat while we make the attempt... and any results I'll post back (or failures
) The other option of Rums is the EITC Ironwall Galleon Flagship from Perdida which sails over and back... should the Man-O-War be missing at the time...
Just a mention here that our plan is only to see if it can be done with a large ship with multiple pirates then try to take another NPC ship using our acquired raid, NOT to take the ship and attack other players! The cannons on the Warlord DID do damage to my ship (we did that test right after they had the guns - to see if they actually worked... and they sure did) so we proceeded to point them at the Ghost, Centurion and Ironwall in range (no sails to move so we had to wait for them).
I would hope that any discovery - sucess of failure is not used against other pirates (being against Terms of POTCO) because for the time being it is a cool deversion from waiting for the Pearl and Following Quest and LV up weapons...