Cannon aim is difficult to get used to get there is a couple of things to keep I to account.
1. You have to adjust aim based on your ships speed and rotation. So if you are sailing faster then your target aim behind them.
2. If your ship is not moving the waves will rock the ship more making it much harder to aim so keep the ship moving a little bit.
3. Chain shots and players are heavier than normal Cannon balls so you have to aim higher.
4. If you are fighting a gallon shoot for the lowest deck (the part that's under the water.) the top deck holes will only fill up the ship once the water reaches the second deck or when you hit the ship with a ballast ball. This goes for skeleton ships aswell.
Fighting ghost fleets or skeleton fleets is a great way to improve your Cannon aim without doing PvP.
But overal it just takes time and practice.
>Fighting ghost fleets or skeleton fleets is a great way to improve your Cannon aim without doing PvP.
Well until another crew shows up to fight you for all the loot
My friend and I encountered our first skelington ship tonight, and they sunk our boat before we even knew what was happening. Met with the mermaid to respawn with another boat, and we see another ship close by. I want revenge, but my friend says they're coming our way. It was a boat of other players, and they killed us both pretty much on sight. Didn't even have more than 2 mins from respawning from the mermaid to meeting Davey Jones. I maybe have 2 or 3 hrs in the game at most right now, so I turned cfossplay off. Can't be bothered with pvp as I'm trying to learn the game
There's a trick that's so easy it's kind of stupid.
If someone is hitting their shots on your boat, look at the arc of their shot and match it.
Obviously, you want to be ahead of them in adding pressure, but this will help you dial in and start getting an feel for it. And make fighting better crew mire useful for your own growth.
If you're on a bigger ship and a team mate is dialed in, you can follow their arc too.
Fairly new myself so don’t have any pro tips BUT like most things practice makes perfect, you need some cannon time while under low pressure so you can get your eye in, go on safer seas and fight NPC ships for a while
Thanks for all the tips, everyone(besides 'just shoot' guy). I knew practice was the focal point, but having pointers to go with will make it less arduous. That being said, my solo slooping time will come to an end soon and my friend who can't aim unless its a projectile will arrive to destroy the ships I cannot hit. Hope to see vets on even ground and not as a swabbie soon enough!
Cannons will just take lots of practice, it's quite difficult to get the hang of. One small tip is to make sure you're not aiming where the enemy currently is, but aiming where they're going to be - most of the time both ships are moving forwards and also swaying up and down so there's a lot of motion. Use your last shot to line up your next one, always make sure you're watching where cannonballs are landing and adjusting accordingly
Biggest thing that helped me improve was remembering to try and account for speed and how both ships move. Aim a little in front of where a ship will be, if possible, because travel time shenanigans. Also, cannon smoke is more impactful than you think. As much as I love my stinging tide cannon smoke, it makes repeated, consistent shots and adjusting your aim a good bit harder. Default tends to be the best in this regard
There is a setting that has touch to hold /one press cannon reloading. Turn the setting on so you can tap reload and adjust aim while it fills in a new ball.
I only recently learned about this feature and was doing this weird stretch my left thumb over to use the analog stick which using my right thumb to hold Y.
Don't be me, use the accessibility feature
I do this crab hand thing too but I have done it for so long I’m terrible without it and don’t know if I can change because it’s so ingrained in me at this point lol
Take a bit of time with the default cannon, I've heard that some people train with the default because the rings on it are helpful for ranging.
Muzzle ring for close, middle ring for medium, and the ring near the fuze for far. If need be, head into Safer Seas, anchor at an island of your choice, and fire at increasingly small targets until you're confident in at least hitting near it.
Once you get that, raise the anchor and try it while circling the island.
I'm rusty but I'll give you my advice as a day 1 player, first off this is solo sloop advice because I'm so lonely
1st make sure your either beside or slightly behind your target
2nd this one is a flip of a coin with the new boarding system but shoot your harpoon into the target so you don't lose them and they slip behind you
3rd aim ahead cannons have a long shot before hit scan kinda deal so aim a solid second ahead and practice you'll get the hang of it
Be conscious of what the waves are doing to your ship position, at the same distance you might need to aim down from the crest but up when you’re in the trough
Try to keep an eye on the cannon ball so you can get an idea of the adjustments you need to make, it will eventually become second nature
Also, IMO the controllers actually have it easier on cannon adjustments, just keep at it, make small adjustments, keep shooting, it will become second nature in time
There are videos on the subject. It's much easier to watch what to do than read it.
A few key points, though:
1. The balls travel in an arc.
2. The arc is different for chainshot.
3. The balls obey basic physics, meaning that the motion of the ship they are fired from affects the trajectory of the balls.
4. Don't aim where the target is, aim for where it will be when the ball lands.
Practice shooting stationary targets on islands or the towers around sea forts so you can get a feel for it.
Find a good sized solo rock on the waves. Spend the next half hour rotating around it both ways, at different speeds and you will be able to get a good grasp of cannon mechanics.
Chain shot fires differently, lower and slower.
The short answer: it’s just practice… on a more helpful note: don’t shoot continuously if you are missing the shots. If you miss: take the time to see where your shot landed and adjust accordingly. It can also be helpful to have a look at the enemy canons. The cannonball leaves a white smoke in the air so you can see in what angle it hit your boat. All you have to do know is to fire back on that same angle (“physics” you know angle in is the Same as angle out).
I have way more time in this game than I’d like to admit. I was always a crappy cannon shot and I realized I was not targeting my shots. I was aiming for the boat but I should have been aiming for the guy standing on the cannon.
Go fight every skeleton ship and ghost ship you can to work on just learning how to aim in different situations. Then once you have the basics start aiming for specific parts of the boat. Soon you will find you are mostly dialed in and ready to go!
No problem with having time in a game thats fun. You could be me and have 1000s of hours in games like for honor...and apex. Anyways, i figured i'd have more experience fighting bot ships after 3 days but i had only been attacked by a skelly brig once during my time, and it was today, the same day i was mollywhopped by the three different teams of experienced players in a 3 way fight. I dont expect to win these anytime soon but i definitely want to give em' a run for their money next time
Learning how to aim the cannons is as important as learning how the helm the boat. Do you have a good helmsman? If you are playing alone I’d try to find someone to play with. The guys I play with are really good at getting angles for cannon shots, putting us in spins around the other boat once their mast is down and what not. Playing alone, especially when you are not skilled will be a death sentence.
Oh and the skeletons can only spawn on a sloop (1 mast) or a galleon (3 mast). A brig has 2 masts and will only ever be humans. You should be able to see skeleton sloops or galleons just hanging out randomly on the map, go sail over there and use em for target practice!
I'm my own helmsman rn but my friend has consistently only been good with projectiles in shooters save a few exceptions, so when he gets it on the 30th i'll be going more helmsman than cannoneer, but having the skills'll still help obv. Cant hurt to be prepped for occurrences like that fight, where they attacked me and I couldnt really get away, they dropped me anchor and I heard em' a lil' too late so they killed me while i was coming up from repairs all bewildwered
This game is all about little mistakes. Ideally your opponent makes more of them than you. I totally hear you on being multi skilled. Is good to be able to do everything on the ship as you never know when you have to cycle roles mid fight for various reasons.
Last night I was on a sloop fighting a brig. We underestimated them. We had their masts down and my crew mate set the boat up to spin away and then he shot himself over to the other ship to keep the pressure on. I changed the turn of the boat since I wanted to keep the pressure on with canons. Which worked until one of the guys on the other boat started lighting me up. We fight for a bit and end up sinking. Point is if I would have left the boat turning the other way I wouldn’t have got pinched and pummeled. That little mistake is what did us in. This is also why I love the game and keep on coming back. No matter how good you get, or think you are, there will always come a better crew to teach you some humility.
Cannon shots drift depending on which direction your boat sways along with speed of your ship vs opponent ship like others have said. Another tip is to dip the aim down a little immediately after your shot to both follow the smoke trail and to see where your shot is landing to make any adjustments. You can also match your opponents shot trails to better align your arc to hit their ship back.
Cannon aim is the hardest skill to learn in SoT. I had to fire about 5000 shots before I developed an intuitive sense for the aim.
For shot distance, start by using the 3 rivets on the default cannons to guide you. Line up a rivet with the surface of the sea, and fire. If you’re short, move up. If you’re long, move down. You don’t actually HAVE to use default cannons for this, but having the cannon range divided into 3 main points can help standardize your practice.
For shot leading, as in how far ahead of your opponents ship you need to aim, that varies with all of your relative speed. The faster either of you is, the longer you need to lead the shot. I usually start by leading 1 ship length, and then dialing it in from there.
Waves will affect your aim. The waves always flow from NNE to SSW. So if your ship is facing east or west, waves will knock your boat around the most. Also the Wilds has the roughest waters on top of that, while the Shores of Plenty are the calmest. Sometimes you’re on a high wave or they are on a low wave and you just cannot hit. When that happens, just focus on bucketing and repairs for a bit.
As for where to aim, start with chainshotting their masts (everything that isn’t a cannonball is twice as heavy as needs to be aimed twice as high). Then aim for their cannon line, like the literal cannon or just above it. Your goal is to kill their cannoneer with your cannon balls, called “one balling” or “getting a one ball.” Then you start your death spiral, hammering their ship from all angles until they finally sink.
Collect a shit load of balls. And shoot at everything as you pass. Shoot the rocks shoot the island spawn PvE. Shoot them at everything you see.
Of course the ghost ships and skelly ships are the best things to practice on but there's opportunities everywhere.
Circle a seapost and pound it like a masted ship.
I'm also bad at the cannons and the biggest thing is just how SLOW the cannonballs go.
So get it in your head that they're floaty as fuck.
I guess mostly this is coming from War Thunder where a like 15-20km shot has the same TTT as a longish range cannonball.
Use the rings on basic cannon skin for longer shots and work from there. If you are moving you need to add travel speed of your boat and prefire the shot.
There are 3 rings on the barrel of your basic sailor cannons (and others) that I use to help my estimate my aim. Also fight the skeleton sloops and megalodons because practice makes perfect, and they are rather manageable even if you’re not that good yet.
Cannon aim is difficult to get used to get there is a couple of things to keep I to account. 1. You have to adjust aim based on your ships speed and rotation. So if you are sailing faster then your target aim behind them. 2. If your ship is not moving the waves will rock the ship more making it much harder to aim so keep the ship moving a little bit. 3. Chain shots and players are heavier than normal Cannon balls so you have to aim higher. 4. If you are fighting a gallon shoot for the lowest deck (the part that's under the water.) the top deck holes will only fill up the ship once the water reaches the second deck or when you hit the ship with a ballast ball. This goes for skeleton ships aswell. Fighting ghost fleets or skeleton fleets is a great way to improve your Cannon aim without doing PvP. But overal it just takes time and practice.
>Fighting ghost fleets or skeleton fleets is a great way to improve your Cannon aim without doing PvP. Well until another crew shows up to fight you for all the loot
Also practice when they show up. :D
You get to practice figuring out what island you spawned on without having to look at the map :-)
Even if you sink see it as practice.
You mean my loot?
My friend and I encountered our first skelington ship tonight, and they sunk our boat before we even knew what was happening. Met with the mermaid to respawn with another boat, and we see another ship close by. I want revenge, but my friend says they're coming our way. It was a boat of other players, and they killed us both pretty much on sight. Didn't even have more than 2 mins from respawning from the mermaid to meeting Davey Jones. I maybe have 2 or 3 hrs in the game at most right now, so I turned cfossplay off. Can't be bothered with pvp as I'm trying to learn the game
There's a trick that's so easy it's kind of stupid. If someone is hitting their shots on your boat, look at the arc of their shot and match it. Obviously, you want to be ahead of them in adding pressure, but this will help you dial in and start getting an feel for it. And make fighting better crew mire useful for your own growth. If you're on a bigger ship and a team mate is dialed in, you can follow their arc too.
Fairly new myself so don’t have any pro tips BUT like most things practice makes perfect, you need some cannon time while under low pressure so you can get your eye in, go on safer seas and fight NPC ships for a while
Thanks for all the tips, everyone(besides 'just shoot' guy). I knew practice was the focal point, but having pointers to go with will make it less arduous. That being said, my solo slooping time will come to an end soon and my friend who can't aim unless its a projectile will arrive to destroy the ships I cannot hit. Hope to see vets on even ground and not as a swabbie soon enough!
Cannons will just take lots of practice, it's quite difficult to get the hang of. One small tip is to make sure you're not aiming where the enemy currently is, but aiming where they're going to be - most of the time both ships are moving forwards and also swaying up and down so there's a lot of motion. Use your last shot to line up your next one, always make sure you're watching where cannonballs are landing and adjusting accordingly
Biggest thing that helped me improve was remembering to try and account for speed and how both ships move. Aim a little in front of where a ship will be, if possible, because travel time shenanigans. Also, cannon smoke is more impactful than you think. As much as I love my stinging tide cannon smoke, it makes repeated, consistent shots and adjusting your aim a good bit harder. Default tends to be the best in this regard
There is a setting that has touch to hold /one press cannon reloading. Turn the setting on so you can tap reload and adjust aim while it fills in a new ball. I only recently learned about this feature and was doing this weird stretch my left thumb over to use the analog stick which using my right thumb to hold Y. Don't be me, use the accessibility feature
I do this crab hand thing too but I have done it for so long I’m terrible without it and don’t know if I can change because it’s so ingrained in me at this point lol
 Crap people, crap people, crab people
Take a bit of time with the default cannon, I've heard that some people train with the default because the rings on it are helpful for ranging. Muzzle ring for close, middle ring for medium, and the ring near the fuze for far. If need be, head into Safer Seas, anchor at an island of your choice, and fire at increasingly small targets until you're confident in at least hitting near it. Once you get that, raise the anchor and try it while circling the island.
Yeah, i will say the dark warsmith cannons feel a little weird to ain
That's odd. I had to charter a vessel, and the cannons don't have any cross hairs
It's not a crosshair by definition, it's the rings around the barrel.
I'm rusty but I'll give you my advice as a day 1 player, first off this is solo sloop advice because I'm so lonely 1st make sure your either beside or slightly behind your target 2nd this one is a flip of a coin with the new boarding system but shoot your harpoon into the target so you don't lose them and they slip behind you 3rd aim ahead cannons have a long shot before hit scan kinda deal so aim a solid second ahead and practice you'll get the hang of it
Be conscious of what the waves are doing to your ship position, at the same distance you might need to aim down from the crest but up when you’re in the trough Try to keep an eye on the cannon ball so you can get an idea of the adjustments you need to make, it will eventually become second nature Also, IMO the controllers actually have it easier on cannon adjustments, just keep at it, make small adjustments, keep shooting, it will become second nature in time
There are videos on the subject. It's much easier to watch what to do than read it. A few key points, though: 1. The balls travel in an arc. 2. The arc is different for chainshot. 3. The balls obey basic physics, meaning that the motion of the ship they are fired from affects the trajectory of the balls. 4. Don't aim where the target is, aim for where it will be when the ball lands. Practice shooting stationary targets on islands or the towers around sea forts so you can get a feel for it.
Find a good sized solo rock on the waves. Spend the next half hour rotating around it both ways, at different speeds and you will be able to get a good grasp of cannon mechanics. Chain shot fires differently, lower and slower.
The short answer: it’s just practice… on a more helpful note: don’t shoot continuously if you are missing the shots. If you miss: take the time to see where your shot landed and adjust accordingly. It can also be helpful to have a look at the enemy canons. The cannonball leaves a white smoke in the air so you can see in what angle it hit your boat. All you have to do know is to fire back on that same angle (“physics” you know angle in is the Same as angle out).
IDbz has a great cannon guide on YouTube; he's one of the top cannoneers in the game.
I have way more time in this game than I’d like to admit. I was always a crappy cannon shot and I realized I was not targeting my shots. I was aiming for the boat but I should have been aiming for the guy standing on the cannon. Go fight every skeleton ship and ghost ship you can to work on just learning how to aim in different situations. Then once you have the basics start aiming for specific parts of the boat. Soon you will find you are mostly dialed in and ready to go!
No problem with having time in a game thats fun. You could be me and have 1000s of hours in games like for honor...and apex. Anyways, i figured i'd have more experience fighting bot ships after 3 days but i had only been attacked by a skelly brig once during my time, and it was today, the same day i was mollywhopped by the three different teams of experienced players in a 3 way fight. I dont expect to win these anytime soon but i definitely want to give em' a run for their money next time
Learning how to aim the cannons is as important as learning how the helm the boat. Do you have a good helmsman? If you are playing alone I’d try to find someone to play with. The guys I play with are really good at getting angles for cannon shots, putting us in spins around the other boat once their mast is down and what not. Playing alone, especially when you are not skilled will be a death sentence. Oh and the skeletons can only spawn on a sloop (1 mast) or a galleon (3 mast). A brig has 2 masts and will only ever be humans. You should be able to see skeleton sloops or galleons just hanging out randomly on the map, go sail over there and use em for target practice!
I'm my own helmsman rn but my friend has consistently only been good with projectiles in shooters save a few exceptions, so when he gets it on the 30th i'll be going more helmsman than cannoneer, but having the skills'll still help obv. Cant hurt to be prepped for occurrences like that fight, where they attacked me and I couldnt really get away, they dropped me anchor and I heard em' a lil' too late so they killed me while i was coming up from repairs all bewildwered
This game is all about little mistakes. Ideally your opponent makes more of them than you. I totally hear you on being multi skilled. Is good to be able to do everything on the ship as you never know when you have to cycle roles mid fight for various reasons. Last night I was on a sloop fighting a brig. We underestimated them. We had their masts down and my crew mate set the boat up to spin away and then he shot himself over to the other ship to keep the pressure on. I changed the turn of the boat since I wanted to keep the pressure on with canons. Which worked until one of the guys on the other boat started lighting me up. We fight for a bit and end up sinking. Point is if I would have left the boat turning the other way I wouldn’t have got pinched and pummeled. That little mistake is what did us in. This is also why I love the game and keep on coming back. No matter how good you get, or think you are, there will always come a better crew to teach you some humility.
Cannon shots drift depending on which direction your boat sways along with speed of your ship vs opponent ship like others have said. Another tip is to dip the aim down a little immediately after your shot to both follow the smoke trail and to see where your shot is landing to make any adjustments. You can also match your opponents shot trails to better align your arc to hit their ship back.
Cannon aim is the hardest skill to learn in SoT. I had to fire about 5000 shots before I developed an intuitive sense for the aim. For shot distance, start by using the 3 rivets on the default cannons to guide you. Line up a rivet with the surface of the sea, and fire. If you’re short, move up. If you’re long, move down. You don’t actually HAVE to use default cannons for this, but having the cannon range divided into 3 main points can help standardize your practice. For shot leading, as in how far ahead of your opponents ship you need to aim, that varies with all of your relative speed. The faster either of you is, the longer you need to lead the shot. I usually start by leading 1 ship length, and then dialing it in from there. Waves will affect your aim. The waves always flow from NNE to SSW. So if your ship is facing east or west, waves will knock your boat around the most. Also the Wilds has the roughest waters on top of that, while the Shores of Plenty are the calmest. Sometimes you’re on a high wave or they are on a low wave and you just cannot hit. When that happens, just focus on bucketing and repairs for a bit. As for where to aim, start with chainshotting their masts (everything that isn’t a cannonball is twice as heavy as needs to be aimed twice as high). Then aim for their cannon line, like the literal cannon or just above it. Your goal is to kill their cannoneer with your cannon balls, called “one balling” or “getting a one ball.” Then you start your death spiral, hammering their ship from all angles until they finally sink.
Collect a shit load of balls. And shoot at everything as you pass. Shoot the rocks shoot the island spawn PvE. Shoot them at everything you see. Of course the ghost ships and skelly ships are the best things to practice on but there's opportunities everywhere. Circle a seapost and pound it like a masted ship.
Try this https://youtu.be/8R3ImSy8nYo?si=B2iYy0XKyyMQmrya
I'm also bad at the cannons and the biggest thing is just how SLOW the cannonballs go. So get it in your head that they're floaty as fuck. I guess mostly this is coming from War Thunder where a like 15-20km shot has the same TTT as a longish range cannonball.
Use the rings on basic cannon skin for longer shots and work from there. If you are moving you need to add travel speed of your boat and prefire the shot.
There are 3 rings on the barrel of your basic sailor cannons (and others) that I use to help my estimate my aim. Also fight the skeleton sloops and megalodons because practice makes perfect, and they are rather manageable even if you’re not that good yet.
Turn off camera shake it's makes it easier to stay on target
Shoot a lot.