Guide No crew to cannon? No problem. (leveling cannon skill solo on your own ship)

[ScarLion]

When I joined back up on TLOPO I was looking forward to sailing/cannoning again. Unable to find a ship that's "public" & the uncertainty of joining random pirates the leveling was going too slow. There had to be a quicker way...and through trial & error I think I've found a good way to level your cannon quicker...by yourself, on your own ship. (I did a search & didn't find any info about cannoning solo so if this is repeated I apologize...)

What you will need to do:

Skill Points
- Max out Chain Shot to 5 (which becomes available at level 2.)
- Throw a couple skill points into Rapid Reload (at level 6)
- At level 10 start with Barrage and max it out to 5.

Strategy
It has been documented many times that the more sails you take out then more xp you will get for sinking the ship. So the method is pretty straight-forward; you take out the sails first then damage the ship until sunk. The best part about it is you don't have to move your ship at all after you start firing your cannons....

First off, you want to park behind the ship with your broadsides facing the rear of the ship you're attacking (I prefer to go after the Frigates & Galleons since they are slower than the Sloops, and be careful not to park too close or else you'll be spotted, most likely you'll need to take the wheel.) Then go to your cannon & select Chain Shot. Aim at the sails & fire the 1st set of 2 chains at the ship, you should have time to get one more round in before the ship starts to turn around (making it harder to hit the sails.) When the ship is out of range switch to the default Round Shot and shoot at the closest side a few times until the ship is almost finishing his turn. Then switch back to Chain Shot & take out the sails as he is heading back to you. Once you take the sails out the ship will stop & he won't be able to turn his broadsides toward you. Once the sails are down use whatever shot to shoot each side until it catches fire, then you can finish it off however you want...and all the xp will obviously go into cannon skill.

Of coarse the key is to be accurate with your chain shots. Practice on small ships to get used to it (as you know the bigger the ship, the more damage needed to break the sails.) I believe it was roughly 40-50xp for each of the smaller ships I had sunk with this method. Around Isla Cangrejos the EITC Ogre & Navy Monarchs were around 70xp. Going after the big ones such as the EITC Behemoth & Navy Dreadnought getting 95-115 xp each ship.

Hopefully this method will helpful to other pirates (especially those that aren't in a guild yet) to work on leveling your cannon skill a bit faster...

-- EDIT -- Omitted part about cannon defense for gaining cannon xp skill, which I was corrected that it does not.

 

[Sky Kiwi]

I just want to point out that Cannon Defense doesn't actually give you cannon skill at all.
It has its own level that resets every time you start playing it.

How far behind the enemy ships do you start doing this? Is it far enough away that they can't broadside you while they're turning?

 

[ScarLion]

I just want to point out that Cannon Defense doesn't actually give you cannon skill at all.
It has its own level that resets every time you start playing it.

How far behind the enemy ships do you start doing this? Is it far enough away that they can't broadside you while they're turning?

Okay, I thought that playing cannon defense did give you xp for it (albeit not much)...thanks for letting me know about that.

I get up as close as possible before they spot you (when their wake stops for a second & then starts up again.)

I never had any broadside shots come towards me until I was facing the bigger ships like the behemoths or dreadnoughts, and most of the time they would miss, sometimes maybe a fraction of the broadside would hit.

 

[Ataelos]

XP is measured in the amount of hits you made on the foe, except that ALL THINGS HAVE A MAXIMUM amount of XP they can possibly drop. Sure, you could use a Rusty Sabre to get around 143 XP from something, same with chain shot on sails. With ships, and their abundance, the best way to gain XP from them would be hitting a higher quantity rather than more hits focused on one because A) More cargo, and B) more XP faster because everything also has a Minimum XP drop.

 

[Sky Kiwi]

XP is measured in the amount of hits you made on the foe, except that ALL THINGS HAVE A MAXIMUM amount of XP they can possibly drop. Sure, you could use a Rusty Sabre to get around 143 XP from something, same with chain shot on sails. With ships, and their abundance, the best way to gain XP from them would be hitting a higher quantity rather than more hits focused on one because A) More cargo, and B) more XP faster because everything also has a Minimum XP drop.

I 100% concur with this. I said something of the sort in another thread, actually.
To add to this, not only is there a maximum exp per enemy (per weapon), but each hit starts to give you less experience past a certain point, even if you haven't reached the max yet. This is diminishing returns, and as a result it's very inefficient to get over 100 rep per enemy (if you have other enemies you could be beating up on too).

 

[Ataelos]

I 100% concur with this. I said something of the sort in another thread, actually.
To add to this, not only is there a maximum exp per enemy (per weapon), but each hit starts to give you less experience past a certain point, even if you haven't reached the max yet. This is diminishing returns, and as a result it's very inefficient to get over 100 rep per enemy (if you have other enemies you could be beating up on too).

I've noticed you like statistics a lot. I've got the knowledge and ideas to find statistics, but not the work ethic to actually do it. Maybe we could work together to find all sorts of things, maybe even get our own forum genre.

 

[ThunderStorms]

Rip the sails for 115 XP .... Sink the ship with broadsides for 115 ! Easy ! Soloing !

 

[Sky Kiwi]

I've noticed you like statistics a lot. I've got the knowledge and ideas to find statistics, but not the work ethic to actually do it. Maybe we could work together to find all sorts of things, maybe even get our own forum genre.

I'm pretty similar when it comes to statistics actually! When it comes to actual probability based stuff like looting I just don't have the work ethic to record a bunch of findings and find out the numbers haha. But if it's reliable math I'm always intrigued

I've been too busy to actually play for a few weeks now, but hit me up in PM any time if you have something in mind to collaborate on, I'm definitely down for that!

Also, it's kinda neat having people remember who I am from my other posts haha

Rip the sails for 115 XP .... Sink the ship with broadsides for 115 ! Easy ! Soloing !

This technique is actually fairly inefficient for the cannoneers - this technique is geared towards letting the captain get decent rep (gunners take out sails while captain sinks the ship). The best way to get rep as a cannoneer is to try getting around 80-90 rep per ship with your captain racking up a lot of ships at once (so you always have lots of new ships to shoot at). If your cannons/crew are too strong to achieve 80-90 rep per ship from hull shots - ie sinking the ship too fast - you can hit the sails a few times before moving on to the hull, but you don't necessarily have to destroy the sails - you just need to land a certain amount of hits (depends on your ammo type / skill levels)