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Migolcow

Artillery discussion: What has been figured out?

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Updated with more info, at the bottom are the question marks I still don't know.

One thing I'd note to any lurking devs, the Artillery tree needs a lot of tweaks for the non crafting portions.     I could maybe see someone quickly respec'ing mortar reload time in a pinch but generally you have npcs on cannons, swivels etc.      This means that the reload time talents, the improved targeting speed talents, etc are all pretty much useless.     It's not like the current base targetting speed is all that bad for any of them in particular either.

Would really like to see either something like an artillery perk that give a bit more (doesn't have to be much!) range, or gives a cooldown similar to that of the other trees at the bottom to make artillery more effective somehow.

 

Here's what I've figured out so far:

1) Mortar- By far the best weapon in the Artillery tree.     Excellent (ridiculous on cliffs or stone towers!) range, does hardcore damage on ships, which they can outrange.   Can swivel left and right.    It does not have the vision problems other guns have where you can't see the target of the arc well.    Only shoots the mortar shot.     This is -the- base defense and harbor defense weapon against hostile ships.

This is also one of the more feasible current strategies for besieging someone, if you can find a spot not covered by their mortars, claim it and set up your own mortars to bust a hole in their base.

The only con is you can't put them on ships.   

2) Medium/Regular ship's cannon.    These are the cannons that go into gunports on a ship like a brigadine, the large cannons -do not- fit.    They're effective if not that powerful at base level, but the power can be compensated by having a lot of them or by crafting better ones from blueprints (recommended).     You can assign NPCs to each cannon and order them to fire at the podium or wheel.   They can swivel left and right,  and are going to be the main weapon against ships of the damned or pvp player ships.     Don't seem all that effective against stone buildings.  

Extra Ammo: Bar shot, it is an ANTI-SAIL shot, aim at the mast or Sails to do more damage... it is designed as a disabling shot.    It is also a high end creature bola (!??!).

3) Large Cannons-Very limited but Powerful.    To get them on ships you need to build a support structure, easiest technique is on a ceiling supported by 4 walls, with a sloped wall (ramp) going up to the cannon.      The important thing here is they can't swivel, they can only shoot near or far, not left or right.    The ship's navigator has to line up the enemy ship to be in sight of this.   However they do a good deal more damage to enemy ships and have better range as the tradeoff.    If you have a skilled navigator who can "Jiggle" the ship to line the shots up this is probably the one to use.

Important notes:  First of all, the ceiling/walls/ramp setup and the cannon itself  does NOT count as part of the ship and has to be repaired separately and has a longer cooldown before the repairs can be made.    Also the actual ship deck under the ceiling/walls will still take damage (IE isn't shielded by the walls/ceiling/cannon 100%).     

These can also be used to fair effectiveness against stone buildings if you can get them in range, and if so are the most cost efficient method (mortar shots and tnt barrels are expensive)

4) Swivel Gun- Great defensive tool for your ships and bases.    Man them with NPCs, and use windows on ships, and set them up to shoot at your front door in bases (or from the side or into hallways, w/e).     Instant death to most intruders with Grapeshot.     It's also viable to set up a swivel on a fast ship and run alongside a ship to burn them with liquid fire, which does great amounts of damage.    Recommend using a fast schooner for this against bigger boats.  

Greek Fire talent=Liquid Fire=Basically the swivel gun becomes a flamethrower.    Not instantly lethal but burns enemies with a fire dot.    Very effective against ships as well.

Canister Shot=Shoots an explosive charge.   Seems to do decent damage to wood, untested on stone or players.

Grapeshot=Shoots a conal aoe (very short range but strong, can one shot).     Probably your best defense against boarders.

5) Puckle Gun- Decent elevation and might be the best "NPC Gun" for anti-player defense (aside from short range base/ship traps that use swivels).      Does decent damage but not as much as a flintlock in a player's hands.     One positive is that if surrounded by 3 walls on a foundation and looking out a doorway "wall", animals cannot attack the NPC manning it, they'll strike at the puckle gun without doing damage.     Cannot be set up on ships.

6) Grenades-Does massive damage to mortars and cannons (much more than to regular stone structures).     Does decently against players and tames.    

7) TNT Barrels-Can be fired from large cannons (Short range but powerful).     Can be laid down to explode with a timer.      Immense damage to ships if placed correctly in water.

8 ) Oil Jar-Not strictly artillery tree but worth mentioning.    Need flame arrows as well to use these, they're low budget but work very well if you want to glide or hook on to assault enemy ships.    The best strategy if you can see the ship's captain is to oil jar+fire arrow at the ship's wheel.     Otherwise doing the same at cannons is effective in stopping their attacks for a bit, and it does well against ship planks.

9) Ballista - Used for hunting whales.    Decent against other things too but so cost inefficient as to be laughable, just hunt Moby Dick.

10) Catapult - Low budget but I struggle to find a use for this, the aiming, range and damage seem inferior to a cannon in every way.

Honorable mention to the ammo storage box that is also craftable from this tree.     It functions as a "trough" for ammo that your cannons automatically consume from, IE put one down in the middle of your ship (below deck and in a sealed room!).    Then place all your cannonballs, liquid fire, grapeshot, etc etc in it and they'll be consumed from every armament on board.

Still Unknown:

Spike Shot - it seems very weak?     It's basically a cannon shot that sticks and does an explosion after a while, but I struggle to find any use for this?     

Canister Shot - explosive round from the swivel, again I have a hard time seeing this do more than liquid flame against ships, or do more against players than grapeshot.    It does seem to have a bit more range but...???

 

Edited by Migolcow
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Good info. Going to put some on our cliffs. Have some griefers the next island over. Be a nice surprise for them.

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Puckle gun is trash. Really short range and bad damage. Really no reason it shouldn't be able to pick up again.

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Puckle and swivel are really meant for repelling borders, though the swivel gun fire ammo is great for setting things on fire.

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5 minutes ago, Paradigm said:

Puckle gun is trash. Really short range and bad damage. Really no reason it shouldn't be able to pick up again.

When you say bad damage do you mean against ships/structures?    The one time I've seen it used was when it one-shot a visitor when our NPC got bloodthirsty.

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I set up a puckle just outside of our Yeti cage for a test, 35 damage to the body, 120 or so to the head, 10 second reload, 5 shot clip with 3 seconds between shots.

Thats a total of 25 seconds.

Also the arc of the gun is very limited, it has approximately 10-15 degrees of depression, so is useless to try and mount it on a high point, but it does have about 70 degrees of elevation, which could be handy. Its range seems very limited, to less than 100 meters... if not less.

Flintlock pistol, 400 or so damage to the yetis head, 140 or so to the body, and i can reload and fire twice in about 28 seconds, and the range is as far as i can see.

The only advantage here would be the puckle can be mounted by a crewman, but for a player, you're better off using the pistol.

 

 

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Ok, revised the puckle gun, disappointing to hear that it's also a bust; must have headshot the guy visiting us.       Still waiting to hear if anyone's used the TNT barrel, that's the biggest question mark on my mind as if it doesn't do substantial base damage then the best route is a carriage cannon and a LOT of resources.

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Tried to build the catapult once, seemed incredibly underwhelming.     Could have just been using it wrong, but it seemed very unwieldly (Iirc we did get it on the ship but couldn't hit with it).    Haven't tried ballista, tbh I forgot about both because I automatically figued cannon would be better (in ark terms I figured the ballista/catapult were the equivalent of the glass water jar or such, just a lower tech item.       Could be wrong?

The TNT thing could be true though...not sure it'd be worth bothering with as opposed to just placing it though like some suicidal orc from the Two Towers.   If someone has used either successfully and thinks they're worthwhile let me know and I'll add them to the list.

Edited by Migolcow

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Perhaps balista have some bonus damage to living creatures so could be good against whales or players. As for catapult it also have own ammunition which is just a rock, that could be just a primitive cannon when not having enough resources, like some sort of substitude or it just works diferently not weaker.

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5 hours ago, Migolcow said:

My tribe has gotten to the point where we needed me to spec hard into Artillery to build the various weapons for base defense and our ship.     The problem is the descriptions on the weapons and ammo are really lacking in terms of what ammo gets shot by what weapon and what they are effective against...and where they can be placed.    

(Grapeshot/Wildcard, please put some more info there!)

One thing I have yet to figure out is what weapon is best to use against enemy Stone Fortresses...right now a stone building with a person sleeping inside is Very Hard to get into.   Not necessarily a bad thing of course, since it's easier for people established on an island to actually defend themselves and not be wiped overnight so easily.

 

Here's what I've figured out so far:

1) Mortar- By far my favorite thing in the Artillery tree.     This has excellent (ridiculous on cliff!) range, does hardcore damage on ships, and can swivel left and right.    It does not have the vision problems other guns have where you can't see the target of the arc well.    Only shoots the mortar shot.

The only con is you can't put them on ships.    This broke my heart a little but I guess they might be OP as you could attack a base way out of range of non-mortar defenses (You still could capture a bit of land near a base, especially high on a cliff, plop this onto a foundation and go to town though...).

2) Medium/Regular ship's cannon.    Just so everyone knows, these are the cannons that go into gunports on a ship like a brigadine, the large cannons -do not- fit.    They're effective if not that powerful but the power can be compensated by having a lot of them.     You can assign NPCs to each cannon and order them to fire at the podium or wheel (we have about 12 NPCs manning them below deck, 6 on each side).     They can swivel left and right,  and are going to be the main weapon against ships of the damned or pvp player ships.     Don't seem all that effective against stone buildings.   

Note: We have our NPCs set to fire at ships; this means they'll occasionally take shots at rafts and whatnot as you sail by if you're not careful.     We do this so there's some "offline protection" against random guys attacking our boat but your call.

3) Large Cannons-Very limited but Powerful.    To get them on our ship we had to build 4 walls, a ceiling, and a ramp leading up (we put one on our left side, one on our right, will probly put one in back soon).      The important thing here is they can't swivel, they can only shoot near or far, not left or right.    The ship's navigator has to line up the enemy ship to be in sight of this.   However they do a LOT of damage to enemy ships as the tradeoff.

Important notes:  First of all, the ceiling/walls/ramp setup and the cannon itself  does NOT count as part of the ship and has to be repaired separately and has a longer cooldown before the repairs can be made.     Nearly lost one when the wall close to the deck's railing was nearly down and we didn't notice.    Also the actual shipdeck under the ceiling/walls will still take damage (IE isn't shielded by the walls/ceiling/cannon).     Finally I have not had a chance to test these against a stone building, would like to know if they're effective.

4) Swivel Gun-Hate to say it but so far disappointing.    You can swivel it but there's not always a targeting sight for the various ammos.    The Grapeshot might be powerful but the range is pathetic, haven't had a chance to really test it's damage.    Flame uses too much ammo for a steady stream that also has miserable range, tried putting it at the prow of our ship and couldn't hit a ship of the damned that rammed our side 😞.    Have not had a chance to make the canister shot yet.    

I imagine the good use of this gun is in a base defense, with an Npc poised to fire from the side at people who bread down your front door.    Important note that this more or less requires the use of the Gun Mount, something you find a bit deep in the construction/mercantile tree.    You can place it on a foundation or such but it's aim and firing is awkward as anything.    Might be useful against boarders on a ship but frankly I think just having weapons yourself (and being able to move) is probably better.

5) Puckle Gun-Apparently not much of an improvement over the swivel gun, though it has decent elevation and might be the best "NPC Gun" for anti-player defense (aside from short range base traps that use swivels).      Does decent damage but not as much as a flintlock in a player's hands.     One positive is that if surrounded by 3 walls on a foundation and looking out a doorway "wall", animals cannot attack the NPC manning it, they'll strike at the puckle gun without doing damage.     

6) Grenades-Very disappointing.    Does -pathetic- damage to stone.    Does not seem to do much against players.

 

That's about the extent of my knowledge so far, here's the big question marks I have left:

1) Bar Shot-What fires this?    Given the look I'd say it's probably meant to take down a mast?     Does it do extra damage to them?

2) Greek Fire-Haven't made this yet, guessing it's either the Large Cannon or Medium Cannon.     Extra damage against ships?   Against wood structures?    Anti-personnel?

3) TNT Barrels-The description says they can be shot OR placed, and exploded with a fire arrow.    Suspecting these might be the "base busters" given the extreme mats needed to make one?   Just pile some near a door and explode from range?    Also what fires them?

 

1- Mortars were historically land based artillery, while there are some notable exceptions to this, like the Mortar Ketch which had a mortar mounted in the center of the ship between to masts and was strictly used to siege forts from the bay.   

4- Swivel guns, are by definition anti-personele guns.   They were meant to punch through the thin upper wood works of the deck and pick off any long boats that attempt to approach the ship.   

5- Puckle gun.... basically the first "gatling" gun.   It was a high rate of fire gun in a time of slow paced shooting.

6- ITS A GRENADE NOT A DEMOLITION CHARGE!!!!!!!!

Flamethrowers are short ranged, and you need to be alongside to really be useful.. welcome bit of reality in a video game, I appreciate it.

Bar shot- Anti-rigging/mast/sail shot.  Your regular cannon should be able to shoot this as an option to the basic round shot.

Greek Fire, is used for flamethrowers and probably catapults.  It is nothing more than a REALLY old version of Napalm. 

TNT barrels is most likely used for fortification destruction.   I cant imagine them using them like Sea of Thieves. 

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Have you run tests against creatures?

I'm on a PvE server and we're curious about the practicality of using mounted weapons to clear out large swarms of hostile creatures like Wolves; could a puckle gun or swivel on a sloop for example, put pay to chasing alligators or allow a crew to mow down a horde of wolves before making landfall?

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I'd imagine you'd want something with range, the puckle might but shooting an arrow while swimming in the water is probalby the best option.      

Edited by Migolcow

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Confirmed Puckle gun doesn't work on ships 😕Really wish they'd tooltip some of this stuff.

Did try the canister shot out though for swivel gun, it seems promising.    Did ~1500 damage to wood.     Will try stone at first opportunity.

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3 minutes ago, Migolcow said:

Confirmed Puckle gun doesn't work on ships 😕Really wish they'd tooltip some of this stuff.

Did try the canister shot out though for swivel gun, it seems promising.    Did ~1500 damage to wood.     Will try stone at first opportunity.

Do you mean, Puckle gun cant be placed on ships. Or cant do damage to ships? 

Can the Canister shot do damage to ship wood? 

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Just now, ShoulderRabbit said:

Do you mean, Puckle gun cant be placed on ships. Or cant do damage to ships? 

Can the Canister shot do damage to ship wood?  

Sorry for the bad wording, it can't be placed on ships.    

 

I -think- ship wood is treated differently from wood structures but not sure.   However at this point while I'm warming up to swivel guns as a great defense tool (we use a lot of them on our Brig against boarders, NPCs are fine to permanently man them behind windows)...their range makes them a very sketchy thing for offense.

 

I guess as it now stands:

OFFENSE ARTILLERY:

Tier S-Mortar (kills everything dead, great range)

Tier A-Suicide bombers with explosives and fire arrows in wingsuits (against docked ships in harbor)

...

Tier C-Cannons

...

Tier F-Everything else.

 

The fact is that Range and ease of use (or lack) kills most of the others for offense.    You might be able to do something with the "ramming the ship" plan and whatnot, but otherwise puckles and swivels are for defense.

 

Having said that, swivels are GREAT for ship defense.   You make a room of walls and ceilings with windows on your shipdeck, put a gun mount and swivel behind it in the room with an npc manning.    Ammo chest inside the ship locked up.     As long as you remember to pay the NPCs they will wipe out anyone who boards the ship in their line of fire.

Puckles have a bit more range and might be ok for base defense I guess?    But base defense should primarily be well placed mortars imo, although the mats for their ammo are crazy (the real reason pirates were after diamonds, emeralds and other gems?    Because they're so explosive and such apparently).

 

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In the trailer they show the swivel gun spewing out fire like a flamethrower. I assumed that was what Greek fire was. I would like to know what gun is best against land animals. I mounted a canon on the back of my anchored boat, facing the land, thinking I was going to blow crocs to pieces, but it did about as much damage as a pistol. I was quite disappointed.

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28 minutes ago, MagicPuncher said:

In the trailer they show the swivel gun spewing out fire like a flamethrower. I assumed that was what Greek fire was. I would like to know what gun is best against land animals. I mounted a canon on the back of my anchored boat, facing the land, thinking I was going to blow crocs to pieces, but it did about as much damage as a pistol. I was quite disappointed.

Yeah that's liquid fire (which is indeed learned under the "greek fire" skill, WILDCARD PLEASE settle on one name for skills and put tooltips!), it's good against boarders, I'm not sure if that or grapeshot is better.     If I had to guess it's probably intended to use both on defense, the liquid fire sets attackers on fire with the dot applied, and the grapeshot is a burst of conal aoe damage.

The canister seemed like a small explosive round and did decent damage to wood, haven't tested against players yet.

Edited by Migolcow

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On 1/2/2019 at 1:22 PM, Migolcow said:

 

That's about the extent of my knowledge so far, here's the big question marks I have left:

1) Bar Shot-What fires this?    Given the look I'd say it's probably meant to take down a mast?     Does it do extra damage to them?

2) Greek Fire-Haven't made this yet, guessing it's either the Large Cannon or Medium Cannon.     Extra damage against ships?   Against wood structures?    Anti-personnel?

3) TNT Barrels-The description says they can be shot OR placed, and exploded with a fire arrow.    Suspecting these might be the "base busters" given the extreme mats needed to make one?   Just pile some near a door and explode from range?    Also what fires them?

 

 

Bar shot- fired from regular cannon, it is an ANTI-SAIL shot, aim at the mast or Sails to do more damage... it is designed as a disabling shot.

Greek Fire- Swivel gun ammo... nasty close range flamethrower effect.  

TNT Barrels- Two ways of using them... 1 fire them from LARGE cannons, VERY short range, but has a timer and will detonate doing MASSIVE damage to a ship.  OR can be shot once in the water to detonate them sooner.   2- Can be carried on to the target area, placed and have a timer set for them... and RUN you just placed a bomb!

 

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2 hours ago, Hodo said:

 

Bar shot- fired from regular cannon, it is an ANTI-SAIL shot, aim at the mast or Sails to do more damage... it is designed as a disabling shot.

Greek Fire- Swivel gun ammo... nasty close range flamethrower effect.  

TNT Barrels- Two ways of using them... 1 fire them from LARGE cannons, VERY short range, but has a timer and will detonate doing MASSIVE damage to a ship.  OR can be shot once in the water to detonate them sooner.   2- Can be carried on to the target area, placed and have a timer set for them... and RUN you just placed a bomb!

 

Cool, thanks for the info.      Any chance you have the numbers for the bar shot?   Wondering if it's a little more or a lot more than a regular cannonshot if hitting a sail.

And for TNT barrels, is there a timer set automatically or do you choose the time somehow?

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1 hour ago, Migolcow said:

Cool, thanks for the info.      Any chance you have the numbers for the bar shot?   Wondering if it's a little more or a lot more than a regular cannonshot if hitting a sail.

And for TNT barrels, is there a timer set automatically or do you choose the time somehow?

No unfortunately I dont have the numbers for the bar shot.  But it has a REALLY short range and is kind of a pain to hit with.

TNT Barrels do have a timer... I think you can set them a max of 5min.  But I will have to check again maybe more... been a few days since I even messed with one.   But if you have to sink someones ship that is left unattended... just board it with one of these... walk down to the bottom deck, place the barrel set the timer, jump overboard and watch the show.

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Word from one of our allies is that Grenades are doing a huge amount of damage to Mortars and possibly cannons.    Can anyone confirm this?    I've seen their (pathetic) damage to stone and they're not nearly as effective on players as fire arrows or carbines, if true though this would be a bona-fide use.

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9 minutes ago, Migolcow said:

Word from one of our allies is that Grenades are doing a huge amount of damage to Mortars and possibly cannons.    Can anyone confirm this?    I've seen their (pathetic) damage to stone and they're not nearly as effective on players as fire arrows or carbines, if true though this would be a bona-fide use.

Senn ons tream them doing like 1-2k dmg to mortars.

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