Cannon

Cannons are the main weapon players use in ship-to-ship battles for sinking ships; they appear as a black cast iron 9-pounder or 18-pounder, muzzle-loading demi-cannon on a wooden carriage.

Cannons have the longest effective range in the game, able to fire at a distance of up to 700 metres. They can fire a variety of shot types- Round Shot, Grapeshot, Grapples, Chain Shot, Bar Shot, and Heated Shot, which all have different effects on the enemy ship.

To load a cannon, these steps must be taken:
 * Load Gunpowder.
 * Choose and load one of these Shot types:
 * Cannon Ball
 * Grape Shot
 * Grapple Shot
 * Heated Shot
 * Ram in the Shot using your Ramrod, by holding M1.
 * Push the cannon into position by pressing E.

Once these steps have been followed, the cannon can be fired by pressing E near a loaded cannon to equip your Ignition Stick, and pressing E again to aim down the cannon's sights.

Cannons are aimed similarly to a grenade launcher in other FPS titles; further information on aiming a cannon can be read here. Once a Cannonball fired from a Cannon hits a ship, it will puncture a Hole in the hull of the ship, and create a shatter of wooden splinters in a five-foot diameter (three-foot if fired from a range between 700 and 600 metres) which can severely injure or kill enemies nearby.

Despite their aiming method and visual delay before hitting the target, Cannons actually use a hitscan-based hit detection method for the purposes of lag compensation and less frustrating aiming. This means that even on high ping servers, players should be able to reliably hit their targets if they aimed well.