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David Hunt: Pirates of the Burning Sea uses a standard WASD control scheme for ship movement, but that’s where the similarity to most MMOGs ends. Wind-powered ships have a limited range of movement because they cannot make quick 180 degree turns, and their speed is restricted by the wind. Sailing a ship is about watching the wind and utilizing it to exploit the weaknesses of your enemies and take advantage of your strengths. Every ship has a different set of handling characteristics that determine how well it sails at the various wind angles.

David: Players start off as the captain of a 6 gun ship. The specific 6 gun ship varies depending on the career you choose, but schooners are the most common ones. We ease players into the sailing mechanics by giving them weak opponents in the tutorial and first couple missions.

David: When you entering boarding combat, you bring small groups of your crew in waves to attack or defend against the enemy ship. Your crewmembers fight alongside you, and it’s possible to give them simple commands to help direct the fight. As the captain, you determine how and when to fire your guns. Once you issue the order, the crew carries out the task and handles the minute details.

David: We started with a set of ship models that we contracted from Akella. Since then, all the ship additions came from our user content community. More than half of the ship models in the game were created by fans, and the efforts of the community make Pirates a better game.

Creating a ship is a huge undertaking that starts with proper ship selection. It’s important to have a good set of time period appropriate ship plans. Most ship models come from authentic 18th century plans that were used for real ships. The ship modeler then builds the ship piece by piece over months, while the community and the Steering Committee help by providing feedback and guidance. Once the modeler is satisfied with the project and gets the submission approved by the Steering Committee, the model gets sent to FLS and we go through a process to add it to all areas of the game world.

David: Yes. Boarding is an important element of ship combat, and it adds some extra danger when you’re too close to an enemy ship in PvP. We have three fighting schools: dirty fighting, fencing and Florentine. You’ll need to choose dirty fighting if you want to wield a cutlass!

David: Every ship gun has a different weight that refers to the size of the shot it fires. Heavier guns do more damage, fire farther and reload slower. It’s extremely important to think about the range of your guns, especially if you have a ship with multiple gun batteries. A typical frigate will have a main battery of heavy guns and a top deck battery with lighter guns. That means there’s a range gap in their effectiveness depending on which sets of guns can hit. Experienced PvP players learn the different ship load outs and gun ranges and attempt to maintain a range that will give them a firepower edge over their opponents.

There are three main types of shot: round, dismantling and antipersonnel. Round is the standard, ship-destroying shot type. Dismantling shot is used for destroying masts and rigging to slow down the enemy ship. Antipersonnel is used to target the crew to make the target easier to board and reduce the performance of the ship.

David: We have two main areas for ship combat PvP. The first is AdHoc PvP that takes place in the Open Sea. Currently, these battles allow up to 6 players on each side to fight each other. Port battles are the second area, and they’re massive 24vs24 fleet battles.

In either case, each player commands their own ship. Pirates was designed from the start to have players acting as the captain of the ship. Allowing multiple people to work together on one ship is contrary to that design, and it doesn’t leave much for the players to do if they aren’t the captain because they need to wait for orders.

David: It depends on if it’s another player or an AI ship. If you defeat another player in a PvP zone, then you get to loot the contents of their hold. If it’s an AI ship, they have a smattering of different sellable goods, economic goods and outfitting. Since we have a player-run economy, AI ships will never carry a full cargo hold of stuff because it would flood the economy. Instead, most of the loot turns into doubloons.

David: Yes, if the fleet is comprised of players. Nations need to be organized to win port battles, so there is usually a fleet commander in every battle. The fleet commander coordinates the ships under his nation’s flag against the enemy fleet.

Players have the ability to command an entire fleet of ships against a common foe.

Ten Ton Hammer: What can you tell us about ship to ship combat that you are most excited about?


Ten Ton Hammer: Finally, who would win in a pirate sword fight: Johnny Depp or Errol Flynn?

How many of you have already ventured into the pirate-laden world and engaged in ship vs. ship combat? What's it like? Did you enjoy it? Let us know on the forums!

Ten Ton Hammer is your unofficial source for Pirates of the Burning Sea news and articles!