4.2 Ammo & Damage Model

Damage in Letters of Marque is positional. Ammunition, impact point, angle, velocity, calibre, armour, sail condition, heel, and water interaction all contribute to the result. A hit is therefore not a fixed subtraction from a single health pool.

This page limits itself to ammunition and damage behavior established in the developer record. Exact balance values are deliberately omitted, because they are rebalanced between builds.

The client carries three ammunition types: ball, chain, and double shot.

4.2.1 Round shot

Round or ball shot is the general-purpose projectile for attacking a ship’s hull. It carries energy into armour and structure, can contribute to leaks when it reaches vulnerable areas near or below the active waterline, and may skip from the sea after a shallow impact.

Use it when hull damage is the objective or when the target presents an exposed underwater side while heeled. Larger calibres differ from smaller guns, and ships have resistance appropriate to the threats they were designed to face, so the same impact does not produce the same result against every hull.

4.2.2 Chain shot

Chain is used against sails and rigging. Reducing sail condition changes the enemy’s ability to accelerate, maneuver, and exploit favorable headings. Even a small amount loaded unexpectedly can force a captain to respect the threat to the rig rather than concentrating solely on hull protection.

A damaged rig is most useful when you can exploit the lost mobility. Coordinate chain with an attempt to gain the wind, hold a target in another ship’s fire, or prevent escape. Damaging sails without a plan to use the advantage may merely trade your reload for a temporary inconvenience.

4.2.3 Double shot

Double shot loads two balls to a gun. It is the third ammunition type in the current client, and it is the close-range option: more weight of metal per discharge, at the cost of the reload.

The reload cost is real and was the subject of a fix in build v0.5.13, where an error in ammunition switching had allowed double shot to load as quickly as ball. That behavior was unintended, so plan on double shot being slower to serve than ball rather than a free upgrade to it.

That trade sets its use. Double shot rewards a decision you have already committed to — a close pass, a raking angle, a target that cannot answer — and punishes loading it speculatively at a range where you may need a second broadside sooner than it can give you one.

4.2.4 Armour and impact

Armour is a gamified representation informed by historical protection rather than a literal engineering model. The projectile’s remaining speed and the protection at the impact point influence what gets through. Angle and target presentation matter because they determine what part of the vessel receives the shot.

Do not expect a universal damage number from a named cannon. Different calibres, different target ships, installed components, range, and changing balance can all alter the outcome. Read the target’s condition and the observed effect of your shots instead of relying on an old table.

The angle is not a modifier on the damage — it is a threshold that decides whether there is any. A ship’s protection is expressed as a limiting penetration angle: shot arriving at an angle less than that figure gets through, and shot arriving more obliquely does not. This is why a well-protected ship shows a lower number, and why presentation is worth as much as calibre. See Reading a Ship’s Stats.

Two habits follow directly. Turn your side away from an enemy’s guns to widen the angle their shot arrives at, and work to put your own fire as square onto their timber as you can manage. Heel changes this continuously for both ships, so the same broadside from the same range does not always produce the same result.

4.2.5 How a hit is reported

Fire is resolved and reported per shot, which makes the feedback readable if you know the vocabulary. A hit is attributed to the part of the ship it struck — bow, broadside, or stern — and then to its effect: damage to the hull, damage to sails, a leak, a crew casualty, or a bounce where the shot failed to penetrate.

Read bounces as information rather than bad luck. A run of them means the geometry is wrong: you are hitting too obliquely, the target is presenting well, or heel is working against you. Change the angle, the range, or the moment rather than continuing to fire the same shot into the same glancing blow.

Leak severity is reported as a proportion rather than a count, and distinguishes leaks currently taking water from the total. A ship can therefore be seriously holed but not yet sinking — until a turn or a change in heel puts those holes under water.

4.2.6 Leaks and heel

A ship’s current waterline moves as it heels. When the vessel rolls, part of the normally submerged hull becomes exposed to direct fire. Hits in that vulnerable region can create effective leaks, while the opposite side sinks deeper and becomes harder to reach cleanly.

This makes sail handling and turning part of damage control. A hard maneuver may help the guns bear but expose more underwater hull to the enemy. Watch both ships: the best leak opportunity may last only while the target is committed to a turn.

4.2.7 Water and skipping shot

Cannonballs can skip from the sea when they arrive at a shallow enough angle. The system accounts for velocity and the local water surface, so waves can change whether a shot reflects, enters the water, or leaves at a different angle. A successful skip retains less energy than an uninterrupted flight.

A projectile that enters water loses speed before collision damage is calculated. It may travel underwater, especially at high speed, but water removes much of its destructive effect. Deliberately aiming through the sea at close range is therefore unreliable compared with striking exposed hull.

4.2.8 Features still in development

The source record discusses additional ammunition, crew casualties, boarding support, and demasting at various points as future work. Those references explain the intended direction of combat; they do not establish that every option is currently present. The ammunition selector in the current client is authoritative.

Repairs were on that list and have since arrived. Hull and sail damage can both be repaired during a battle, which changes how much of the damage described on this page is permanent — see Repairs.

For placing these effects accurately, return to Gunnery & Aiming.