4.1 Gunnery & Aiming

Gunnery in Letters of Marque is manual. The game helps reconcile the camera with guns mounted below and beside it, but it does not solve the shot for you. You must choose the range at which the battery converges, account for motion and dispersion, and decide whether the moment justifies firing a broadside.

4.1.1 What the aiming system does

Your camera and your cannon muzzles do not occupy the same point. At close range, simply firing parallel to the camera would drive low guns into the sea. The aiming system corrects this parallax according to the selected convergence so the battery points toward a common area instead.

That correction is geometric, not ballistic. Shot still travels through the world with velocity and dispersion, and the target continues moving while it is in flight. You remain responsible for elevation, lead, timing, and the limits imposed by the gun ports.

4.1.2 Set convergence deliberately

Convergence is the distance at which guns spread along the side are directed toward the same region. Set it near the range at which you intend to fire. Too short or too long a setting makes the battery cross before or after the target, widening the pattern where you need it to land.

In manual convergence mode, adjust the distance with R or the mouse wheel. In water mode, convergence is set by the point at which you aim on the water.

Revisit convergence as the engagement changes. A pursuit, a close crossing shot, and a long parallel exchange do not ask the same thing of the battery. Current bindings belong in the controls page because input remapping and controller support continue to evolve; learn the command shown by your present build rather than relying on an old key list.

4.1.3 Find the range

Fire a small ranging shot before committing the whole side when the solution is uncertain. Watch where it crosses the target’s line and where it strikes the water. Correct one error at a time: first range or elevation, then lead, then the finer placement on the hull or sails.

A miss still gives information. A full broadside fired before you understand the error gives the same information at far greater cost in reload time and lost opportunity.

4.1.4 Account for motion

Aim where the target will be when the shot arrives. The required lead grows with flight time and with the target’s speed across your line of fire. A ship moving directly toward or away from you needs less sideways lead than one crossing the broadside.

Your own turn matters too. As your ship turns, the bearing changes, while roll and heel move the gun deck vertically. Waves can lift or drop the muzzle between the decision to fire and the shot leaving the ship. At close range these changes may alter which part of the hull is struck; at longer range they can turn a good solution into water or sky.

4.1.5 Choose the aiming point

Match the aiming point to the desired damage:

• Aim into the hull when trying to defeat armour and produce structural damage.
• Aim near the exposed waterline when heel presents a vulnerable area and you want to create leaks.
• Aim into the rig when using ammunition intended to damage sails.
• Prefer a clear angle over a nominally perfect point hidden by the sea, another ship, or the target’s strongest presentation.

Water can skip a shallow incoming cannonball back upward, but it can also absorb speed and damage. A skip is a tactical possibility, not a substitute for a clean solution.

4.1.6 Fire with purpose

A loaded broadside is leverage. Holding it can force an opponent to delay a turn, protect a vulnerable side, or wait for your heel and range to improve. Fire when the likely result is worth surrendering that threat and beginning the reload.

In a group, avoid wasting several broadsides on a target already certain to sink. Coordinate fire on the ship whose movement or damage matters most, and keep enough loaded guns to punish an enemy who turns into a vulnerable angle.

Continue with Ammo & Damage Model for what happens after the shot arrives.