Boarding



Boarding is a ship ability where the crew of one ship jumps aboard the deck of an opposing ship in an attempt to cause enough mayhem to sink the ship or severely cripple it. Pressing the hotkey (right mouse click by default) fires a set of short range boarding hooks from one side of your ship. If the hooks make contact with an opposing ship, the ships will be pulled together quickly. Once locked together, neither ship can move while the crews fight, however, you can fire cannons as normal. Boarding actions end after a short time and both ships will be forced apart.

While boarding crews fight to the death, their effectiveness in combat is deterimined by the number of men and Crew Strength stat. Two types of damage occur during boarding; Hull and Crew. Hull damage will only occur to the ship that's been boarded and damage will bypass the ships armor! Crews will both fight and kill each other with the stronger crew dealing more damage to the weaker. Damage dealt to a ship is determined by how badly their crew is losing and by the opposing Crew Havoc stat. If ship's crew is dead or severely weakened it will be quickly destroyed by enemy boarders.

Crew Effectiveness
Crew Effectiveness is determined by the crew capacity HUD display. You want to keep this as high as you possibly can. If you go below 100%, you will start to feel the sluggish effectiveness of your crew in the form of their cannon performorance. When the bar reaches zero, the following will happen:


 * Up to 50% Reload Time Penalty
 * 150% Accuracy Penalty
 * 100% Firing Delay Penalty

​​Furthermore, notice the white line that is in the Crew HUD display. If you go below this line, you will lose your ability to commit to any boarding actions and must wait for the crew to heal back above this line to regain the action.

Tips

 * Orc Crews are the best fighters on the seas, and boast high Strength and Havoc stats. Dwarf crews are resilient to being boarded though few in numbers while Human crews are average in most aspects.
 * Orc ships excel at boarding, especially Cleaver and Gorger who have the ability to board directly from the fore. Not only this, they have a captain whom specializes at boarding named Grinner Blackmaw.
 * Boarding actions can be a great way to hold an opponent in place to blast them with cannons - but be careful around hazards such as maelstroms!
 * A combination of grape shot ammo and boarding is a good way to deal with highly armored ships such as the Stormanchor.