Some more Gunning tips.

I Have been asked to give some tips on gunning, so I will try
to explain -in proper english- what I do to get my ballz rolling
for the Ultimate guns.

1. When you start gunning, always fill 1 or 2 guns in a board.

Why? -When ya fill all 4 guns, your stats go down much faster.
Why? -When the first 2 guns go great, the last 2 can be really bad,
which makes stats drop.

2. When you get in a gun board, you have like 3 seconds to get out.

-If u don't like the board, and decide to get out, make sure u don't
click an arrow in the board, which makes your guns go slower again,
plus it might drop your stats, since the puzzle already started.
(that's why I never leave a board without at
least filling 1 gun)

3. To get gun stats up faster, u need to fill a gun as fast as possible.

-ALways start with Powder (red), then Wad (white), then Cannon Ball
(grey).
-Try to fill the gun as fast as u can, then dismiss the station. (staying in
a station too long, makes your gun stats drop as well)
(another reason why gunners like to hop off the guns all the time
on the pillages)
-Don't use the water on a navy mission, just let it bounce around the
board.

Gunning -like any other puzzle- needs a lot of practice to get your Ult.

But the basics to get higher in stats, is -filling as fast as you can,
-not booching the guns,
-don't boardsit.

I Hope this will help a bit, make sure to watch some You Tube on gunning
as well.

These tips are great! Now maybe I can finally get that Ult I've always wanted :-)

Kewl

I have to agree with everything except for the board sitting.

Now I say this with a giant qualification.

On a sloop.

Sloop gunning, if you find a worthy board, one with at least two arrow status on all four guns, with limited, and even sometimes moderate trap risk, is done best with board sitting.


OK well now I feel the need to explain what I mean by "two arrow status" and "trap risk" so here goes..

Quote :

2. When you get in a gun board, you have like 3 seconds to get out.

In in that 3 seconds you are looking for a couple of things. how quickly you can get the pieces circling around, preferably 2 cannons, and where the pieces will move.

Cannon pieces (Wash, Powder, Wad, Shot) move clockwise when striking a single surface. I say single surface because if there is an object adjacent to the surface it may bounce differently... God i was i wasn't too lazy for illustrations... ANYWAYS, Ok so there is a piece headed towards a wall and, humm. Darn it, ok i tried to host an image and post it, but I messed it up, ok.

Ok the ball will move counterclockwise in this case..

Code:

O ------->              |
                      []|     

Here the ball bounces back

Code:

                          []  |
O ------------->            []|
                          []  |

And when it hits another piece

Code:

O--------->  <------------O

They explode!!!

Code:

                .\|/.
              *********
                '/|\'

Ok so that's a lie, they don't explode, but the don't bounce clockwise, instead they go back the direction they werre traveling..

So...

Code:

O------->
          ^
          |
          |
          O

Equals

Code:

<-------O
          O
          |
          |
          v

That's kinda handy to pay attention to.

Ok so all this means that when you look at a board you are looking to see that you can get the pieces to circle arround two cannons using the walls, obstacles and one or two arrows. Using one or two arrows allows you an arrow to guide the pieces into the cannons.

Ohh side note and fun fact you should know..

Arrows "decay" in the order they were placed. So you place one arrow then another in another location, then a third arrow in a third separate location, and when you place the fourth disappears.

You know that doesn't explain that well enough...

And it's late, so I'll finish this later.

So this is episode one, I guess..

OK Part 2!!!!


I got's pictures too (Pardon the image quality.)

All of these explanations involve the barrel being in the center of the board, when the ship turns the barrel moves the opposite direction. This is something that you primarily encounter when you sit on one board, but it isn't as big of a deal as one might think, it can add trap potential to a board, and it can throw off some movement, but I'm not going to cover that anymore here.

Ok. So lets take a look at what most would consider an ideal gun board.

This is what is often referred to as a 'zero arrow' board. In addition to that it is a 'trapless' board thus making it beautiful.

Now what do you mean by 'zero arrow' and 'trapless'? Well let me break out the telestrator and show you.


'Zero Arrow' means that the pieces will rotate the board all on their own, without the placement of an arrow. 'Trapless' means that when the pieces are sent around the board by the barrel as represented by the 4 colored lines.


Now lets look at a few other boards to further examine trapping.

Here the Green and Yellow paths are the traps. You will also notice that the red and blue paths end up in the same trap as the yellow path. so every time a piece is launched in that direction that will be it's path without arrows. so there is all kinds of trap potential here. All of the pieces will end up rotating in an area that doesn't pass a cannon.



Ok here, this one isn't bad at all, all pieces will be circling around a cannon 75% of them will circle two!



The Red path is the circle path. All of the pieces will eventually end up on this path without arrows and you end up with all of them passing two cannons without any arrows.



Ohh this one is ugly, As you can see all pieces end up trapped. 75% of the pieces going to what is called a line trap on the left side (Red Path) and the remaining 25% in a circle trap on the bottom right (Green) ]

Now is this board a total wash? Well no, not at all, you do have three arrows!

Lets look at this same board first.

Ok so if you wan to load all four you can. but in the interests of speed you should probably place the the two arrows for the yellow path and load those two cannons only. Load these cannons one at a time replacing the two arrows after finishing one.

Now if you wanted to do all four, First place the two green arrows and load that cannon, then place the tow yellow arrows and load those two cannons then place the two red arrows and load the fourth. That path works the best because of the way the pieces naturally trap out.


Now with that board there was another path and there is often several that will work with one or two arrows. For example:

The orange path is the natural path and well, you can figure it out by now.


That's a lot, and you can get all four loaded, but two would be better.. I'd suggest the Green path.


Ok well lets take a look at a couple of others then I'll quit..



Take a look at em. What would you do?









Ummmm that means you should reply now
Help me to help you help me to help you help me to help you help me to help you help me to help you.

I need some time to digest this - but it looks good.

When you first look at a board, how long does it take you to 'see' where those arrows should go? And if it's a good board or not?

Well if I'm navy gunning i usually look for a horizontal 2 arrow on the top bottom or both.
It's Quick to look at because you can scope those two regions quickly.


If I'm gunning on a brig in battle I'm going to look at the area that the cannons need cleaned and loaded. In that case I'm looking at alternative routes for quick loading.

And if I'm gonna gun on a sloop I'm gonna look at all of the trapping and routing closer because once you have all four loaded you get more time to look at the board layout.

These are great, Axis. Thank ye much.

I'm glad someone is enjoying them?

Here's a gunning link:

http://www.strangebreezes.com/corsairs/gunning/