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Balancing Ship Commands Quickly: Managing Movement and Combat
Being only one captain and trying to manage an entire ship during the heat of combat can be quite challenging. Making sure
all of your weapons are firing is not so hard; but making sure your opponent does not get out of range or sails away along
with making sure you stay within SPK can be challenging.
Your best bet is to have shore aliases for ship direction and speed. This helps quite a bit in your mobility; yet if
you can assign those commands to your number pad, you will increase your lethality. I know of MUSHClient and Portal scripts
that will do just that. These are detailed on the www.Aodojo.com message board.
Darkmagic's MushClient Ship Keypad Script
Ryshad's Portal Ship Keypad Script
Ship Fire Commands: Aliases and Macros for Efficient Firing
There are 7 ship weapon types. Whether or not your ship has all 7 types doesn't matter, what does matter is that you use
them all as fast as possible. With each type having a reload time, that is the interval that you want to enter the fire command
from that weapon at. There are 2 pairs of weapons that share a reload time. Medium Cannons and Light Ballistae can both
fire ever 3 seconds. With this in mind, you could set an alias or macro that enters commands to fire both, saving you precious
time. Harpoons and Heavy Ballistae also share a reload time of 5 seconds. Have a set up with your own aliases or macros
that maximizes your quickness in sending fire commands.
Combat Logistics: Loading your ship with enough of all ammo.
If you ship has every weapon possible, then it also needs to have the ammo to fire with those weapons, and most likely the
black powder as well. There are two perspectives with which you need to approach carrying ammunition, carrying enough to
sink an enemy, and carrying enough of each ammo type.
It would be overkill for a corsair to carry enough ammo to sink a dreadnought, the dreadnought would sink the corsair
before they even get into the 2nd half of the ammo. Carry enough ammo to sink a ship the same size as yours, or maybe the
next ship larger. A general rule of thumb, this constitutes using about 45-60% of your cargo weight on ammo.
Make sure to carry enough ammo with respect to 2 ratios, one to the amount of each weapon you have, and one to the reload
time. Save for Skiffs and Coasters, which have dismally low damage outputs, it would take anywhere from 20-40 seconds for
any evenly matched SPK battle. So if a battle would take 30 seconds, basic cannons could fire up to 15 volleys in that time
period, (est battle time divided by reload time).
Just because ships shouldn't stock their entire hold with ammo doesn't mean its a bad idea. I do just that, in hope of embarking
upon a Sea Monster slaying fest, or a Pirate killing fest. Just keep in mind if you're using steam power, more fuel will
be used to propel a heavy ship.
 
If there are any errors or omissions on this site please notify me! Also, if you would like to see any information here then
let me know and I'll work on adding it!
All Materia Magica and Moongate world related content, including maps, and references are copyright Ingenii Interactive 1996-2006.
The guide and any other information contained on this website may be used elsewhere only with the expressed written permission
of the author. All Rights Reserved.
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