Ship Cannon Guide by Starcrossed

Source: Ship Cannon Guide 

Originally written by and produced by MTC and her leaders. Moved to these forums by demand and complaints of signing up for the MTC forums to view them:

Introduction
Cannons are the most sought after item for soldiers and pirates alike.
A good set of cannons will tear through enemies and players alike, and a master Cannonsmith is a profession every guild needs.
However crafting Cannons is a labor intensive job. Most of the high-end Cannons require a lot of raw material, which can only be obtained from a handful of Ports.
These Ports, (Hamburg and Barcelona become well known as Cannon exporting Ports, and players from all over the world travel to these Ports to purchase freshly made Cannons from players.
This guide will provide a complete list of all possible player-made Cannons in the game, arranged by the Recipe books in which they come under.
The location of the Recipe books and methods of obtaining them are also listed, as well as the basic stats of all the Cannons.


-Required Skills
Mineral Trading (mineral trader)
Industrial Goods Trading (mineral trader)
Firearms Trading (arms trader)
Weapon Trading (arms trader)
Casting (mineral trading, arms trader)

Types of Cannon Ammunition
There are 6 types of Cannon Ammunition, each has a different effect. They are:

Standard Shell
Dualshot Shell
Grapeshot Shell
Chainshot Shell
Flameshot Shell
Smokescreen Shell

Standard Shell[
No special effects

Dualshot Shell
Does extra damage to ship equipment

Grapeshot Shell
Targets ship crew. Critical hits drain enemy vigour

Chainshot Shell
Damages ship equipment

Flameshot Shell
Causes fire

Smokescreen Shell
Reduces enemy accuracy

Notes on the Raw Materials for Cannon Crafting
Cannons are usually crafted by combining 2 or 3 different raw materials
The 1st ingredient is either Cannons or Ammunition
The 2nd ingredient is either Ammunition or Bronze
The 3rd ingredient is either Iron or Steel, or in the case of Bow and Stern Cannons, Lumber

The following paragraph detals where each of the ingredients can be obtained.

Cannons
Purchased from London, Seville, Barcelona (require investment)
Crafted from 4 x Coal + 4 x Iron using the Firearms Production Technique Book [casting level 11] (Barcelona, Ceuta, 20,000D)

Ammunition
Purchase from Lisbon, Barcelona
Crafted from 2 x Coal + 2 x Iron using the Firearms Production Technique Book [casting level 5] (Barcelona, Ceuta, 20,000D).

Bronze
Purchased from London, Plymouth
Crafted from Copper Ore + Tin Ore [casting level 7] using the Book of Alloy Smelting (Dublin, reward after 300,000D in investment)

Iron
Purchased from London (require investment), Dublin (require investment), Amsterdam
Crafted from Iron Ore [casting level 5] using the Book of Refining Metal (Lubeck, 120,000D)

Steel
Purchased from Barcelona, Beirute, Jaffa
Crafted from Iron Ore + Graphite [casting level 6] from the Book of Refining Metal (Lubeck, 120,000D)

Lumber
Purchased from Oslo, Helsinki

Notes on Ports for Crafting Ship Cannons
Because of the restrictions on the materials required for crafting Ship Cannons, there are only two viable Ports that is suited for crafting Cannons. They are Barcelona and Hamburg.

Barcelona
Barcelona is the ideal location for crafting Cannons because the Port exports Cannons, Ammunition and Steel. Only Spanish players will have the option to purchase Cannons from Barcelona, therefore making Barcelona a Cannon Port exclusively to Spanish players.
Another advantage of Barcelona is that it sells the rare item of Steel, which is needed to craft high end Cannons.
For the recipes that require Iron instead of Steel, Barcelona is a short trip away from Algiers, that stock Iron Ore that can turn into Iron with the Book of Refining Metal.
The disadvantage of Barcelona is that you can't craft Ship Cannons that require Bronze there.

Hamburg
For Cannonsmiths of other nations, Hamburg is the next best Port. However, crafting Cannons in Hamburg takes longer than in Barcelona, because most of the raw materials need to be crafted first.
Cannons and Ammunitions can be crafted from Coal and Iron with the [COLOR="purple"]Firearms Production Technique Book[/COLOR.] (Barcelona, Ceuta, 20,000D)
Coal is available in Hamburg.
Iron can be made from the Iron Ore in Hamburg with the Book of Metal Refining (Lubeck, 12,000D).
Finally Bronze can be smelted by combining Copper Ore with Tin Ore in Hamburg using the Book of Alloy Smelting (Dublin, reward after 300,000D in investment)/
Whilst most of the items for crafting Ship Cannons are available in Hamburg, it does not have Steel. It takes too long to craft Steel from around Hamburg, therefore its recommended to make Ship Cannons that use Iron instead.

Notes of Crafting Cannons
Unlike crafting other materials, when there is a 'big success' you don't receive an extra Ship Cannon.
Each time you can only produce 1 Ship Cannon from the materials.
However, when you do get a 'big success' you will receive additional stats to your crafted Ship Cannon.
A 'big success' cannon will have the following additional properties:

Durability --- +10
Penetration --- x1.04 ~ 1.10
Range --- +1
Reload Time --- +1

Notes on Ship Cannons that sell

In late game, the most preferred Ship Cannons are 14-Gate Carronades. These Cannons do the most damage.
Other popular choices are [B14-Gate Perrier[/B] for increased range and 14-Gate Haiperie.
A cheap alternative is either the 14-Gate Demi-Cannon or 16-Gate Demi-Cannon
[B14-Gate Perrier[/B], 14-Gate Carronades and 16-Gate Demi-Cannon are made from Strengthening of Regular Cannons (all six Capitals, 800,000D after investment) book, and 14-Gate Demi-Cannon and 14-Gate Haiperie are made from the Book of Large Cannon Casting (all six Capitals, 200,000D after investment).

For melee players, Grapeshot and Chain Cannons are preferred because Grapeshot can kill enemy crew, and Chain Cannons rip through enemy sails. The preferred Grapeshot Cannon is 16-Gate Speed Cannon and the preferred Chainshot Cannon is the 16-Gate Angel.
Both of these Ship Cannons are crafted from the Strengthening of Special Cannon recipe book (Calicut, 200,000D after investment).

Finally, some players like to use Flameshot Cannons, because at high level, they can guarantee burning, causing massive damage overtime against enemies.
The Flameshot Cannon of choice is the 16-Gate Draconis or 16-Gate Anne Fehr, both are crafted using the Strengthening of Special Cannon recipe book (Calicut, 200,000D after investment).