Discussion Musket Volley - How does it work

[JarJarBinks]

Hello all,

i have one question regarding the Musket Volley ability. I have it skilled and everytime i board an enemy ship it kills only 5-7 men (even though i have 600+ crew available with plenty of weapons (the ship good) in the hold).

Do i need a different item for the ability to do more damage or what am i missing.

 

[Grey Roger]

Do you know how many crew the enemy ship has before you board? What sort of ships are you boarding?

 

[JarJarBinks]

Some small class 4/5 Pirate, im pretty sure they have less crew than me. Yet they kill 100+ men of while i kill 5-7.

 

[Grey Roger]

Thought so. "Musket Volley" kills 1/4 of the enemy crew, though it's supposed to be limited by the attacking crew's size. The defending captain's defence skill also plays a part. So you'll kill at most 1/4 of his crew, less if he has a good defence skill. Meanwhile he kills 1/4 of your crew, and presumably you don't have much of a defence skill.

 

[JarJarBinks]

Alright, i will go and increase my defense skill and see what if the numbers improve at all.

 

[Grey Roger]

Having a good defence skill should reduce your casualties. It won't increase the number of enemy crew you kill.

The base number of musket kills is 1/4 of the target crew. If you have 600 crew then the base number for the enemy's musket fire is 150. If you're losing 100 then either you already have some defence skill or the enemy has 100 crew, because musket fire is limited by the size of the attacking crew - he can't kill 150 of your crew if he only has 100 crew firing.

So, let's say the enemy has 100 crew. The base number for your musket fire is then 25. If you're only killing 6 then he has enough defence skill to reduce the kills to 25%. If you get the same level of defence skill then you can maybe expect to lose 25 - 38 crew, depending on exactly how the modifiers are applied.

The point is, musket fire is based on the defending crew size, not the attacking crew. If you have a bigger crew then your losses to musket fire will be greater.