I'm at the start of the game with any of the characters, so I don't have any navigators, skills etc.. it doesn't change no harm is done to ships in naval battles if they don't hit each other accidentally with the ship's bodies, I have played age of pirates 2 when it was first made, and there weren't any problems like that
Interesting, i have no such problems. I can damage ships without hitting into them or them been hit or hitting into things. The AI also damage my ship and other AI controled ships. Apart from some ships been almost impossible to damage this is the first i have heard where in any game no ship damage can be done, but i can understand why you are having some problems.
1. New game low skills means you will be lucky to hit anything.
2. Again new game small ship most likely with 4 to 8 guns mounted and low skills means its even harder to hit anything.
3. No officers and the above means increased difficulty in hitting anything.
So all in all you are lucky to hit a ship thats sitting right next to you, i suggest you play the game a while and hire a officer who's got good gunnery skills and give him the role of gunner. A Navigator and a Treasurer, focus on doing merchant runs for a while at least till you can see goods you can buy cheap and sell for profit else where. Only attack ships you know you will be able to beat and if the ship has a bigger cargohold than your current ship keep her and sink your old one because it will help in carrying more good which in turn means more money. Don't go trying to fight every ship you see because you need to train your crew as they will greatly increase the ships abilities. When you are making enough money hire at least 2 officers who are fighters and assign them to the roles of fighters, now you can board ships a little easier and maybe drastically improve the ship type you have.
Alway's look at officers skills before hiring them, and if you find one that you already have a officer filling that role then don't be affraid to hire another because a navigator can be just as good as the doctor and a treasurer can fill the role of carpenter. So if the officer in the tavern has beeter navigation skills than your current navigator hire him and assign your old navigator as the doctor and put your new navigators as the ships navigator.
If your not one for boarding actions and would rather run from battles then only keep ships that fast and improve on yur current ship in things like amount of guns, speed, but most importantly cargo space. If however you would rather fight in naval battles then keep ships that are, fast, good cargo space, heavily armoured and most importantly can carry a large crew. Cargohold as important as it is ofr weapons, ammo and the cannons the crew is more iumportant because this allows you to board a few ships without worry of been left to fight off a bunch of eveil guy's with swords and pistals all by your self. Not so important but the size of the maximum allowed calibure might be something you will want to take into account as this will allow you to deviver more deverstating blows to sails, the hull and the crew of enemy ships.