First off, I know, people blame the game engine.
Now onto the topic, I think cannons would be a great addition to the schooners, and we could make the schooners either take a certain amount of hits to sink or they must be hit in certain areas.
The question is though, how do we do this? Having moving cannons surely generates too much lag and it must be impossible. However I was messing around seeing what I could do with cannons on ships, and here's what I got what we can do right now. While the ship is moving, a cannon must be limbered to an arty horse, then the cannon will move with the ship fine. If the ship is completely stopped you can unlimber the cannon and fire.
Now, here is where I thought to myself, why can't we limber the cannons to the ships? Even one cannon on each side of the ship (or even one side), is preferable to none. In order to have this work, the cannons must be able to be fired while limbered.
We could also have the cannons automatically unlimber when the boat is stopped and re-limber when it is moving. This way isn't as fun, but as said earlier I think it's preferable to none (at least we can have it in organized events).
This also would only apply to naval cannons (though it almost goes without saying).
Now I'm sure there will be some who will shoot this idea down instantly. Please provide a good, technical reason. Don't dumb it down. These are my thoughts, if anyone else has some ideas or has something outside the box to add, feel free to comment.
**Edit** New Idea
Cannons on ships don't need to be an individual piece, persay, but perhaps the cannon is literally part of the ship model. Then all we need is a load point for the artillery class to use. Now, instead of the cannon being another model moving with the ship, it is literally part of the ship, all one model.
The only things added are the load/fire points. Animations for the cannons such as smoke and pushing the cannon are preferred but not required.
Also, since there is also the issue of ammo moving with the ship, why not have the naval artillery class spawn with some ammo?
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If you have your own idea, even if you think it won't work, post it! If we all chime in with our ideas it could give FSE a fresh perspective. Though they understand the game best, they still may have simply not thought of an idea. They are only human!