IF YOU WANT TO BE EVEN REMOTELY CLOSE TO GOOD YOU HAVE TO USE A CROSSHAIR, I CAN'T STRESS THIS ENOUGH, IT MAKES YOU LOAD CANNONS FASTER, IT MAKES YOU 10X BETTER AT AIMING. USE AN EXTERNAL CROSSHAIR, USE A MONITOR SETTING, USE A DRY-ERASE MARKER, ALL POPULAR SERVERS ALLOW THIS, NOT USING A CROSSHAIR IS HANDICAPPING YOURSELF FOR NO REASON. THIS IS AT THE TOP BECAUSE IT WILL LEAD TO THE BIGGEST IMPROVEMENT IN YOUR SKILL

What you should use:

To put Blackwake in borderless windowed mode (so the crosshair will show up), download the setup.exe from this page: https://github.com/Codeusa/Borderless-Gaming/releases
(if you somehow need help using this incredibly simple program: https://i.imgur.com/FOfaEiZ.png)
Make sure to also have Blackwake in windowed mode.

Crosshair: https://pastebin.com/FbkAf9ka (Steam censoring direct download link for some dumb reason, Windows will give a notification saying it's an unrecognized app, if you think your frequently updated Windows 10 computer can fall victim to a 4-year old program that isn't a virus to begin with then I've included a virus scan if you're tech-ignorant and paranoid)

IN-GAME BE SURE TO HIT TAB TO SEE YOUR CURSOR AT THE CENTER OF YOUR SCREEN MAKE SURE YOUR CROSSHAIR IS CENTERED CORRECTLY



^^THAT IS IMPORTANT^^READ IT^^DO IT^^YOU'LL GET BETTER^^


If you aren't lazy but you are tech savvy, don't do the above, you can use a crosshair with fullscreen instead: download ReShade and install it to Blackwake, search for a crosshair shader and install that too.

• AS OF 3.08: Take blunderbuss. You barely have to aim and you'll be getting kills somewhat consistently 10m and below. If you're using a reticle, are good at aiming, and are able to execute the insta-shot of the musket then take the musket. Nockgun is a slightly longer range blunderbuss with more pellets, not really worth using anymore. Hand mortar is very situational based on your angle to the enemy and the range between them, if you like getting only 3 kills a game with your primary this is the one for you, I personally never take it.
  
  
• For secondary take the Standard Pistol, all other secondary weapons shouldn't be touched.
  
  
• Personally I think only health or spyglass are worth taking, grenades are so rarely useful (compared to health or spyglass) and tomahawk is a piece of garbage that barely works (moving projectile on moving ship = bad hit detection) and will get you killed 90% of the time when you try to use it.

• To properly adjust aim and range: Use A and D to adjust your cannon, make sure to wait half a second after turning the cannon to fire, if you fire while turning you'll miss. Everything from the middle of the mast to the bottom of the hull is a valid hitbox for the range, on top of that there is a 50m grace range for each hitbox (giving an effective 70-150m grace, depending on distance), put the given range around the exact middle of the ship from your perspective (usually around the base of the mast) and if you're lined up you're going to be hitting about 95% of the time if done properly. Blame your captain for the other 5%
  
  Here's a few examples of properly aligned shots at different ranges:
  
  Without range covering the ship:
  
  For a farther shot:
  
  Without range covering the ship:
  
  To properly aim at a fort:
  
  
  
  
• WHEN LOADING STAND AT THE EDGE OF YOUR CANNON AND GRAB POWDER/SHOT WHILE ONLY MAKING MINOR ADJUSTMENTS TOWARDS THE BOX, ALSO, DON'T RUN IN FRONT OF PEOPLE'S CANNONS WHILE THEY ARE RELOADING Not only will this help with muscle memory for loading, but you also won't get in the way of your teammate and make him angry/make his reload take longer (effectively doing less damage to your target)
  
  
• YOU MUST REPEATEDLY TAP Q TO UPDATE THE RANGE, HOLDING Q WILL MAKE YOU MISS DUE TO IMPROPER RANGING
  
  
• When loading/ramming/looking down a cannon try to stand as far away from it as possible, this will reduce the amount of cannonball hitboxes that you're in and therefore result in less deaths.
  
  
• Firing while the ship is turning too quickly will mechanically result in a miss 99% of the time, UNLESS you're at minimum range (below 300m) unfortunately it just takes experience to get a proper feel for how fast you're able to turn and still make shots. Firing while turning the cannon will result in a miss even below 300m.
  
  
• If your supply box is empty and nobody else is resupplying, load from a different box and push the cannon BEFORE resupplying your box. Then find out who isn't on a cannon and yell at them for being useless and not running supplies.
  
  
• Even the best captains aim a little off sometimes, giving aiming adjustments to your captain is helpful for not only you and your captain, but your entire team as well.
  
  
• If every cannon is being manned it is your responsibility to run supply boxes (powder monkey), repair holes/sails, or pump. Remember that if you have a spyglass you should be spotting between all these activities. When someone on a cannon dies (very likely) then you may take their cannon. Standing around doing nothing is likely to get you kicked, and rightfully so.
  
  
• When someone steals your cannon (and there aren't any other cannons) stand next to it with grapeshot in your hands, wait for them to powder then throw in the grapeshot to teach 'em a lesson. Remember to reload with cannonball if they walk away. (I do not condone grape trolling)

• Grape shot has an effective range of about 30m, don't use it unless your captain tells you to (or you're grappled), you're likely to be kicked for loading grape without orders, and rightfully so
  
  
• Bar shot: Maximum range of 400 meters, aim for the base of the mast. Load ONLY when your captain tells you to
  
  
  
• Chain shot: Maximum range of 710 meters, aim for the sails.Load for ships that are actively retreating or on captain order. (This is a shot ranged for 400m)
  
  
  
• Heated shot: Aims the same as a regular cannonball Load on 2nd volley onwards, using heated shot on a retreating ship that hasn't taken much damage is a waste
  
  
• Don't just load special shots for no reason, they aren't as effective when used on the opening volley. Chain shot should only be loaded when your captain orders it, an extra hole in a ship that you're trading with is arguably more effective than damaged sails. Heated shot should should ideally be loaded on the 2nd volley or on a fleeing ship to take out their sails. In it's current state bar shot is almost worthless and almost never has a reason to be loaded, don't load it unless your captain orders it.

• ALWAYS HOLD Q IN INFANTRY COMBAT, this will easily distinguish who is and isn't an enemy
  
  
• All bullets fired are as hitscan (raycast) from the center of your screen (not the barrel of your gun) towards the center of your screen with accuracy cones, this makes a crosshair an even better indicator of where to aim.
  
  
• Remember that aiming down sights does not have an effect on accuracy (though aiming is required to fire the musket), I only aim down sights to slow my aim down to make it more precise when necessary
  
  
• Always aim center mass, weapons are inaccurate as hell and you'll have the best chance to hit while aiming center mass. The exception to this is the Nockgun/blunderbuss, at a distance you're much less likely to kill someone aiming center mass, so try to aim around their neck, you may just get a lucky headshot with one of the bullets. If you're using Duckfoot/Pistol/Musket it does not matter where you hit someone, they will die.
  
  
• If you have reloads and are being charged by a melee weapon you can try to fake them out by holding your melee weapon as if you don't have anything loaded, they'll get close without dodging because they think they're safe, when they get close enough for a sure shot (but not too close) swap to your gun and blow them away
  
  
• When jumping above cover to see the enemy not only should you keep in mind your "jump stamina" which will lower the height of your next jump, but on your next jump be sure to move left or right a bit in case someone has their sights on you.
  
  
• When taking cover be sure to crouch, this reduces your hitbox by roughly 40% and there's no reason not to do it.
  
  
• Right before boarding a ship one of the first places you should check is the rigging/crow's nest. Not that you should immediately go there, just give it a quick glance to make sure nobody is going to snipe you from above while you clear the deck. The rigging also makes someone a lot less mobile while providing zero cover, giving you a pretty easy shot on anyone hanging there.

• The best weapon is currently the pike and the axe. The pike kills in 4 hits and has a very fast attack speed. Don't take the bottle, you won't get nearly as many kills, seriously, don't take it, it's not good, nobody can make it good, I've probably died to a bottle like 8 times in my entire 600 hours don't take the bottle it's seriously that bad there's no reason to use it unless you want the medal but the medal is going to get reset after 4.0 anyway so there's absolutely no reason to use it now I mean really it's a broken bottle that's not even a real weapon just take the pike.
  
  
• Melee range ignores everything, you can hit through walls, ceilings, the captain's wheel, masts, etc. as long as you're in range. Useful examples: Through the ceiling of the Hoy, through the canopy of the Junk (You have to jumpstab, it's tough to get used to, pike may be only weapon capable of hitting through canopy due to attack speed), through the walls of the Sophie's cabin, across opposite sides of a mast, through the outside of a ship to someone releasing a grapple
  
  
• If someone is indefinitely blocking you: just run away from them and stab someone else, chances are they'll drop their block to try to hit you and you'll be able to turn around and kill them, otherwise they'll just be wasting their time holding up a useless block, be sure to not let them waste your time.
  
  
• It is possible to hold up a block in the cabin doorway of a sinking ship to lock players in and prevent them from doing anything, make sure someone is watching your back!
  
  
• It is possible to block teammates attacks, try not to hold up a block too close to a friendly going on a rampage, they'll be mad at you.
  
  
• It is possible to block an attack that has already hit someone, you can stand directly behind a teammate being attacked, due to massive hitboxes you'll block their attack after it hits your teammate and stun them, giving your teammate an easy kill
  
  
• After successfully blocking there is a small amount of time to "parry" and quickly stab your attacker, giving you 2 free hits instead of 1. This takes some practice, be patient.

This won't be too in-depth. Just some general mindset tips and the few gameplay tips I considered the most impactful on my path to becoming a good captain.

• You'll need intricate knowledge of all of the mechanics at play if you ever want to be a truly good captain (cannon reload time, every weakness/strength of every ship, how cannonballs hit ships (i.e forcing your enemy to only make 1 hole with 10 cannonballs), etc etc etc. Of course, if you don't have all that knowledge, you won't even know that you don't, so here's a quick litmus test: The cruiser, galleon, bomb ketch, bomb vessel (aside from one fringe use in CTB), and gunboat are all terrible ships that have no redeemable quality or reason to pick them. Every good player and good captain agrees on this, if you're thinking "well I disagree for this reason, but I'm still a good captain" then NO, you are NOT a good captain. If you have trouble figuring out the glaring weaknesses that make them terrible, or think "It just requires a good crew to use effectively", or have any other rationale for using these ships, I'm sorry to say that you are currently incapable of being a good captain. Don't be too dejected though, there are less than 10 genuinely good captains in the entire Blackwake population, and you can always improve to become one of them.
  
• Use another one of the countless captain guide to learn line-up points. As the distance closes between your target, the distance from your front cannon to your back cannon becomes more important. Learn to visualize exactly where each cannon is aiming, an accurate and fast line-up is key to winning trades.
  
• Similar to crewing, you're aiming for zero downtime on your ship. You should always be doing one of a few things: Pushing the enemy (go STRAIGHT towards them), lining up cannons, backing off for repairs (go STRAIGHT away from the enemy), capping the booty, or repositioning to your team. I see a TON of captains (even ones with 1k+ wins that should know better) sailing at weird angles and losing time they could've used to fire cannons or do literally anything.

And finally, THIS IS THE BIGGEST STEP TOWARDS IMPROVING AS A CAPTAIN:
You have to be able to recognize your mistakes. It truly is that simple, but a lot of captains seem to think that they're good as soon as they're able to give an iffy line-up for their cannons. If you ever think you had a flawless round: you didn't, and the fact that you think you did means that you're so terrible that you can't even recognize the mistakes you made. Noticing that your line-up was off by a few degrees, maybe you should've turned to broadside a small ship instead of shooting at the big ship, maybe you should have grappled a different ship instead, you need to be able to recognize any of these small mistakes. Many captains who play now are incapable of recognizing their mistakes, they think that they're already good and have no more room for improvement: those are the bad captains, the ones who will NEVER get better, don't be like that.

• Bleeding causes a heartbeat sound, if you don't hear the heartbeat you aren't bleeding. Sometimes it's more important to continue pumping/repairing instead of healing yourself, this is something better learned with experience, just keep it in mind.
  
  
• Hurt crew members will have a health indicator over them, give them a drink for free points.
  
  
• STAY AWAY FROM THE WALLS UNLESS YOU'RE REPAIRING OR FIRING A CANNON
  
  
• If you're at 2 holes and know you're about to take more- GET ON THE PUMP, pump reduces incoming water considerably and is much more important than repairing holes while more are incoming
  
  
• Mortar shots will give audio cues if they're about to land on you, if you hear that whistling you need to change trajectory or take cover immediately. Mortars do not affect grappled ships or their crews, so don't be too worried about grappling near a bomb ketch.
  
  
• Playing under a good captain is way more fun than playing under someone who just bought the game yesterday, you'll find yourself having a lot more fun if you start recognizing good captains and only joining their ships
  
  
• A single health sip stops bleeding, if your ship is in a situation you should only take one sip to stop your bleeding then immediately get back to whatever needs to be done, healing the rest only during downtime
  
  
• Having zero downtime is the most important part of being a good crew member, there is almost always something to do, if you're consistently at the bottom of score for your ship you're objectively doing something very wrong.
  
  
• A lot of people will ignore unloaded cannons, that's 1 less hole your enemy will receive from a broadside, that can make a huge difference, load your cannons!
  
  
• If you're smart enough to know that you don't need more than 2 people top deck on the pirate galleon it's your responsibility to stay below, idiots who can't listen tend to stay top deck for some reason
  
  
• Being loud in global is for oxygen-wasting insufferable c*nts only, but I guess if you're smart enough to read English you aren't one of those people

• After your ship sinks (or you're about to die and can't stop it) you can hit Esc>Change team then spawn in on your boat again to save a ticket instead of dying, this can only be done once every 5 minutes.
  
  
• If someone simultaneously starts repairing the same hole/sail that you are, be the smart one and move on to a different hole/sail, even elites make this dumb mistake
  
  
• You're able to climb slopes at about an 85° angle, this means if a ship has just barely started tilting in the water and you're able to swim over to it you'll be able to climb aboard (if the base of the water is at the 85° angle) and start a ruckus (remember to go for the pumpers). If you need just a small vertical boost you can swim underneath the hull at certain angles and "launch" yourself up when coming back up on the side of the ship (hard to explain but if you try you'll know what I mean). This trick works with varying ease on different ships, Galleon is the easiet, then Sophie, then Hoy, then Junk. This takes some practice to git gud at. Don't bother trying this with the schooner

• PLAY CREW NORMALLY WHILE USING A SPYGLASS, SPYGLASSING FITS INBETWEEN NORMAL CREW ACTIVITIES AND IS NOT A FULL TIME JOB
  
  
• The lazy horrible land/ice geometry hitboxes covering up any part of a ship will prevent you from being able to spot it, sometimes going to the nose or crows nest to spot will help alleviate this BS.
  Make sure to get back to the ship after spotting
  
  
• Sitting in the crows nest/rigging with your spyglass out all game doing nothing but spotting is for complete d*ckheads and you're likely to be kicked (rightfully so).
  
  
• Ships have a 20 second GLOBAL COOLDOWN on being spotted, however spots also last for 20 seconds beginning when you spot them, with some forethought and timing you can plan your spots between actions to keep spots up for literally 99% of the match. (including deaths)
  
  
• The best time to spyglass is right after ramming and pushing a cannon so you have effectively no downtime. The 2nd best time is while your captain is lining up a shot but isn't quite there yet, as you'll be able to fire just as he lines up after you finish spotting.

• Fall damage is doubled on the fort, don't jump off the walls.
  
  
• There is very obviously a cart on the dock, go stand behind it and escort it up to the gate. You'll need 14 people, so you'll have to scream in proximity chat (default key: F) something like this: "EVERYONE GET ON THE CART" over and over again.
  
  
• After the gate explosion all of the wall cannons will be broken and every defender on the wall/near the gate will die. The path through the cannons is now obselete (Red/Orange), there is no real reason to take those paths. The fastest path to the flag is to the right, though I wouldn't recommend this path on the first push because defenders will likely already be properly set on the flag and you'll have the least cover from this angle (Black). The safest path is through the tunnel (Green). To the left is probably the best combination of cover and speed (Blue).
  
  
  
• To actually cap the flag you must first drain the enemy's control
  
  and replace it with your own
  
  Capping goes faster the more people you have on the flag and seems to be unaffected by amount of defenders nearby. They will be shooting at you, of course.

Artillery placements: (Left)

(Right)

• Fall damage is doubled on the fort, don't jump off the walls.
  
  
• Keep the cannons loaded and fire on enemy ships as much as you can from the fort, you're functionally draining tickets from them for free.
  
  
• Don't spawn a ship if you're pushed to your fort, it's much easier to hold your ticket count by staying inside.
  
  
• Keeping enemies at the gate gives the best advantage for draining tickets, keep them from blowing the gate open at all costs.
  
  
• If you were unable to successfully defend the gate the next best spot to defend will be right at the entrance where attackers only have one chokepoint to enter from. Form a firing line with your team and farm tickets there until they push you back, for some reason many players try to retreat to the flag when the gate is blown open.
  
  
• If you're on a tower keep an eye on how many hits it's taking, if it's been taking hits it's probably best to stay off of it as it will be destroyed and you will die, once you've been pushed to your fort every ticket counts.
  
  
• If you find yourself outnumbered it's best to retreat and find a group of teammates to fight with, this will increase your chances of survival (and killing) and therefore your chances of winning the game.