You saddle up to the bar and order yourself a round. While sipping the piss-warm bile they pass for beer this close to Devilrock, you overhear several interesting conversations. To your left are two older blokes; one with a vicious scar down his neck, the other with burned but stone-like hands.

The man with a worker's hands was first heard talking to the other, slightly slurring as he spoke.
"Y'say you were a ship's surgeon, but you boarded with the rest of the crew?"
"Aye," the scarred man responded. "That's how I got this scar, in fact! Y'see, we were always the victors in these squabbles. It was an easy tactic -- but a vicious one -- where we'd board the whole crew, navigator and all! We'd swarm the enemy, the lot of us. One by one, we'd pick them down, refocusing targets as soon as the bastard in our sights fell to our blades. My job was to quickly patch up whosoever was holding the current target's interests."
The other's eyes showed apprehension as he said, "Well that must've made for quite a rough fight, eh?"
With a quick tilt of his head, the scarred bloke quipped back, "Not so much! As long as we stayed a group, and the commander was quick to take pause and evaluate the situation before picking the next most vulnerable target, all went well! Hell, he could shout orders to the whole group of us, and we'd act accordingly! Telling me to support someone else or the whole group to swarm a new target was no issues: his words cut through and always managed to let me know who to take care of, even while staying grouped up."
Nodding approvingly, but still with doubt to his voice, the burlier man prodded, "So then, how did you get that scar, if it's such a great approach, eh?"
With an assured nod, the surgeon explained it away. "Well hey, there's always risk. Usually we'd soften them up with sniper fire or a grapeshot blast or two while ignoring their hull completely up until the moment we braced and rammed them. This gave us the initiative on striking them while shaken. But this scar? Ay, well, this scar was payment for not sticking to the plan, and it was a cost that about took my head."
Raising his empty glass to call the bartender, the listener jovially bellowed a laugh. "Ah harr! Well, I'll say, it and your stories at least bought you a drink, you old set of bellows."

((In Summary))

• You should use your entire crew when boarding an enemy ship, and soften them up as much as you can on the way.
  
• Once you ram them (and be sure to brace for impact!) immediately move all your people to the most injured enemy and start killing them one at a time.
  
• As soon as an enemy drops, pause, find your next best target, and rinse/repeat.
  
• If you have a surgeon in your crew, you can right-click the profession icons of injured allies (in the bottom-left) to have your surgeon move to and heal them.
  
• Surgeons should always be healing, with target priority being: Red health > Ally being Targeted by Enemy > Yellow Health > Melee > Self > Green Health

((set in the style of a seasoned gunner talking to a younger gunner, trading tips and stories about specialized weapon builds))

---benefits of the Hull Destroyer causing ship crew to abandon their current task to fix the hull crack, all while doing massive hull damage complimented with Lobber cannons and chain shot swivel guns to keep an enemy at long range while hammering them mercilessly into splinters and pulp---

---reasons for using poison along with a web gun and grapeshot and mid range to quickly handle any groups of enemies---

---benefits of a "chaos" build against tougher enemy ships with two off-set Ship Smasher mortars to cause constant "Brace for Impact" tests on enemy ship while forcing crew to deal with hull cracks and high section damage, a chain shot to disable enemy movement allowing you to control the flow of battle, a berserk dart swivel cannon to keep at least 2 crew occupied at all times, and two sets of Flaming cannons to keep the ship's sections set on fire. This will completely disable the superior enemy ship while letting your Ship Smashers tear it apart at your liesure---

---Crew slaughter builds using two Sniper swivel guns, a Ship Smasher mortar, an Acid Bomb mortar, and Sure Shot cannons to decimate the enemy crew bit by bit, and why you should start with focusing on the navigator and the mortar---

((Styled as a pirate and a bounty hunter talking about what upsets each other, and coming to resolutions on issues))

---Talking about the benefits of playing both sides of the table by finding pirate ships such as blockades or "boss" ships, and building up to a lv2 wanted level before engaging them in order to reap the benefits of piracy, while immediately lowering your wanted level thereafter---

---Methods of raising wanted level such as blockades or random event choices---

---Methods of lowering wanted level such as killing pirate ships or paying off your bounty, and when is it worth it to commit piracy and just pay off the bounty---

---What the REAL ramifications of wanted level are---

((Stylized as 3 captains arguing over the merits of different crew builds))

---The boarding crew---

---The close range crew---

---The gunner crew---

---When do you not need different roles such as repair, heals, melee, or gunner---