[edwardburnskull]

Heres (apparently not my) idea:
since enemy ships can use advanced broadside cannonballs like explosives and fury, why cant we choose the same?
So at the shipright menu, there could be "broadside ammo" which would have under the list:
choose ship:
[Bountyhunter serpent]
[cutthroat rouge]
[fire-sail executioneer]

lets say Bountyhunter serpent was a light sloop. If you clicked on it, it would look like this:

Choose cannon:
◎ ◎
◎ ◎
◎ ◎ ←you clicked this one

Choose ammo:
chained cannonballs $----
grape shot $----
firebrand $-----
lighting shot $----- ←you clicked this one.
explosive $-----
fury $-----

Now that you have chosen your ammo, its time to calculate your damage. Lets say your average damage was one-thousand. with 5 skill points in broadside, now your average is 1200!

Now that we ha examined your purchase, lets figure out what you paid. each would cost 1000 times more than they did in the ammo shop. Now that you've purcased the Lightning cannonball, one of these will be fired from your selected cannon. IMO, I would use lightning and a couple explosive. What does POF think of (sombody elses) idea?