Gunning scoring

Gunnery scoring can actually be split into two sections; gunning aboard a navy vessel and gunning aboard a pillage.

Navy gunning
Since abandoning the puzzle will give a fresh board aboard a navy vessel, gunnery scoring is very simple in this context. To attain 100% efficiency (and therefore a rating of fine) one cannon must be correctly loaded a little under every 30 seconds, or about once per league point assuming the vessel is at top speed.

To provide some arbitrary numbers, imagine that correctly loading a cannon is worth 30 points and that a player lose one point for every second she is playing the puzzle with at least one cannon left to load.

Since all scoring is relative and gunnery is often a very competetive puzzle, the difficulty of scoring an incredible can vary across oceans. A score of around 100 points, or one cannon per 5 seconds of play, will usually be considered incredible gunning.

Gunning in battle
The above applies, but there is one additional factor to consider in this context; the washing of dirty cannon in preparation for the next reload. Since this extra step will slow gunners down, a small score bonus is provided for this action to compensate. Using the above example values, it seems that washing out a dirty cannon is worth approximately 3 points. Note that this bonus is not scored for cleaning an improperly loaded cannon, only one that has been fired.

Piece speed
It is obvious from the above that the faster the pieces are moving, the easier it will be to score highly. The initial speed of pieces whenever a player enters the puzzle is based directly on that player's standing in gunnery. Additionally there are a few factors that will change the piece speed temporarily within the puzzle.

Increases

 * Loading a cannon successfully
 * Washing a dirty cannon

Decreases

 * Improperly loading a piece
 * Dropping a piece over the side of the vessel

Note that these changes are cumulative such that it is possible to greatly increase or decrease the speed of pieces from the initial value during long battles on the same set of guns. However, any time the puzzle is re-entered, speed will again be set by the player's standing in gunnery.

However as of 2008-12-16, there was a gunnery slider bar that was implemented that lets you to set your speed. Though with this slider bar, the factors concerning increasing and decreasing speed still apply.