Cannons on a piloted craft are displayed on the Weapons HUD. This HUD shows the direction and status of the craft's cannons.
Aiming
To aim cannons on your craft, hold a clock in your main hand and right-click towards the block you want the cannons to fire at.
Cannons that can aim at that block will adjust their aim towards it.
Firing
To fire cannons on your craft, hold a clock in your main hand and left-click. This will load and fire all cannons that can face your general direction.
The cannons will pull ammunition from their storage chests.
Cannon Selection
To fire and aim specific cannons (e.g. only AA Guns), rename the clock to the name of the cannon type (e.g. AA Gun).
Or alternatively, press the ‘Swap Hands’ key (default: F) while holding the clock to cycle through the available cannons.
Multicrew
Any friendly player on your craft can also use clocks to aim and fire its cannons.
Now our craft has cannons, but there is a problem – we can only rotate the cannons by rotating the entire craft! Sometimes this isn't possible, either due to the craft's rotation cooldown or the presence of obstructions.
The solution is placing your cannons on turrets. Turrets are subcrafts: crafts contained within a larger parent craft. Subcrafts can rotate independently of their parent craft, allowing you to rotate cannons without rotating your entire craft.
Turrets have to be fully separated from your craft using blocks that are allowed on the craft, but not on the turret (including diagonally!)
This allows your craft (the parent craft) to carry the turret, and ensures the turret doesn't think the parent craft is part of itself.
To find separating blocks, you can use /craftblocks compare <parent craft type> Turret
This command shows blocks that are allowed on the parent craft, but not on the turret.
All forms of Glazed Terracotta are good separating blocks because they also act as armour, something we will look at later.
To check whether the turret is properly separated from the parent craft, see whether the turret successfully pilots as a standalone craft. /pilot Turret.
Turrets need a Subcraft Rotate (SR) sign to rotate. When clicked, the SR sign will try to pilot the structure it is on as a subcraft, then rotate it.
The SR sign needs to be written like this:
Line 1: Subcraft Rotate
Line 2: Craft type of subcraft (in our case, Turret)
Line 3: Name of subcraft
This is useful for remotely activating the SR sign, see the next section.
Now we can use the SR sign:
Right-click the sign to rotate the turret clockwise
Left-click the sign to rotate the turret counter-clockwise
The turret will rotate around the SR sign (i.e. the SR sign is the rotation's origin).
[Warning] Sometimes the subcraft will refuse to rotate, saying that it is “already rotating”. If it isn't actually already rotating, this means that the subcraft is too large - usually because it's connected to the parent craft somewhere. You can check this by trying to pilot the subcraft as a standalone craft using /pilot.
Remote tools (R-tools) allow you to remotely trigger signs on your craft. In this case, we can use R-tools to remotely trigger our SR signs, so that we can rotate all of our turrets at once.
To create an R-Tool:
Type /remotetool create
Then type /remotetool setline 1 <any line that is on the signs that you want to activate>
Left-click the R-tool to left-click its linked signs.
Right-click the R-tool to right-click its linked signs.
Writing Reverse on Line 3 of an SR sign inverts the rotation controls, so that right-clicking rotates the turret counter-clockwise and left-clicking rotates it clockwise. This is useful for making rear-facing turrets that need to rotate in the same direction as front-facing turrets.
Besides cannons, crafts can arm themselves with torpedoes and depth charges. These are special subcrafts that detach from your craft and travel when you right-click their respective signs. Of course, these signs can also be triggered by R-signs and R-tools, allowing you to unleash deadly barrages of them.
Torpedoes are lethal subcrafts made from coal blocks. When activated, they ascend or descend towards y level 62 and then travel in a straight line. They explode upon contact with any solid block. They are the primary weapon of submarines, but can also be used on corvettes, destroyers, and cruisers.
Depth charges are subcrafts made from obsidian designed to counter submarines. They travel downwards upon being activated and will explode upon contact with any solid block. When they detonate, they additionally create deadly explosions on all submarines within 120 blocks. They can be used on destroyers and bombers.
Certain crafts can have periscopes which change your character's camera position. This is useful for crafts with limited visibility, like tanks and submarines. While in periscope mode, you do not take damage and can still move the craft. However, the periscope will break if any of its blocks are destroyed.
Armour blocks are special blocks that are less likely to break from explosions when they are on a piloted craft.
Terracotta (all colours) are the primary armour block for crafts.
Reinforced Wood is a primary armour block that is functionally identical to Terracotta but visually different. It can be used on some warships.
Glazed Terracotta (all colours) is the secondary armour block for crafts. It is weaker than terracotta, but does not merge with turrets, meaning it can be used to create armoured turret bases.
Tinted Glass is also stronger when on a piloted craft. It is not strong enough for it to be used as actual armour, but it is a recommended as an alternative to normal glass. Note that you must set your client graphics to “Fabulous” mode to see particles through Tinted Glass.