Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
Still ... perhaps I'm wrong, but IIRC guns or ballistae are not the most important thing about a pirate ship. You're not trying to sink your targets, after all, but to capture them for looting. So you need a fast ship (to catch up to merchants, or to run away from warships) with a large crew ( to provide the boarding party). You probably don't need more than one gun to fire warning shots in order to signal a merchant to heave to.
Being airships change things. They won't sink with a hole in the hull. You can then use ballistas to attach a rope in a hard to cut place, maybe even send a boarding party through an opening under the deck with some grouped shots.