I'm new to the game and I'm looking over the starship combat rules.

because armor isn't location specific and a ship can only fire at one target per turn (is that right?), it seems to me that the value of havign guns on both sides of your ship is limited. (even with ships that lack a dorsal gun).

THe downsides of having only one set of gunsare:

• that your guns can be destroyed easier
• your ship looks stupid with guns only on one side.
• you'll have to carefuly manuver to get your guns facing your opponents.

How big a deal is this last issue? It seems that, if you have a good pilot, the come about manuver will always allow your guns to target.

Nope, you can fire all the guns in one turn, and I don't believe they must be at the same target.

Milandson is 100% correct - there is no restriction on firing at only one target, and you can shoot everything you've got (p.215, Shooting Actions).

If I understand correctly you're asking not whether you can fire with everything, but whether you're likely to be able to aim a specific broadside at an enemy on each turn if you have a good pilot. I've not played much myself, but I believe a big ship (the kind that usually has broadsides) can turn at most 90 degrees on special orders. Given that you have to move each turn at least half move, and smaller ships routinely turn 90 degrees and move further, I doubt that you could keep them in your broadside arc regardless of the pilot's skill. And if there were two of them, one could routinely attack your undefended side. I'd recommend playing out a sample combat and seeing how it works though.

To be honest, you had me at the 'it looks silly' reason. It might be just my sensibilities, but that's a good enough reason not to do it or encourage my players to.

I'm REALLY new to this game but one of the reasons I was attracted to it is because i'm a huge fan of the "golden age of sail" type stuff. I too wondered about the broadside on a single side of the ship... seemed pretty unusual.

I think a key component of the ship combat is going to be the maneuvering to get your guns bearing on the target. Certain weapon placement (dorsal) do a lot to eliminate this in combat but for anyone whose read the patrick o'brien novels (and you should, you really should) will appreciate using your ships tighter turn radius to keep away from the enemy's broadside and enable you to "rake 'em fore and aft!".

A small ship's tactic will be to primarily stay behind the other ship to avoid their fire.

I always thought the rule was that not only are you supposed to fire all your guns at the same time, but you're only allowed to fire them at the same time.