Vessel combat is a lot simpler than monster combat, to initiate a vessel fight go out onto the water in the Uncharted Waters pack and you will pretty soon come across a “Monster” vessel (for want of a better description).
Click on the Vessel or mouse over it and click the Attack button, the vessel combat screen will then be displayed.
The Vessel combat screen itself has a different appearance to the monster combat screen.
You will notice there are not a million buttons on the screen, I have tried very hard to keep this interface as simple as possible.
You have 3 buttons:
Unlike monster combat your turn does not start the moment you click a button, so you are free to change your mind as much as you like, you can set actions individually for all of your vessels involved in the fight.
When you are happy you can click the Take Turn button and the actions you set will be played out, in this way you can have one vessel repairing itself while another shoots or have all your ships blasting away.
When the fight is resolved and one side emerges victorious there is no loot screen, instead you automatically gain whatever items you were allowed to claim, this may be a special quest item if you are on a quest or a random piece of cargo. The item is transferred to whichever ship you have that has free cargo space, so if you are out of cargo space you can not loot the vessel.
You can then sink the ship or plunder it further, and perform any other actions that work against a disabled vessel.