INTRODUCTION I don't know how much helpful content there will be in this post so it goes to the tavern!
The most fun came from fighting with other Fury pirates. Other crews had good pirates too but it always seemed there was one thing or another that led to disappointment. Some examples are mentioned in the Epilogue.
CHAPTER ONEI've played half a dozen Cannon Defense games around July 4, 2013. Until today, every single game carped out (a carp is a horrible smelly fish) before wave 65.
While pirates say you can get rev ram after wave 52 (and one of us had a pirate actually get it before 52) I have set the line at 65 based on my own experiences.
Today Joseph Ironskull (he plays an awesome BEAST game of CD) made it level 78. We didn't complete level 78, and if you do the math you realize at the end of 78 there would have been another drop.
What was unusual about today's game--even though Joseph, who had made all the ice, didn't die--the ice completely stopped working.
We watched the ships go by, too fast to shoot them all. I had noticed another strange thing, it seemed about twice as hard to make a shot of firestorm hit a ship. I have used firestorm a lot so it is not like I was on a learning curve. There were even times I fired into a "mess" of ships clumped together and still the game managed to tell me that I somehow missed all of them. I tried undershooting a bit--didn't help; I tried overshooting a bit--didn't help.
Prior to this TIF (total ice failure) I had noticed more ice slippages occurring, and had even mentioned it to Joe.
If this turns out to be a reproducible phenomenon (better word, problem) then on our best game there will only be about two chances to get the rev ram. No more playing up to a hundred so that after six opportunities the luck of probability gives it to you.
CHAPTER TWO Ironskull played solo to level 91. He was not defeated at level 91, some other pirate joined his game.
And the team made it to level 117.
CHAPTER THREE Someone asked if we earned cannon rep for playing Cannon Defense. I was shocked when two pirates said "yes". They both mentioned that the amount was
extremely small though.
Over a period seven minutes shy of two hours, I earned 795 cannon rep, corresponding to 1,319,309 damage. That comes out not quite 1 rep point per 1500 in damage.
It also calculates to 7 rep per minute.
For comparison, the same pirate sank a few ships next to see how much rep would come from each ship:
2 rep for a Ferret
18 for a Bulwark
27 rep for Panther
47 rep for a Sentinel
(numbers represent work without any crew bonus) EPILOGUE By the way, I noticed quite a few pirates who were shooting good, didn't know how to make permanent ice. You fire a keg and then you hit it with a first ice, then you wait and then hit it with a second ice.
Also, you need to know, you can't make it to wave 65 on good shooting; you need to be able to place a keg and then hit it with a bullet to explode it. That is trick one. Trick two is using firestorm when you get it, ESPECIALLY when there are a bunch of big ships.
There is a bit, a little bit, of happy news. One of our pirates got a rev ram while we were playing CD last night (Saturday night).
RICARDO 
Finally, if other players are firing six hundred and seven hundred shots in a way and you shot seventy five, you need to shoot faster. There is a trick to help you -- use both hands. Let one hand hold and steer the mouse and use your index finger on the other hand to push the firing button. Not only can you click faster, your aim should improve. I push the button with the hand I use to write.
