What does it mean when i shoot someone and an exclamation point appears?

Usually i do extra damage as well do at first I assumed it meant I was doing a critical hit, but I could also score them with the regular cannon which afaik doesn't have a crit chance?

 

When the symbol appears next to your damage, it means you got a crit shot, which deals double damage of what it would have got without it.

 

These are the only weapons that can critical hit.

 

I must've missed it on the regular cannon. Thanks!

 

All good man. It took me a minute to realize that not all weapons had crit damage so I had to look it up...then realized that only a handful of weapons could crit...so I began running a sniper, reg cannon, and 3rd weapon was whatever tickled my fancy!!

 

I think it will also appear for mortar direct hits that get the 30% bonus and torpedo direct hits as well.

 

Yeah, but that's with the crew member trained and perk activated...I'm just pointing out the weapons that have it initially...but you're right.