Today's review was a viewer request, the German battleship "Gneisenau". She's not quite sure if she really wants to be a battleship, though...
Sunday, 23 December 2018
German battleship "Gneisenau" review
Hi folks!
Today's review was a viewer request, the German battleship "Gneisenau". She's not quite sure if she really wants to be a battleship, though...
Today's review was a viewer request, the German battleship "Gneisenau". She's not quite sure if she really wants to be a battleship, though...
Saturday, 15 December 2018
Premium British battleship "Warspite" review
Hi folks!
Today, I'm out in the mighty Warspite, looking for a brawl. If we go down, we do so fighting, like gentlemen!
Today, I'm out in the mighty Warspite, looking for a brawl. If we go down, we do so fighting, like gentlemen!
Sunday, 9 December 2018
Replay video - Amazing team
Hi folks!
Today, I've got a replay video for you of the rare sort - where the team turned out to be amazing, and worked together perfectly
Today, I've got a replay video for you of the rare sort - where the team turned out to be amazing, and worked together perfectly
Soviet premium light cruiser "Krasny Krym" review
Hi folks!
Here's my review of the Soviet premium tier 5 cruiser, the "Krasny Krym". Without spoiling it, I'm not necessarily overwhelmed...
Here's my review of the Soviet premium tier 5 cruiser, the "Krasny Krym". Without spoiling it, I'm not necessarily overwhelmed...
Friday, 23 November 2018
Premium Chinese light cruiser "Huang He" review
Hi folks!
Today, I'm taking a closer look at the "Huang He" (not the "Huanghe", as she's misspelled in the game...), which used to be a British light cruiser, handed over to China after the war. She's... well, not for everyone.
Today, I'm taking a closer look at the "Huang He" (not the "Huanghe", as she's misspelled in the game...), which used to be a British light cruiser, handed over to China after the war. She's... well, not for everyone.
Premium Japanese light cruiser "Yubari" review
Hi folks,
this week, I'll show you the "Yubari" - easily the most overpowered premium ship in the game.
this week, I'll show you the "Yubari" - easily the most overpowered premium ship in the game.
Premium French light cruiser "De Grasse" review
Hi folks!
In this week's video, I'm reviewing the "De Grasse", easily my current favourite tier 6 light cruiser.
In this week's video, I'm reviewing the "De Grasse", easily my current favourite tier 6 light cruiser.
Guns and Ammo
Hi folks!
In today's video, I talk about calibre, high explosive, armour-piercing, and send a full-health battleship to Davy Jones' locker with only four 127mm guns.
In today's video, I talk about calibre, high explosive, armour-piercing, and send a full-health battleship to Davy Jones' locker with only four 127mm guns.
Sunday, 28 October 2018
Premium Soviet battleship Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya review
Hi folks!
Today, I'll be reviewing the only Soviet battleship in the game, the premium "Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya".
Today, I'll be reviewing the only Soviet battleship in the game, the premium "Oktyabrskaya Revolyutsiya".
New YouTube channel - World of Warships Blitz getting started guide
Hi folks!
I've launched a YouTube channel about World of Warships Blitz, with the first video being a "getting started" guide. Enjoy!
I've launched a YouTube channel about World of Warships Blitz, with the first video being a "getting started" guide. Enjoy!
Saturday, 9 June 2018
Ship review: Emerald class British light cruiser
Hi folks!
I've been working my way up the new British cruiser line these past weeks, so today, we'll take a look at the tier five "Emerald" class light cruiser, and her direct competitor, the German "Königsberg".
First, the Emerald. She's got the same 152mm main guns like her predecessors, and the two triple torpedo launchers on each side. The guns are single-mounted, and she's got seven of them (over the tier four "Danae"'s six guns).
There's a catch, though - the centre turrets can't rotate all the way around, so you can effectively only ever bring six guns to bear at the time.
The biggest advantage the Emerald has is her smoke generator (again a hint that these things really are just oversized destroyers). You can do some fun things with these, like do a straight run at a battleship, launch your first torpedo salvo, kick the engines into reverse, pop smoke, and peacefully turn around to fire the torpedoes from the other side, without being seen.
So, how does she hold up against the tier five German cruiser? In my opinion, not very favourably.
Let's take a look. The Königsberg's guns are vastly superior - for starters, she's got three triple turrets for a total of nine 150mm guns, they do 100 points more of base damage with the AP shells, and they can switch to HE for blistering fire against heavily armoured opponents. The Emerald can only do up to six guns in a broadside, does less damage, and can't fire HE shells.
This means she's struggling against destroyers, because she just doesn't have the damage output to deal with them at range effectively, and her shells mostly bounce off battleships. She doesn't have the manoeuvrability for close-range torpedo duels, and virtually no armour and low health, making destroyer dogfights quite hard. The Königsberg, on the other hand, can do severe damage to destroyers quickly, and with her precision consumable, do so comfortably out of torpedo range.
So, in summary, when playing the Emerald, you have to rely heavily on your torpedoes, concealment and smoke screens. Play her like a US destroyer, not like a cruiser. Personally, I'd still take the Königsberg any day. Things might get more interesting after tier six, when the German cruiser line switches over to fast heavy cruisers, and the British cruisers will have to compete with the Soviet light cruisers in the anti-destroyer role, where their torpedoes are going to be vastly superior.
I've been working my way up the new British cruiser line these past weeks, so today, we'll take a look at the tier five "Emerald" class light cruiser, and her direct competitor, the German "Königsberg".
First, the Emerald. She's got the same 152mm main guns like her predecessors, and the two triple torpedo launchers on each side. The guns are single-mounted, and she's got seven of them (over the tier four "Danae"'s six guns).There's a catch, though - the centre turrets can't rotate all the way around, so you can effectively only ever bring six guns to bear at the time.
The biggest advantage the Emerald has is her smoke generator (again a hint that these things really are just oversized destroyers). You can do some fun things with these, like do a straight run at a battleship, launch your first torpedo salvo, kick the engines into reverse, pop smoke, and peacefully turn around to fire the torpedoes from the other side, without being seen.
So, how does she hold up against the tier five German cruiser? In my opinion, not very favourably.
This means she's struggling against destroyers, because she just doesn't have the damage output to deal with them at range effectively, and her shells mostly bounce off battleships. She doesn't have the manoeuvrability for close-range torpedo duels, and virtually no armour and low health, making destroyer dogfights quite hard. The Königsberg, on the other hand, can do severe damage to destroyers quickly, and with her precision consumable, do so comfortably out of torpedo range.
So, in summary, when playing the Emerald, you have to rely heavily on your torpedoes, concealment and smoke screens. Play her like a US destroyer, not like a cruiser. Personally, I'd still take the Königsberg any day. Things might get more interesting after tier six, when the German cruiser line switches over to fast heavy cruisers, and the British cruisers will have to compete with the Soviet light cruisers in the anti-destroyer role, where their torpedoes are going to be vastly superior.
Saturday, 2 June 2018
British Cruisers
Hi folks!
With the update to version 1.4, World of Warships Blitz now has a British cruiser line in the tech tree. Time to take a look.
I spent some free XP to skip the first tiers, this is the Danae class tier four light cruiser.
She's got a good turn time, is fast, has six 152mm main guns, and four torpedo launchers with a 5.7km range. That is some serious offensive firepower for a tier 4 ship - basically, she's an oversized destroyer with bigger guns.
There's something unique about the torpedo launchers - you can either fire in the usual wide patterns, or you can switch to the narrow launch pattern and fire the torpedoes individually. Consider the implications of this - you have not one, but six torpedoes you can spread in any pattern you desire across the launcher arc. You could fire them all at on the same path, or create a broad spread at short range.
As expected, the 152mm guns do well against enemy destroyers, but they have one serious handicap - they can only fire armour piercing ammunition. And this is where it gets interesting when you go up the tech tree - even the tier 10 "Minotaur" has 152mm main batteries, and can only fire armour-piercing (albeit at a blistering reload rate of 3.5s).
This means two things. First, finally we got another light cruiser beyond tier six, aside from the Soviet line (US, Japanese and German cruisers all switch to 200mm guns). I'm often struggling in my tier eight "Hipper" when dealing with destroyers, since her 200mm guns on armour piercing are prone to overpenetration (doing only about 20% damage), and her HE shells are pretty poor.
On the other hand, though, my tier six Nürnberg is struggling to do damage with her 150mm guns against battleships when using AP, since the shells mostly bounce off the armour, especially against US battleships. If I can't get the torpedoes to bear, I can switch to high explosive, keep the distance to dodge return fire, and whittle them down with fires and constant HE barrage.
You can't do that on a British light cruiser, though, since they only fire AP. In addition, they have relatively low health and paper-thin armour. So my prediction here is that you're going to have to play her more like a destroyer - use the guns to obliterate enemy destroyers and maybe do some damage against cruisers, but rely on the torpedoes as your main weapon against bigger ships.
I understand the move - can you imagine the carnage of fires these things could unleash with their reload rate. But be aware that you can't take return fire even from heavy cruisers, and use those unique torpedo launchers to your advantage.
With the update to version 1.4, World of Warships Blitz now has a British cruiser line in the tech tree. Time to take a look.
I spent some free XP to skip the first tiers, this is the Danae class tier four light cruiser.
There's something unique about the torpedo launchers - you can either fire in the usual wide patterns, or you can switch to the narrow launch pattern and fire the torpedoes individually. Consider the implications of this - you have not one, but six torpedoes you can spread in any pattern you desire across the launcher arc. You could fire them all at on the same path, or create a broad spread at short range.
As expected, the 152mm guns do well against enemy destroyers, but they have one serious handicap - they can only fire armour piercing ammunition. And this is where it gets interesting when you go up the tech tree - even the tier 10 "Minotaur" has 152mm main batteries, and can only fire armour-piercing (albeit at a blistering reload rate of 3.5s).
This means two things. First, finally we got another light cruiser beyond tier six, aside from the Soviet line (US, Japanese and German cruisers all switch to 200mm guns). I'm often struggling in my tier eight "Hipper" when dealing with destroyers, since her 200mm guns on armour piercing are prone to overpenetration (doing only about 20% damage), and her HE shells are pretty poor.
On the other hand, though, my tier six Nürnberg is struggling to do damage with her 150mm guns against battleships when using AP, since the shells mostly bounce off the armour, especially against US battleships. If I can't get the torpedoes to bear, I can switch to high explosive, keep the distance to dodge return fire, and whittle them down with fires and constant HE barrage.
You can't do that on a British light cruiser, though, since they only fire AP. In addition, they have relatively low health and paper-thin armour. So my prediction here is that you're going to have to play her more like a destroyer - use the guns to obliterate enemy destroyers and maybe do some damage against cruisers, but rely on the torpedoes as your main weapon against bigger ships.
I understand the move - can you imagine the carnage of fires these things could unleash with their reload rate. But be aware that you can't take return fire even from heavy cruisers, and use those unique torpedo launchers to your advantage.
Friday, 25 May 2018
Playing strategically
Hi folks!
World of Warships Blitz, especially since the 1.0 release and opening up to a wider group of players, has gotten much more difficult than in the beta days. This is due to a number of factors:
World of Warships Blitz, especially since the 1.0 release and opening up to a wider group of players, has gotten much more difficult than in the beta days. This is due to a number of factors:
- more human players means less (relatively stupid) AI players to farm on
- human players increasingly know what they're doing
- new branches on the tech tree mean more experienced players grinding at low levels
- AI got better (especially in terms of avoiding torpedoes)
- ranked battles mean you're quickly up against top players
I'm seeing signs of frustration in my fleet chat, with people "just not winning anymore".
Back in the beta days, if you had a destroyer or light cruiser, and had a halfway decent idea of how to actually play the game, you could absolutely dominate. Enemy ships would sail at constant speed, in straight lines, obliviously close to islands. Battleships would blindly attack into close quarters against destroyers. Battleships would fire HE shells at your battleship, and AP against your destroyer. Stuff like that.
I've clocked in battles where I single-handedly wiped out the complete enemy fleet in my Nürnberg class light cruiser:
Not getting these kind of results anymore - even an Iron Fortress medal, which I used to pick up in pretty much all battles, is not guaranteed. More frequently, I end up spending 3/4th of a battle duelling with a single enemy player, defending a flank or sneaking a cap to make it to - less glorious - victory.
Strategy
Since it's quite hard to carry a game on your own, working in a team is becoming more and more important. Unfortunately, unless you squad up with other players you know, you'll be on your own with a group of random players, with limited means of communication. Let's take a look at how to make the most of this situation, and keep coming out on top. I'm flying the "Battle Star" nick in-game for a reason - and modesty isn't one of them :)
This is me in my "Admiral Hipper" class tier 8 German heavy cruiser. Not one of my favourite maps, too much open space, and these icebergs are too large to use as quick cover. So, what do we have to consider at the beginning of this battle.
First, fleet composition. We've got one battleship, three cruisers, and three destroyers. The enemy fleet has one more battleship, at the cost of one cruiser. Battleships are deadly on this map if played right, due to the wide open spaces. Let's look at the map a bit closer.
This is close to a minute into the battle, and you'll notice two things: most of our fleet is heading straight south towards that narrow channel. Spawning points are cross-position, and the enemy fleet is likely do do the same thing on their side. If we were all to follow, one thing is almost a certainty on this one: A destroyer will sneak up close to or behind the icebergs, and try to win by capping. You'll almost certainly lose this way, I've seen it happening many times.
So with the lemming train heading south, if the enemy battleships have even the slightest idea of what they're doing, they'll position around their cap circle, angled forward, and welcome them with blistering fire, while the destroyers will scatter them or drive them against the icebergs with torpedoes, where they don't have space to manoeuvre.
There isn't much I can do to communicate with my team, so I'm heading straight east to defend the eastern approach. The "Hipper" has sonar, so I've got a decent chance to detect enemy destroyers or cruisers when they're inevitably heading up these lines. I'm making sure not to get too close to the icebergs, so I have range to manoeuvre against torpedoes.
The "Hipper" also has six torpedo launchers on each side, with a range of 5.4km, giving me something to deter enemy ships from going in a certain direction. Once I've intercepted whatever comes sailing up that side, I'm turning back north to defend the cap.
You'll also note one of our destroyers going straight through the centre to spot for the rest of the team. He has to be careful, since there's no concealment, and once he's spotted, he'll have the entire enemy fleet shooting at him. But at least we'll know what's coming.
In this particular game, I had a destroyer and a cruiser sailing up the western line, and another destroyer sneaking up the eastern line. I did manage to sink both destroyers, but got taken out eventually by the cruiser, but I prevented them long enough from capping that we were able to win on points (and I would almost have taken the cruiser down with me). I managed two kills, about 40000 damage caused, which didn't get me any medals, but at least our team won.
Communication
In this next scenario, I'm in my Aurora, a premium tier three Soviet cruiser. She's not particularly fast, but sturdy, and has mean, quick-firing high explosive shells, which do over 400 points of damage. Setting battleships on fire while dodging their return shots is great fun, and she can do some severe damage to destroyers at close range.
As before, let's look at our disposition of forces. We've got a carrier (I'm bottom tier in a tier four match), three battleships, two cruisers and one destroyer. The enemy fleet has two destroyers and an additional cruiser, at the cost of battleships. They have the mobility and torpedo advantage, we have more powerful guns. The map is tricky, though.
We have three cap circles (this is a very common map in these lower tiers), and plenty of covers behind islands, especially around A and B. This map favours mobility. Again, consider that the enemy team is going to cross-spawn on the south-eastern corner.
The most important decision in this situation is made at the opening. With our fleet vulnerable to destroyers, we need to control and defend two of the cap circles, while keeping each other in supporting fire range. Our destroyer spawned on the western end of the map, and my Aurora barely does more than 20 knots. We couldn't go for caps B and C, since we didn't have the speed and mobility to hold these plus defend the battleships from being flanked by destroyers.
So what I did here was trying to "pull rank" (again, flying the "Battle Star" nick helps, especially in lower-tier games) and get the team to take A and B. This worked reasonably well. The destroyer capped A, I positioned myself near the islands north of A to cover him against enemy cruisers, and to intercept enemy destroyers, and the other cruiser capped B, with fire support from the battleships against the main enemy thrust.
Of course, things went messy quickly after that (it's a lower-tier game after all, players mostly don't have the experience for discipline), but we managed to keep their destroyers in check, and our battleships made short work of the enemy cruiser force. We ended up holding all three caps, and won by sinking the enemy fleet.
When I play lower tier games, I usually hold back and leave kills for the more junior players, if possible. Or hunt down other higher-rank players.
Summary
With the game becoming harder, you can't easily carry it by your own, you need to work as a team, and communicate. A couple of things to keep in mind:
Not getting these kind of results anymore - even an Iron Fortress medal, which I used to pick up in pretty much all battles, is not guaranteed. More frequently, I end up spending 3/4th of a battle duelling with a single enemy player, defending a flank or sneaking a cap to make it to - less glorious - victory.
Strategy
Since it's quite hard to carry a game on your own, working in a team is becoming more and more important. Unfortunately, unless you squad up with other players you know, you'll be on your own with a group of random players, with limited means of communication. Let's take a look at how to make the most of this situation, and keep coming out on top. I'm flying the "Battle Star" nick in-game for a reason - and modesty isn't one of them :)
This is me in my "Admiral Hipper" class tier 8 German heavy cruiser. Not one of my favourite maps, too much open space, and these icebergs are too large to use as quick cover. So, what do we have to consider at the beginning of this battle.
First, fleet composition. We've got one battleship, three cruisers, and three destroyers. The enemy fleet has one more battleship, at the cost of one cruiser. Battleships are deadly on this map if played right, due to the wide open spaces. Let's look at the map a bit closer.
So with the lemming train heading south, if the enemy battleships have even the slightest idea of what they're doing, they'll position around their cap circle, angled forward, and welcome them with blistering fire, while the destroyers will scatter them or drive them against the icebergs with torpedoes, where they don't have space to manoeuvre.
The "Hipper" also has six torpedo launchers on each side, with a range of 5.4km, giving me something to deter enemy ships from going in a certain direction. Once I've intercepted whatever comes sailing up that side, I'm turning back north to defend the cap.
You'll also note one of our destroyers going straight through the centre to spot for the rest of the team. He has to be careful, since there's no concealment, and once he's spotted, he'll have the entire enemy fleet shooting at him. But at least we'll know what's coming.
In this particular game, I had a destroyer and a cruiser sailing up the western line, and another destroyer sneaking up the eastern line. I did manage to sink both destroyers, but got taken out eventually by the cruiser, but I prevented them long enough from capping that we were able to win on points (and I would almost have taken the cruiser down with me). I managed two kills, about 40000 damage caused, which didn't get me any medals, but at least our team won.
Communication
In this next scenario, I'm in my Aurora, a premium tier three Soviet cruiser. She's not particularly fast, but sturdy, and has mean, quick-firing high explosive shells, which do over 400 points of damage. Setting battleships on fire while dodging their return shots is great fun, and she can do some severe damage to destroyers at close range.
As before, let's look at our disposition of forces. We've got a carrier (I'm bottom tier in a tier four match), three battleships, two cruisers and one destroyer. The enemy fleet has two destroyers and an additional cruiser, at the cost of battleships. They have the mobility and torpedo advantage, we have more powerful guns. The map is tricky, though. The most important decision in this situation is made at the opening. With our fleet vulnerable to destroyers, we need to control and defend two of the cap circles, while keeping each other in supporting fire range. Our destroyer spawned on the western end of the map, and my Aurora barely does more than 20 knots. We couldn't go for caps B and C, since we didn't have the speed and mobility to hold these plus defend the battleships from being flanked by destroyers.
So what I did here was trying to "pull rank" (again, flying the "Battle Star" nick helps, especially in lower-tier games) and get the team to take A and B. This worked reasonably well. The destroyer capped A, I positioned myself near the islands north of A to cover him against enemy cruisers, and to intercept enemy destroyers, and the other cruiser capped B, with fire support from the battleships against the main enemy thrust.
Of course, things went messy quickly after that (it's a lower-tier game after all, players mostly don't have the experience for discipline), but we managed to keep their destroyers in check, and our battleships made short work of the enemy cruiser force. We ended up holding all three caps, and won by sinking the enemy fleet.
When I play lower tier games, I usually hold back and leave kills for the more junior players, if possible. Or hunt down other higher-rank players.
Summary
With the game becoming harder, you can't easily carry it by your own, you need to work as a team, and communicate. A couple of things to keep in mind:
- be aware of fleet composition, and try to plan accordingly
- be aware of your role. If you're in a Japanese destroyer, you need to torpedo-snipe from long distance, and not get into gunfights. If you're in a battleship, stay in open waters, cover your flanks, and stay in range to concentrate fire with other battleships. If you're in a light cruiser, escort battleships and knock out destroyers. If you're in a carrier, scout early, disturb enemy air attacks, and take out low-health ships.
- try to communicate with your team in the opening stage, especially on cap circles.
This way, you can still pull off a decent win rate, and keep competing. By the way, if you're wondering how top players (e.g. pretty much all of FND) are having win rates in the 70 or 80% ranges, I can almost guarantee you that it's down to using external team communication.
Sunday, 29 April 2018
World of Tanks Blitz
Hi folks!
Today, I'll take a quick look at the other mobile game by wargaming, the mobile version of World of Tanks. I've enjoyed World of Warships for quite a while, so I figured I'd bite the bullet, free up 5GB of space (yep, that happened) and give it a try.
First impressions
The game does a good job of getting you started on the controls, with tutorial missions, and then throws you in for what I can only describe as "guaranteed wins" for a couple of battles, before sending you off into the terrifying world of multiplayer tactical battles.
That was the point I almost dropped the game again. You're a noob in a tier 1 tank, you have really no idea what to do or how to do it, and you're thrown in with players who have hundreds or thousands of battles under their belt. I had a basic idea of what I was supposed to do - stay in cover, concentrate fire, try not to die - but the first, I don't know, ten or twenty battles I got killed pretty much immediately, and felt like I had zero impact on the battle (or probably a negative one for my team).
Controls
My biggest issue at first was with the controls - in World of Warships, you've got your speed setting, and port / starboard rudder, and that's pretty much it. Try not to crash into islands. In World of Tanks, thinks are three-dimensional for a start: hills, slopes etc do exist that you can drive up on, valleys to go down into.
There are eight directions: forward, forward left, forward right, reverse, reverse left, reverse right, rotate on spot left, rotate on spot right. All these are controlled with a virtual analogue stick with no haptic feedback, the size of my thumb. Effectively that meant for the most part of my first battles I was just derping around, getting stuck on rocks or buildings, and inevitably getting killed very quickly.
Matchmaking
I feel that one of the main problems in the matchmaking is that it's by vehicle tier, not by player experience. That wasn't so much a problem in World of Warships, because I started in the open beta, and we all pretty much had to figure things out as we went. World of Tanks has been out for a while, so the experienced players get frustrated with scrubs like me dragging their team down, and new players are quickly frustrated by getting shot up rapidly (and potentially shouted at).
But I decided to stick with it, for a couple of reasons:
Today, I'll take a quick look at the other mobile game by wargaming, the mobile version of World of Tanks. I've enjoyed World of Warships for quite a while, so I figured I'd bite the bullet, free up 5GB of space (yep, that happened) and give it a try.
First impressions
The game does a good job of getting you started on the controls, with tutorial missions, and then throws you in for what I can only describe as "guaranteed wins" for a couple of battles, before sending you off into the terrifying world of multiplayer tactical battles.
That was the point I almost dropped the game again. You're a noob in a tier 1 tank, you have really no idea what to do or how to do it, and you're thrown in with players who have hundreds or thousands of battles under their belt. I had a basic idea of what I was supposed to do - stay in cover, concentrate fire, try not to die - but the first, I don't know, ten or twenty battles I got killed pretty much immediately, and felt like I had zero impact on the battle (or probably a negative one for my team).
Controls
My biggest issue at first was with the controls - in World of Warships, you've got your speed setting, and port / starboard rudder, and that's pretty much it. Try not to crash into islands. In World of Tanks, thinks are three-dimensional for a start: hills, slopes etc do exist that you can drive up on, valleys to go down into.
There are eight directions: forward, forward left, forward right, reverse, reverse left, reverse right, rotate on spot left, rotate on spot right. All these are controlled with a virtual analogue stick with no haptic feedback, the size of my thumb. Effectively that meant for the most part of my first battles I was just derping around, getting stuck on rocks or buildings, and inevitably getting killed very quickly.
Matchmaking
I feel that one of the main problems in the matchmaking is that it's by vehicle tier, not by player experience. That wasn't so much a problem in World of Warships, because I started in the open beta, and we all pretty much had to figure things out as we went. World of Tanks has been out for a while, so the experienced players get frustrated with scrubs like me dragging their team down, and new players are quickly frustrated by getting shot up rapidly (and potentially shouted at).
But I decided to stick with it, for a couple of reasons:
- I wanted to see how long it would take to not completely suck
- I quite enjoy tanks, and the tech trees are huge
- battles are rather quick, and the game gives you a generous helping of vehicle slots, so I always have something to battle with
Currencies
The currency system works pretty much like World of Warships - there's "silver", which is gained from battle income, and used to buy tanks, upgrades, repairs, ammo etc. Then there's "gold", the premium currency you usually have to pay real money for to get.
The one big difference I've seen so far is that you can buy premium ammo with gold, and do more damage than with regular ammo. That feels like a stupid pay-to-win system at first, but it really isn't - yes, it might cost you the occasional battle, but on the whole, if you don't know what you're doing, no amount of premium ammo is going to turn the game for you.
You'll start with a respectable amount of gold for free (1000+ in my case), probably to get you used to spending it. Honestly, I haven't really seen a need for it yet, having sufficient fun without putting any real money into it. I will, eventually, come up with a fair price of what the game is worth to me, and spend that once, but it's really quite good in free mode.
It took me about a week to get up to tier 4, get some upgrades, and actually make a meaningful contribution to battles every now and then.
Map layout
I'd say, from my limited experience, the single most important thing to learn, besides the fiddly controls, is the map layout. Players are very, very good at exploiting your mistakes - you sit next to a rock, thinking you're in cover, but you're actually in an open vector from the rear - you're dead. Drive too far ahead, get spotted and overrun, you're dead. Get flanked in a tank destroyer - you're dead.
So for the beginning, I'd recommend sticking with the other players, observing the spots they take, and learning the map layout.
Keep practising, upgrade your tank, train your crew, and after a while, you'll get the satisfaction of doing damage, occasionally carrying a battle and getting some medals.
Friday, 13 April 2018
Ranked battle killers - Königsberg light cruiser
Hi folks!
The "ranked battle" feature has been in the game for a while now, and it's an interesting and fun addition. The basic idea is that, during currently two windows of server time a day, you play against other players, gaining (or losing) points, and thus moving up or down the ladder. Each rank class (bronze, silver etc.) gets you resources at the end of the season, and you gain currency to spend in the rank shop.
A nice twist is that ranked battles can only be played at tier five, no matter what your personal top tier is. This, of course, limits the choice of ships available. In the battleship line, there's the excellent Japanese Kongo class, which really is a fast, uparmoured battlecruiser, and you'll usually find a large number of destroyer players.
Since I'm a bit of a fan of the German cruiser line, I found that the tier five Königsberg class is really almost as good as the tier six Nürnberg.
She's got very similar guns - nine 150mm in three turrets - and torpedoes - four triple launchers, two on each side.
Armour and health are comparable, she's a light cruiser, so two good broadsides from a battleship will probably sink her. But the fast-firing main batteries (can be brought down to about 7s reload time with the reload speed equipment upgrade), using armour piercing, are an absolute destroyer-killer.
She doesn't have the Nürnberg's sonar, but does have the precise aim. Staying away from cruiser and battleship guns is a given, and she can do great with dodging distance shots while responding with rapid high-explosive fire from her two rear turrets. Alternatively, you can use her torpedoes to flank or ambush bigger ships.
As with the Nürnberg, I'd recommend using the two steering equipment upgrades, playing to her strength as a light cruiser.
The "ranked battle" feature has been in the game for a while now, and it's an interesting and fun addition. The basic idea is that, during currently two windows of server time a day, you play against other players, gaining (or losing) points, and thus moving up or down the ladder. Each rank class (bronze, silver etc.) gets you resources at the end of the season, and you gain currency to spend in the rank shop.
A nice twist is that ranked battles can only be played at tier five, no matter what your personal top tier is. This, of course, limits the choice of ships available. In the battleship line, there's the excellent Japanese Kongo class, which really is a fast, uparmoured battlecruiser, and you'll usually find a large number of destroyer players.
Since I'm a bit of a fan of the German cruiser line, I found that the tier five Königsberg class is really almost as good as the tier six Nürnberg.She's got very similar guns - nine 150mm in three turrets - and torpedoes - four triple launchers, two on each side.
Armour and health are comparable, she's a light cruiser, so two good broadsides from a battleship will probably sink her. But the fast-firing main batteries (can be brought down to about 7s reload time with the reload speed equipment upgrade), using armour piercing, are an absolute destroyer-killer.
She doesn't have the Nürnberg's sonar, but does have the precise aim. Staying away from cruiser and battleship guns is a given, and she can do great with dodging distance shots while responding with rapid high-explosive fire from her two rear turrets. Alternatively, you can use her torpedoes to flank or ambush bigger ships.
As with the Nürnberg, I'd recommend using the two steering equipment upgrades, playing to her strength as a light cruiser.
Friday, 6 April 2018
Visibility
Hi folks!
Today, I'll leave some thoughts about visibility, and how it can be used in your playstyle. Visibility in World of Warships is affected by several factors:
Today, I'll leave some thoughts about visibility, and how it can be used in your playstyle. Visibility in World of Warships is affected by several factors:
- ship class - smaller ships like destroyers have much lower visibility than large ships.
- modifications - in higher tiers, ships can be outfitted with superstructure mods that reduce visibility (usually by 10%)
- camouflage paint - besides giving other perks, they usually reduce the visibility by a couple more %
In the game, visibility is marked by the dotted circle around your ship, with the full line being the range of your currently selected weapon.
Firing guns
Once you fire any of your main or secondary batteries, your visibility will bloom, and it will take a while of you not firing them for it to go down again. The impact this has on your strategy depends on the ship type you're sailing, and what kind of build you're going for.
Battleships
Being the largest ships out there, battleships usually get spotted first, easily halfway across the map. Stealth isn't really something required for battleship strategies, since you'll be mostly firing from behind your destroyer / cruiser screen at range. That said, if you build for lower detection range, and manage to show up in a place where you're not expected early in the game, you can get a slight advantage out of it - but I probably would use the modification slots for more important things.
Cruisers
Smaller than battleships, they're still relying mostly on their main guns to deal damage, and once the firefight is up, they're easily spotted. That said, if your main gun range is larger than your visibility, you can get the first salvo off against an unsuspecting target, provided they're spotted and you aren't.
Destroyers
Here, visibility really comes into play. Especially Japanese destroyers with their relatively weak guns and long-range torpedoes can benefit hugely from low visibility. A common attack pattern is to sneak up just outside spotting range, fire a salvo of torpedoes at an unsuspecting target, and get out again unspotted. American and Russian / Soviet destroyers have much shorter torpedo ranges, so it's harder for them to pull of these "stealth strikes". Still, getting out of spotting range means you won't be shot at by long-range, fast-firing cruisers. Dropping smoke screens also helps quite a bit.
So after you've dropped your torpedoes, and you haven't yet been spotted, hold off on the gunfire - it might be a better choice to turn, get some distance and stay out of sight. Of course, once you're spotted, you might as well open up with the main guns. Again, US and Russian destroyers have the advantage here, they're close-range fighters.
Carriers
Having a low visibility on a carrier can help hiding it from enemy eyes, but there are two factors to consider - first, there's a good chance of an enemy carrier in the game, and planes are very good at spotting. Second, it's easy to see where you should be just by following the planes, since they're visible across the whole map.
In general, camouflage helps in the game (how I hate the games where I got hit by two loads of torpedoes in my "Admiral Hipper" without even ever seeing the enemy Kagero class once). But, as always, it depends on your ship class and playstyle.
Friday, 30 March 2018
Update 1.2 - Russian / Soviet destroyers
Hi folks!
With the latest update, we've got some new ships in the tech tree. This time around, it's mainly Russian (and later Soviet) destroyers. I've started with some low-tier ships, and so far, it's been great fun.
Of course, we'll need to compare them with the US and Japanese destroyer lines. Overall, the Russian destroyers have great fast-firing guns, are quick, and have rather shitty torpedo range and damage.
This is the tier three destroyer of the Russian imperial navy, the Derzky.
She's got three 103mm guns, with a base reload of only 5s, as well as five (!) dual torpedo launchers, that reload in a blistering 26s. They only have a range of about three kilometres, and only do about 1900 damage each, but they reload almost as fast as a battleship's main battery.
This ship is so much fun to play, that I haven't even bothered to unlock the higher tiers yet. While it doesn't have any health whatsoever, you can two-shot a US battleship. Other destroyers are in for a nasty surprise as well, since you can fire three salvos of torpedoes at them, have them dodge, only to run into two more on the way, all while you're peppering them with the main guns.
These guns do almost 300 HE damage when fully upgraded, which is on par with other destroyers of similar tier, but reload so quickly that you can put out some serious damage while you're waiting for your torpedoes to reload, and that doesn't take long at all.
Battles with the Derzky are hectic, fierce and just plain fun. With a detection range of 5.3km, you can't get close enough to launch torpedoes without being spotted, but it's great for just running along the side of the battlefield and surprising the enemy battleship line from behind.
In higher tiers, things get mildly better in terms of torpedo range, but also with higher reload times. The Russian / Soviet ships retain their great guns, and while not as numerous as on US destroyers, they've still got great reload times.
With the latest update, we've got some new ships in the tech tree. This time around, it's mainly Russian (and later Soviet) destroyers. I've started with some low-tier ships, and so far, it's been great fun.
Of course, we'll need to compare them with the US and Japanese destroyer lines. Overall, the Russian destroyers have great fast-firing guns, are quick, and have rather shitty torpedo range and damage.
This is the tier three destroyer of the Russian imperial navy, the Derzky.She's got three 103mm guns, with a base reload of only 5s, as well as five (!) dual torpedo launchers, that reload in a blistering 26s. They only have a range of about three kilometres, and only do about 1900 damage each, but they reload almost as fast as a battleship's main battery.
This ship is so much fun to play, that I haven't even bothered to unlock the higher tiers yet. While it doesn't have any health whatsoever, you can two-shot a US battleship. Other destroyers are in for a nasty surprise as well, since you can fire three salvos of torpedoes at them, have them dodge, only to run into two more on the way, all while you're peppering them with the main guns.
These guns do almost 300 HE damage when fully upgraded, which is on par with other destroyers of similar tier, but reload so quickly that you can put out some serious damage while you're waiting for your torpedoes to reload, and that doesn't take long at all.
Battles with the Derzky are hectic, fierce and just plain fun. With a detection range of 5.3km, you can't get close enough to launch torpedoes without being spotted, but it's great for just running along the side of the battlefield and surprising the enemy battleship line from behind.
In higher tiers, things get mildly better in terms of torpedo range, but also with higher reload times. The Russian / Soviet ships retain their great guns, and while not as numerous as on US destroyers, they've still got great reload times.
Friday, 9 March 2018
About ammo types
Hi folks!
If you've been playing "World of Warships" for a while, you will have noticed that there are two different types of ammunition for your ship's guns: armour-piercing (AP) and high explosive (HE) shells. Today, we'll have a closer look at these, and what the impact of using the correct ammo for the situation on the game is (spoiler: it's huge).
High explosive
These shells carry a large amount of explosive in a solid casing, and some form of fuse. The effect is done by detonating the shell, which has a hot explosive blast, and a wave of very fast shrapnel. These things are very good at causing damage to lightly-armoured ships - imagine a heavy naval shell going through a thin armour plating, and then blowing up. Carnage. Due to the large amount of explosive, they've also got the tendency to easily set fire to flammable things, which is a nice side-effect for some additional damage over time.
But then, consider a more heavily-armoured ship, like a heavy cruiser or a battleship. HE shells will be much less likely to make it through the thick steel plates, and will detonate on the surface. So while it will cause damage (there are lots of useful, and vulnerable, things on the outside of a ship), it won't cause the same devastating damage it does to ships with less or lighter armour plating.
Armour piercing
That's where AP shells come in. They have a much smaller explosive payload, but in return, are designed to get through pretty much all armour plates. That means they can penetrate deep into the innards of the enemy ship, and explode there, causing damage to critical parts, by help of e.g. a timed fuse, giving the shell a moment to get through the armour before blowing it up.
But what happens if you fire an AP shell against a lightly-armoured target (or something like a ship's superstructure)? Depending on the weight and power of the shell, you might end up going clean through it, and not actually causing much damage at all.
Why can't I sink that destroyer?
Consider a common situation. You're in a battleship, a slow, heavily-armoured, can with huge 350 or 400mm main guns. Your destroyer or cruiser screen, as usual, is pretty useless - they've all gone off by themselves hunting, leaving you exposed. You see an enemy destroyer steaming through their lines at full speed, coming towards you. You know what's coming - they're looking to get close to you, and then fire a full load of torpedoes into your side.
You bring your main battery to bear, and unload at him at a good range. You've got AP shells loaded by default, and they do somewhere beyond 1200 damage - per shell. Your guns fire away, and you get some good hits - but they only do about 200 damage each, barely scratching the destroyer. Now, you have to wait 20s for the reload, and your secondaries don't have the range. Even if you could get a second salvo in, you'd only manage to take away about half of that destroyer's health before they unload their torpedoes on you.
I've been in that situation before. It's utterly frustrating, and I believe one of the reasons so many people play destroyer - they really don't have to worry much about battleship guns. So what's going on here? Some weird kind of rock-paper-scissors?
No, you're simply using the wrong ammo type. Your big, powerful AP shells are great at dealing damage to cruisers and other battleships, but they'll punch pretty much right through a destroyer. So next time you're in this situation, switch to HE, and the destroyer will be having a bad time indeed.
When to use which
A lot of this comes down to experience. Some rules of thumb:
All in all, using the right ammo type is one of the most important skills in the game, together with dodging torpedoes.
If you've been playing "World of Warships" for a while, you will have noticed that there are two different types of ammunition for your ship's guns: armour-piercing (AP) and high explosive (HE) shells. Today, we'll have a closer look at these, and what the impact of using the correct ammo for the situation on the game is (spoiler: it's huge).
High explosive
These shells carry a large amount of explosive in a solid casing, and some form of fuse. The effect is done by detonating the shell, which has a hot explosive blast, and a wave of very fast shrapnel. These things are very good at causing damage to lightly-armoured ships - imagine a heavy naval shell going through a thin armour plating, and then blowing up. Carnage. Due to the large amount of explosive, they've also got the tendency to easily set fire to flammable things, which is a nice side-effect for some additional damage over time.
But then, consider a more heavily-armoured ship, like a heavy cruiser or a battleship. HE shells will be much less likely to make it through the thick steel plates, and will detonate on the surface. So while it will cause damage (there are lots of useful, and vulnerable, things on the outside of a ship), it won't cause the same devastating damage it does to ships with less or lighter armour plating.
Armour piercing
That's where AP shells come in. They have a much smaller explosive payload, but in return, are designed to get through pretty much all armour plates. That means they can penetrate deep into the innards of the enemy ship, and explode there, causing damage to critical parts, by help of e.g. a timed fuse, giving the shell a moment to get through the armour before blowing it up.
But what happens if you fire an AP shell against a lightly-armoured target (or something like a ship's superstructure)? Depending on the weight and power of the shell, you might end up going clean through it, and not actually causing much damage at all.
Why can't I sink that destroyer?
Consider a common situation. You're in a battleship, a slow, heavily-armoured, can with huge 350 or 400mm main guns. Your destroyer or cruiser screen, as usual, is pretty useless - they've all gone off by themselves hunting, leaving you exposed. You see an enemy destroyer steaming through their lines at full speed, coming towards you. You know what's coming - they're looking to get close to you, and then fire a full load of torpedoes into your side.
You bring your main battery to bear, and unload at him at a good range. You've got AP shells loaded by default, and they do somewhere beyond 1200 damage - per shell. Your guns fire away, and you get some good hits - but they only do about 200 damage each, barely scratching the destroyer. Now, you have to wait 20s for the reload, and your secondaries don't have the range. Even if you could get a second salvo in, you'd only manage to take away about half of that destroyer's health before they unload their torpedoes on you.
I've been in that situation before. It's utterly frustrating, and I believe one of the reasons so many people play destroyer - they really don't have to worry much about battleship guns. So what's going on here? Some weird kind of rock-paper-scissors?
No, you're simply using the wrong ammo type. Your big, powerful AP shells are great at dealing damage to cruisers and other battleships, but they'll punch pretty much right through a destroyer. So next time you're in this situation, switch to HE, and the destroyer will be having a bad time indeed.
When to use which
A lot of this comes down to experience. Some rules of thumb:
- Destroyers - they'll mostly have relatively small calibres, around 120mm. You can use AP shells against other destroyers, or maybe light cruisers, but anything else, use HE rounds. The guns fire quickly, so you've got some chance of causing fires, in addition to the flooding from your torpedoes.
- Light cruisers - they've got guns between 150 and 180mm. AP rounds are murderous against destroyers, and will get through most cruiser protection, but mostly bounce right off battleship armour, doing no damage at all. Use HE rounds for these - a light cruiser at range is hard to hit, and can fire a constant barrage of HE shells, causing fires and slow, but steady, damage.
- Heavy cruisers - bigger guns at 200mm. If your cruiser has good HE damage, you might consider using these against destroyers, as APs have a tendency to sometimes overpenetrate. Against anything else, AP is the way to go.
- Battleships - as discussed, the 350/400mm main guns are useless against destroyers with AP - they actually do much less damage than the secondaries. HE, on the other hand, can burn these pesky little ships with surprising effectiveness.
- Carriers - I normally load AP, since I often have to deal with destroyers as a last-ditch defence. Doesn't really matter all that much, though.
All in all, using the right ammo type is one of the most important skills in the game, together with dodging torpedoes.
Saturday, 3 March 2018
My current ships - Admiral Hipper class cruiser
Hi folks!
After saving up for quite a while, I've finally made it - the tier 8 "Admiral Hipper" class heavy cruiser. And I have to say, I'm not disappointed, it was worth it. The tier 6 Nürnberg was already a mean weapon, but I was struggling against battleships, due to the light armour and ineffective 150mm guns.
Strengths
The "Admiral Hipper" is classified as a heavy cruiser - she's got eight 200mm main guns, set up in four twin-turrets. They reload slightly slower than the Nürnberg's, but do significantly more damage - and, most importantly, they can get through battleship armour.
As secondary, she still has the torpedo launchers - with two triple-launchers on each side, she can field more torpedos than many destroyers.
The defences are good, and with over 30000 health, she can withstand quite some punishment.
Weaknesses
Her main weakness is the slowly-responding rudder, which makes dodging torpedoes rather tricky initially, so definitely consider getting both rudder upgrades to compensate. For the third upgrade, I chose the 5% reload time again, so she's got the same equipment as the Nürnberg.
My Playstyle
If I compare her to my tier 5 "Kongo" class battleship, she's got pretty similar defence and health, but main guns firing twice as fast, doing almost the same amount of damage with AP shells. I'm playing her more aggressively than my Nürnberg, since she's got more health and better defences. The torpedo launchers have a good forward angle, so with the rudder upgrades, I can attack a battleship head-on, turn one side, launch six torpedoes, and quickly turn about, launching the other six, all while raining gunfire on the target.
She's at a slight disadvantage against destroyers, since her guns are slower than the Nürnberg's, and she's less mobile, but it's not a big difference. The sonar is improved, giving her great detection range - which is important, since many destroyers at that level have smokescreens.
All in all, I'm really happy with this ship, she's a great allrounder, suits my aggressive playstyle, and has enough endurance to get through the fight.
After saving up for quite a while, I've finally made it - the tier 8 "Admiral Hipper" class heavy cruiser. And I have to say, I'm not disappointed, it was worth it. The tier 6 Nürnberg was already a mean weapon, but I was struggling against battleships, due to the light armour and ineffective 150mm guns.
Strengths
As secondary, she still has the torpedo launchers - with two triple-launchers on each side, she can field more torpedos than many destroyers.
The defences are good, and with over 30000 health, she can withstand quite some punishment.
Weaknesses
Her main weakness is the slowly-responding rudder, which makes dodging torpedoes rather tricky initially, so definitely consider getting both rudder upgrades to compensate. For the third upgrade, I chose the 5% reload time again, so she's got the same equipment as the Nürnberg.
My Playstyle
If I compare her to my tier 5 "Kongo" class battleship, she's got pretty similar defence and health, but main guns firing twice as fast, doing almost the same amount of damage with AP shells. I'm playing her more aggressively than my Nürnberg, since she's got more health and better defences. The torpedo launchers have a good forward angle, so with the rudder upgrades, I can attack a battleship head-on, turn one side, launch six torpedoes, and quickly turn about, launching the other six, all while raining gunfire on the target.
She's at a slight disadvantage against destroyers, since her guns are slower than the Nürnberg's, and she's less mobile, but it's not a big difference. The sonar is improved, giving her great detection range - which is important, since many destroyers at that level have smokescreens.
All in all, I'm really happy with this ship, she's a great allrounder, suits my aggressive playstyle, and has enough endurance to get through the fight.
Sunday, 18 February 2018
My current ships - Ryujo class carrier
Hi folks!
Today, I'll talk a bit about my favourite carrier so far, the tier 6 Japanese "Ryujo" class. Japanese carriers have smaller squadrons than their US counterparts, but instead more of them, making them somewhat more flexible in their attack patterns.
Strengths
Ryujo has a fighter wing, two dive bomber wings and a torpedo bomber wing, three planes each. The torpedo bombers are the heavy hitters, but, as usual, require babysitting to target, while the dive bombers sort that out by themselves once they've got their targets set.
Besides the planes, Ryujo has a decent amount of artillery, which can be used in a pinch against ships getting too close quite effectively. She's also quite quick, if you need to make a run for it.
Weaknesses
Being a converted cruiser, rather than a purpose-built carrier, she has a rather small set of planes in spare, so with two dive bomber squadrons, you tend to run out of planes easily towards the end of the battle. This means you can't attack head-on into larger groups of ships, especially if they have a decent amount of AAA.
Once the enemy is closing in on her, Ryujo won't last long, so it's best to carefully position out of range.
Playstyle
I usually open with the fighters on scout duty, to get a quick overview of the enemy fleet positioning. Meanwhile, I'm sending the dive bombers out together on the flanks, and once I've spotted the vanguard, drop some bombs on the leading destroyers. That minimises the loss of planes in the opening moves, when the enemy fleet is still concentrated, and makes some dents into the ships most likely to become dangerous.
Once the fighter wing has spotted the enemy fleet, I'm pulling them back, as to not to waste them on enemy AAA. If the enemy fleet has their own carrier, I'm keeping an eye on their bomber wings, and send the fighters to intercept, while keeping them away from strong AAA. Don't position them too close, otherwise they won't have much effect - best place to intercept is halfway between the enemy carrier and mine.
Once the fleet is spotted and the dive bombers have their targets, I'm sending the torpedo bombers out as well. I can be a little more reckless with them, since there's only one wing. I either send them after one of the damaged destroyers, or after the heavies following suit.
Some human carrier players can be quite tenacious in insisting on carrier vs carrier battles. I usually ignore that kind of nonsense, since that means I have to send my planes all the way across the map, through enemy AAA. The amount of damage I can do in a battle depends on how quickly I can cycle (deploy - attack - return - rearm) the bomber wings. So I usually use the dive bombers to keep the destroyers at bay, and torpedo bombers to help out with that or quickly snipe damaged enemy ships.
One of the most important aspects in this game is - unsurprisingly - sinking ships. A ship with a single health point usually still has its full firepower, whereas a sunken ship obviously does not. Carriers, given their huge range, are very good at taking out wounded enemy ships, tipping the balance of firepower in your favour.
Today, I'll talk a bit about my favourite carrier so far, the tier 6 Japanese "Ryujo" class. Japanese carriers have smaller squadrons than their US counterparts, but instead more of them, making them somewhat more flexible in their attack patterns.
Strengths
Besides the planes, Ryujo has a decent amount of artillery, which can be used in a pinch against ships getting too close quite effectively. She's also quite quick, if you need to make a run for it.
Weaknesses
Being a converted cruiser, rather than a purpose-built carrier, she has a rather small set of planes in spare, so with two dive bomber squadrons, you tend to run out of planes easily towards the end of the battle. This means you can't attack head-on into larger groups of ships, especially if they have a decent amount of AAA.
Once the enemy is closing in on her, Ryujo won't last long, so it's best to carefully position out of range.
Playstyle
I usually open with the fighters on scout duty, to get a quick overview of the enemy fleet positioning. Meanwhile, I'm sending the dive bombers out together on the flanks, and once I've spotted the vanguard, drop some bombs on the leading destroyers. That minimises the loss of planes in the opening moves, when the enemy fleet is still concentrated, and makes some dents into the ships most likely to become dangerous.
Once the fighter wing has spotted the enemy fleet, I'm pulling them back, as to not to waste them on enemy AAA. If the enemy fleet has their own carrier, I'm keeping an eye on their bomber wings, and send the fighters to intercept, while keeping them away from strong AAA. Don't position them too close, otherwise they won't have much effect - best place to intercept is halfway between the enemy carrier and mine.
Once the fleet is spotted and the dive bombers have their targets, I'm sending the torpedo bombers out as well. I can be a little more reckless with them, since there's only one wing. I either send them after one of the damaged destroyers, or after the heavies following suit.
Some human carrier players can be quite tenacious in insisting on carrier vs carrier battles. I usually ignore that kind of nonsense, since that means I have to send my planes all the way across the map, through enemy AAA. The amount of damage I can do in a battle depends on how quickly I can cycle (deploy - attack - return - rearm) the bomber wings. So I usually use the dive bombers to keep the destroyers at bay, and torpedo bombers to help out with that or quickly snipe damaged enemy ships.
One of the most important aspects in this game is - unsurprisingly - sinking ships. A ship with a single health point usually still has its full firepower, whereas a sunken ship obviously does not. Carriers, given their huge range, are very good at taking out wounded enemy ships, tipping the balance of firepower in your favour.
My current ships - Fubuki class destroyer
Hi folks!
Last time, I talked about my favourite cruiser, the Nürnberg class. Following a close second is the Fubuki class destroyer. I've been going up the Japanese tech tree initially, so I don't have much exposure to the US destroyers, but the main difference, from what I can tell, is that the Japanese ships are having a longer torpedo range, in turn, the US ones are more nimble in turning.
Strengths
The Fubuki is fast, has a huge range with her torpedoes, and can cause a crazy amount of damage for a tier 6 ship. I've managed to get above 100000 damage done in a single battle. She has four decently-fast firing main guns in two turrets. Using AP shells against other destroyers, these can do quite some damage, and can finish them off if they didn't get destroyed by the initial torpedo salvo.
The torpedoes are obviously the main weapons. Fubuki has three triple launchers, and the 8km range means she can fire well outside detection range. The power of these torpedoes is enough to severely damage battleships of similar tier, and sink pretty much everything else.
Weaknesses
In close combat, the inferior mobility means you'll get some hits in pretty quickly. Fubuki has decent health, but won't stand against enemy fire for very long. She can survive a full salvo from a US destroyer, barely (and her torpedoes will kill the opponent), but these kind of engagements are best avoided. I usually play her at range, negating the lesser manoeuvrability, and trying to predict the course of an enemy destroyer, unless I have a better target, and disengage.
Playstyle
I usually try not to vanguard with her - even with full rudder upgrades, it's hard to wiggle out of enemy crossfire. Instead, I go for ambush cover, or try to take the flanks. Once I'm through the enemy lines, battleships are preferred targets. Unless they're covering each other, they can be attacked head-on - the small silhouette and fast speed makes it hard for them to hit, and I can choose to either do a safe shot at close range (3km or less) or launch a sneaky strike outside detection range (6km).
Next time, I'll talk a bit about the Ryujo class carrier.
Last time, I talked about my favourite cruiser, the Nürnberg class. Following a close second is the Fubuki class destroyer. I've been going up the Japanese tech tree initially, so I don't have much exposure to the US destroyers, but the main difference, from what I can tell, is that the Japanese ships are having a longer torpedo range, in turn, the US ones are more nimble in turning.
Strengths
The Fubuki is fast, has a huge range with her torpedoes, and can cause a crazy amount of damage for a tier 6 ship. I've managed to get above 100000 damage done in a single battle. She has four decently-fast firing main guns in two turrets. Using AP shells against other destroyers, these can do quite some damage, and can finish them off if they didn't get destroyed by the initial torpedo salvo.The torpedoes are obviously the main weapons. Fubuki has three triple launchers, and the 8km range means she can fire well outside detection range. The power of these torpedoes is enough to severely damage battleships of similar tier, and sink pretty much everything else.
Weaknesses
In close combat, the inferior mobility means you'll get some hits in pretty quickly. Fubuki has decent health, but won't stand against enemy fire for very long. She can survive a full salvo from a US destroyer, barely (and her torpedoes will kill the opponent), but these kind of engagements are best avoided. I usually play her at range, negating the lesser manoeuvrability, and trying to predict the course of an enemy destroyer, unless I have a better target, and disengage.
Playstyle
I usually try not to vanguard with her - even with full rudder upgrades, it's hard to wiggle out of enemy crossfire. Instead, I go for ambush cover, or try to take the flanks. Once I'm through the enemy lines, battleships are preferred targets. Unless they're covering each other, they can be attacked head-on - the small silhouette and fast speed makes it hard for them to hit, and I can choose to either do a safe shot at close range (3km or less) or launch a sneaky strike outside detection range (6km).
Next time, I'll talk a bit about the Ryujo class carrier.
Sunday, 4 February 2018
My current ships - Nürnberg class light cruiser
Hi folks!
Today, I'll start a series of posts about the ships I'm currently sailing. Given the steep price increase past tier 6 (which is around 900k silver), I decided on skipping over tier 7 (2.7m silver) and going straight for tier 8 (6.3m silver plus about 150k free XP). I'm aiming for the "Admiral Hipper" class heavy cruiser, since my current favourite ship is the tier 6 "Nürnberg" class light cruiser.
Strengths
The German navy line in the tech tree was introduced fairly recently, and I was already well into the Japanese tech tree, but decided to switch, since they looked like great allrounder ships. Before it got nerfed somewhat in the 1.0.0 update, the Nürnberg was an absolute killer. I did a full fleet sunk twice, here's a screenshot from one of the battles:
These were three human players and four AI players.
The Nürnberg is a fast, well-armed light cruiser. Her nine guns, fully upgraded, do a whopping 640 damage with AP shells, and reload in under 8 seconds. This means you can sink a destroyer at full health in three good salvos. At a range of 10km, and with the "precise aiming" perk, these guns wreak serious havoc against enemy destroyers and cruisers.
The cruiser has four triple torpedo launchers (two on each side) for a total of 12 torpedoes, with a range of above 5km. They can be used in spread to hit unsuspecting destroyers which snuck up on you, or concentrated fire to sink enemy battleships.
Lastly, at 33kn, she can keep up with vanguard destroyers, and the "sonar" perk allows for improved first detection when fired at the right time.
Weaknesses
Being a light cruiser, the Nürnberg's main guns have trouble dealing damage against battleships. AP shells usually don't get through the armour plating, and HE shells only do about 180 damage, which means you'd need about 20 full salvo hits. This leaves two options: staying away from them and dodging, or closing in and using torpedoes.
The ship's armour is weak for a cruiser, just barely above destroyer plating. Together with only 20k health at full upgrades, this means two or three good hits from a battleship can finish her off, so you definitely can't rush into battle head-first.
My playstyle
I'm seeing her as a long-range, manoeuvrable hunter and ambush predator. Her main gun firepower means she can stand up in a one-to-one with any other cruiser, and is deadly to destroyers.
In the opening phase, I usually rush ahead with the vanguard up to detection point - when the enemy battleship line comes into view, it's time to hit the sonar and turn about. You'll run into the enemy destroyers at that point, so I want to fall back and take them out at about 5km distance - too far for them to hit me with torpedoes.
Once the destroyers are dealt with in my section of the battlefield, it's time to turn about again and start the second run-up. Either against enemy cruisers or battleships, using cover if possible, and get torpedo hits in.
If things get rough in the opening moves - for example, you run alone into two or three fast cruisers - the best strategy is to run for it. In a battle today I had a run-in with a US Omaha class cruiser, plus a French De Grasse. The Nürnberg has a configuration of two aft turrets, so I was able to run from the De Grasse, losing the Omaha in the process, and getting enough shots in that I was able to sink the better armoured Frenchman, who was clearly getting frustrated at me dodging most of his shots.
All in all, even after the nerfing in version 1.0.0, she's still my favourite ship overall, and I can usually make a decent killing of three enemy ships per battle.
Next week, I'll be talking about the Japanese Fubuki class destroyer.
Today, I'll start a series of posts about the ships I'm currently sailing. Given the steep price increase past tier 6 (which is around 900k silver), I decided on skipping over tier 7 (2.7m silver) and going straight for tier 8 (6.3m silver plus about 150k free XP). I'm aiming for the "Admiral Hipper" class heavy cruiser, since my current favourite ship is the tier 6 "Nürnberg" class light cruiser.
Strengths
The German navy line in the tech tree was introduced fairly recently, and I was already well into the Japanese tech tree, but decided to switch, since they looked like great allrounder ships. Before it got nerfed somewhat in the 1.0.0 update, the Nürnberg was an absolute killer. I did a full fleet sunk twice, here's a screenshot from one of the battles:
These were three human players and four AI players.
The Nürnberg is a fast, well-armed light cruiser. Her nine guns, fully upgraded, do a whopping 640 damage with AP shells, and reload in under 8 seconds. This means you can sink a destroyer at full health in three good salvos. At a range of 10km, and with the "precise aiming" perk, these guns wreak serious havoc against enemy destroyers and cruisers.
The cruiser has four triple torpedo launchers (two on each side) for a total of 12 torpedoes, with a range of above 5km. They can be used in spread to hit unsuspecting destroyers which snuck up on you, or concentrated fire to sink enemy battleships.
Lastly, at 33kn, she can keep up with vanguard destroyers, and the "sonar" perk allows for improved first detection when fired at the right time.
Weaknesses
Being a light cruiser, the Nürnberg's main guns have trouble dealing damage against battleships. AP shells usually don't get through the armour plating, and HE shells only do about 180 damage, which means you'd need about 20 full salvo hits. This leaves two options: staying away from them and dodging, or closing in and using torpedoes.
The ship's armour is weak for a cruiser, just barely above destroyer plating. Together with only 20k health at full upgrades, this means two or three good hits from a battleship can finish her off, so you definitely can't rush into battle head-first.
My playstyle
I'm seeing her as a long-range, manoeuvrable hunter and ambush predator. Her main gun firepower means she can stand up in a one-to-one with any other cruiser, and is deadly to destroyers.
In the opening phase, I usually rush ahead with the vanguard up to detection point - when the enemy battleship line comes into view, it's time to hit the sonar and turn about. You'll run into the enemy destroyers at that point, so I want to fall back and take them out at about 5km distance - too far for them to hit me with torpedoes.
Once the destroyers are dealt with in my section of the battlefield, it's time to turn about again and start the second run-up. Either against enemy cruisers or battleships, using cover if possible, and get torpedo hits in.
If things get rough in the opening moves - for example, you run alone into two or three fast cruisers - the best strategy is to run for it. In a battle today I had a run-in with a US Omaha class cruiser, plus a French De Grasse. The Nürnberg has a configuration of two aft turrets, so I was able to run from the De Grasse, losing the Omaha in the process, and getting enough shots in that I was able to sink the better armoured Frenchman, who was clearly getting frustrated at me dodging most of his shots.
All in all, even after the nerfing in version 1.0.0, she's still my favourite ship overall, and I can usually make a decent killing of three enemy ships per battle.
Next week, I'll be talking about the Japanese Fubuki class destroyer.
Friday, 2 February 2018
How to deal with battleships
Hi folks!
Today, we're going to take a closer look at tactics to use against enemy battleships. There are only two nations so far in the tech tree that sail these - USA and Japan. While US battleships are usually slower, they're heavier armoured, but both have similar offensive characteristics: large-calibre, turret-mounted main guns with relatively slow reload time, but devastating armour-piercing shells, and short-range secondary guns.
Higher tier US battleships have quicker reload special capabilities, whereas the Japanese ones have improved precision. In both cases, you don't want to be at the receiving end of their main artillery. The flipside to all that firepower and defence is lack of speed and manoeuvrability.
Human vs computer player
The difference between the two player types is much less for battleships than it is for the other classes. The main distinction is that computer players often are more aggressive in positioning, sailing into close-quarters combat, where they can easily be torpedoed. An experienced human player will often stay in the open, with their back against the map border, using their range and firepower to rain hell into the centre of the battle.
Torpedoes
Usually, the heavy armour prevents the smaller (around 150mm) guns of destroyers and cruisers from penetrating with AP shells. High-explosive shells do damage, and add a chance of setting it on fire, but it really takes too long to take a battleship down that way. The ideal weapon against battleships are, obviously, torpedoes.
Destroyers, due to their small size, have a fair chance of doing a head-on run, evading most of the fire, and then timing a narrow spread of torpedoes in at short range (around 4km). You want to do your turn right after a broadside of their main guns, since you'll be presenting your flank, and you don't want to have eight 400mm shells ripping through you at that point. A full torpedo salvo at that distance is relatively hard to dodge, and usually enough to destroy or very seriously damage a battleship. Keep hitting it with HE shells during the run-up and evasion. Once the torps are in the water, you can either complete the turn, or try to pass it, outrunning the turrets' turn.
For cruisers, this is quite a bit more difficult. Larger size, slower speed and slower turns mean you're going to be hit a lot more on a frontal run-up, dealing potentially fatal or near-fatal damage. You've got to be smarter. One obvious solution to that is having the battleship not shoot at you, or at least not get more than one salvo off. There are some ways you can get this done.
Flanking
Main gun turrets are great, because they allow a ship to concentrate all firepower towards either side. But they turn slowly, so if you approach it from the other side, you can get a good shot in and get out again before you can be targeted. Observe your target battleship, you can usually see the position of the turrets and blasts from their main guns to determine which way they're shooting.
Teamwork
Another way of not getting hit is to work together. Battleship captains usually will consider a destroyer to be a more dangerous opponent, so sail with one of your destroyers, let it dodge the main gun fire, and get a clean torpedo run. Especially Japanese cruisers with their long-range torpedoes are good for that, whereas Soviet cruisers would need to get into 3km range, which is way too close for comfort. Also, it of course means you've got to somehow get the destroyer to play along, which isn't easy, given the limited amount of communication in the game. I often end up just checking if a destroyer is on a run-up against a battleship, and joining in if I'm nearby.
Ambush
Provided battleships make the fatal mistake of getting too close to islands, you can simply wait for them - you'll have visual long before they see you, then get out, launch torpedoes, and full-on reverse back. They might still get a shot in, but torpedoes are almost guaranteed to hit. This is often more useful against AI players. Against human players, try to pick a battleship that's focused on another target, there's a good chance they won't notice you until you're close enough for torpedo hits.
Battleship tactics
Good battleship players will stay back behind their destroyer / cruiser screens, using their range against hard targets, and covering each other. Cover fire between two battleships creates a death zone, since they'll often sit at an angle, you'll be presenting your flank to either of them during a run-up, making for an easy kill. If you see them set up like that, avoid if you can, or try to flank one of them. Do not sail straight into these open jaws.
Keep these things in mind, and battleships will be a lot less scary opponents.
Today, we're going to take a closer look at tactics to use against enemy battleships. There are only two nations so far in the tech tree that sail these - USA and Japan. While US battleships are usually slower, they're heavier armoured, but both have similar offensive characteristics: large-calibre, turret-mounted main guns with relatively slow reload time, but devastating armour-piercing shells, and short-range secondary guns.
Higher tier US battleships have quicker reload special capabilities, whereas the Japanese ones have improved precision. In both cases, you don't want to be at the receiving end of their main artillery. The flipside to all that firepower and defence is lack of speed and manoeuvrability.
Human vs computer player
The difference between the two player types is much less for battleships than it is for the other classes. The main distinction is that computer players often are more aggressive in positioning, sailing into close-quarters combat, where they can easily be torpedoed. An experienced human player will often stay in the open, with their back against the map border, using their range and firepower to rain hell into the centre of the battle.
Torpedoes
Usually, the heavy armour prevents the smaller (around 150mm) guns of destroyers and cruisers from penetrating with AP shells. High-explosive shells do damage, and add a chance of setting it on fire, but it really takes too long to take a battleship down that way. The ideal weapon against battleships are, obviously, torpedoes.
Destroyers, due to their small size, have a fair chance of doing a head-on run, evading most of the fire, and then timing a narrow spread of torpedoes in at short range (around 4km). You want to do your turn right after a broadside of their main guns, since you'll be presenting your flank, and you don't want to have eight 400mm shells ripping through you at that point. A full torpedo salvo at that distance is relatively hard to dodge, and usually enough to destroy or very seriously damage a battleship. Keep hitting it with HE shells during the run-up and evasion. Once the torps are in the water, you can either complete the turn, or try to pass it, outrunning the turrets' turn.
For cruisers, this is quite a bit more difficult. Larger size, slower speed and slower turns mean you're going to be hit a lot more on a frontal run-up, dealing potentially fatal or near-fatal damage. You've got to be smarter. One obvious solution to that is having the battleship not shoot at you, or at least not get more than one salvo off. There are some ways you can get this done.
Flanking
Main gun turrets are great, because they allow a ship to concentrate all firepower towards either side. But they turn slowly, so if you approach it from the other side, you can get a good shot in and get out again before you can be targeted. Observe your target battleship, you can usually see the position of the turrets and blasts from their main guns to determine which way they're shooting.
Teamwork
Another way of not getting hit is to work together. Battleship captains usually will consider a destroyer to be a more dangerous opponent, so sail with one of your destroyers, let it dodge the main gun fire, and get a clean torpedo run. Especially Japanese cruisers with their long-range torpedoes are good for that, whereas Soviet cruisers would need to get into 3km range, which is way too close for comfort. Also, it of course means you've got to somehow get the destroyer to play along, which isn't easy, given the limited amount of communication in the game. I often end up just checking if a destroyer is on a run-up against a battleship, and joining in if I'm nearby.
Ambush
Provided battleships make the fatal mistake of getting too close to islands, you can simply wait for them - you'll have visual long before they see you, then get out, launch torpedoes, and full-on reverse back. They might still get a shot in, but torpedoes are almost guaranteed to hit. This is often more useful against AI players. Against human players, try to pick a battleship that's focused on another target, there's a good chance they won't notice you until you're close enough for torpedo hits.
Battleship tactics
Good battleship players will stay back behind their destroyer / cruiser screens, using their range against hard targets, and covering each other. Cover fire between two battleships creates a death zone, since they'll often sit at an angle, you'll be presenting your flank to either of them during a run-up, making for an easy kill. If you see them set up like that, avoid if you can, or try to flank one of them. Do not sail straight into these open jaws.
Keep these things in mind, and battleships will be a lot less scary opponents.
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