Panocek

Even more so as tier 9 ship + new hull + new gun fire controls + whatever bits left costs more than actual tier 10

I usually do them with some lul squad like Jintsu with hydro and Bogue with ASW Avenger, as such duo usually can handle up to 7th map. And I have no need for farming 8-10 as I already have Maya, Niizuki and Jintsu. And "capable of lvl 65/75" is name of the game, as only recently purple U fleet got past 90lvl, still running white metal fishes I auto most of the stuff, but most of the time I'm fighting with screen lock timer than actual game, retyping password all the time 1200 oil commision runs pretty much all the time, because when new ship arrives and I deem them worth something, I want them to be up to standard in no time, which means dorm AND commision. Which also explains dramatic shortage of gold bulins. And then 4x gold subs, SoDak trio, JB, Nagato, Lusty sisters, Yuudachi, Essex and god knows who else wait for LBing

If there is a word you can use to describe USN ships, it would be "no nonsense". Be warned of battleships tho, until tier 8 they are all "standard battleships" with top speed of whooping... 20kts. Getting late to the battle with them can be an issue, same with disengaging when battle turns sour. Also their "all-or-nothing" armor scheme makes them eat HE and AP overpens all day every day. Cruisers are fine, though tier 5 is last with torpedo armament (excluding premium Atlanta class ships), which can prove problematic when trying to bumrush enemy ship. Also enemies aware of you not having torps are more likely to bumrush you. Ballistics are on slower end - while heavy cruisers have similar shell velocities to what you have on IJN Furutaka, light cruisers from Dallas onwards indeed have catapults for guns, making long range gunnery... not fun at times. On positive, you can abuse near every island as cover

Not really. 130mm BiasLaunchers needs to be <9km to have any hope of punching through 100mm plating used on Minotaur citadel and turret fronts, while Minotaur can punch through citadel and turret armor at basically all combat ranges for some awkward moments, also Mino can sail "broadside", as in all guns blazing and still ricochet off non improved ricochet AP.

Baked in Manual Secondaries into the ship I guess, which is Massa/Georgia/Ohio gimmick AFAIK. Same with Graf Zepp

With somewhat lacking gunnery. Also I need to have her researched to actually make use of her

Which is exactly the only ship with Secondary spec is Scharnhorst. For Narai, where range isn't an issue.

33% increase of nothing is still nothing Not mentioning you need to get within range to make use of bloody guns to begin with.

You're missing 50% fire chance reduction for tier 10. So for signals and DE you go from 4.5% to 6%. Not exactly spectacular either.

You could argue if effectively 1% extra fire chance is worth 3 points BFT at least would bump AA a bit.

Umm, it is not unless WG again hide somewhere option for captain respecs?

Guns are brand new to US line overall, unless you've got Georgia before. And for build, you can't go wrong with generic tank/dot reduction build on any BB.

You've forgot to invite QE to the party What bothers me, AL is becoming increasingly time consuming with "daily" shenanigans. Daily event map clear, daily challenges, daily hard mode because blueprints, SOS missions because lacking decent sub torp blueprints, all done with ships to push PR ship grind forward. And its not even time that bothers me, but fuel costs for these shenanigans even with Leander trio and underage Fuso/Bogue/whatever is cheap to run, leaving very little for searching torpedo floof no.2 at 11-3

US in general happen to have one of the best AA suites in game, though that feature materializes on tier 6+ ships, which either were build after US joined the war or were retrofitted during the war. Pre ww2 ships in pre ww2 config, US or not are going to be crappy in terms of AA. Hightier Brit and French ships also get noteworthy AA. Though differences between "AA powerhouse" and "crappy AA" were diminished downwards with patch 0.8.7, so even in "high AA" ships you won't be safe from air attacks. Most cruisers from tier 6 onwards can replace their Hydroacoustic Search for Defensive Fire AA, which ramps up AA a bit. Issue is, dps gain isn't going to save you, unless CV player misplays badly and catches flak bursts which become instakill on any planes caught. Exception are USN light cruisers from Dallas onward, as they can carry both Hydro and DFAA at the same time. Potent torpedo armament is IJN trait, alongside good gun accuracy, potent HE, relatively good concealment and speed. But, from Aoba onwards you will have launchers facing backwards, so they turn into more of a defensive weapon when kiting enemies.

Given DFAA is absolutely worthless, giving "would be Renown" Hydro and UK CL cruiser handling could give her relatively harmless gimmick. Even more so, as her 30kts would make her THE slowest of "large cruisers".

https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-02BC-Renown.htm I've read very briefly, but final config would be something like 10x twin 4.5" (114mm), 3x octuple pom pom and 1x quadruple for a total of 28 barrels with something like 60odd 20mm Oerlikons So in game terms, it would mean average long range, crappy mid and dangerous short range. But then, WG no longer applies dps on "per mount" basis but whenever there is vodka in the fridge so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Keep in mind Renown AA in her best refit was merely comparable to what we have in game at Queen Elizabeth already in terms of AA mounts.

Well, they actually try to pull off focus fire and sail together unless ships given to them are limiting factor, like Minsk and Colorado

Stumbled upon this blog post of someone trying to consolidate AL "story" and its quite a wall 'o text https://harperanimereviews.com/how-much-lore-does-it-take-to-justify-cute-ship-girls-a-prelude-to-azur-lane/

A=1, with 1 written in Morse B is in notebook, next to "hit" on battleships game at B3 coordinates C= *some representation of one* is on blueprint next to pen, written in invisible but reflective "ink"

Negative, not working.

Doesn't save you from "fun and engaging" carriers though.

You will face AI carriers too. And while they do not evade flak bursts, at lowtiers there aren't many ships capable of producing flak to start with. And even if they do, amount of flak is too small to do anything of relevance. And to be honest, "stock syndrome" exists mostly for destroyers, as they often require new set of torps to be effective. Battleships and cruisers with upgrades gain only rudder shift time, some hp and range.

Doesn't get better, as AA is insufficient to stop air attacks at all tiers unless you literally pack 4 "high AA" ships within 4 square kilometers. And tier 6 BBs will see quite a number of tier 8 BBs which can happily overmatch your not so armored battleboat. Hosho went from "meh" to "broken OP" when WG doubled amount of torps you can drop per run, from one to two Combined with high torpedo speed of their and above average alpha, things AND removal of flak AA mechanic on medium caliber AA guns went haywire remarkably quickly Basically "uphill struggle" is name of the game all the way to tier 10 and then you face somewhat high maintenance costs... unless you buy premium account and/or premium paint.

That is another reason why it won't happen unless WG literally runs out of stuff to add. Besides, bots already have perfect aim and most of the time they do not show broadside, which is better than 90% of the playerbase. You've yet to see what AI Minotaur can do