Procrastes

There is an 'Operation Dynamo Cheat Sheet' somewhere on the Announcements section of the forum, I think. I'd post a link, but my Geek-Fu is not strong enough. In short: You can get one container per day, by amassing a total of 2000 base experience. You can get another container per day, if you own the Gallant and play a battle in her where you end up among the top five players in your team. This is actually rather easy to accomplish; just play Operation Dynamo in the Gallant, and don't mess it up! Since there are only seven ships in a team, ending up among the top five isn't very hard. You can also get one large container, by playing the Gallant and ending up at the top of the team. This large container can be gained only once per account. Then there are special weekend missions, that can get you extra containers. The weekend mission parameters are made available during, well, weekends. You can also buy containers from the premium shop. Good luck! Edited: Oh, and if your question refers to how you find the container, after completing the mission, you get it from your supply ship in the same way you get your normal containers!

7/16, and the last two containers gave me one (1) collectible and three (3) duplicates. Which made me a bit salty until I did the math and figured out that this is only a little bit of statistical bad luck, and not a formal confirmation that the universe hates me.

I am not going to start worrying about the effects of a rumoured smoke nerf, until it materialises in a more tangible way than it has so far. And unless Wargaming plans to give the British battleships access to smoke (?!), I can't see how they could have battleships specifically in mind for Captain Jack...?

Well, now, I am thinking that all of those three skills might come in rather handy on the Belfast? Or indeed on any of the Royal Navy silver line cruisers from tier VI and upwards, since a bigger smoke cloud and a faster heal+hydro would fit them like a glove.

This thread prompted me to take my Kuma out for a spin yesterday, and boy, did I have a blast! It was one of those games where everything fitted together for me; enemies sailed in straight lines, my salvoes hit, the battleships missed me, enemy destroyers made the wrong decisions... poetry on water. Unfortunately, everything didn't fit together for my team; we lost out to enemy capping. But still a great battle!

The Kuma is a great little cruiser! She is definitely one of the ships you keep coming back to, no matter how high you go up the tiers. I have actually kept my Atago captain on her rather than post him on the Aoba, since the Kuma is simply more fun to play. And with DE and CE skills on her captain, the Kuma becomes a truly scary adversary! The Kuma has got a good number of guns that deliver a hefty punch for her tier, she's got good torpedoes, she's very manoeuvrable, and to top it off she's even got a fighter plane to mess up carrier attacks and spot the odd torpedo. The fact that she has a citadel that positively attracts AP shells, is actually a good thing, since she would be totally obnoxious otherwise!

Speaking of that: When does it finish? I'm off on holidays beginning next week, and so I may be forced to go shopping for extra crates (yes, the shame is great) if this collection campaign hath to short a date!

It would indeed be nice to be able to choose which special module you get. For that matter, I wouldn't mind being able to choose what sort of flags I get, as well. But to put it bluntly: I seriously doubt that such a "choice" option will ever be introduced. It goes against the whole random drop formula, that is part and parcel of the intermittent reward principle. We are all rats in a cage, here!

Six collectibles collected so far, and the last two crates I opened contained four duplicates. I should probably be like , but I actually feel more like .

Too many of these kinds of automatic functions would take away an element of personal player skill, and take the game in a more click-and-play flavoured direction. I don't believe that that would be good for the game.

That is good to know. Now if I can only remember to follow the civilian boats around, I might manage to not drive into the minefield for a change...

Is there any way to influence how the civilian ships sail, and which route they choose?

It is enough to sail below 10 knots, I think (1/4th speed).

Operation Dynamo is great fun! Wargaming has done a really great job in capturing the setting and the mood of this operation. The initial rush to the embarkation area, the lethal barrage from on-shore batteries, the lamentable cries of the unfortunate Captain Parks (is he a historical figure, by the way?), the desperate gauntlet through the minefields on the way back, the vicious swarms of the German Schnellboote, and - worst of all - the relentless, merciless, pitiless attacks from the Luftwaffe! "There is nothing more terrifying to the AA crew on a convoy ship, than the approach of a torpedo bomber - nothing, that is, but the screaming, gut-wrenching, nearly vertical death-dive of the gull-winged Stuka dive bomber. There is no room for compromise, then, for hesitation - either you get him, or he gets you." And in the distance, so near and yet so far away, we can see the white cliffs of Dover... I played it the for the first time yesterday, and out of about five or six battles, I got two five-star completions. It was obviously due to being in good teams, but I finished top of the xp list in the last battle - in the Gallant, no less - so I must have done something right. I read that they are going to make it into a permanent operation, when these first two weeks are past, and that it will be adapted for other destroyers. This is great news, but I do wonder how they will go about the balance issues? The Farragut, for example, would probably kick epic [edited] rear end in the this operation, with its five-kilometer AA range, a much stronger AA suite to begin with, and the Defensive AA consumable on top of that. Not to mention that its guns would wreak the same kind of havoc on the Schnellboote as those of the Gallant.

Yes. Edited: Which is probably just as well; I should be heading off to work, really.

This. And this is why: 1. The ability to lay mines, would allow players to transform any map into a corridor map. 2. Corridor maps are bad.

And this would probably be my strategy as well, if I had one. I like the pacing and the added focus when I'm in a good team, but the pleasure is somewhat muted by a nasty suspicion that I am not really a good enough player to reliably pull my weight in ranked battles. This feeling has been exacerbated by the fact that there seems to be quite a bit more salt in the ranked battles chat, than in regular random battles. Some people out there seem to take the loss of a virtual star a bit more seriously than is good for their blood pressure. Since I don't like to be chewed out by strangers, and since I also don't want to ruin someone's day/week/married life by making a minor tactical error on the virtual battlefield, I have yet to embark upon a serious ranked venture, this season. But we shall see.

Not getting a 10-point captain each and every time you get four or five stars in an operation, makes sense in my book. But you still get a nice load of XP for a well played operation, which is good enough for me!

You make a compelling case. I do in principle believe in playing ships to their strengths, rather than trying to mitigate their weaknesses. This is why I chose 'IFHE' as the first 4th level skill on my De Grasse, since I'm thinking that her guns are her strongest asset. But the same can't really be said about the Duca D'Aosta. Her guns seem to be overall rather weak, while her strong points are her speed and concealment. Going for 'Concealment Expert' as the first choice might very well be the best option here. Although I can still remember the pain of seeing my little Italian captain landing nineteen (19) high explosive shells on a broadside enemy Aoba, doing exactly zero (0) damage, and thereafter going down to an almost full complement of Type 8 torpedoes... I would have dearly loved to have had the Improved Inertia Fuse skill on hand, at that time!

So I guess you took 'Concealment Expert' as the first 4th level skill on the Duca D'Aosta? I would have thought that 'IFHE' would be the better choice, given the Duca's already good detection values and her incredibly weak HE...?

I've never been able to make the Kutuzov work, but given the opinion of the forum/player majority, that is almost certainly due to me not being able to play her to her strengths.

There can't be a problem with releasing an in-game ship just because it has been sunk in a post-WW2 act of war, surely?

Cleveland: 22 - 3 = 19. Too weird moon arcs on her guns. Good ship nevertheless, though.Shinonome : 17Mutsu : 20Fusō : 22Warspite : 13Molotov : 9Budyonny : 9 + 1 = 10. see post 263 above.Duca d'Aosta : 7

The way Wargaming measures and scales the given values for their ship statistics, is one of the mysteries of the modern world. - The Clemson gets twice the number of guns, effectively doubling her damage potential. "Cool! Let's up her artillery stats by +1!" - The Dresden has, what, two extra 105 mm guns compared to the Emden? "So, let's double the Dresden artillery stats, 14 instead of 7!"* Now, that would have made sense if the Emden had only two 105 mm guns to begin with... which is not the case. *Or at least I think it's somewhere around those numbers. Someone who is actually in the game right now might perhaps check this out?

I can see what you are getting at, here - and I am all for promoting team work! But I really can't see that this would lead to anything other than a great ping party. Players would be so eager to rack up those extra xp, they would be sure to expend their share of pings as soon as possible, in order not to miss the opportunity before getting sunk or running out of allies. The first thing that would happen, would be that everybody and their uncles would ping the first enemy ship to get spotted, and then open fire at that ship. While per se a tactically viable choice, it is also a rather obvious one and one not in any real need of an extra xp incitement. Then, during the rest of the battle, there would be a lot of pinging of more or less tactically valid targets, simply for the reason that they were there. This would lead to a ping inflation, followed by a ping devaluation as people started to lose interest due to ping overload. It would all be a pinging mess. So while I appreciate the brain storming, I don't feel that this sort of game mechanic would benefit the game. It's good to throw these kinds of ideas around, though!