Procrastes

The Oleg is certainly gorgeous enough to sell on her looks alone. But apparently, that's not all she's got going for her! This is me a couple of weeks ago, having just nabbed her off the shelf: This is me 30 seconds later, having just found out that she carries the 152 mm guns instead of the 130 mm: This is me right now, feeling kinda happy after having read all the interesting tidbits in Captain Cowper Coles post above: The pre-dreadnoughts rule the waves, aesthetically speaking. The Bogatyr, the Oleg, the Emden and the König Albert - I feel like a winner simply by taking them out to sea!

Akizuki: 21Kagero: 18Benson: 25Lo Yang (Mk. 15 mod. 0): 20 + 1 = 21. That combination of smoke and sonar; gotta love it! And I prefer the long range torpedo option.Lo Yang (Mk 31): 17Z-23: 17Mogami (155mm): 15Mogami (203mm): 5 Atago: 29New Orleans: 13 - 3 = 10. It just never scares me when I see it on the horizon. Chapayev: 21Mikhail Kutuzov: 23Admiral Hipper / Prinz Eugen: 14 Edinburgh: 21Amagi: 22 North Carolina: 23Tirpitz: 21Bismark: 21Shokaku (2/2/2): 23Shokaku (3/1/2): 20Lexington (0/1/3): 11

Any thoughts on a good Dunkerque skill build?

Shouldn't there be one Lo Yang with Defensive AA mounted, and one Benson with Defensive AA mounted? Whatever else may be said about them, they are not the same ship - the Hydroacoustic Search consumable on the Lo Yang makes for completely different tactical options!

I think you are supposed to add +1 to one ship, while subtracting -3 from another? (Side note: So, this is how it feels...? Mohahahaa...!!!)

It is perhaps somewhat ironic, that neither the Belfast nor the Blyskawica were included in this Elimination thread in its original draft? (If I remember correctly.)

The Kuma is a great ship; I trained a captain almost all the way to 10 points in her. Although I have been insta-citadeled to death every other game I've played in her lately. Doing a tier IV elimination might be interesting! But, wouldn't the old Czar - sorry, Imperator Nikolai I - be almost certain to win this?

One of the best chats I've ever had in this game, was with a guy who accidentally sank me. It was a battle on the Straits map, and I was in my Gremyaschy, lying in cover in the B cap zone. When some insightful enemy ships started dropping shells on me, I started up my engines and sped away - and ate the entire spread of torpedoes from an allied German cruiser that had come driving up behind me. He had just dropped his torpedoes down the middle channel, when I started to move. He was so very sorry, and apologised profusely. We had a good conversation about the game while he drove around, putting shots and torpedoes into the enemy team. Such a nice guy; and he finished high in the post-battle list, too.

To put it simply: We can't have a system that penalizes people for playing the game in a certain way - and that's what meting out punishment to alleged "cowards" would amount to. Doing so would turn the game from being, well, a game, into something more akin to duty. And I'm not even going to go into the whole argument concerning the difference between cowardice and sound tactical judgment. Knowing when to push and when to retreat is far more than a matter of playstyle, it lies at the heart of what it means to be truly skilled at this game. I have lost count of the number of times when I've thought, "Wow, look at that battleship actually driving away from the action - doesn't he know that in-game ship damage doesn't carry over into the real world?" - And then, in the post-battle result screen, sure enough that battleship tops the XP list. I don't want to either judge or be judged, when I'm playing a game - I just want to have a good time.

Blyskawica: 12 +1 = 13. Easy to use, hard to master. A very fun and rewarding ship to play! Although she really benefits from having at least a 12-point captain, it's possible to do well in her from the very start. Belfast: 13 - 3 = 10. An amazing ship. I nearly always do well in her. But I still rank her as number three of the remaining ships. Scharnhorst: 5 Edited: Now with new and improved mathematics. Thanks for keeping tabs, mtm78!

You're welcome!

The "RN Cruiser Smoke Bug" - Myth or Reality? In a Belfast game two days hence, I popped smoke going just a teeny bit too fast, and ended up sitting still in the water looking stupidly back at one, lonely puff of smoke hovering a cable-length or so astern. Then I died to a massive hail of shells from a grateful cruiser and battleship community (but that's beside the point, really). I assumed this was the infamous "RN Cruiser Smoke Bug" at work. I didn't die because of it, since I would have sailed out of a second puff of smoke as well, if it had been there - but as it was, there was no point in even bothering to go into reverse. Yet now I read, in a number of posts, that there is no RN Cruiser Smoke Bug. So, it's right up there with Bigfoot and the Jersey Devil?

You don't actually have a number of aircraft on board your ship the way a carrier has. What you do have, is a consumable with a certain number of uses. If your aircraft are shot down, you have to wait for your consumable to reload before you can launch more aircraft. What Directional Center for Aircraft does, is allow you to launch two aircraft instead of one, each time you activate the consumable. It does not mean that you run out of aircraft more quickly. (Although it would be quite understandable if a back-up pilot refused to take off, when the sky was filled with a squadron or two of enemy fighters. "Are you crazy, cap'n? They'd make me into swiss cheese FFS...!!!")

Disclaimer: I want to be clear that I do not suggest something to be "canon", or established fact, simply because it appears in a Youtube video! I merely took the content of said video, which I found thought-provoking, and made it into a basis for further discussions on the forum. Edited: I should also point out that Jingles doesn't drive home a point of canon, either. He simply makes a few observations on which ships are chosen/not chosen for competitive play, and adds his own personal thoughts as to the probable cause for this.

It seems this is going to end with either a Blyska or a Belfast victory. At one point there, I really thought it would stand between the Blyska and the Scharnhorst...

Blyskawica 18 Belfast 21 - 3 = 18 Scharnhorst : 8 + 1 = 9

Which means that the Molotov is actually a heavy cruiser? Good post - thanks for the information!

It would be even more funny to see this kind of bid for realism result in, for example, realistic confrontations between battleships and aircraft carriers. The numbers of tears that would be shed by the BB club on that account, I can't even imagine. The old adagio, that you should be careful what you wish for, still holds true.

Blyskawica 20 Belfast 25 - 3 = 22 Scharnhorst :12 + 1 = 13

If I try my hand at ranked, I'll most likely bring these ships to the table: Tier 7: Blyskawica, Belfast and the Scharnhorst/Gneisenau Tier 8: Lo Yang, Atago/Mikhail Kutuzov and the Tirpitz

This is an arcade game. In arcade games, balance trumps realism, including laws of physics and historical accuracy. Otherwise such games would quickly become unplayable.

Requiem for a Belfast I was in my Belfast, sitting in the third and last of my smoke screens (the second one almost killed me because RN smoke bug), waiting for death. Almost the entire remaining enemy fleet was closing in, eying my little smoke cloud hungrily, and there was just no way I was going to live to see the sunset. I only hoped that I would be able to claim at least one kill before going down, so that I could face Davy Jones with honour. But there was little chance of that. Or so I thought. Then the last of the smoke cleared, and what do I see? Less than four kilometers away, an enemy Schors is closing in, no doubt looking for an easy torpedo kill as he is just turning to present his whole, lovely starboard side to me. He must have been really disappointed to see my smoke screen vanish at that particular time. I fire off my entire broadside - BOOM! - twelve barrels of blazing AP, and hit with just about all of them, scoring four - 4! - citadels in the process. The Schors is still afloat, briefly, with about 150 hit points left, and then one of my little secondary gunners takes those off as well, sinking the Schors and getting me a Close Quarters Expert medal as a nice bonus. (He's getting an extra tot of rum, down in the Locker tonight!) Seconds after that, I am hit with just about every shell and torpedo fired from just about every ship in the enemy fleet - there's not enough left of me to stamp a memorial matchbox - but I can feel myself sporting this big, crap-eating grin all the way down to the ocean floor. "Hoist the TWI signal, boys and girls - Totally Worth It!!!"

Blyskawica 23 Belfast 27 - 3 = 24 Scharnhorst 11 +1 = 12

Didn't "Kamikaze" originally signify "Divine Wind", the name that was given to the sudden storm that scattered the Mongol fleet sent by Genghis Khan, and which saved Japan from invasion?

I choose you, Pikachu sorry, I mean Scharnhorst!!!