Procrastes

I hope you have tried playing u-boat hunters as well - destroyers, that is - and not just u-boats? Also, and at the risk of exposing my lack of knowledge: What is the significance of a laughing cow, in this context? I only know of the French cheese...

Waaaitaminute... I see your avatar picture... ...and your avatar name... ...and your clan name... ...and the time when you joined the community... - and I'm starting to get an inkling of what might be your main ship class in the game. ... ... ... - nah, I lost it!

Good of you to bring this up! I wouldn't be surprised if Wargaming decides to change this, since they would want as many of us as possible to keep playing submarine battles while the test period lasts.

I'd welcome the option to buy unlimited generic 10-point commanders for doubloons! We already have a bunch of 10-point captains available for doubloons, but they are limited in number and they do not appear evenly across all nationalities and tech trees. I believe the reason to be that these captains are actual historical commanders from their respective national navies, and this is cool, too - but I see no real reason to impose this limitation for getting hold of a new 10-point commander. While the case could be made that selling 10-pointers for doubloons would slide the game further along the Pay2win-scale, I think it would benefit the quality of the gameplay for all involved. Having less than 10 points on your commander makes a lot of ships - destroyers most notably - far less of an asset to the rest of the team. On a side note: The deciding factor for Wargaming will probably be whether they will make more money from this option, or from the occasional sale of a premium ship with a points-buffed commander thrown in to sweeten the deal. (Not that I blame them.) On a related note: There was a suggestion on the forum a while ago, about giving all special and legendary commanders 19 skill points from the beginning. I am less sure of whether this would be good for the game in general or not,** but I do feel that it would save me a lot of frustration about having to either fork out another million free or elite xp:s* every time I acquire such a commander, or play one or more of my favourite ships with a mere 10-pointer but with a few fireworks/special effects bonuses. I am not saying that this is enough of a reason to dole out 19-pointers across the board, though - especially retroactively. * Although I suppose this is what free and elite xp are there for. So no real cause for complaint. ** I am sure that selling 19-pointers straight up for doubloons would totally wreck the game as we know it, though. That must never happen.

Question: How do you aim your guns at a submerged submarine? I just shot four volleys of HE at a submarine at 5.8 meters depth, in my Warspite, and scored zero (0) hits. Then an enemy Bayern - who obviously knew what he was doing - wasted our submarine with two salvoes, from half hit points. How do you aim at that floating stick in the water?

Ahem... ...given the expressed hope that the Ark Royal would return, I just assumed that she had been pulled from the shop for some reason. It's good to her that she's still with us!

I'm sure it will return.

I assume that the sub-killer weapon with the Ryujo is the rockets, then. With Ark Royal, do you use your rockets or your carpet bombs?

Perfectly valid considerations - but I don't think an added level of complexity is a bad thing here. As a submarine captain, I believe I'd rather be under pressure (ha, ha) than have the option to stay underwater for as long as I wished. Wargaming have coddled carriers too an almost insulting degree as it is, and I'd prefer if the new submarine captains were given a bit more of a challenge.

Good point! Running out of battery power whilst underwater is certainly an incentive to surface. But I would contend that it is not enough of an incentive, since it still leaves it entirely in the hands of the submarine captain whether to surface or not. It allows the submarine to more or less dictate the terms of the engagement, when facing ships without ASW capabilities. This is perfectly acceptable in a simulation, but hardly in an arcade game such as WoWs. We are no more than two weeks in on the current test period, and I have already seen enough drawn-out sub vs. battleship endgames to last me century...!

What I am hearing, here... ...is that we need a mechanic that makes it impossible for submarines to stay submerged indefinitely. I think it's time to renitroduce the "oxygen supply" mechanic, from the first test stage?

Out of interest: Have you managed to sink a submarine with your planes? If so, how? With bombs, rockets or torpedoes? From what I've seen, they can be hard to spot from the air in time to line up an attack run...

I expect you recorded it and that you show it on widescreen every Christmas?

You might also find it worth a hoot to go so far as the V-170 at tier IV, and just play it for laughs. The V-170 retains those bow-mounted torpedo tubes which allow for some decidedly esoteric battle tactics. You can, for instance, charge nose-in at an enemy and launch your bow torpedoes at close range, and if he turns, you just turn as well and unload your centerline torpedoes so that they hit him on his new course.* * This Teutonic joust is also known as 'Ze German Chicken Run'. It should be pronounced with a fake-German accent.

Yes, I wouldn't advice you to go for the German destroyer line as a priority. What I'm saying is that it might be worth it to just get the T-61 and put a dedicated captain on her. I did; I have my von Jutland as a 19-pointer on her, and he spends very little time on board other ships. Totally worth it!

Thanks, mate! Kind words - and such things matter! Edited: I just realized that this was my 3000th post on this forum. What a great way to make Commander!

The German tier VI premium, the T-61, is great fun. As far as I can tell, she's probably the best all-round destroyer at her tier. Her combination of smoke, hydro and fast-loading torpedoes will let you handle most situations you might end up in, and her somewhat weak guns force you to play carefully and with forethought. In other words, she rewards careful and intelligent play but punishes mistakes - which is a great way to balance a ship, in my opinion!

Me and you both, then! I have only just recently, after five years of playing this game, unlocked my first two tier X silver ships: The Daring and the Halland. And I am only just barely competent to do them justice, on a good day. The gameplay is just so different on those higher tiers, it's almost like a different game at times. And then I watch a youtube video by some truly gifted player, and it's like watching a master musician at his favourite instrument. You can see what he or she does, and understand the skill it takes - but for me, at least, I have to realize that there are some levels that will always be out of reach. The fact that I can still put in enough of a contribution to make a difference in such a game, is testimony to how well this game is (still) built and balanced. Let's hope it lasts!

Gosh, I'm preaching to the choir here! I have nothing to teach you about destroyers!

Let me complicate things even further by suggesting that you take a look at the Royal Navy destroyers? From tier 6 and up, they are pretty solid performers. They have good guns, hard-hitting (albeit slow-loading) torps with that neat single-torp ability, British DD smoke and self-defense hydro. This is a potent tool box, if used well. British DD smoke and self-defense hydro might need some explanation. British destroyers (with the exception of the premium Gallant) have very short-lasting smoke with a lot of charges. This basically means that you can usually smoke up anytime you need it as an instant response if, say, you need a quick getaway from a suddenly appearing enemy, or if you want to shield yourself from incoming planes. You emit fewer puffs than normal smoke which means that you get a smaller smoke cloud, and you also run the risk of outrunning your own smoke unless you start slowing down in time. You can launch a few salvoes from smoke cover, but you need to keep a careful check on the smoke timer or risk finding yourself suddenly exposed when your smoke screen dissipates. Your smoke consumable has a quick cooldown, though, so you can usually count on being able to smoke up again within less than a minute (the Jack of All Trades captain skill is especially useful here, not least if you have one or both of the Dunkirk cousins as special commanders). I don't think I've ever run out of smoke charges on a British destroyer, either winning the game or being sunk before this happened. Getting the timing right is the key when using this British DD smoke. It can take a bit of practice, but it's worth it. The self-defence hydro is a hydroacoustic search consumable with less range but longer duration than the hydro of other nations. I find it to be extremely useful, since it provides a large amount of protection against enemy torpedoes - even inside a smoke screen. It will be even more useful in the future when submarines arrive in random battles, if the current submarine battles test is anything to go by. A weak point for most British destroyers is their overall crappy AA. But this is less of a problem since they can usually smoke up at will. If you are spotted from the air, just smoke up, keep your AA guns shut down (with the 'P' key) and simply wait for the planes to go away. Personally I find it quite restful to make funny faces at them, as they circle around. As for the individual Brits themselves, I have a bit of extra fondness for the Jervis as tier VII and the Daring at tier X. Bot are great gunboats at their respective tier, and the Daring even has access to a heal/repair party. It might also be worth noting that the Icarus at tier VI drops some mean ol' depth charges, that do a lot of damage. This is not to say that you should give either the Europeans or the French a pass. I have the Halland myself, and she's a joy to play - drive around as you please, toss out torpedoes left and right, and laugh in the face of danger (since you can repair/heal even more damage than the Daring). And if some planes mosey over, press the Defensive AA Fire and watch them drop like burning mayflies.* The Europeans have a bit of a slow start at lower tiers, but from the Skåne and upwards, they more and more come into their own. I don't yet have any French destroyers higher than the Guépard at tier VI, but I might get there yet. Whatever you choose, I wish you luck! With submarines coming soonish, and CV:s still on prowl, we need all the good destroyer captains we can get! * Ok, maybe a slight exaggeration here. No doubt we can expect @El2aZeR to arrive in short order and smack me over the head with the latest spreadsheet. You probably shouldn't go looking for CV trouble unless you really want it - but unless you face a truly good CV captain, you can expect the Halland to deal with planes a lot better than any other destroyer currently in the game (the Friesland at tier IX probably comes closest).

It's hard to have an opinion on what happened without a replay, Captain @Cpt_P4N0S_GR, but any ship that gets within 2 km will be proximity spotted even through an island, let alone a smoke screen. So my guess would be that if you failed to spot a smoked-up Friesland who was that close to you, then a) the Friesland was not quite as close as 2 km, and b) it was some other ship that was shooting at you from the other side of the smoke screen. These things happen. It should be said that the Friesland does have a fairly small smoke firing penalty. I don't know exactly how small, but he could probably have been sitting somewhere between 2 and 3 km from you and still been shooting unspotted.

Maybe not. But until I know that for a fact, I shall try to pitch in what useful feedback I can. I believe that merely adding a mechanic that prevents submarines from remaining submerged indefinitely, will go a very long way towards establishing a valid counter-play for ships without access to ASW. An easy way to do this would be to give submarines a limited supply of oxygen, which would be depleted while they are submerged. When it runs out, they are forced to surface. With such a mechanic in place, ships without access to depth charges or other forms of ASW could defeat a submarine simply by staying afloat until the sub was forced to surface, and then sink the little bugger with guns or by ramming as circumstances would allow. The sub on the other side would have to try and sink any surface ships in the area before running out of oxygen. This sort of duel could prove fun and exciting for all parties involved, which is not something that could be said about the present situation. An oxygen supply mechanic could also be supplemented by such things as an extra-oxygen consumable (perhaps as an alternative to the emergency dive consumable?), or access to a snorkel for higher-tier submarines. Submarines at snorkel depth would be less visible than when on the surface, but they should still be vulnerable to both guns and depth charges. I know that Wargaming have tried a submarine build with an oxygen-supply mechanic, which they then scrapped. I don't know why they scrapped it,* but my guess would be that they figured it was going to be too complicated for new submarine players. If this is so, it seems a bit insulting to new and old players alike. Wargaming have stated that they aim to keep the gameplay fun and engaging. Dumbing down the game is not the best way to go about this. * EDITED: I just browsed though the 'gamasutra' text about submarines which Captain @Fat_Maniac was kind enough to link to in post #1845 above. According to that, Wargaming chose to replace the oxygen supply mechanic with the battery mechanic because this allows them to penalize players for abusing sonar pings. That makes sense. My suggestion, though, would be that they should go for both - have a battery and an oxygen supply mechanic. I believe that while this this would make submarines somewhat trickier to play, it would also make them fit in much better with the other ship classes in the game.

I will join ranks with you in the Hopeful Brigade. I also believe that it is perfectly possible to build a working and balanced submarine class in this game. But in order to do so, Wargaming will have to abandon the idea of making submarines an easily accessible class for beginner players. To function in the game, submarines should - if anything - have an even more challenging gameplay than destroyers. We are talking about such things as a limited oxygen supply to prevent them from spending an entire battle under water, an inability to spot for their team while submerged (meaning they can't just sit under a reef and wait for their team to sink that pesky destroyer), and of course the removal of that ridiculous bobbing mechanic which allows them to make themselves effectively immune to damage. Wargaming must also find a way to allow all ship classes, even battleships and heavy cruisers, access to a valid counter-play versus submarines. This game is all about play and counter-play, and introducing a new ship class that is functionally untouchable to two existing ship classes is, in my opinion at least, clearly disruptive to the in-game balance and thus bad for the game. Moreover, it is quite simply boring for all concerned. These and other possible changes are fairly easy to implement, and Wargaming has ample opportunity to do so within the ramifications of this or the next public submarine test. I look forward to take part in such an effort.

This is an excellent idea, speaking as a DD main! Given how small our maps are, I am sceptical to any kind of mechanic that would create no-go zones. Although the really slow torpedoes of such ships as, say, the USS Black, are practically float mines in disguise. But quite what kind of ASW would be workable for a battleship, is something that will have to considered. AS of now, I'd say that the most practical solution would probably be to just slap on some depth charges and historical accuracy be damned. Or perhaps they could have depth charges mounted on their float planes, which would then automatically attack the sub? Yes, please, bring them on! Assuming that subs are here to stay in one form or another, I think we can expect a number of various ASW systems to appear over the next year or so. For starters, I don't think those depth charge mortars on the Halland and the Friesland are put there purely for decorative purposes!

I have seen this... ...and yes, that double damage immunity bobbing mechanic has to go. Depth charges should deal damage to submarines at any depth. Also, and quite apart from this, subs should not be able to either dive or surface as fast as they do now, no matter what. Once this is taken care of, we can move on to other things such as - submerged submarines should not spot enemies for their team (even with hydro, since they can't transmit radio signals from under water) - submarines should not be able to spend an entire battle under water, there should be some mechanic - such as a limited oxygen supply - that forces them to surface - submarine torpedoes should have a proper arming distance (so they can't surface fifty yards in front of you and insta-torp you with no chance of dodging) - submarines should perhaps be made more manoeverable when turning, in compensation for losing their magical bobbing mechanic? - all surface ship classes should have access to ASW (yes this is un-historical, but not having ASW when there are subs in the game is bad for the gameplay) These are what few suggestions I can think of right away, but there are doubtless many other things that needs fixing as well!