Verblonde

Occasionally in Coop, if something suitable presents broadside (and I have a 'citadels' mission in play, especially), but that's about it...

BTW a reminder for any old lags who (quite understandably) might have missed it, and/or have too many premiums: if you have all the premiums on the T7 crate's drop-list, you'll get silver compensation, not gold. Rather changes the value proposition were one contemplating getting some/all of the bundles. Not if you have the bulk of the PA premiums already, plus be aware that there is a risk of indescribable horror lurking in there too: Don't click on the spoiler if you are of an easily distressed disposition: triple horror lurks within...

I can't remember the price, beyond that it was quite a lot (and/or horribly grindy - it was ages ago now). I guess the dual-nation ones would be quite useful for a newer player, perhaps: old lags tend to have at least a small number of 21 point captains which can be used to speed up the development of other captains. If you have a reasonable set of premium ships, you can focus more play/daily first-win bonuses on just the one captain (Ovenchicken) to maximise the speed with which he gets to 21 points (19 back then, which was rather more practical). Mind you, I didn't really miss having access to the dual-nation version, even when I didn't have access to multiple maxed-out captains...

Nah, it is four; you were right: The first two are single-nation; the latter two are dual-nation.

Aye. It wasn't *that* bad though (well, from the perspective of a DD main): most of the time, the optimal builds for US and Russian DDs differ, so the dual-nation thing isn't massively useful in this case. I just nabbed the two single-nation versions (which weren't unreasonable to get hold of) and built each optimally for their respective nations. I think my US Ovenchicken has got a lot more use than the Russian one though...

Wasn't it to do with various levels of money-extraction from the public? From memory, there were two 'one nation' versions (which I have both of), plus one or two dual-nation ones (for money; I vaguely recall one had a ridiculous price-tag, such that even my self-control managed to hold out)...?

+1 Top lass, by all accounts...

The damn thing's reputation was the reason I didn't go near her for a couple of years after starting the game...! (I think I might even have got the PA Premium version before the silver one!!)

At the risk of repetition, the best BB is the one you know how to play; if you can get tolerably competent in any BB, you'll be better than the majority of people you'll face. In light of that, perhaps think along the following lines: Start with one (or both) of the original BB lines i.e. the IJN (finishing up with Yamato) and original US line (finishing with Montana; avoid the other US BB line - they are *boring*!!). After that, it's really whatever you fancy. KM get hydro, which can be fun to use; the RN are famous/notorious for their HE (just don't get into the habit of only using the one shell type); the French get speed boost (making them quite good for Coop, if you're into that). The Italians are generally felt to be a bit pants, but some people seem to like them. The Russians are good (although submarine pings make their limited Damage Control charges a bit painful), albeit almost entirely fictitious. Bear in mind that - because reasons - WG have felt it necessary to make BBs one of the more effective ASW platforms in the game (no, I have no idea why either); this means that to maximise your team's chance of winning you need to master when/how to make maximum use of this.

I don't really mind this early access nonsense (sometimes, I buy into it, sometimes not - upcoming RN submarines being emphatically the latter); quite apart from anything else, it seems to reduce the usual 'new tree' spike in prevalence of the new ships dramatically, compared to the old release model. I'm sure most of the old lags will recall the massive spikes in popularity that used to accompany trees, and how distorted MM could get as a result?

I favour whatever answer makes the Greek nationalists' heads explode - that sort of thing is always excellent value on the forum...! Being sensible, why not: we already have more than one variation on the theme of dual-nationality captains, with the assorted Ovenchickens and (kind of) with the HSF captains, the basic coding has probably been done. Make her Russian/Pan-EU and job done.

Aye, it's the random bundles: (This is from my NA account.)

Looks like we have a couple of possibilities here: A good old-fashioned coq eurp, as the French might conceivably say. Since I see we've got to the 'closing bad-tempered threads on submarines, and directing people to the black holes that are the sticky threads' stage of trying to stamp out ill-will towards submarines, it could be a poorly-conceived attempt to force people to play the things. With a less malevolent entity than WG, I would assume the first option, but given the incompetence, option 2 has to have at least a fighting chance...

On the up-side, it seems that nobody can see on WOWS Numbers if I'm the sort of cat-shaving psychopath who might - purely hypothetically, you understand - have played a few games in submarines in Coop mode...

I was thinking I probably would: it's a DD after all, and the only steel one I don't have (unless I've forgotten something); it'll keep until the next coupon though...

You could define 'allies' as everyone who didn't ever have an alliance with Nazi Germany - if memory serves, that would put Russia and the USA on opposite sides, which might sort out the radar imbalance somewhat?

I suppose you could have 'Baddies' and 'Goodies', and split the radar nations between them...? At the very least, the arguments about which nations belong in which category would be 'visible from the Kuiper Belt' glorious...!

This afternoon, in Uncle Verblonde's Geology Corner: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cummingtonite

Thank you for the invite; I'm afraid I'll be working until quite late EU time (and then, slightly against my better judgement, going climbing for a bit) - the down-side of living out here is that coordinating with folk on the other side of the Atlantic can be a challenge...

I'm not certain, but I don't recall seeing other people's torps drawn when they're whizzing overhead whilst submerged - do torps only get fully rendered for the initial period after launch (you see them going over the side when launched from proper ships), and then switch over to being essentially a point thing after that?

Huzzah! (I'm so ashamed...)

Being sweet, naive + impressionable, I'm - for once - probably rather glad of copyright takedowns...

"Mummy, I don't understand...?" Seriously though, this ship has clearly been named to appeal to the deeply puerile (full disclosure: I sniggered slightly, despite being more than half a century old, and knowing better); there is zero chance that it didn't occur to WG what this ship will inevitably be universally referred to as.

Well, I did play several submarine games in Coop last night, in the spirit of scientific enquiry: Ye gods, they're dull in Coop most of the time! As to the question hand, when you launch torps underwater, the graphics do look like indicator symbol is at the back-end of the torps. Can't tell if this impacts dodging in any way, as anything besides the indicator isn't really visible (to the submarine) more than a few seconds after launch. Didn't get any reports while doing this either; I can only hope my few human team-mates had simply run out...