Verblonde

As per @MrWastee the middle-sized crates have generally provided the best return on spend, but I would wait and see what exactly WG do this year - they must be fully aware that 'the community' has worked out that the largest crates are not really worth the spend, so I wouldn't put it past WG to mess with this year's probabilities/mechanics as a result. FWIW based on my personal (small) data-set, last year's biggest boxes had about double the ship drop chance, *but* they cost a lot more, and the 'other' bumf (if memory serves) didn't scale particularly well with increased spend.

It takes time; bear in mind also that at lower tiers even fewer people know what they're doing, so it's harder to make up for the random idiots you get from time to time. Also, the lower tier BBs - IMO anyway - tend to be very frustrating as their accuracy is almost always woeful (even by the generally unimpressive standards of BBs). On the up-side, I tend to find that you can sometimes wreak havoc against a lot of players in low tier BBs if you know about proper ammo choice and things like angling; at that level a lot of people don't know about avoiding exposing their citadels etc. As mentioned previously, try and play in divisions with more experienced players who can provide you with real-time input/advice; voice comms are very helpful for this, if you have them available (most folk seem to use Discord or TS, but the in-game voice comms work okay in a pinch).

I think it was the basic ones last year too (at least, that's what my spreadsheet from back then indicates); I recall thinking it odd that T10 rewards were - arguably - worse than those for T8-9. Same this year too - T8-9 get steel; T10 get the rather unimpressive basic crates...

It's a pity that things like the Kobayashi and National cammos aren't available for a wider range of ships/tiers...

IMO a lot depends on your personal circumstances, and what you consider to be of value: Broadly speaking, the more premium ships you have, the better value they are; assuming you have all the clunkers already, any ship drops are more likely to be more desirable ships. It seems to be the case that your odds of getting the most desirable ships from crates are very low unless you 'force' those drops by having all the alternatives already. Players with few premiums should absolutely avoid crates as a means to getting any specific ship (realistically, you aren't going to get MO etc.). Ask yourself if you'd be content with the worst case scenario in terms of rewards in relation to spend i.e. if you get only cammo, will you be upset? It's sensible to assume you're buying the lousiest outcome, and then anything else is a bonus. In my experience, you don't get absolute worst case, but you can easily get no ships at all over smaller volumes of crate. In previous years, you've tended to need to buy/win relatively larger quantities of crates to get decent value (smaller quantities are more prone to more extreme cases; yay if it works in your favour, less so in the other direction). Finally, what do you think of the ethics of gambling crates; I'm not concerned with the technical loopholes - these crates are gambling in all important regards. If you object, you may wish to avoid them. I still have a spreadsheet I kept from last year's mighty whaling (across two accounts): 33 Basic Gifts (all freebies): zero ships. 60 Big Gifts (almost all bought): six ships (but only one in the first 33 opened - see point about quantities above). 32 Mega Gifts (all bought): six ships. In previous years, the middle-sized crates have generally represented the best value; however, I would urge caution - WG never publish their odds, and there is nothing to stop them messing with those odds for this year's version of the crates. Essentially, what it really comes down to is whether or not you can afford to waste the money on these crates; in my case, I'm not supposed to drink any more, so what might have formerly been my booze budget gets partially spent on nonsense like WOWS, including crates. After a session in the pub/clubbing, all one has to show for it is a prodigious widdle output and a head that feels like there's a Frenchman living in it (Blackadder, for those too young to remember); now I have useless pixels instead.

Interesting that you say that: I took Furious out in the current Op earlier, and didn't do nearly as well as with the various others - I thought it was just me being rubbish...

I don't really play CVs in PvP, but mine gets a lot of use in Ops; for the latter, Ark Royal is excellent - being able to drop three torps at once can be extremely helpful, for a start. I find her to be pretty decent in Ops, although my damage totals tend to be higher in Ark Royal; the bombers did take a little getting used to - for me anyway - but are worth the effort (ditto the German AP ones too); they do a lot of damage and have an excellent fire chance, combined with quite a user-friendly circular drop pattern. The torps are laughably bad, but you do get the stock rocket planes from the T8 silver CV; those are really useful in Ops with lots of cruisers. BTW I should mention that I haven't tried either in Avoid Newport, for obvious reasons...

I've played it a bit, especially on my NA account; I don't hate it, although I would probably have stopped entirely fairly quickly if the second (torp) ship wasn't reasonably interesting to play. I dislike the attempt to force betrayal on you; I much preferred last year's approach where it was optional, and you could get decent rewards either way. This year's rewards are pretty weak too, although if the permaflages were less horrible, my view might be different - I assume that WG didn't have the dev time to create something new; it's a shame they decided to recycle something entirely hideous, instead of - say - the cammo you got via the recent campaign/collection. Finally, the mode counts towards very few missions etc. which is another reason - for the time poor - not to play it.

True, and I don't believe what I wrote suggested any sort of wish for that. The foolish contention I was objecting to appears to be that if you get sunk by planes, it's your own bloody silly fault for not picking something with strong enough AA; I wasn't implying that anything should be entirely immune without skillful play, but rather that it is an unrealistic hope that one can largely ignore CVs if one picks a ship with strong AA.

Presumably, the crucial difference is that it's very unlikely you'll get multiple coordinated CVs with the current arrangements; if you have a division with more than one ship that can launch planes that's a nastier proposition, as they can coordinate their attacks...

Alaska, for reasons outlined by others. As to the coal choice, recall that there are the old steel ships returning for coal at some point (although if you dig cruisers and BBs, only Flint might be of interest?)...

I assume this is deliberate trolling, as I struggle to imagine that anyone could really be this obtuse. Nothing has sufficiently 'decent' AA to be immune to CVs/Hybrids, and certainly not more than one at once (as is discussed by the OP); also, the better AA ships are a minority - a requirement for acceptable AA makes more than one DD branch entirely unplayable in the face of planes, for instance. The last version of the captain skill rework makes absolutely no difference to DDs - from memory - in terms of their AA; the extra two points are simply spent on skills that get more expensive (PT, and AR, from memory). I haven't checked the other ship types as the thing is still WiP.

Ah, the return of cross-dropping?

Haida and Orkan both do as well...

Sadly, this is true - I'm a big fan of secondary batteries on DDs - maximum manliness FTW!

I'm assuming I'll just play as normal (more or less), and bag any freebies that I can, but I don't plan on spending any real money on Hizen - she just doesn't seem necessary, or particularly fun. On the other hand, I quite like the idea of an uber-Dunk, so will have a crack at that campaign, if it isn't too ridiculous (plus snowflakes might give me enough steel and/or coal to pick up an exciting new ship there too)...

I don't know how hard it would be to code, but my suggestion would be for WG to make the captain you buy unassigned to any nation (like some of the reward cammos are); you then have to assign them to a nation afterwards, after which they belong to whichever ship they would have if they'd been nation-specific from the start (presumably, the T1 for each nation, except those without silver ships), so no loss for WG in terms of assigning them to more likely silver ships. I imagine they would sell more this way too; I would rather like some of the previous years' captains too, but they're a complete waste of money for me as most of them are assigned to nations where I don't need them.

Well, the second boat you get (with the torps) is a bit less boring - at least you get the three different boosts to manage. Just had a funny battle where the last three of us in the octagon refused to shoot each other (we'd been in an impromptu division), and just spent the last few minutes chatting. Balls to WG and their insistence that we have to betray each other. <w4nker gestures at whoever came up with that idea>

Not hugely pertinent to the old lags with no shortage of 19 point captains, but they're removed one of the key advantages for newer players of these sorts of events - they used to be a way for players to grind captain xp, that they couldn't get otherwise.

My initial impression is 'probably not' - there aren't nearly enough AI-controlled sea monsters to make it interesting...

Well, I'm three games in now, and it seems to be just a rather tedious battle royale type mode (in which case, the irritating Steel Hunt mode in WOT is - at least - less dull, and has better rewards, if you play enough) - what am I missing?

It's a pity you can't buy the older captains individually (unless I'm missing something)...?

It does; for maximum manliness, one has to either do a drive-by, or turn very hard when you see the whites of the bots' eyes... (I should perhaps mention I tend to at least partly focus on having a giggle when doing these sorts of missions...)

I usually go with one of the higher tier secondary monsters with an engine boost - the logic being to get as close as possible as quickly as possible. I tend to find GA and JB are pretty decent in this regard...

True, but that's how the others work; as far as I know the ARP Yamato is a another 'special' too...