Verblonde

I just cycled through my various manly BBs in Coop (so, T8+ KM, a couple of the French, plus MAs and GA); the most effective were those with engine boost, as that helps get you close enough for secondaries before allied DDs have torped everything - JB and GA for example. (I would have stuck to just the optimal one or two, but thought I might as well knock off a few first win bonuses and contribute a bit to the Bismarck Cathedral mission at the same time.)

I wonder if, for Coop only, a CV/No CV (if bot) checkbox might be remotely practical? By that I mean that in whatever circumstances you might get a bot CV, you can either opt in or opt out, but it has no effect on real person CV MM. I suspect it'd be too much work, but it might be a fix for the contradictory aspects of having a bot CV in game: Makes spotting missions in ships a total wash (I was doing the same mission as the OP yesterday, in French DDs - as good as it gets for early spots - and I think the best I did was two spots with a bot CV present). Makes 'shoot planes' missions a lot more doable (and/or improves the game rewards if you shoot planes down). Time issues (both ways).

Since they're available in exchange for different resources (unless you swap RP for free xp, as I did, to get Smaland), why not go for all of them in parallel? I don't have Paolo yet so can't comment on her (I will get her eventually though), but - despite being about twice the price she should be - I feel that Smaland is a lot more useful than Marceau, although it does come down to your personal play style and preferences, and I've yet to gel properly with the whole 'glue the left mouse button down and drive it like to you stole it' approach against real people (I need a bit of sneak). Smaland is a magnificent DD hunter (the solid AA, and mega engine boost don't hurt either), if you've already got the hang of the Ikea line; I do find Marceau very useful though - she's glorious fun in Coop, and a good vehicle for doing missions quickly.

The consensus was that it was very much worth taking before the rework; since the rework, with the massive nerf to fire chance, the case for IFHE on the T9-10 RN DDs is much weaker (I don't take it any more, as per @Captain_Newman). BTW, if you haven't seen it, LWM did an excellent 'starter for ten' overview of which ships/guns work with IFHE and which don't: https://forum.worldofwarships.com/topic/213359-ifhe-all-night-long/

Nah - just let the game update; the next patch will most likely go live a week on Thursday i.e. 29th October.

The only DDs - IMO - that are worth using it with these days are the T8-10 IJN 'dakka' ones, plus Harekaze (using a captain from the main line). The combination of wrecking your fire chance, and what you have to give up to get it, make IFHE a waste of points on pretty much everything else...

Apparently not - some basic courtesy would seem to be in order. You really do have to try quite hard to get a chat ban; it's generally necessary to be a major Richard to trigger one...

Το χόβερκραφτ μου είναι γεμάτο χέλια...

The answer to problematic behaviour in Coop is simple, but the Coop mains would freak out - stop missions being doable in Coop. (I don't think this is a good idea, but it is the solution to many of the issues with Coop)

As an aside, I note that 'our' Belfast is, in future, going to be known as 'HMS Belfast 1938' in RL, to avoid confusion with an upcoming Type 26...

It won't surprise anyone familiar with my usual cruiser gameplay that an *extremely* similar thought process was happening over here too...

Trouble with that is - of course - that you'd just *know* he'd die at some point during the battle...

A very sick + twisted individual...!

BTW for the avoidance of doubt: Sheffield would be on my 'instabuy' list (assuming WG didn't mess it up)...

Er, you appear to be making my point for me - my assertion is that almost anyone in the UK who has even a passing interest in warships knows about Belfast (plus a lot who don't, and just vaguely know London), whereas only those with a more specific interest know about Sheffield. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that more people know about the Type 42 Sheffield than know about the WW2 cruiser...

Not a chance: the rest of them aren't parked on the Thames, right next to several of the most well-known landmarks in London, and don't appear in multiple blockbuster films (usually with wizards flying past and/or superheroes/aliens exploding stuff next door). When you're initially learning about this stuff, all the focus in the books is on the big impressive BBs, and things like Ark Royal; most things like cruisers and destroyers tend to be relegated to supporting roles; you only really find out about the latter once your interest is already whetted, and you've known about Belfast for months/years. I get that this is a bit of an injustice, to put it mildly, but that's the way things are...

Badly, by the sound of it; as others have said, your torps are *always* your responsibility. Always. Luckily, this isn't hard to fix; it just requires you get a bit better at situational awareness and choosing when to fire, and when not. To start with, simply hold fire if it's physically possible for an ally to get in the path of your torps (if you're playing most torp-orientated DDs right this should be easy, as if you're firing from the second line you're generally doing it wrong); use your mini-map (which you should be glued to anyway) to keep track of where everyone is and relate that to your torp range circle, whilst being mindful that ships move, so be aware of courses and speeds (in particular, things with 'super' engine boosts like the French, or Smaland, can suddenly start going a lot faster - will that put them in harm's way, and so on). This will result in missed opportunities, but is a necessary stage to go through as it will get you in the habit of not being a Richard with your torp fire. After that, you can start adding in the more sketchy shots gradually, or at least the ones where it's unlikely you'll hit an ally, and work from there. Crucially, if you do balls up, always say sorry!

I would think this is spectacularly doubtful - if you have an interest in naval history and are British, you would have known about Belfast (and quite possibly have been over her) since long before WOWS was even thought of...

I suppose one has to (sort of) admire WG's Olympic-standard delusional optimism here; I imagine there is a slight chance some silly bugger that has never read a single review of the thing might open their wallet...

This is incorrect, at least if we're talking about using doubloons for signals/cammo. I've recently started a 'new' (actually old, but not used it for WOWS until now) account on the NA server, and the same 'spend doubloons by default' behaviour is there too. I agree that WG's behaviour in this matter is a Richard move, but I can't imagine it'll ever change for the reasons already outlined by others. One has to train oneself to always be on the look out for ticked 'spend doubloons automatically' boxes, especially bearing in mind that they re-enable every time you equip a doubloon cammo or signals from a blank slate state too.

There might be some promising choices in the vocab widely deployed in the noted thespianic work The Boys, which people will recall WG were enthusiastically endorsing in and around WOT...?

I probably count as a snowflake (at least according to the apparent definition of 'at least mildly concerned about other people'), but banning 'Axis' as a clan name seems extreme; it doesn't seem a huge stretch to extend that to banning 'Porthole' - say - as a clan name because Nazi warships had portholes...?

If you want to type regular words and sentences into chat, hit 'enter' then type the message you want to send and hit enter again. Tab toggles between the different options for whom you want to see the message: your side (green), everybody (white), and your division (orange, if applicable). It's worth double-checking that, before you tell people your plans, chat is set to the right channel... The 'standard' messages (that can be especially helpful if your team don't all speak the same language - quite common on the EU server) can be accessed via the F-keys (for example, F3 asks people to target whatever you have your cursor on); press and hold B in game if you're struggling to remember them. A number of them are context-dependent, i.e. will give differing messages depending on what, if anything, your cursor is over at the time.

If you really want to get into it there's even more here apropos ship type abbreviations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_classification_symbol This might also be of interest: https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/abbreviations.html The crucial ones you'll probably need to know day-to-day are the following for ship types: DD - Destroyer. CL - Light Cruiser. CA - Heavy Cruiser. CV - Aircraft Carrier. BB - Battleship. You'll sometimes see people referring to battlecruisers too, usually using the abbreviation BC, although exactly what is/isn't a battlecruiser can be open for discussion (several of the 'BBs' in the game are actually battlecruisers e.g. Hood, and the Alaskas were battlecruisers according to almost everyone, apart from the people who built them, and so on). There are quite a few ship nicknames you may encounter too ('Sharkbait' for Indianapolis, or 'Smolester'/'Smol' for Smolensk etc.), not to mention using the the 'standard' state abbreviations when referring to US BBs (GA is Georgia, MA is Massachusetts etc.). Not an abbreviation, as such, but my favourite WOWS term is still 'triangle w4nker' for destroyer, although I can't remember who I heard that from....

Surely, this is the Correct way to play all ships...? None of this wimpy 'lobbing shells from 30 km away' nonsense...!