Verblonde

Do we know if it's based on a real ship, or more made-up "kids, don't take drugs!" type stuff?

True. 19-pointers, especially the first, take a long time to get (I play with a chap who's been playing longer than I have and, as far as I know, he doesn't have any yet); it's helpful to have half an eye on this long-term goal though, as it can usefully inform what you're doing in the short-to-medium term. My feeling is that until you hit the +2 MM bracket (so, T5+), you can more or less get away with anything (unless seal-clubbing), although I never go out with less than 3 points. When you start to meet +2 tier opponents, especially when relatively inexperienced, you start to need all the help you can get; as you'll have realised, 10 points is when you can unlock the first 4-point skill - for me, this almost always means one of CE (on anything sneaky), or FP (on anything tanky), or - rarely - IFHE on anything which *really* needs it and won't be played against real people until I get to 14 points (and can take CE as well). So, 10 points is the practical minimum (with some light cruisers calling for 14 - CE *and* IFHE), and the more points the better as you go up the tiers. Bear in mind though that some ships need higher point captains than others, comparatively speaking e.g. a lot of heavy cruisers are fine with 10 points, as their bigger guns mean IFHE isn't necessary, in contrast with many CLs, where you really want both to be optimal. That's exactly the right thing to do; besides needing more experience as you go up the tiers, assuming you want to do reasonably well, you need your captains to vaguely keep up too, as the opponents you'll meet will most likely have good captains too. As to what I did (am doing still): I migrated over from WOT, so I made many of the classic screw-ups there (e.g. my 'too high tier' premium was the IS6 when it was still good). I read the key bits of the wiki, as I knew from WOT that this would be a good starting point. I took too long to twig to some of the very useful YouTube content that's out there (search for iChase's Captains Academy series, for a start), which slowed me down. I took too long to adjust to the change of pace, compared to WOT (and I still prefer 'faster' gameplay, which often gets me killed as I lack the necessary patience still). I'm not F2P, so I used doubloons to move captains between silver ships instantly (rather than taking the time to retrain), and I bought and/or won every 10 point (or better) captain I could get my hands on. This does give a decent head-start e.g. two of my first 19-pointers were HSF captains, and - not coincidentally - they were both very useful on at least one premium ship. Speaking of premium ships, I knew (from WOT again) how useful premiums can be, so I bought a few quite early - any that were ahead of where my skills were lived in Coop to start with (one or two still largely do). If you're going to get premiums, it's very helpful if they work seamlessly with your silver ship's captains; this is powerful for captain development as it means you can easily take advantage of more than one daily 'first win' bonus by winning first with the silver ship, and then again with suitable premiums. Eventually, I got my first 19 point captain; after that, the second happened faster, and the effect has snowballed since then, so I now have several of the buggers. Further to premium ships: I have far too many of the things; I would absolutely not advocate trying to emulate that (possibly unless you *know* you absolutely love the game, and are confident that it'll still be around far enough in the future to get your money's worth). My collecting habit is driven by a) my being an idiot and b) being too old and knackered to be able to spend money on more traditional vices. Obviously though, get any free premiums you can get your hands on (and never sell any, even the arguably pointless low tier ones). I joined a clan; besides opening up the possibility of getting involved in things like Clan Battles, the economic bonuses from having a reasonably developed base really mount up over time. Using voice comms allowed me to learn stuff from clan-mates in real time, and a lot more easily than a lot of typing would allow. I played as wide a range of ships as possible, so as to understand the strengths/weaknesses of as many potential opponents as possible. That's the key stuff, although I've probably forgotten something; it's also not necessarily the 'right' way to do it, and you should also seek views from better players than me. My WR is dreadful - 48% the last time I looked - and, besides my being inherently a bit rubbish, playing a very wide range of ships does risk making you the proverbial 'master of none' (but it has kept the game interesting for me for several years now, so I'll take it). Multiple games in the same ship in succession does seem to increase the likelihood of winning, simply because you get much more familiar with how the thing plays.

It rather depends on what you're doing with the thing: the general consensus is that a tank build is optimal for PvP, so SI in that case (extra heal, as others have said, assuming you get a chance to use it). On the other hand, if you're feeling manly (and possibly a bit idiotic), then BFT is the one to go for, but you probably want to stick to Coop until you've got some of the skills that keep you alive in addition... What do I know though - I stink in BBs...!

<sigh> Since I've almost unlocked the existing T9, I suppose it's worth trying to get Moskva; since I'm bloody awful in cruisers, I apologise in advance to any hapless souls who get me on their team whilst I'm doing this (even more so than usual)...

I'm the first to give WG a kicking when they deserve it, but I don't think you're being entirely fair: whilst you could pay money to get early access to the ships (plus cammo), there were a lot of free containers available for the tokens which didn't cost any money to earn. There's a thread elsewhere looking at numbers of ships won this way - there appear to be plenty of people who got at least one. I fear you're being hyperbolic: I'd very very surprised if anyone left the game just because they didn't get a free permaflage! As to the last bit; that's good old-fashioned foil hat territory: paying money has absolutely zero impact on one's MM, as far as I can tell (I'm a whale - look at my premium ship count - and I get the same MM as everyone else, including a close friend who hasn't paid WG a penny).

Hello! This is the English forum, so you may struggle with getting answers from queries in alternative languages. Google Translate tells me you asked this: "Hi! When I play battleships, when I use the Repair Crew, I can see that I can constantly restore various amounts of health: sometimes a lot, sometimes less, and sometimes a ship cannot be repaired at all. What is this related to? Thanks!" If that's vaguely accurate, there are a number of things to consider: Not all heals are created equal, some will repair more damage than others, and things like action time can also vary. For example, the higher tier RN get what are sometimes called 'zombie' heals, as they repair so much damage. The detail of the damage that heals can fix also varies e.g. fire damage is 100% repairable, whereas citadel damage isn't (and there is variation between heals with regard to the % of citadel damage that can be fixed). So, for any given ship, the amount of damage you can repair will vary depending on how you took the damage that you need to fix: fire/flood damage usually results in lots of potential healing, and citadel damage is the reverse. When you've repaired all of the available healable damage, you can't fix the ship more than that, even if you have repair charges left, at least until you take more healable damage. For more information, suggest reading the 'Repair Party' section here: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Consumables

You can move any commander of a given nation to any ship of that nation; the ARP captains 'count' as IJN for these purposes, so that first part is a yes. Bear in mind that moving a captain to a non-premium ship will require retraining, which can be paid for with doubloons, or via elite captain xp. You can also pay silver (or nothing) and play said captain in premium ships lots, until you've earned the needed xp for them to be fully functional in whatever silver ship you've assigned them to. An approach that quite a lot of people take is to move their better captain(s) up through the tiers as they move through each branch of the tech trees. Alternatively, you can have 'good enough' captains at every tier, or at least on whatever turn out to be your 'keepers'. Or, eventually, if you play a line enough, you can have actively good captains on every significant tier (I think I have 19 pointers on at least three of my IJN torp boats, mainly due to having reground the line several times for the RB). All captains can be improved by earning experience, up to a maximum of 19 points, regardless of starting point. So, you could grind a 0-pointer all the way to 19 points if you wish, but it's a lot quicker if you start off higher up (11 points in the case you mention). When going for your first 19 pointer, I would suggest focusing on a line/ship that you really enjoy playing; the main plus (besides being more powerful) of 19 point captains is that they generate elite xp, which can be used to advance other captains, but this is only really useful if you're happy playing that first 19 pointer a *lot*. Once you get multiple 19 point captains (each subsequent one will be acquired faster, if you play the previous ones), you can start assigning at least one or two of them to more 'niche' ships... BTW if you haven't found it yet, there is a lot of useful info in the wiki: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Commander

Isn't the forum count reflective of every time you entered a battle, regardless of mode? Totally unimportant, but I'd be vaguely curious to know whether it's the act of entering a battle that is counted, or finishing it i.e. does a server disconnect mid-way through a battle mean that battle isn't counted...?

I have (and am rubbish in) both - all, if you include Salem (for the cosplay Graf Spee reason) - I would get Smol, if you can only get one of them. Smol is useful for doing annoying missions quickly (fires, main gun hits etc.). You'll probably be able to get JB via gambling crates at Xmas (a la all the other 'removed' ships); Smol not so much, at least so far. The JB playstyle is (sort of) available through other ships, including a silver one). Smol is T10, which enables play in several modes that are closed to JB (the reverse is also true, but T9 events have tended to be a lot rarer than T10). So, Smol is rather a when it's gone it's gone sort of thing, whereas JB isn't so much....

I agree with the OP - premium ship prices are ridiculous ("you could buy a triple-A game for that" etc.); however, clearly the market will bear the prices, else WG wouldn't do it. As an owner of *far* too many premiums, I would advise buying them on cheapness, where possible, or via the Xmas gamble boxes (usually the medium ones); better yet, get the free ones via coal, missions etc. We should be sympathetic to WG's plight though: coke and ladies-of-negotiable-affection prices are afflicted by inflation just like everything else...

I'm confused: are people really getting excitable about something that happened in the 15th Century?

One freebie: the T5, and that was on my alt...

Firstly, everything that @rnat said. On top of that: play as wide a range of things as you can; if you play diverse ship types and nations, you'll gain a much better sense of what everything can/can't do and how to counter them. Don't rush up the tiers; the 'point' of the game is not to get to T10 as quickly as possible, so take your time (captain development alone is a good reason to avoid rushing). A couple of caveats to the last point: firstly, a lot of missions do require T5+ ships; secondly, T4 CVs are a bloody menace at the moment, especially if you're in something with bad-to-nonexistant AA, which is a lot of things in that MM bracket. In terms of learning the game, if you haven't found them yet: iChase's Captains Academy series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoRQa0D7yVpc05KETkgPsyZHIRZd980cO The wiki is also very helpful: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships Finally, join a clan, ideally one that is happy to teach (preferably using voice comms - TS or Discord usually); besides helping you learn faster, it'll give you some helpful economic bonuses too (assuming their base is reasonably developed). BTW your first clan isn't necessarily 'for ever'; you can leave when you out-grow it, say, although you need to wait a couple of days before you can join your next clan.

I thought the general feeling was that multiple Smols were usually detrimental to a team, due to each extra one being one fewer ship with big guns and/or one fewer ship with radar...? Assuming competent players, one is fearsome, two is still nasty, but after that you start seriously getting into the diminishing returns thing.

Probably, having to play very specific ships/modes to do some specific aspect of whatever the latest interminable grind is, and that goes double when every other bugger is trying to do the same...

Pink. In an Intimidatingly Manly way, of course...

That's exactly what I did with the T7s...!

Minor note: for completeness, I applaud WG for including Ops in the current ARP missions.

Short answer - yes. Better to not play a dodgy ship that you have than to not have the option because you don't. Besides, she's great for doing 'fires' missions quickly (even if only in Coop).

Perhaps Супер Смоленск* is waiting in the wings somewhere - eight guns per turret, and radar as well as smoke...? *'Super Smolensk' (according to Google Translate).

And nonsense like the Soggy Mad Max mode (that got used once) generated more money and interest for WG, in relation to the Dev time required, than - say - bringing back Cherry Blossom would? I think the point about boredom through repetition is also well-made: how many Ops do we have at the moment (and one of them is Newport, which - for a lot of people - seems to be a 'no Ops this week' option)? I do rather suspect that WG is deliberately under-resourcing Ops, so as to discourage people from playing them (an effect further enhanced by not allowing most directives etc. to be done in them); when that works, the claim can be made that glorious spreadsheet shows that no-one plays Ops, so no resources can be justified in future. Simple, and not particularly pleasant. It's exactly the same approach used when politicians want to privatise things like railways, post offices, health services etc.

Oh, my sweet summer child...

Whilst I would love to see a wider range of Ops too, I doubt that WG will do anything about new ones of any tier for the fiscal reasons others have mentioned. That said, I do wonder how hard it can be to bring back the 'missing' Ops i.e. Dynamo, Cherry Blossom, and so on, and that's at least one T8 Op right there. Given the MM that T8 ships get a lot of the time, I would have thought that having an Op to play them in might well improve T8 premium sales slightly...? Personally, I can live without T9 Ops, as most T9s do okay with most stuff that MM throws at them.

I'm not normally an aficionado of the Tao of CVs, but I've been having a nice time playing Ark Royal in Ops lately (not last week's obviously). Whilst I accept this is Perverse and Wrong, it would still be nice to have one or two alternative options if one doesn't fancy playing the silver ones (economic reasons mainly) - is it delusional to hope that some might come along some time? There must be at least a few options. That said, I have no idea how big the market for T6 premium CVs might be... (An alternative might be an economically 'better' permaflage option for the silver CVs - paid for, obviously, to keep the server hamsters fed?)

Triangle Sh*tface Main? Hmmm, I can live with that...!