Verblonde

Ah - I hadn't. Doh! That's a bit unhelpful. In which case, D'Aosta may well be working as well then...

Small update: I just did a quick Coop game in Abruzzi, and progress from that wasn't counted...

Yup - force of habit to refer to the States by their abbreviations (my last job involved shipping stuff around the USA)...

(The [edited] word in the above wasn't a swear, but rather an alternative name for a male chicken)

I think she did for me too, last night, but I'm double checking - I trust my memory about as far as I could comfortably spit a rat...! Knowing WG, there is an equal chance that the [edited]-up is including Abruzzi, rather than excluding D'Aosta!

Presumably, the textbook answer is to buy MA, but she is a premium, of course...

Eight, apparently - I currently have: Daring, Z-52, Shima, Groz, and Gearing from the silver lines, with Yoshino, Salem, and Smol (sorry!) from the premium(ish) lines. I've also got at least one T9 that's within fairly easy reach of the next tier, but at least one of the above may not be re-ground in time for the event, depending on how much time I can give to the game...

Not specific gameplay things, but a couple of useful pointers: Join a clan, and preferably one with people happy to teach. Besides helping accelerate learning, a clan with a well developed base will provide you with a number of useful economic bonuses too. If you get exploded early in a game, it's worthwhile taking the time to watch what some of the surviving players do - this can help provide insights (although they may sometimes be on the subject of 'what not to do'). You've probably found it already, but the wiki is very helpful: https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/World_of_Warships When you play can possibly make a difference too - there is a widespread belief that weekend players tend (on average) to be worse than at other times. This shouldn't impact your WR (as the occasional player is just as likely to be on the opposing team as on yours), but it does mean that there are fewer people about to learn from, and you can never rely on your team-mates for support (or to do remotely sensible things). Play in divisions when possible; besides meaning you have at least one player who'll probably have your back, your division-mate(s) can critique your play.

I was under the impression that the reward ships at T10 had a broadly similar earning potential to regular silver ships? That said, I imagine WG would be reluctant to boost the earning capabilities of any T10, as they're already having trouble with MM (apparently) due to the ability of permaflaged T10s to earn a lot of silver already... (If I were WG, I might be tempted to flog permaflage for T9s that did roughly the same as the T10 cammo - it might reduce the T10 pressure slightly?)

I'm on 9 items collected, with 2 duplicates so far - that seems vaguely within range of what I've experienced in previous collections. On the up-side, the duplicate conversion rate is only 1-4 this time (lately, it's tended to be 1-5), although that - of course - could be meaningless if WG have messed with the probabilities...

That would be a great shame - Dynamo and that T8 cruiser one (whatever it's called) were particularly fun. Personally, I would 100% much rather get the old Ops back (updated, of course) than have submarines introduced - assuming that's the current trade-off.

Whilst this is probably a non-constructive whine thread, the following tip may help: when playing DDs, if your AA firing range is longer than the distance from which you're spotted from the air (press and hold H in game, to get this information quickly), leave your AA deactivated - p key is the toggle - until you are actually spotted.

I'm too rubbish to be able to tell if the Italians are better/worse than the other cruiser lines, but they certainly seem to bring a distinct play style; on the whole, I'm in favour greater variety, even if I can't do much with the things myself. Slightly entertainingly, I was in a game yesterday with an upcoming premium test ship (can't remember which one); the person with it was asked if it was any good - the response was words to the effect of "It's Italian, so no!"... I don't mind mediocre ships, as such, but they do need to be fun - it's this latter point that I have yet to form an opinion on.

As was publicised, the Dragon ships now have permaflage (that can be swapped out for regular consumable cammo if you feel the urge); I also recall reading that they were supposed to gain the usual concealment bonuses as regular permaflage. This latter appears not to be the case. I know the port 'concealment' value can be a bit flaky, but I'm seeing the following: Myoko: concealment 56 S.Dragon: concealment 64 E.Dragon: concealment 56 Presumably, the S.Dragon one is incorrect? Also, neither of the Dragon ships get the usual permaflage economic bonuses, but I don't recall reading about that one way or the other, so I've no idea if that's correct.

Just done a little more checking - when you go into the detail, the concealment distance is the same; it's just the top-line 'concealment' value that's wonky (the one you get when you hover your pointer over the ship. So, only a small bug, and it doesn't impact actual performance, by the look of it...

BTW I still maintain that for any ship wearing the 'whips and leather' cammo, the ship's hooter sound should change to a sample of Venus in Furs...

A couple of suggestions, besides the excellent advice already given: If you aren't a reroll, 30 battles (at time of writing) is very few; don't rush up the tiers too fast - besides the risk of a skills deficit, you'll struggle to get 'good enough' captains before you hit the +2 MM bracket; in this context 'good enough' is generally felt to be at least 10 points. Join a clan that's happy to teach: it's often helpful to play in divisions with a more experienced player - if you die first, you can watch what they do, plus they can provide you with pointers. Besides the learning thing, if a clan has a reasonably developed base, it'll net you some useful economic bonuses. It's also useful to play across all the classes if possible - it'll give you an insight into what they're all trying to do, plus strengths/weaknesses; this should help you in whatever ends up being your preferred class.

If anyone is interested, this is MA in its 'Black' version: This is the same ship with 'Shadow Lurker' mounted - I *think* that's the expendable one:

It's basically the same process; whilst 'unique' premiums (i.e. those that require specific captain builds) can be fun, for one's earlier premiums, it's sensible to pick things that work with the corresponding silver ships' captains. For example, I have a lot of US DDs, and most of them work with a similar captain build; so I can take the silver captain I want to focus on and cycle him through the daily win bonus of the relevant silver ship, plus something like half a dozen premiums. If you're short on time, this approach can maximise the efficiency of your playing time (if captain development is your priority)...

It's the latter part that decided me on picking some of last year's up - if you have a 19 point captain to hand, the extra daily bonus can make quite a bit of difference. I don't think this year's ships are as compelling though (to me, anyway); I quite fancy duplicate Scharn and Sims though...

<a modest bumpette>

Assuming I remember correctly which one the expendable one is, they're different - the permaflages have a 'neater' aesthetic, and silver detailing. Basically, they're what you'd get if you squeezed a ship into a gimp suit...

That's the intuitive thought; the only reason I'm opposed to 3-5-7 in WOWS is that I've seen what can happen in WOT - the talk of people quitting because of this MM isn't hyperbole (although not true in my case). If you implement 3-5-7 as the default MM template (with others used in extremis), when playing T8 you are no longer the sole T8 in a T10 match; however, you will also almost never be top tier. The reason for this is that the pool of T10s trying to get into games tends to be high, and if they're generally capped at three per side, then there will be T10s in the vast majority of T8's games. I suspect the situation in WOWS would be more pronounced (as alluded to earlier) due to T10s being such good silver earners in WOWS, thanks to permaflage - WOT doesn't have this extra motivation to play T10s. There is nothing wrong with trying to improve MM, but 3-5-7 is not the answer; as has been said, WOT tried it and made T8s largely unplayable for a couple of years at least.

This logic was why I (foolishly, in hindsight) actually welcomed 3-5-7 when it was first introduced in WOT. The crucial issue is how often various MM templates happen, and in which order of priority. The 'starter for ten' in WOT was that 3-5-7 was the default position, which resulted in exactly the problem that people have already flagged i.e. with the old MM you sometimes got rogered (the only T8 in a T10 battle etc.), whereas with the new one, you more or less *always* got rogered. The counter-argument that 'low tiers have enemy low tiers to shoot at' doesn't work because in practice the top tiers tend to hoover up the lower ones first, and only then start shooting each other (removing guns from the game = good, and all that). 3-5-7 when it's the dominant template is catastrophically bad for anything that isn't top tier (BTW I'm mainly thinking about T8-10 here, but it also applies lower down). What (I think) they've been doing in WOT - once they eventually realised what a bad idea 3-5-7 was - is to add in more templates, so as to reduce the pool of 'problem' ships (T10 mainly), which eventually resulted in pretty decent MM - MM is not the reason I've mainly stopped playing WOT this last year or so. The reason I'm concerned about this latest development is that WG's record on learning from previous mistakes is patchy at best, plus (as they often tell us) the WOT and WOWS teams are different, so I fear an increased likelihood of the WOWS people making similar mistakes to those made in WOT, and I would prefer not to have to waste several years suffering from broken MM because the WOT experience wasn't heeded.