Verblonde

I suspect this may be rather prescient: I'm somewhere between poor and average, and mine stays exclusively in Coop - unless you're already a meister in something like Khaba (and can live without anything that really mitigates the lack of smoke), you're probably going to be a liability in a 'proper' game mode...

Whilst I know that it's a *long* way to go before these things get released, at the moment (to my very inexpert eye), they look rather like an entire tree of Terribles. If that's the case, then they might be fun to play, but perhaps not terribly effective if you want to win (at least in this potato's hands)...?

Fubuki is actually pretty worthwhile, once you've got it fully upgraded; as @wilkatis_LV points out, free-xping crucial modules on ships is very commonplace (and abundantly sensible) on a lot of ships, especially if you want to play randoms. This, as I imagine you already know, is part of WG's F2P model: they're hoping you'll spend money to convert xp on elited ships to free xp. You'll find generating free xp to get easier as you progress; it's a good idea to actively farm it by mounting suitable boosting signals and cammo on the ships you do best with, and play them a bit to generate more. Operations are useful for this too, once you have suitable ships that you can perform reliably well with in those modes. Don't use free xp to research entirely new ships; try and force yourself to only use it to research modules. BTW if you are short of free xp, play stock ships in coop: you'll get smaller rewards, but you won't be facing fully tooled-up opponents in a sub-optimal ship. Then transfer the ship to randoms once you've unlocked/mounted the needed module upgrades. Specifically regarding Fubuki (and the rest of the IJN torp line): bear in mind you are heavily reliant on stealth with these ships; as a T6, Fubuki specifically is also facing some very effective opponents - if you get up-tiered, there are multiple radar-equipped ships out there, not to mention multiple DDs that will out-spot you, and shred you if they find you (Harekaze, Lightning, Cossack etc.). There are also plenty of CVs running around, who can render your concealment moot. So what? So, I might suggest playing an alternative line of DDs at the moment, at least until the IJN ones are in a better spot e.g. the US DDs, and some of the Russians, do pretty well with the current meta...

@natswright - others have covered off most of the key stuff regarding GS. If you've been mainly playing DDs, you may not have mastered managing ships with a healing potion; it might be worth reading up a bit on this, to get the most out of GS (wiki: http://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Consumables#Repair_Party). The crucial things to note are the differing amounts of damage you can repair, depending on the source of that damage i.e. if you're going to get damaged, get set on fire (or flooded) as that damage is 100% repairable; at the other end of the scale, avoid citadels if at all possible (hence people's advice about avoiding giving broadside to people), as you can only heal 10% of citadel damage. Although GS is a long way from being a BB, you can (to a degree) make use of DCP, and repair, in a similar manner i.e. in general you don't necessarily have to put out the first fire that gets lit right away, as any damage that is caused by the fire continuing to burn can be healed, as long as you haven't run out of healing potions...

This shouldn't be too hard to sort out: just follow the model used for the Black Friday ships... The ARP thing is long gone, but you'd think WG could sell a lot more of the dragon ships if they weren't gimped.

I can't tell what it did, alas - might be cammo, perhaps? Sorry.

It worked - thank you!

My WR has been pretty poor, I suspect (only won one out of four this morning, for example) - pretty reckless play tends to be rewarded with DDs for this mission, which (as others have said) doens't lend itself to good team-play... Oh well, it's done now; I can get back to playing like marginally less of a w4nker!

Did it in sub-fifteen battles, I think: RN DDs, mainly Jervis, Gallant, and Lightning. All (or almost all) were first blood, and dev strikes; no detonations though, despite maximising chances for getting them...!

I've been having a rummage online, but can't find it; I do see one from Easter 2017, but it doesn't look like how I remember the flag in question. I should pay more attention to these things... Sorry that's wildly unhelpful.

I'm not sure - my friend who's been playing for years (and whose blandishments tempted me over from WOT) has it. It's something to do with the killer bunny, I think...

Kind of: my 'default' is the tattered red skull and cross-bones, whatever that was for, unless there is one of the Ranked 5/10% off servicing flags available, in which case I use that. Otherwise (if I can mount two flags, for instance), I tend to pick either things that are vaguely sympathetic with the ship (e.g. the assorted variations on the George Cross for RN/Commonwealth ships), or wildly inappropriate for puerile giggles...

I agree with this bit - I thought the addition of 'Squidling', or whatever the mini-Kraken thing was called, was an excellent idea; shame it was temporary. That was a good mechanic - you can chase achievements in PvE, but they aren't the same as the ones in Randoms (which makes sense, as getting most of them in Randoms is a lot harder).

Best chance is to play coop, and to do so at weird hours, such that you're about the only real person on your team. Preferably take something with a decent alpha strike, and that's reasonably survivable, so that you last as long as possible in the game to maximise opportunities for kills. Edit: or, for most of the people on here, be really good so you just score lots of kills anyway (an approach that is, alas, beyond me). Luckily, it doesn't require a win as well, as far as I know? Shame it has to be RN ships - something like Kii is pretty good for 'lots of kills' type missions, as it can blast multiple targets in quick succession with high alpha strikes...

I suspect the only way currently is to buy the enormous bundle; if you already have the ship, it'll give you all the bloat, a bunch of doubloons (in lieu of the ship), plus the flag... Unless you've had a particularly successful week in the organ trafficking business or similar, I would personally feel that was rather a waste of money, but I'm a grump! Personally, I think that WG should add trivial economic bonuses to the flags (maybe like the 5/10% off service cost that you get with the Ranked ones), to give them more value. In my own case, I generally fly flags, because they look pretty, but I wouldn't make much extra effort (and certainly not spend any money) just to get one. I might make an exception for the Monty Python one though... Given that flags currently have essentially zero real value, it seems a bit churlish for WG not to make them available as a standalone for the collectors.

Whilst I agree with the general sentiment that it's a struggle getting a typical player to learn more about the game (it's understandable too - most computer games don't require actual study to play them vaguely competently), WG should still try a lot harder than they presently seem to. My two-penneth for what it's worth: Every ship in the tech tree should have an extension to the pop-up that appears when you hover your pointer over it that includes one-to-several bullet points about what makes that ship unique/unusual/distinctive e.g. Asashio's torps, Radar, Hydro, Smoke, Heal etc. etc. If it's an unusual consumable (Atlanta's radar say, or Loyang's hydro etc.) highlight that it's unusual. Every ship in the game should appear in the tech tree; given that WG have said this would make the tree too cluttered, I would add a second tech tree tab, for everything in game that isn't a regular ship, even the obscure premiums. Especially the obscure premiums. You should be able to find basic information in the game about every ship, especially what makes them distinctive etc. Whenever someone adds a new ship to their port, the basics (especially the 'highlights') should pop up in the middle of the screen - perhaps make it unable to be dismissed for, say, five to ten seconds too? If you've just bought a new silver ship, perhaps have a pop-up that states how the ship differs from the previous one in the tree ("you now have access to radar!" for example); if you click on the relevant thing, it would take you to the consumables section, perhaps? More effort needs to be made to make people aware of basic game mechanics too - I had a Gearing (yes, the noted T10 destroyer Gearing - that one - the one you get after playing nine tiers of ships before it) accuse me of cheating the other evening in my Groz; the only things I did that weren't blatantly obvious (fire guns, use torps etc.) were to heal, and proximity spot him in smoke...!

@MrFingers - stylish finish there, sir!

That's easy enough - take a RN BB into coop a few times, and break out the AP; the cruisers will be fairly straightforward too, with their insane rate of fire... (according to my stats, I'm somewhere between poor and below average)

Although I don't think anyone is over the moon at this particular element (the coop mains especially), it's perfectly doable - suggest having a look at the (at least two) other threads on the subject for tips...

Right there is exactly why I picked up Nelson too!

Semi-serious: my intended approach is to go for the achievements that I normally get reasonably often in a RN DD (first blood, dev strike, etc.), but rather than eliminating the chance of a detonation, as usual, maximise it. That way there are two ways the game can go: explosion, and +1 on the achievement counter, or normal game, and whatever I would have got anyway. The way I see it, it doesn't change how I play, and slightly increases the chances of getting the damn mission done faster (plus, the first time I blow up: yay, ten anti-det flags - thank you very much). Once it's done, of course, the flags go back to normal...

I don't mind it in the game, but having it as a four-pointer is wise - to take it, you have to give up other valuable skills. I don't run it myself (possibly unwisely) for a couple of reasons: the main one is that (as @Ubertron_X says) it's an enormous "here I am" sign to the enemy, assuming they think to communicate to their team that they're detected; the moment you get the signal that RL has you, you know to expect speculative torps, and can take appropriate action to counter them. Besides that, I'd generally rather pick other skills for most of my DDs that are more sympathetic to my play style (fairly aggressive). That said, I was thinking of trying RL on my Shima captain next time we get a free respec...

Presumably, the sensible approach will vary a bit with how good a player you are, and which classes you tend to do the best in. If you're a BB meister, you'll be after fireproof, dreadnought, and stuff like that. Not sure which awards the cruisers can reliably aim for (no arsonist, for example, unless playing Belfast)? I'm a DD main (and a potato), so I'm thinking that things like Gallant, Jervis, and Lightning should be worth a lash: they're all in with a good shout of dev strike, and first blood, not to mention detonation (as I'll be removing the anti-det flags, and adding the extra fire and flood flags that also increase detonation chance); cossack not so much - single torp launcher a bit of a handicap for this stuff (although arsonist might be doable - not a reliable one for me though?). As to the 'three kills' mission - am I remembering correctly that this can be done in coop? If so, that isn't unreasonably hard, especially if playing at weird hours, so most of your team are bots...

In general, I move captains up the trees, as I go; I usually have two or three that 'leapfrog' each other though, so as to not waste excessive doubloons/elite xp on retraining. For example, I just got the T10 German DD; I moved the (19 point) T8 captain up to the T10, and left the mid-teens captain on the T9. I'll probably give the T8 a new T10 captain the next time there's a free retraining thing (unless a need for the ship turns up in the meantime). As I don't have buckets of spare elite xp yet, I try to balance the need to have the best captains exactly where I need/want them, and keeping doubloon use sensible. I also try and arrange for my best captains to work with as many premiums as possible e.g. my Gearing's 19-pointer works admirably in all of Sims, Kidd, and Black (plus is okay for Monaghan). Sometimes this isn't possible e.g. I have a 19 pointer on Fubuki (I think), but only because said captain is really built for Asashio, and Fubuki is the silver ship where the skills in question arguably work best. You also have several premiums that really need a specialised captain - Belfast being an obvious one. At the moment, I'm working on getting as many 19 point captains available as possible for ships I play frequently, as once that's done, I *should* have enough elite xp coming in to do more or less whatever I want with the rest, as needs arise. As to special captains, all of mine are still sub-19 points; the aim is to get them to 19 points and slot them in where they're most useful; for example, one of PA ones is currently cycling between the two PA premium cruisers, and the other is going to be put in the T9 DD when I unlock it (where he'll stay, as I don't think I'll bother with YY, unless it gets at least partially 'de-nerfed')...

There are also several Operations that are 'on hiatus' whilst WG work out how to teach the bots to CV; several of them bear repeat play-throughs (or did, in their old incarnations). The main reason to keep playing Ops after you've five-starred them (in my view) is to provide a bit of variety; if you're a PvE main, they do also provide better rewards than coop usually does too. When missions allow Ops, they're a good place to score plenty of ship kills, and damage too - stuff like that.