Verblonde

Well, you learn something new every day: according to Urban Dictionary, 'gabbage' is actually a legitimate piece of slang: portmanteau of 'garbage' and 'baggage'...

Not strictly the one thing for me (I already knew about this from WOT), but a lot of people used to miss that you can buy the premium versions of consumables with silver (rather than having to use doubloons), but the system defaults to the gold option. If you haven't found this already, always set your premium consumables to be renewed with silver.

Another useful thing apropos premium time: it works across the three main WG titles (WOWS, WOT, and WOWP); it's worth keeping half an eye on the 'other' titles, even if you don't play them - sometimes there are premium offers on one, but not the others. (Just in case: gold and doubloons, unlike premium time, are not entirely transferable; gold is WOT/WOWP-specific, whilst doubloons only work in WOWS)

Post-script: most stuff in the premium shop is (arguably) over-priced; if you can, wait for promotions - these can often save you quite a bit of money. Edit: anything that is stuffed full of silver (or contains things that can be bought for silver) is probably not a good deal; focus on things that are either flat-out price reductions, or contain doubloons, and/or premium time - almost everything else is just fluff.

I would suggest that it depends a bit how frequently you play; if you play most days, an extended period of premium time is a good idea (for the reasons others have said) - keep an eye out for promos; also, the cost per unit time drops noticeably the longer the time period you purchase. For example, one day of premium costs $CAD 1.52, whilst 180 days costs $CAD 66.15 (versus 273.6, if you just multiply the daily rate up by 180 times). Obviously, if you buy a single day, you'll (presumably) use most of it playing, whilst the 180 days won't be used for anywhere near the entire time... Premium ships are often good too: as others have said, it's sensible to only get premiums of a similar tier to where you are with silver ships (if you ignore that, and buy high tier ones anyway, stick to Coop mode with them - you'll still make silver and avoid getting tonked by more experienced players). In terms of which one(s) to get: identify which nation/class you do best with and start looking there; read/watch reviews (LWM ones are good, most of the time) - that'll help you work out which ones match your needs. Don't forget: as well as earning silver, premium ships can be excellent captain trainers (assuming you avoid the ones that perform best with a specialised captain). Bear in mind, you can periodically earn free premiums (and all the time with the second campaign) in game; freebies are always good, if you have the time to earn them...

Presumably, I'll need to program a spare key to apologise whenever I hit something (although that may be a lot of work for a rare occurrence) - I've read the citizenship guide and everything...

I imagine we'll get something new added on Friday - maybe Haida (it's Canada Day this weekend)...? LWM also just published the MA review, so that could be incoming too (for Independence Day next Wed)?

We might be in luck for this (long) weekend, perhaps...?

This is still WiP stuff, I hope? Very much looking forward to the RN DDs - it would be a great shame if they turned out to suck...

I usually play fairly aggressively (due to a low boredom threshold), and it often doesn't go well. Lately, I've noticed that when I look at the minimap, when it goes wrong quickly, even more people than usual are further away from the enemy than they were when the battle started...! It seems to be getting more frequent too, but that may be confirmation bias on my part...

+1 for very helpful pointers on what to do with spotting aircraft! I've tended to go with fighters until now, when available, as I prefer to close with the enemy if possible (I get *really* bored taking pot-shots from a distance), making the extra range useless; it might be worth my revisiting that, for the reasons you mention - thank you!

I've tended to struggle with Perth (mainly, I suspect, because I suck); might try sticking the suggested mods on, and making a serious attempt to get the hang of her...

GS was one of my first premiums (the HSF version), so I have a bit of a soft spot for her, even though I'm still bloody awful at playing her. For me, the nicest thing about her was the combination of reasonable resilience (assuming you periodically remind yourself that she isn't a BB), and surprisingly useful torpedoes. Being able to citadel cruisers with those guns, on the rare occasions when they cooperate, is a valuable bonus... Haven't taken her out in ages; now I have some better captains available, I might have to remedy that...

I get the impression that a lot call for the loss of the concealment module; for the average tuber (me), that'll usually get you killed before you can make use of the shiny extra capabilities... I may be wrong though...?

I still enjoy WOT in small-moderate doses (the recent Frontline mode actually brought me back for a couple of weeks solid); I'm mostly on the NA server, before anyone wonders at stats not supporting that - I don't think I've played on EU since Xmas. They're still putting fun/interesting new stuff in the game ('Nuclear' Centurion, and some of the Italians being worthwhile recent additions) which helps. I just find WOWS a bit more interesting, and (more importantly) a lot less frustrating; as alluded to elsewhere, WOT sucks moose balls (technical term, I'm assured) when you're uptiered, which happens a *lot* at the moment - whilst you're at a disadvantage in WOWS when bottom tier, it isn't nearly as bad, and can even be a good thing now and again (Kamikaze, for example)...

I don't have any T10 ships yet, but I'm tolerably aware of what at least some of them do (I've been working out which ones to prioritise, given my play style etc.); having read the announcement - skipping the CVs, admittedly - I don't see the point of almost all of these new modules - there seem to be very few where they look like they're worth replacing the 'standard' loadout for. For example, the Shima one improves torpedo reload (yay!), but buggers up traverse speed to do so (and increases the chances of losing your tubes); to me, that looks like you've turned the thing into a somewhat dull torpedo spammer, as being able to fire torps in the middle of a melee is going to be much harder with the upgrade, so discouraging cap contesting - a key job for a sneaky DD, surely? What am I missing?

Got persuaded to play this Op last night (normally, since the changes, I flat-out refuse) - gave my QE a run-out. I normally play BBs very aggressively (which doesn't usually work terribly well in randoms, but is fun), and that seemed to be the trick in this Op - if the bots are shooting at you, they aren't shooting at the CV etc. that you're protecting. Also, close(ish) range AP into the various cruisers' citadels works wonders, and being able to use your secondaries adds a bit to the damage you can chuck out. We also lucked out and got a good CV driver - he made a large positive difference. Think I ended up with five kills, and we got five stars (the CV making the difference with the latter).

Sorry, OP; I'm afraid I'm another "hells, no!". One thing I rather like about WOWS is that getting horribly up-tiered doesn't always mean the game is over before it starts; part of that is down to the lack of premium ammo in the game, I suspect. I assume you've read that WOT is being moved slowly towards a major change in how premium ammo works (one possibility, ex-Blitz, is reduced damage in proportion to the increased pen)? Premium ammo causes a lot of ill-will in WOT (even though it blatantly isn't pay to win: unless you're utterly hopeless at the game, everyone can easily afford to use it), to the extent that it needs to be changed. I suggest this is indicative that it wouldn't be a wise addition to WOWS...

I haven't looked at it yet - the end reward isn't interesting enough for me to drop everything and focus on high tier ships. I'm still making my way slowly through the second campaign - the T6 Japanese DD at the end is a far more interesting reward for me...

Sorry, no willpower: if you're going to cast aspersions about people's intellectual faculties, it's helpful to use the appropriate "you're" when doing so... ;)

I'm curious: how are people even remotely surprised that some rewards are (effectively) only available via playing in a clan, or other 'special' modes? This is straight out of the WOT playbook, and has been going on for years. FWIW the situation in WOWS is actually better than in WOT: in the latter, you can create a clan for the sole purposes of just being in a clan (that's essentially what I did), but it gets you almost zero benefit - if you do the same in WOWS, you can actually benefit from it. OP: there are quite a few clans in existence who are basically there for folk who can't/don't want to commit to real clan activities; suggest finding and joining one of them (although it's a bit late for the purposes of the current oil/coal thing, it might help for the future).

I recall reading that UK DDs were next too; I can't imagine there is the slightest chance we won't get (largely fictitious) Russian BBs fairly soon too - Russian Short-Man syndrome pretty much requires it...

Eesh! That sucks; I don't know how many non-clan folk there are, but this seems like rather poor form by WG...

Nada, so far, but I haven't got every last free container, and I only bought one 'money' one (to start the collection off). Normally, I might grumble about "I never win anything <quivering lower lip>", but I used up all my luck for this decade last week with a Kamikaze in a super container...

Isn't that campaign 'permanent' though (for a given value of permanent)?