Verblonde

Both distinct possibilities; whatever it was, it would clearly be a spectacularly bad idea to operate heavy machinery afterwards...!

Those high tier (T9+ at this point) RN battlecruisers look rather as though the designer was somewhat over-enthusiastic with the claret prior to applying pencil to paper, or is it just me...?

FWIW it's worth getting to grips with at least one 'stealth' line: the vision mechanics don't transfer across exactly from WOT, and you can do a lot of damage if you fully understand how vision works in WOWS, and how to leverage it. (Kagero and Yugumo are great in particular when you get there, although beware CVs - especially if the ludicrous recent suggestion re: CV spotting comes to pass.)

That might be true (although there are worse things), but there's a good chance they'll underestimate your competence too - to their own Doom...!

This is freshly nerfed Black too, right?

Dev Blog (RN battlecruisers, and another bleedin' supership): https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/310 Edit: ninjaed!

I'll leave better players to opine on which premium CV (I have most of them, but also have no idea how to play them properly - mine live in Coop and Ops), but it might be worth mentioning that you can repeat missions in campaigns. You only get the rewards once, but you get the stars for each repetition. This isn't immediately obvious to a lot of folk and it means you can complete the campaigns without touching a CV (I think I did), if you wish.

In general, WOWS doesn't usually go in for sweeping 'x% off all ships' sales, although cheap port slots, equipment etc. are sometimes a thing. @Yuu5Eleven's point about waiting is well made: WOWS is very different to WOT, and it makes sense to work out what you like to play in WOWS before spending money, as it may well work out to be something different to the WOT approximate analogues. For example, I'm a DD main in WOWS, but generally play heavies (or tanky mediums) in WOT. Once you work out if/what you want to buy, it's worth trying to use your coupons (in the Armory [sic]) to maximise savings. You can also sometimes get similar coupons for the shop. Recently, most (all?) players got a '20% doubloons back' offer for the shop, and an extra 25% off coupon for ships in the Armory [sic]; this allowed you to buy doubloons cheaply (effectively), and *then* pay fewer of them to buy a premium ship. Black Friday (when it comes around) usually allows you to buy less expensive 'S&M' clones of existing premiums; for example, if you want Lo Yang, there is a BF version - if you have the patience to wait until US Thanksgiving. It's worth noting that the BF ships count as distinct from their vanilla versions i.e. having a BF version of a ship doesn't preclude getting the vanilla one out of a Satan Box etc. The final thing to note is that there are a lot of excellent freebies available (via coal etc.) - if you can bag something for free, don't generally spend money on it unless you have zero patience. (There is, of course, the whole question of the advisability of giving WG money in general, but I'll leave that alone for now.)

Very roughly, isn't that (likely) of the order of enough coal to buy a T9 premium to buy enough RP to get maybe half-third a premium ship via RP? So, not remotely worth it, unless you have far too much coal, and have bought everything already available for coal...

Well, spare a thought for WG: with the recent organisational changes, trips to Madam Olga's are now a thing of the past; they'll be needing more money to smooth the way at whatever the new house of vodka and negotiable affection turns out to be...!

I rather like Nelson for Narai (I try and avoid getting Battleship Cooties against real people); I can't imagine she's worth paying over the odds for though, unless superships indirectly relieve the MM pressures on T7... I'm with @Inappropriate_noob though - give us Rodney!

This, basically. The only positive argument in favour of adding submarines to Ops that I can think of is that they would represent greater rewards for everyone else, based on the majority that I've seen in game so far. Besides which, I can't see it happening: it would - I guess - be a lot of work to create underwater worlds for the existing Ops, not to mention having to re-write the AI to drop AS weapons on submarine players. WG would be far better served doing the work to bring back the missing Ops, although we probably won't see that either - I imagine WG's current reorganisation will put a crimp in their development plans...

As someone who spends much of his time trying to sink BBs (DD main), at least when not fighting other DDs, the Germans can be quite a difficult proposition, if the driver knows their business - as others have alluded to, judicious use of the hydro (when you get it) can make you an especially troublesome target... Besides that, the T6 and T7 are pretty worthwhile for Ops (Narai only for the T7).

Five pages is comparatively modest (look at how many pages have been devoted to submarines, and/or previous WG b0llock-drops, for comparison); my guess is that WOWS takes up - or has taken up - quite a lot of time for the bulk of forumites, and as such is something that most of us care about to a greater or lesser extent. So, at the shallowest end of things, sanctions and whatnot could have easily messed up WG's operations if a critical component involves an impacted country; that could mean no game. A bit of discussion is to be expected when WG announce that they're making moves to avoid such potential problems. I imagine that is even more the case when the background reasons for all this prompt rather strong feelings in many (most?) people... Either that, or people just have time on their hands!

From a selfish 'first world problems' perspective, it means the game (WOT too, presumably) will most likely continue. Assuming we're leaving aside the geopolitics etc. cutting ties with Russia/Belarus simply makes commercial sense if a company wants to continue to do business in most other markets; we - as players - want the ties cut with these countries too, assuming we want the game to continue. (Yes, I'm fully aware that a silly computer game is entirely trivial in the current context.)

FWIW I see that the news is now front and centre on the WOWS news page: https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/general-news/operations-update/

I did; it's worth making the distinction between the two versions (HSF versus vanilla) though, as the HSF version doesn't have the 'extra credits' permaflage available. (I've got a feeling HSF Graf Spee was one of the very first premiums I bought, so I have a bit of a soft spot for her...)

IMO it depends a bit on your aims when playing Ops, and how good you are; I might suggest thinking along the following lines (comments don't really cover Newport, as I avoid that one most of the time): Don't forget your silver ships entirely; Ops is an excellent way of grinding T6 (and T7 in the case of Narai) ships, without getting interfered with by CVs or submarines. However, if your primary aim is grinding silver, you'll usually do better with a premium ship. Destroyers: all DDs are generally fragile (or very fragile); unless you are a DD-meister, they're a bad pick for Ops. Cruisers: if you're good in them, play whatever you like (there are several good suggestions already); if you're less good, something with a heal is a good idea. I like London a lot for this sort of thing; if Graf Spee ever returns, she's a good pick for T6 Ops as well (bonus points for extra silver with the optional 'National' permaflage. Battleships: Warspite is good (you've probably got her already; she also has a 'National' permaflage available), if a bit slow; Mutsu is useful as well (the torps come in surprisingly useful); I find Dunk to be one of the better picks - although she's a bit fragile at times, the forward-firing guns are worthwhile, and I think she's one of the faster options. I occasionally take the Americans (Arizona, particularly), but the low speed is often frustrating. Carriers: Ops is one of the few places you can play a CV with a clear conscience. Ark Royal is the only sensible premium pick at the moment (Loewenhardt is outstanding, but no longer available), and good fun in Ops. Béarn can be fun, but her lack of torps (and slow hull) make her rather sub-optimal for Ops; her main party-piece (fighters) is only usable in one Op too, as far as I can recall. All that assumes you're after 'optimal'; once you've got the hang of each Op (such that you know what's going to happen, when, and where), you can play pretty much anything...

I think there may be a couple of possible reasons: In general, people on here are not cat-shaving sociopaths, and - as such - don't play submarines (and any that do, for experimental purposes, know that they fully deserve any opprobrium heaped upon them). Anyone minded to start such a thread may well be aware of the outpouring of sympathy they would receive for such a thread, and don't want to risk getting all emotional over said outpouring...?

If anyone is feeling the urge to get hold of FR25, this review from the Daily Bounce might be of interest: https://thedailybounce.net/world-of-warships/world-of-warships-final-review-italian-tier-vii-premium-destroyer-fr25/ A select quote: "FR25 is simply bad. It is sitting in that awkward spot of trying to be a gunboat but without the proper firepower to back it up. It also is trying to be a low-tier Paolo Emilio but is far too sluggish for that and also lacks the torpedo power." Personally, I tend to be interested in almost any DD; this one was already giving me pause though, due to being T7 and all the other things going on at the moment to make DDs' lives miserable, and if this review turns out to be consensus, this may well end up being the first premium DD I actually don't want (and yes, I even have Karl von Schönberg!)...

My policy (when I don't have missions I actively want to complete, anyway) lately has been to play until I run out of reports for submarines (in Randoms); I wonder if enough people have been doing something similar that increasing the number of reports increases the number of players actually playing..? That would be hilarious if it were the case... Being more constructive, it'll be nice to have more compliments available; when submarines aren't in play, I usually run out of compliments long before I run out of reports.

As a matter of curiosity, does anyone use Ragnar for Clans much?

FWIW this mediocre player has the following in place: I'm not certain that my slot 3 and/or 6 are optimal; that said, I tend to struggle with hitting stuff at longer range, so tend to find I get better results (in general) with more dakka. It's also worth noting that I haven't played Ragnar properly much yet, so this is rather a 'starter for ten'...

Well, that's the right (and probably inevitable) decision; only time will tell if/how the change impacts the game. Presumably, the crucial question will be who takes over the development work: if it's someone good, it could even end up being a positive change, purely from the perspective of the quality of the game. Of course, WG might take the 'lowest bidder' route...

The same as usual: Buy stuff; that stuff has a selling price. You then get 20% of the value of what you bought in extra doubloons. So, if you bought a Tirpitz ($62.83), say, you'll get however many doubloons you get for 20% of that value. It's important to note that the 20% value doubloons are calculated according to the 'buy any amount' methodology; this means that if you buy a bundle of doubloons, the amount you'll get back won't be 20% of the amount of doubloons you bought, but rather the amount you would get if you spent 20% of the cost of the bundle in the 'buy any amount' (of doubloons) bit of the store...