Unintentional_submarine

I'm assuming you mean the oddly armoured central weather deck on Montana? 28mm. 406mm AP overmatches it, so the 420mm won't overmatch anything a 406mm won't either. The 420mm really baffles me. I see the 420mm being liked more, but the values really indicate that the 406mm should be better. It might have been. My experience with the Budyonny and Shchors tells me that the Soviet 152mm is significantly superior to the German 150mm. There isn't really any contest. The Soviet 152mm is just the perfect package for the game. Every strength it had in real life is amplified and it's weaknesses are reduced. If there is a gun I would place right behind Zao's 203mm for tier power, it would be the Soviet 152mm at T6 (thank goodness you only get access to 9 of them).

As Ictogan says... WTF?!?!? Why? Armour viewing is all about planning. This will just mean that gamemodels3d remains better, and I'm sure other sites will set up captures of the armour for each ship in time. So people will still go to a third party site in order to get the proper armour viewing. I can't famepalm enough at this. People sell their ships all the time, few actually keep all ships, so that means most will lose the option to glean insights into ships they have already finished. But as we all know we can still face them in battles. The map changes... Well, Land of Fire did require a shakeup, but looking at the pictures, this wasn't it. It is way too 'islandy' now. And Shatter was just crap for Ranked, and incredibly constricting in Random. Something needed to done, but once more I'm not sure the actual changes were what it needed. But it looks better than the Land of Fire change.

My honest opinion is that the flags shouldn't confer advantages. Not even small ones. As soon as a flag has an advantage, it would be foolish to pick any other flag over it. Alternatively all the flags should have benefits, so that you pick the benefit you want. That could work, however I'm afraid that would just lead to a 'best' flag that people would hit each other over the head with. "What a n00b! He uses flag X and not flag Y!" Or if not that then at least a commonly given advice to use said flag. Thus fishing for the benefits appear to me to be a loss of actual choice. I like to use the various easily obtained Ranked flags. Like the Hawaii flag on the USN BBs, Kure on my IJN BBs and so on. But I would never use them agian if I had access to even a 5% XP flag, as it would feel terribly inefficient. And when I watch videos or streams from NA, the people there don't appear to use another other flag than the Military Month flag, over such flags as the Rank 1 flags or actually special flags. That said, since they have it, I honestly do want it. Yeah, I'm not afraid to say it. I dislike the principle of that flag, but that doesn't mean once it is available I don't want it. So I think it was mistake by WG NA to make that flag, it added nothing to the game, rather it took away.

I think Kitakami can work now. She can get her detection down to around 8.7km, with camo, modification and CE. But she will never be powerful. A lot of potential, but she would never be a ship that could carry anyone. It would be a ship that would fun for it's absolutely hilarious gameplay impact. And that's why I don't think she will ever be sold, as that many torpedos will always make her binary (OMG torpswaves vs pffft Kitakami meh). But as a reward for something, certainly. And a player doesn't have to be great to play her, just not a super derp. I would argue that even the worst of the people that reached Rank 1 last Ranked season would know better than to just spam torps without consideration. And that was her problem when she was a regular premium. Even people with no interest or skill or experience could get her and mess about with all those torps. Someone who has achieved something like Rank 1 in Ranked (it doesn't have to be that, could also be reward for Team Battles or something else) would be at least somewhat invested in the game, and could be expected to behave well enough with her, and also be considerate of her considerable potential. Good, well that's another matter entirely.

So what is it then? Are cruisers too aggressive or too passive? You can't have the cake and eat it too. Also interesting that you specify that BBs played right, but then don't extend the same courtesy to the other classes. DDs played right, CVs played right etc. A CV played right will almost always be in a very risky position, knowing that if he gets detected, he can expect loads of incoming damage. That takes quite a bit of courage to do (well, if anything in the game takes courage really).

And now on Fault Line we have The Lion's Head. With teeth and all. Looks quite intimidating, and nice.

It would be a buff for the best players, I'm less inclined to believe it would be much of one for the average player. There is a certain truth to the point that launching all torps now makes for less stressful and easier gameplay. Someone who aims less impressively probably benefits from the salvos. So in the end I think it wouldn't impact the average stats much, but it would make meeting a great player extremely painful. And I think that's what Arthur is afraid of, a second CV problem, where the difference between the best and the average is two star systems apart.

What the hell? If you look at pictures and profile plans of the Admiral Hippers, it looks like the superfiring turret is indeed shorter, but it isn't. Clearly, however, it is ingame (that barbette...). What the actual ****? Did they have an artist create these ships?

Well, I meant in relations to the South Dakota (1920) ships that weren't finished.

Single torp option is certainly a powerful tool. Enough that Arthur touches upon it in the interview. His talk sounded like he was very uncomfortable with a Shimakaze with that option. What makes the Minekaze superior to the Mutsuki? Torpedo speed certainly has an impact, but the flexibility of the 3x2 over 2x3 launchers is very much also part of it. Now change that to 6x1 and the flexibility becomes three times as much. It will be much much easier to account for a target slowing down/speeding up turning away. Essentially WASD hacking will be less effective against single launch. I must admit that a Shimakaze with it would be very impressive in a capable skipper's hands. Torpedos everywhere, but only where the DD player wants to be. Three torps in a super tight area and then a lot in a wide fan, with a couple more left in reserve. Wastage of torpedos would be very low (hit rates might not be much higher, but it will be more unsettling to face such) compared to now.

Well the main thread has long since become a bit of a catch-all important news thread. So I did in fact post the video there a few minutes ago.

I see you have included the (1939) to South Dakota, you sir have my respect. Few people would bother to make the distinction.

NEWS, yes there are news. Long interview, a few bullet points are: Bastion is presently only being played enough to collect stats on (want to improve it), Bastion might feature capturable airfields in the future, RN cruisers will feature single launch torpedos (possibly exclusively, depends on how well it pans out), interesting talk about premium CV and next CV line (RN surprise surprise), German and Soviet CVs are not on the table (as translated from a past Q&A on the RU forums). Carrier controls/UI talks included. Essentially an interview well worth listening to. And I suggest people remove all outside sounds if they can, Arthur, the WG Global Producer (that's Ev1n btw) has one of those calm voices that are a little hard to hear, and the sound quality/volume is uneven at times. Thank you WGNA for this service.

Don't have any sources that give a reason, but I can imagine a possibility. Lütjens had already decided on the very northern route, going through an area where there is practically never good weather, even in May. There it is probably better to be somewhat more obscure to a casual observer, than to have a camo that went for confusion, which would make a lot more sense in the relatively better weather in the Baltic.

That's not the reason. Movies are generally considered art in Germany and I would expect in most other countries where the Nazi connected swastika is banned. Games are however not considered art for whatever reason, so Nazi swastikas are a big nono. Even games where you run around killing Nazis in droves can't show it, like the various Wolfenstein games. The relevant code is translated to this: "Subsection (1) shall not be applicable if the means of propaganda or the act serves to further civil enlightenment, to avert unconstitutional aims, to promote art or science, research or teaching, reporting about current historical events or similar purposes." Movies tend to fall under that, games do not. Maybe it is a relic of badly updated laws, or maybe there is a good reason behind it (games are often living entities, so they could perhaps be considered possible havens for Nazi sympathisers to congregate at, while a movie can only really be watched, and then re-watched)? But that's pretty much the gist of it. Given that Germany is a rather huge market for games, it is understandable that few companies will actively show swastikas. Some have different versions for Germany (didn't at least one Wolfenstein game go that route?), but most simply omit the swastika. I believe France has similar laws, but I can't say if it is more lenient for games or not.

Looks like it was a typo. 673.5kg vs 637.5 compared to 635.5. As a person who mistypes a lot (most of my posts have edits for this and a few other reasons) it is exactly the sort of mistype I would make.

This is what happens when the communication reaches the levels it is at at the moment. Sorry. We become desperate for information. Also, last time WG tried to discredit someone about these things, it turned out he was actually right (the China papers leak, how stupid wasn't that when he could post up bloody links to screenshots).

Nah... just decrease the detection penalty when firing. /s

This one is iffy at best. If the shell overpens the superstructure, but doesn't actually leave the ship again, then it should be a regular penetration, and not an overpen + pen. And with the frequency it happens, I'm inclined to believe that this scenario is also counted for that, as many if not most of the scenarios simply don't allow for entering and then leaving the ship only to enter again. Like the one in Business6's video. It looks like a sharp angle down, but it really isn't.

Wut? The man has made one movie about being a cook on one of the Iowas, does that make him relevant for an advisory role?

At least someone feels the same as me, practically to the point. It never really felt that harsh in T4, but it does feel a lot more harsh in T5 now compared to what T4 was before. And that I feel is a disconnect. Instead of lessening the 'problem' of increasing the tier difference potential for a battle, they have expanded it.

Yeah... I don't usually complain about the MM, as I have long felt that overall it will even things out for me. Bad MM in one game, good in another. I can deal with that stuff. In fact I usually roll my eyes a little when people loudly exclaim all kinds of "MM go home you're drunk" and such when all that has happened are them being low tier in a battle. Also, since the previous MM revision I honestly feel the games have been a lot more balanced in general, with near equal distribution of ships and tiers (I will however ask something about this later). That said, since the tier re-balance of the MM (the most recent change, which has come after the good change I mentioned), I honestly feel that the MM has moved towards the worse. In particular for T5. I don't think I have yet to play a single game as top tier in T5 since this change. Now, the change was probably done to 'protect' T4 and T3 from being uptiered badly, at a time when those players are still new. I commend the intentions, we don't want to drive people away before they learn the game. However, by moving the 'swamp' up to T5 instead, the problem is merely expanded. T7 players are generally considerably better than T6 players, and their ships are much more powerful. Thus being uptiered to a T6 game is not nearly as bad in a T4 as being uptiered to T7 in T5. At T7 people have finally learned the game, while at T6 they are still learning to a great extent. But that's just my own interpretation of the tier scaling, what it all boils down to is how much of a difference I, personally, feel in the games, T4 before vs T5 now, and that is a much worse gameplay experience. It has convinced me that saving T3 and T4 from harsh MM has merely made it even worse later on, so in effect I don't think it has 'saved' anything, as now the new players will be hit even harder than before. In essence, what was somewhat bad for T3 and T4 before, is now really bad for T5 and to some extent T6 (though I must say I don't find nearly as bad). Is that better? I say it worse, but I suppose I could be in the minority, which is half why I bring it up. Am I totally off a tangent here? Have I just been unusually unlucky (to the point that I can't find any comparable experiences in all my time in WoWs)? Now for the second part, about the tier/ship distribution. As noted I have generally found it to be great of late. And I believe the changes included matching individual ships in divisions, so no longer would a full division count as a single ship of that tier. But then this happened. A three tier difference in the teams. I thought that was supposed to be impossible now. This wasn't at some weird time either, it was late evening, but not that late, and there were still around 19k online at the time. That it is a uptiered T5 game isn't important for this (though naturally it did add to my recent T5 disappointment). In fact this is the only game since the previous MM rebalance where I have experienced more than one (1) tier total difference for the teams. So my question is, have I just been exceptionally lucky to not face imbalanced teams lately? Am I mistaken in my understanding about divisions and the MM? I mean I know how it used to be, but after the rebalance it at least seemed like it took divisions into account.

That's exactly what WG is doing at this time. They are evaluating each mod on it's own merits. If they don't like it it won't get the signature. While I'm sure that can be bypassed, it means removal from the most populated venues. This in turn means a drastic reduction in the playerbase that can access them. Mods in WoWs are highly regulated, exactly because of previous bad experiences. If a mod is listed anywhere on any official forums (for more than a couple of days of course), then you can bet your money that it is a safe mod.

Whaaaa...? I think I have to look more carefully now.