invicta2012

We all know that WG have been completely and utterly obtuse about this. Buffing subs *before* you put them in random? Really? In the most hostile public environment your game has ever had? If they'd taken on board the feedback from testing and Co-op they could have put them in randoms in OK ish state (3.6 Roetngens, not great, not terrible) and the response would have been some mild grumbling but generally not game-breaking. Instead we've got these ridiculous things.

I'm still in awe of whoever designed Zeiten. The others are handsome ships, in the PEF and Scharnhorst mould. What *does* that Tier VIII look like, though? They should have used the Falkenhayn or the other community designed BCs.

He's just trying to say that getting spotted and sunk by sub torps is a misplay. He might have had a point before they changed the torpedo lock ranges, it was reasonably easy to evade them. Not any more.

Some of them will have specialisms and have captain skill points. You *might* want to keep some, and WG doesn't know which. I do. And that's not just gainsaying, it's just that we've all good different port management needs. This was quite a handy little bonus from sub testing.

And if that happened I'd be happy to support them in taking WG to court for restraint of trade. I can't say I like either of them, but their commentary - especially Flamu's - is based on the published facts of the game, and that's fair comment which no commercial brand has the right to shut down just because they don't like it.

Yes, sadly. Sub vs ASW is not a worthwhile game. Sub vs sub is not a great game either and homing torps have taken all the DD style suspense out of a torpedo salvo. So not much fun, really.

Well, if people aren't clever enough to turn off their AA then a) they're clearly not Destroyer players and b) they deserve all they get. It's not abuse of a game mechanic by any means.

I can't say I enjoyed playing subs. The disconnection you talk about got *worse* when they were submerged, too, which was very disappointing. There was very little tension about the whole playstyle, which wasn't what I expected from subs.

True enough. A few months ago I might have had time for it, now I don't. They've had a lot of people's attention over the last year or so with the lock downs, people working from home, etc, but that's changing. These grindy events may have to be rethought.

Time gated grind fest, by any chance?

Twitch has been completely hacked, yes. Password change and enabling 2 factor authentication needed immediately.

I've got 250M (and my real name is actually Maris Piper) but I'm not wasting it on playing WG's dull BB fantasies. They're *so* full of bad ideas at the moment. It's like one of those moments when an established sci-fi show gets a new showrunner and decides they're going to reinvent the show not because that's what the audience wants, it's because *they're* bored of it. And the end result is generally a catastophe of ill thought out new ideas and audience resentment.

I'll have to find the replay where the sub torps fired at me bent around the coast of an island. That was *very* funny.

Ah, I see. So this is the return of the original Research Bureau idea, a sort of grind-to-win? Ships which are uneconomic to play for new/poor players but which give advantages to the in-game wealthy or those whose performance will sustain them?

Weren't they matched with Tier IX and X in Grand Battles? I seem to recall the "Superships" were pretty useless, too - fat sponge bosses, XP pinatas for Smolensk drivers.

A lot of sound and thunder... but they couldn't hit a barn door. Certainly not a fast moving late war US aircraft. You can put as many AA guns as you want on a Destroyer sized hull, but you'll have no space for fire control and ammunition, and without that you don't have an effective ship. The British couldn't fit the necessary late-war AA fire control platforms into anything under the size of a Town class without having to remove a gun turret, and the US Clevelands got so overloaded they became dangerously unstable in heavy seas. So if you want a multi-gun IJN "light cruiser" with AA capabilities you need to put it on something the size of Tone/Ibuki. So that's how I'd do it. And it's nothing WG hasn't already done with things like Mainz, Weimar, Bayard, Tulsa and endless BBs. It's not real, but it's within the bounds of reason.

Well, yes. Given that the Mogami class showed there was interchangeability between IJN triple 155mm and twin 203mm turrets, you could quite easily taken any existing high tier IJN cruiser hull and put 155s on it. A likely development path involves auto loaders and Dual Purpose main battery as well (that seems to be the late WW2 purpose of light cruisers) possibly with only a single set of torpedo tubes on each side? That would leave the heavy cruisers with the stronger torpedo loadout. You'd also need to give significant buffs to the 203 version of Mogami (Mikuma) - at the moment it's a gunnery downgrade from Myoko, so that needs to be fixed.

I see a lot of them in Convoy mode games for just that reason. 35 knots with flags and booster is really quite swift. Heaven help anyone who brings a Kansas against something that quick.

No. Richelieu has 32mm bow armour which is only overmatched by Japanese BBs with 460mm/18.1 inch or 20 inch guns. Dunkerque and Strasbourg have 26mm which is overmatched by anything above 356mm/14 inch guns. And there are a *lot* of 15 and 16 inch guns in Dunkerque's MM spread. Like Nelson, you have to angle more than you think and get her belt armour into play if you're facing a BB.

Clemenceau is to Richelieu as Dunkerque is to Strasbourg - basically the same overall ship, but with some technical modifications and a much improved secondary armament. As Fumtu says, Danton looks like one of the many curious pre-designs for Richelieu. It's worth saying that wartime action with all of their "all-forward" battleships convinced the French Navy that this design was very badly flawed and that there should always be main battery guns capable of firing at the enemy in a stern chase. Variations of Alsace were the only way forwards. 3 x 3 406mm guns is what the French would have built - imagine a slightly slower, slightly better armoured Iowa and you've got the gist.

There are some variations available, but there's less opportunity for making interesting premiums. Nautilus has some interest because of her 6 inch guns, you could put different T class Royal Navy subs out because of their torpedo tube load out and huge DD style salvo possibilities, but the rest of the classes are (AFAIK) all quite similar.

Well, no accounting for some people. But I've seen it work very well in some games - a pincer movement to encircle the attackers. Provided you've got enough of a guard on the convoy to stop a cruiser rush, it works quite well.

Well, you did have crossfires going (potential ones at that stage, for sure). Splitting forces that way is often a very good way to win, provided everyone pushes and focuses fire. It's usually the first team to break up into a series of individuals which loses.

The Premium market for submarines seems quite small, to me. I can't think of too many legendary names or ships. If you asked me to come up with a list of historically notable Destroyers that I'd take as premiums I could give you a dozen or more, but submarines? Turbulent, Upholder, Darter, Nautilus, Surcouf, U-47, U-96, er....

Everyone enjoys depth charges. Everyone enjoys them *because they sink submarines and most people don't like submarines*. It's a bit like swatting a wasp. I don't like squashing insects for the fun of it, but getting one of those pests is always a joy. Overall... we all knew it was coming. Embrace it. Take out the U-96, put the Das Boot soundtrack on repeat, set Karma to 0, change your username to Harvester of Battleship's Salty Tears and replace pew pew pew with ping ping ping. Will be fun!