invicta2012

Glad you enjoy them I've just realised I've been forgetting to open the bundles, and when I have been opening them, I've unlocked the subs and not played them. I do have a question about sub detection, though. It seems I can find them with radar but not with hydro. Is that right?

I'm fine with it (actually, I proposed it earlier today with those Support CVS). The removal of friendly fire is the last real barrier. Minefields don't have to last forever and it's easy enough for ships to have defensive skills to spot them - use Vigilance, torpedo detection modules, perhaps even a "reconnaissance" boost to RPF which would warn that a minefield has been laid and its general direction. Only Captain Parkes need be really worried.

Getting Apologies in First Not the most popular idea, I'm sure, but... here's a proposal for a new line of CVs working in a team-support role. The idea is based on the Royal Navy in WW2, which actually had three dedicated maintenance carriers (Unicorn, Perseus and Pioneer) as well as a long track record of using CVs as much as ferries (Argus, Furious) as offensive weapons. There's also a long list of WW2 era CVs being converted into repair ships (Triumph), anti-submarine and/or helicopter carriers (Bulwark and Albion). How do they play? Rather than playing like RTS CVs, these ships use the Airstrike sighting mechanics to allow the player to place Event Boxes over the map. Each Event Box causes the carrier's planes to perform a certain kind of Event Action. There is a limit on how many Event Boxes a Support CV player can deploy at any one time, which increases as the CV Tier increases. Event Actions are of three kinds: Offensive Airstrike - Bombers Drops parachute bombs on a specific map area, around 15 seconds after deployment. HE and AP possible. Airstrike - Anti Submarine Drops depth charges/ASW Torpedoes on a specific map area, around 15 seconds after deployment. Airstrike - Mines Area Denial Weapon - creates a temporary minefield (duration approx 120 seconds) in a specific area. Mines are static and visible. Airstrike - Special Magnetic mines? Motobomba (torpedoes which run a circular course)? Patrol torpedoes (which run back and forth on a track within the Event Box)? Dolphins with explosive backpacks? Bomb Dogs? The sky's the limit . Defensive Deploy Smoke Drops a short-duration smoke screen at the specified location. Combat Air Patrol Creates a Fighter Patrol at the specified location. Drop Consumables Creates a marked Event zone for Friendly ships - entering the zone provides that friendly ship with +1 of a certain type of consumable (probably a DCP or Repair Party) Fly-off planes Allows the support CV to transfer a flight of planes to another CV Vision Deploy Spotter Planes (Circular Patrol) Creates a Spotter plane which circles over a particular area for 60 seconds, providing spotting for allies Deploy Spotter (Detect and Track) Creates a spotter plane which circles over a larger area and which follows the first ship detected for up to 30 seconds (all spotter planes are destructible but can be recalled by the CV player at any time). Each carrier would be able to deploy a certain number of Event Boxes of each kind in a specific time period. A Tier IV Support CV would be able to deploy one of each kind every 90-120 seconds (but this could be tuned as needed). Carrier Control: As with Dutch Cruisers, the support CV player has full control over their ship, zooming away from their ship to deploy Event Boxes. Support CVs are significantly smaller than main line CVs, and do not have unlimited DCP. Instead they have: Lower/better concealment than traditional CVS Exhaust smoke Soviet style rapid use DCP Self-buffs (which can be unlocked through captain skills or high in-game performance) - Offensive focus - similar to MBRB, this enables the CV to deploy more offensive actions (airstrikes) in a 60 second period than it normally would. Like MBRB, has a high cooldown. Defensive focus - this enables the CV to deploy more defensive actions in a 60 second period than it normally would. They're meant to be played as fleet support - working closer to the "front line" than traditional CVs and perhaps benefitting from a different set of skills. -- RN Line Tier IV- HMS Argus The first RN Carrier with a straight-through flight deck, Argus served from 1918 until the end of WW2 and was the test-bed for all of the Royal Navy's early aviation experiments. Tier VI - HMS Eagle Converted from a Chilean Battleship during WW1, Eagle was a small aircraft carrier lost during Mediterranean operations in WW2. She is unusual amongst CVs in retaining a substantial armour belt. Tier VIII - HMS Unicorn A purpose-built Support and Repair Carrier, which was also capable of independent aviation operations. Served in the Indian Ocean and British Pacific Fleets. Tier X - HMS Indefatigable An Implacable class carrier considered for modernisation into a specialist ASW Carrier in the 1950s. Has a powerful AA armament, including the 3" guns found on Minotaur. or Tier X - HMS Bulwark A smaller Colossus class carrier, later reworked into a specialist helicopter/ASW carrier. There are also substantial numbers of other ex-RN carriers available as premium support carriers for other nations - the 1942 light fleet carrier designs could make Tier VIII Premium Support CVs for Australia, Canada, India, Brazil, Argentina and the Netherlands, with nation appropriate weapons and plane loadouts.

Agreed, but gosh, the idea was never for the item dropped to be random - you would always know what it was you were deploying. Pre-selection from a range of items would be necessary, of course, but that's largely down to the game UI and how many buttons the players can deal with. In the RTS days we managed with a few, though - was it four or five squadrons max?

That's just based on the current Airstrike mechanic - you pick a location on the map, click on it to drop the marker box and 15 seconds later anything in the box gets hit by parachute bombs. It's definitely harder to hit a target with an Airstrike than with a normal attack CV, so I don't see this as being OP. The idea of this is to take that mechanic - which is now used on all ships with ASW but no depth charges, so reasonably familiar, and allow it to do other things. The Arms Race mode, where you have to occupy locations to get buffs, is another inspiration - it just depends on how arcade-y people might want things to be. I suggested dropping a consumable box, but that could easily be a repair kit (fix broken modules, restore AA) or an operations style healing circle of fixed duration. And definitely lots of options for in-port customisation and load out changes.

Gelderland is very cute, though. It looks like one of the ships from Bathtub battles (if you remember that mode). Java is nimble and the guns are consistent (US cruiser-ish) but no torpedoes, which is always a potential problem. They're OK.

The Krasy Krym was hit quite hard by the captain skill changes but she's still a fun little ship with lots of dakka and by no means as bad as everyone thinks. If you have an Atlanta, play the KK like that. It's fun.

New Premium Ships Announced: USS Pitchfork and HMS Torch (I must admit I hadn't quite digested all the Patch notes either. I had forgotten the Dutch Cruisers are on full release now and had definitely missed the bit about when the Anniversary event happens. But that can be fixed by reading the patch notes again/more attentively rather than setting haystacks on fire. )

A business with a toxic internal culture often needs external help (or at least a semi-autonomous internal department) to make changes. Managers who were getting it all wrong yesterday don't suddenly wake up in the morning having received an overnight revelation and the ability to get it all right. It's a long process. As a customer of these companies you have to be careful about demanding immediate change and heads on pikestaffs, because you often get *exactly* what you asked for, and it's often the ones in the front line who get whacked first - unjustly.

Iowa is a better ship to play, Missouri is more profitable. I don't have a problem with sister ships as I set them up differently. YMMV, of course.

And here's the Missouri bundle in the Premium Shop (under "Special Offers") for anyone who wants to see it I've quite enjoyed the little mini-campaign, I think these things are always quite a fun way to talk about the historical context of the ships in the game. Some elements of the gameplay could be improved (this is supposed to be fun, WG - we've seen some players having trouble completing some of these tasks, try and avoid having everyone trying to get 3 kills in a US ship on the same day if you can...) but otherwise an entertaining diversion. As for the reasons we got the campaign, well.... I think the whole lootbox gating thing is toxic and I'm glad the community has pushed back hard against it. I have no problem with Early Access if you are prepared or want to pay for a ship ahead of time, but making it so a ship is only released via lootboxes is not acceptable. WG has put out some press statements recently with plenty of good intentions. I'm waiting for the next limited ship release to see if they've actually learned anything.

Is that the YOLO Emiilo? Splendid ship but that's a *lot* of Research Points. I have quite a few Tier IX Prems which I play because they make credits, which I can use when grinding through other Tier IX and X ships which tend to lose them. Doesn't have to be the best earner, but it's a point in favour of premiums, and cash shop ones are often the most accessible. (I get bored of epic grinds, tbh).

Because you only know if organisational change is real if a business is acting ahead of public demand. If they just slide back into bad old ways the moment we stop shouting, then you know nothing has changed and their fine words were just a gesture. It's up to them. Missouri is a handy thing to have, because it's better than Iowa in terms of credits and overall economy. Also, collectors are gonna collect. The good thing is that due to public pressure the ship is now available for purchase in the cash shop for a fixed price, rather than being dangled like the bestest carrot ever to promote lootbox sales and gambling.

Great ship. Not the most accessible, though.

I did mine with Hill, after some trial, error and frustration. I think the Tier IV-V US DDs are the way to go - they have lots of torpedoes, and in Tier V Co-op the Bot BBs can't dodge anything even vaguely on target. US BBs are too slow until you get to Tier IX, and at that Tier there's 18 inch shells flying 25km or more and torpedo soup for anyone that wants it, it's so difficult to get more than 2 kills. Atlanta works (I did the ludicrous Brazil 200 main battery hit mission with it as well!) but the other cruisers don't have torps and lack that brawling power you need.

Hmm. What Premium subs could there be? U96? Archerfish? S-13? It's not the most exciting list of Premium ships. Very small, compared to surface ones, as submarines were all pretty similar, except for the number of barnacles.

Plan? Collect the freebies, finish the DZP project, level up the Eendracht, ignore the Soviet CVs and Anniversary collection. Perhaps play Convoy mode from time to time. Buy things with festival tokens if I can work out the exchange rate. Perhaps play those German DDs everyone has already forgotten about? Buy back more Premium ships. Play recently acquired Premium ships (hello Poltava). I really do have enough to be getting on with as far as this game is concerned.

Thank you for the steer! So Van Kingsbergen is von, Gelderland is gHelderlund, Java is Yava, De Ruyter is Der Writer (not reuter), Celebes is Cel-ey-bez, Kijkduin is Kikedown, Eendracht is Eyndracht, Haarlem as expected, ditto Johan De Witt, Gouden Leeuw is gHowde Leow (as in Bohemian Rhapsody).

Well, I learned a lot from the Pan Euro DDs and all those Swedish vowels, so how about explaining further? I thought they got the first two right, then Jahva, De Reuter, Selehbees, Kikedoon, EEndracht, Haarlem, Johann DeWitt ?

That is *quite* funny. But pretty sad game design.

I have thought that WG was avoiding using the remaining Richelieu class BB (Clemenceau) so they could keep her name for a 1950s CV. And Exocets are not so far out of the era (type II County Class is the RN Tier XI DD/Cruiser) but I don't see it happening. The peak of WoWs is the big gun battleship, not the Guided Missile carrier or Cruiser.

For me I think it's the planes. I was hoping for quirky French aviation and it looks like she's got Vindicators. Historically accurate, it seems, and I like those planes on Ranger but there's a whole load of "will this do" about it - as if WG now knows how to churn out premiums with very little to distinguish them from each other. The Hybrids, Ise and Tone, are probably on my wish list but otherwise there's very little I'm craving - Repulse, possibly Tulsa. The others on that list you mentioned are eminently forgettable or I already have most of those bases covered.

As much I love the designs from the 1870s and 1880s there's only so far back you can go before you start running into significant practical problems. The earliest RN mastless turret ships (Devastation) had muzzle loading guns with a reload time of around 45 seconds to 1 minute, they were very slow (around 15 knots) and you've got extremely ineffective types of armour and projectiles in comparison to later battleships (they were firing Palliser AP shots, which would not penetrate the hardened armour developed in the 1880s and 1890s). You can probably go as far back as the Majestic class (a prototype Mikasa) - that's a ship with 12 inch breech loading guns, and projectiles designed to penetrate hardened armour. The ship itself had a Harvey armour protection system and a moderate speed. WG also dislikes mixed main batteries, which were, of course, the main Dreadnought innovation. Cruisers of the era are quite fun, but DDs are *very* small - the first modern RN DD, the River class, is only about 500 tons - that's 2/3rd the displacement of the smallest ships in the game like Smith or Romulus. But that's not to say that WG couldn't take the immediate pre-dreadnought era and the WW1 "golden era" of armoured ships as much more than training levels. We've asked enough times....

I have a suspicion Repulse was the next in line for the Agincourt random lootbox treatment. Bearn might be for events, and Karl Van Schonberg probably for cash. Other than Novorossisyk, is there much in the pipeline for mid-tiers?

Hmm. Inconsistent and squishy. You'll get the occasional glorious salvo with that dispersion but overall it looks hard going. If they wanted a mid-Tier Soviet BB then they could have played with the Arkhangelsk (Royal Sovereign, as was) but I guess that would have needed a new model....