VC381

I'll watch the vid later but I don't need that to show me that there are really useless people around. I ran into a Saipan that was static and so oblivious to me I landed a perfect max range converging drop with both TB squads, he just vanished (probably jumped out of his seat as well if he was tunnel visioned on his own attacks and then BOOM! Grey screen...).

Excellent, thanks. Seems they changed the way things work since the other guide was posted but I worked it out and know what to do in future.

Firstly, I just want to point out this is NOT a gameplay complaint or call for AA buff to Atago, it's purely an observation on visual model vs. historical accuracy. Still reading? OK. So the general visual design of Atago in game shows her in a late war fit, and one of the things that supports this is the large number of 25mm AA guns scattered around the ship. These 25mm mounts seem to be mostly in the right places, but they are all single guns whereas in reality many of the platforms around the funnel, superstructure and on the stern had twin or triple mounts. It would be a buff to her AA if it was made accurate, but the 25mm guns are pretty useless anyway. Myoko and Mogami already have something closer to a realistic late war AA fit and it's still considered weak. Alternatively, why decide to give us a late war ship then pick and choose bits that don't suit? An earlier fit would look more or less the same and perform the same in terms of guns/torpedoes/HP but they could have AA at the power level they want while keeping it realistic. I know this is probably a minor issues to most people but I thought I'd bring it up see what those of you who are interested think.

It would be realistic, navies designed bombs based on AP shells. I know it's possible to get good damage and fires with the DBs we have, I'm not complaining they're weak. I just wanted to know why we don't get the choice. It would be just like BB shells, sometimes they bounce or overpen so it would be a risk as to whether you take them depending on what you're bombing. But it would he nice to sometimes get citadels from DB strikes!

Hey thanks again, copy worked fine. One other question, I used the instructions in this thread: http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/topic/23543-mod050x-invisible-camouflage/ to make my own camouflages.xml file to remove the stock camo just for the premium ships I downloaded yours for. The problem is, the "original" file in that thread is very old and I can't find mine inside the game files, so because it's missing some of the more recent premiums (e.g. Indianapolis) it's wiping the camouflage from it even though I don't want it to. Do you have a more recent xml file that I can use as a starting point and delete what I want?

Oooh... pretty! Thanks for the pictures! It looks like they toned down the blue a bit (unless it's just the sunset) but it looks much nicer than the bright garish look from earlier shots. But Masterrix is right, her main deck should be bare wood not stained blue. Oh well...

Such a bad logic though, the IJN 25mm was a pretty useless weapon even the number of barrels Yamato had amounted to not much dakka... Not really, my point is there are random single mount guns on big platforms that were designed for twin or triple mounts. Both ships had those mounts in the same places, in fact they were built with those.

I've actually been thinking about this and came up with a different approach. Since AA is just a DPS "aura" and no individual guns are shooting anywhere, they can make this number whatever they like regardless of what is physically on the ship. So make the model accurate (copy paste mounts that already exist on other ships), don't change the actual total AA DPS number, done!

Awesome, thanks! I do use the flags, will overwrite those with the new ones after moving everything else to the new 5.7.0 folder. War Thunder's skin mod folder was so much easier to use than this... Keep up the good work!

What does this actually involve as far as just skins are concerned? Guess I picked a bad day (yesterday) to learn how to use skin mods. Do I need to start again? Thank you very much for updating yours, but I'm also using a couple from other people and would like to know the things that might go wrong if I just copy-paste.

I've been playing CVs a lot more since posting before and I learned two things. Firstly, that all the people who are actually good at the game are more likely to visit the forums and help others. So almost everyone in this thread voted for manual drops, but in game I rarely see enemy CVs using manual drops. Secondly, I've practiced and changed my mind. Even with me still being mediocre, manual drops are a game changer. Considering what I observed above about other carrier players in actual games, you can come out far on top with just a little time investment.

I'm gradually getting better at manual drops although I'm not confident to go for DDs usually, I just take guaranteed damage elsewhere. I'll bear in mind what you said about baiting and DF, it's a learning curve I've imposed on myself but I just wanted to play a famous, beautiful fleet carrier.

Played a few games, am happy enough with 2/2/2. I don't really have ambitions to play ranked at the moment and even if I did I would take other ships, but in normals Hiryu feels pretty good.

Thanks guys, 2/2/2 it is, will give it a try today

I don't have the Amagi yet but I would imagine the Fuso isn't a great point of comparison. I would say if you liked the Kongo you will probably like the Amagi, regardless of your opinion/experience on Fuso and/or Nagato.

I only meant your fault in terms of informing yourself before buying, I don't like playing the blame game with playstyle because some people just like different things. Piritskenyer is much better placed for detailed play teaching, I was just sharing why I like the ship

Did you play and enjoy Pensacola before you bought Indianapolis? If yes I'm not sure why you don't like her, if no then I'm afraid it's your fault for not doing your research before buying. If you're used to the Myoko HE + torp spam then I can understand why you might not like Indy. I have better stats in Myoko but I still enjoy Indy more. Myoko has frustratingly unreliable AP, horrible turret traverse and a fairly bad turning circle. My big disagreement with you is that Indy is made of glass. If you're talking about BB shells then yes she is, but not more so than other cruisers. She is significantly better armored than Myoko especially if you turn bow into the enemy. Overall she's tanky for a cruiser when faced with other cruiser's guns. That last bit should give a hint as to what Indianapolis IS, she's a cruiser duellist. What is she good at? AP. US AP shells on their 203mm guns penetrate at much steeper angles than any other nation, and their dispersion is amongst the best. Even against angled targets it's not uncommon to get multiple citadels per salvo. I had a game with her where I got almost as many citadels as normal hits. And she turns on a dime, so as long as you keep BBs at a good distance you can dodge most of what they throw at you. And you can turn and angle as hard as you like without losing aim; usually minimal exposure will reveal your rear turret while Myoko basically has to go broadside to fire more than half her guns. As I said I can accept Myoko has an edge in being able to rack up high average damage with the Empire's finest HE and the occasional stray torpedo, but I find mine somewhat boring when the game's going well, and somewhat frustrating when the game's going badly. The Indianapolis might be a bit less versatile but she does her thing very, very well and it's a thrill to play, dodging, waiting for people to get desperate and going broadside to try and kill you then deleting them. I would never choose to be Myoko if I knew I was going 1v1 with Indianapolis. If that's not your style that's fair enough, but that's why I'm glad I bought Indianapolis!

Hi ilDuca, what did you decide and why? I'm also tempted by this although my CV experience only goes as far as Zuiho and Independence. I like both for different reasons and Saipan seems to offer the best of both worlds.

It depends on your definition of viable. Anecdotal, but the other day I got two "close quarters expert" achievements in an ARP Hiei that has a 3-point captain and the accuracy mod (so no secondary build whatsoever). Basically my secondaries finished something when RNG derped and my mains couldn't, but at least in one case it saved my life as a DD was halfway through turning to get torps on target at a range where I would have had to teleport to dodge. Put it this way though, what else are you going to do with those captain points? Tier 1, 2 and 3 don't have useful secondary skills so you get the typical BB stuff (I guess you can get BFT instead of the repair time reduction). Tiers 4 and 5 nothing else is really useful to a BB so you may as well get the skills anyway. AFT buffs AA as well so it's a decent all-round skill. With modules you currently have to choose between +20% secondary range and -7% dispersion but IJN BBs don't really need the dispersion buff anyway. And with new modules that slot is now a no-brainer, although you lose the +20% range in exchange for the +5% range. What I'm trying to say is, you don't build for secondaries with an aim to rush people, shoot mains one side and let them kill the cruiser on the other. They're not "viable" in that sense, if you have really high expectations of them being always super effective. But you may as well get them because you're not really losing anything to do so and they're effective enough when it comes to it, at all tiers. EDIT: Nagato with AFT but not manual control, current +20% range module and flag gets you ~7.5km range secondaries. They are enough to make people think twice about rushing you, they finish off DDs, and currently for me I'm making a profit in secondary flags, so I get the "close quarters expert" achievement at least 1 in 10 games with Nagato. That's good enough for me!

The fictional refits are necessary because otherwise the ships would have essentially no AA and probably terrible range due to the original rangefinder placements. In that sense, I would understand if they offered a premium at a lower tier than the "regular" so that it can remain in actual WWI fit without being crippled by that. Having said that, I know this is all speculation but I really don't like the way it's shaping up. Designs that didn't quite get built, fine, but if in order to play the line competitively you're stuck with fictional refits that would essentially ruin it for me.

The turret turn rate is historically accurate: http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_11-545_skc34.php Scroll to bottom under "Mount/Turret data", train rate is 7.2 degrees/second and 180/7.2 = 25 seconds. If you browse around that site you'll see that some turret turn speeds in game are buffed compared to historical values, and a lot of heavy cruiser turrets turned slower than Scharnhorst. In fact Pensacola that has 30s in game had about 51s historically (3.5 degrees per second according to NavWeaps).

Well, I for one am glad she's premium. Since the Germans had relatively few ships in WWII but most of them very famous, I personally would have been annoyed to have to grind the line to Tier 7 to play her. This way I can be happy the moment she's out (she's a dream come true in terms of what I want from playstyle, tier etc.) and ignore the rest of the line or play the low tier WWI BBs at my leisure for their own sake. Owning this and Tirpitz would make it pointless for me to grind that line past Tier 6 (since tier 9 and 10 will be "what-ifs" anyway) and I'm happy with that. I was toying with the idea of buying... something recently, few things current and upcoming are tempting. Now I have a reason to hold back and wait for this!

Indeed, but also it was never promised this weekend, it says "in some future weekend".

I think it means you have to put the 8.75 arcsecond mark on his bow then you will hit the citadel, so it's affected by ship length. For the "average" ship the system is designed for it will hit the citadel, for a smaller ship e.g. a DD it will not be enough lead.

I used to run a full secondary build on my Kongo. OK that's not THAT unusual but also not the first thing you think about. I haven't repeated that on the ARP ships but weirdly I got two "Close Quarters Expert" in back to back games the other day with ARP Hiei, no secondary bonuses at all. A friend of mine tells me gunboat style works well on IJN DDs Tier 7+, with great fire chance and decent invisifire window. I also went through a phase where I put the hydroacoustic search consumable on absolutely every cruiser I played. The wierdest/wackiest was probably Pensacola, where I would charge into smoke, use that crazy turning circle to dodge torps and one-hit DDs at point blank range. I guess you could now do that on Indianapolis, RADAR + Hydro full DD hunter setup.