Estaca_de_Bares

The few asymmetric battles I've played so far, TRB Yugumo. I'm currently halfway through Charles Martel so if I reach Saint-Louis in time, I might try her there as well. Disengage the torpedo predictor before launching: like coop bots, they're unaware of torps "not aimed" at them. Salute.

I've just tried on Linux with Firefox, worked fine, but it's true that I was already logged in to the forum so the browser only had to grab the authentication cookie. I do sometimes (e.g., when accessing the Internet via wifi with relatively bad signal) encounter the blank page you mention on first log-in, but with a twist: it usually shows the cookies' consentment pop-up yet neither the log-in form nor other elements. You should reload the page (which is what I do in such cases) for, as weird as it sounds, it might be the browser not being able to render the whole page on first try. Salute.

IIRC, @lup3s scored a citadel on a British BB with Friesland a couple of years ago. I can't remember the exact details but it was related to either the conning tower being considered part of the citadel and/or some bug in the model, as @DFens_666 points out. Salute.

In absolute numbers it doesn't seem that much, but for TX DDs it's between 1/10 to 1/6 extra HP, which sometimes means the difference between staying afloat or not when eating an unexpected torpedo (or when being rammed by another DD without it, which happened to my Yugumo against a Shimakaze six years ago). It could be argued that it's not required in the basic 10 skill points for a torpboat or French destroyer, but it certainly belongs to any serious DD build, as @JohnMac79 points out. Salute.

I can't comment on performance/experience with the ships you're asking for since I have neither of them, but T9 has always been the black sheep among high tiers no matter the line (well, with some exceptions) and in particular after the introduction of superships. E.g., I reset the USN CL line out of frustration (I technically started directly at Cleveland as I benefitted from her tier change), went up it again and enjoyed Dallas and Helena but after reaching Seattle I was reminded of why I did the reset in the first place. Salute.

Whichever computer you decide to buy in the end, aim for 8GB RAM and a xTX xx50 (lower case x's to be filled with letters/numbers) or equivalent graphics card at the bare minimum. Performance-wise, that'll be something similar (less RAM but with overall more modern components) to my gaming rig and I haven't had serious, non-network related issues running WoWS for over half a decade. Still, looking at current prices it's a >700€ budget for a laptop. Salute.

Well, kills after the victory/defeat announcement do happen and are included in the counting. I've just done one myself and if @Captaindanz stayed till the end of the match he could bear witness. I'll prepare a small animated PNG to show it later when I actually finish the current gaming session and update the comment. Salute. P.S.: It took way longer than I expected, basically because I haven't used the editing tools since before the lockdowns and had to look for them in a bunch of DVDs where I keep miscellaneous programs just in case. Anyway, here's the PNG (which should work properly in any modern browser unlike back when I started doing things like this):

It's for all modes and I agree with @KillStealBoss and @lovelacebeer about being a nice touch. Yet this concern... ...is pretty valid, considering the "awesomeness" of dev's programming skills that we've got used to. If done right it shouldn't happen (a bit harder to say regarding the survivability part, though), in fact it could lead to an extra achievement to be introduced: one similar to operation's An Instant Before Victory for someone who is victorious but sunk in the extra seconds (and a corresponding one for whoever did the sinking, now that I think of it). Something that might disappear with this little change at the end of the match (personally, I'll miss them if it's such a case) are Schrödinger's ships: Salute.

2038 karma at the moment... ...and it's been around that number for a month or so, peaking at 2040 about a week and a half ago. Still on a positive trend though, for I only reached 2k by the introduction of the 0.12 patch cycle. Funny thing, I've recovered today the 5 karma points I lost yesterday. Aside from not having been a particularly good day on my behalf gameplay-wise, my guess is that people were simply way saltier because they were doing a last ditch effort grinding things. On a normal day I wouldn't have had such a loss. Salute.

Ahem... dumping reports on someone is a waste of them since only one per player/division is accounted for towards karma, so either more than one person did it (and would've been reflected by a message in the port) or that -3 was accumulated from various battles (one point per battle, which doesn't trigger messages in port) and you only noticed in the aftermath of that specific battle. Salute.

Or the ladies' nightmarish perspective on such a matter: getting fat. Although it technically belongs to the unhealthy part... Salute.

Colour me surprised, people finding alternative ways of using the tools at their disposal. And it isn't even that much of an advantage, as @SeaWolf7 points out (not to mention that the ship that does it might be giving away his own location in return). Speaking of using the ASW strikes creatively, I've seen people launch them in order to get rid of a CV's fighter squad, which makes much sense if you think about it. Salute.

As others have already pointed out, with your meagre number of battles and overall results you're still too green for the RN CLs. Anyway, if you insist in following the line to the very end, these are some tricks to make it easier expanding on what DDG_121 said: Make sure you're under 22-ish knots and slowing down on full reverse before deploying to stay within your smoke when the consumable finishes acting, otherwise you'll leave it behind and have to crawl back. Angle away (i.e. stern to the enemies) as much as possible from the main line of threat while you're moving inside the smoke. Three skills that are a must-have for a commander with more than 10 points, independently of the playstyle of your choice (smoke or radar at high tiers), are Last Stand, Incoming Fire Alert and Priority Target. In fact, the first and last mentioned belong to the 10 basic skill points (the others being Superintendent as the 3-pointer and Concealment Expert as the 4-pointer). As you may notice, a couple of things have changed or become nuanced from the time I wrote a "guide" on how to Memetaur two and a half years ago. Radar Edinburgh and Minotaur (and, from what I've seen, Edgar too) can be played solo as long as you commit to serious WASD. Radar Neptune, OTOH, is such a risky endeavour that I reverted back to smoke, so better avoid it unless you can completely trust someone else (e.g., a DD you're divisioned with) laying screens at the right places. Of course, there's also the matter of how to counter them, even at lower tiers. First, if they're already smoked up and you're on a ship with spotter, make use of it. Let them shoot 2 salvoes so you can judge whether they're moving or not and in which direction: if the origin of tracers didn't move between salvoes, aim at the middle; if it did, aim at or with a slight lead from the place where the "forward" tracers (i.e. the ones more towards his direction of movement) appeared. Second, if caught more or less broadside in the process of slowing down and smoking up, aim right at the bow when about to disappear since the middle of the ship will probably be there by the time your shells arrive. Lastly when on a DD, place your spreads in such a manner that the first launcher to arrive is the one that passes through their likely escape route, even if you have to aim it to the side of the smokescreen, since they'll try to run away ahead full thanks to their acceleration. Salute.

The OS layout is the key one (no pun intended) when it comes to the actual typed character. But there are also variations in the physical layout and some people may be more accustomed to one or another. I sometimes miss the usual white or light cream keyboards of the 80s and 90s precisely because of Aragathor's problem. On those you could write with permanent marker where the special characters were. I know light-coloured ones are still for sale, just not as common as before. Speaking of writing your own layout on top of the keys, I had to do so with the keyboard for a customer of mine shortly after the lockdowns: he intended to pass his old laptop to his daughter and asked me to repair it (quite the number of keys missing because the girl had been... let's say an eager user of that computer since very young), but the replacement came with German layout. So, I painted them white, used different colours for the modifier keys and special characters you can type with combinations of them (which ended up as a nice learning tool), and lacquered them for preventing wear and tear on the writing. Salute.

I don't play submarines so I'll defer such judgement to others that do, but at least the former one can be meme taunted when underperforming/sunk: Salute.