BruceRKF

Yeah, I tried Discord a couple of times. Maybe I'm just old in my 30s, but I think it's crap for actually finding things or having clear discussions. Same for game guides, community content, mods, and what-not. It will all have to be transferred to somewhere else to be in any shape accessible, because Discord does not work for that kind of thing in my experience. And then announcing the closure a whole THREE days in advance is disgraceful and in my opinion an act of complete disregard for the game community, paired neatly with incompetence and conceit. Great work, WG!

The ship in the clip is definitely Alsace. You can easily discern that by the secondary guns (Flandre has the same secondaries, but more of them and only triple main guns, Bourgogne has different secondary guns). And I never said that all French BBs have turning funnels. Only the Richelieu and Alsace class derivatives, plus République, Charles Martel and Saint-Louis look like they have turning funnels. Henri IV might have as well, but her funnel looks a bit too bulky.

@YabbaCoe The list of ships with rotating funnels surely is incomplete? E.g., for battleships the list only mentions République, Flandre and Bourgogne, but the clip shows Alsace. Flandre, Alsace and Bourgougne are very similar in the first place (same hull and base superstructure). Then there are all the ships based on the Richelieu class (Richelieu, Jean Bart, Gascogne and Champagne). And what about the French cruisers with the same type of funnel, Charles Martel and Saint-Louis? Or is the list only for antennas? I am confused.

Visual updates are always welcome. When reading about the idle rotation of secondaries, I was reminded of a feature I would love to see in the game: The ability to lock the main battery in the resting postion (like in port or before the start of a battle). Not only does it look good, but it also helps when you have no enemies to shoot for a bit and do not know exactly whether you need to train your guns to port or starboard. It can decrease the time you need to bring all your guns to bear when a target appears. Bots can do it, so it should not be too hard to implement. Pretty please?

Actually, I think we are mostly on the same wavelength. Not having the 460 mm guns is what bothers me most about the tier 9 and 10 as well ;) Interesting that you mentioned Iron Duke. She is the only UK tech tree BB I do not have in my port, for the simple reason that I do not agree at all with what they have done with her funnel layout. All her life until her scrapping after the end of WW2 she had two funnels, but for some bizarre reason, WG gave her a single fat one instead. Completely baffling. Sorry for off-topic, but I had to vent a bit after reading "Iron Duke"

Genuine question: why would you consider these three ships fantasy (I don't count the premium for now, since I have not informed myself about that at all)? As far as I'm aware, the three tech tree ships are all based on Japanese plans, even if some of those were rather rudimentary. Obviously, WG also took liberties with modernisations and whatnot, but the basic layout seems to be somewhat based on plans. Not using 460 mm guns is the most heineous crime, I think. I guess it depends on your defintion of "fantasy"? I think of the ships as paper ships with fantasy refits.

I like that the new tech tree ship seem to be reasonable representations of historical plans. However, the Japanese are the only navy left that legitimately has enough plans for battleships and battlecruisers to make a complete tech tree for both, or at least from tier 4 (you could skip the t3 battlecruiser, I think). WG is probably just too lazy because lower tiers make less money for essentially the same effort (research and modeling is not that different between tiers, I imagine). I also do not like the fact that WG randomly chose 457 mm as the calibre, just to protect the poor BBs. Cruisers surely will be happy to have even more ships that can overmatch their midsection armour. Why not make the guns 460 mm, as they should be, and let BBs suffer as well, just a little bit?

You can just watch the first 40 seconds and get the gist of it.

Agreed. Fletcher has way better gun dpm and even better torpedo dpm, despite the slower reload. She is also more maneuverable and has better concealment. Apart from being able to dish out more torpedoes, there is nothing Z-44 does better than Fletcher. Fletcher is an excellent hybrid while Z-44 is a pure torpedo boat. If you want that, you could also just go for Yugumo. If you want more flexibility, there is Z-46 or Jutland. They are all better than Z-44. I still kinda like Z-44 though. As has been said before, she is quite relaxing to play since there are no expectations. You will get insulted a lot of course when you are not going for the caps (something she is really bad at), but who cares.

BB overpopulation is nothing new and trying to decrease it is a valuable goal. I am not sure heavily nerfing the economy is the right way though. For starters, how about fixing the matchmaking for bots in Asymmetric Battles first, as well as bot targeting behaviour? 10 BBs on the opposing team is bad enough for a cruiser, but then they will also shoot at said cruiser whenever it is physically possible, no matter how much further away it is than the nearest BB or how low on health a closer BB is. Think about that before nerfing BB economy. I would also love it if team composition for players were limited to two BBs max, as well as making it mandatory to have at least one of BBs, CA/CL and DD each. Never going to happen, but one can dream.

Got up to ten BBs and regularly 7 or more as well. Annoying in what could actually be a fun alternative to coop.

Finally a mode to play tier 9 and 10 ships in a non pvp mode. Now we need something for tiers 2 to 5. I voted "like", but there are two caveats: 1. Are there any other ships than BBs? Hope WG make the bot ship composition a bit more varied. I played 8 games and the least amount of BBs I got was 5 once (the soft cap in randoms), 6 once and the rest was at least 7, going up to 10. I would also like it if they limited player BBs to two, also for variety. 2. Good luck if you are in a cruiser. The focus fire is relentless and the bots don't care whether a BB with less HP is 10 km closer than you. Had it earlier that our Schlieffen just brawled right in between three BBs and got hit by nothing other than secondaries because they all shot at my cruiser over 13 km away.

I'll give you that I was not right, but I think I was not completely wrong either, so I will try to get my facts right and maybe clarify some of what I said. Split has her originally intended main gun and torpedo configuration. WG has cheated her out of her original AA gun configuration. However, that is something they have done since the very beginning, especially on tech tree ships. And I am not quite sure if Split has her post war AA in the game, but rather neither her original nor her post war layout. Seems they made something up instead. While I am not happy about that, AA guns are a minor element and at least they do not break the shape of the ship up too much. This is just about good bearable for me these days, in light of all the other stuff they pull out of their rear end. Lambros Katsonis uses British 140 mm guns that were originally intended for two Greek Town-class cruisers which were bought by the UK during WW1 before completion. At least WG's designation "140mm/50 BL Mk.1" would suggest those guns. They were also used as secondary guns on Hood, for example. The look fits as well. That would mean, they are not 1930s guns. You are probably right in saying that L. Katsonis does not come from a blueprint, since the design likely never got that far, but she is not made up by WG. The ship is, as far as I can tell, based on preliminary designs for the Leander class cruiser, dating from 1929. One of the designs had exactly this layout with 6x1 5.5'' guns. Therefore it is not a fictional, but a paper ship (not a very far advanced paper design, but still). AA is again mostly made up by WG, although it is funny that they use the "76.2mm/50 Mk22 on a Mk34 mount". That gun dates all the way back to the beginning of the 20th century and would make a reasonable choice for the ship originally. Of course, WG did not use the ancient version, but the late WW2 development of the old gun, bascially substituting the old 3'' with the new ones. They are still not 1950s guns though. I informed myself a bit about Vasilissa Olga (and her sister) and after seeing that they use German guns, they are indeed a bit unique as far as G and H class destroyers go and will hopefully appear in the game at some point. As for the other ships, I am guessing you are talking about the Kountouriotis-class destroyers. They would have made good tier 5 ships and I would prefer them over the rather dull Muavenet. However there was no Turkish ship in the game before, so my guess would be that WG wanted to prioritise that. Bit of a wall of text, but I hope I could clear up my opinion a bit.

I was prepared to go into this thread and heavily agree with it, expecting something about the latest dev blog and many other ships. However, you are seriously complaining about Split being in the game in her originally intended configuration instead of her post war completion? In my opinion, this configuration fits the game far better. She is not a fantasy ship, not even a paper ship. She was about halfway to launch when construction had to be stopped. It is also quite possible that we will get a Split '58 at some point. [Edit: Why no Queen Olga: Well, she might still come at some point, but there is already Gallant and Jurua of the same class in the game. What is more, she would have been tier 5 or 6 and we got ships we did not have before instead in Muavenet and Stord (I guess Muavenet is an I class, but at least in a different configuration than Icarus). Edit over.] As for Lambros Katsonis: I cannot comment on how appropriate the use of her name is, since I barely know anything about Greek ships. However, the ship in the game, while looking a bit comical, is not a fantasy ship, but a paper ship at least. Gdansk is a far better example of WG's imagination taking it too far. And I have even more beef with all the tier 11 crap, as well as that new UK cruiser Defence or that hilarious imagination by WG that they called the Karl XIV Johan.

I am sincerely hoping a mod is going to come in here and clean up the [edited] measuring contest. Back to the actual topic: As is all too common these days, all new ships are high tier and none of them actually existed. What is worse, they can't even be bothered to go with paper ships anymore, but instead resort to pure fantasy more and more. I find that a very sad development. There is no ship in this dev blog that I am interested in. Scarlet Thunder seems to be at least reasonable, even though she appears to be just a Duncan copy with some changed parameters (probably like UK tech tree BBs). She has an awful name though. The rest: two fantasy tier 11 ships, one fantasy tier 9 ship, and one paper tier 10 submarine. All that is missing to make the announcement even worse for me is a carrier.

Out of the four ships mentioned in the opening post, for me it could only be Ashitaka or Maya. In coop, you want dpm more than anything, since the games are short and the bots will mostly just rush in. Collingwood only has six guns and Toulon has a painfully slow reload. They can work in randoms where you have the time to play strategically (if the player quality allows for a long-ish game, that is...), but for coop they just don't put out enough damage. Maya losing one turret conmpared to Myoko is a bummer, but her HE damage is still decent and your torpedoes can seriously wreck any bot with one salvo. Not great, but okay for coop. Ashitaka has the great benefit of having 10 big guns which makes her the best armed battleship at tier 7. Only three have better dpm, but they all have way smaller guns (340/356 mm) that cannot overmatch other BBs or higher tier cruisers. Plus, when you get close, Ashitaka also has decent secondaries. As far as BBs go, Ashitaka is definitely a good choice for coop. As for the other options: Sims is quite cheap, so she has that going for her, but she is significantly worse than her tech tree counterpart, but also not different enough to be interesting (my opinion). Worth getting only if you like (historical) DDs. Boise/NdJ is decent for coop, as are most light cruisers, but the fact that she gives up damage for survivability compared to Helena makes her good for randoms, less so in coop (bonus points for being a historical ship though). Weimar is excellent in coop and operations. She has great dpm, can be fast if need be and has a good torpedo broadside for yolo. Compared to München, she has almost the same dpm, but slightly better shell ballistics. The worse range is compensated by the spotter plane and once it runs out, the bots will be in normal range anyway. Plus, better armour and torpedoes than München. Concealment is worse, but doesn't really matter in coop.

That is dependent on your definition of "pretty good". Zao has fantastic AP, Azuma and Yoshino as well, the rest of the IJN CAs have below average AP. Of course it is still 203 mm AP, so it will wreck cruisers at shorter ranges anyway or do good damage on upper hulls of BBs. It also depends on tier. Furutaka at tier 5 is a monster with her AP, Ibuki at tier 9 with the same shells not so much. As for the main topic: I used to run Yamato with a secondary build before the commander rework. It was fun, but already quite a bit less effective than the ordinary BB build. I feel that after the rework it is not worth it anymore at all. You have to give up even more for a dedicated secondary build than back then and there are a lot more ships now that are way better at it.

Shinonome's torpedoes have less range and do a bit less damage, but are faster and dpm is almost the same. Concealment difference is only 100 m and only because Fubuki was buffed in that regard fairly recently. The rudder is a bit slower, but still comfortable. Gun range is probably the most glaring issue in my mind, but sometimes it can be an advantage, since you might go dark after fighting in close range. Fubuki is probably more comfortable to play, I can agree with that, but I do not see why you are asking for a Shinonome buff because of that. You said it yourself: Shinonome is fine. In fact, I'd argue she is excatly what a good premium ship should be like: different from the tech tree counterpart, but not stronger.

Agree with most of what you said, but why does need Shinonome a buff if compared to Fubuki? Shinonome has better gun dpm already by quite a bit and will still have a fair bit more after the Fubuki buff.

They announced another new (part) tech tree in the stream. The second European destroyer line will go from tier 5 to 10 and include ships sailing under the flags of Turkey, Norway, Poland, Yugoslavia and Greece. Tiers 5 to 8 are historical ships, tiers 9 and 10 are what-ifs. Tier 5 - Muavenet (Turkey): I-class (UK) destroyer (same class as Icarus) Tier 6 - Stord (Norway): S-class (UK) Tier 7 - Grom (Poland): Grom-class (sister to Blyskawica) Tier 8 - Split (Yugoslavia): unique ship based on French Le Fantasque-class. The ship in game will be the version as the ship was planned (with 140 mm guns), not as it was ultimately completed (with American 127 mm guns) Tier 9 - Lambros Katsonis (Greece): Some UK design for Greece based on a small version of the E-class cruiser design Tier 10 - Gdansk (Poland): what-if design based on French Mogador-class Personally, I am far more relaxed about this tech tree than the BS of the Pan-American cruiser line. Not only are most of the ships historical, there is also a nice mix of countries, yet still some kind of consistency. Not sure how I feel about the tier 10, and about the tier 9 we don't know enough yet (I think they said it was to have six 140 mm guns?). I needed something to look forward to after whatever those Pan-American cruisers are supposed to be and I actually kind of do. Who would have thought.

Grom has slightly better concealment and rudder shift, but no AP, less range and only half the torpedo damage. I still love my Blyskawica despite her stark weaknesses in rudder and concealment and her being extremely power-crept. Without even having played Grom, I already know which one I prefer. Depressingly, Grom also has the same reload on her torpedoes as Stord despite having only triple launchers. I feel like they could have at least given her a quicker reload there. As it is, it's back to last place in torpedo dpm at her tier.

I have only played Muavenet and Stord so far. Both not much though, so these are only first impressions, underlined with comparisons within their tiers, as well as a high degree of experience. Muavenet for me is the worst tier 5 destroyer (and I have played all but the Kamikaze sisters) and it mostly comes down to her torpedoes. HE dpm is quite good (tied 5th of 18 t5 DDs) , health pool and concealment are bang average (both 9th of 18), smoke is standard (like Japanese or Russian DDs). Speed is towards the lower end (13th of 18), but at least you get a speed boost. Torpedo range is also average and you have about a km of stealth torpedo window. She has all the makes for a decent if unremarkable hybrid DD. However, torpedo dpm is half (!) that of Maestrale which previously held the crown for worst torpedo damage at tier 5. And having only one launcher with no option to single launch makes tactical torpedoing impossible, nevermind that hitting a torpedo is barely noticeable on anything other than a DD. To add to that, while the torpedoes are fast, the reaction time for the enemy is actually second highest at tier 5 behind only the big 610 mm Mutsuki torpedoes. Honestly, I'd rather play Acasta which is already a pretty mediocre ship, but has better smokes and torpedoes that can actually hurt. Stord is closer to being the decent if unremarkable DD that Muavenet could be. This time the health pool is on the lower end (third worst), but you get good HE dpm (5th of 21) and your torpedo dpm goes from worst by far to only third worst. Not great, but serviceable. She also has the second highest base speed at tier 6 (although technically she is only 6th in ranking since there are five ships that do 38 kn base). Concealment is slightly below average, but nothing to worry about and you have just over 1 km of stealth torpedo window which is okay at tier 6. Main poblem for her is the terrible alpha damage of her indiviudal torpedoes. Like on Muavanet, many targets will barely notice a hit and reaction time is again second worst behind the big Japanese torpedoes. This means that hitting a torpedo in itself becomes more difficult, but at least a Japanese torpedo can cripple a target with very few hits while a European one will just be shrugged of. Both Muavenet and Stord are overall underwhelming on first impression. The latter I can at least see myself playing every once in a while, the former I cannot. Generally, the lack of AP still irks me to no end. As an experienced player, you always want the option to punish cruisers at short range ot farm superstructures of BBs once you have your fire going. Example to the point: right in my second game in Muavenet I had the opportunity to sneak up on a broadside stationary Omaha. In any other DD i would have citadelled the crap out of her, but nope. I also hit three of my four torpedoes (one hit the island, duh!), but because of the abysmal damage she had enough health left to react and start shooting at me. I was able to escape via smoke before she could do much to me, but as I said, in any other DD she would have been sunk easily between torpedo damage and citadels, none of which the new European DDs can provide.

Same problem as @Dark_Meta_. Payed with the two resources I have in abundance (credits and FXP) and got no tokens.

The reason why there are only high tier ships and not a complete tech tree is probably money, as always with WG. High tier ships generate far more revenue for WG than lower tier ships. With how early access is handled these days, it's even true for tech tree ships. On the other hand, modeling the ships takes near enough as makes no difference as much time for a tier 1 as it does for a tier 10. That beinf said, between real ships and design proposals, the Japanese had plenty of ships to fill a battlecruiser and a battleship tech tree (I guess tier 3 could be difficult for battlecruisers, but they left that out already for the Italian BBs). Kongo and Amagi could go over to the battlecruiser tree, B-62 could be the tier 7 and some Kongo evolution the tier 6 and Tosa replace Amagi in the BB tree as an improved Nagato. I reckon there are some blueprints, maybe from the UK, for ships that would suit tier 4 and 5 BBs as well. And it should definitely be 460 mm guns for the number 13 ships, even if it means 32 mm overmatch. Let BBs share the suffering of cruisers at least a little.

There is no money in lower tier ships, so it's only high tier ships, I would guess. I thoroughly agree with previous posts that the Japanese had enough real ships and viable blueprints for a complete (at least from tier 4) battlecruiser tech tree. As always, I am curious about the history of the proposed ships. Luckily, for battlecruisers it's a lot easier to find some historical evidence compared to the WG-fantasy high tier light cruisers. Some initial impressions from looking at the pictures, plus a quick search on the internet: Tier 8: B-62. A bit sad that they got rid of the two funnels the original design had. Tier 9: Number 13 (which was supposed to be a battleship, not a battlecruiser I think). Is it only me, or is the X turret too far from the Y turret? Are they going for a more Kongo-like look instead of following the design plans or is it just the perspective of the picture that is throwing me off? Tier 10: Project L, supposedly enlarged Kii class (so also a battleship, not a battlecruiser). Could not find anything historical about this one. Anyone has any links to something regarding this ship? Edit: @ColonelPete You forgot Ashitaka, although she is of course the same class as Amagi. And then there is the new dockyard ship, Daisen. Edit 2: Another thing: Obviously it's not nice to have even more overmatch in the game, but in this case WG could at least have BBs suffer as well and give the t9 and t10 the proper (historical) full 460 mm, not fabricate some 457s.