NewHorizons_1

You forgot camp. Oddly enough though subs are the only feature in the game that encourage even me to camp (a little) in co-op matches. If there was a sub in the match I wouldn't use full speed to advance and hope that the sub bot would fixate on some other poor sod who would then be pinged and torped to death.

Probably explains the bots getting stuck in the islands. Asymmetric Battles was kinda like that ... until WG pulled it as everyone used low tier ships to farm shed loads of XP from the few high tier bots. There is a change in the pipe line where a ship spotted by CV planes appears on the mini-map but won't be visible to the CV's team mates.

Still, I'd be interested to find out what the fault actually is

US DDs I enjoyed even though they were the first DDs I started with. They start off mainly as gun boats, with torps used for short range ambush. But as you get further up the tree their torps get better and better so they end up being good all round, flexible ships. T8 Benson, T9 Fletcher & T10 Gearing work well in co-op. But in general with US DDs you can exploit the smoke screens that last for everrrrrr. Smoke up just outside of a cap-zone, farm defended ribbons on the bot DD and cruiser(s) - yes your smoke will really last last long. If a cruiser starts to get too close use one salvo or torps but try to keep them reserve. Then just as the smoke clears do a yolo torp run on the bot battleship. Take the cap then chase after any remaining bots with engine boost. I can deffo recommend those in co-op or as an intro into DD play. Fortunately I had my T9 Fletcher equipped with the Five Epochs perma camo so that made the grind easier due to the XP bonus. When I unlock a new ship I usually run it without signals/camo to get the feel of it. Then I'll usually unlock the B hull. Once I've got the hang of it I'll then stick economic signals & camos on to ease the grind and play once a day using the 50% first win bonus. That I do for several tech tree lines. When I get about half way to the next tier ship, and I'm familiar with the ship then I'll either a) if I like the ship, blast through the grind with eco camos & signals on in several matches during the day. b) if I don't like the ship that much, but the next one is good maybe then I'll resort to FreeXP to do the last 50% of the grind if there's a time gate - eg super container snowflakes / certs on T10s or conversion to special ship like GK/Khaba/Moskva. This plan of course fails if I loathe the ship so much that I can't stand doing the first 50% of the grind, hence HMS Lion, USS Kansas & F. Caracciolo gathering cobwebs in my port. But at the moment there's no time constraint so I'm aiming for another FXP ship. Last one was Gronningen which I got in Decemeber so I'm slowly getting there.

I am trying to self disciplined with FreeXP as there's still a couple of FXP ships available - Azuma & Hayate. And a couple of more IJN premiums would be useful for commander training. I'm currently sitting on ~960k FreeXP. So do I be good and patient and carry on for Hayate or do I go for Azuma? I don't have a mid/high tier IJN DD so Hayate would be something different for me. Not sure about Azuma as there's the possibility of grabbing Yoshino for coal when the next coupon rolls up.

Those two and HMS Lion - I really can't get them to work in co-op. They're pretty much port queens now that get taken into battle to knock snowflakes off. Secondary spec'd FdG in co-op is viable though - I've a bit still to go on Preussen but I'll keep it simmering away.... Problem I'm kinda having is that WG seem to be introducing new tech tree lines faster than I'm completing the existing ones and I'm struggling to keep up. I've recently unlocked Haarlem (it's still stock) and still trying to get it "to work". I didn't do bad (I think) in Eendracht so I'll see how it goes but so far the T8 doesn't seem that much of a step up.

I still wanna see someone pull off a triple Napoli div like Trelass, Flambass & RogueMonk did in Venezias a couple of years ago.

Trying before buying can encourage customers to purchase something. I bought Monaghan after I had it via the rent-a-premium-for-credits event a year or so ago. At the time I hadn't played many matches in DDs so there's no way I would have bought it.

I know it was only co-op, but the MM decided to pit a Neptune against my Alaska on the Two Brothers map. Other cruisers in the team list were a mirrored match IIRC. It came around a headland on full HP and after one AP salvo from me and it was sunk - I don't think it even had the chance to fire it guns. CLs would also be better off with a different set of commander skills from their CA/supercruiser counter parts too.

Brilliant bit of irony there @Axilian_1 considering how co-op is often looked down upon.

Interestingly, the bot AI does seem to go for your base in Standard battle mode. Actually lost a game yesterday in Scharnhorst when two Rahmat bots went for our base and smoked up. I tried blind-firing into the smoke, but Scharnhorst being Scharnhosrt, I didn't hit squat and they capped our base. Similar thing happened today, but we were able to cut them off.

Agreed, I was pleasantly surprised when Lutjens' heal triggered in co-op** and Scenarios. His secondary talent buff on Hannover was hilarious - what was it 890 secondary hits in co-op. But even if you have commanders whose talents don't trigger, many of them have useful enhanced skills that do work in co-op. Eg Halsey switching ammo type on DesMo in ~1.3 sec and increased turret traverse and preventative maintenance of Yamamoto. ** doesn't happen often in co-op when you need it, eg latter half of the match. You need the opposite flank of your team to get wiped out so the bots go undetected for a while so you get spot 3 of them later.

I did a few randoms a while ago while divisioned up with a clan mate who was far more experienced. He was a DD main, while I used a fast mid tier BB, either Repulse or more usually Scharnhorst. Being div'd up with someone who knew what they were doing and using voice comms (via Discord) reduced the stress quite a bit. Could be worth asking one of your clan mates to do the same.

Some say the sound of Shikishima's guns has been known to citadel Neptune from 15km away. Apparently GK can do it by sounding its horn within secondary battery range too.

Have WG have adopted [CLAWS] bots?

Was thinking something similar myself - having two separate commander skill sets for CLs vs heavy/super cruisers as the one ship class is just so diverse. Grey area might be 180mm armed Russian "CLs". I guess 155mm Mogami would count as a CL even though it's just over the 6" limit. If you equip the 203mm guns you'd use the CA/supercruiser skill set.

I've just about broken even in BBs and heavy cruisers despite doing well over 100k damage, coming top in the score board with a respectable baseXP and running a premium account but without an economy camo. If I've not done so well I've lost tens of thousands of credits. So yeah, T10 in co-op has a harsh economy unless you're prepared to pay for it in the form of a perma camo and/or premium time. Vast majority of my games are co-op, and overall I do OK with credits - current balance is ~148 million, although I do have a premium account (at the moment) which helps a lot. The only time I ran short of credits was November / December where I did a sprint of unlocking T10s for New Year Certs :- Venezia, Nevsky, Khaba, Kremlin & Woostie My favourite T10s** tend to have the perma camos on that halves service costs. The T10s that don't tend to only get used when I have camos that just give commander XP / FreeXP bonuses, eg "Happy Pi Day" or "This is your day, commander!" so I don't regularly lose credits there. Camos that give ship XP bonuses I tend to use upto, and including, T9 : ie grinding through a tech tree line. I've quite a few premium ships that I use mainly to level up commanders, but that is also a steady source of credit income as well. There's a few mid tier tech tree cruisers that I still like which I've dropped a perma camo too, Nurnburg & Leander which can be good earners in Operations too. So I can subsidize T10s with no economy camo by playing other ships. Doesn't help when all the bots on your side of the map run away to the other flank. You can end up doing naff all damage even if you're in a fast ship with long range guns. ** K117 on Yamato. Type 20 on Minotaur, Gearing, Des Moines, Montana, Harugamo, Shimakaze, GK (now Preussen which I've yet to unlock).

T10 is expensive to run, even for conventional surface ships. If you're not running a premium account and don't have a camo which reduces service costs you are invariably going to make a credit loss at T10 in co-op unless you have an exceptional game. Co-op has less rewards as it's easier and there's less damage to farm due to smaller team sizes, so the T10 economy there is even harsher than random matches. As I only have a few T4 and one T6 CV I can't say if they're worse off than conventional ships economically, aside from the lack of time factor you pointed out.

As @Purnylla states Colorado's lack of speed is a bit of a problem in co-op, where matches can end before you've had a chance to make a significant contribution. However it does lead to the fast battleship branch, ending in Montana, which are good in co-op. I quite enjoyed the grind through N. Carolina & Iowa. Montana is one of my favourite T10 BBs. Not sure about the slow BB branch - I still haven't progressed from the Kansas I obtained during its early access. French BBs, IMHO, get good at Normandie. Yes the turret layout is a bit odd but I had already got used to Izmail which can also yield good results once you get into the habit of managing all those (non super-firing) turrets. Lyon can be a hell of a laugh when a full 16 gun salvo connects - who remembers the triple Lyon division where all three players synchronized their full broadside salvoes? Izmail also has quite a lot (12) of guns that feel more accurate than most BBs at that tier. But, as mentioned above, the turret layout is a bit awkward so it requires a bit of planning if you want to fire a full broadside. It leads to the mighty SinOP which, despite a slowish reload, has AP shells that hit like a freight train. Bow armour is strong too though avoid showing too much broadside as the citadel is somewhat vulnerable. Conventional super-firing AB-X turret layout as well. Much maligned as it is I actually liked Gneisenau in co-op, but that's probably because I had played a lot of matches with her premium sister ship Scharnhorst so didn't take long to get the hang of the play style. Gneisenau is probably one of the fastest BBs in her tier, good rudder shift, a very tough turtleback armour layout and torpedoes so excels at brawling. The drawbacks of mediocre gun accuracy and low barrel count don't matter quite as much in co-op where combat is usually shorter ranged than PvP. Both kinda play like cruisers that never grew up** and can get away with stunts that most cruisers can't. Circle-strafing a Colorado or Kansas bot in Gneisenau or Scharny never gets old. Just don't yolo too hard only to blindly end up chewing on a bunch of torps though. Bismarck is good too. A couple of extra guns, hydro and a formidable array of secondaries but no torps. Still has tough turtle back armour so it's very had to receive a citadel hit. Still making my mind up on P. Heinrich which I've only unlocked recently but looks OK so far. For me the high point of British BBs was King George V with Queen Elizabeth not far behind. Monarch was OK, but I've given up on Lion which is more suited to the longer PvP matches where DoT effects (fires) have time to add up. I've got mixed opinions on the Japanese BBs. Kongo is very fast, when upgraded, at her tier. But I found the guns of both Kongo & Fuso frustrating. Great range, but from what I remember lots of ricochets and over pens, though that may have been lack of experience on my part at the time. Don't lets the bots get close either as the turrets traverse far too slowly to pull off a drive-by or brawling like you would in a German BB. Their armour isn't designed for that either. Amagi was OK IIRC and Nagato I quite liked as now you have the gun calibre to do more reliable damage at range or when the target is angled. Izumo, despite having a old bad rep, is now pretty good. By the time I got around to it the T9 had been buffed and it was quite formidable. That of course leads to Yamato which can be a howl when get your aim right. Also agree about the Italian BBs. I've not managed to get them to work in co-op either, slow reload and bad accuracy. I'm still at F. Caracciolo - just like Kansas it is another early-access-port-queen. ** in co-op only of course. You'd never get away with stunts like that in PvP.

Note that if you already own HMS London you appear to get 500k credits (hopefully those aren't rented). FWIW I didn't get the flag either.

Before my time, but I did hear that players complained when WG used smarter bots from Scenarios in co-op matches at one point. Most of the complaints about bots are like this thread - they're worse than the were a year or so ago and the complaints are correct. Ramming was always an issue, but it now seems worse. Bots getting stuck on islands was quite rare, now there's pretty much one in every match. The bot's collision avoidance between friendly ships used to be very good - I often observed a friendly bot slow down to let me pass and then speed back up once its route was clear. Now it's non-existent - you often see a bot BB pushing a bot DD along sideways like it has a hood ornament. Shooting accuracy is now variable where before is used to be quite consistent and good. When they missed it was either due to dispersion or you changing course / speed. They actually attempt to use the appropriate ammo type though but that could be improved further. Dive & skip bombers are an actual direct threat now, but most other CV plane attacks (torps & rockets) are still ineffective due to bad aiming.

Bonus code LASTWINTERDAYS2022 grants a shed load of signals, 500k credits, 1 day of premium. Possible 3day rental of the T6 heavy cruiser HMS London.

I knew there would be an interesting read, XKCD didn't disappoint. The scary thing is though, the vast majority of the energy released in a core collapse supernova is carried away by, you guessed it, those ghostly neutrinos.

Interesting definition of "a lot".

If you are using Steam then there's a good chance that your Steam username may have already been taken, on WG's server, by someone else beforehand. So the game server will suggest a name with extra characters added to it to make it unique. Hence why my name as an _1 appended to it - someone else already had the name NewHorizons. You can link your Steam account to your WoWS account though - WG should have sent you an e-mail on how to do this.