unnatural enemy aim

[HassenderZerhacker]

Noob player here - playing fast cruisers or even destroyers, I try to evade enemy fire, but some enemy players seem to "magically" hit my ship from long range, even when I struggle to even hit a battleship from 12km. Often they also hit with the first salvo.

Are there captain skills that improve aiming or that tell one where to aim? What can I do to hit them too with a first salve at 12Km ?

[MimosA_A]

There's a hack called "practice".

 

In all seriousness though, it takes time, experience and practice for your aim to improve. Getting to know ships, trajectories, speed of other ships and after a while your aim will be massively better. I had the same when I just started.

[LemonadeWarriorITA]

2 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

Noob player here - playing fast cruisers or even destroyers, I try to evade enemy fire, but some enemy players seem to "magically" hit my ship from long range, even when I struggle to even hit a battleship from 12km. Often they also hit with the first salvo.

Are there captain skills that improve aiming or that tell one where to aim? What can I do to hit them too with a first salve at 12Km ?

Just get a few more games under your belt. Aiming is the easiest part of this game.

 

I get annoyed when I miss my first salvo beyond 20km...

[Lieut_Gruber]

4 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

Noob player here - playing fast cruisers or even destroyers, I try to evade enemy fire, but some enemy players seem to "magically" hit my ship from long range, even when I struggle to even hit a battleship from 12km. Often they also hit with the first salvo.

Are there captain skills that improve aiming or that tell one where to aim? What can I do to hit them too with a first salve at 12Km ?

Play a bit more than 200 battles maybe? Do you 'lock on' your targets? And look where your shells drop, so you can learn/adjust.

[Captain_Newman]

If you're struggling to hit BB's at 12km, it's definitely a matter of practice. If your aim is good it should literally work the other way around - as in, if you're a bb, you should be able to conistently hit DD's at 12km distance. Hitting a BB at that range is fairly easy, you just need some practice and lead times / elevation etc become second nature. Then knowing armor profiles and where to aim at certain ships to ensure maximum damage is what will ultimately set apart unicums from merely decent players, aim wise.

[Wizard27_1979]

5 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

Noob player here - playing fast cruisers or even destroyers, I try to evade enemy fire, but some enemy players seem to "magically" hit my ship from long range, even when I struggle to even hit a battleship from 12km. Often they also hit with the first salvo.

Are there captain skills that improve aiming or that tell one where to aim? What can I do to hit them too with a first salve at 12Km ?

Lock on target (if not automatically do X-key), check how fast ship is travelling (smokestack) etc, check your shell-flight-time and crosshair to give lead - and get practice.

 

You get hit btw if you don't change your course and go straight for a certain time, players do punish this. With more experience you find out that moving and dodging is your friend - and no "hack" can - with respect of flight time of shells - tell you what a human will do in meantime. 

[HassenderZerhacker]

8 minutes ago, Wizard27_1979 said:

Lock on target (if not automatically do X-key), check how fast ship is travelling (smokestack) etc, check your shell-flight-time and crosshair to give lead - and get practice.

 

You get hit btw if you don't change your course and go straight for a certain time, players do punish this. With more experience you find out that moving and dodging is your friend - and no "hack" can - with respect of flight time of shells - tell you what a human will do in meantime. 

lock on?

never did that - what does the x key do exactly?

 

smokestack... I don't see much smoke in the binocs

 

no I don't go straight I change course every 2 or 3 secs

[Mr_Tayto]

H4x confirmed 

[Yedwy]

22 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

Noob player here - playing fast cruisers or even destroyers, I try to evade enemy fire, but some enemy players seem to "magically" hit my ship from long range, even when I struggle to even hit a battleship from 12km. Often they also hit with the first salvo.

Are there captain skills that improve aiming or that tell one where to aim? What can I do to hit them too with a first salve at 12Km ?

Many average and above players will observe you before firing after few k battles you know with reasonable certanty what the target will do and where it will be in the next 10-15s allowing you to fire  to the place (now empty) where the ship will be when they come down and "hey presto" a devastating strike

[Captain_Newman]

4 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

lock on?

never did that - what does the x key do exactly?

 

smokestack... I don't see much smoke in the binocs

 

no I don't go straight I change course every 2 or 3 secs

 

Lock-on does what the name suggests - it "locks" you at a certain target. It works semi automatically but often times then game will auto switch to another ship you don't want if both are in view, and this is what the X key is for. The currently locked ship is indicated by a large circle with a crosshair above it, and, while it's possible to hit ships that aren't locked (like smoked up cruisers or dd's, good players will regularly shoot at them without a lock on), your dispersion will be better on locked targets. It's not really auto aim, you still have to get lead and elevation right, but you should get tighter, better shell groups with lock on.

 

As for smoke, maybe it's your graphics detail turned down? I find it's a useful indicator of a ship's speed. Another good trick, if your ship has torpedoes, switch to torps with the target locked (3 key) and use the white torp aim indicator to determine the target's course and speed, you can also see if they're changing speed too.

[Pikkozoikum]

7 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

lock on?

never did that - what does the x key do exactly?

 

smokestack... I don't see much smoke in the binocs

 

no I don't go straight I change course every 2 or 3 secs

When you lock on, then your aiming follows the horizontal movement. When a ship moves left, your crosshair will follow the movement to left as well, but also and more imortant, it reduces the maxmium dispersion.

Generally you lock on automatically, but good players often do that manually. You can see, if they locked on, if their is some kind of crosshai on their name.

 

You see, the left Stalingrad is locked on with that white crosshair around the ship symbol

 

I can just tell you, this game has a long learning curve, I still learnt stuff after 1000 games

[MimosA_A]

2 hours ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

lock on?

never did that - what does the x key do exactly?

 

smokestack... I don't see much smoke in the binocs

 

no I don't go straight I change course every 2 or 3 secs 

https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Gunnery_and_Aiming

 

Often it locks by itself (there's a crosshair around the target icon), you can unlock or lock a specific target by aiming at it and pressing X.

 

Also, seeing as you managed to miss some really basic stuff like that, it might not be a bad idea to check these out:

 

https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Naval_Academy_Online

[quickr]

18 minutes ago, LemonadeWarrior said:

Aiming is the easiest part of this game.

Well, that is a lie

 

22 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

Are there captain skills that improve aiming or that tell one where to aim? What can I do to hit them too with a first salve at 12Km ?

 If someone is hitting most of his shots he is probably played a lot of games.

You'll get better with time. It takes some practice and experience, but you'll get there

[ForlornSailor]

26 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

playing fast cruisers or even destroyers, I try to evade enemy fire, but some enemy players seem to "magically" hit my ship from long range

 

Question: what is a "fast destroyer" for you? 95% of the DDs are not supposed to be played as gunboats running in the open and dodging - especially not when you are unexperianced. So what DDs do you play like this?

[Karasu_Browarszky]

Just now, MimosA_A said:

https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Gunnery_and_Aiming

 

Often it locks by itself (there's a crosshair around the target icon), you can unlock or lock a specific target by aiming at it and pressing X.

 

Also, seeing as you managed to miss some really basic stuff like that, it might not be a bad idea to check these out:

 

https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Naval_Academy_Online

 

Not in game now so can't check.. is 'auto-lock on' a setting you have on by default? Regardless, you can always decide to lock on a ship by pressing X. One problem is that sometimes the auto-lock on decides to switch your target when two or more ships are close to each other.

[HassenderZerhacker]

6 minutes ago, Captain_Newman said:

 

Lock-on does what the name suggests - it "locks" you at a certain target. It works semi automatically but often times then game will auto switch to another ship you don't want if both are in view, and this is what the X key is for. The currently locked ship is indicated by a large circle with a crosshair above it, and, while it's possible to hit ships that aren't locked (like smoked up cruisers or dd's, good players will regularly shoot at them without a lock on), your dispersion will be better on locked targets. It's not really auto aim, you still have to get lead and elevation right, but you should get tighter, better shell groups with lock on.

 

As for smoke, maybe it's your graphics detail turned down? I find it's a useful indicator of a ship's speed. Another good trick, if your ship has torpedoes, switch to torps with the target locked (3 key) and use the white torp aim indicator to determine the target's course and speed, you can also see if they're changing speed too.

 

interesting post, thank you.

I can't imagine why shells would be better grouped with X, but I will try.

interesting thing about torps too.

[MimosA_A]

2 minutes ago, Karasu_Hidesuke said:

 

Not in game now so can't check.. is 'auto-lock on' a setting you have on by default? Regardless, you can always decide to lock on a ship by pressing X. One problem is that sometimes the auto-lock on decides to switch your target when two or more ships are close to each other. 

 

For me it was on by default, though especially when ships are close to each other it's a bit of a pain. In most cases is works quite well for me.

[HassenderZerhacker]

4 minutes ago, ForlornSailor said:

 

Question: what is a "fast destroyer" for you? 95% of the DDs are not supposed to be played as gunboats running in the open and dodging - especially not when you are unexperianced. So what DDs do you play like this?

 

into the open, no.

but for example after I launched my torps and trying to get away.

we are talking tier 2 and 3 ships here.

[HassenderZerhacker]

13 minutes ago, Captain_Newman said:

As for smoke, maybe it's your graphics detail turned down? I find it's a useful indicator of a ship's speed. Another good trick, if your ship has torpedoes, switch to torps with the target locked (3 key) and use the white torp aim indicator to determine the target's course and speed, you can also see if they're changing speed too.

my graphics settings are pretty high.

but look at Pikko's screenshot above - no smoke.

[HassenderZerhacker]

9 minutes ago, Karasu_Hidesuke said:

 

Not in game now so can't check.. is 'auto-lock on' a setting you have on by default? Regardless, you can always decide to lock on a ship by pressing X. One problem is that sometimes the auto-lock on decides to switch your target when two or more ships are close to each other.

the option "track locked targets" is on by default. I noticed the aim staying steady in the binocs. I always shoot using binocs.

[ForlornSailor]

4 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

we are talking tier 2 and 3 ships here. 

 

Yea I saw you played f.e. Umikaze. You never ever WANT to use your guns on a Umikaze. T2/T3 DDs arent fast in comparision either. Its very easy to hit them. With Umikaze you dont really want to use your smoke either. You want to be outside of the enemy detection (as with all IJN DDs pretty much) and use your torps, so that the enemys never see you and thus dont expect to be torps. Ships like Umikaze/Wakatake/Isokaze are 100% Torps only.

[DFens_666]

38 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

Noob player here - playing fast cruisers or even destroyers, I try to evade enemy fire, but some enemy players seem to "magically" hit my ship from long range, even when I struggle to even hit a battleship from 12km. Often they also hit with the first salvo.

Are there captain skills that improve aiming or that tell one where to aim? What can I do to hit them too with a first salve at 12Km ?

 

I looked at your stats, and you play a lot of Coop. Bots have aim-assist, they will hit you regardless what speed/angle you are moving. If you dont dodge, they WILL hit you. Ofc if you dodge, they will more likely miss, but dodging at T2-3 DD torp range is almost impossible.

But even in randoms, people wont have much issues hitting you at ~6km.

[HassenderZerhacker]

11 minutes ago, DFens_666 said:

 

I looked at your stats, and you play a lot of Coop. Bots have aim-assist, they will hit you regardless what speed/angle you are moving. If you dont dodge, they WILL hit you. Ofc if you dodge, they will more likely miss, but dodging at T2-3 DD torp range is almost impossible.

But even in randoms, people wont have much issues hitting you at ~6km.

I stopped playing co-op.

I never had big problems with the bots.

I have issues with people hitting me from 12Km+ with their first salvo in randoms.

[Karasu_Browarszky]

24 minutes ago, MimosA_A said:

 

For me it was on by default, though especially when ships are close to each other it's a bit of a pain. In most cases is works quite well for me.

 

16 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

the option "track locked targets" is on by default. I noticed the aim staying steady in the binocs. I always shoot using binocs.

 

I use binocs 99% of the time, too. Sometimes the lock-on kind of drops off suddenly for no reason, though.

 

22 minutes ago, HassenderZerhacker said:

 

into the open, no.

but for example after I launched my torps and trying to get away.

we are talking tier 2 and 3 ships here.

 

Never turn towards the enemy at any point cause they are surprisingly quick to close the distance, and quick to turn suddenly too you can never reliably predict it. Easy to learn.. easy to forget too...

[Uglesett]

There's no simple answer for how to hit better and avoiding hits, because it depends a lot on which ship you're sailing and which ships are shooting at you. Learning the characteristics of the different ships and guns in the game is something that only comes with experience. But things to be aware of:

 

-Ballistics: Different guns have different shell travel times and trajectories. Guns with slow muzzle velocity and heavy shells will have a high trajectory and a long travel time. This makes them trickier to hit with at longer ranges, but enable you to better fire over terrain and since they can come it at a steeper angle they'll often penetrate through decks that faster shells with flatter trajectories will ricochet from. Guns with faster shells will have shorter time to travel and a flatter trajectory. They'll often be easier to score hits with, but can often be impossible to fire over terrain. There's a lot of nuance with the different guns in the game, and it takes a lot of experience to get the "feel" for how they behave.

 

-Dispersion: Some guns have tight shell groupings, while others behave more like shotguns. The dispersion is semi-random, and some times can just straight up troll you. Typically, cruisers and destroyers have fairly tight dispersion, while battleships have shells that spread out more. Tight dispersion means that you can land more shells with an accurate shot, but if your aim is off you won't score lucky hits. Wider dispersion means that you can aim perfectly and have your shells all land in the water around your target, but it can also mean your aim can be a bit off but you'll still score one or two hits. So when you're getting shot at by a battleship, you can often dodge well but still take one or two stray hits simply because their dispersion is all over the place.

 

And then there are things like predicting enemy behaviour. An experienced player can often see when you start a turn and predict better where you'll be when their shots arrive and fire accordingly. Often, especially with DDs and responsive cruisers it helps to not only turn but also speed up and slow down to throw off the enemy's aim, because turning often isn't enough when you're traveling at fixed speed and getting shot at by someone who knows what they're doing.

 

Another tip is to maximize the size of your minimap and make use of the cursor that indicates where you're aiming. Only aiming in the 3D view can often fool you because it's easy to misjudge the relative angles of your ship and the ship you're shooting at. So use the map aiming indicator to better judge where the enemy is traveling relative to where you're aiming.