Opinions about vessel speed management

[Northern_Nightowl]

Hello!

 

Due to an other thread of mine, a new question popped up in my head. I would like to hear some opinions about good ways of vessel speed management, especially in those with higher displacements (fast BB and cruisers).

I tend myself to (try to) use deceleration quite often when dodging torpedoes or negotiating a tight turn, that would be a behavioral pattern spilled over mentally from playing jet combat flight simulations. Hence, the populsion mod module has some merits in it.

But maybe some talk here could teach other ways of driving your heavy vessel?

 

Regards, Nightowl

[Karasu_Browarszky]

Well.. some ships are equipped with anti-locking brakes...

 

This is a vexed question. I prefer a touch of realism in the game, so I would imagine that a relatively high speed is in order, perhaps 3/4 speed in most situations, reversing engines in emergencies and going flank speed when charging the enemy battle line.

 

But that's just me.

 

About tight turns... I don't know how the game mechanics work, but to me deceleration when turning seems counter-intuitive, at least  in reality if you reverse the engines when turning the rudder, you would turn slower.

[Bindolaf_Werebane]

Average player here.

 

Varying your speed is always a good idea in the initial stages, when people lob shells at you from 24 km and you actually want to reach a position without constantly turning. 

 

Later, do vary your speed, but try to employ zig-zagging. It worked in real life and it works in game. Throws torpedoes off.

 

In a turn, I see two variants:

1. You want to actually turn. Set telegraph to flank speed and execute your turn, while being mindful of overshooting.

2. You don't want to turn, you want to slow down fast (perhaps, because a torpedo spread is coming your way, crossing your path ahead). Full speed astern will slow you down, but also initiating a turn, or wagging the rudder left and right will help slow down faster.

 

Slowing down while entering a turn seems totally counterintuitive to me. It will definitely confuse most players, who will shoot far and wide. However, you will be so slow, that their next 2-3 volleys will land just fine. 

 

Anyway, as I said. I'm just an average player.

[Verblonde]

2 hours ago, Northern_Nightowl said:

But maybe some talk here could teach other ways of driving your heavy vessel?

I'm a mediocre (48% overall WR) player, and DD main, so my perspective is more about what behaviours in fatties makes my life harder, so in that sort of context:

• I think a lot of players know about the 'starter for ten' of leading BBs by the numbers on the aiming scale that equal the shell flight time (and double for cruisers, and so on), so if someone is likely to shoot at you, it can make their life harder if you avoid speeds that play into this aiming method. It won't work against a good player, but most players aren't good (at least not in Randoms).
• Have you played DDs much? If so, you'll know all about the white 'aiming cone' for torps; that's a very useful tool for assessing what the opposing ship is up to - if there are DDs out there, this is another thing that you want to try and spoof. Think about which DDs you're facing, and what they'll be trying to do; if you're in a fatty, torp DDs will be wondering if you're an easy mark (if you can dev strike a BB early game, you've just removed an important 'damage sponge' from the opposing team), so drive in a way that doesn't give them that impression - speed and course changes will make the aiming cone move around, and suggest to the DD that you aren't easy meat - this *may* encourage them to go after someone else (or just make their torps miss if they launch on you anyway).
• As much as possible, try and avoid being predictable if facing things with torps; a key part of making use of torps is being able to fire them at areas where you think an enemy will end up when they arrive, and this works surprisingly well (many players are predictable). Basically, you either want to avoid predictable courses/speeds/locations, and where it's unavoidable (some locations are predictable for a reason) try and arrive in such a way that predictive torps will turn up at a different time to you.

TL;DR try and avoid being predictable/consistent; this'll make you harder to effectively engage/hit.

[HystericalAccuracy]

 

4 hours ago, Northern_Nightowl said:

I tend myself to (try to) use deceleration quite often when dodging torpedoes or negotiating a tight turn

According to LWM´s testing the ships have their tightest turning circle at 3/4 speed.

Hence I press "S" when entering a hard turn at max speed (reducing from 4/4 to 3/4.

At full speed the ships pushes itself over the bow, similar to a front-driven car (under-steering).

 

At low speeds the ships tend to become "floaty", the turning circle gets larger. This is a complex one, because irl many ships could "turn on a dime" when slow, but others, especially larger ships, had no effect of rudder when going slow.

 

Bismarck for example had effectively no rudder when below 8 knots and needed tug-boats to maneuver; only above 12kn could the ship steer reliably for itself.

 

 

4 hours ago, Northern_Nightowl said:

the populsion mod module

Apparently the PropMod affects only the acceleration from stand-still to 50% of the maximum forward-speed - nothing else.

So I use it on smoke-DDs and smoke-cruisers, but on BBs I invest mainly in survivability over maneuverability.

 

 

4 hours ago, Northern_Nightowl said:

But maybe some talk here could teach other ways of driving your heavy vessel?

I hope so! I have plans to take Vanguard out some time soon. For now she does what real Vanguard did: rot in port