A Beginner's Guide to Aircraft Carrier Gameplay [0.2.3]

[Hanszeehock]

 

Welcome !

 

We have had quite a few patches since I first wrote this guide, so time for an update. Its about time as patch 0.2.3 has bought some major changes to Aircraft Carrier (CV) gameplay. 

 

I thought it would be helpful to produce a basic guide to Aircraft Carriers (CVs). Constructive comments are welcome. This is a big subject and I apologise if I have missed anything ! If people like this guide, I will keep it up to date to reflect changes for each patch. I would like to embed some in game images to break up the wall of text, but this is not possible without breaching the EULA (as the images would have to be hosted on an external site). Also thanks to @Kr4zy for looking at my draft and suggesting useful amendments.

 

The game play of CVs is obviously completely different from other ships. Your offensive armament is your aircraft. Lose these and you are basically as much use to your team as a passenger liner fitted with a few AA guns !

 

In the Dock

 

So you have enjoyed a few battles with the St Louis, collected enough XP and credits and are the proud owner of your shiny new Tier 4, USS Langley.

 

 

Upgrades

 

Don’t fancy playing her stock ? Let’s look at the upgrade options. With any Carrier I recommend you upgrade the aircraft as quickly as you can. For Langley the first upgrade gives you an extra squadron of fighters, which are not very useful, you need the second upgrade which swaps that second fighter squadron for a second torpedo bomber squadron. As for other ships you need the hull upgrade first before being able to upgrade the aircraft (armament). You can get more details of the aircraft upgrade by hovering your mouse pointer over the upgrade module.

 

To Battle !

 

Ok so you have clicked the big red button and you wait in excited anticipation of your first battle with a CV, you dream of ‘owning’ the enemy team, ‘it’s my turn to play god now’ or is it ? 

 

Before this patch the MM only allowed two CVs per team, so if multiple CVs were in the queue you had a bit of a wait. However the MM can now sometimes put four CVs on one team and one on the other.

 

The first thing you notice is that the view of your carrier is very different from what you are used to ! No wistful gazing at the latest addition to your fleet in close up, instead you get a top down ‘birds eye’ view of your ship, but don’t worry, for most of the battle you won’t be looking at it anyway. Even if you could, you don’t have time ! The second the battle starts you should be pressing the ‘W’ key to get your CV up to full speed as quickly as possible. The second key you should press is M, this takes you into map view and this is the view you should use for most of the battle.  Now press 1 to select your carrier (the other number keys select your aircraft but more about that later). Now left click on the map with your mouse to auto pilot your ship to your chosen location. You can set multiple waypoints (up to five) by shift plus LMB (left mouse button). I strongly recommend you use autopilot as you will have enough to do directing your aircraft, without wasting time manually controlling your ship.

 

Positioning your Carrier

 

So where should you sail to ? Straight at the enemy ? Stay with the team ? Hide ? The choice is yours. Most players choose to go to a point on the map that is likely to be the furthest away from the enemy, so that will be a corner at the bottom of the map. The thing to remember is that the CV herself is a big defenceless target, and being sunk by shellfire is not a good idea.

 

Here are the pros and cons of different locations:

 

Bottom Corner of the map: Pros: the safest place on the map: Cons: the enemy carrier will guess where you are and act accordingly; flight time to target is much longer so you get less attacks in              

 

Hide behind an Island: Pros: pretty safe; likely to be closer to the action so you get more strikes in: Cons: You will get spotted quicker; less sea room to manoeuvre away from an enemy torpedo bomber strike; more vulnerable to a destroyer sneak attack               

 

Sail with the team: Pros: nearer the enemy so you can launch more attacks, better AAA cover from nearby friendly ships: Cons:You will be a shell fire magnet for every enemy ship in range and are guaranteed to be sunk really quickly by the ‘causing damage’ obsessed enemy players !!!

 

Conclusion ? Stay as far away from the enemy as long as possible. I set multiple way points and sail along the bottom of the map at full speed making adjustments as the battle progresses. If you go to a corner make sure it’s the same side of the map as the majority of your team. Always think about your positioning so any enemy destroyers or cruisers planning a surprise attack on you will have to fight through friendly ships to reach you. Think about the direction enemy planes may come from and always make sure you have enough ‘sea room’ to stand a chance of avoiding those dreaded torpedoes. Never sail in channels ! Keep checking the map for enemy ships and adjust the autopilot accordingly. That far away enemy destroyer can get really close if you get too distracted !

 

If you are subject to torpedo attack you will need to exit the map by pressing ‘M’. Please note the bird’s eye view camera does not currently ‘follow’ the location of your ship. It stays fixed at the last point you viewed her. To centre the camera again press the ‘spacebar’. You can now use evasive manoeuvres to try to avoid most of the torpedoes.

 

Basic Aircraft Gameplay

 

So while we have been positioning our ship, the first squadron of aircraft is ready for take off ! For the Langley, fighters take 15 seconds and bombers 30 seconds before they are ready for take off. During this time you can still select them and assign a location for them to fly to.

 

You select your aircraft by using a number key assigned to it at the bottom of your screen (numbers used are 2 to 0 depending on how many squadrons you have). To tell them where to go, you left mouse click on the map and off they go ! To select a target to attack, left click on the enemy ship, for confirmation, a symbol will appear over the ship to be attacked, for the latest patch you will also see a green line which indicates the path of the torpedos after they are launched. The symbol denotes the type of aircraft attacking, but more about that later. You can select multiple squadrons by holding down the left mouse button and dragging over them. Or use Ctrl + A. This is very useful when you want all your aircraft to attack a distant target like an enemy CV and you are not sure where it is. It also enables you to send all the aircraft the same route at the same time. After the attack your bombers will automatically fly the most direct route back to the carrier to be resupplied with bombs or torpedoes. They will fly back in a straight line, which as in real life, will give your enemies a line of attack on your carrier. Also this direct route, may take them over enemy ships and make them vulnerable to AAA. Always manually set waypoints using Shift + LMB to direct your aircraft away from enemy ships and aircraft (enemy bombers could even follow your bombers back to the carrier !). Once they are near the carrier remember to press the ‘F’ key so that they land. Once they have landed there is a ‘cool down’ period before they can take off again. There are different timings for different types of aircraft. For example, for Langley's Torpedo Bombers its 30 seconds.

 

Types of Aircraft and what to use them for

 

The Langley only has two types of aircraft, fighters and torpedo bombers. When you move up to the next tier a third type is added, the dive bomber. Lets think about how to use these aircraft.

 

Fighters

 

Basically these are your defensive aircraft. They can defend ships and your bombers against enemy aircraft. You can keep them close to your carrier or other friendly ships to defend you or them against enemy aircraft, or they can act in an escort role to attack enemy fighters that intercept your bombers. With only one squadron on the Langley they can’t do both jobs. As you climb the tiers you get an extra squadron.  At low tiers, fighters are not very useful. They would take forever to shoot down an enemy bomber squadron. Try to intercept enemy bombers as far from your carrier as you can and if possible using the cover of friendly AAA fire below. Do not engage over enemy ships as you in turn will be vulnerable to their AAA. Remember most CV players will use the border hugging flight plan to try to take your carrier out early in the game, position your fighters accordingly!

 

So how do you actually ‘attack’ enemy planes ?  I’m glad you asked me that !  Select your fighter squadron, this is usually assigned to ‘2’ on your keyboard, then left click on the enemy squadron on the map. Types of aircraft are denoted by symbols which are pretty easy to spot ! Fighers have a ‘bullets’ symbol, torpedo bombers a ’torpedoes’ symbol, and dive bombers a’ bombs’ symbol. When your fighters have been assigned to a target, the bullets symbol will appear above that squadron. Please note that fighters are pretty dumb ! They do not auto attack the nearest enemy aircraft. If they have taken down a whole squadron, they have to be assigned to a new target or they will fly around aimlessly. Also remember they do not have unlimited ammo. At some point they will automatically return to your carrier to be resupplied. As they run out of ammo, the number of bullets in the symbol will decrease until it is 'empty'. Sometimes it’s worth manually recalling fighters for resupply if there are no nearby targets. To do this press the ‘F’ key. If all the enemy planes have been destroyed you can use your remaining fighters to spot enemy ships.

 

Bombers - Basic Tactics

 

Most CV players will target enemy carriers first. They are your biggest threat so you need to kill them as quickly as possible. However, they are most likely to be the furthest away so the flight time there and back will be long. To avoid being spotted by enemy fighters and ships with the added hazard of AAA, most CV players hug the border of the map to get to the enemy carrier. This tactic can be devastating and you can kill the enemy carrier in one attack. Obviously in a 2 vs 2 carrier you should make sure you don’t both attack the same CV. You can see which carrier you are attacking by selecting your squadron and pressing Z for the aircraft view. This is useful when the two enemy carriers are different tiers and you want to attack the higher tier carrier.

 

If your target ship is sunk before your bombers attack you must select a new target. Otherwise your bombers will fly around aimlessly.

 

Torpedo Bombers

 

The Langley starts with one squadron of bombers, you get two squadrons of these aircraft to use when you upgrade. Each bomber carries one torpedo and a Langley squadron has six aircraft.

If a whole squadron gets shot down another will spawn for use in the carrier once. If you lose the replacement squadron you will not get another one ! Please note the Langley has 20 bombers in total when upgraded. So that is 3 full squadrons of 6 aircraft plus 2 extra aircraft. Only 2 squadrons are 'operational' at any one time. So if two squadrons are shot down you are left with one full squadron and a squadron of 2 aircraft.

 

If you are starting your first battle with only one torpedo squadron you need to apply a strategy to make sure most of the torpedoes hit. Don't just fire and forget on a target, but position your planes correctly (in the predicted side of an enemy) before starting the attack run.

 

Once upgraded you now have a second torpedo squadron. Position these squadrons manually (by clicking on the map close to the target) on both sides of an enemy and make sure the second attack hits directly after the first, then your enemy can't dodge the shots. A decent player will turn into the direction of the torpedoes, or turn away from them. The first wave should make him do exactly that. Then you know where he will be, so he can receive the second wave of torpedoes flat on the side. If you time this correctly, your enemy can only avoid one wave. The attacks should be made from a 45 degree angle to the left and right of the ship. (90 degrees between the attacks)

 

Remember, the damage caused by your torpedoes is significantly less than for one fired by a same tier destroyer. For example, a Langley aircraft torpedo will do an average damage of 5250, torpedoes of a Japanese destroyer of the same tier will do 6960. As you go up through the tiers the gap between ship launched torpedoes and aircraft torpedoes get much bigger. At Tier 9 the figures are 19,370 vs 8,880 !

 

Dive Bombers

 

These aircraft make their first appearance at Tier V in the Independence. There is no skill in using these planes, it is literally fire and forget. Just select a target and the dive bombers will attack it. Since the latest patch these aircraft have a greater chance of missing the target. Also the amount of damage they cause is quite low. When upgrading always choose torpedo bombers over dive bombers. 

 

It’s the economy stupid 

 

In the current patch, maintaining your carriers is very very expensive.  If your carrier gets sunk the repair and ammo costs can easily lead to credit bankruptcy. In addition, the rewards for winning and sinking lots of enemy ships are not great. Even if you survive a battle you could be looking at a credit loss. The higher tier carrier you have, the worse it is. Try to survive a battle ! If you are sunk the credit bill is likely to be North of 30k 

 

That MM what’s it like ?

 

I don’t really want to discuss this here, but basically if you find yourself in a battle against a carrier two tiers higher you are a) likely to be sunk in the first five minutes and b) lose the battle. Higher tier aircraft are so much more powerful than lower tier ones and there are more of them. So if you are in the queue and the only other carrier is a higher tier, I strongly suggest clicking on the exit button.

But remember we are in  Alpha so I’m sure these balancing issues will be sorted in time. 

 

When is an upgrade not an upgrade ?

 

Do not automatically upgrade your aircraft squadrons ! Check first ! On some CVs 'upgrades' simply change the composition of the available squadrons. So you could spend credits and have more fighters and less bombers !

 

Attack Ground

 

A completely new feature in 0.2.3. Basically attack ground is manual aiming. It takes a lot of practice to get this right  Very simply you hold the alt key, and left click with mouse on the area to attack. It's best to carry out manual attacks not in map view. Select your squadron and press spacebar to centre on the aircraft view. For torpedo bombers, when you hold alt a green path of the torps will show. But beware ! If you are too close to the aiming point the aircraft will turn 360 degrees before attacking and ruin your lead aim. For dive bombers you get a small aiming circle, but unless the target is stationary its really hard to hit !

 

Thanks for reading about the best and most important ships in the game. Remember no matter what the battleship fanboys say, dem carriers rulez – ok ? 

 

 

[Barracada]

Thanks for the info