World of Warships

[Borgholio]

Clever way of using the space for the officers. I had no idea the main gun machinery was in that pillar, I thought it was just a structural support!

[FSTargetDrone]

Clever way of using the space for the officers. I had no idea the main gun machinery was in that pillar, I thought it was just a structural support!

Yeah, it's one deck below, under the aft turret shown here. The 8-inch turrets are actually just fabrications that were installed a few decades back, I forget exactly when. There's nothing inside right now (other than a storage space, I think). At least one of Olympia's real 8-inch guns is on display somewhere else in the US, I think Washington state, but I'm not sure.

If you look to the left of the man in the picture linked above, you will see another pair of weapons, 5-inch guns, next to a ladder, on the port side of the ship (looking forward) set at an angle from centerline. Here you can see the same kind of weapons on the starboard side of the ship, pointed aft, along with the aft turret guns. The 5-inch guns are set into casemates with movable plates that swing down to allow the guns to traverse. But as you can see, some of the armored panels are folded back or removed, with glassed-in panels in their place and those allow light into the admiral's and captain's cabins as seen here on the starboard side (again, looking forward). Hopefully neither the captain or the admiral tripped over the breech end of the gun if he got up in the middle of the night! None of these weapons are original, but they are similar to what was originally installed. More 5-inch guns can be seen here, (looking aft; these guns are behind the forward turret). Glass panels similar to what are currently installed in the aft casemates were once present here as well. There were 10 5-inch guns in all: 2 forward, 2 aft and 1 amidships on each side. Only 8 are presently mounted, the forward and aft pairs.

The captain's cabin shown is directly opposite the slightly larger, portside admiral's cabin, separated by movable wooden doors or screens between them. The doors could be opened or removed and allow the two cabins to open into another. Radiant piping for heat can be seen next to the coat rack, behind the sofa. The bunk is behind the viewpoint of the photo, to the left, near the opening to the admiral's cabin. The admiral also had a a fireplace!

[Borgholio]

Olympia was definitely from a different era. The admiral's cabin on USS Iowa still had steel beams and armor plates visible. Only thing that set it apart from junior officer quarters was the size. No wood paneling, no fireplace, nothing like that. Even President Roosevelt's cabin had a bathtub installed only due to his polio and not for luxury reasons.

[xthetenth]

In other words... Why WoT is a scam and you should just play War Thunder?

Pay to win crews the game?

Frustratingly, they seem to have picked the Erie-class gunboat as the "Tier I" US warship despite the fact that there are other ships older than it that 'follow' it in subsequent tiers. Next in the cruiser line is the Chesters, which postdate Olympia by over twenty years.

The tier ones seem to be weird ships picked as intermediaries between classes.

Also as best as I've been able to tell, the damage is handled by breaking ships up into regions and basing damage based on where shells end up (it's actually a fixed number, some fraction of the shell's possible damage last I checked). If there's not enough to fuze a big shell you get low damage overpenetrations, shooting a battleship's casemates does more damage than the ends of a ship in a cruiser, etc, and there's a huge modifier if you actually penetrate into and have your shells fuze in the citadel. It strikes me as a nice elegant way to gamify ship damage, and penetration, belt angling and immune zone management do factor in (although you can be killed by damage outside the protected region, damage to them is a huge deal). For example, a typical hit through the belt of a ~50k hp battleship does ~15k hp damage. It's huge. Positioning is incredibly key.

[Simon_Jester]

Given the typical combat ranges, is plunging fire a major threat?

[Jub]

I don't know the ranges where plunging fire becomes especially dangerous - and I bet it would vary depending on gun, shell type, and the ship being fired upon - but I've scored hits at ~20 kilometers and they were certainly falling on the ship rather than hitting them side on. I'm not 100% certain if they penetrated more easily or not, generally I just focus on trying to land rounds near the funnels looking for citadel hits or near the stern to disable engines and rudders.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Pay to win crews the game?

What game are you talking about? I have only ever spent money on a bomber crew (actually, I think the gold I used was free, so I didn't actually spend anything), and I have no problems winning with a fighter or a tank.

WT ain't perfect by any means, but pay to win isn't among its problems.

[Sea Skimmer]

you can see the same kind of weapons on the starboard side of the ship, pointed aft, along with the aft turret guns. The 5-inch guns are set into casemates with movable plates that swing down to allow the guns to traverse. But as you can see, some of the armored panels are folded back or removed, with glassed-in panels in their place and those allow light into the admiral's and captain's cabins as seen here on the starboard side (again, looking forward).

Those plates aren't armor, its just weather shuttering to keep out heavy seas. The secondary guns on Olympia are entirely unprotected as they appear today. The original 5in guns had rotating armor shields for the gunports, but all of those were removed during WW1 and replaced by 5/51s without shields. Then most of those were removed later and replaced by a couple random guns. IIRC at least one gun she has now on the starboard side is in fact six inch, which she never carried in service.

Back in the paper design phase Olympia originally was going to have 4in RF guns in those positions with an actual armor casemate subdividing them but it was decided this caliber of gun was too light to be useful. So they had to loose armor to put on bigger guns and keep her pretty much armored as a lean protected cruiser.

The guys doing the tech trees know what they are doing as far as I can see. Olympia might show up as a bonus ship but she was pretty obsolete in 1914 and that seems to be the design cutoff point for the normal tech trees. Aurora was of similar vintage but a design that frankly aged better. The guns and designs of the US new navy steel cruisers were just not all that good, at best. Some of her predecessors ought to be the dunce hat ships of the game. Not that the world really had a shortage of horrible cruisers or anything but serious absurdity came about from the attempt to build masted steel cruisers as commerce raiders.

[xthetenth]

Pay to win crews the game?

What game are you talking about? I have only ever spent money on a bomber crew (actually, I think the gold I used was free, so I didn't actually spend anything), and I have no problems winning with a fighter or a tank.

WT ain't perfect by any means, but pay to win isn't among its problems.

Crews that make a noticeable difference and can have endless money poured into them is as much if not more a scam than high pen shells that can be bought with ingame free currency, and usually only serve as an alternative to decent clicking.

Given the typical combat ranges, is plunging fire a major threat?

It definitely can be at longer ranges.

[Temjin]

So on April 1st, Wargaming posted this joke article talking about how they're going to change the game into a space game ala Space Battleship Yamato.

This past weekend, they actually did it.

http://worldofwarships.com/en/news/comm ... e-liftoff/

And it's a blast.

[Skywalker_T-65]

Damn...that looks hilariously fun.

Too bad I'm not in the beta.

[FSTargetDrone]

Those plates aren't armor, its just weather shuttering to keep out heavy seas. The secondary guns on Olympia are entirely unprotected as they appear today. The original 5in guns had rotating armor shields for the gunports, but all of those were removed during WW1 and replaced by 5/51s without shields. Then most of those were removed later and replaced by a couple random guns. IIRC at least one gun she has now on the starboard side is in fact six inch, which she never carried in service.

Whoops! Thanks for the correction!

[Elheru Aran]

That Space Battleship thing should be kept as an actual option. It looks pretty awesome. Too bad it's just a reskin of the actual game (you can see "reflections" in the "water" around the ship in the screenshots)... 3D maneuvering would be nifty...

[Temjin]

So, for the people who really want to get into the closed beta, there's now a guaranteed way. If you order one of the pre-order bundles, it now grants automatic CBT access.

http://worldofwarships.com/en/news/comm ... bt-access/

[Venator]

So, for the people who really want to get into the closed beta, there's now a guaranteed way. If you order one of the pre-order bundles, it now grants automatic CBT access.

http://worldofwarships.com/en/news/comm ... bt-access/

Not cool, WG... not cool.

I'll let you know my impressions as soon as the patching is finished.

[xthetenth]

Yubari sucks, Sims is fun and Grimyashy is really good when you get the feel for it.

[Venator]

Played one game in the Grimsdhsshaysaheylsdasy, decided I needed to work my way up to that level first. Loving the game itself - finding it very laggy and unstable, but the core elements behind the closed-beta peeling wallpaper are stellar.

[Jub]

The Yubari has one redeeming feature in that her AA guns are better than most tier 5 ships get. It's a situational perk though and beyond that she can struggle to do the damage you'd want from her.

[xthetenth]

The Yubari has one redeeming feature in that her AA guns are better than most tier 5 ships get. It's a situational perk though and beyond that she can struggle to do the damage you'd want from her.

That is less of a problem than practically the entire ship being a citadel. The damage output is low, and it's fragile enough that even destroyers that know what's up will murder it. The alpha ship and tech tree equivalent are both much superior to a degree that makes the AA cold comfort.

I've gone up against three of them in a Grimyaschy and won the gun fight, they can die in under fifteen seconds to a good shooting non-Japanese destroyer.

Played one game in the Grimsdhsshaysaheylsdasy, decided I needed to work my way up to that level first. Loving the game itself - finding it very laggy and unstable, but the core elements behind the closed-beta peeling wallpaper are stellar.

It wins long range gun duels with other destroyers like a champ, desperately needs the crew skill to make the turrets turn faster, and is generally a nice fast middle-close range skirmisher that really ought to not get to point blank.

[Rekkon]

I knew I was going to like destroyers, but I have become unexpectedly fond of American cruisers. DD hunting in the Omaha is one of my new favorite activities. I wish dive bombers were less useless though.

[Venator]

A very memorable game in my Tier 3 Japanese destroyer (still working on the names).

Traded a bit of long range fire, then came around an island almost "crossing the T" point-blank with a St. Louis. Five torpedoes on target, overkill and some. Then I took a full broadside from a Kongo. Oops. Came side-by-side with an enemy destroyer at 75% health - at this point my torpedoes were reloading, I was at 30% health with two disabled guns and on fire. However, the rudder still worked - kamikaze destroyer FTW!

[Jub]

For those worried about system requirements I can report that this game will run on an old HP Pavilion laptop with a 1.6Ghz i7, 6GB of ram, and a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650.

[Sea Skimmer]

I knew I was going to like destroyers, but I have become unexpectedly fond of American cruisers. DD hunting in the Omaha is one of my new favorite activities. I wish dive bombers were less useless though.

I think the problem with dive bombers is that in real life such aircraft had HIGHLY inconsistent results (otherwise they would have sunk everything in every navy) and while the game is not realistic it is trying to play by the rules of realism for its damage and weapons balance, and so this is a problem. Some days you got that Japanese destroyer that successively evaded 56 SBDs at Midway, other days every third bomb was blowing up a ship. Dive bombers also heavily threatened smaller ships with structural breakup when they were hit by large weapons, a mechanic not present in game at all in any respect. A small scale and time limited game can't easily deal with that problem without either making them useless, or making them so powerful they'd completely dominate.

Torpedos are very powerful in the game, but you can evade them. The basic ship view though wont let you easily keep a lookout for enemy dive bombers, evasion worked pretty well on them too. I see no solution to that which wouldn't detract strongly from normal gameplay.

A partial solution I imagine they may well adapt is to force users to select a bomb type and thus number of bombs before takeoff, to optimize performance against a specific type of ship and allow for variable but predictable hit rates. Then players would at least have to work harder for effective dive bombing results as a form of balance. At least one worth considering. A variable cross wind mechanic would also make sense, but I doubt that will happen. Likewise I doubt variable depth for torpedoes is going to happen, but it'd be cool if it did so human shield problems with say destroyers blocking hits on capital ships being eliminated.

[Jub]

Absurdly useless from everything I can tell.

I think the problem with dive bombers is that in real life they had HIGHLY inconsistent results, and while the game is not realistic it is trying to play by the rules of realism for its damage and weapons balance, and this is a problem. Some days you got that Japanese destroyer that successively evaded 56 SBDs at Midway, other days every third bomb was blowing up a ship. Dive bombers also heavily threatened smaller ships with structural breakup when they were hit by large weapons, a mechanic not present in game at all. A small scale and time limited game can't easily deal with that problem without either making them useless, or making them so powerful they'd completely dominate.

Torpedos are very powerful in the game, but you can evade them. The basic ship view though wont let you easily keep a lookout for enemy dive bombers, evasion worked pretty well on them too. A partial solution I imagine they may well adapt is to force users to select a bomb type and thus number of bombs before takeoff, to optimize performance against a specific type of ship and allow for variable but predictable hit rates. A variable cross wind mechanic would also make sense, but I doubt that will happen. Likewise I doubt variable depth for torpedoes is going to happen, but it'd be cool if it did.

Carriers in general seem a bit on the weak side tier for tier at the present time. In a typical match you might get to launch your torpedo bombers 2-3 times and unless you're very skilled at manually aiming you'd be lucky to score 2 hits per volley on something slow like a Battleship. If the other carrier has decided to go for a fighter heavy setup or you're against a greater number of carriers you'll be lucky to even make it to a ship if they're paying attention. If you do score a hit you're rolling dice and hoping to get some flooding that they don't instantly repair. In the same scenario the Battleships on your team are likely in position to start ranging shots and if they get lucky a single volley can do more damage than you're apt to get with your torpedos and they get to fire again 3-4 times before you can get your planes on target again.

I understand that carriers tend to be at much less risk of getting hit and shouldn't be head and shoulders above other classes in terms of damage, but right now a good game in my Saipan tends to be 30-40k damage and a good game in my Fuso is 70-80k damage. I just find that I can't carry a game in a carrier like you can in any other ship class because they just can't get the DPS out fast enough. Plus there's nothing more frustrating than losing a game after trying to decap against a destroyer who can easily dodge your torpedo bombers when any other class would have been able to save the day.

[Jub]

So 0.3.1 is due to launch in the next couple of weeks and it brings with it many much-awaited changes and additions. The ones most people will be excited about are the additions of the Japanese carriers and the American battleships. One other addition already in the game that anybody who hasn't played recently may not have noticed is the addition of the HMS Warspite as a tier 6 premium battleship. Beyond the additions are changes to the way HE works, some buffs to battleships and high tier cruisers, and much more.

The patch notes are here for those who are interested in reading them first hand.