StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Holy shit the higher tier US AA is amazing, even on battleships.

As it should be! Seriously a Gearing destroyer in real life had about the same time averaged weight of fire on its AA broadside as the Musashi did when she was sunk, with bigger American ships being absurdly better, and while the game isn't exactly realistic, it's certainly inspired by real life about such things. Even British ships amounted to being nearly joke like in comparison after 1942, and they were much better the anyone else. I expect when the RN is added to the game they'll end up being very much the middle of the road power, while the USN and IJN are at certain extremes.

I've yet to reach the Des Monies but I am told it won't shoot down 20 planes per game, its more like it will shoot down 20 planes in a single attack. But the of course higher tier planes fly faster and are a lot more numerous.

My respect for dive bombers is now vaguely higher, but still so low I only pay them attention to turn into them and try to attract them into my AA guns like BuOrd intended. Still just not effective weapons. I starting looking at the actual stats and it appears that even if every bomb in a group hit your ship, it'd still do less damage then a single torpedo from the same tech level of torpedo plane would. That might be okay if not for it more or less being impossible for more then two bombs to hit. I've seen a single bomb hit occur when the attack was one a ship in the process of being rammed against another.

Just researched and bought a Langley tonight. Definitely different than fighting a gun battle, but I think it might be fun. Scored a half dozen torpedo hits on a few ships, and shot down three enemy squadrons while only losing one of my own. I like the mechanic of ordering your fighters to escort your teams ships. Really helps them fend off enemy torpedo attacks.

Also remember no friendly fire for AA guns. So if your bombers come under attack you can use your own ships to try to clean the enemy fighters off of them. I've seen enemy fighters failariously fall for that trick a couple times now.

Has anybody else noticed that AFK ships die after eating a token amount of shots now? I assume this is to stop people damage farming off of AFKs when they could be helping to kill an actual threat.

Well. A few rounds today. Vaguely disappointing for the most part. Highly frustrated that I can spend the better part of 20 hits on a single ship... knocking most of its HP off... and then some yahoo flings a random round its way and sinks it, and gets the credit for the kill because they have the last hit on it.

Also, almost TK'd. Fired torpedoes parallel to an ally ship, and they happened to turn right into the torpedoes. It was pretty fucking textbook, except against the wrong ship. Ended up ramming the Kawachi as I was very near it and it was low, I was low, what's that going to hurt? Me, apparently, seeing as it's apparently got a hell of a lot more HP than I do. Needless to say, I did *not* get that kill. The Chester I hit? Survived, but wasn't happy. Lost 67 XP for that, that's the most I've given up for allied damage so far. Could've been worse, I suppose.

A few nice kills though. Took down an aircraft carrier. That was fun. Caught a Phoenix stuck against an island and sunk that sucker. Downed a Chester with a torpedo salvo without even really realizing it--was trying to watch another ship, just took an opportunity shot while trying to circle.

Omaha is 11,700 points away. I'm only at around 1500. *sigh* Will putting my captain from the St Louis, who has all of 4 abilities, on the Phoenix help it run up its XP a little better?

Would it improve dive bombers any if their accuracy was determined by a manual drop mechanic based off clicking to release at just the right time ala jrpg critical combo checks?

Elheru Aran wrote:Well. A few rounds today. Vaguely disappointing for the most part. Highly frustrated that I can spend the better part of 20 hits on a single ship... knocking most of its HP off... and then some yahoo flings a random round its way and sinks it, and gets the credit for the kill because they have the last hit on it.

Also, almost TK'd. Fired torpedoes parallel to an ally ship, and they happened to turn right into the torpedoes. It was pretty fucking textbook, except against the wrong ship. Ended up ramming the Kawachi as I was very near it and it was low, I was low, what's that going to hurt? Me, apparently, seeing as it's apparently got a hell of a lot more HP than I do. Needless to say, I did *not* get that kill. The Chester I hit? Survived, but wasn't happy. Lost 67 XP for that, that's the most I've given up for allied damage so far. Could've been worse, I suppose.

A few nice kills though. Took down an aircraft carrier. That was fun. Caught a Phoenix stuck against an island and sunk that sucker. Downed a Chester with a torpedo salvo without even really realizing it--was trying to watch another ship, just took an opportunity shot while trying to circle.

Omaha is 11,700 points away. I'm only at around 1500. *sigh* Will putting my captain from the St Louis, who has all of 4 abilities, on the Phoenix help it run up its XP a little better?

Just enjoy the Phoenix! When upgraded, it's the same as Omaha except without a single dual gun turret mount and without an added 3-torp launcher per broadside. Phoenix is a fun ship and plays well as a gun platform that can turn into a 'heavy destroyer' at will.

How realistic are the fire chances relatively? I see some people on the forums whinging that HE doesn't star fires but WP does. This seems....unlikely in that I'm sure no one shoots WP at warships...

AniThyng wrote:How realistic are the fire chances relatively? I see some people on the forums whinging that HE doesn't star fires but WP does. This seems....unlikely in that I'm sure no one shoots WP at warships...

WP? Do you mean AP?

I've found that HE often causes fires, just because you fire a full salvo of HE shells and you're statistically bound to get a fire fairly often. AP shells can start fires too just not as often...the same way I scored a citadel hit on a cruiser using HE shells. It can happen, just not all the time.

Borgholio wrote:

AniThyng wrote:How realistic are the fire chances relatively? I see some people on the forums whinging that HE doesn't star fires but WP does. This seems....unlikely in that I'm sure no one shoots WP at warships...

WP? Do you mean AP?

I've found that HE often causes fires, just because you fire a full salvo of HE shells and you're statistically bound to get a fire fairly often. AP shells can start fires too just not as often...the same way I scored a citadel hit on a cruiser using HE shells. It can happen, just not all the time.

No I did not typo, someone claiming to be ex army artillery literally claimed that you have to shoot white phosphorus at ships to set them on fire. And I'm familiar with the game mechanics aspect, I'm asking about historical fire chances and causes.

Other realism complaint oddities include asserting that steel ships shouldn't catch fire, that destroyers are much tougher than in game,

Well, white phosphorus is not an round in WoWS. I imagine they're avoiding it in order to keep things simple in-game and simply incorporating a fire-starting mechanic into their rounds (so and so percentage for HE, less of a percentage for AP). I'm not familiar with WP rounds for warships; I imagine Skimmer might be more knowledgeable about that.

Yeah I know it's not in game... I'm certain they didn't shoot any WP shelld they do carry st ships either...

I'm actually not aware of any WP shells for naval artillery. They did have bombs and mortars but I don't know of any shells, and a quick search doesn't show any evidence it was used on ships for more than just testing purposes.

Borgholio wrote:I'm actually not aware of any WP shells for naval artillery. They did have bombs and mortars but I don't know of any shells, and a quick search doesn't show any evidence it was used on ships for more than just testing purposes.

I found a reference to WP shells being fired (or at least produced for) US 5" Mark 12 guns - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5%22/38_caliber_gun - but it mentions the incendiary effect a secondary to their smoke-producing qualities.

Finally got the Japanese dreadnought BB Kawachi. I think I am in love with Battleships as my first match ended with me sinking 3 enemy ships. My only complaint is the lack of range but I love the repair ability.

If you think the Kawachi is good then not only have you had a deprived childhood, but also there is something seriously wrong in your soul.

It is probably the worst ship in the game (that isn't the Albany). Everything can outrange it, even most of the destroyers, it's inaccurate as shit and twice as slow.

Every other battleship is better to use.

That seems to be what I've heard mostly, yes.

I continue to have some woes with the Phoenix, mostly because it's still a lot lighter than the St Louis.

Also, fucking Tenryu cruisers. I'd love to drive one, but as for going against them... grr.

Oh Kawachi sucks but I'm much better with it than cruisers. It's speed and range are particularly bad.

IIRC (but don't quote me on this) Japanese ships have slightly better guns; it's just the number of them that tends to be lacking. They also have slightly better torpedoes. Where American ships come out on top is they're a little tougher and tend to have more guns.

Some Japanese ships can have a fairly insane range-- the Myogi, IIRC, goes up as much as 15km (which is probably nothing compared to Yamato and Montana, I know).

Do you get more XP for playing PvP versus PvE?

Elheru Aran wrote:That seems to be what I've heard mostly, yes.

I continue to have some woes with the Phoenix, mostly because it's still a lot lighter than the St Louis.

Also, fucking Tenryu cruisers. I'd love to drive one, but as for going against them... grr.

The Phoenix and Omaha being lighter and more lightly armoured than the St. Louis doesn't matter if you don't let things shoot back. Hover around your maximum gun range and pepper them with shots, Phoenix outranges basically every cruiser it sees and many of the battleships as well and it's fast enough to deny them the opportunity to close.

Before too long you'll be landing most of your shots on target (because Phoenix and Omaha are silly accurate even at long range) and surviving into the late stages of basically every game.

Vendetta wrote:If you think the Kawachi is good then not only have you had a deprived childhood, but also there is something seriously wrong in your soul.

It is probably the worst ship in the game (that isn't the Albany). Everything can outrange it, even most of the destroyers, it's inaccurate as shit and twice as slow.

Every other battleship is better to use.

Kawachi isn't exactly good, but I actually enjoyed it more than the Myogi. Kongo makes them both look like pathetic abominations, of course.

St Louis Fucking rules that is all.

If you are playing battleships, be aware that for some tiers - say US Tier IV-VII - the upgraded lower tier is actually significantly better than the unapgraded higher tier. I found that out the hard way - especially because the stock hull has no AA and 4 km less range than the lower tier.

I do no understand it. The Yubari is a terrible ship. Terrible. It's fast and it has good AA, but it's undergunned and it's torps have such a narrow firing ark. But I keep on having amazing games in it. It makes no sense.

Also, I'm instituting a new rule for myself. Stay the fuck away from low tier destroyers. They're more dangerous to me than to the enemy. Nearly got hit three separate times by the same damn destroyer when he launched his torps... at an enemy still 4 km out of his range.