Please post your "tips and tricks" here

Machinery of War Discussion Navy
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I’d like to have a nice list of “tips and tricks” that new players and veterans alike can refer to. I play a ton of naval, and I’m still learning new things.

Here are a few of mine:

  1. Use smoke. I don’t see it a lot, and it really can help. What I see most is people smoking behind them while travelling broadside to a target. This doesn’t do anything but hurt your own teammates. it does nothing to cover you.
    Use smoke when you have substantially completed a turn away from whomever is shooting you. Once you’ve placed smoke between you and your attacker, continue to maneuver to port and starboard to throw off shots until you break target lock. Note that if you have radar, you can still see your target and shoot at them, but the same applies to them. It works best against ships without radar.

  2. Maneuver. You can substantially increase your survivability by changing course and speed. If you are unpredictable, it makes you harder to hit. At the same time, since you know what movements you are making, you can adjust your fire accordingly. It will decrease your DPS, but substantially less than being dead.

  3. Wait to spawn. Waiting between 30 seconds and 2 minutes to spawn, you will vastly increase your survivability. Players tend to fixate on targets and target the closest enemy. This is especially true if you are taking out a ship that would normally be a priority target like a Shimakaze, Scharnhorst, Des Moines, etc. Only experienced players are going to be looking for those ships after the initial spawn period and targeting them.

  4. Aim substantially short of your target at longer ranges. I see this often at the beginning of the matches when no one can hit anything. It often leads me to getting the first hits and sometimes “first strike.”

  5. Angle. So many people just line up broadside and slug it out with another ship. Angle as much as you can. Sometimes it’s even worth it have some batteries out of firing angle if you can survive longer and stay in the fight. There are some rare exceptions, but most ships do much better angling to one degree or another. If you ship turns well, you can always turn to get your batteries in firing position, fire, and re-angle.

  6. Get in the cap. A lot of the maps have an obvious giant cap circle. Don’t be one of those players who sits just outside the cap circle. It doesn’t help you or your team.

  7. Don’t immediately start turning the spawn unless it’s clear. Look around. No one likes a traffic jam in the spawn, and turning immediately is the best way to cause one. Also, don’t just stop in the spawn. It’s annoying and unhelpful to the team. If you do get caught up with someone, pay attention to the fastest way to get untangled. It’s ok to reverse, turn, accelerate, or whatever you need to do. Watch what they are trying to do and complement their maneuver.

  8. Pay attention to shell selection. Remember that SAP acts like HE if it doesn’t pen. Remember that AP can overpen lightly armored ships. Sometimes spamming HE against ships with lots of AA and secondary mounts that aren’t well armored is a better way to kill the ship than trying to pen a small area and going for a magazine detonation. Know the weak points of your opponent and use the shells that best exploit them.

  9. Triage your repairs. Fires can wait if it isn’t near the ammunition. Sometimes you might want to get flooding under control first. If you are close to reloading, it sometimes makes sense to wait for the reload, fire, and then repair. This is especially true the longer your reload is. Remember that flooding repairs have two components, sealing the breach and pumping out water. If you are desperate, you can stop the repair after you seal the breach, and pump out the water after putting out a fire or firing some rounds.

  10. Make anything killing your AI ships a priority target. If an aircraft or PT boat can sneak into the area, they can single-handedly win the game. Pay attention to the map, and if you see anything there, communicate it to the team or go take care of it yourself. Sometimes, it’s worth it to leave your ship and spawn a fighter to take out a bomber that’s devastating your team.

Please feel free to add what you think is important. Good hunting.

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Your guide is very thorough and informative. But I just have one thing to add, if you came from a game like World of Warships where destroyers can go toe to toe with heavy cruisers, throw that information in the bin, you will get mauled haha

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I really wish smoke worked more like it does in WoWs (and real life for that matter) where all the smoke just comes from the smokestack and completely envelops the ship. Currently it just comes from the stern and its really weird and hard to use unless, like you said, you do a full turnaround.

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I see a lot of people aiming centre mass or at the front of the ship, but rarely at that rear. Dont neglect the rear half of the ship, hitting things like the rear ammo racks and boiler room does a lot of damage

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G’day, apologies in advance for mistakes (uuuugh the magpies & blue faced honeyeaters having an aerial battle woke me up early).

Your 5th point on angling doesn’t particularly work for all ships as if they’ve got raised bows, lowered stern or safety railings these may make it impossible to return fire when angled & not a full broadside or you’re angled but one mount is off centred to the rest so it fires over the target.

Also when first spawning in & this applies to the 7th point in that to angle you must turn but inadvertently cause another honda point in the process.

Still these are some points I can think of, RB wise.

No. I, priorities meta targets,

I see this often in that people will target a non meta bottom of the barrel ship at a longer ranger over top of the line meta ships far closer & far far mor dangerous to themselves.

Take example there’s a USS Hoquiam at 6000 metres but there’s a JDS Yūgure at 4000 metres & is shelling said player, What you should do is target the destroyer over the frigate.

No. II, mines/ depth charges

Only take mines at the start of a match if using a slow vessel (e.g M-1935), I see it often that players are still carrying exposed mines late game which only seals their fates quicker.

Similar depth charges: if you don’t intend to use them, don’t carry them. I see people with them on external mounts yet show full broadsides with them loaded up (if you do carry them & go broadside at distance then drop them quickly).

disclaimer if on a MTB or that one corvette with internal rails, it shouldn’t matter to much as the MTB’s are fast enough & can drop them in a pinch & the corvette is slightly protected to shrapnel.

No. III, firing methods

Rangeing shots is an excellent alternative mode to full broadsides allowing for slower cannons to be spread over the reloads or so for a constant stream of shells over the full reload of x amount of cannon on short reloading cannons.

A good trick for fighting meta ships in non meta ones as you can can keep up the fire rate vs their standard fire rate, also good in HAA guns when firing at aerial targets coming towards you.

Also ranging turret shot is useful for dreadnoughts as well but more useful for when you’ll not reach the last cannon before recycling to the starting cannon (noticeable on the Atlanta class CLAA).

No. IV, ammunition loads

Niche bit but for ships armed with 3"/50 Mk. 22 cannons, you can take two belts & your magazines are empty, I guess that’s what the bloody devs get for making them belts instead of single shells (afterall that’s what the X-rays shows for the feeding system).

Similar but more in general, you can reduce ammunition in magazines so to lower the chances of catastrophic destruction or a crippling fire.

No. V, AA

If your ship has no LAA/HAA, stick close to AA ships, but also since many players come in at such LA you can main your primary & secondary armament to shoot at incoming aircraft with mixed results

This especially noticeable for the HMS Glorious in that the secondary battery is better at AA than the tairtary battery AA, a boardside of twelve 102 mm/45 BL Mk. IX over the two 76 mm/45 QF 3" 20cwt HA Mk. I AA (if only the 4" cannons got shrapnel shells).

Also if your ship does have AA, then use it & don’t ignore it especially if the AI are opening up as by ignoring it you can lead yourself to ruin by not taking carry of that poxy Greif looking at dollars last video.

No. VI, radar

Use your radars, if you’ve got a search radar then you can be ready to defend yourself.

If you’ve got search radar & tracking radar, be ready to target your enemies & fire upon them even if with just HE shells.

Don’t just follow the lead indicator, with HAA spread shots around it for maximum shrapnel damage.

niche bit but some radars can detect submerged weaponry.

Another point is a radar will tell if there are rockets in the air, this is especially helpful if fighting an adversary with ASW rockets like the m/50 or RBU-6000, which can help you prep for an incoming barrage or manoeuvre out of the way if they’re launched at range.

No. VII,

Aviation wise,

Clouds, If the map has clouds then make use of them as if flying in over above them the AI won’t fire upon you & will only do so if you break the cloud level.

I’ve been able to sink ships in dive bombing with the use of clouds on many occasions & this especially helpful if in a squad with squad markers as your squadmates can pin point a target.

Only drawback is if the enemy has radar & tracking you or is just aware (so few people are).

Niche side tip again but if with an F4U, use your landing gear as dive brakes when using it as a dive bomber.

A historical point & the gear is rated for like 700 ish kmph.

No. VIII, torpedo depth

Remember what you set your torpedoes depth to before playing a match, very little point is having it set to 1 metre at 7.0 but the same can be said for setting it to 4 metres at 3.0.

No. IX, tasks

If a challenge requires a Rank III machine, an aircraft will count, Play the ship first then use the aircraft to rack up the points.

Similar you can select a Rank III or event Rank II but quickly switch to a Rank I to grind said points as well.

No. X, survival of catastrophic damage

In the case of taking a torpedo & surviving nor getting the poxy bloody stupid unrepairable breach, Stop & or reverse all engines & turn away from the hole damage to reduce the flooding & stop completely so as to save the ship before getting underway again even if under shell fire (turning away & dumping smoke before stopping can be helpful).

Similar can be said for taking heavy bombs especially AP ones.

E, forget this useless blasted stupid point, I’m just a moron that doesn’t test things first over continuing to play normally ffs.
No. XI, Console moron corner

Console point, but remember we cannot stop repairs so be extra careful to not have all three simultaneously going at the same time (reason crew skills are critical here).

These are ten points I can think of currently but I may add further if I think of others.

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best strategy is find the guy with the longest Kanji name and follow him entire match …if he starts shooting you with his machine guns back up and dont go over the hill or around the corner .

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My list of naval tips and tricks on War Thunder Wiki
(I know I’ll have to do an update to that, but still… most of the info is still relevant. Also: check the external links - there’s some quality content there as well :) )

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Very good points,

Spoiler

And one should also learn how to exploit bugs :)

Jokes aside, there’s one point I would like to add in regard to angling: sometimes people believes that showing the bow to the enemy would make their ship more survivable, like ppl usually do in WoWS. This tactics doesn’t work in WT, in fact, it actually makes the ship even more vulnerable.

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You can stop damage control by pressing and holding the corresponding keys

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That’s very true for most ships. Going bow in is not a great idea. Hopefully people play around with the penetration analysis to see what works best if they don’t have much experience.

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I bow in, but then angle when the shells are almost about to hit, get a lot of bounces this way, and can dodge most of the excess shells due to dispersion. The game engine is crap and so we should abuse it, if Gaijin didn’t want the abuse they would have fixed it by now… Smaller side note, 4.7 Brit DDs are fun even when bringing them in a 7.0.

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Don’t stand near a bomb.

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one thing i would like to add is that often if your main weapons are working it can be best not to repair as it will cause your AA to have the crew to move from the armored parts of the ship and will cause your crew to rapidly drop. this mainly Aplys to BB’s and BC’s but will have some use one weaker boats.

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Upon testing today, I’ve found you’re correct although I’ve had to set bindings & through testing it seems incredibly slow compared to computer players.

Why this isn’t a default setting for consoles is beyond me & for the past few years I’ve been using the multiwheel instead.

Now it just dawns on me how many times I could’ve saved a vessel over the years ffs especially on that poxy blasted stupid horrible bloody Tacoma class Frigate (more so when that stupid thing had a 54000 sl repair for some absolutely no daft reason by the decision of these poxy devs alone).

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What exactly does the “set distance” option? I put it on my mouse wheel.

Some years ago you could manually set the range before firing. Nowadays when I scroll the wheel: It just seems to adjust the gun traverse in relation to the calculated aiming point.

What is it good for?

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Pro tip :

Don’t play french navy.

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French navy is fine. Really good destroyers (I would say it’s 3rd or 4th best in the game), glass-cannon light cruisers (with all the pros and cons of that), shitty heavy cruisers, and a competitive battleships (if you play EU+CIS servers, where there’s enough players to avoid getting them constantly pulled into 7.0 matches, lol).

That said, France is a very bad starting nation, as it requires you to be knowledgeable about naval mechanics. Much easier to raise your skills on other nations before diving into French.

What exactly does the “set distance” option? I put it on my mouse wheel.

Some years ago you could manually set the range before firing. Nowadays when I scroll the wheel: It just seems to adjust the gun traverse in relation to the calculated aiming point.

What is it good for?

It’s used for Realistic Battles, where you can have an easier control over decreasing/increasing distance to the enemy vessel than you would with a default setting (pointing above/below the target)

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There’s an option on Options/Naval battles to enable it for arcade as well (Realistic Aiming)!

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For a “fine” navy, i don’t see it very much in battle. I can count my games with another French ship on the fingers of one hand. And here’s why : it’s not only the heavy cruiser are “shitty”. All the cruisers have no armor at all and speed is not a compensation to fill this void.

The armement have no particular abilities, only the Emile Bertin have some ammo which can pen some armor of cruisers in its category. But they all have the unfortunate tendency to be destroyed at the first salvo received.

And this is usually not enough to counter the incredible ability of French cruisers to be easily recognizable, which makes them prime targets for anyone looking for easy kills.

The only tactic to have a chance of doing something in a game is to hide behind an island. But since most maps have the spanw points in the middle of the mother far from everything, you just have to hope you’re on the right map.

And I can’t talk about battleships, because cruisers are so unbearable to play that I have not yet unlocked the Paris.

France is a very bad nation, not only for starting. Even the italians are more played.