In 2021 they changed how RP reward is calculated for Naval. After this change, kills and assists credits are mainly important for tasks and challenges, but not for RP reward. Just keep in mind, SL rewards are still heavily based on kills and assists (only RP rewards were changed).
What is important right now in Naval is the damage, which affects the score the most. And the score affects the activity %, which affects time based RP reward.
So in short, the damage is the most important factor in Naval for RP gains.
They changed it, because previously players complained a lot about kill steals, and to be fair the new system makes some sense. I actually like it.
I just played a battle, focused on enemy AI bots, and I don’t see any difference to how it worked before, so I don’t think in the latest update they changed how RP reward works. It’s still the same, all about the damage.
Interestingly, my scores are higher now, but this makes sense, as AI bots now use higher BR vessels, so I’m not penalised as much by shooting them as before (BR difference is important for the score).
Just a few screenshots from my battle:
Spoiler
The only real difference I noticed is a higher score, which will actually help to complete events quicker.
I got 11k RP for this battle, with a premium account, but the vehicle is not a premium and doesn’t have a talisman, so in my opinion it’s a good result.