We all know that Naval is the unloved stepchild in War Thunder.
It gets barely any stuff and the new quite important unrepairable hullbreak wasn’t shown in the patch video, but hey at least we know Smoke comes out of tank barrels now.
Okay rant aside, I’ve made an extensive list already in the old forum, sadly the forum was closed.
Anyway, since I like this mode I want to improve it and here are some features that have to be added and some suggestions for improvements, everyone else feel free to add your ideas.
And I’ve to give credit where credit is due, the recent changes especially with repair and fire fighting can be done without having it researched have made this game SO MUCH MORE BAREBALE! THANK YOU!
Features we need.
- A coastal-ship-only mode and/or massive decrease of the grind.
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From a BR 3.0+, you begin to face blue water ships
The first ones aren’t really the problem but since you can get up tiered easily you face with your tiny puni ship, huge vessels that blows you out of the water with one shot.
That makes no fun, especially if the grind and for coastal ships is insane.
I have no problem if someone brings his coastal torpedo ship with him to fight big ones, but what should I do with the new “Drache” ship? I makes no damage against the big ships, are easy to hit, can barely manoeuvre and their waters are contested by the bigger ships.
Also, how is it fair that for example, the Pr. 206 at BR 4.3 cost me 320K research and 860K Silverlions and the huge freaking Scharnhorst at BR 7.0 390K research and 1mio Silverlions.
They aren’t comparable, so either make a coastal-only mode or reduce the grind for the coastal MASSIVELY! And I mean MASSIVELY!
- Toggle for controlling secondary weaponry.
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You have to introduce the ability to switch between the control of the secondary armament.
Not only does the game can’t remember which ship I want to use which mode, in control or not of the smaller guns.
But I need a dedicated key so I can control them or give them to the AI.
And not press escape, go to control turn it on/off and back into the game.
It wastes time and shouldn’t be a big problem.
This is crucial if I am in Battle and I see a plane incoming I hand over the secondary to the AI so I have a greater chance to kill the plane.
2.1 Secondary AI should be able to choose ammo type based on which enemy they are fighting.
You need to give the AI Some logic that it shoots ships with the HE, APCB, SAP, etc. and the plane with HE-VT etc.
- Get rid of the lock enemy with a left click.
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I don’t know how many times I have had an enemy locked, I want to shoot, press left click and I lock some random ship in my sight.
Or give me at least the option to turn it off!
- Follow Shell/Torpedo with a klick.
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That is something that baffles me totally.
I can follow in a plane my bombs, rockets, torpedos and so on with the press of a button.
But I can’t do it while playing ships? Why? It makes absolutely no sense at all.
Also, I can follow my shells by holding my left mouse button, if the option is activated
But why this clunky way? Why don’t you give us the ability to follow the last fired shell with a press of a button, like planes have with bombs?
- Secondary and AA shooting at rockets.
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Since more and more ships are getting their rockets, the AI should be able to track and shoot them.
They don’t have to be super duper precise but you need at least to get the chance to fight those things off.
5.1
Oh since we are on the topic of ships and rockets, why the hell are ships with clearly moddled rocket launchers not having them? Like the German Albatros or the Japanese Chikugo?
I hope you give ALL Nations Rocket ships and not only premium and Soviet Ships.
- Improve the HUD.
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I am sorry to say but the hud is still not great for ships.
What do we need?
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Hit/Bounce/Penetration/Damage indicators.
I have to say look at World of Warships, you get “badges” if a shot bounces, penetrates, does damage and so on. -
Clear markers who made which damage.
More than once I shoot a ship and See some crew vanishing, see modules destroyed etc.
But did I do the damage? Was it someone before me?
Also if you add this information give a nice reward and message/information if you managed to make ammo explode, be it from a direct hit, fire, etc. This should be rewarded with extra cash, since on higher BR many ships don’t tend to blow up altogether if the ammo rack is hit. -
First Ammo Storage Counter
Like in tanks, I need to know when my first ammo storage is depleted.
Give me a counter under the reload timer circles to see how many shells are left in my first ammo storage.
- Double-clicking for ammo change.
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More than once I’ve clicked too early for another shell and had to reload all my guns again.
This sucks especially if your ships reload for 30 seconds and more.
Here again, I have to point to World of Warships.
Make it like them, one click on the ammo, makes it ready and after the next shot, they load the new round.
If I double-click it loads the shell, no matter if I am reloading or I have a shell already loaded.
This feature would be nice for tanks too.
- Improved damage model.
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This is necessary for every single vehicle and mode in this game, but ships need it the most.
It needs to be way more refined, and sophisticated.
Just because I shoot a plate not 20 Meters of it is suddenly useless.
The interior of ships needs to be modelled way better, many things influence the way a ship behaves, crew quarters, floors, etc.
Sure you can’t model every single room, door, hallway etc. but a bit more would be nice, especially with the new flooding mechanic.
Oh and could you please improve the optical damage model?
It lacks a lot of … everything.
- Destructable environement.
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You have the technology please use it in Naval.
It is just ridiculous if you are shooting with shells several hundred kilos in weight and 50 kg of TNT against buildings, lighthouses, etc. and they don’t even have a scratch.
Btw. since we are at this topic, could you please rework this? You’ve never really touched it after introducing it, and it doesn’t look good, which is sad and makes the hard work the devs have put in, just … wasted.
- Ramming in the Spawn
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This isn’t a problem from the game in itself but it would be so freaking awesome if in the beginning the ships would be like ghosts and you can drive through them because some folks always turn right in the spawn and crash into you.
- Different tasks for blue water and coastal fleet
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Many tasks for naval can’t be done by the blue water fleet, like capturing multiple points, octopus, etc.
You have to create new ones, especially for the blue water fleet.
- Disconnect pumping out water and sealing hull breaches.
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When you are trying to get rid of water in your ship and someone shoots a new hole in your hull, your ship stops pumping and the hole needs to be fixed first.
That makes no sense at all.
I am talking a bit out of my **** now, but I know the bilge pump is automated.
Sure first you have to fix the hole before you pump, but you can pump and fix the hole at the same time, especially when the pump is already running.
Many times I am waiting for the water to be pumped out just to see action stopped because I get a new tiny hole and my crew needs to repair it.
What are they doing? Stopping the pump before fixing the hull?
Come on, I have no problem with more water flooding my ship, because my bilge pump not managing to pump faster than the ship is running full, but for piet’s sake, if my ship is already pumping the water and I get a new hit, don’t stop it!
- Damage control timers make no sense
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When your ship is burning, needs repair or water needs to be pumped out you have a timer.
The more you have to do, it longer it takes, okay that makes sense since the crew has to do multiple things at once.
But why the freaking hell do the timers jump up so massively?
Especially if you hit another “fix” action.
Your ship is burning, it’s only one second away from being put out, I press repair or pump the water and suddenly the fire spikes up to 16 seconds or more.
The same goes for pumping and repairing.
What the hell?
What is the damage control team doing? The ones being diverted to another task just throw a molotov? Or throw several buckets of water into the ship?
- Forcinig to repair
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The second the citadel of the ship is hit you can’t control your ship.
Okay, I get it, even if think this is stupid because there would be still a way to tell the engine room what to do, maybe it would take more time, but it would be possible.
But for gameplay reasons, I can accept the fact that I lose control over my ship when my bridge is hit.
But why the hell do you force me to repair it? Especially since it makes every other damage control so much longer.
I’ve drowned or burned down because suddenly I am forced to repair my citadel, while my ship is being flooded from a torpedo hit.
- Combine capping speed with tonnage.
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Like the User Cheeky_Scrublord suggested in his post further down, would it be good to make the speed of capping depending on the ship’s tonnage.
So small boats can’t just quickly cap, while the big ships can’t get to the point because they are too slow or the cap point gets taken right in front of them.
Now to my suggestions.
I have some Ideas that could probably improve the game.
- Capture Points should repair your ship.
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Call me crazy, but if you are brave enough to sail to one of the cap points under heavy fire, since most players especially in high-tier blue water tend to camp in their spawn, you should be rewarded.
And since we have a new flood mechanic, the cap points would be way more important and helpful.
They don’t need to repair you in an instant, but slowly repair one module, hullbreach etc. after another.
It would be also fair since the planes can be half destroyed, land on a field and get fixed into a crisp state.
So why can’t ship have this? At least the big ones.
1.1 “Help” capture even if you are outside.
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I bet all of the naval players have had this situation.
You are capping a point but your ship is too sluggish to break in time and you “overshoot” the point even if you have capped 90% you get nothing, while the other that just dipped its toe into the point gets the rewards.
You should be rewarded for the amount you’ve captured, even if you get outside for some reason short before the cap is done.
- Allow Planes with higher BR for naval.
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I don’t really understand the problem with high BR Planes in Ship combat.
Many ships have strong AA capabilities and flying with a slow prop plane makes it many times impossible to come close.
Also, other weapon combinations for planes would become more important.
Like the GBU, Kormoran missile etc.
Also, it would be fun to hunt down huge ships with my Tornado, SU or A-10.
Or maybe even put Air Battles above ship battles.
2.1 Add helicopter for high BR Naval.
They can hunt down little torpedo boats, and damage big ships and since you are above open water you are quite vulnerable to planes, giving them more stuff to hunt down in the sky.
2.2 SAM for Ships.
I know there are ships with SAMs, which could give you a completely new lineup of ships you could introduce.
- Radar-Lock should improve the AAs on ships.
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When your ship has a radar and it can lock on planes, it should make hitting it much easier since you have a system that assists you and it would tie perfectly into the suggestion to add higher BR-Planes.
- Help extinguish burning friendly vessels.
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We can do it already in tanks, somehow, but we can’t help our burning mate right next to us in a burning boat.
Please give us the ability as we have in tanks and make it look really cool with the water streams firing from one ship to another.
Btw. why don’t we have an animation for fire extinguishing?
- Night Battles.
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I know they are hated in Tank mode, but I freaking love them and if you’ve played a match with big ships all firing their AA in a night to kill a plane, it looks like freaking Star Wars and it’s amazing, and we could put the big lamps to good use.
- More/better modes.
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From planes to tanks, all suffer from a lack of good game modes.
Why don’t you make us hunt a third nation in the fleet? Like “Who can kill more ships from this enemy convoy” but they actually move and evade fire etc.
So we have a third “player.”
- Research coastal with blue -water and vice versa (or everything)
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As you did with tanks and choppers, you could give us the ability to research the other tree(s).
To be honest I should be able to research anything with everything I have.
I should be able to research a new plane with my ship, or my tank with a plane etc.
Also over nations, since many nations have BR where they lack a lot of stuff or are just pain to play.
But since this will likely never happen, give us the ability to research the coastal fleet with my blue water one.
Since the grind, there is just abysmal.
- Tonnage reward.
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You should get a reward for killing something above your weight class, especially as a torpedo boat.
I don’t mean like “skill matters” but if you kill a freaking cruiser or even a battleship with a smaller boat, you should get rewarded handsomely.
I mean if a 161 t torpedo boat blows up a nearly 38 000 t battleship, you should get more than just a few Siverlions and this would also reward players playing with coastal ships in high BR.
- Submarines
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Please introduce them!
I know they haven’t been liked much in the “April Fools” but they are heavily needed, especially in HBR.
Many of the big ships are camping in their spawn sniping from several kilometres away and one hitting smaller ships.
And you can sell more premiums ;)
- Better-looking water.
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The water in War Thunder, I am sorry doesn’t look good.
World of Warship, Sea of Thieves etc. look so much better.
Last and maybe funny Idea.
12. Call in for Arty.
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Yes, I know this is probably never going to happen, since it would require a bit of rework of game mechanics and systems but I think it’s funny sooo…
I hate arty in tank battles, I wish we had arty tanks or would use those tanks like they are designed and not as “tank destroyers”
Anyway but a tiny crazy idea, if a tanker calls in for arty, why not give a player with a ship a “request” and he can accept or deny it.
If the naval player accepts, he “aims” for the spot something in the distance and shoots a couple of times.
This would generate shells in the tank battle and if he kills someone the player in the ship gets a reward.
I know Naval isn’t the most lucrative part of WT.
But it is not only due to lack of interest, but also a lot because of the neglect.
It feels like you’ve implemented it just to grab some fans of ships and boats, but didn’t put as much thought into it, like in air or tanks.
And I also don’t want to deny the improvements you’ve made to this mode, but it needs a lot more.
Please, as one of the “last” naval players, could you please dedicate one big patch mostly on Naval?
Rework many of the problematic mechanics, rework the maps, and give us new nations, ships etc.
Improve the servers, graphics etc.
I like this mode but it could be so much better, and we know you can do it.
So please Gaijin.
Edit: For better readability, added some of my old suggestions and here is the link to the old forum post.
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