USSR Coastal Fleet is Broken

Machinery of War Discussion Navy
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The USSR is ridiculously broken to the point you can’t leave spawn or die on first encounter.
SKR-7 can just shoot you on most maps, since there’s <7km distance between spawn and from very little to no cover at all. The vessel itself got no adequate answer in any other nation - rate of fire, amount of HE in shell, shell velocity, gun traverse rate, ability to carry good torpedoes and disgustingly broken RBU-6000 that destroy literally anything and everything on sight every single match and on top of that there’s great speed, acceleration and armor.
Pr. 204 even worse, she spawn with coastal fleet and got unbelievably low BR(not like there’s BR or ship that can deal with RBU-6000), 16mm hull and 14mm superstructure vs 20mm and 40mm guns what a joke.
Pr. 206 got best guns in game to kill anyone unlucky that can spawn at coastal fleet spawn, she’s also fast, got some armor and torpedoes.

There’s no comptetion with USSR vessels, there’s no countermeasures and/or analogues for such good weaponry, shells, armor and speed bundled in single vessel in any other nation in game. The RBU-6000 kill any ships on sight and doesn’t require any special “skills” from player and SKR-7 is literally free for all. What’s the point to have THAT MUCH BROKEN vessels/weaponry in game? It’s not fun to play against them and not fun to play with them.

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Gaijin gives 0 shits about naval, so shit like this stays in-game for literal years

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I made a post about the SKRs back in January this year, even went as far deep into the topic as digging out the damage model for the damn thing and posting the map of the crew distribution (in the last post of the thread)

But there was also some good, constructive discussion here, with a decent counter-arguments as for why the current balancing is fine, presented further down in the comments:

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They are certainly frustrating to play against. Even same BR destroyers do not do well against them a lot of the time. The only thing I can suggest, is to try to disable their guns. I know that’s easier said than done, but it’s the first thing I aim for.

I do not see them as much as I used to, thankfully. However, during every event I see the SKR-7/PE-8 combo come out and ruin everyone’s fun.

The PG-02 got nerfed quite a bit when it was over performing, but those Russian coastals seem to be immune to the nerf bat.

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Oh dear someone got killed and didn’t like it!!

SKR’s are 4.3, as are 206’s, so generally if you are playing them you are max uptiered - wtf do you think you should be able to fight them on an equal footing when they are 1.0 higher??

When you are uptiered you are generally screwed - in all modes - nothing to do with “USSR coastal fleet broken”

204’s have seriously limited guns - powerful when they do hit, but with plenty of problems of their own… your guns are much more versatile.

USA has a relatively homogenous coastal fleet based around 2.3 - 3.7 PT boats - they are very similar to each other, well armed for that BR and very versatile, but for more hitting power you need DD’s.

Skill issue.

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That’s somewhat interesting reading and the picture you made is both cool and useful.

Let me take a step back and expand context of my little whine how russians vehicles biased in russian game.

  1. Big bad bluewater fleet and tiny little coastal fleet are in the same puddle - no vessel from coastal tree deserve to be bullied by destroyers and/or cruisers, they should be separated.
  2. Lack of assets and gigantic gaps in number of researchable vehicles in coastal trees - SKR is only tip of the iceberg, it’s simply doesn’t have fair opponents with similiar characteristics(right now only Terra Nova can compete with SKR imo), same goes for other frigates/gunboats. So there should be much more vessels and both BR and RANK of vessels such as SKR rised after filling the gap. Right now all the suffer goes to big and slow subchasers like LCS, new one Japanese LCS, Peacock and M-802 they definitely can’t fight back SKR in ~7km distances right after spawn and game practically punishes subchaser players from spawning in matches with SKR. Same applied for boats as well.
  3. Lack of game mechanics - everything is point and click and it just doesn’t work, the issue with RBU-6000 is simplicity of it’s usage and power it delivers. You get in like 2km range to some target, simply put your crosshair on vessel or little higher with some horizontal adjustment and you golden, it’s not how it works in real life and it’s shouldn’t work like that in game since it’s not fun to play against. The rocket depth charges Fire Control System shouldn’t work against surface vessels, practically there shouldn’t be indication or way to accurately shoot RBU against surface vessels at all.
  4. Maps, amount of cover and game modes - right now maps are inconsistent in so many ways and should be reworked or deleted. Biggest issues are the distances between spawns, lack of cover for “big” coastal vessels and distances between capzones with literally one game mode after BR ~3.3 It’s a shame how many cool stuff just not getting explored played, game already has cool city map at like 1.0 BR only and intersting game modes with connected capzones - they should be expanded to higher BRs.
  5. Airplanes - they shouldn’t reload by timer, instead fly back to some ressuply zone around their airfield/CV or base. They should be limited in height they can climb, since guns can’t reach nerds in space and effectively fight back.

So, in the current meta SKR is unreacheable for boats, subchasers and all other frigates but SKR itself and maybe Terra Nova. No one can really compete with destroyers, but SKR (and SKR-7 especially, thanks to RBU-6000) does it best amongst coastal fleet vessels. Same thing with Pr. 204, RBU-6000 just wrecks everything and in some maps(golden bay for example) she can shoot from spawn to spawn.

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Well I won’t be trying to put a blanket over your head but yeah their “coastal” TT is pretty mean around +3.3 from MTB’s to corvettes & some frigates be their armament or damage model or both.

The Project 204 corvette which I’ve played a bit of definitely should be a 4.0 (hell it’s the BR I run it at with the larger 4.0 corvette), I don’t get how it keeps missing the BR increases that other weaker or average ships receive (I was shocked when the Restigouche class destroyer escort went to 4.0 but not this corvette???).

It’s weakness is the gun firing arcs, weak torpedoes, limited RBU-6000 charges & of course it’s susceptible to hullbreak from the stem.

IMO it’s just what the small craft spawn needs to fight those poxy german Minensuchbootes as to the locker with them.

Project 206, There’s no denying it’s the best 4.3 MTB in game with those twin AK-230 mounts are evil in cqc & 53-56 torpedoes that can range pretty far out, Of course the ammunition is limited & there’s a Volksmarine one so if both a USSR & DDR one are present they can duel each other out.

IMO the closest counters would be P-494/P-493, any boat with a mle 48 model 40mm/70 cannon from Germany or if you get lucky with anything with a two 40 mm/60 mounts, Of course anything larger then 500 tonnes can knock them out quickly

Well the Project 35 is defo OP more OP then any ship with automatic artillery pieces as others are either WWII vintage or are pure HAA mounts with weaker antiship ammunition, Of course the WWII mounts get APHE shells which can pen a Project 35 or Project 159 quite well yet those have ridiculous ammunition costs north of 3000 sl since they’re fired in belts meanwhile one place where the AK-726 mounts are OP is their ammunition is free/ 1 sl so that’s an economical boon.

Yes the Project 35 gets RBU-6000 which are devastating to any ship out to 6km the closest counters is the Köln class Frigate with it’s m/50 bofors 375 mm rockets, & that frigates cannons can come close to beating the soviet escort ships cannons as well.

The thing is tough as from what I understand it has a better DM than most similar ships in that the crew is spread out, has a cheap repair compared to similar & weaker ships.

Some call for it’s BR to be increased similar to how the P-493/P-494 have been for years now, I would agree however I would say their repairs instead be increased to how much the Type 41 AA Frigate used to be / or the Project 1331M corvette was for a few weeks and or the ammunition costs increased to either 20 sl per shell or force it to have belts that cost over 5000 sl similar to those WWII cannons.

Counters imo, Anything that gets SAP or APHE can be devastating to internals, Their magazines are weaker to hit so if you can aim for them try to, Or use similar ASW rockets to sink them or an AShM from range.

Of course not everything is broken many are average, above average & below average many come with their cons are do their pros.

The Project 183 is pretty average as MTB’s go, The two 2M-3 mounts are helpful to that BR & the amount of BB-1 it gets makes many large ship players have PTSD if one is sighted as those things just sneak up on everything before dumping the DC’s alongside.

The Project 1241.2 corvettes are average due to their weakest DM yet large size, low ammunition pool for the AK-176M mount, the rockets/ torps are weak while only it’s AK-630 can be considered OP but this thing is stuck at 4.3 & is EoL or for 6000 GE.

Project 206M is above average it’s like the Project 204 with it’s AK-725 but like it has limited forward gunnery arcs, has a 5700 sl belt which sucks so that limits it a bit in economical gains but its other gun is just a 2M-3 mount which does suck against vessels & aircraft if you man it imo.

Project 50 escort ships probably the most below average SKR in game especially Yenot the thing could be 3.3 while Rosomacha a 3.7 as both being 4.0 sucks for how weak they’re, There are destroyers with similar loadouts that are cheaper then these & come with better ammunition, These ships should be sub 4k sl (yet that won’t happen since we go by bloody rank based economics now).

Project 1331M ASW Corvette, Honestly above average could be 4.3 but the limited ammunition & speed coupled with a destroyer spawn hold it down at 4.0, The things tanks a bit of damage due to how limited yet spread out the crew is, Pretty much opposite of the smaller Project 1241.2 ASW Corvettes.

Project 159 is like the Project 35 just iirc slower but also only has the shorter range RBU-2500 rocket mortars it’s above average which was a powerhouse prior to the other ship & imo had the Project 35 been TT this escort ship should’ve been the squidron ship, The thing carries the same weakness as the other.

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USSR might have the best selection of BR4.0+ Coastal vessels, but at those BRs games are dominated by destroyers and even cruisers. Pr. 206 is probably the ultimate MTB/MGB, but it has a BR to match and is itself outgunned by corvettes, frigates and the SKRs.

Unlike the 206, the SKR doesn’t enjoy a coastal spawn and therefore spawns opposite proper DDs. While it can be disconcerting to be hit by the SKR’s automatic guns, they don’t do massive damage to real DDs. A great deal of the RP needed to spade my HMS Leopard was gained by beating up SKRs who were stupid enough to irritate me with their pea-shooter spam. Most SKR players can hold down the ‘W’ key, the fire button and maybe roll their face over the keyboard at the same time, while drooling from the corner of their mouth. The problem with that in the SKR is overheating the guns. Many SKRs who attracted the attention of my Leopard simply stopped firing after a while. Until I got my own SKR I thought it must be some massive reload on the autoloader carrousel/magazine, but no, it’s simply player idiocy. Fancy that. I can’t tell you how long the guns need once they’ve overheated, as I’ve never been stupid enough to jam my own SKR guns, but I can say HMS Leopard or any other 3.7/4.0 DD will end the SKR (despite the suspiciously generous DM the SKR enjoys) before it fixes its self-induced stoppage.

The RBU rockets can be devastating at close range, but why engage an SKR at point-blank range when any DD can blow it away at more sensible ranges? Even African Gulf doesn’t spawn DDs within effective RBU range of the enemy spawn. Top-rank DDs ought to be contesting the open water caps - which is where the game will usually be decided - not rushing into the confined spaces best left to coastals. I know you might encounter a big scary reserve DD if you sail the open seas, so many DD players rush into coastal waters where the AI manning their many autocannon can get kills of the rowing boats, punts, rafts and barges found there without needing to resort to any sort of ‘skill.’ Running into coastal vessels which can actually fight back at close range - like the SKR - is simply justice and a reminder that fast, powerful, ocean-going vessels shouldn’t rush into confined coastal waters as a default first choice.

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I’ll speak on this as someone decently far into the Soviet naval tree in terms of both coastal and blue water vessels.

I am not going to deny that as it stands, the USSR has probably the best top tier coastal fleet. Between the SKR-1, MPK, and Pr.206 family, they are absolutely stacked. It doesn’t hurt that the UK, USA, and Japan also lack true top tier coastal fleets, since their top ends peter out at around 3.7/4.0, while Germany, Italy, and USSR have coastal fleets that go on to 4.3/4.7 territory.

So at a bare minimum, half the problem is simply that three countries have an actual top end coastal fleet, and three don’t.

Beyond that, I also see a more broad issue in terms of how vessels are acquired and pitted against each other. Coastal vessel towards the end of the line tend to waver between coastal and blue water vessels. Further, in a lot of realistic battles, and definitely in Arcade, odds are your running a hybrid of coastal and blue water vessels. Since coastal caps out long before blue water does, any nation with a better top end blue water fleet, so Russia, Italy, or Germany, will have that advantage magnified. The fact that on domination game modes A point is usually reserved for coastal vessels tends to further magnify this. Of course, you also kind of need an objective that’s optimized for coastal vessels out of a necessity of balance.

Suffice to say, its a mess of gameplay that’s not the easiest to resolve.

Certainly the most expedient solution to at least lessen the problem is to introduce 4.0, 4.3, and 4.7 blue water vessels to all nations with naval forces, of both the fast attack and frigate varieties. If nothing else, this ensure everybody has a competing hand at those A point dog fights when all the blue water vessels arrive.

Long terms, some more critical and sustainable changes are probably needed, but establishing some basic parity is probably the best starting point.

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Current 4.3-5.0 DD’s are already there and can handle this “problem” already!

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Idea that bluewater fleet solve any problem of coastal fleet is pretty much idiotic, since coastal fleet can’t prorperly fight in any way, shape or form. Being outgunned, have no armor against big fleet and with just a chance to do something with torpedoes that works only against newcomers is simply dumb sort of gameplay and number of players, sessions, queue time in naval only proves it. Most of the times, bw ships will focus and kill on sight anyone they ouclasses with just a mouse click and game itself reward such behavior.

There’s another example of such “balance” - airplanes, they counter everyone. Just climb a little, use bomb sight and you golden. Does this means planes balancing ungodly broken coastal vehicles in same class and/or tree)? - no, abolutely not, it’s all ends up with one sided meta, get a kill/capzone → jump in airplane, deny yourself any fleet progress by using airplame and others as well.

To spice things up, you can end up in non meta(USSR) vessels against only bw ships in enemy team or versus a team full of coastal vessels, yet yours’ll be full of bw ships. You practically rolling the dice after each 1-5min queue to instalose w/o a chance to fight back/do something usefull at match start.

What can [USA]Tucumcari/Candid/Asheville/LCS/Cyclone, [UK] Peacock, Arrow, Fairmile do against bw ships and broken USSR coastal fleets mentioned earlier, what can they do again PE-8 at 6km height? MTB of all nations dies 99% of the times before having a chance to launch torpedoes. MGB are just ducked up. Japanees gunboats/frigates can’t compete either, 3inches or 2x120mm are pea shooters again bw fleet and SKR’. Asagao - lattest jp vehicle is such a bad joke, 20km/h in ab with “funny” barrage rockets that has no adjustable angles and pathetic 1km distance against pr. 204 with RBU-6000, you literally end up dead 20-40 seconds after spawn - BW ships has no probles killing big and slow vessels, same with broken USSR vessels.

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Well there’s some serious exaggeration

Clearly you have a skill issue that I don’t - I use PT boats in my DD lineups precisely because they are good on open maps catching largest vessels by surprise, and on more closed maps because their spawns among islands allow them to cap those islands, ambush from behind them and generally contribute to teh game.

Here’s a pro tip - not every vessel has to be good against every opponent, that’s why you are allowed to build lineups of vessels with various strengths and weakness, and use you (cough) skill to select which one to use in any given circumstance.

Your limited thinking shows that you need to work on force selection skills

Just more ridiculous exaggeration that highlights that YOU have a skill issue, not that anything is broken.

L2P

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bru stop playing stinky naval

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No way - Naval is a SL “gold mine” that finances everything else I do and still leaves me with millions!

And it isn’t even multi-level-marketing!

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It’s really both pathetic and dumb to try balance vessels themselves by some setups, lineups or whatever shenanigans you came up with. If player unlock vessel and get into a session he should be able to have some fight aka not be one shotted from DD at spawn or insta killed by broken USSR vessel. The idea to force player to play specific vessel is disgusting in so many ways in this game, what’s the point to unlock vessels with such logic? You’ll always need same most powerful vessels all the time, there will be no variety, nothing, it’s all end up in META gaming and that’s just pretty much sick justification of current combined gameplay.

It’s also really fun point about skill and expirience from guy that barely have 1 kill per match.

Feel free to compare yourself with me, gamer.

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nothing personal but for these broken ships, your stats look pretty bad, especially 4051 naval kills and over 3k of them were bots lmao…

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I’m not sure I understand the point. You’ve claimed that USSR coastal ships are broken and overpowered, and then gone on to claim that any coastal ship can easily be one shotted by a destroyer. It can’t be both.

The ships you are talking about are at the top tier of coastal. They can and should be able to perform better than any ship below them. SKR-1/7 can fight low-tier destroyers and do well against them, but of course they will be at a disadvantage.

Other coastal ships have great torpedoes. I’ve been taken out in a Scharnhorst by many a German or American PT boat simply because I couldn’t either see or hit them. They were not all top tier either.

I don’t know if you played back before the coastal boats split off from bluewater, but I don’t think you would have liked it much better. You had ships like the German K2 get a coastal spawn and absolutely wreck everything as it’s a mini destroyer.

We have maps now where coastal boats can spawn and go fight over a cap with other coastal boats long before destroyers get within range of them. Even then, those areas are very tight and lend themselves well to coastal boats ambushing destroyers with torpedoes.

I just don’t see a huge issue. Yes, the SKR’s are really good and annoying, but short of removing them, what is the plan?

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Not really.

Don’t get me wrong, they can help, but particularly with the MTB side of things, there remains a problem.

Lot of maps have highly unfavorable conditions for sailing blue water vessel around at least one of the objectives, which means the DD limited in its utility at the best of times. This is compounded by the issue of the MTB being on the objective as quickly as it can be. It gives that team an instant lead on said objective without a significant counter option.

If the matchmaking didn’t give you a comp with a good MTB lineup, you lost the early rush, and are at a pronounced disadvantage in points from there on out.

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Sure easy to say that M-802 uptiered

USS Douglas Missile nerf because USSR line up’s with Pe-8 + because is rank IV and BR 4.0 will be uptiered as hell

you need more no balance in naval from coastal to bluewater is a total s… show

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and funny thing that USSR coastal still have candidates that are superior to what they have now.

Just coastal itself is not a fair game from the start because of real life problem. Gaijin should not have start with coastal.

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