What are everyone’s favorite tips for naval that maybe not everyone knows?
Here are some of mine:
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Unless you need first strike, don’t spawn immediately. Wait until you can look at the map and see where everyone is spawning, so you won’t get caught as the only target, and ships will already have selected targets when you spawn after 60 seconds.
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Dodge. Even with the dumbed down aiming system in AB, it’s still possible to dodge. Some ships can throttle juke well, while others can turn fast enough to be completely missed. Watch for the ship targeting you to fire. It’s usually easy to see and tell the difference from main and secondary batteries. Take that moment to maneuver.
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Use the right shells. An AP shell with 700mm or more of pen is great, but if you are targeting a destroyer, it might go completely through without detonating. Each shell’s stat card will show a fuse delay and sensitivity. The delay is how long after hitting an object the shell will detonate. Long delays may cause the shell to pass harmlessly through. Sensitivity is how many millimeters of armor are needed to cause the shell to detonate. I’d it’s 30mm, and you fire at an area with 10mm of armor, it will go in one side and out the other. Some nations, like Britain have very sensitive fuses with short delays, so they can attack lighter armored ships with AP shells. Remember that SAP shells act like HE if they don’t own, so use that to your advantage.
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Remember that you can manually target certain secondary and tertiary guns. The default is x+2 or x+3 respectively. This gives you the opportunity to maybe target a problematic PT boat or plane without taking your attention from your primary target. Pick the right shell types for those guns for the appropriate target.
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Turn off automatic damage control. If you want something on automatic, select it using the classic controls. Remember that your primary priority is usually going to be fires, so set that to automatic. If you see that the fire isn’t a shell room or magazine fire, you can always cancel it and repair something more important. Also, if you don’t want to chew through crew like crazy, don’t repair fragile AA mounts unless you absolutely need them. They take a lot of crew, and when the current crew is killed, the next group will happily man them and die as soon as they are repaired. Keep that in mind if you have a lot of small unarmored AA mounts.
You got any tips for using HE against cruisers? I have tried to get into naval, but getting 4.7 br destroyers constantly up against cruisers sucks when my gun don’t do any damage
If you can’t pen them with AP, you can use HE for few things. You can set a lot of fires, by concentrating on the superstructure. Shoot deck level or higher in the center of the ship. You can also use it to create floods by shooting lower in the extreme bow and stern. As a bonus, you can take out pumps making flooding worse,
Torpedoes can be an equalizer, but you don’t always get those. Your biggest advantage is speed and maneuverability, but just dodging shots all match isn’t very fun.
Is there a specific line you are trying to level? I’ve got all the blue water ships, so I might be able to offer some advice.
Aim bow or stern and hope you can flood them out.
Tips for battleships: ANGLE. DO NOT BROADSIDE. Russian dreadnoughts are the best example of this - They become exceptionally hard to penetrate if even slightly angled both due to the Icebreaker bow and the pretty uniform armor plates.
This carries from 6.3 with Poltava to 7.0 with Izmail. Both ships have relatively weak upper belt armor that becomes borderline immune at mid range to many opposing shells when angled.
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Do not spawn and immediately 90deg turn to launch torpedos. You’ll just waste them on your teammates hulls or get whacked by players who can’t avoid ramming you.
Learn to use smoke effectively. It is not a magical invisibility blanket, won’t work if you simply sail in a straight line away trailing it behind you , and it blinds your team as easily as the enemy.
Use manual damage control. The auto function is too sensitive and will attempt to fix damage that could.be left to quieter times, bleeding crew whilst doing so.
Don’t live in Zoom-only mode. It’s easy to miss planes, pt boats and torpedos if you focus on binoculars only. You are also more likely to hit obstacles and team mates which won’t earn friends if done frequently.
Learn to prioritise enemies. The biggest and baddest ships are not always the most dangerous Eg a little Japanese destroyer at the edge of the map can spoil many Battleships days with Long Lance spreads.
Use crew skills wisely. Speeding up damage control is a must but there are other considerations. French and Italian ships tend to have longer reloads so dropping a few points in early is a good idea, whilst fast firing British and US guns can wait for that last couple of bars. No good having strong AA on many Japanese vessels as all their smaller guns are generally secondaries.
Don’t expect your early games to be great. No crew skills, no map knowledge, naval gameplay is very different to air or ground…it does get better (at least as far as Gaijin allows it in what is essentially their unwanted step-child of a mode)
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