WoWS Q&A – 23rd March 2016

Thanks to Carnotzet
Hi again guys (and gals). Just wanted to let you know that there is really a lot of info on the Russian forums, so much in fact that I cannot keep up. Even now, it takes me quite long to translate all of the stuff, I’m but one man and there are a lot of devs on the other side. So if you’d be ok with it, starting from now, I will only translate interesting questions and questions that weren’t already answered in the Q&A (for the other threads, I will see how I can deal with that). I hope you won’t be too disappointed.
Q. What ratios do you use when calculating, for instance, the different distances in game (firing range, AA, etc.), ship speed, etc?
A. 1. The distances of the different ship values (what you see in the port stats – AA, firing range, etc) is multiplied by a factor of 2.
2. The speed of ships and shells is increased by a factor of 2-2.5, but, because all ship distances are also multiplied, the speed of ships and shells is close to 5 times that of reality. Shells a little more.
3. The speed of torpedoes is also affected by the speed of ships. Moreover, their speed values were taken from the “better” tests that were conducted in reality. It means that torps are considerably faster than ships, as you observed.
This was all done due to the fact that real naval battles could last for hours, if not whole days, and we had to compress that into a 20min battle.
Q. Why can’t we disable chat, like in WoT or WoWp?
A. Because we don’t want to “disable” socialization. So far, we prefer the chat to be a crossroad where cultures meet than a way to isolate players from one another.
Q. How does automatic AA work?
A. One ship’s AA can attack three different targets (if it has 3 auras). Each aura automatically chooses the most dangerous target (for instance, empty bombers flying back are seen as less dangerous than bombers setting up for an attack).

We still recommend to manually target planes since the bonus for manual targeting is getting increased from 1.1 to 1.3 in the next update.
Q. Why do Fubuki’s stock and upgraded guns have the same name?
A. It’s a game constraint. We needed a gun upgrade on the ship and we found nothing historically accurate. So it’s a little fantasy of ours.
Q. I looked at the Soviet cruisers and I wondered what plane are they equipped with?
A. Budyonny: Beriev KOR-2
Shchors: Shavrov KOR-2 (M-105)
Chapaev: Beriev KOR-3 (M-87)
Kirov: Nikitin KOR-2 (M-62)
Q. Why don’t you add the possibility to test-drive premium ships for one hour before purchasing them?
A. This is an interesting subject but, at the moment, it isn’t a priority for us. We can’t find an appropriate way to make automatic test-drives for now. We would like to resolve the issue but, as said before, it’s not in the top of our priority I’m hopeful it will be implemented someday.
Q. How is the development for PVE modes going?
A. We’re working on it, but it’s currently in the background. We will tell you more about it as soon as we have developed it more substantially.
Q. Regarding the problem of shooting at enemies above an island (enemy stands at 17km, island at 4-5 from me, enemy at 7-9km from the island). From a 12 shell salvo, only 1 shell flies above the island, the others hit the island as if I had targeted it. Is it a bug and when will you fix it?
A. It appeared the problem is more complicated than anticipated. Moreover, we had a lot of work lately so we couldn’t find the time to fix it. I very much hope it will be fixed in 0.5.6.
Q. When will you add the x-ray function which allows us to see where citadels are and what is the armour thickness of different parts of the ship?
A. We’re still working on it and, if everything goes according to plan (this is not final!), it should be added in patch 0.5.5.
Q. A long time ago, you planned to sell flags for doubloons, any news regarding this matter?
A. We tried to sell flags for doubloons for a time but the negative feedback was tremendous (it was perceived as a over-the-top greedy move) so we gave up on the idea.
Info from the 0.5.4 thread

  • Regarding turret destruction (in particular to DD’s), devs don’t want to simply make them indestructible but prefer to find another solution to turret incapacitation. It won’t be added before 0.5.6. though.
  • Kutuzov won’t be equipped with radar, her “speciality” is the smoke screen. She would be too strong with radar.
  • Chapayev doesn’t have repair party, only Donskoy and Moskva.
  • We won’t be given a free slot with the release of Ru/Soviet cruisers as one free slot is given for each nation, not for each line.
  • The “Yubari” test ship is used to test maps in the training room. We can quickly sail around maps and fire at terrain from various angles, and test model collisions.
  • Dual purpose secondary guns (NOT dual purpose main guns) will be destroyed less frequently.
  • Teamkilling and Matchmaking problems are currently the top priority.
  • Arpeggio events will continue on the RU-servers since the feedback was either neutral or good.[whether that means it will only continue there, I don’t know. Let the speculations begin!]
  • The longer maintenance times (compared to WoT or WoWp) are due to the shortcomings of the client. They are testing a recompressing system on the ST, which should cut down maintenance time. If everything goes as planned, it should be available in 0.5.5.
  • Various changes were made to Ru/Soviet cruisers since they were tested but they won’t disclose what was changed. So their final stats may be different that what was datamined and tested.
  • With the change to AA manual targeting (1.1 to 1.3) the maximum modifier you can get is 7.8, instead of 6.6 before.​

​Manual targeting (1.3); captain skill (2.0); defensive fire (3.0). 1.3x2x3 = 7.8 (remember the maximum modifier only applies to dual purpose guns as the captain skill doesn’t affect other AA guns).

  • Arpeggio Kirishima will be released in April if possible. Not earlier than that. [Remember they’re talking about the RU server so don’t get your hopes up needlessly]
  • Profintern won’t be released with 0.5.4.
  • Sapain will be available to good CV players through personal offers . More info on that later.