Grand WoWS Q&A – 3rd July 2016: French Ships

Seb: I am sorry guys for missing out on this. Lost 3 days with several RL priorities, and this is among the last things needed to do for catching up. Needless to say, several Q&As appeared (resulting in a huge post):

Thanks to Carnotzet, Nibloke.

Disclaimer: please be reminded the following information comes from the Russian-speaking community and therefore statistics found in this post may not apply to other communities. 

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1. Why doesn’t Indianapolis have a torpedo belt whereas Pensacola and New Orleans do ?

A. Because it was not added when the ship was built. Moreover, the ship as it currently stands is relatively well balanced. That means that, currently, we don’t see the necessity to change her historical accuracy and add elements she didn’t have in reality.

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2. Does targeting a ship for secondary guns to fire at increase their accuracy (not taking into account the 15 pts skill) ?

A. No, it doesn’t. It simply force the secondary guns AI to shoot at a specific target instead of choosing it itself.

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3. Why do Cleveland‘s characteristics are gimped compared to older ships ?

A. Cleveland‘s characteristics are purposely reduced so she can stay at tier 6, instead of being at tier 8, which would be more suited. However, we didn’t felt it right to break gun caliber “progression” when we created the USN line.

As a tier 6 ship, she is excellent and quite popular, or rather, it’s the most popular tier 6 cruiser. She’s second in win rate and at the same level as her concurrent in terms of average damage. Naturally, she’s unrivaled when it comes to AA defense.

Improving her characteristics while  keeping her at tier 6 would break balance. We would like to move it to tier 8 but there’s the risk it would inconvenience the players who own her. Moreover, it would requires the alteration of a well-established branch (or the addition of an alternative one). Currently, we’re not working on that and don’t plan to.

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4. When can we expect clans ?

A. We don’t have any information to disclose for now. This feature is in development for a long time but we’re not ready to give any release date yet.

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5. Can you give us more information about the planned development of the commander’s skills ?

A. I don’t really have a precise answer. Currently, we’re focused on the matchmaker, certain complex problems regarding the game logic, a new ship  branch, and a few other interesting things. These are the aspects we are currently spending most of our time working on. Expanding the commander skills beyond 18 pts is only in a design stage for now, in other words, we will work on it later. But we will develop this aspect without a doubt. We are aware that, as time passes, the more this question becomes relevant.

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Since there was a question about the delay on SA and it was already answered in a previous Q&A, I only added new information regarding this matter without detailing the whole question.

• changes to smoke planned for 0.5.9 will include improvements made to the visibility of the smoke laying ship at various speeds.

Some information coming from the 0.5.8 bulletin thread.

• The damage counter will include all damage inflicted (fires and flooding included).
• Turret catapults (Wyoming, New York, etc.) are not ready yet, hence why they aren’t in this patch.
• Regarding the armour model facelift, here is an example of how they improved it. (The new model follows the ship geometry more accurately).

• Regarding the possible issue of xp farming on forts in bastion mode, they will gather statistics to balance credits and xp rewards. However, this process will take about one or two updates.
• Here is a list of all the guns that will be able to rotate at 360° after the update (the number represents the turret number, starting from the bow).

• Forts and ground objectives won’t be permanently destroyed. After having received certain damage, they will be temporarily disabled and will award victory points. They don’t want to explain all the rules of this new mode. They are more interested in the feedback it will receive from the PT, including how easy it is to understand without any previous knowledge.
• Players won’t be able to opt out of the new game mode.
• German BB’s are coming in one or two updates. They’re still in development.
• No upgrade depot planned in the foreseeable future.
• Ranked battles matchmaker will not be changed with this update. The new rules will only apply to random battles for now.
• They may give players the option to choose between the new ribbon style or the old one. It will all depend on PT feedback.

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1. Do you plan to do something regarding Japanese DD’s and Tashkent ? Or have you decided they will remain as they are ?

A. They will remain as they are.

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2a. I ran some tests regarding torpedo damage by launching torps with Smith on different ships. Several questions arose during these tests. The standard torpedo damage on Smith is 6033. When firing at the bow of New York, Aoba, Nagato, Amagi and Yamato, after 1-3 torpedoes, the damage was always the same, 2699, that is 45% of the standard damage.

Is it safe to assume that all the following torpedoes that will hit the “dead” section, their damage will be 45% of the standard damage ?

A. No, your calculations aren’t exactly right. Torpedo damage is divided into alpha damage and splash damage. In port, the value is the sum of both these damage. If a torpedo hit the bow or stern of a ship, it inflicts full damage (1/2 from alpha damage to the bow/stern, 1/2 from alpha damage to the general section [where fire and flood damage is stored] + splash damage depending on the area the torpedo hit).

When the bow/stern HP are depleted, torpedoes will do reduced damage (1/2 alpha damage to the bow/stern will not be inflicted anymore, damage to the general section and possible splash damage remain though). Therefore, we can broadly say that a destroyed section will take half damage from torpedoes. However, if the ship has received all the damage to one section, there is a chance that the general section HP will be depleted as well. In that case, the ship may not receive any damage at all. This is sometimes the case with destroyers receiving a tight spread of torpedoes to the same section which gets destroyed fast and thus enables the destroyer to survive several torpedoes.

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2b. Another strange thing was that New York and Amagi needed only one torpedo to have their bow damaged whereas the other tier 7-10 BB’s needed 2-3.

What do bow HP depends on ?

A. The HP of each section depends on its volume compared to the entire ship. For example. Yamato‘s bow has bigger HP percentage than North Carolina‘s since it’s proportionally more voluminous.

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2c. According to my tests, currently, only on Yamato it is worth taking torpedoes in the torpedo belt (damage on the belt : 2492). On all other ships, it’s not worth it (damage : 3136 to 4440).

This happens as well in random battles. Every BB player moving to Yamato sails bow-on since the speed nerf to torpedoes make DD’s useless against the class they are supposed to counter.

Did you decide to abandon the Rock, paper, scissors philosophy ? What is developer’s thoughts about this situation and do they plan to make something about it ?

A. We are not abandoning the Rock, paper, scissors philosophy. In your observation, you forgot that torpedo belts reduce considerably the chance of flooding. If a BB has used his repair and receive a flooding, it could be terrible. Moreover, according to our statistics, currently, DD’s aren’t having a bad time, including at high tiers. We currently don’t plan to change drastically torpedo, torpedo belts mechanics or the characteristics of these elements.

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2d. How many flooding can a single section have ? Or is it not dependent on sections ?

A. There can be only one flooding on a given ship at a given moment. If a ship is already suffering from a flooding, successive floodings will not increase the damage or reset the duration.

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3. In the tech tree, on each ship info card, it is written how many ships of the same class were built. However, there seems to be some mistakes (what are the 5 Hipper-class ships?, or the 6 Iowa-class?). What is the criteria behind those numbers ?

A. As far as I recall, they represent the number of hulls laid down.

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4. Please explain why ships without camouflage are covered in rust ? Is it to encourage players to buy camouflages ?

A.  It wasn’t made to encourage players to buy camouflage. It simply was a decision made by the artists, the art director and the heads of the project. In the style of “this will please the majority of players”. If I remember correctly, there are some mods that remove the rust.

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5. How does the new propulsion mod. upgrade work ?

A. The upgrade works as follows:

• -50% to the time for reaching maximum power. Only works when going forward.
• Forced acceleration at speeds of -6 to 6 knots.

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1. Where can I see torpedoes detection range ? With all the changes you make to torpedoes, I’m never sure what it actually is.

A. It can be found in the ship info card in port. However, there is a bug where target acquisition upgrade can sometimes changes that value. It will normally be fixed in the near future.

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2. November Echo Setteseven signal increases reargunners’ dps. However, how can we know which aircraft has reargunners and which hasn’t ?

A. In the ship info card under Aircraft, you can see in the last line the dps of a given aircraft reargunners. Currently, all strike aircrafts have reargunners.

I noticed now that the effects of the Clear Sky signal and the plane dps increase upgrade isn’t reflected on the ship info card. We will fix this issue in order for the values to be modified in real time.

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3. When did bots in coop mode started to sail upgraded ships ? What about their captains ?

A. Somewhere about 0.5.1. The ships bots are sailing are randomly selected to be fully upgraded or stock. They have no commander skills or upgrades though.

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4. I reached rank 1 on two accounts but I still don’t see anyone playing tier 10 league. How long do we have to wait until we can play that special league ?

A. There aren’t any tier 10 ranked battles yet since there aren’t many players who reached rank 1. We will continue to monitor the situation and how it develops, but perhaps our idea might have been nonviable. If so, we will need to find other alternatives.

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5. Regarding a question previously asked about the Air Groups mod.1 upgrade and its effect, here are my findings:

• the upgrade affects the dps of all strike squadron reargunners.
• the upgrade affects the dps of fighter squadrons.
• the upgrade effects aren’t shown in real time on the ship info card in port.

This issue was already sent to the appropriate department and will be fixed.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the events on the Russian server for the next month. Source

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• 1-28 July : +100% credits earned in battle for ending up in the top 3 experience earners (tier 4-8, coop mode only) (can be earned several times).

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• 1-4 July :  500 xp for ending up in the top 5 experience earners (tier 4-10) (can be earned several times)

+20% credits earned in battle for destroying 10 planes in one battle (tier 4-10) (can be earned several times)

3 premium repair party consumables for destroying 3 ships in one battle (tier 4-10) (can be earned several times)

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• 6-8 July :  +50% xp for destroying a IJN ship with a USN DD (can be earned several times)

+50% xp for destroying a USN ship with a IJN DD (can be earned several times)

+100% commander’s xp for ending up in the top 5 experience earners (tier 4-10) (can be earned several times)

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• 8-22 July : Krasnyj Krym event

1st part : 1,000,000 credits for destroying 30 cruisers, 20 DD’s and 10 BB’s (tier 6-10) (can only be earned once)

2nd part : 10 November Foxtrot signal flags and 10 premium repair party consumables for inflicting 2,000,000 damage (tier 6-10) (can only be earned once)

3rd part : 10 camouflages type 6 for ending up in the first place score wise (tier 8-10) (can only be earned once)

Special reward : every player accomplishing all three task will be rewarded with the tier 5 premium ship Krasnyj Krym (+port slot and a 6 points commander).

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• 22-25 July : +100% commander’s xp for winning a battle (tier 4-10) (can be earned several times)

+50% credits earned in battle for destroying 3 ships in one battle (tier 4-10) (can be earned several times)

Aiming systems mod.1 for destroying 10 ships (not limited to one battle) (tier 4-10) (can only be earned once)

3 Papa papa signal flags for ending in the top 5 experience earners (tier 4-10 USSR ships) (can only be earned once)

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• 29 July – 1 August : 3 Equal Speed Charlie London signal flags for setting enemy ships on fire 50 times (not limited to one battle) (tier 4-10) (can be earned several times)

10 November Echo Setteseven signal flags for shooting down 50 planes (not limited to one battle) (tier 4-10) (can be earned several times)

250,000 credits for destroying 10 USSR ships (tier 4-10) (can only be earned once)

250,000 credits for destroying 10 German ships (tier 4-10) (can only be earned once)

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I can’t really comment if we are being shafted or not since we don’t know what we will get but, at first glance, it seems like their events are more diverse and interesting. What are your thoughts about it ?

Something on the French forum and about French ships.  Tanatoy is form the french WG staff. GASOVER is a moderator.

Maybe it’s already been said here. Because it’s old news. But i’m doing it because there is litlle to no buzz about the French navy on this forum. There is a buzz on the French forum of course.

(source: http://forum.worldofwarships.eu/index.php?/topic/43663-discution-sur-les-navires-francais-et-leur-integrataion-dans-le-jeu/)

Tanatoy, on 10 February 2016 – 12:45 PM, said:

 

 

Here he is saying they actually are already looking in the archives for info/plans. And that already for months .

Also he is saying they already know for months which French ship will be the first premium. 

 

Here they say they never said the french premium ship would be released at 14 July. But it is still planned for this year.