World of Warships - RN

[ChrisHunt]

Just a quick post to let you know that the RN has finally arrived in numbers in World of Warships with a new line of Cruisers. The first (Black Swan) is a bit of a hoot; paper thin but very rapid guns so it's almost always a case of who's quickest on the draw! Currently at level 3 with the Caledon - not as much fun. Hopefully battle wagons to follow soon.

[Paul K]

Just cruisers at the moment, Chris ? I see HMS Warspite is mentioned in the opening video.

[ChrisHunt]

Warspite is a pay add on Paul; has been around for a few months now. HMS Belfast is also available from today as a pay add on currently going for £27.43 (30.80 Euros).

BTW - a belated Happy Birthday for the other day!

Regards,
Chris

[Paul K]

Warspite is a pay add on Paul; has been around for a few months now. HMS Belfast is also available from today as a pay add on currently going for £27.43 (30.80 Euros).

Ah I see, thanks. What would that make the price of the Warspite ? Or an Iowa-class BB, for example ? I can't seem to find the add-on page - is there an online shop page ?

BTW - a belated Happy Birthday for the other day!

Thank you Chris, that's very kind of you.

[Chris Trott]

Only certain ships can be "bought". All others have to be earned in-game through experience points, like the Iowa. However, there may be a "Missouri" addon at some point that would be a premium addon and specifically represent the Missouri at a certain point versus the more "standardized" Iowa-class loadout. For example, they did the "New York" as one of the default BB classes for the US. Then, they added the USS Texas as a premium ship which reflected her as she was equipped in 1945 with all the extra AA guns and reduction in secondary armament, very close to how she looks today (although many of her small-caliber AA mounts were removed after the war).

I've been playing it off-and-on since it went into public beta and it's been pretty fun. I think there's still some balancing to do on XP earning. It really gets to be a hard slog above Rank 5, needing you to either be the top ship in every round or take 50-80 sorties once you've fully upgraded a ship to make the next rank, meaning you need to fight nearly 100 sorties (averaging 15 minutes apiece) to go from Rank 6 to Rank 7 (100,000XP average, earning 1500XP average per sortie).

[saltysplash]

Like most 'free to play' games you will need to spend some cash in order to progress up the tiers unless your a real sucker for punishment and can afford to spend hours, and i mean hours in front of the PC playing the game.

Its a good game but does still need some work, for instance, some cruisers having better range than some battleships and Warspite unhistorically having really bad range. Most of us put that down to Russian Bias

I tend only to play now when teemed up with friends on Teamspeak and I havent got past tier 6 now that i've stopped throwing money at it.

World of Tanks for me has gone the same way, Only now play when Platooned with clan mates over a few beers.

Still good games though


Geoff

[Paul K]

I didn't quite understand the process of acquiring ships, so thanks for the information, gents.

Here's another question; is World of Warships centred around WW2 ? From what I can see, there are only ships of the 1939-45 era available. Are ships such as the American 'Montana' class or British 'Lion' class, neither of which were built, available for 'what if' scenarios ?

Are WW1 ships available, so you could refight battles such as Coronel, Dogger Bank and Jutland

Also, what about the pre-Dreadnought era ? That's a very interesting period, so, do they have ships that fought at Tsushima for example ?

Chris, regarding USS Texas - interesting that she was powered by reciprocating steam engines while the R.N. had gone over to turbines for their battleships four years earlier.

[blanston12]

Chris, regarding USS Texas - interesting that she was powered by reciprocating steam engines while the R.N. had gone over to turbines for their battleships four years earlier.

Sorry to answer for Chris. I did find it interesting that the USN used reciprocating engines for the USS Texas and USS New York, especially since they had built 5 battleships before that used turbine (first being North Dakota launched in 1908). Alas my quick read of wikipedia did not reveal an answer as to why they switched back for this one class.

[Paul K]

My error then - I assumed that the USN had yet to adopt the turbine. Without looking, I wonder if it was due to turbines' poor fuel uneconomy at cruising speeds back then, and they decided range was important when operating in the Pacific. Some of the early RN turbine destroyers had reciprocating cruising engines on the ends of the shafts for that same reason.

[Effoh]

Joe, Paul,

Answer here according to Janes -

https://www.asme.org/getmedia/19d9835a- ... -1914.aspx

'Steam power in U.S. warships then underwent a rapid evolution. The Navy,
slow to change to steam, adopted the steam turbine quickly. By the time the
construction of the U.S.S. Texas was authorized in January 1910, the Navy already
had three turbine-powered battleships.
Why, then, was the Texas built with reciprocating steam engines? According
to Jane's Fighting Ships, 1943-44, “Builders of turbine engines in the U.S. refused
to adopt standards laid down by the Navy Dept. Accordingly in these ships * a
reversion was made to reciprocating engines to show turbine builders that the Navy
Dept. was determined to have turbines built to official specification, or else the
older type of engines would be taken up again." At the time, too, the reciprocating
engine had proven to be more fuel-efficient than the direct-drive turbine, especially
at cruising speeds.'