Development Blog 509, April Fool's event, Commonwealth Cruisers Early Access, Submarine Changes etc.

[Ensign Cthulhu]

https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/509

Something a lot of us have been calling for since Mysore was introduced into the game seems to be getting addressed at last:

 

I don't see New Zealand, Australia and Canada varying all that much from UK, quite frankly, at least not in the captains' appearances, though there might be a varied and not necessarily overlapping set of available first and last names. 

[Wolfswetpaws]

The "Pinata" event seems amusing.

I had a battle, today, wherein an Auckland was sailed by a player on the opposing team.  

[Admiral_Karasu]

1 hour ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

The "Pinata" event seems amusing.

There's been a Pinata event every battle where I've been for all these years...

[Project45_Opytny]

12 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

https://blog.worldofwarships.com/blog/509

Something a lot of us have been calling for since Mysore was introduced into the game seems to be getting addressed at last:

 

I don't see New Zealand, Australia and Canada varying all that much from UK, quite frankly, at least not in the captains' appearances, though there might be a varied and not necessarily overlapping set of available first and last names. 

Current Commonwealth commanders uses a dated template that were gradually replaced for other factions in a piecemeal fashion.

Indian commanders are welcomed though it's a pity that it would take much to train one from scratch comparing with, say, all those event commanders (Maltilda, Pirate Santa, Leonard Murray...) grated beforehand.

[Ensign Cthulhu]

5 hours ago, Project45_Opytny said:

though it's a pity that it would take much to train one from scratch

I found out that I could make an Italian commander with the same name as one of my grandfathers, so I did it. Naturally, he had to be brought up from practically nothing. He's been a 21 pointer for quite a while now. If you want it enough, you'll get it done.

[Project45_Opytny]

29 minutes ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

I found out that I could make an Italian commander with the same name as one of my grandfathers, so I did it. Naturally, he had to be brought up from practically nothing. He's been a 21 pointer for quite a while now. If you want it enough, you'll get it done.

Congrats for such a fantastic random name!

I have a comparable, though not really similiar case. My primary Pan-Asian commander was the 6-pointer guy who was randomly recruited with Anshan during New Year 2021 (when players can earn Anshan for free). And he happened to have the name as... one of the disgraced plotters of the twarted September 1971 coup attempt (better known as "Project 571"). A trollish part of myself decided to have this guy as "the primary commander". And now he is at 20-points.

[Verblonde]

On 2/1/2024 at 2:21 PM, Ensign Cthulhu said:

I don't see New Zealand, Australia and Canada varying all that much from UK, quite frankly, at least not in the captains' appearances, though there might be a varied and not necessarily overlapping set of available first and last names. 

Were I WG, I might struggle to resist winding up the Ozzie players by making all of that nation's captains have the first name Bruce...

(I'm just grumpy because Canadians keep mistaking me for an Australian, or even a Saffa once - my accent's from the SE of England!)

[Ensign Cthulhu]

1 hour ago, Verblonde said:

Were I WG, I might struggle to resist winding up the Ozzie players by making all of that nation's captains have the first name Bruce...

(I'm just grumpy because Canadians keep mistaking me for an Australian, or even a Saffa once - my accent's from the SE of England!)

As an Australian living in Canada, I get mistaken for English ("Did your parents go to Oxford?" - no, they emigrated to Australia from Italy after World War 2 as children) and rarely South African. 

[Neeruun]

Did anyone note this in the submarine changes:

Quote

When a submarine pings, a visible indicator appears on the water surface. Now, direction indicator will be improved, giving players an approximate direction of travel of the submarine at the time of pinging.

The fact that BBs had to look at least at two pings to determine correct lead direction was the only thing saving subs if more than one BB is near.

I think this basically means BB players have won. The incentive subs provided to keep their support ships alive will be gone and they will be the most effective sub killer on their own.

 

Also WG introduces a nice unavoidable upgrade to block one upgrade slot of subs:

Quote

Submarine Surveillance Modification 1, Slot 3 - Consumable preparation and reload time -20%. This Special Upgrade will also be available for surface ships which have access to this consumable.

Being able to use submarine surveilance about 60s earlier than the enemy is priceless because he will be dead before his submarine suveilance is ready.

[SureBridge]

@Neeruun IIRC another change is that the first "submarine surveillance" will no longer take 5 minutes to cycle, so this may be less critical.

[Verblonde]

1 hour ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

As an Australian living in Canada, I get mistaken for English ("Did your parents go to Oxford?" - no, they emigrated to Australia from Italy after World War 2 as children) and rarely South African. 

The Canadians are generally splendid, and have many sterling qualities; I fear that discerning accents, alas, does not generally appear amongst their talents...!

[Snargfargle]

7 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

As an Australian living in Canada, I get mistaken for English ("Did your parents go to Oxford?" - no, they emigrated to Australia from Italy after World War 2 as children) and rarely South African. 

What's funny is when an accent doesn't match a person's physiognomy. We had a lot of Japanese students at one college I attended. I was used to hearing English spoken with a thick Japanese accent by the Japanese students but then was sort blown away when I met a "Japanese" girl who spoke with a definite Texas drawl. I asked her where she was from and she said "Muleshoe, Texas." Her Texas dad had married her Japanese mother when he was stationed in Japan in the Army.

Edited February 16 by Snargfargle

[Ensign Cthulhu]

7 hours ago, Snargfargle said:

What's funny is when an accent doesn't match a person's physiognomy. We had a lot of Japanese students at one college I attended. I was used to hearing English spoken with a thick Japanese accent by the Japanese students but then was sort blown away when I met a "Japanese" girl who spoke with a definite Texas drawl. I asked her where she was from and she said "Muleshoe, Texas." Her Texas dad had married her Japanese mother when he was stationed in Japan in the Army.

Australia has a fairly sizeable Asian population which has been there long enough for a generation or two of kids to grow up with perfect Australian accents. A lot of Chinese came out for the 1890s gold rush, and there was a sizeable influx of South Vietnamese who fled to Australia by boat in the mid-late 1970s.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6VnNq8ygR8

I used to watch this show religiously. One of the patrol boats used in this series is now a museum piece in Sydney Harbour. I didn't find that out until I was actually on deck and walking through the ship with my kids, who were the same age as I'd been when I watched the show. Aah, memories. Many happy onions were cut that day.

[Snargfargle]

34 minutes ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

there was a sizeable influx of South Vietnamese who fled to Australia by boat in the mid-late 1970s.

Around 1980 sometime, I was working as a paramedic in a small Midwestern city that had a substantial Vietnamese population. Whenever I was on an ambulance run where we had a Vietnamese patient who couldn't speak English, I would call a certain police officer to the scene. He'd served in Vietnam as an Army Special Forces advisor and knew enough Vietnamese and French (which many of the Vietnamese also spoke) to translate for me.

[Neeruun]

Did anyone else noticed another consequence of the change to sub torp damage:
Sub vs Sub is completely pointless now.

• Long-range, you cannot spot the enemy sub underwater (OK, maybe the Germans can).
• Short-range, torps do no damage.

So it is basically: Spot the sub and hope some BBs (and cruisers) moved forward to depth charge it. It was the best way to kill a sub previously but the sub vs. sub approach got a lot more useless.

Also: New strategy for BBs against subs: Run towards them! If you can get near enough they can no longer damage you.

*shaking his head*