Weekend Spree, 13-15 December 2024

[Ensign Cthulhu]

Bought some ships to claim their snowflakes for steel (Anhalt, Los Andes) and certificates (San Martin). Pulled an Orion '44 out of the mega crate in the paid Battle Pass.

Won some doubloons; from small Santa boxes and from an Anniversary supercontainer. I now have more than enough to get the second battle pass, which I will buy for the ship.

Went on an orgy of bot killing in the Johann deWitt; finally getting the hang of the bomb drops, and the guns aren't exactly terrible either.  

Naval battles and the usual grinds; managed to get both the Takahashi and the deWitt their B fire-control systems, and the extra range is coming in handy.

Another ship that clicked for me over the weekend was the Sovetsky Soyuz, and I haven't even got all her upgrade slots bought yet! That will soon follow.

Played around on the PTS with some of the ships that are getting buffs per the latest Dev Blog. VERY impressed, especially since I own a good number of them and one of them (Split) is in my current grind list.

Edited December 16, 2024 by Ensign Cthulhu
Clarification

[Tread_Head57]

Not much playing  last week due to family obligations. I did finish the Halland grind yesterday and now I'm focusing on quicky grinding up several tier IV and VII ships to get the flakes. 

[utgotye]

Blew through a few hundred million credits buying eleven tier X ships for certs as well as equipment some of them (and other ships).  Burned through a few million ECXP raising 7-8 19 pt captains to 21.  Debating whether or not I want to target specific captains by spamming them in various ships with green/blue boosters or spam 21 pt captains with said boosters and bank the ECXP to raise the others up later.  Should be able to finish the last of the flakes by mid week.

[Wolfswetpaws]

Got to watch @Ensign Cthulhu's Twitch broadcast for a time, while I was enjoying my lunch.

Welcomed several ships during the past week (with the intention of harvesting their snowflake rewards, including steel).
This nearly emptied my Port's treasury of credits and FreeXP.  So, my inventory is in a "rebuilding" effort, currently.

Last night, I was testing several Commanders as candidates for the position of Captain of the Chikuma-II that I welcomed to my Port in exchange for 22,100 units of steel.
While there are a few good contenders, I've yet to reach a decision.

Similarly, the other ships (some recently welcomed, some recently vacated) are awaiting decisions among the candidates for their Captain's chairs.

I found and watched the movie "Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny" available from the Tubi network (accessed via ROKU).
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138074/  
After about 30 to 40 minutes, I'd seen and heard enough.
The reviews on www.imdb.com are both entertaining and accurate, in my opinion.
While this movie may not be every person's cup of tea, it does have some "drinking game" potential and is amusing as a film-making comparision study (time period of film-making, quality of script, quality of direction and acting, budget size versus value-of-product, "quaint charm" factors, and etc. & etc.).
After the first few minutes of watching the film, I began using my phone to learn more about the movie.
That learning process distracted me enough to continue watching for the remainder of the 30 to 40 minutes that I experienced.
Then, I turned my television off.
I cannot get those minutes of my life back, but perhaps sharing my experience can become your gain, eh?  🙂 

The more recently aired 5th. & 6th. seasons of "The Dragon Prince:  Mystery of Aravos" were more compelling.
And the (also on Netflix) 5 episodes of the one-off "He-Man:  Revolutions" cartoon were decent, too.

Posted in several topics.

Wondered about the ultimate fate of Captain Gowron and the Crew of the Toqduj.
(I'm pretty sure they made-it back to Qo'noS  ....)

As I write this, it has begun to snow.
Big fluffy flakes of snow outside the windows as I enjoy my breakfast & coffee.

Edited December 16, 2024 by Wolfswetpaws

[Asym]

Picked up the G Hoffman for steel and have been playing that ship non-stop for four days now.  Ops, ASB's and COOP.  I'm going to play that one ship daily for the 30 days of the 200% bonus flags.  Just to see how much they generate....  Boring, I know.....

Other than that, all things Christmas and not much else.

[Ensign Cthulhu]

28 minutes ago, Tread_Head57 said:

now I'm focusing on quicky grinding up several tier IV and VII ships to get the flakes. 

A wise move, but I see the Christmas prize season as the culmination of my grinding efforts across the year. Happy grinding!

8 minutes ago, utgotye said:

Debating whether or not I want to target specific captains by spamming them in various ships with green/blue boosters or spam 21 pt captains with said boosters and bank the ECXP to raise the others up later. 

I tend to favour the latter approach. The only exception is when one of those specific captains is working a tech-tree line I am grinding. For example, I transferred my Auboyneau into the L'Aventurier and used him to grind through to the Cassard, building his rank along the way, then when he was in the Cassard I used banked ECXP to promote him. 

I do have a range of 19 pointers from the old days that remain unpromoted, but they've been left alone because I first prioritized getting at least one 21 pointer in every nation (done in 2023) and am now prioritizing legendary commanders. So I have Cunningham, Kuznetsov, Zhenbing and Lisboa in order of seniority (with the new Dutch one not in the game yet). However, Kuznetsov will probably overtake Cunningham since the former is actively working a line (RU BB, T9) while Cunningham is already in his T10. Lisboa (PanAm BB, T9) will likely overtake Zhenbing for the same reason. 

I've managed to promote four commanders to 21 points from between 14-16 this year, which I consider pretty good for a relatively relaxed co-op main who also has a day job.  I have five more to go, but they are generally being promoted from much lower ranks. Hopefully WG doesn't introduce too many more national legendary commanders or I might be at this for a while.

[Ensign Cthulhu]

9 minutes ago, Wolfswetpaws said:

the Chikuma-II that I welcomed to my Port in exchange for 22,100 units of steel.

I got far more steel out of my snowflakes than I anticipated. I was debating what to do with it when I remembered that although the event discount for the special steel ships is less, the Chikuma 2 is cheap compared to the others.

She is sufficiently unique to want to get, and the other temporary ones are beyond my reach unless I get lucky with a crate.

The second half of the battle pass has enough steel for me to get her if I buy the paid pass, which I was planning on doing for the Lugdunum anyway. This just adds to the value.

[Wolfswetpaws]

5 minutes ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

I got far more steel out of my snowflakes than I anticipated. I was debating what to do with it when I remembered that although the event discount for the special steel ships is less, the Chikuma 2 is cheap compared to the others.

She is sufficiently unique to want to get, and the other temporary ones are beyond my reach unless I get lucky with a crate.

The second half of the battle pass has enough steel for me to get her if I buy the paid pass, which I was planning on doing for the Lugdunum anyway. This just adds to the value.

👍

[Asym]

1 hour ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

I got far more steel out of my snowflakes than I anticipated.

I did as well and the G Hoffman was what I did with it (the extra over what I always keep as a starting balance....)  Fun ship in all forms of PVE.  Can't say anything about PVP so, try it and tell us what you find !

[Ensign Cthulhu]

3 minutes ago, Asym said:

and the G Hoffman was what I did with it

I considered her, but apparently they wound back the AP from Schultz levels of brutal, and this seemed to remove most of its raison d'etre so I got the Svea instead just before the previous coupon ran out (and while I could still claim an anniversary prize from her). 

[Aethervox]

Nothing so involved as most of you posters. Just my usual plod ...

NA NB, a win 14 - 5 versus an Asian clan (probably as moribund ⚰️ as mine).

EU NB, a loss 60 - 80 versus another EU clan.

[thornzero]

Leveling up my NA account; trying to get a couple higher tier ships in the tech tree to participate in more clan activities. They are really active.

Had a fair performance on NB due to limited ships; I usually get more stars [only 7 this time] but we did win nonetheless.

The NA server is quite a bit different than EU; I've noticed as far as activity, players, and delays in the MM.

I am; however, doing pretty okay in randoms. So far anyways.

Edited to add: I can't wait to run into some NA players on devstrike once I get rolling...

Edited December 16, 2024 by thornzero