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AKA, How Secondaries Actually Work, and Why They Should be Changed: Episode 3 Episode 1 / Episode 2 Disclaimer: Any mention of test ships are entirely based on my opinion of publicly-available statistics. Statistics are subject to change. Good day ladies and gentlemen! The weekend is nearly upon us, and Monday brings candy-mongering gremlins (formally known as children) to our doors. If you're like me, then you'll have a bag of tricks and keep all the treats for yourself ;) In this episode, I'm going to propose a set of changes I'd like to see to ships that aren't considered brawlers. Yes, that's right, this is not a "German BB secondaries suck" thread. This is about the other guys, the poor neglected ships that one should never consider building for secondaries. I think I can summarize the whole article with the following meme (credit goes to @SaiIor_Moon): Let's start with some background info that most seasoned players already know for the benefit of those who are less informed. There are four common secondary dispersion formulas used by most ships in the game. These are Standard, Russian 130mm, German, and Accurate. Most ships get the Standard formula. Examples include tech tree U.S., Japanese, Italian, U.K., and French battleships. The Russian 130mm dispersion formula is used strictly by Tier X Russian ships, and is more accurate than the Standard formula (tell me with a straight face that Russian bias isn't a thing). The German dispersion formula is used primarily by the tech tree German battleships (Nassau - Preussen) along with a few other ships like Pan-American battleship Atlantico. This formula supposedly helped German battleships retain the accuracy they had pre-commander-rework, although I've never been able to verify that's the case. Lastly, we have the Accurate dispersion formula, long-associated with ships like USS Massachussetts and the German battlecruisers (Von der Tann - Schlieffen). These are the most accurate secondaries found on any tech tree battleship, and are known for their ability to whittle away hitpoints in quick order. There are other secondary dispersion formulas used in-game, but they tend to be for specific ships like Italian cruiser X Napoli or the infamously laser-accurate German VIII Graf Zeppelin. Since these are limited to single ships, I'm not going to focus on them in this thread. Instead, I want to talk about the underdogs of the secondary battery world, the ones that use the Standard dispersion formula. Many of these ships have heavy secondary batteries (like the French and Italian battleships) but just lack in certain aspects to make them even remotely viable for building into. The biggest problem is accuracy. Standard accuracy sucks, a lot. Without any modifiers (captain skills and upgrades), secondaries with the Standard dispersion formula have 23% worse dispersion than the German formula. It's a staggering 42% worse than the Accurate formula, which is what makes the likes of Schlieffen so powerful as a secondary brawler. "But Murrel," you say, "23% worse dispersion than the Germans isn't too bad." Oh, but it is. See, it's not really dispersion that matters here. Your secondaries will spatter an area of several square kilometers when they first start firing. Reining in the maximum dispersion helps a little, but it's how maximum dispersion affects the impact area that is important. To better understand what I'm saying, let's look at some pictures illustrating this subject. I've chosen one battleship from each of the four main secondary dispersion formulas, showing their typical secondary battery impact at a range of 10km. Standard dispersion (feat. Montana): Russian 130mm dispersion (feat. Kremlin): German dispersion (feat. Preussen): Accurate dispersion (feat. Schlieffen): Notice how the horizontal dispersion (the shorter dimension) gets smaller and smaller as the accuracy formula improves? Comparing these dimensions, it doesn't look like there's much difference in the horizontal parameters. The vertical dispersion (the longer dimension) is insignificant as it is a function of shell impact velocity and angle. Notice how Kremlin has worse vertical dispersion than Montana despite using a better accuracy formula - this is because Kremlin has ridiculously high shell velocity and low drag on its secondaries (best in class in both parameters), but that's a discussion for another thread. The point I'm trying to make is that any given reduction in maximum dispersion will have an even larger effect on reducing the impact area of the secondary shells. For example, Kremlin's maximum secondary dispersion is 14% better than Montana's. However, this 14% reduction in maximum dimensions means that the area of the ellipsoid (the impact area) of the Russian 130mm secondaries is actually 26% smaller than Montana's. That's a significant amount, considering that increases your chance of hitting the target by 35%. Now let's compare Standard dispersion to German dispersion: a 23% increase in maximum dispersion results in a 41% smaller impact area, which means hitting your target 69% more often. That's huge. Last, but certainly not least, let's look at the Accurate formula. The maximum dispersion is 42% better than the Standard, which equals a 66% smaller impact area, and a 97% higher chance of hitting the target. Yes, it's that good. So what's the takeaway? That German battlecruisers are the kings of brawling and building Montana for secondaries is a cardinal sin? If all remains as it is, yes. I'd like to believe there's a chance that may change, someday, hence this post. When the last commander rework happened, it came with a promise that it would allow a diversification of builds. While this may be true for some classes of ships, as a battleship main I can quite comfortably say that survivability/tank build is king. I'm not complaining about German battleships being terrible at brawling, nor am I bemoaning about the less accurate secondary builds that have been given to us since the rework. Thing is, German BBs got a band-aid to their secondary battery accuracy to help mitigate the effects of the reworked Manual Secondaries skill. Every other ship didn't, so running a secondary build on most other battleships became even worse than they already were. It's not too late to fix it. So how would I suggest changing secondaries? Here's the tldr version for y'all: Standardization of all secondary battery ranges. Give all ships of all classes the German/French ranges. Buff the Standard dispersion formula. Replace it with the Russian 130mm formula (or even the German formula). Case specific buffs: rebalance specific ships' secondaries depending on their performance (i.e. reduce Conqueror's reload from 6.67s to 4s - it only has 8 guns per side) Secondary builds for cruisers: allow them to take a manual secondary skill identical to battleships, but don't allow them to take a skill that improved range. Meme secondary builds for destroyers, aircraft carriers, and yes, even submarines. 1. Standardization of secondary battery ranges. The gameplay meta is always changing. With more and more ships and classes promoting longer-ranged gameplay, having poor secondary range is not good. Just look at the secondary-focused Japanese battleship IX Iwami. It has secondaries that use the Accurate formula with good penetration, decent fire chance, and high rate-of-fire, but really needs more range to be relevant. I propose that all battleships and cruisers receive the same range as that already used by French and German cruisers and battleships. Ideally, I would like to see all aircraft carriers, destroyers, and even submarines get the same buff, if for no other reason than for the memes. I mean, secondary Haida is only for cool kids, right? I'd run secondary builds on some of my aircraft carriers as a means of self defense if they weren't saddled with despicably short range. This change will make brawling more comfortable, and the added range won't hurt destroyers as shell travel time will make it easy to dodge at longer ranges. Some ships might need further tuning - discussed below in "case-specific adjustments". 2. Buff the standard dispersion formula. This will allow players who wish to run secondary builds on unconventional ships to be rewarded for the expenditure of upgrades and captain skills. This will lead to the diversification in builds that we were promised when the captain skill rework occurred. At the very least, all battleships that currently utilize the Standard dispersion formula should have it replaced with the Russian 130mm formula. As stated above, this will result in -14% maximum dispersion, -26% impact area, and a 35% higher chance of hitting the target. Personally, I would even go so far as to suggest testing replacing the Standard and Russian 130mm formulas with the German dispersion formula. Again, as said above, this would equal -23% maximum dispersion, -41% impact area, and a 69% higher chance of hitting the target. The thing is, unless one chooses to build into them, German secondaries without any modifiers (like running a tank-build Preussen) can't hit anything. So, buffing secondary accuracy isn't going to make a main-battery/tank build Montana OP overnight - it will still have terrible secondaries when not built for them. This will further reward players who wish to have fun with trying out different builds and just have a good time in their secondary spec' Montana. It will also help ships to better defend themselves from submarines, although submarines aren't usually sitting at or near the surface when spotted within secondary battery range. Furthermore, buffing tech tree ships with standard dispersion does not detract from special secondary-focused premium ships like Massachusetts. Ships like her will still be hands-down the best brawlers at their tier, and worth every dollar. 3. Case-specific secondary buffs. Certain ships are just pathetically underpowered when it comes to their secondary firepower. The first that comes to mind for me is the mainline British battleships. From tier VII through to tier X, all of them have the exact same secondary battery. Same damage, same barrel count, same reload, same everything. Having 6.67s reload on 8 guns per broadside that can only penetrate 22mm of armor is really disappointing, and they're basically there as ornaments. In this case, I would buff the reload slightly per tier, ending with a 3.5-4s reload on the Conqueror so that they could actually be relevant. The Italian battleships are another sad case. Their issue is the lack of penetration on their 90mm guns. I would start by giving them the range and accuracy buffs listed above, and if their fire chance isn't enough to make them worth building into, I would suggest increasing the high-explosive penetration on the 90mm guns to 1/4 caliber, giving them 23mm of penetration. Alternatively, many have already suggested giving them SAP ammunition; such changes would likely require more extensive testing, but it's certainly an intriguing prospect. 4. Secondary builds for cruisers. I would like to see the return of secondary builds for cruisers. I would suggest the addition of a manual secondaries skill identical to the one already used by the battleship skill tree, replacing a less-popular skill (or adding even more skills for more diversity). Such a change would likely mean nerfing the base accuracy of X Napoli, but the result would be a net-zero change in accuracy (maybe even a slight buff) post-rework. It would also mean that the upcoming dockyard ship, IX Admiral Schroder, would be a viable secondary cruiser (see Episode 1 for that discussion). I would not recommend giving cruisers a skill that further enhances their secondary range, as this would lead to the possibility of stealth secondary builds, which are probably best left in Pandora's box of bad ideas. 5. Meme secondary builds for destroyers, aircraft carriers, and submarines. I think this could lead to some pretty funny (but not optimal) captain builds. Secondary-build Haida, here I come! The point WG should take away from this is that making secondary builds possible for more ships will lead to more players trying new builds. This costs credits to purchase the new upgrades, doubloons to reset commander skills, and doubloons to remove upgrades. Add on that this may entice players to spend more time than they normally would playing the game, testing out new builds... it'll make money. And that, my friends, is what a games company is all about. Summary: I would love to see standard secondary dispersion be buffed. Better accuracy and standardizing secondary ranges for each tier will make brawling more comfortable for ships that previously couldn't dream of running secondary builds. Allowing all classes in-game to run secondary builds could lead to some funny captain builds, and good times all around. In short: If you've managed to read all the way to the end, congratulations! You made it! I apologize for the long post... I didn't think it would be that long when I started it... 3 hours ago. Please let me know whether you like or dislike the proposals I've made, whether there is anything you would change, or if I missed something that you would like me to comment on. Also, if you liked this post, please consider checking my previous post about secondaries and the upcoming dockyard ship Admiral Schroder in my previous two posts (links below). Take care folks! Episode 1 / Episode 2

I have had the GK for years and it was my understanding that when the update went live if I had the GK researched and purchased i would receive the Preussen for free or the 1xp/1credit mechanic. Am I mistaken or is something wrong with my account?