So, kind of an apology to both the dev's and the rest of you.

[Warlord_Deadeye_Pete]

Back a patch of three the dev team added  RPF, and some other new abilities to the game...

  Being the genius I am, I looked, I reviewed, I tested, and I made dire predictions OF THE END OF GAME PLAY AS WE KNEW IT.!  *cue scary organ music!*

 

Ok ok, I was wrong.. but not quite wrong...I was right in how I showed the news system could be used.. more or less..  I've seen a few examples of folks running and pulling off stuff I hadn't thought of.  (mutters nasty words at self for not coming up with it first!)   I was right about RPF, but what I didn't think of is just how how hard it is for the majority of players to learn how to use it.  It's subtle.. You have to know your builds, know your maps, and know how to best make use of other commander and this is not easily learned even by really good players.  But I am seeing some players that have learned it and are getting scary good with it.  

 

(it's ok, I'm not one of them. your safe!) . I've been way to busy fine tuning my Chapayev and Akizuki play.. the Chapy hasn't been so bad taking my play to the next level, but the Aki has been a right regular bear.. NOT a novice player ship.  Also of note... there are 3 solid commander and ship builds for this ship and they all work.. quite well I might add.  My own long distant build (which may be the kindest to the newer Aki driver) there the stealthy DD hunter Killer build (uses RDF!), and the close escort AA build.  All three work and work well, but the Akizuki is  unforgiving of play errors due to its lack of agility and speed.  

 

There is tremendous subtlety and depth to warships thats not obvious. The most difficult game play is tier 8 and up, but the best game play is tiers 4-7.  This is where the "National" flavor of ship are strongest.  Where the strengths and weaknesses of ship line that carry forward to the tiers 8 and 9 live..  It's also the realm of the more interesting ships to play.. The IJN Kuma CL, the Graf Spee, Warspite, Kongo, Cleveland.  We all have the one we personally think are the most interesting. or powerful for their tier.  Which by the way depends more on the players skill with the ship then it's stats.  A ship is like a carpenters tool box.  It can have really great tools, or really crappy tools.. but in the end it's the carpenters skill that matters, not the tools they use.  I've had fantastic matches in "crappy" ships because everyone knows they're crappy ships and did very very dumb things in range of my guns!

 

  Been accused of cheating while I'm doing it to.. the ultimate complement!

 

So yea, Kind of an apology.. I was right, but the end result wasn't a game breaking monstrosity (should been darn it!) But I forgot something basic.. And I'll try not to do that again.  It was a simple error.  To use the new stuff effectively required substantial player skill and knowledge,  (what?  Your not all unicum players! *shocked look*) and the luck of either finding or the skill a creating the situations in game to put it all to use..and not have a build of ship upgrades and commanders skills that didn't leave you with your pants around your ankles in any other sort of situation!

 

So I wrote something really nice.. Can a please have a reduction to the Akizuki's turn radius?  Her rudder shift is fine but it getting really embarrassing having Alabama's turn in side of me! And a number of high tier cruisers.  I having major turn envy here And I don't understand why.  Hey the thing has got this HUGE rudder for the size of the ship and this horrid rate of turn.  I know a bit about hydrodynamics but wouldn't that big rudder tend to improve her rate of turn at lower speed?  This ship was also used historically for ASW work where being able to come about quickly was a fairly important capability.   

 

(On a side note, look about the net.   there was a great duel that happened between a US Sub and an Akizuki.   Neither ship sunk the other but it wasn't for lack of trying!)

 

Right I'm patched, time to go play LATER!

 

 

 

  

[Super_S1X]

Who..are you?

[X15]

Who..are you?

 

He's been here a while and was certainly one of the major anti RPF guys.

As one of the bigger "RPF is garbage" guys, I agree with this. 

[Umikami]

ya

[Madwolf05]

There's actually a small cult of guys making RPF the big bogey man again because Flamu showed how it could be useful and a lot of people are losing their minds over it.

[GrandAdmiral_2016]

Rudder shift and turn rate a problem? Stop using full power and full rudder at the same time. I found out by trial and error that rudders in the game do the same as in real life. Once you get beyond 30 degrees of rudder the flow over the rear side of the rudder separates and the rudder stalls just like it does on an aircraft airfoil or control surface, and for the same reasons, and you lose efficiency big time. This is aggravated when the rudder(s) are in the propwash, as they are in many ships. This was mentioned in DK Brown's RN shipbuilding books so I tried it. Since the game controls don't allow a constant rudder angle I found that working between half rudder and full rudder and letting go on and off, especially with three-quarters power on ships like cruisers and DDs, gives both a reduced turning circle and a slightly faster turn rate. Dancing through torpedoes with USN standard (slow low-powered BBs) becomes a whole lot easier once you anticipate the launch, or recognize the risk of one from torpedo bombers or an enemy DD or CL/CA with torpedoes. I still get torped, but not as often as before. Experience teaches even average players like me! Just a thought, folks...

[K1ra_Yoshikage]

I see maybe one or two ships using it every 5-7 games. I only use it with my dedicated DD hunters or on some DD with 15+ captains because I don't need any extra range anymore since they removed invisifire. Most players find something more usefull for 4 points.

[crzyhawk]

There's actually a small cult of guys making RPF the big bogey man again because Flamu showed how it could be useful and a lot of people are losing their minds over it.

 

People give ship Jesus way too much credit.  While I value his input, people have to understand their own capabilities, and those of the players around them.  most players aren't pulling off the same kinds of things that Flamu is pulling off.

[vak_]

There's actually a small cult of guys making RPF the big bogey man again because Flamu showed how it could be useful and a lot of people are losing their minds over it.

 

Yeah, he "showed" it by killing an enemy DD in a situation where that DD would get killed even without RPF. People are just too gullible.

 

I know some very good people that run RPF. More power to them. As for me, I see very little value in it outside of Ranked battles; and I'm not too bad of a player when it comes to DDs. 

[Warlord_Deadeye_Pete]

Rudder shift and turn rate a problem? Stop using full power and full rudder at the same time. I found out by trial and error that rudders in the game do the same as in real life. Once you get beyond 30 degrees of rudder the flow over the rear side of the rudder separates and the rudder stalls just like it does on an aircraft airfoil or control surface, and for the same reasons, and you lose efficiency big time. This is aggravated when the rudder(s) are in the propwash, as they are in many ships. This was mentioned in DK Brown's RN shipbuilding books so I tried it. Since the game controls don't allow a constant rudder angle I found that working between half rudder and full rudder and letting go on and off, especially with three-quarters power on ships like cruisers and DDs, gives both a reduced turning circle and a slightly faster turn rate. Dancing through torpedoes with USN standard (slow low-powered BBs) becomes a whole lot easier once you anticipate the launch, or recognize the risk of one from torpedo bombers or an enemy DD or CL/CA with torpedoes. I still get torped, but not as often as before. Experience teaches even average players like me! Just a thought, folks...

 

I've learned that one...If you've got the premium dock up you'll see she's a twin screw ship witht he shaft and props pushing off to the outside on both shafts.. the rudder would catch some of the prop wash and given it's size you might be right.  They could indeed be modeling (in abstract the game engine is not set up as an actuall model of hydrodynamic effects) this effect.  The problem is I'm not seeing the sort of "bite" I feel I should be at 1/2 or 1/4 speed on the Aki and it just feels wrong.   It could use a small buff of some sort.. It's not a difficult ship to play.. surviving in it how ever copared to other DD's is a bit more work.

 

[hawkai]

as a DD main, I don't worry about RDF at all except to find out who has it if they are close, most will turn and go the other way when I set it off on them, every once in a while, I will come across someone that want to try killing me using it, most are rather shocked when they find me attacking them instead of running, with DD its just a knife fight, CA are not use to seeing a DD attacking them, it rather fun even though I get beat up, I'm running about 50% right now on winning  them but still refining my tactics, you get  in close enough, his guns have a hard time keeping  on you and you can run circles around him or torp him at point blank range

[Taichunger]

RDF was potentially game breaking. But because it is a team oriented skill whose effects are largely passive, it is not often taken.

 

More fundamentally, all the things players were asking for, and yet the devs waste time on RPF, which no one had asked for. That's just hugely wrong.