Getting the most out of a premium ship?

[_TheEntireUniverse_]

I spent $36 on the Scharnhorst, and I do enjoy playing it. I was told that buying a premium ship was the best value for money purchase because of the credit and experience bonuses. However, what I didn’t realize is that there is an ongoing cost of converting the XP fo free XP. Because of this, I’m a lot more reluctant to play the Scharnhorst over any other ship I may be trying to upgrade because I can’t make use of the XP without shelling out a lot of doubloons. OTOH, I invested a good chunk of change for the SH and want to make use of my purchase.

 

Am I thinking about this all wrong? Is there something I should do differently to make sure I feel like I am not wasting potential XP by playing SH instead of another ship? 

[Lert]

No, you basically got it right. If 'I need XP for other ships' is your primary reason for wanting a premium ship then you might've read up on what premium ships are and can do before dropping your money on one.

[whyme69]

They are good for silver when you need it.

 

 

[AnimaL21]

I find the largest value in farming elite captain xp because you can reassign with no penalty.   I home my captain on their primary tech tree ship, and then ready them in each premium for a repeatable daily first win bonus in each ship.  Because the captain is level 19, that daily win in elitexp can be used on any  non-level 19 captain as if i had played them instead.  

 

 

[landedkiller]

10 minutes ago, _TheEntireUniverse_ said:

I spent $36 on the Scharnhorst, and I do enjoy playing it. I was told that buying a premium ship was the best value for money purchase because of the credit and experience bonuses. However, what I didn’t realize is that there is an ongoing cost of converting the XP fo free XP. Because of this, I’m a lot more reluctant to play the Scharnhorst over any other ship I may be trying to upgrade because I can’t make use of the XP without shelling out a lot of doubloons. OTOH, I invested a good chunk of change for the SH and want to make use of my purchase.

 

Am I thinking about this all wrong? Is there something I should do differently to make sure I feel like I am not wasting potential XP by playing SH instead of another ship? 

They're other purposes such as my use of them for saving up free xp for free xp ships the current ones Hms Nelson and the Mighty Mo have good reputations. Rumor has it musashi (yamato sister ship) and Duke of York will be next.

[Crucis]

Premium ships are great captain trainers.  They're also good for credit grinding.  Regarding credit grinding, I think that it's a great idea to put the credit bonus signal flags on tier 7 and 8 premium ships, because an additional 20% credits earned is a larger number on higher tier (premium) ships than on lower tier ones.  That is, the 20% bonus will earn you more  raw credits as a bonus to 300k credits base earnings, say, on a tier 7 compared to perhaps 150k credits on a tier 5 premium ship.  In short, you get more bang for each extra credits signal flag when used on higher tier premium ships than on lower tier ones.

[NCC81701]

17 minutes ago, _TheEntireUniverse_ said:

I spent $36 on the Scharnhorst, and I do enjoy playing it. I was told that buying a premium ship was the best value for money purchase because of the credit and experience bonuses.

 

The experience bonuses also boost commander xp so you can retrain commanders faster, and they don't suffer retraining penalties when you swap captains into them. In general premium ships offer a play style that's unique or different from tech tree ships. If you want ship in the tree, you have to research the ship down the line or use FXP. It's good for you to research anyways since each line plays somewhat differently and you don't want to skip to a tier 10 of a line until you have an idea of the advantages/disadvantages of the line. 

[Panzer1113]

Premiums are the credit producers that help to make grinding possible.  Also, many of the premiums are strong ships, and pretty pleasant to play.  My Sharn helped my German BB and Crusier grinds as captain trainers, helped get me two 19 point captains for my Bismarck and GK.  I also used the exp off it on a 35 conversion weekend to finish my Missouri free exp grind ( converted 350K).  Also the Sharn is just fun to play, and something to jump into so the tech tree grinds (especially when you are grinding a bad ship) less of a slog.

[Batwingsix]

Good credit income.

Good captain trainers.

Good kick back and relax ships.

And depending on which one, good troll ships.

[injunmick]

Every time you play it, or any premium really, put a PapaPapa flag on, helps build the FXP.

[CLUCH_CARGO]

I use my Scharnhorst to grind Credits {120 mil at the moment} and Grind Captain Elite Exp so far I have 4 -19 pointer capt.soon to be 5. Because the Scharnhorst is sitting in the sweetspot for earning these It was Money well spent.

[Korval_BB55]

1 hour ago, _TheEntireUniverse_ said:

Am I thinking about this all wrong? Is there something I should do differently to make sure I feel like I am not wasting potential XP by playing SH instead of another ship? 

OP, just so you know, you picked a good one, and Scharny is definitely not a waste of money.  She's a good, fun ship that will reward you greatly.

Yes, it is true that any regular (silver) XP you earn with her will not be useful on other ships unless you pay money.  That's a bit of a bummer.  However, she does earn gold XP, and that's a good thing.  As others have mentioned, she earns good money, and that's a very good thing.  And best of all, she can train all your German captains, with is the very best thing.

To get the most from her, first of all, I would play her for sheer enjoyment.  That alone is a good thing, and you should enjoy the ship that you paid money for.  Scharny is a very enjoyable ship, so you did good there.  (There are good ships available for each navy, but that's another issue....)

Second and most important is the captain training.  As you're leveling up your German BB/CA/DD lines, whenever you unlock and purchase a new ship, move the captain from your previous ship to the new one.  For example, you have the Kaiser, and buy the Konig.  Assign your captain to the Konig and select retraining, and the 200K gold option.  This will get you halfway there.  Then, assign the captain to the Scharnhorst, and go battle.  You'll have that captain retrained in no time, and by the time you get to Bismarck, etc., you will have a high point (12+?) captain with a lot of skills and abilities.  You can actually do this any time you take Scharnhorst out, so that your top German captain will have as much XP as possible and get to 19 points as soon as possible.

This is a great thing, because those 9 points after you get your 10 point skill can be invested in things to make your battleships tougher and more durable (or have better secondaries, etc.), and give you an edge over other players.  Plus, once you have that 19 point captain, any further XP gained on that captain can be used to train other captains, so you can use your Scharnhorst (eventually) to train your Japanese or British captains.

At this point, I am using my Bismarck/Tirpitz/Scharnhorst (etc) captain to train my new Isoroku Yamamoto. It's really quite handy, and on a 100% bonus weekend, with flags, etc, you can easily rack up 100k+ captain XP.

So ... I got a bit wordy, but that's really how you make the most out of your Scharnhorst purchase.  She's a good one, enjoy her.

:)