This ship requires service

[lallave]

I have only been playing 6 months and every ship I have I earned it by playing and accumulating ship XP and credits. Now I find that my top of line carrier the Charles Martell has been locked out of playing because it requires servicing for which I will be charged some ridiculous price of  50K+ doubloons. Is this a glitch or is it for real? Like I say, only 6 months playing but this is a first and I can't find anything anywhere about "ship requires service."

[Rollingonit]

Sounds like you are out of credits (not doubloons). If you have a premium ship, play that bunch for a bit. Or go to the mid tiers and play decently enough to earn some. 

Edit: I see you only really play Coop. Coop rewards are much lower compared to the PVP modes. You'll have to play your premium ships a bunch to earn some credits or buy premium. 

https://wiki.wargaming.net/en/Ship:Economy

Operating Cost

(link)

Ignore the bit about purchasing consumables.

After a battle, the ship must be made ready to fight another battle. Repairing and servicing the ship and replenishing ammunition costs credits .

These operating costs are paid automatically if funds are available. In the event of insufficient funds, the ship is rendered unusable until the bill is paid. This is not done automatically — when funds are available the player must manually select the ship in port and request that it be made ready.

Service Cost

Post-battle servicing includes maintenance and the repair of damage sustained regardless of the end health of the ship, even if it has been sunk. The service cost is a flat fee^[8] depending on tier, type, and premium status.^[9] [10]

Service cost can be decreased by flying the India Bravo Terrathree  signal, by Ranked season flags, and by the Dry Dock in your clan naval base. Several other signals and single-use camouflages also reduce service cost.
 

In certain game modes with low rewards, such as Co-op, a 25% base cost discount is applied before all other modifiers.

Service Cost of Ships

Tier	Service Cost per match
	Tech Tree Ship (base cost) *	Tech Tree Ship (with permanent camouflage)	Premium Ship (base cost) *	Premium Ship (with permanent camouflage)
I	0	N/A	N/A	N/A
II	2,000	N/A	2,000	1,800  (-10%)
III	3,000	2,700  (-10%) [11]	3,000	2,700 ] (-10%)
IV	5,000	N/A	5,000	4,500  (-10%)
V	11,500	10,350  (-10%) [11]	11,500	10,350  (-10%)
VI	23,000	20,700  (-10%)	21,850  (×0.95)	19,665  (-10%)
VII	42,000	37,800  (-10%)	35,700  (×0.85)	32,130  (-10%)
VIII	75,000	67,500  (-10%)	52,500  (×0.7)	47,250  (-10%)
IX	120,000	96,000  (-20%)	60,000  (×0.5)	48,000  (-20%)
X	180,000	90,000  (-50%)	90,000  (×0.5)	45,000  (-50%)

Ammunition

Stocks of main battery shells, torpedoes, and aircraft — Ammunition — expended in a battle must be replenished. The cost in credits  to refill the ship's magazines and hanger is charged on a per unit basis, and each type of shell, torpedo, or plane has its own cost. For instance, the giant 460mm (18.1") shells of Yamato and Musashi cost far more than the 76.2mm (3") shells of Smith. Ammunition for secondary and anti-air (AA) batteries or for fighter planes is not charged. Tier I ships do not incur ammo costs.

 

To view a breakdown of your ammunition costs, hover the mouse over the Ammunition entry on the post-battle report 'Credits and XP' tab.

[lallave]

Thanks. Had no idea. Now one thing I have noticed is that in my recent games with the Martell the exchange credits I earned after 4 battles was deducted and not added to the starting figure. It went from 70K to 40K instead of from 70k to 110K. After it went to 40K I got the message requiring service. Is this correct or am I being cheated out of credits to force me to buy doubloons. 

[HamptonRoads]

5 minutes ago, lallave said:

Thanks. Had no idea. Now one thing I have noticed is that in my recent games with the Martell the exchange credits I earned after 4 battles was deducted and not added to the starting figure. It went from 70K to 40K instead of from 70k to 110K. After it went to 40K I got the message requiring service. Is this correct or am I being cheated out of credits to force me to buy doubloons. 

Look at your after battle screens.  The last tab "credits and experience" will give you a breakdown of the credits you earned and how much you spent on upkeep and ammo.  If you're incapable of paying this cost your ship is held in port until you can pay off this amount in credits (not doubloons.)

[Rollingonit]

3 minutes ago, lallave said:

Thanks. Had no idea. Now one thing I have noticed is that in my recent games with the Martell the exchange credits I earned after 4 battles was deducted and not added to the starting figure. It went from 70K to 40K instead of from 70k to 110K. After it went to 40K I got the message requiring service. Is this correct or am I being cheated out of credits to force me to buy doubloons. 

It sounds like what you earned was less than the total service costs. There are 3 screens at the end of each game, the first one will just show you what you earned in that match. The last tab breaks it all down and actually shows you the net total (Earnings - costs). 

 

[lallave]

Thanx one and all. I am as you can tell new at this. Would you believe I went from 8million credits down to almost nothing after I purchased the Kiev DD. I left nothing in my account for service costs. Oh well, need to go back several tiers and rebuild my balance sheet

[Compassghost]

You can also sell old ships for credits, but the best way to build up a pool of credits would be to purchase a mid-tier premium ship that you enjoy and play the hell out of it. That gives you a solid coffer to work with in case you need repairs.

[KaptainKaybe]

Do you have a premium account, OP?

As a general rule, Coop is horrible for earning credits ... and playing Coop with a tech tree ship at Tier 8 without a premium account pretty much guarantees you're always losing money.

[_ENO_]

28 minutes ago, lallave said:

Thanx one and all. I am as you can tell new at this. Would you believe I went from 8million credits down to almost nothing after I purchased the Kiev DD. I left nothing in my account for service costs. Oh well, need to go back several tiers and rebuild my balance sheet

Take this for what its worth- you're not that new... you're over 2000 battles in coop. But you're getting into tiers where you need to do more than just throw yourself into the middle of everything and sinking just to load into port and grab another ship. This is where that credit pinch happens- as mentioned there are things you can do in port to address this... like sell old ships and mount credit flags (less valuable in coop- but that's pretty much all the experience you have so let's stick with that). 

You're hitting almost half of what you shoot at... so that's good but your damage and survival is low for coop- which tells me that you're getting too close, too soon and as a cruiser main followed by DDs that's not what you do well. YES you need to push in to get any damage you can to increase XP and credits but you're pushing too far, too fast to keep up with everything going on around you. DDs are expected to be in close but with the bots you're better off just kiting and farming- saving the yolo torp run until later on during the mop up instead of the first catch of the day. 

If you want more XP / credits, focus your fire on the ships that are higher tier and concentrate on DDs and cruisers- since each hit takes proportionately more of the target health... this is beneficial for your rewards after. 

 

[paradat]

Come to randoms my friend.

[_SterlingArcher_]

55 minutes ago, lallave said:

Thanx one and all. I am as you can tell new at this. Would you believe I went from 8million credits down to almost nothing after I purchased the Kiev DD. I left nothing in my account for service costs. Oh well, need to go back several tiers and rebuild my balance sheet

Also, go to the inventory screen (in the dropdown menu when you click on your name) and sell of any stock modules for the ships on your port, great way to build a few million credits quickly, if you have a few botes 

[Dr_Powderfinger]

To make more credits:

Play mid-tier ships

Play randoms instead of co-op

Mount flags for credits and reduced service costs

Sells unused ships or modules

Play premium ships

Buy premium time

[BrushWolf]

1 hour ago, HamptonRoads said:

Look at your after battle screens.  The last tab "credits and experience" will give you a breakdown of the credits you earned and how much you spent on upkeep and ammo.  If you're incapable of paying this cost your ship is held in port until you can pay off this amount in credits (not doubloons.)

This, if you are short on credits play low to mid tier ships to get your ships out of hock.

[PrairiePlayer]

@lallave, Premium time is a great investment and will help you earn more than enough credits, even in co-op.  WG has traditionally had sales on premium time around the Christmas holidays.  Take a look around mid-December and see if you can pick up Premium at a discount. 

[Chain_shot]

Dude you are broke earn some credits in randoms.

 

[Wrath_Of_Deadguy]

If all else fails, you can always repurchase any Tier I ship. It is literally impossible to lose money with them; they have no service cost. For that matter, it's effectively impossible to lose money for the first several tiers, because the amount you get just for loading into the match will be higher than the ship's service cost. If you frequently have trouble with service costs at higher tiers, it may be worth keeping a low-tier ship around just to dig yourself out when all your ships get impounded, and if you don't have one already... well, the Tier Is are all free. Grab one, run a few battles to put some coin back in your pocket, and re-buy something at T3 or T4 with better earning potential. Pick one you enjoyed playing through the first time around, of course.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

If OP can't afford money for premium ships, there are several mid-tier ships (eligible for directives etc) available for coal (Okt Rev, Marblehead, Anshan, Aigle, Blyskawica) and one for FXP (Nelson, 375K FXP).

They should do their research to see whether these ships fit their style, of course, but the options are there. 

[KaptainKaybe]

"Guys, I have something to help you win this race!"

 

[Murcc]

17 hours ago, lallave said:

Thanx one and all. I am as you can tell new at this. Would you believe I went from 8million credits down to almost nothing after I purchased the Kiev DD. I left nothing in my account for service costs. Oh well, need to go back several tiers and rebuild my balance sheet

Service costs only come into play if you fail to earn more than the cost to play the match.  In that case, your account will decrease a bit for each game you play until you can't pay the cost.  Then you will need to take out another ship that does not already have a deficit.  Lower tier ships almost always earn credits in games, even for poor results.

[Midnitewolf]

19 hours ago, lallave said:

I have only been playing 6 months and every ship I have I earned it by playing and accumulating ship XP and credits. Now I find that my top of line carrier the Charles Martell has been locked out of playing because it requires servicing for which I will be charged some ridiculous price of  50K+ doubloons. Is this a glitch or is it for real? Like I say, only 6 months playing but this is a first and I can't find anything anywhere about "ship requires service."

You have to pay for service on any ship but you probably didn't notice it because right up until Tier 10, most ships earn more than it costs to run them.  Tier 10s though, can actually lose money, even with a premium sub so you might have to earn the credits somewhere else.  You might even lose money all the way down to Tier 8 if you don't play with premium but I am not sure.  In any case, you can either play a premium ship for a few matches or if your a F2P player, selected a Tier 6-8, tech tree ship that you do well in and make a good amount of credits with and farm the credits with that ship.

Honestly this is part of WG revenue model.  The fact that eventually you will stop earning enough credits to service your ship means you have an incentive to purchase a premium sub, premium ships and/or credits to continue playing.  Welcome to the F2P world.