Kansas - early experience and comments on fit-out.

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

I will preface this by saying that what I expected was basically Colorado with 50% more guns (as Kansas' turrets are triples rather than twins). 

I pretty much got what I expected, although the ramifications of playing Colorado with 50% more guns and 33% longer reload in Tier 8 matchmaking are still sinking in. In particular, I am of the opinion that this will be a ship which probably does her best in Randoms rather than Co-op. 

So, comparing her to Colorado:

UPSIDES:

1) 50% more guns

2) A tiny bit more speed - no more than a couple of kt, but it's enough. She's almost, but not quite, as fast as a stock North Carolina.

3) She feels a LITTLE bit more agile.

4) Stock gun range (~20km without spotter plane) is workable for a Tier 8 BB, and Artillery Plotting Room Mod 1 is not an absolute necessity.

5) Shells are more than adequate if you have the skill to get them on target. Relatively thin-skinned targets including large cruisers are going to suffer harshly if they show side.

6) Having four triple turrets means that if necessary, you can engage two ships with six guns each or fire the fore and aft groups alternating at twenty-second intervals when trying to deal with destroyers and other small pests.

 

DOWNSIDES:

1) That forty second reload hurts, especially when having to deal with destroyers, and unlike Minnesota she doesn't have the Slot Six module with which to offset it. You will want to pick your targets carefully and make the most of every salvo. See #6 above.

2) The main turret rotation is adequate, but could be better. Not having to take Artillery Plotting Room 1 as an absolute necessity means that the turret rotation can be boosted (fortunately now without any impact on the rate of fire), and having a captain with enhanced Expert Marksman makes it even sweeter. This is a personal choice - there will be those who want every possible range advantage, and I can't say that their choice is necessarily wrong.  I expect that when I graduate to Minnesota, I will take rate of fire for slot six and the increased turret rotation with the mod in slot three will be needed to offset the rotation nerf this brings.

3) Her main problem in co-op, when facing Tier 10 ships, is going to be kill-stealing from ships with better DPM that can get inside her reload cycle and finish off her near-dead victims.

 

I'm interested to hear from Kansas drivers who are either enjoying the ship or prepared to make a go of her in order to get Minnesota the slow, old-fashioned way. How did you set her up, what captain did you choose for her and with what skills, and what are your initial experiences and lessons learned? I was originally going to use Dusty Rodes for this line, but my first Random battle - although a survived win - showed me that I needed the best possible tank build for minimizing fires and getting them out as soon as possible. With the current skill set, that means BOS, FP, SI regardless of what else you take. 

[Usedcarjock]

4 minutes ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

I will preface this by saying that what I expected was basically Colorado with 50% more guns (as Kansas' turrets are triples rather than twins). 

I pretty much got what I expected, although the ramifications of playing Colorado with 50% more guns and 33% longer reload in Tier 8 matchmaking are still sinking in. In particular, I am of the opinion that this will be a ship which probably does her best in Randoms rather than Co-op. 

So, comparing her to Colorado:

UPSIDES:

1) 50% more guns

2) A tiny bit more speed - no more than a couple of kt, but it's enough. She's almost, but not quite, as fast as a stock North Carolina.

3) She feels a LITTLE bit more agile.

4) Stock gun range (~20km without spotter plane) is workable for a Tier 8 BB, and Artillery Plotting Room Mod 1 is not an absolute necessity.

5) Shells are more than adequate if you have the skill to get them on target. Relatively thin-skinned targets including large cruisers are going to suffer harshly if they show side.

6) Having four triple turrets means that if necessary, you can engage two ships with six guns each or fire the fore and aft groups alternating at twenty-second intervals when trying to deal with destroyers and other small pests.

 

DOWNSIDES:

1) That forty second reload hurts, especially when having to deal with destroyers, and unlike Minnesota she doesn't have the Slot Six module with which to offset it. You will want to pick your targets carefully and make the most of every salvo. See #6 above.

2) The main turret rotation is adequate, but could be better. Not having to take Artillery Plotting Room 1 as an absolute necessity means that the turret rotation can be boosted (fortunately now without any impact on the rate of fire), and having a captain with enhanced Expert Marksman makes it even sweeter. This is a personal choice - there will be those who want every possible range advantage, and I can't say that their choice is necessarily wrong.  I expect that when I graduate to Minnesota, I will take rate of fire for slot six and the increased turret rotation with the mod in slot three will be needed to offset the rotation nerf this brings.

3) Her main problem in co-op, when facing Tier 10 ships, is going to be kill-stealing from ships with better DPM that can get inside her reload cycle and finish off her near-dead victims.

 

I'm interested to hear from Kansas drivers who are either enjoying the ship or prepared to make a go of her in order to get Minnesota the slow, old-fashioned way. How did you set her up, what captain did you choose for her and with what skills, and what are your initial experiences and lessons learned? I was originally going to use Dusty Rodes for this line, but my first Random battle - although a survived win - showed me that I needed the best possible tank build for minimizing fires and getting them out as soon as possible. With the current skill set, that means BOS, FP, SI regardless of what else you take. 

How well does the Kansas retain her energy in a turn? 

[Tom_Greg]

3 minutes ago, Usedcarjock said:

How well does the Kansas retain her energy in a turn? 

If there's an opposite of 'Ludicrous Speed' that should give you an idea. 

[Ensign_Cthulhu]

14 minutes ago, Usedcarjock said:

How well does the Kansas retain her energy in a turn? 

Sorry, forgot to cover that. She bleeds it, but there's a silver lining in that the loss of speed can help her avoid things she might otherwise have struck (e.g. torps, shells, land). 

Because this is a completely new ship to me (as well as to just about everyone else who wasn't involved in the testing), I don't perceive it as a nerf per se because I've got nothing from before to compare it to. It's just how the ship is, and she's not the only one which sheds speed like this. The black mark against her (and Minnesota, I guess) in particular is because of the low minimum value that speed reaches. 

[Akeno017]

27 minutes ago, Ensign_Cthulhu said:

I'm interested to hear from Kansas drivers who are either enjoying the ship or prepared to make a go of her in order to get Minnesota the slow, old-fashioned way. How did you set her up, what captain did you choose for her and with what skills, and what are your initial experiences and lessons learned?

I too shall preface, by saving that I free exp'ed past 90% of NM, Colorado and NC to Iowa many eons ago because I strongly disliked my first few games of New Mexico, so little experience of American Standards.

Kansas for me feels very much like a Montana in her gun. At T8 she has a slower reload  but anything that shows weakness infront of her is punished from the sheer weight of the 12 16" guns.
This is the only place I think there is room for buffs, if her guns hit just that bit harder she'd be much better balanced as a slow-but-powerful artillery platform. Oh how convenient, it appears that Kansas uses worse shells then Norca/Sodaks, and Mini-soda at T9 the same to Iowa. Theres the perfect buff solution there.

The ship itself does't really feel like an issue to me, its slow but its tanky, handles well and angles fairly decently. Its a fine platform for hulking those main battery guns onto the targets they need to hit.

Captain Build here, fairly standard I imagine.

Spoiler

 

[cgbosn4]

I play this game to have fun and the Kansas isn’t fun, IMO. 

I really struggled with the early US battleships, mostly because of their speed. Guess I just like to go fast (or at least faster) and most of the other BB lines bring that to the table. 

The 40 second reload is very painful and I’ll be sure to exploit it when I’m playing DD. If perhaps she had secondaries like the MASS then perhaps that would be an interesting twist. But as is, no thanks. 

To me she just belongs safe in the back and hope to land a shell or two at distance.  All this does is p*ss off your team as they push while you try to snipe. If you wander to close to the action you can find yourself in trouble quick and you’ll have to wait 40 sec to do anything about it.

My plan is to grind out her XP and move on. I hear the MN & VT are similar so standby for more pain. Once I have the VT I’ll dust them off twice a year for containers. 

Not sure why WGing released such cr@p (again, my opinion), but I don’t see a bright future for this line unless some tweaks are made. 

[theLaalaa]

I've not really fitted out a captain for USD Toto, but here's my present fit out of the dog:

• I like the range addition from slot 3. Allows me to participate in battles I'd never 'get a shot at' otherwise.
• I started with propulsion in slot 4, but realized that getting up to inadequate speed faster is no real help, so now it turns better for avoiding incomings.
• I'm still trying the torp sensor in slot 5, but I can rationalize the concealment boost as it would be engaged between every full salvo.

You're right about its inadequacies in Co-op. It is as bad in Co-op as the Pompom is good. Randoms helps this dog make two shekels per round. Also, it does shoot down planes ok - not great, but not bad.

[Bill_Halsey]

The only reason to grind is to get to the steel Xmas boxes. (Hopefully). The 40 sec reload reload is the killer.