Can anyone help me Git Gud with my guns?

[HyperFish]

At the moment I'm playing tier 3-4. I have trouble hitting things with my guns and torps. 

 

I do a ranging shot, find it's pretty much on target (usually doesn't hit), then unleash a salvo only to find that I get maybe 1 shell hit, and the rest splash harmlessly to either side. It's difficult to tell whether I'm short or long. If the ship is heading towards me I'll compensate and aim under their waterline. If the ship is heading away from me then I'll aim above their waterline. I get some lag, so I try to aim even further forward of ships.

 

My main battery guns hit ration is 27%.

 

My torp hit ratio is 6%.

 

Even when I'm close and personal I'll see half of my salvo sail harmlessly over their heads while the other splashes down in between us. 

 

Is it that the guns are really inaccurate at lower tiers, or am I as bad as I think I am?

 

Edited for spelling and torp stat. 

[suleiman71]

27% hit rate is actually rather good. 

[BladedPheonix]

press alt when your aiming at far off targets. match the range lead the target then shoot! if they miss adjust your aim, if not fire again!!

 

[enderland07]

Look at the minimap when aiming at ships.

 

It is a lot more obvious if they are slightly angled towards you or away than the profile of the ship will ever be.

[Vonquote]

play each ship in co op mode and get an idea of how each ship fires its shells.  Flat trajectory, mid or high.  if you know how much to lead your target on a flat firing ship, when you lead say 1 and 1/2 marks on your scope, when you switch to mid you need to add about 1/2, and high add 1 full.

 

What I do is mentally divide the max range into 3rds.  and every time i go from short to medium or medium to long i add the 1/2 and then 1 full mark on the scope.

 

This is by no means perfect nor fool proof.  Gotta get to know how each ship shoots and how high the arc is on the shells.  But it's how I learned when starting his game.

 

Von

[Political_Malcontent]

Not much you can do. RNG in this game negates player skill. You can line up a shot, doing everything right and still miss. US BBs are the worst. I was in my fully upgraded New Mexico shooting a CV 9km away and my shots flew off in odd directions. The game wouldn't let them land on target.

[HyperFish]

press alt when your aiming at far off targets. match the range lead the target then shoot! if they miss adjust your aim, if not fire again!!

 

I have the alternate targetting reticule set perm on. 

[enderland07]

Not much you can do. RNG in this game negates player skill. You can line up a shot, doing everything right and still miss. US BBs are the worst. I was in my fully upgraded New Mexico shooting a CV 9km away and my shots flew off in odd directions. The game wouldn't let them land on target.

 

Then why do I consistently get good hits with my USN BB?

 

[HyperFish]

Does anyone else experience targetted ships "jumping" forwards once they've been destroyed? Like, you're zoomed in on a ship, firing salvos. As soon as the ship explodes, it kinda jerks forward 1/3 to 1/2 of it's length then goes through the sinking animation.

[DayoftheGreek]

For me, lead is the easy part.  Some ships (cruisers, Japanese BB), move quick so make sure you way out in front them.  Get a consistent zooming plan.  Always zoom in 100%, and you will find fast ships WAY ahead of your bar at long range, some ships right at the max, and slow ships in the normal range.  For fast ships, always zoom out exactly a certain number of clicks on the mouse wheel so you keep some perspective.  That puts them back on the aiming line.

 

Now comes the second part.  Hold your shot for a second.  See if they are increasing distance away from your or or closing distance.  Adjust your aim up or down.  This can be significant.  At range you need those plunging shots and the shell hang time can be really long.  So wait, adjust, then fire.  you don't always want to aim at the belt because at long range the shells fall so you need to hope to hit right down into the deck.  You might need to aim like a whole ship height over the ship if they are moving away.  If they are close and moving closer, be ready to aim right into the water.   

 

Last is prediction.  You need to aim at where you think they will be a good 10 seconds from when you shoot.  This is probably the hardest.  Its a combination of perfect aim and good guessing.  A good guess and good aim at 20km will still land some penetrations, but its a TINY window to hit. 

[HyperFish]

Just had a perfect example with torps. Approached stationary CV. Out of detection range. Within torp range. Torp aiming guideline went straight down the middle of the ship. Fired 3 torp salvos, 2 at the ship, one ahead. The ship didn't move. Both salvos fired at the ship passed behind. The one fired in front of the cv hit it. CV never moved the whole time. I know, it was still stationary when my next salvo finished it off. 

[MikeCMyers]

Does anyone else experience targetted ships "jumping" forwards once they've been destroyed? Like, you're zoomed in on a ship, firing salvos. As soon as the ship explodes, it kinda jerks forward 1/3 to 1/2 of it's length then goes through the sinking animation.

 

Yes, that's desync. it can happen when ships are alive still, and it's incredibly annoying. Nothing you can do about that, it's server side.

[enderland07]

For me, lead is the easy part.  Some ships (cruisers, Japanese BB), move quick so make sure you way out in front them.  Get a consistent zooming plan.  Always zoom in 100%, and you will find fast ships WAY ahead of your bar at long range, some ships right at the max, and slow ships in the normal range.  For fast ships, always zoom out exactly a certain number of clicks on the mouse wheel so you keep some perspective.  That puts them back on the aiming line.

 

Now comes the second part.  Hold your shot for a second.  See if they are increasing distance away from your or or closing distance.  Adjust your aim up or down.  This can be significant.  At range you need those plunging shots and the shell hang time can be really long.  So wait, adjust, then fire.  you don't always want to aim at the belt because at long range the shells fall so you need to hope to hit right down into the deck.  You might need to aim like a whole ship height over the ship if they are moving away.  If they are close and moving closer, be ready to aim right into the water.   

 

Last is prediction.  You need to aim at where you think they will be a good 10 seconds from when you shoot.  This is probably the hardest.  Its a combination of perfect aim and good guessing.  A good guess and good aim at 20km will still land some penetrations, but its a TINY window to hit. 

 

I find that in a BB, it's extremely easy to hit cruisers who are making a hard turn. You can't really adjust your rudder in a hard turn very quickly, so it's easy to line up good shots against them in that situation.

[IrritableGamer]

Work on your spelling first guns second.

[HyperFish]

Work on your spelling first guns second.

 

First guns second. Spelt correctly for you.

 

Or were you trying to have a go at my spelling with a post with bad punctuation?

[dahdah325]

OP, you are not doing too badly for someone with ~250 games played so far. Your hit rate is not bad in most of your ships, but your damage per game is a bit low. This typically means you are either running alot of HE or your AP hits are bouncing/overpenning. If it is the later, your problem is simply one of aim. Low tier ships are less accurate, but you can increase your chances of getting pens/citadels by optimizing your shots. Some of it is simply experience (how much to lead at what distances) and some of it is knowledge/skill (location of citadels, making sure you aim low enough, etc). Consider adding a mod'ed gun sight; there are many choices out there (Aslain.com has like 20 choices), and a number of them give you a better 'feel' for shot leads. 

 

As far as ammunition choice goes, HE is a viable option in many situations in low tier CA's, but don't rely on it exclusively. Try AP in your t3 cruisers, and learn which ships you face are vulnerable in what situations. Knowing when to switch to AP in higher DPM ships can give you a HUGE advantage over players who do nothing but spam HE. BB's, on the other hand, should be running AP pretty much exclusively. Personally, I almost never change to HE; its not worth the reload time in 90% of the cases. 

 

The only other advice I would have it to pick a ship type and learn it. At 250 games, it is cool to play a little of everything like you have, just to find out what you enjoy. But to actually 'git gud', you need to spend time in one line at a time. Take a look at the lines you have played, and pick one to specialize in for the next 100-200 games. It is amazing how much easier later ship-types will feel once you build your basic game skills. But spreading yourself out over all 4 ship types will really increase the amount of time it takes to get better at any one of them. 

[DoomStomper]

A lot of solid points already made here, but nothing beats a good video tutorial, IMHO.  Check out iChase's other Captain's Academy content as well; it's all very informative.

 

[Punisher_One]

Your hit percentage isn't that bad. You fire a lot in this game and since it's a shotgun you're not going to have super high hit numbers. Play some co-op once in a while to have a little more predictable enemy so you can concentrate on improving a game play aspect like shooting. I also take new ships there to learn how they move and shoot so I look less noobish when I take them into Random Battles. Good luck and have fun. 

[Captain_Chaos_NA]

At the moment I'm playing tier 3-4. I have trouble hitting things with my guns and torps. 

 

I do a ranging shot, find it's pretty much on target (usually doesn't hit), then unleash a salvo only to find that I get maybe 1 shell hit, and the rest splash harmlessly to either side. It's difficult to tell whether I'm short or long. If the ship is heading towards me I'll compensate and aim under their waterline. If the ship is heading away from me then I'll aim above their waterline. I get some lag, so I try to aim even further forward of ships.

 

My main battery guns hit ration is 27%.

 

My torp hit ratio is 6%.

 

Even when I'm close and personal I'll see half of my salvo sail harmlessly over their heads while the other splashes down in between us. 

 

Is it that the guns are really inaccurate at lower tiers, or am I as bad as I think I am?

 

Edited for spelling and torp stat. 

 

The hit ratio is fine, I would judge someone as being competent with aiming when they can land the first shell center of the target consistently regardless if it's a hit or not.  At that point you advance to placing the shots for citadel hits, landing the shots were you want on the ship the rest is up to RNG.  Using a 3rd party sight can help with this like those found in Aslains mod installer.  I personally just use one that that extends the graduated marker further across the screen.  

 

Like others have said turn on alternate battle mode in settings, locks the alt function on so you have the range and health bars all the time.  In time you will learn how to judge speed and the amount of lead needed for the targets in the ship you are in.  I found my hit rate going down as I got more confident with aiming, basically taking more lower percentage shots if the situation allows for it.  Generally speaking I make a quick threat assessment and fire at the target giving me the best shot or the one that has a chance to remove a ship from the match.  

[Jammin411]

Not much you can do. RNG in this game negates player skill. You can line up a shot, doing everything right and still miss. US BBs are the worst. I was in my fully upgraded New Mexico shooting a CV 9km away and my shots flew off in odd directions. The game wouldn't let them land on target.

 

RNG does kind reduce the actual skill needed.  I think this is probably on purpose to help avoid skilled players from dominating too much.  I do think that it needs work though since the fun in a game is becoming more skilled.  Nothing more frustrating than putting an entire broadside in an opponent and getting no citadels and only causing minimal damage.  Then they open up, score 4 citadels and kill you in one broadside.  With all of that said, I still think this game is fun as hell and this will not prevent me from playing it.

[DayoftheGreek]

 

I find that in a BB, it's extremely easy to hit cruisers who are making a hard turn. You can't really adjust your rudder in a hard turn very quickly, so it's easy to line up good shots against them in that situation.

 

Yes!  And if they are turning away from you they expose more of their citadels.  That whole side of the ship lifts out of the water.  If you are close, its a free lunch!

[IceSerpen7]

 

RNG does kind reduce the actual skill needed.  I think this is probably on purpose to help avoid skilled players from dominating too much.  I do think that it needs work though since the fun in a game is becoming more skilled.  Nothing more frustrating than putting an entire broadside in an opponent and getting no citadels and only causing minimal damage.  Then they open up, score 4 citadels and kill you in one broadside.

 

I'm officially confused now...did you just say that fun in game is when you're more skilled than your opponent, but it's frustrating when your opponent is more skilled than you?