Battleship Craft is about building a navy of powerful warships. But you can't rule the sea if you don't know
With excellent warships come excellent powers. Unless you don't know how to use them effectively.
how to battle properly.
Fighting the Enemy[]
See Battle Tactics
These are basic tactics which will benefit almost every ship type and player.
- Know your ship! Fight according to design specifications. For example, if your vessel is a fast boat, employ hit and run and use speed and distance to keep them from hitting you. If you employ submarines, recognize which situations would favor underwater torpedo attacks, mine laying and surface gunfire. Tactics will vary per category and even per ship.
- Know your map! Differenet maps favor different strategies. The Island and Night maps favor close-quarter fighting due to obstacles and hindered lines of sight between spawn points respectively. Vessels designed for long-distance firepower will be forced to fight at closer ranges, while carriers on both maps can attack with near-impunity. Keep in mind that if a carrier is hit, the deck will go on fire, perfect for aiming at in the pitch of night. Submarines, given the fact they need to be close to their target to attack, are lethal on maps with limited visibility and opaque water, given the sufficient skill to take advantage of it. Battleships can handily operate in any map choice, regardless of visibility, water clarity and distance. Choose maps wisely for your vessel.
- Lead in! Shells have to fly in an arced trajectory, making aiming at extreme distances difficult. This is further impeded if the vessel is moving. Keep in mind while any said weapon could theoretically hit targets at the distance said, their effective range is only two-thirds to one-third of the said distance. An exception comes in the Mk 45 5 inch gun. Due to its much flatter trajectory, higher shell speed and rapid rate of fire, its effective range is very close to the 15.6 km theoretical range. A torpedo's effective range is no more than two miles away for the Torpedo Tube B and the Triple Torpedo Tube, while the Torpedo Tube A's effective range is essentially point-blank. This is because torpedoes are much slower and less accurate than shells and equally, if not more, visible than shellfire.
- Attack the Sides! The side of a warship is substantially weaker than the bow or stern, while also easier to hit. By attacking only one side, you could capsize an enemy vessel easily. This rule is especially prevalent with the Mk 45 5 inch Gun, who relies on the strategic placement of artillery shells to deal maximum damage. Beware that a warship usually is able to unleash its full might here, but so will you. Unless engaging at short range, this is less of an issue- longer distances enable you to hit the even more vulnerable decks.
- Be Mobile! Moving does not decrease your accuracy greatly, while making it harder for the enemy to be able to destroy you. By being mobile, you can position yourself in an advantageous position, and then proceed to demolish enemy warships. This is why Fortresses do not fare well in battle- their massive size and the general lack of mobility compared to other vessels makes them vulnerable to any ship that has lots of firepower and high mobility such as large battleships, well-armed fast boats, cruisers, aircraft carriers and submarines.
- Dodge the Shells! This applies more to faster, smaller ships. By moving in an unpredictable pattern, shells can be easy to dodge. Given that any gun that does reasonable damage has a 20-second reload time (save for the Mk 45 5 inch gun), it is possible to outmaneuver larger ships, given shell flight time. By utilizing whatever superior performance available (ex speed, turn radius, sensitivity, etc) one can minimize damage to your ship while maximizing damage to theirs. Keep in mind they will too attempt to do the same, so take care in maneuvering duels.
- Ten Kilometers of Death! This is what indicates the effective range of any gun with a 20-second reload time.While able to throw a shell much farther than that, combat ranges tend to stop at this threshold. Slow shell flightime and arced trajectories tend to make shells miss at ranges beyond 10 kilometers. This is only a generalization: fortresses can be reliably engaged at the stated ranges while fast boats tend to be easier to be hit closer than the 10-kilometer line.
Warship Design[]
See Weapon-Specific Strategies, Ship-Building
Warships are the key to victory. A misplaced weapon mount can cost you a defeat and your ship may end up on the bottom of the sea. A key to design is how you want to fight- a specialized battleship killer would place its main batteries up front to deliver a dramatic amount of frontal firepower, while a versatile battleship would evenly distribute its armament to be able to defend every angle equally in exchange for sheer frontal firepower. If the warship is to be an aircraft carrier, then room must be made for the runway and any airplanes to be stored. Submarine weaponry must be balanced out, and submarines are very tricky to balance.
With the plethora of weaponry available, perhaps the most versatile of any weapon is in the 30.5cm gun category. It has the firepower to deal serious damage at any level while being compact enough to ruin enemy vessels and won't break the bank. These guns can serve as the primary batteries of small ships and as secondary and tertiary batteries of larger vessels. The weapons family carries a respectable 13.3km range. Overall lethal, its only weakness is its lack of heavy firepower- they cannot seriously harm larger vessels.
Another investment is the 46 cm Gun. As the biggest, most powerful, heaviest, most expensive and toughest weapon, it can smash enemy warships. The fact it is a triple battery makes the gun lethal. It also boasts the longest range of any gun and any warship with it will have the second-longest attack range available, save for the airplanes. It is great for the largest battleships- its size and weight excludes its use from anything smaller than a Battleship Capricornus.
The Mk 45 5 inch Gun is one of the best weapons in the game. Mating the rate of fire of the puny 76mm RFG and the firepower of the respectable 36cm Gun family, this weapon is excellent against warplanes and small ships alike. Small vessels and submarines utilize it to bring its firepower up, while large ships can use them as an anti-aircraft and a light anti-ship gun. With the second-longest range of any gun (excluding aircraft), this can extend the reach of any ship greatly. Its addition will bolster the anti-aircraft defense of any ship greatly. The only major downside is its low capacity against tough ships and its low toughness to damage- it can give far more firepower than it can receive.
If planning to employ submarines, then the Underwater torpedo tube is a necessity. As the only weapon that can be used underwater, any submarine would utilize it extensively. Though it can theoretically attack enemies at 4.5km away, it is only useful at 3km or less due to the slow reload speed and slow travel and the fact torpedoes are short-ranged affairs. When emplacing it on submarines, attempt to balance it. A good strategy is to use a 3-long series of blocks, consisting of a Heavy Ballast block sandwiched between two 400mm Armor blocks.
A ship must not only accomodate weaponry, but must be mobile and resilient to damage- most of the damage received from the enemy will certainly be focused on the hull. It provides mobility and stability. A compromise exists between durablility, stability and mobility. Lightweight armor of all types helps with all three- it is equally durable, comes in partial and large blocks, and is lighter, making any ship less top-heavy. Ballast can be used to stablilize any ship, at the cost of mobility, but standard 600mm armor can be used instead. Boiler space needs to be compatible with weapon space. The only class of warship that can disregard this is the Fortress. Many are high-mobile, inheritly stable due to its flat, wide shape and because of its flat, wide shape, can accomodate masses of weaponry and armor to tank the damage.
Economy[]
All of this is impossible without Resource, the in-game currency. Weaponry can cost huge sums of money, and it can be difficult to equip every ship with all of the necessary weaponry. Armoring a ship with lightweight armor can drive the cost of a ship dramatically. To reduce costs, one can use the concept of shared equipment, where items such as the Rangefinder+Radar and the Recon Plane can be bought once, and then applied on the ship that you are planning to use. When switching ships, remove the shared items and emplace them on your other ship. This can apply to weaponry- it would be more frugal to buy a few specialized or rare metal weapons and constantly apply and reapply them to various ships than arm every ship with a particular weapon. You can use the money save to apply upgrades to existing vessels and construct new ships. Deleting obsolete ships for parts can save you in resource consumption regarding weaponry and armor. The sacrifice of convenience is worth the gain in resource.