playing sub. have questions.

[Kamiyama]

1. Why doesn't the sub regain oxygen at periscope depth? I even see it deploying a snorkel.

2. When I use sonar to ping a boat, it doesn't show the outline of the boat in red (which IMO it should) instead it just puts a white crosshair in the water. Is it okay to shoot torps at the white crosshair, or should I fire more pings until the boat is "discovered" by sonar and actually shows up?

3. Repeatedly now I have fired multiple pings at boats and will hit the boat with 2 pings in sequence, but each hit registers as "one ping" and doesn't give me the longer homing time that a 2-ping does. This really seems like a bug and when I land two pings on one boat, I expect the longer homing time. One ping is really too short unless you're like point blank, and I've found out the hard way that the homing torps will frequently miss at short range because of a difference in depth.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

1. Why doesn't the sub regain oxygen at periscope depth? I even see it deploying a snorkel.

Balance. Can't have something that is near impossible to detect detecting everything all match with no penalty. I could see some subs in the future having periscope recharging as a special feature to make them stand out, but atm not a thing.

When I use sonar to ping a boat, it doesn't show the outline of the boat in red (which IMO it should) instead it just puts a white crosshair in the water. Is it okay to shoot torps at the white crosshair, or should I fire more pings until the boat is "discovered" by sonar and actually shows up?

Pings just highlight a section for torps to home in on; if you land an additional ping on the same section, torps will home in harder ("double ping").
It's not a detection tool - although you can kinda blind fire it to use it as such. And you can't trust the lock-on indicator pings provide as a reliable indicator of position.

It also telegraphs your position, so you need to be careful about how you use it; but you can use it to overwhelm a victim's DCP, which helps teammates land permafires.

Non-homing torps don't require pings and thus aren't telegraphed, and they deal better damage.

It's the surface search consumable that lets you see outlines of ships whilst you're submerged.

Repeatedly now I have fired multiple pings at boats and will hit the boat with 2 pings in sequence, but each hit registers as "one ping" and doesn't give me the longer homing time that a 2-ping does.

Pings have to be on the same section - the thickness of the ping (and thus area of the boat it covers and so how easy it is to double-ping) varies between subs IIRC.

If you land on ping on bow, and another on middle, the first ping gets replaced by the second.

One ping is really too short unless you're like point blank, and I've found out the hard way that the homing torps will frequently miss at short range because of a difference in depth.

Homing characteristics vary by boat - but yeah, that happens.

Submarines should be spending most of their time on the surface - diving is to gain immunity from artillery or evade detection; subs shouldn't be blinding themselves the rest of the time.

Most effective use of submarines is shotgunning - find a vulnerable target that's not gonna hydro you (and you're not gonna get radar'd before you pounce) - just before you get detected, submerge to periscope depth and keep getting closer - release torps (ideally non-homing for the extra damage) at point blank so they can't miss and then submerge before you get detected (although you needn't even do that if they're just gonna die before they can react, and thus you won't get spotted). If they survive and you have rear torps, return to periscope depths once you've cleared the periscope detection radius and let them have it with rear torps - resurface when you're not going to get spotted.

[Kamiyama]

Thank you.

I just figured out I can launch the homing torpedoes first and then ping the ship while the torps are on the way, and they will change direction once I land the ping. That makes single-pinging a lot more useful.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

Thank you.

I just figured out I can launch the homing torpedoes first and then ping the ship while the torps are on the way, and they will change direction once I land the ping. That makes single-pinging a lot more useful.

You can fire homing torps without pings too, to avoid telegraping a launch to the enemy and thus telling them to juke your torps, or worse still having your homing throw off the torps' tracking when they DCP the ping and evade.

Remember that first priority for subs is usually countering the enemy sub (submarine detection consumable is the most powerful tool against other submarines in the game), which means CO skills and flags that reduce cooldown of submarine search, and being the quick-draw who baits out their DCP before they bait out yours.

Oh, and if you get the CO skill that improves damage on double-pinged targets, you have to establish the double ping before launching - although that skill's not great even on ships that ONLY have homing torps, because of how onerous it is to get double pings, not have them cancelled, not have them expire before torps connect, not have the torps juked, etc.

[Kamiyama]

The 1st module slot for subs has the special upgrade for damage control party that costs coal, but it's nearly useless to get that because subs die so easily.

What I would spend coal on is a special upgrade to hydrophone that costs coal. I would love it if the hydrophone lasted longer.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

The 1st module slot for subs has the special upgrade for damage control party that costs coal, but it's nearly useless to get that because subs die so easily.

You'd usually just want to improve torpedo tube survival so you don't get a fluke hit on you from secondaries and lose alphastrike if you get caught out while shotgunning.

If you're in a very ping-reliant boat (Alliance, for example), could maybe see that being an alternative so that you can keep the excellent homing applied even if someone flukes some depth charges on you.

DCP duration's useful because it helps you with a "clean" escape - no permas or oilspills from follow-ups once you've disengaged.
Also helps with sub vs sub duels, because the enemy sub has to wait longer before they can reapply the ping and nail you with their homing torps.

But it's not like it's the most vital use of coal.

What I would spend coal on is a special upgrade to hydrophone that costs coal. I would love it if the hydrophone lasted longer.

Slot 2 is a bit meh - fire / flood prevention is nice if you're getting depth charged, saves you burning through one DCP consumable. But if you're not getting spotted / hit, that's redundant.
Not getting diveplanes / rudder knocked out is kinda important, but not really something I've had an issue with, so not sure if that's super vital.

So yeah, if you have coal to spend, the enhanced upgrade's nice.

But really you shouldn't be relying on hydrophones very much - as I said, submerging is for gaining immunity to artillery or evading detection, not for derping around like a fish for no good reason while you try and land pings for homing torps against targets that only visually update their profile every - what, 6 seconds?.

Being submerged and spamming out pings is how you kill your mobility, telegraph your position to the entire server, and bait enough airstrikes onto you that you're going to get hit by fluke sooner or later.

[Kamiyama]

IMO any of the modules that increase chance of survival for a module are useless. Any time my sub is detected I die literally seconds later. The subs have no HP and no armor. 1 hit is enough to end your existence.

So yeah IMO a hydrophone upgrade would be the best possible thing for module slot 1.

[Kamiyama]

In fact detection = death is such an absolute thing that the survival modules and damage control upgrades seem like a joke to me.

Also - my sub has repair party? In what universe would that help?

Maybe if they added an armored sub with deck guns, that could work. But not on my U-4501

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

IMO any of the modules that increase chance of survival for a module are useless. Any time my sub is detected I die literally seconds later. The subs have no HP and no armor. 1 hit is enough to end your existence.

Subs get special nonsense damage resistance that makes them tankier than DDs.

Subs are the stealthiest ships in the game, so if you're getting properly detected it's generally because you've fundamentally misplayed - and it is this misplaying that's getting you killed, not that subs are squishy.

If you're playing better, you'll be taking occasional flukey hits - which DCP, etc will help mitigate (and RP will heal) - not eating a ton of airstrikes that you've only got yourself to blame for calling down on your own head by telegraping your position with pings, or letting the enemy push you by submerging and thus denying your team vision on them.

[Kamiyama]

Originally posted by Ace42:

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

IMO any of the modules that increase chance of survival for a module are useless. Any time my sub is detected I die literally seconds later. The subs have no HP and no armor. 1 hit is enough to end your existence.

Subs get special nonsense damage resistance that makes them tankier than DDs.

Subs are the stealthiest ships in the game, so if you're getting properly detected it's generally because you've fundamentally misplayed - and it is this misplaying that's getting you killed, not that subs are squishy.

If you're playing better, you'll be taking occasional flukey hits - which DCP, etc will help mitigate (and RP will heal) - not eating a ton of airstrikes that you've only got yourself to blame for calling down on your own head by telegraping your position with pings, or letting the enemy push you by submerging and thus denying your team vision on them.

The U-4501 can dive for almost 5 minutes if you have all the upgrades. My problem is I can't detect ships while submerged. It would help if I had more hydrophone.

[Banzai]

U4501 also gets the best stealth of anything at T10 so you should be able to spot for yourself a lot of the time. 5.4km concealment means your only issues will be radars and long range hydros, all of which you should see coming before they are a problem. The tradeoff is that you are much faster when dived which means you often want to dive to get into a good position quickly and then spot on the surface when you get there.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

The U-4501 can dive for almost 5 minutes if you have all the upgrades.

It can also sit in a corner for twenty minutes while your teammates win or lose the match: Just because it can do something doesn't mean it necessarily should do something.

Spotting for your team is valuable; telegraphing your position to the enemy so they have all the time in the world to counter-strategise against you and just sail right on top of you with their hydroacoustic search pinging away and depth charges coming out of their bum-bums is not valuable.

If you manage your recharge to the point where you're not fully depleting it (which is pretty standard for all subs), then all those consumable points in extending dive duration are wasted.

U-4501's got some pretty unique mechanics, but the fundamentals of the game still apply when it comes to vision, when it comes to alerting the enemy to your presence via pings, when it comes to managing resources and managing concealment.

[CriTical]

who cares? sub is death with the next update.

[Kamiyama]

Originally posted by CriTicaL:

who cares? sub is death with the next update.

They aren't nerfing subs are they?

Of course they are. I spent all my coal on a sub so of course they're going to nerf subs.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

They aren't nerfing subs are they?

https://worldofwarships.eu/en/news/general-news/upcoming-changes-to-aircraft-carriers-and-submarines/

"In parallel with addressing the aircraft carrier issues, we've been working on submarine changes for quite some time now. We’ll implement these changes gradually over the course of a few upcoming updates, and you can expect to see the first major changes with Updates 13.1 & 13.2."

[Kamiyama]

They're nerfing carriers again? The changes are garbage. At this point they should just remove carriers from the game.

These changes suck. They're just bad. Only an idiot would make changes like this.