Sub Help

[Omogoto]

I have tried a few mid level subs out, still unsure about sticking with them for several reasons, one is they are just so hated by everyone, ships mostly go out of there way just to kill them, making the play not very good, and hard to see what real potential they might have.
The other is, although I pretty much have all the operations down, I have problems with a few things, my guided torp's just never seem to turn, on this one I must be missing something simple?, I also noticed that even my long range torp's seem to be detected way way to early? most ships turn as soon as I launch them?, missing by allot by the time they get near the ship.
Lastly most u-tube stuff is not up to date, and usually show just basic game play. I need some help with anyone who has kind of a "subs for dummies" kind of video, any suggestions on some good guides or advice on this, and I already have heard "just don'y play them" their no good.
Thanks

[Ace42]

Basics of sub gameplay:
You want to stay undetected. That means managing your concealment radii; that means managing your depth to avoid detection only where necessary; that means paying attention to enemy cooldowns (Radar; Hydro; Sub Surveillance) and planes and playing around those.

You want to avoid telegraphing yourself to the enemy. That means no sonar pinging unless you've got an excellent reason for it.

You want to use your stealth to find enemy broadsides, and release torps from as close as possible - without getting so close that you run into the shotgunning nerf and have them deal negligible damage.

Goals of sub gameplay:

Outplay the enemy scouts. Ideally this means killing the enemy sub and DD; but can potentially mean outspotting either; or supporting teammates who are trying to deal with both.
Outfarming the enemy scouts, or just outcapping them, can be an option, but kinda relies on them potatoing and both ignoring you *and* failing to generate battle impact themselves.

Once they're dealt with, your stealth should make it easy for you to contest objectives relatively unopposed - that means capping control points and grabbing arms race buffs.

Then you want to combine providing meaningful vision (surfaced as much as possible) with dealing significant damage.
For vision, you want to be positioning so that you can detect island campers via their gunbloom while you're doing stuff.

When it comes to dealing meaningful damage, you want to account for all enemy vision, push up stealthily to find enemy broadsides, then charge at them full speed undetected, ready to drop down to periscope depth before you get spotted. You release torps without using pings (alt-torps where possible for bonus damage) from ~4km away (further away if they have hydro; closer if they're sailing away from your and don't have hydro as their travel will extend the distance the torps travel further than the ~3km shotgunning nerf distance) so that the enemy has less time to evade, and because you're shooting at their broadside, they will struggle to dodge them.

You then escape and resurface when safe.

No need to telegraph your position and your intention to torp to the enemy using pings at all.

The uses for pings are:

Underwater sub-vs-sub combat;
To overwhelm a victim's DCP if it is safe to do so;
To evict enemies from a smokescreen if it is safe to do so;
To save a whiffed homing torp salvo if it is safe to do so;
To play mind-games with the enemy by pinging one target whilst sending non-homing (or homing-cancelled) torps at another - to give them a false sense of security, if it is safe to do so.

DCP will clear pings and render target temporarily immune to pings, which means your homing torps won't home while they're cleansed. Torp homing cuts out altogether when torps get close enough to target (range depends on target class - they stop homing quite some distance from BBs to give the slow BBs the time they need to side-step).

All of these are less value than just doing a strike as described above and dev-striking an opponent without telegraphing your attack.

Depth management

for subs is "you want to be on the surface as much as possible" (with possible exception of U-4501 who goes faster when at max depth).

You drop down to periscope depth if you need to evade something hard-pushing your surface detection radius, to avoid radar, to play games with enemy RPF (radio location); or to get ready to submerge to avoid planes. As well as if you're going in to strike at relatively close range - not too close or your damage will go down.

You drop down to shallow submersion to avoid incoming conventional munitions or something hard-pushing your periscope detection radius.

You drop down to maximum depth to avoid Hydroacoustic Search, which will only be able to detect max-depth subs if they're practically on top of you (~2.5km range IIRC?).

You use Hydrophones to get advanced warning of stuff pushing your surface detection range so you can drop down to periscope sooner without getting detected. You need to surface to avoid Sub Surveillance consumable.

Killing enemy subs:

The CO skill and Slot 3 enhanced module to reduce prep time on Sub Surveillance consumable lets you win the "quick draw" against enemy subs not slotting both, and thus get free kills on one of the ships that is the biggest threat to you.
I-56 is a bit of an odd duck, so this doesn't apply; and S-189 just wins quickdraws for free, so you need to play around its cooldowns.

Make sure your "cancel-homing" button isn't bound to something you're accidentally hitting often, as that will of course cancel the homing on your torps.

If you can out-range enemy depth charge airstrikes, and there's teammates around who'll stop the enemy hard-pushing you to kill you, you can maybe to some ping-spamming long-range torp sniping to punish radar cruisers from a safe distance and thus start unpeeling the enemy team's defensive onion - but this is pretty low value low impact play if there's other more aggressive and more consistent choices available.

Oh, and the co-op bots cheat and have ESP. If you're locked onto them and fire torps, they'll know and keep track of them. So unlock and stay unlocked right before releasing.

[Omogoto]

Totally Awesome Ace42, exactly what I was looking for, Thank you sir

[Firewalk]

Originally posted by Ace42:

Basics of sub gameplay:
You want to stay undetected. That means managing your concealment radii; that means managing your depth to avoid detection only where necessary; that means paying attention to enemy cooldowns (Radar; Hydro; Sub Surveillance) and planes and playing around those.

You want to avoid telegraphing yourself to the enemy. That means no sonar pinging unless you've got an excellent reason for it.

You want to use your stealth to find enemy broadsides, and release torps from as close as possible - without getting so close that you run into the shotgunning nerf and have them deal negligible damage.

Goals of sub gameplay:

Outplay the enemy scouts. Ideally this means killing the enemy sub and DD; but can potentially mean outspotting either; or supporting teammates who are trying to deal with both.
Outfarming the enemy scouts, or just outcapping them, can be an option, but kinda relies on them potatoing and both ignoring you *and* failing to generate battle impact themselves.

Once they're dealt with, your stealth should make it easy for you to contest objectives relatively unopposed - that means capping control points and grabbing arms race buffs.

Then you want to combine providing meaningful vision (surfaced as much as possible) with dealing significant damage.
For vision, you want to be positioning so that you can detect island campers via their gunbloom while you're doing stuff.

When it comes to dealing meaningful damage, you want to account for all enemy vision, push up stealthily to find enemy broadsides, then charge at them full speed undetected, ready to drop down to periscope depth before you get spotted. You release torps without using pings (alt-torps where possible for bonus damage) from ~4km away (further away if they have hydro; closer if they're sailing away from your and don't have hydro as their travel will extend the distance the torps travel further than the ~3km shotgunning nerf distance) so that the enemy has less time to evade, and because you're shooting at their broadside, they will struggle to dodge them.

You then escape and resurface when safe.

No need to telegraph your position and your intention to torp to the enemy using pings at all.

The uses for pings are:

Underwater sub-vs-sub combat;
To overwhelm a victim's DCP if it is safe to do so;
To evict enemies from a smokescreen if it is safe to do so;
To save a whiffed homing torp salvo if it is safe to do so;
To play mind-games with the enemy by pinging one target whilst sending non-homing (or homing-cancelled) torps at another - to give them a false sense of security, if it is safe to do so.

DCP will clear pings and render target temporarily immune to pings, which means your homing torps won't home while they're cleansed. Torp homing cuts out altogether when torps get close enough to target (range depends on target class - they stop homing quite some distance from BBs to give the slow BBs the time they need to side-step).

All of these are less value than just doing a strike as described above and dev-striking an opponent without telegraphing your attack.

Depth management

for subs is "you want to be on the surface as much as possible" (with possible exception of U-4501 who goes faster when at max depth).

You drop down to periscope depth if you need to evade something hard-pushing your surface detection radius, to avoid radar, to play games with enemy RPF (radio location); or to get ready to submerge to avoid planes. As well as if you're going in to strike at relatively close range - not too close or your damage will go down.

You drop down to shallow submersion to avoid incoming conventional munitions or something hard-pushing your periscope detection radius.

You drop down to maximum depth to avoid Hydroacoustic Search, which will only be able to detect max-depth subs if they're practically on top of you (~2.5km range IIRC?).

You use Hydrophones to get advanced warning of stuff pushing your surface detection range so you can drop down to periscope sooner without getting detected. You need to surface to avoid Sub Surveillance consumable.

Killing enemy subs:

The CO skill and Slot 3 enhanced module to reduce prep time on Sub Surveillance consumable lets you win the "quick draw" against enemy subs not slotting both, and thus get free kills on one of the ships that is the biggest threat to you.
I-56 is a bit of an odd duck, so this doesn't apply; and S-189 just wins quickdraws for free, so you need to play around its cooldowns.

Make sure your "cancel-homing" button isn't bound to something you're accidentally hitting often, as that will of course cancel the homing on your torps.

If you can out-range enemy depth charge airstrikes, and there's teammates around who'll stop the enemy hard-pushing you to kill you, you can maybe to some ping-spamming long-range torp sniping to punish radar cruisers from a safe distance and thus start unpeeling the enemy team's defensive onion - but this is pretty low value low impact play if there's other more aggressive and more consistent choices available.

Oh, and the co-op bots cheat and have ESP. If you're locked onto them and fire torps, they'll know and keep track of them. So unlock and stay unlocked right before releasing.

I've been struggling with subs myself, I will definitely refer to this in the future!

[Ace42]

Let us know if you feel it works out for you;
and if not, welp - can always upload some replays to ReplaysWoWs.com (game makes them automatically and stores them in your Replays subfolder) and link us so we can give more specific feedback.

[Omogoto]

Well I had instant improvement in my sub after reading your post, much better grasp on it. Had 3 great matches in a row, including a second place in team score, sinking a BB.
I think the other is 2 things, I just started with the "free" Tier VI soviet sub, so it's probably not the best sub to be using, and my Captain is only lvl 7 so not very strong either. It might be time to get a better sub, and a better Captain.
So thanks again for taking the time to respond

[christof]

Originally posted by Omogoto:

I also noticed that even my long range torp's seem to be detected way way to early? most ships turn as soon as I launch them?

Just in case you saw this in Coop: Bots do tend to have automatic torpedo premonition if you fire them while having them selected as target. Hence why outside of situations where they can't dodge anyway, it's recommended to unlink the target (press X) right before firing the torps.

That is true for all ship based torps, by the way. Not just with submarines.

[York]

another thing is with carriers stick to range getting closer isn't viable against them due to their automatic depth charges so stay at range that way even if the CV drops fighters or the if the CV starts searching you won't get hit by a very accurate Depth charge.

i'm not sure if this is up to date but this is a list of the ranges


Tier 6 CVs have a range of 6 km with 3,400 max damage

Tier 8 CVs have a range of 7 km with 4,200 max damage

Tier 10 CVs have a range of 8 km with 4,900 max damage

[Banzai]

Originally posted by Omogoto:

Well I had instant improvement in my sub after reading your post, much better grasp on it. Had 3 great matches in a row, including a second place in team score, sinking a BB.
I think the other is 2 things, I just started with the "free" Tier VI soviet sub, so it's probably not the best sub to be using, and my Captain is only lvl 7 so not very strong either. It might be time to get a better sub, and a better Captain.
So thanks again for taking the time to respond

Congrats. Not really worth me adding much to Ace's comprehensive advice but if you have specific questions then by all means ask. We do try and help here :)

+1 Ace for good overview of the basics.

Oh, and just to add to Christof and York's comments above, really wouldnt bother with subs in coop. You dont get to scout because they charge right at your team so that removes a large part of your toolkit. They do automatically clear pings though so you can cheese homing if you really want to with that in mind by forcing a DCP and then throwing some homing torps.

As above though, in randoms beating the enemy sub is your best chance of winning a flank and if you are playing the RU Subs they do get some advantages there (notably quicker loading sub radar than other nations).

Good luck to you anyway.

[Omogoto]

wow, great, more good comments, and advice, yes I did stop playing co-op for the very reasons mentioned, they cheat!!
Thanks to all, especially Ace!

[sneakybass]

Originally posted by Omogoto:

I have tried a few mid level subs out, still unsure about sticking with them for several reasons, one is they are just so hated by everyone, ships mostly go out of there way just to kill them, making the play not very good, and hard to see what real potential they might have.
The other is, although I pretty much have all the operations down, I have problems with a few things, my guided torp's just never seem to turn, on this one I must be missing something simple?, I also noticed that even my long range torp's seem to be detected way way to early? most ships turn as soon as I launch them?, missing by allot by the time they get near the ship.
Lastly most u-tube stuff is not up to date, and usually show just basic game play. I need some help with anyone who has kind of a "subs for dummies" kind of video, any suggestions on some good guides or advice on this, and I already have heard "just don'y play them" their no good.
Thanks

Practice a lot more It comes with practice. Like when you play your other ships. The subs you have to feel like Its natural not even thinking about it really everything will come together with practice. You will be surprised what you can do at 900 hours using subs.

[York]

not sure if this tip is applicable for other subs as i mainly play alliance but pretorping can help especially on cap contesting as the ping effects launched homing torps which didn't have a target.

[christof]

Originally posted by York:

not sure if this tip is applicable for other subs as i mainly play alliance but pretorping can help especially on cap contesting as the ping effects launched homing torps which didn't have a target.

It also means that you can ping sideways, making it that much harder for ASW drops to hit.

[R[e]venge®-uk*]

Few tips to add to this, as someone who hunts subs with another sub player .....

1. if your between your ships and the enemy ensure your never caught side on when on the surface for torps - the amount of subs eating fast torps is funny, especially EU ones! Make sure your running away or head on at worst.

2. if your playing vs a SAP Ship, make sure it is safe to surface aka distances are clear or you will get sent back to port in 1 shot. They do not forgive mistakes!!

3. before using sub radar tell your team and ping an idea of where you think the sub is on the mini map as well as even typing x amount of seconds to sub survey, meaning ships can ready drops. as the Sub player you will have the best idea of where they are as you will be seeing torps under water.

4. Do not be that sub which leaves the flank to go "hunt" the CV.... your eyes and spotting are more important to the team!!

5. if you see 2 subs in a division they 99% spawn on the same side, use this to your advantage if you do not have them you can play more aggressive, if you do have 2 subs ...... hope you got a good team and plenty of air dropped depth charges!! Play way more passive and invite them into your team for better support.

Good luck!

[Omogoto]

I am still doing much better after reading all the posts, but it does bring up a couple more issues for me.
In the original post Ace mentioned a "cancel-homing" button, I could not find that in the settings or on my ship?
Also Acronyms, some mentioned here like DCP, ESP, or SAP, so forgive my ignorance on that, but is there a good link or resource for Acronyms in this game?
Thanks again for all the input and posts.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Omogoto:

In the original post Ace mentioned a "cancel-homing" button, I could not find that in the settings or on my ship?

Controls > Ships tab > scroll down to Submarines section > Ignore Priority Target ("G" by default, I think?) - mouseover the text should give you a tooltip describing it.

Also Acronyms, some mentioned here like DCP, ESP, or SAP, so forgive my ignorance on that,

Damage Control Party - the consumable all ships get that cleanses fires and repairs some knocked out modules.

SAP - Semi-Armor-Piercing. An ammo type that is like a cross between HE and AP. Usually found on Italian ships, and a few others. Loses fire-chance and blast-radius from HE; loses penetration of AP; has high base damage to compensate, and amazing ricochet angles.
Also ignores the in-built damage reduction that all subs get compared to other ships - which is why stuff like Italian heavy cruisers will hard-slap you with SAP shells if they connect.

ESP - unrelated to the game. Extra-sensory Perception (mind-reading). It's a way of describing how the WG bots have access to information they shouldn't.