Submarines Are Again Lurking in the Depths for Testing

The World of Warships team is constantly working on improving the game and making it more diverse and interesting. As part of Update 0.11.2, we’re going to present the updated submarines. Submarines are available for testing again.

In this new round of testing, we’ve gone above and beyond to address many of the issues raised by our player community. Everything from subs being hard to detect and interact with, to the unstable damage-dealing capabilities of submarines. We’ve made both playing and countering submarines more intuitive.

Submarines

How do you get them?

To get the subs for rent, complete sequential combat missions.

Consumables

• Limited number of charges for the Damage Control Party consumable.
• Unlimited number of charges for the Hydrophone consumable. In the new round of testing, this equipment will provide updated data on the whereabouts of enemies more frequently.
• Submarines can have the Enhanced Rudder Gears consumable or Reserve Battery Unit.

Acoustic torpedoes and sonar pings

• Acoustic torpedoes have decent homing capabilities, but they lack damage and have reduced chances of causing flooding.
• The first hit with a sonar ping makes the torpedo home in on the target, and the second one increases the homing effectiveness.
• Pings emitted by submarines are now visible to enemies at distances of around 8 km. They can help players determine the approximate location of the attacking submarine.
• Torpedoes home in on the last ping and remember their target. They don’t lose the bonuses from the active ping hit sector, even when new pings hit another ship.
• Torpedoes will interact with the last emitted pulse that hit a target before the torpedo was launched. It will interact with the first pulse that hit a target after the torpedo was launched if there were no other active pings. The torpedo’s homing parameters will improve if the first ping hit the target before the torpedo was launched and the second ping hits the target after the torpedo was launched.
• Ships can nullify ping hit sectors by using Damage Control Party. However, if the submarine hits the same ship once or twice in the same sector, torpedoes get their homing bonuses again. This can be used to switch to another target in battle while preserving the effectiveness of torpedoes that have already been launched.
• Sonar pings can be emitted at several ships and stay on several targets simultaneously. Thus, you can prepare various variants for your next attack.

Alternative torpedoes

• Do not interact with sonar pings and do not home in, even vertically. There’s no point in launching these torpedoes at enemy ships while submerged. They inflict damage that can be compared to that of destroyer torpedoes.
• Their range and speed have been reduced, while their arming distance and detectability have been increased.
• With these torpedoes, there’s no need to use sonar pings, so you can launch them without revealing your position to the enemy.

Fuel spills

• If a submarine is hit at the periscope or maximum depths, a fuel spill will appear on the water’s surface. These spills will help surface ships determine submarine locations and movements.
• Submarines can eliminate fuel spills by using Damage Control Party, surfacing, or staying in the surfaced position

Dive capacity

• When a submarine is detected at the periscope or maximum depths, dive capacity depletes but at a lower rate than before.
• The restoration rate has been increased, but the battery capacity has been reduced by a quarter.

Playing Against Submarines

Sonar pings

• Sonar ping emitted by submarines are now visible to ships within an 8 km radius (approximately).
• Ping detection doesn’t work exactly like torpedo detection—each ship sees only pulses within her acquisition radius.
• When a sonar ping hits a ship, a special indicator will appear on the ship itself and the ship miniature in the corner of the screen.
• Any sonar ping sector can be discarded with the help of Damage Control Party.

Dealing damage to submarines

• Shells, aerial bombs, aerial torpedoes, ship torpedoes, and rockets can deal damage to submarines only at periscope depth or on the surface.
• Ships can have depth charges or the Airstrike armament as countermeasures against submarines.
• Depth charges are used at close range. The effective radius of the Airstrike armament depends on the ship type and tier.
• Airstrike has a rather short reload time, but each dropped bomb deals only a small amount of damage. However, the bombing area is also small, which increases their fall density. If used successfully, several bombs may hit the submarine at once.
• Airstrike depth charges now cause flooding with 100% probability. A submarine can only be affected by one flooding instance at a time.

Consumables that can be used against submarines

• Hydroacoustic Search can detect submarines in any position, but the detection radius is only 2 km below periscope depth.
• Surveillance Radar detects submarines only at the surface level.

Fighting against submarines underwater

• A submarine can spend only a limited amount of time underwater because of her limited dive capacity—she will have to surface sooner or later.
• When a submarine is hit, an oil spill will appear on the water’s surface, provided that the submarine doesn’t take any countermeasures to fix it. These spills will help players track down damaged submarines, even when they are submerged

What’s Changed?

For submarines

• Subs can now glide between three (previously, four) key positions—the surface, periscope depth, and maximum depth. This will make it easier for players to helm submarines and better understand their operation specifics.
• The time that submarines can spend at periscope level or underwater is limited by their dive capacity. Capturing Key Areas is only possible while on the surface.
• Subs are armed with two types of torpedoes:
  • Homing torpedoes that have higher chances of reaching their target but deal less damage.
  • Conventional torpedoes that make it harder to hit a target but deal more damage.
• The number of Damage Control Party consumable charges is now limited, For this reason, the consumable should now be used wisely. If you run out of charges early in battle, you’ll have nothing to stop flooding or oil leaks, and this will make your sub easier to detect and destroy.

Playing against submarines

• Surface ships have a wider range of options to interact with submarines.
  • Sonar pings emitted by submarines are now visible to surface ships and can be used to determine their approximate position.
  • Oil spills will now appear on the water’s surface when a submerged submarine is hit, giving you the ability to track its movements.
• The Airstrike armament with an accelerated cooldown will allow for more frequent attacks and complement the new mechanics.
• Airstrike depth charges now always cause flooding, making them the perfect weapon to take a major chunk of a sub’s HP.
• A submarine, however, can only have one instance of flooding at a time. This means that putting her under a barrage of Airstrikes wouldn’t be an overly efficient way of using this armament.

These are the global changes that will be put to the test in Update 0.11.2. At this stage, the numbers and values aren’t final. Where possible, we provided approximate values.

About Author

Harkonnen

Tank Nut and Gamer Wannabe! Huge fan of tanks and World War II history. Playing video games since I was six years old, from Streets of Rage on my Sega Mega Drive to World of Tanks, I’ve never stopped since and will always love games.

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