Constellation and Azuma

AZUMA...

 

CONSTELLATION...

A tale of two ships...

 Still playing World of Warships.  It's a fun game.  I have managed to hit tier 10 on a number of lines now and have even reset my favorite, British cruiser lines.  I am hoping to use the points to build the Ohio or some other special ship.

MEANWHILE... I have procured some special ships from Christmas boxes and after that, out of pocket.  I really would love to be able to purchase the Musashi but it has not been for sale for awhile now.  So I did some research on the so-called super cruisers or battle cruisers.  I remember when the Constellation came out and I watched some people play it and get blown out of the water.  I thought "that's a bad ship."

I forgot about the Constellation, and went on the hunt for a good battle-cruiser-like ship and since I have recently decided to go up the Japanese line, I picked the Azuma.  I had heard both good and bad things about the Azuma... that it was fragile, not accurate enough, etc.  After purchasing it I have to admit I STRUGGLED to figure out how to play her.  I finally watched several videos and saw that the key to success was to play at range and conservatively.  I mean, I kind of KNEW that but when you DO it you sometimes feel sort of guilty.  Anyway, along that vein I had watched a video on 5 underrated/good ships and the Azuma was one of them, but another was the Constellation.  I thought "really?"

Turns out I like the Constellation a lot more (so far) than the Azuma.  Despite having what others describe as "paper armor" I think she handles hits better than the Azuma, at least at tier.  I would not call her tanky, but she can definitely get in there if you are careful.  She is also faster and more maneuverable than the Azuma and can get out of bad situations a little easier.  Finally, her main batteries are very good.  The Azuma's are good too but if any of you reading this have played the Colorado, this ship hits with the same force and is slightly more accurate.

The Azuma is classified as a cruiser, albeit a BIG one.  Constellation is classified as battleship, and she is big, but she really is just a big cruiser.  Her classification is a little unfortunate.  The Constellation was never an actual ship in the Navy, but she was a PLANNED ship.  Her frame became the USS Lexington, a US navy aircraft carrier.  In fact all the hulls made for this cruiser class were converted to carriers.  The ship in game is considered what the original, planned cruiser would be, with some WWII upgrades.

By the way, oddly enough, my best matches so far (for sheer damage) were about the same in the Azuma and the Constellation, approximately 127K.  But for whatever reason, I feel more comfortable in the Constellation.  I feel like a scared rabbit in the Azuma, but in the Constellation I feel more like a sneaky fox.  So if you are looking for a premium cruiser/BB:  despite what you may have heard, I would give both the Azuma and the Constellation a good look, my preference would be the Constellation.

Aesthetically speaking, both ships are easy on the eyes.  Both have strong main batteries.  The Azuma has better secondary guns, but not much better than the Constellation's.  One thing the Constellation has that the Azuma does not have are torpedo launchers.  Constellation has two launchers of 3 torps each.  They can travel almost 10 kilometers and their impact force is between 15K and 16K damage per.  They are useful if you DO brawl with her, but they are also useful to lay down while escaping or being chased.

Thanks for visiting my web log! 

PS -  Forgot to mention, the Constellation has radar as well.  :)

Been awhile!

 I have been busy with work.  Also decompressing after work by playing games.

Still playing World of Warships.  I have a bunch of lines up at tier 10 now.  I could start resetting lines but... then I would have to regrind them.  :)  Also been playing fallout 4 again.

Our pool heater finally died after 15 years or so...  $3600.00 for a new one.  *sigh*

I am trading in my Mac Mini M1 for the new Mac Studio!  It will come in April.  Also picked up an MSI gaming laptop for my son, who needed a new laptop for college... but also this way he can play games while away from home.

I was going to build out a new PC as well but... with the insane price of graphics cards I decided to live another year with my current build.

I will try to post again soon!

First post of 2022!

 Holidays were nice.  It is always nice when my son can come home from college.  We did the family thing this year for thanksgiving and Christmas.  So that was very nice.

Ships...  I have 5 tier 10 ships now... and more coming.  I have a new favorite ship, the Alabama.  I am not a super BB player but, I like the Alabama and haven't had a "bad" match with her yet.

Work is... well work is still remote.  Work itself is good, but I have been working from my dining room table for almost 2 years now.  Ick.

Dogs are getting older.  The youngest is now 2 years old!!!  Crazy.   Our oldest is 14, the middle dog is 11.

The cats are cats... the birds are birds.

Anyway, just throwing out my first post.  Hopefully I will find the will to post something better, soon.

The British CL line...

 I am trying to line up at least 4 cruiser lines at tier IX before I make my massive push to tier X cruisers.

Right now I have the RIGA, DRAKE, and BRINDISI.  I am currently working on the British LIGHT cruiser line.  I am up to the tier VII Fiji.

The Fiji has been a LOT of fun and I think I am going to earn my XP from playing the Fiji, and then upgrade/buy the Edinburgh but KEEP the Fiji.  That is how much fun the Fiji has been.

The British Light Cruiser line have only one type of ammunition, armor piercing (AP).   Because of this some people shy away, because in order to do decent damage you need to hunt for broadsides, or be able to rain down shells vertically.  This makes it slightly more difficult than being able to switch to high explosive (HE) shells which, while lacking penetration, deal fire damage and really do a lot of damage to destroyers (DDs).

But something I think that is overlooked is that the British AP has excellent penetration angles AND a short fuse.  In other words it can be used against cruisers and destroyers and result in fewer over penetrations than other nation's AP rounds.

Anyway, I am having fun and that is what counts.

A new favorite ship? Rochester

 I haven't gone far up the American cruiser or battleship line.  I feel like while they can hit hard and have excellent penetration angles for their shells, they are slow and glompy.  New word, glompy.

I cannot be without American ships though, being patriotic and what-not.  So months ago I picked up the Indianapolis (tier VII cruiser) and found it to be very hard-hitting for its tier.  The 203's (8 inch) wreak havoc, but the reload time is somewhat slow.

I had no tier VIII American ships so I decided to research and pick one.  In the end it came down to the Baltimore/New Orleans variants, but which one?  I narrowed it down to the Wichita and the Rochester.

I did some research, watched videos from Carlos Carlito and Flamu and some others, looked at the back and forth arguments in the forums.  I love that the Baltimore, Wichita, and Rochester are all slightly different in their balance and game play.  In the end I went with Rochester because I was intrigued by the smoke, and the decent concealment numbers.  The reload was nerfed from Baltimore and Wichita, but not too much, and firing from smoke, or having Adrenaline Rush sort of makes up for it in heated battle.  The hull is basically the same as Baltimore and Wichita, so if you angle a little, you can take a lot of fire without serious damage.  But, you get caught broadside and between the fore and aft main turrets, at water level, BOOM!  So there is that.

I don't know why, but the first time I played this ship I was in love with it.  And for no reason I can put my finger on.  I have been playing her only in co-op mode and I don't think I have broken 30,000 damage with her.  Meanwhile I can reap 100,000 in my Mainz or my Ochakov pretty easily.

It's not like I don't help the team!  I can sink at least 2 enemy bot ships per game and when she hits a ship she does excellent damage.  No, I am trying to figure it out... I *think* it might be the fact that I tend to find a spot and smoke up.  In co-op it is a race to clobber anything and everything.  Just run and gun.  When I smoke up and sit, all the ships around me just keep on chasing and shooting.  That's all I can figure.  The second issue with smoking up is that the Rochester's smoke lasts a long time, and becomes a comfortable haven.

So I think that is what it might be.  I am probably going to go into a few matches today and NOT smoke at all, and just sail about whomping whoever I can.

But I really do like this ship and am glad I went that way.  I had been on the fence... American cruiser or the Irian?  I already have a few tier VIII Russian cruisers (Bagration, Ochakov) and have worked my way up to the tier IX Riga... so I leaned American and have not been disappointed.  I ended up with a Baltimore with slower reload and smoke.  A nice ship indeed!

Bayard, Riga and Drake

 I picked up another premium, the French cruiser Bayard.  I really like her, she reminds me a lot of the Mainz, at least I play her like that.  She has 152, fire setting with decent penetration and pretty rapid reload.  So she is good at hanging back and spamming fire.  But if you get a decent broadside, her AP does significant damage!

I leveled my Russian cruiser line up, picking up the Riga (tier IX Russian heavy cruiser).  Riga is pretty beastly, especially with her AP.  Her armor is good for bow tanking or even kiting away.  You can get smashed by a BB if you are broadsided though.

Finally, I also leveled up my British cruiser line.  I went from the Albemarle to the Drake.  The Drake is definitely a better ship and I am looking forward to the tier X Goliath...  Drake's HE is so good that you don't even need to switch to AP for cruisers and destroyers.  It is devastating.  And the HE is good to set those pesky battleships and carriers on fire as well.

I will continue to play the Drake to get the B hull, then switch back to my premium tier VIIIs to garner XP to level up my next line.  I think I will level up the Italian line, Amalfi to Brindisi.  It isn't much of an upgrade... really just adds a 4th turret.  Everything else is pretty much the same.  After that I am not sure.  I need to level up another line so that I can win a gift from wargaming for getting 4 (or maybe it was 5) tier X ships from the main tech tree.

OH!  As an after thought, I also picked up the Cossack, a British premium destroyer.  It is a pretty nice little ship, again, helpful for farming XP.

That's all for now...