World of Warships (WOWS) is a Massive Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter (FPSMMO) game based on the historical warships in World War 1 and 2. If you are interested in ships, weapons, and history, and if you want to collect your favorite battleships and experience semi-realistic battle scene on the sea, you'll love this game.
Steps
Part 1
Part 1 of 3:
Installing WOWS
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Register a Wargaming account if you don’t have one. Go to the main page and click on "Join Now" at the top right corner. Prepare your email address to create your Wargaming account. It is highly recommended that you use a new email address to register the account instead of using your personal email address.
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Download and Install WOWS client. Make sure your PC or MacBook meets all the basic requirements for running WOWS. Open the client then it will automatically start installing.Advertisement
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Log in to your game. When you have finished downloading and installing your game, login with your email address and password:
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Review your "port". After logging-in WOWS, your in-game interface will look like this.Advertisement
Part 2
Part 2 of 3:
Starting the Game
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Know the objective of this game. WOWS is a game for you to collect your favorite virtual warships. To collect the warships you need to fight in many battles to gain experience (exp.) and credits to research and purchase your favorite warships.
- Credits can be used to purchase warships, consumables, and camouflages. Exp. can be used to research your new warships.
- Your credits and exp. are shown on the top right corner of your main interface:
- You will be granted with credits and exp. after each battle.
- Your ship commander also gain the same amount of exp. after each battle. Ship commanders can learn skills to increase performances of your ship.
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Note that you, as the fleet commander, also have a level. Here, "your level" means your service record. Service record shows how many levels you have reached. It is a beginner-friendly system that can help players get familiar with this game. Each level will grant you additional in-game functions. Eg. You are able to access the tech-tree after you reach level 2.
- Credits and exp. you obtain after each game are determined by the damage caused by your ship during the game.
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Know the warships. There are 4 types of warships in WOWS:
- Destroyers - The fastest and most agile class of ships--lightly armored but possessing huge firepower in the form of torpedoes. It is also the most difficult to be spotted. In battle, destroyers can use smoke screens; which allows them to cover its own torpedo attack or hide allied ships.
- Cruisers - A versatile and multi-purpose class of ship--each comes with its own loadout containing a combination of anti-aircraft guns, torpedoes, or even aircraft launchers. All cruisers are known for their high rate of fire; making them the perfect vessel to apply pressure to enemy forces at any stage in the battle.
- Battleships - The real heavyweights of the World of Warships universe. Possessing massive guns, thick armor, and bristling with secondary armaments, these behemoths ply the seas with impunity.
- Aircraft Carriers - Aircraft carriers scout the battlefield, send squadrons of dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and fighter to wreak havoc upon the enemy. Though they're lightly armed themselves, their wide array of aircraft makes them a micro-manager's dream come true.
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Know warships of each nation. Here only introduce non-premium ships.
- USA - US ships have the highest firing rate, strong AA defense, and the best smoke screen but weak at bullet speed--this means it takes longer time for bullets to hit the target, and makes enemy ships easier to dodge.
- Japan - The Imperial Japan Navy was once on the top of the world and outrageous across the Asia pacific and even at the front door of US. Japanese ships are weak at AA defense. But have more advanced torpedoes and higher camouflage rate--that makes ships easier to hide on the sea.
- USSR - USSR have strong firing power and the highest bullet speed, but weak at camouflage and torpedoes.
- Germany - Germany's ships have good firing power, but weak at armor.
- Here is a brief comparison of each nation's warships:
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Prepare for battle. Before each battle, you need to:
- Confirm if your ship upgrades are correctly mounted.
- Mount consumables. Consumables can repair your damaged ship modules and extinguish fire caused by high explosive shells or bombs. Consumables for special skills are also required. Different kinds of ships have different consumables that are specialized to their role.
- Mount camouflages. Camouflages can increase your invisibility on the sea or decrease gun accuracy on enemy ships while firing at you.
- Hoist signal flags. Signal flags can slightly improve the performances of your ships or increase credits and exp. income.
- It is recommended to buy level 2 consumables and camouflages as it will lower your chance of being destroyed.
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Play co-op battles. You and your team are to fight against a robot team. Select your ship and select "Co-op battles" at the top in the middle. This mode is more friendly to beginners but can only gain 1/2 credits and exp. comparing to random battles.
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Play random, ranked, and team battles.
- In random battles, you and other random 11 players are to fight against another team with random 12 players.
- In ranked battles, you and other 7 random players are to fight against another team with random 8 players. You can only select a warship at a certain tier (mainly between 6 and 8). You can rank up if you win a certain number of battles. When you reach a higher rank you will be granted with more rewards than random battles, like signal flags, credits, premium accounts, and even doubloons (premium coins). Note that your rank is completely independent to performances of other players.
- In team battles, you can form a team with up to 8 members and to fight against other teams. (Note: team battles are currently unavailable.)
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Start a battle. Click "BATTLE!" at the top, and you will be waiting for system match making.
- On the following page, you can check information about your team, the opposite team, game mode, and the map. After loading up the game, you will enter a battlefield like this:
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Wait for countdown before the battle starts.Advertisement
Part 3
Part 3 of 3:
During a Battle
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Drive your ship.
- Use your keyboard keys to steer: W -move forward. S -recess. A -turn left. D -turn right.
- You can switch to "auto-pilot mode" by pressing M if you want to lay a course for your ship to automatically travel along.
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Shoot at your targets.
- Except for aircraft carriers, each ship has two types of shells: High Explosive (HE) and Armor Piercing (AP). AP shells can cause massive damage when penetrating a target, while HE shells cause less damage but can cause fires on ships and do continuous damage. Note that AP shells can cause over-penetrating and cause little damage to destroyers as they have very thin armor. Use HE against destroyers.
- Find a target you would like to hit. Move your mouse to turn ship guns to the target. Press ⇧ Shift or scroll your mouse to binocular mode. Wait your reticles to turn green before shooting at the target. Determine target's approximate speed by your sense, and shoot at the position in front of them. Aim at the waterline of enemy's ship to gain maximum damage. Double-left-click your mouse to shoot.
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Launch torpedoes. Torpedoes are invisible killers and can do massive damage to other warships.
- Not all ships are equipped with torpedoes. Press 3 if your ship has torpedo tubes. The green semicircles are the area where torpedo tubes are able to launch. Press X to aim at a target, then a white line appears. The white line is a calculation based on enemy's speed, direction, and your torpedo speed. It basically tells you if you launch torpedoes along the white line, you can hit the target . However, this white line can only show the real-time speed and direction of enemy ships, and the enemy can change their speed and direction anytime. In this case, you should have your own judgment when launching torpedoes, and the white line is just a reference.
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Control aircraft squadrons. Aircraft carriers do not have a firing range limit--that makes them functional and powerful in WOWS.
- The interface for aircraft carriers works differently from other types of ships. When you enter a battle as an aircraft carrier, your battlefield should be like this: This mode grants you a panorama view of the battlefield.
- Fighters--fighters are the best for AA defense. It can be used against enemy attack aircraft or other fighters. Hold Alt to let your fighter squadron strafe 6x normal damage in a small area:
- Note that strafe skill can do team damage, so avoid putting your squadrons inside your strafe range.
- Attack Aircraft--torpedo bombers and dive bombers are main weapons against other ships. Select squadrons and click on enemy ships to auto-drop torpedoes or bombs.
- You can also use manual drop by holding Alt in order to increase accuracy.
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Communicate well with your team.
- Use hotkeys to send requests to your team, instead of typing while you are in a fierce battle. Hold Tab ↹ to identify the frequently used hotkeys.
- If you wish to point out a position for your teammates on the mini map, hold "control" and move your mouse cursor to designated position, then double click to send messages.
- Avoid language abuse in the game. Give compliment and gratitude to your team, and commend your teammates if they play well.
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Seize the victory! You can win by destroying all enemy warships, capturing enemy base, or scoring 1000 points before the enemy. However, it is almost impossible to achieve these goals without proper teamwork. Fight as a team!Advertisement
Community Q&A
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QuestionDo the ships not have names anymore on the screen above HP?Community AnswerPress Tab to reveal the name tags.
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QuestionWhy do ships disappear when they are right in front of me? I keep getting killed by invisible ships!Justin CrewCommunity AnswerIt might be a glitch, or your computer might be old. Report it to the developers just to make sure.
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Tips
- What makes WOWS so interesting is that it is a challenging and low-fault-tolerance game. Some realistic features may even overturn your knowledge stereotypes. Even if most of your ships have 30,000-70,000 HP, or even 90,000 HP, every single wrong action during the game can make your ship destroyed immediately.Thanks
- You need to act in advance before you collide with an island or other ships. If you turn the steering wheel of your car, it immediately changes its direction. But the same situation won't happen in a ship. Even the lightest ship in WOWS is still thousands of tons, so you need to wait for a while for your ship to turn as it has a much larger inertia. The larger the ship, the more time it needs to turn. Note that lowering your speed will not decrease your turning radius. Check maneuverability data of your ship for more details.Thanks
- Hide yourself on the sea. If you are within enemy's range of fire and you are spotted by the enemy, you will surely get shot. So you should always remain unnoticed unless enemy ships or aircraft enter your range of being spotted. Your concealment will also decrease if your ship is on fire or you shoot your guns. Your ship captain needs to learn "situation awareness" to determine whether you are spotted. Also check your concealment data before entering battles.Thanks
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Warnings
- Do not shoot at your team. You will receive penalty even if you do a slight damage on your team.Thanks
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