Reading the Gameplay

What do we mean by this, reading the game play? It involves the following: battle awareness, preparedness, decision making, intuition, team work and communication.

You should already know all of the above, especially if you are eager to stay on top of your game. In navyfield 2 there is no exception to this rule either. If you could do with a refresher or are looking to improve your game then read on.

Battle Awareness

Being aware of the battle and how it progresses is crucial because things change fast, and you will need to adjust your approach.

• A captain must be aware of as much of the battle as much of the time.

Take note of nearby supporting ships, how many there are, if they are in range, if they are preoccupied. Evaluate the situation and base your decision with the most data available to you.

Priority targets, like unprotected CVs and flagships are important to identify.

Evaluating Your Options

There are three things you should focus on in battle:

• Your target: The ship you will initially be firing upon.
• Support ships: Ships that could choose to engage you while you are distracted with your target.
• The big picture: general positions of all other ships, across the map. Those not in this engagements.

Your target is the ship you have decided to sink first, usually this will be the greatest threat to you and your nearby team. Most often the mindset is the bigger the better. And this is true, bigger ships are easy to hit with guns and torpedoes.

Be aware that you don't get tunnel vision and only shoot and chase your target when they retreat into the back of the team.

This is why you must also pay attention to the enemy team composition, and your targets' support ships.

Support ships have a funny tendency of shooting you while you are focusing on your target. When they start doing this, you need to think fast so you don't get swamped from multiple ship attacks, or worse get flanked in a massive torpedo crossfire.

Lastly, to keep you clued in to how the match unfolds, you need to keep the bigger picture in mind. Understanding how the whole battle is going. And to do this the you have one very helpful piece of equipment. The radar.

The radar is not just useful, but it's vital for locating your enemy quickly. It informs you of the  locations of all ships in sight. Use your radar when deciding to attack or retreat.

If you are planning to attack, take a look at their composition. What ship types & tiers are against you.

Expect things like getting bombed from the air, getting torpedo rushed by that eager DD.

Is this target in a tier that I can confront successfully in my attack, or will I get hammered too hard?
Is this ship expecting an attack from me? are they retreating? do they have sight (scout) on me? could I inform my team mates who I am attacking and get them to focus fire too?

• If you realize you are at a disadvantage, or it feels wrong. Don't do it.

The voice that says you are making a mistake is usually right. Always listen to it. Go back to gathering information, scouting, and even communicating with your team.

Continue Decision Making

This process never stops as the battle progresses. The ship composition will change at any moment on either team. You could lose vision, get bombed, get rushed etc etc...

So many variables demand you stay alert and be adaptable as the battle dynamic shifts. Be really strict with yourself when paying attention to the whole battle.

Attacking causes you to become a source of aggravation for the enemy. Aggravation gets you shot at. Remember this when attacking: you will draw attention.

The more you force yourself to play smart, the more you will stay alive and be of use to your team.

Introducing Islands

Having played a few game now you will notice that all the maps have bases and islands.

What do they do?

Islands can fall under one type of base: Army, Air or Sea. They can also be an AirField, Munitions Base or Radar station.

All three pose interesting advantages during the course of a battle. All three provide immediate vision around the island itself.

The type of base it is allows for additional game changing benefits, for instance:

• Airfields can be used to call down bombing strikes over a target area.



• Munitions bases have turrets on them which attack nearby enemy ships.



• Radar Stations provide ship detection across the entire battle area.

A further benefit all bases have have is the ability to spawn (teleport) your ship between other islands/ bases that your team currently own, provided you control both bases by 50% or more.

The addition of islands to NF2 provides more of a strategic objective for teams to aim towards during a match. As sight/vision is a key thing for all players, knowing where the enemy is is a valuable tool. Especially at low levels with no scouts.

Island bases reduce the chance for players to 'hide' in the fog of war.

Island bases are a good way of encouraging players to use them to their advantage for sight and teleporting (spawning).

Island bases are interesting for general matches beacuase they allow low tier ships to become involved in the game without necessarily having to dealing massive ammounts of damage. It also adds a more strategic element to an otherwise empty battle area.

In NF1 islands were just navigational hazzards, and were generally disfavoured over open water maps.

Now in NF2 islands still provide a navigational hazzard, but they incur great benefits for taking the time to capture them. They are a reward for your patience and team effort.

Bases can be fired upon. This reduces the ammount of control. It does not, however, destroy the base itself.

Use islands to your teams' benefit.

Post Battle

After battle, whether you win, lose or draw you will receive credits and experience. Unless you did nothing.

The post-battle results show you what credits and experience you have earned, how much damage you dealt, how many ships you sunk, cost of your ship repairs, captain and officer experience, etc...

This can be helpful to review what you did during the match.

After you're done, return to the shipyard to manage your crew.

Things to do once you return to your shipyard:

• Add points to your captain and officers, to increase their abilities.


• View the ship tree, research ship upgrades, buy ship upgrades, buy a new ship, buy ship items (like armour).


• Sell outdated ship classes. You can only have 2 of each ship class in your shipyard at any one time. When getting a teir 7 BB sell the teir 5 to free up space and get some more credits.

When you are ready, hit the Battle button and search for a new match.

Current Game Problems

After playing NF2 and reading posts on the NF2 forum, there are some serious issues with the game that need to be fixed before it can get close to what NF1 was like

Not to say that NF1 was perfect, but it did have better overall balance (granted after several years). And many of the lessons learned should have been applied to NF2 from the start.

Serious Problems:

• Matchmaking isnt functioning correctly.


• The ammount of Credits earned seems to be low compared to the exp earned.


• Upgrade costs appear too high, at least to start.


• Ship setups can not be altered, making them less adaptable and less fun


• Sonar ability seems to be flawed.


• Fleet members are linked by their Captains not by gamer accounts.

-The match making service is not working correctly and produces some indescribably uneven matchups. This may be due to lack of population and/or the general population having lower average ship levels.

-Credits earned are significantly less compared to the ammount of exp earned per match. (eg: 1205 EXP and 650 Credits, on a win with minimal damage + capping an island) Experience is used to buy Research. Credits buys you items, ships, upgrades and repairs. (Credit Rewards help somewhat)

-The cost of ship upgrades seem high on your first run through. Choice: spend credits on upgrades or save up to buy a better ship. Can always go back to master the ship upgrades later.

-Ships are not adaptable. You cant change the guns or the quantity of armour like NF1. I should be able to armour up my ship, lose 1 of the turrets to free up weight to go faster etc...

An update is coming soon to change this.

-Teir IV + V Battleships have no scouts or AA guns, making them useless in my view. These BB's rely too heavily on team mates to provide scouting and AA fire, which is wrong.

-Fleet members are linked by their captains not by their gamer account! This poses the worst problem for fleets. People will use their accounts and have different captains in different fleets. This is absolutely idiotic, flawed and totally unacceptable. This needs to be fixed.