15.7: Aircraft Carriers and AA Update
WG are delivering a new set of improvements for aircraft carrier and AA gameplay. Update 15.7 will bring a set of changes that have been in testing for some time, aimed at making anti-aircraft defense more impactful and easier to use, and reinforcing a carrier's role in team support.
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AA Defense Priority and Concentrated AA Fire
The old Priority Sector mechanic is being replaced. There will no longer be a need to track the direction of incoming aircraft and frantically switch broadsides, just press "O" or "~" to activate AA Defense Priority. It will be a standard damage boost that now covers a full 360 degrees and is available to ships as a baseline AA tool.
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Building on top of that is a new Concentrated AA Fire. Think of it as an improved, stronger version of AA Defense Priority that need some time to build up though. We're introducing it to discourage enemy airplanes from consistently attacking the same ship and it's designed to work with that goal in mind.
Concentrated AA Fire will have a progress bar that fills when your AA guns are firing at enemy aircraft in range. Once charged, long-press "O" or "~" to unleash it and temporarily boost your AA defenses even further.
When active, Concentrated AA Fire deals instantaneous damage to enemy aircraft repeating at certain intervals, and increases continuous AA and shell explosion damage. Note that the actual AA performance boost you might get is dependent on certain factors: instantaneous damage is based on an enemy squadron's HP and effective continuous damage is defined by the ship's AA guns.
| Ship type | Continuous AA damage | Shell explosion damage | Instantaneous damage / per 5 s |
| Aircraft carriers | +25% (+50% for VII Atlanta, VII Atlanta B and VII Flint) |
+200% (+400% for VII Atlanta, VII Atlanta B and VII Flint) |
3.5% of enemy squadron's HP |
| Battleships | |||
| Cruisers | |||
| Destroyers | 5% of enemy squadron's HP |
- Action time - 40.0 s
- Condition to charge: 2.5 % per second of active AA fire
- Time before you start losing progress - 70.0 s. Progress loss per second - 5.0 %
A few practical notes:
- The progress bar begins to drain slowly if not charged for some time, but won't drop once its fully charged. This allows you to save an activation for a strategic moment.
- Concentrated AA Fire shares a cooldown with AA Defense Priority, as they support the same underlying combat system.
- The Concentrated AA Fire progress bar can be charged while activation is on cooldown.
Together, these changes give every ship a way to boost its AA without relying on a specific consumable. AA Defense Priority will be your regular tool, while to get its enhanced form you can wait for Concentrated AA Fire to charge up.
And to make sure you can feel the impact of your improved AA fire, we've updated its sounds. They are way beefier than before!
Defensive AA Fire Changes
The Defensive AA Fire consumable and its related modification are being reworked as a part of this feature.
- Defensive AA Fire Modification 1 will be removed from the game. If you have any on your account, you'll receive 17,000 Coal for each owned copy as compensation.
- The Defensive AA Fire consumable will be replaced with Auxiliary and Torpedo Weaponry Coordination. It provides Concentrated AA Fire progress gain, improves shell damage of secondary guns, and reduces the reload times of Airstrike and torpedo launchers.
- Ships that previously carried an improved Defensive AA consumable (such as several U.S. destroyers) will receive an improved version of the new consumable.
- Some ships with HE Airstrike (such as Dutch cruisers) will get a version of the consumable with a reduced bonus to Airstrike reload time.
- Commander skills, signal flags, and upgrades will be adapted accordingly.
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Due to the changes described above, the overall effectiveness of AA defense in battle will be the same as or higher than before — even without Defensive AA Fire. Within the updated system, all the core AA tools will be built into a ship, and we saw this as an opportunity to replace the "mandatory" AA consumable with something more valuable. Our goals are to offer more flexibility in builds and gameplay without compromising game balance or ship identity — and, for ships with a choice of consumables, to create real competition for popular options like Hydroacoustic Search. That's why we decided to enhance all of a ship's auxiliary weaponry making it useful across various ship types and situations.
As AA fire will become more impactful with these changes, we will apply slight adjustments to the balance.
Targeted Tactical Consumables
We've given AA its due — now it's only fair that the flight decks get some attention. We want to strengthen aircraft carriers team support role and give them more opportunities to lend a hand to allies.
Update 15.7 adds two new squadron consumables that work similarly to the tactical consumables already used by some surface ships. These will be activated directly from a squadron, opening a tactical map to select a target within range. While delivery is typically swift, in certain rare situations, it can be shot down.
Here are the new Targeted Tactical Consumables:
The tactical map will show allied ships currently on fire, as well as ships that already have an active Targeted Tactical consumable applied to them.
Same-type Targeted Tactical consumables cannot stack on one ship. We have tuned these consumables to be meaningful support tools that complement your existing teamplay rather than a deciding factor in a match.
