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I concur that situational awareness is the most important trait. My own thoughts on
how to be a better CV:
*Don뭪 camp at the start location. When the game starts, move out either north or
south. Several times a lower level CV was selected as flag, and was bombed and
sunk within the first minutes of the game because the other side knew exactly
where to look for them.
*If you do move at the start, don뭪 run to the back of the map. Two things happen
when you run to the back of the map. First, it takes forever for your planes to transit
to the front, let alone transit to bomb or torp enemy ships. Second, if you do get
ambushed by a sub / DD / planes that slipped through, there뭩 no one else around
to provide you support and pull your bacon out of the fire.
*Don뭪 load only fighters or bombers. I see lots of FW CV out there, but I don뭪
believe they are as effective as they can be. I saw several occasions when just one
more sortie of bombers would have sunk that BB5 ?and won the game ?but the CV
only had fighters. All you can hope then is to run out of fuel and crash on the target.
The BW CV are just as bad, as sometimes you really do need fighters to scout. Load
up a balanced CV.
*Don뭪 launch your planes, direct them to a point, and then ignore them. I was
playing my SS, so I seemed to have lots of time to observe others play. Many times
a CV would send out planes and they would transit to a location with nothing going
on, then return. What was the point? If you play CV you need to be able to
multitask, including directing your planes to where they will do the most good.
*Don뭪 go AFK during the battle. This one really pisses me off. Too many times I
would see a CV not move at all after the start, not launch planes, not move or take
any action. Finally the battle line would encroach and it would come under fire. Too
late it would spring into action ?just in time to be sunk. Likewise, I would see CV
that start off the game with an active player, then just seemingly see him go vacant.
The player wasn뭪 de-synced or frozen, as once they came under fire they would
take affirmative action. If you뭨e going to join a battle, especially as a CV, be there
for the whole battle and actively participate.
*Watch the mini-map. Too often CV are launching planes and participating, but they
are not watching the mini-map. Those red dots? They are enemy ships. When they
are moving toward your location, you should move the other way. Too often I see
active CV sailing in front of their own retreating BB, and only changing direction once
they start getting shelled. Watch the mini-map for danger and chart your course
accordingly.
*Always be moving. A stationary CV is a fatter target, either for bombers/torps, or
SS. Don뭪 sit in one place, but rather keep moving. Yes, you뭠l have to pay attention
to the edge, but that just forces you to pay more attention overall.
*Follow the line. If the battle line is advancing, advance with it. In one particular
battle, we outnumbered the enemy 5BB to 2BB, and we were closing in on them to
the east. Two of our three CV were way at the western edge of the map. Our BB
were getting bombed without remorse and were unable to scout. By the time our CV
launched planes it took forever to make it to the east edge, and many times they
returned for lack of fuel without ever scouting or engaging. Our BB ended up being
routed, and our CV were left to fend for themselves. FAIL!
*If you can뭪 see the enemy, push your fighters out over the line to scout. Dog
fighting with enemy fighters over your own line is useless if you can뭪 see their ships.
Push the fighters out and fight over their lines.
*Your side has a critically wounded BB4/5 that can repair, but will sink if bombed?
Send up some fighters and protect it until it뭩 more repaired. Again, I saw several
times when the ship wasn뭪 going to be shelled and could have repaired but for that
last sortie of bombers. You can뭪 say you didn뭪 know ?I was team chatting to put
fighters over the BB ?but you launched fighters and sped right past him. Scratch
that BB from our side.
*If your bombers are the only thing scouting that target you just bombed, then
leave your bombers there and don뭪 let them return home.
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