Commander
This article incorporates changes to the Skills system in 0.10.0. It is certainly incomplete, and may be totally wrong in spots.
Bear with us. If you see an issue please note it on the Talk/Discussion page.
Contents
- 1 About Commanders
- 2 Assigning a Commander to a ship
- 3 Commander Experience and Skill Points
- 4 Skills
- 5 Redistributing (Resetting) Skills Selections
- 6 Unique Commanders
- 7 Commander Ranks
- 8 Notes
About Commanders
A commander is the personification of a ship's crew. Some crews are well-trained and trained in the specific features of the ship, and some are not so well trained. Training a crew is a long process that requires much repetition and a defined curriculum. The training level is represented by Skill Points, and the specializations by acquired Skills. Commander XP (CXP), earned in battle, is used to acquire skill points. See the Economy article.
Assigning a Commander to a ship
A ship may enter battle without a commander. However, a skilled commander is worth his weight in gold-pressed latinum for improving ship capabilities. For a ship without a commander, one can be assigned from the nation's commanders in Reserve, or assigned from another ship. Or a new commander can be recruited.
To assign a different commander, in Port click on the Commander portrait in the Ship Specs panel. The Commander Skills screen will appear. (see below) Click the Change Commander button.
If there is no commander assigned to the ship, in Port there will be one or two buttons instead.
- Assign Commander to select a commander for the ship.
- Recall Commander - Hover shows the commander to be recalled; pressing the button recalls him. The previous commander assigned to the ship is recalled, not necessarily a commander specialized to it.[1]
The Commander Skills Screen
This is the screen displayed by clicking on a commander portrait in Port. From here, all functions (except Recall and Assign when there is no commander — the buttons above) can be done.
[Also show the bottom? of a page with pending skill selections.]
For normal commanders, the portrait background is haze gray. For special commanders, the background is blue or gold.
Below the portrait, name, and rank, the bar gauge shows the CXP progress toward the next skill point, or to completing retraining. The little green button brings up the Accelerate Training dialog.
Change Commander
Recruiting
Below the two columns of commanders on the Assign Commanders screen there is a Recruit button that brings up the interestingly named Commander Training dialog.[2]
A new commander can be recruited with or without skill points.
Clicking the buttons below the commander's portrait in the recruitment window generates a new name or portrait for the commander. This can be repeated until the player is satisfied with the combination.
Recruiting is not the only way to obtain commanders. Certain missions, campaigns, and Scenarios award commanders. Experienced commanders can be hired in the Armory for Coal or Doubloons, or from the Premium Shop for real money. Awarded ships and some purchased ship bundles include experienced commanders.
When a ship is purchased from the tech tree, it can be with a newly recruited commander or without one. The latter option is useful when you intend to assign a commander from Reserve or from another ship.
Dismissing
A Commander can be Dismissed at any time.[3] This will free up a reserve slot.
Commander XP can be recovered from a dismissed commander in the form of Elite Commander XP (ECXP):
The amount available for recovery is the total amount acquired by the commander over his career. For example, a 10 point commander with 500 CXP has 183,500 CXP available to recover as ECXP.
A commander dismissed without recovering CXP can be recalled within 60 minutes. After that the dismissal is permanent. The dismissal of a commander that recovers CXP is immediate and permanent.
Assigning
The Assign Commander screen offers three functions: assign a commander from Reserve, assign one that is currently on another ship, or recruit a new commander, all replacing the currently assigned commander, if any.
[Insert lots of text here.]
Reserve Slots
Skill Points | XP Required to Re-train |
---|---|
0 | 100 |
1 | 500 |
2 | 750 |
3 | 1,000 |
4 | 1,750 |
5 | 2,500 |
6 | 3,750 |
7 | 5,000 |
8 | 7,500 |
9 | 10,000 |
10 | 12,500 |
11 | 15,000 |
12 | 20,000 |
13 | 25,000 |
14 | 37,500 |
15 | 50,000 |
16 | 62,500 |
17 | 75,000 |
18 | 87,500 |
19 | 125,000 |
20 | 200,000 |
21 | 300,000 |
Reserve slots hold unassigned commanders. Commanders held in reserve can be assigned to any ship of the same nation, subject to re-training costs. If no reserve slots are unoccupied, recruiting of new commanders is disabled.[4]
Each player starts with four (4) reserve slots. Additional reserve slots can be purchased with doubloons — normally four (4) slots for 100. The number of total and unoccupied reserve slots (for all nations) is shown above the Reserve (left) column of the Assign Commander page, with a button to purchase more.
Moving / Re-training
Once trained to a non-premium ship from the tech tree, a Commander's skills can be used only on that tech tree ship. (They can be used on premium ships. See below.) Moving to a new tech tree ship requires the commander to re-train to that ship, which is usually accomplished by earning a certain amount of Commander XP in his new ship (see the table to the right). Normal commander training resumes once re-training has been accomplished.
Remember that while a Commander is re-training, skill effects are disabled.
When re-training is required, a commander is offered several options. He can spend:
The CXP balance of a partially re-trained commander cannot be combined with ECXP (and/or Free XP) to accelerate re-training. The full amount of ECXP/FXP must be paid.
WARNING! At present, although a current CXP balance is not considered against the cost in ECXP to complete re-training, when ECXP is used the CXP balance disappears.
This is believed to be a bug.
When a commander is re-training, CXP is earned but 5% ECXP is not earned.
This may also be a bug.
Premium Ships
A commander can be assigned to a premium ship of the same nation without undergoing re-training. His skills will function at full strength on the premium ship. Commander XP earned while assigned to a premium ship counts toward re-training on his specialized ship. This makes premium ships a great way to re-train commanders while avoiding retraining penalties. The commander can be moved back to his specialized ship without penalty.
Because commanders have a separate set of skills for each ship type — battleship, cruiser, destroyer, aircraft carrier — they can reasonably be moved to any premium ship. A commander with unused skill points can select skills while assigned to a premium ship of that type. See below.
Note that while a new commander can be recruited to a premium ship, an existing commander can never be re-trained to one.
Commander Experience and Skill Points
Skill Points | Total Commander XP Required | XP Required for Next Level |
---|---|---|
0 | 0 | 1,500 |
1 | 1,500 | 2,500 |
2 | 4,000 | 4,000 |
3 | 8,000 | 6,000 |
4 | 14,000 | 9,000 |
5 | 23,000 | 14,000 |
6 | 37,000 | 21,000 |
7 | 58,000 | 30,000 |
8 | 88,000 | 41,000 |
9 | 129,000 | 54,000 |
10 | 183,000 | 69,000 |
11 | 252,000 | 87,000 |
12 | 339,000 | 108,000 |
13 | 447,000 | 132,000 |
14 | 579,000 | 159,000 |
15 | 738,000 | 189,000 |
16 | 927,000 | 222,000 |
17 | 1,149,000 | 259,000 |
18 | 1,408,000 | 300,000 |
19 | 1,708,000 | 500,000 |
20 | 2,208,000 | 700,000 |
21 | 2,908,000 | — |
This section discusses earning Commander Experience (Commander XP or CXP) and the Skill Points that are acquired with it.
The table at right shows the experience requirements for a Commander to buy skill points.
Earning Commander Experience
Commanders earn commander experience (CXP) in the same way that ships do, including any bonuses to ship XP earnings. Additional bonuses that affect only commander XP — such as from Restless Fire camo or the Zulu Hotel 🚫 signal — are added on top of this number. Therefore, it is possible to earn considerably more commander XP in a match than ship XP. See the Economics article for details of how CXP is calculated. Players can view how much commander XP they earned in a given match on the 'Credits and XP' tab of the post-battle report.
In addition to CXP, ECXP in the amount of 5% of CXP is also earned in the battle. (Except see the warning above under Re-training.)
Example Commander Experience Calculation
A player with a Warships Premium account earns 2,233 base experience in a game (it was a good game). He has Zulu Hotel 🚫 and Equal Speed Charlie London 🚫 signals mounted, and has hoisted the Military Month Contributor flag over his ship (the MMC flag grants both ship XP and commander XP bonuses). He earns:
- 2,233 + [2,233 x 0.65 (for Premium)] = 3,684 modified base experience
- 3,684 + [3,684 x 0.5 (for Equal Speed Charlie London)] + [3,684 x 0.05 (for Military Month Contributor)] = 5,711 ship experience
- 5,711 + [3,684 x 0.5 (for Zulu Hotel)] + [3,684 x 0.05 (for Military Month Contributor)] = 7,737 Commander experience
- 5% of 7,737 Commander experience yields 387 Elite Commander XP also earned.
Accelerated Training
Skill points can be purchased directly with Elite Commander XP (and with Free XP - see below).
Spending Commander Experience
Each commander displays his skill points overlaid on his portrait in Port as available/total. Thus a commander with 15 points, only 3 assigned, would show "12/15" on the lower right of his portrait.
Clicking on the commander's portrait brings up the Assign Commander screen where the display of available point is a little red icon at several points on this and subsequent screens.
Elite Commander Experience
Elite Commander Experience (ECXP) is to Commander XP as Free XP is to ship XP. A quantity of Commander XP is associated to a particular commander. ECXP accumulates in a common pool where it is available to all commanders on a player account.
The current ECXP balance is shown in the upper right corner of each of the commander screens.
Earning
In battle, ECXP equal to 5% of all Commander XP earned is contributed to the common pool.
A commander who earns twenty-one (21) Skill Points becomes an Elite Commander. Elite commanders continue to earn experience as do lower-ranked commanders. However, an elite commander no longer accumulates CXP; all his experience is earned as (ECXP). Thus an elite commander earns far more ECXP per battle than not-yet-elite commanders.
Using Elite Commander XP
- Applied to any non-elite commander to gain additional skill points.
- Used to retrain any commander moved to a different, non-premium ship (instead of spending doubloons).
- Used to redistribute skill points (in lieu of using doubloons).
- Converted into Free XP for doubloons.
Spending Free XP on Commanders
After all ECXP is spent, Free XP can be used instead of Elite Commander XP.[5]
For a single operation, Elite Commander XP and Free XP can be spent together, just as Ship XP and Free XP can be spent together researching ships and ship modules. When Elite Commander XP and Free XP are spent, the following rules apply:
- To retrain a commander, promote him to a new rank, or redistribute his skill points, the available ECXP and/or FXP must be sufficient to fully complete the operation (no partial operations).
- When an operation can be completed, Elite Commander XP is spent first then Free XP is used only if there is not enough ECXP.
Example using both Elite Commander XP and Free XP
A commander with 7 Skill Points and 100 CXP is assigned to a non-premium ship for which he is not trained. 10,000 XP is required to fully re-train him. The player decides to accelerate re-training by 50%, spending 200,000 Credits. Consequently, 5000 more XP is required to finish re-training. 8000 Elite Commander XP is available. The player completes re-training by spending 5000 ECXP. 3000 ECXP remains. (Note that CXP cannot be spent for re-training.)
Now the player chooses to promote this commander to the maximum attainable rank using all types of XP. He has 100 CXP, 3000 ECXP, and 40,000 Free XP.
The cost of the next commander rank (8) is 30,000 XP. To reach it, he spends 100 CXP, 3000 ECXP, and 26,900 Free XP (total 30,000). To reach the next rank (9), 41,000 XP is required. Since he has no CXP or ECXP and only 13,100 Free XP remaining, he cannot promote this commander to rank (9).Converting Elite Commander XP to Free XP
Elite Commander XP can be converted to Free XP in the same way as Elite (ship) XP — ( 25 ECXP + 1 => 25 Free XP ). Free XP cannot be converted to Elite Commander XP.
Skills
The ultimate purpose of earning Commander XP and Skill Points is to acquire Skills. Skills provide bonuses (and penalties) to ship performance. Every commander can acquire four sets of skills, one for each ship type — battleship, cruiser, destroyer, and aircraft carrier. A commander's skill points can be spent on all four sets. For instance, a commander with 10 points can acquire 10 points worth of battleship skills and also 10 points worth of carrier skills, etc. The skills for each ship type are different.
Some skills are only useful to ships with certain weapon systems. Skills that are not useful to the current ship are marked as such. They may still be selected. (If a skill is not useful on the current ship, it may become so when the commander is moved to a different ship.) However, considering the cost to train a highly skilled Commander, it is best to focus his skills on ones that are immediately useful. A complete list of skills, their point costs and effects, appear in the main article.
When selecting skills, a number of different skills can be selected and effect on the Ship Specifications (panel to the right) observed. Once a set of acceptable skills is selected, you are asked to confirm their application. A set of skills is expensive to redistribute, so select carefully.
Redistributing (Resetting) Skills Selections
Redistributing Commander skill points costs either 25 or 10,000 Elite Commander XP per spent skill point; players are not charged to redistribute unspent skill points. Upon confirming the redistribution, all currently trained Commander skills in the current set are cleared, the corresponding skill points are refunded, and players may begin assigning those skill points again as they see fit. Skill selections in the other three skill sets is not affected. Check this.
Unique Commanders
Some commanders have unique talents or modified commander skills. Check out the list of unique commanders to learn more.
Commander Ranks
As Commanders gain levels, they are given rank titles based on their nation. These roughly correspond to the historical ranks awarded to officers of their nation's respective navies. The table below lists these ranks as they appear in game.
Notes
Sources
- Development Blog. 30 Nov 2020
- Development Blog Q&A. 16 Dec 2020.
- Commander Skills Update. News article 14 Jan 2021.
- See Update 0.10.0 for changes to ships related to the skills update. 18 Jan 2021.
Reviews
LittleWhiteMouse's 'Angry YouTuber' skills reviews:
- Destroyer skills
- Battleship skills
- CR skills - Real Soon Now™
- CV skills - Real Soon Now™
Lord_Zath's extensive, comprehensive review. Expand the description for notable timestamps.
Endnotes
- ↑ Take care when re-specializing a commander to a new ship. Until he directs a battle there, Recall can pull him back to his old ship.
- ↑ If the Recruit button is disabled, check that there is at least one open Reserve Slot
- ↑ Legendary commanders do not allow themselves to be dismissed.
- ↑ A purchased bundle that includes a Commander will add a reserve slot to hold him, if necessary.
- ↑ Free XP becomes available at Account Level 5. Commander operations and ECXP become available at Account Level 7. Since at that point the account will have no ECXP, accumulated FXP may be used in its place.