3 corrections:
- air refill time is capped at 60 seconds (tested with my level 106 and true ability >
3.4k planesman)

No, it was not and I would be surprised if they changed it. You just need a better
planesman! If you're at lvl120 and still reload the same time, then post again.

- the constant value used to calculate SD seems to be 8600, not 8800 (checked
teoretical SD against game SD for every sailor I have, 8600 works, 8800 not).

No, it is not. It is 8800.

- also sonarman part seems to be not correct. My sonarman stats are: v/e/r:
232/630/3, level 106, 865 max sailors, 2481 displayed ability. Thus true ability is
3865k, yet he sees only 9 TSR (12 TSR for shadows), which is minimal value in your
guide. I think sonarmen can be bugged - when I used him on a CL, sometimes he
couldn't even see a submerged sub in nearest vincity (no OH). Any ideas?

Reading helps... everything I wrote is valid for sonarmen on submarines, not on ships
since that feature was included way after I wrote that part of the guide. And if your
lvl106 sonaman lets you look only 9 divisions when in a sub, then you did something wrong
with him.

Thank you for the guide Adalbert. I used to be too lazy to calulate anything, but a
few days before my fat crew made me to make a few decisions. I went through your
guide and it worked wonders. :)

3 corrections:
- air refill time is capped at 60 seconds (tested with my level 106 and true ability >
3.4k planesman),
- the constant value used to calculate SD seems to be 8600, not 8800 (checked
teoretical SD against game SD for every sailor I have, 8600 works, 8800 not).
- also sonarman part seems to be not correct. My sonarman stats are: v/e/r:
232/630/3, level 106, 865 max sailors, 2481 displayed ability. Thus true ability is
3865k, yet he sees only 9 TSR (12 TSR for shadows), which is minimal value in your
guide. I think sonarmen can be bugged - when I used him on a CL, sometimes he
couldn't even see a submerged sub in nearest vincity (no OH). Any ideas?

Will notify you if I find anything more.

Thanks again!

I'm not trying to prove you wrong at all and I'm not saying your maths is wrong. I'm
simply saying that I find that part of the explanation misleading. However, if you don't
want to change it that is okay, it is after all your guide :)

Yes the relationship between FCS and ability is multiplicative. Although it is very
interesting to note that the relationship can also be seen as additive, particular if you
consider it for a fixed FCS value. In most cases people only really have one choice of FCS
for a particular ship, so this is a useful exercise.

Accuracy = (FCS + GunRev) * ((3 * TrueAbility / 1,000,000) + 1)

Multiply out

Accuracy = (FCS + GunRev) + ((FCS + GunRev) * 3 * TrueAbility / 1,000,000)

Now what I was trying to describe (albeit rather awkwardly) with:

Well lvl120 BVE crew and BB 2 Aiming FCS accuracy is around 455, remove all the experts
from the crew and accuracy is exactly 80. So FCS alone provides only 18% of the total

Was that the first part of this addition provides 18% of the total, and the second part
provides 82% of the total. It is also a relationship people find fairly intuitive since it
means if they reduced their crew true ability to zero they would be left with 18% of what
they originally started with. If they half their crew ability they would be half way
between the FCS only value and their full crew value.

Now of course, changing the FCS is more complicated since it appears as a component in
both parts of the addition. None the less I personally find it a useful line of thinking
to illustrate that having a good crew is also very important to achieving good accuracy.
Although maybe you don't agree :)

this topic is very usefull.. the abilities are shown clearly..

The guide is just explaining how NF works - what ppl take from it is their own choice. The
facts and numbers are there and everyone is welcome to interpret them as he wishes.

I do not see any reason to change my remarks on the accuracy as indeed the point I am
making is, that crew has little effect on accuracy, compared to the FCS/gun-combo.

Your example of
"Well lvl120 BVE crew and BB 2 Aiming FCS accuracy is around 455, remove all the experts
from the crew and accuracy is exactly 80. So FCS alone provides only 18% of the total"

is not only not straightforward - it is simply completely wrong!!! And that on many levels
even this time!
In a product you CAN NOT compare the factors by their absolute value!
With the same legitimization you can say, that the crew contributes only 5.5 (as in
5.5*80=440) and thus only 1.25% !!! I hope you can see that your examples are completely
bogus and not meaningfull at all.

The second major flaw lies in you maybe not grasping the idea of a product or true
ability... If you reduce crew size to 0 or remove all vets and experts, the actual
accuracy will be 0 and by that, the crew's contribution is 0, but the FCS with it's value
of 80 contributes INDEFINETLY much more as in : lim(x->0) {x/80}
(following the way you calculated the alleged significance of crew)

Either way you turn it, it is an absolutely ridiculous way of arguing and we should keep
this thread clean of it, since it might only distract and alienate other readers.
I am open to criticism and if you tell me that you have misunderstood something or that
you don't find it clear enough that you should put vets on your crew then that is one
thing - but trying to prove me wrong with utterly ridiculous calculations is just not what
I need.

Well lvl120 BVE crew and BB 2 Aiming FCS accuracy is around 455, remove all the experts
from the crew and accuracy is exactly 80. So FCS alone provides only 18% of the total, the
relationship certainly isn't straight foward but it does suggest that having good crew is
very important.

"Accuracy caps that fast, that it doesn't even matter, whether you boost your gunners or
put vets on them in the long run. "

This is certainly true for very high levels (90+), however, for players still in the CL
and CA stages of the game it is very definitely not true. BVEing your lvl 40 gunners will
make a huge difference to their accuracy. Perhaps in another 50 levels that BVEing will be
wasted due to the cap, but 50 levels is long time to wait, especially when you have a very
bad spread :)

So, how about something like:

A 10% increase in crew true ability only provides around a 3.5% increase in accuracy,
whereas a 10% increase in FCS accuracy revision provides a 10% increase in accuracy.
However, at low levels having a good crew with lots of experts and veterans is extremely
important to achieving good accuracy. But at higher levels (70+) it becomes increasingly
less important, because eventually accuracy caps whether you have a good crew or not.

My main issue with the statement in your guide is that it suggests that BVEing your crew
will bring limited benefit. This is definitely not true in all cases, and at lower levels
the benefit can be very substantial.

"In this situation (lvl120 crew) the BB 2 Aiming FCS would be providing only around 20% of
the total accuracy for the ship."

Now this is completely wrong... how can you compare contributions of a product by just
looking at one situation? You can't. You can compare two, as in :
lvl70 crew on Nelson with BB1FCS compared to lvl83 Vanguard with BB2FCS for example...
there, your crew effect is less then 4% (cap-increase from 70-83) but the FCS increases by
33% (60-80). Now you can look for dozens of examples, but the main point is :
Accuracy caps that fast, that it doesn't even matter, whether you boost your gunners or
put vets on them in the long run. (Of course if you do, then you can take more recruits of
to make them lighter)
And if you talk about the practical standpoint, the FCS is actually the only thing you can
modify to alter your spread. Although (almost) no one will use a lower and worse FCS on
their ships then possible, the point is, that the gun-modifier plays a major role too and
has a far greater effect then anything you can do with your crew.

So looking at the pure numbers, the statement that FCS has a much greater effect then crew
stays valid - and if you want to look at it practically, then crew 'looses' its effect
because you simply are at the cap in a THAT short time, that it shouldn't even be mentioned.
No offense, but you can get to capped gunners in a good day or two, playing the game.

Ah so that's what you meant by:

The FCS has by far the greatest effect on your spread. The part that is affected by your
crew makes up only around 35% of the final accuracy value.

I suspect we are talking cross purposes, although I think this statement is easy to
misinterpret :) What I read when I saw that statement is:

If I have a ship with the best possible crew (like level 120, fully BVE) then 65% of my
accuracy will come from the FCS, and 35% will come from my l33t crew. Because 'crew only
makes around 35% of the final accuracy value'.

Looking around the forums I think quite a lot of people have assumed this interpretation,
since I see lots of statements to the effect of "just put the right FCS on, and don't
worry about BVEing your crew, they only add 35%".

I had also assumed that it meant that as I progressed from my crummy DD (with terrible
crew) to my l33t BB5 (with high level BVE crew) the thing that would be improving my
accuracy the most would be the improvement in the FCS, because 'The FCS has by far the
greatest effect on your spread.'.

Whereas, of course, in this overall process it is the improvement in crew that contributes
the most (assuming I'm not daft enough to use a finder FCS on a gunboat).

Perhaps an alternative wording might be less easy to confuse, for example:

A 10% increase in crew true ability only provides around a 3.5% increase in accuracy,
whereas a 10% increase in FCS accuracy revision provides a 10% increase in accuracy.
However, as a player levels the crew's true ability increases much faster than the FCS
accuracy revision of their ship. This means that as level increases the crew skill tends
to dominate the accuracy. For example, consider a player with a BB5 and a lvl 120 fully
BVE crew. In this situation the BB 2 Aiming FCS would be providing only around 20% of the
total accuracy for the ship.

Your calculations are correct. The assumptions you make, are not however.

You can change the FCS and get accuracy revisions from 5 to 80 on your ship and not 50 to
80, so that is a dynamic region of 1500% and not 60% !!

I also do not agree on the interpretation itself.

Of course if you multiply the ability with 3.5 and not even add 20% to the FCS the
calculated accuracy numbers can't show any usefull result if you compare them.

The FCS has a greater effect, if you increase it's value at the same percentage then you
increase the accuracy ability.
10% more FCS gives you 10% more accuracy since it's a simple produkt, however 10% more
true reload ability gives you far less since only the first part of the second multiplier
gets that 10% 'boost'.
In your example you change a CLII to a BB2 FCS. With acc-values at 67 and 80, that's a
19,4% increase.

accuracy with the changed FCS :
Accuracy = (80/67)*(FCS) * ((3 * true ability /1000000) + 1)
-> 80/67 or 19,4% increase of accuracy -> linear to changes

accuracy with modified crew at the same rate of the FCS increase :
Accuracy = (FCS + GunRev) * ((3 * (80/67) *true ability /1000000) + 1)
{with numbers from your example : true ab. =124440}
-> 1,446 / 1,373 or 5,2% increase only

Or roughly 30% of the effect that the FCS change had. With a crew that has a higher true
ability, the increase is greater - but allways smaller then that, created by a FCS change.

Fantastic guide, adalbert, you must have put a lot of time into it and it really shows :-)

I do have one question though, in your guide you say:

The FCS has by far the greatest effect on your spread. The part that is affected by your
crew makes up only around 35% of the final accuracy value.

I've been playing around with the calculations, and I actually get a very different
answer! As far as I can see, the crew is much more important! First lets take the accuracy
formula

Accuracy = (FCS + GunRev) * ((3 * true ability /1000000) + 1)

Okay so lets plug some (realistic) numbers into this. My current CL2 has a UK CL Aiming
FCS II, with accuracy revision 67. My gunnersa are lvl 38, and have a displayed accuracy
ability of 732. I haven't BVE'd them much yet, so they only have 30 vets and 50 experts.
First calculate my gunners true ability

TrueAbility = (4 * Vets + Experts) * (CrewNum/Max) * DisplayedAbility
TrueAbility = (4 * 30 + 50) * 1.0 * 732
= 124440

Stick this into the accuracy formula

Accuracy = 67 * ((3 * 124400 / 1000000) + 1)
= 92.0124

Okay, so next let's imagine that I could put a UK BB2 FCS on my lowly CL2 ... The UK BB2
Aiming FCS has an accuracy revision of 80.

Accuracy = 80 * ((3 * 124400 / 1000000) + 1)
= 109.956

Certainly a good improvement 92 to 110. However, let's imagine instead that I seriously
vetted and experted my gunners to 100 vets and 200 experts. First recalculate true ability:

TrueAbility = (4 * 100 + 200) * 1.0 * 732
= 439200

This is less than 1 million, so it's way under the acc cap. Now plug this into the
accuracy formula

Accuracy = 67 * ((3 * 439200 / 1000000) + 1)
= 155.272

Now this is an *enormous* improvement. Much bigger than moving from a CL2 FCS to a BB2
FCS. If we look at the formula this actually makes sense.

Accuracy = (FCS + GunRev) * ((3 * true ability /1000000) + 1)

Accuracy is the multiplication of two components, so for ease of argument I will divide
the accuracy formula as follows

Accuracy = ShipBonus * SailorBonus
ShipB .onus = FCS + GunRev
SailorB .onus = (3 * TrueAbility / 1,000,000) + 1

If we look at the two components of the Accuracy value we can see that

ShipBonus ranges from about 50 something (DD FCS) to 80 ish (BB FCS), a 60% variation.

In constrast TrueAbility ranges from 0 up to about 1.5 mil (acc cap at lvl 120), therefore:

SailorBonus ranges from 1.0 to around 5.5, a 450% variation.

Because the SailorBonus varies far more than the ShipBonus, it is the SailorBonus that
dominates the Accuracy value. This is because changing the FCS can only provide a 60%
improvement, whereas changing your sailors can provide a 450% improvement.

Of course, it's quite possible that I've misunderstood something, but as far as I can see
having a good crew is far more important to having good accuracy than having a good FCS ...