And now for more Korean Tactical MMORPGA the A is for ACTION! It's Navy Field time!
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Find Eachother
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forum name --- NF name
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Fleck0.........................flecko
Bremen.......................bremen
Kajusta......................kajusta
Leaf.............................leaf
An ancient list of players I salvaged from an old thread, if anyone wants to give NF another try there hasn't been a player wipe or anything
Urgel..........................Urgel
Gigglio........................Nanogym
Drallo..........................Drallo
Deswa........................Deswa
Ethan Smith................Abelard_L
Cyberjackal.................Cyberjackal
WHY............................Valkun
Angelofvengeance.......Eric14
Webguy20...................Webguy20
Randombattle..............Randombattle
Talith............................Talith_PA
TalonZahn....................TalonZahn
HydroSqueegee...........TenFootHen
Entropy.........................Negativa
Airan.............................Esti
Wombat!!.....................WombatPA
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First up, some
Q&AWhere can I get it?
From here the
main siteWhat is Navy Field?
It's a free Korean made (though the english version is run from the US) tactics based MMO taking place on the high seas of World War II.
It's been likened to a non-cartoony realtime gunbound with an isometric view. NF sports a huge variety of ships from 4 different nations, ranging from the miniscule Fast frigate to massive battleships and aircraft carriers.
There's a strong simulation presence, every ship and gun in the game actually existed and for the most part is recreated faithfully (they do take liberties here and there for the sake of balance.)
Did I mention you get to name all your sailors so you feel extra bad when they get sent straight to hell?
Sailors never really die, think of them like Legion from the castlevania series, all sailors start out with 100% recuits, as you do better you get experts, which can be converted into veterans with a 40% or so chance of success with an exchange rate of 10 experts per 10 vets. Vets get a % boost to whavever stats they specialize in, experts get an even bigger boost
My sailor names on my yorktown tend to range from venture characters and aqua teen manning the guns and support while the pilots are all Top Gun nicknames with Final Fantasy 6 thrown in for the bombers
Free you say
Yeah, NF is 100% free if you want. Along the lines of gunbound and many other Korean MMOs you can spend real life money if you're so inclined. You can buy things like elite sailors, upgrades to your existing sailors, premium ships that can't be aquired otherwise, and they also offer 2 subscription plans that will boost the EXP and Credits you earn significantly
Wait... exp? for boats?
NF also has a lot of RPG elements. Each ship has to have a crew that runs it. All crew members start out as neutral sailors, each battle they get EXP which increase their level and skills, as they go up in levels you assign them specialized classes based on their skills, this is another huge list that differs between nations this jobs like Bridge Operators, Radio men, Accuracy Gunners, Reload Gunners, various pilots, repairmen, engineers and so on.
The level of your bridge operator, probably your most important sailors determines what ships he can command.
It's Korean... so there's it's a massive grind fest??
Basically yes, the only real goal is to earn Money for bigger ships and get exp for stronger sailors. The fact that it's 100% GvG combat things tend to stay interesting and the battles are short and sweet
Not too long ago they also added in a Harbor assault mode, in which a fleet (large clan) attacks a nation allied harbor in an attempt to control it. If your fleet succeeds they'll get access to unique ships as well as a steady stream of taxes to fill those wallets.
What are the nations? are they different?
Oh yes, picking your nation (which you do at lvl 12) is very important. Once you assign a sailor to a nation you can't change him back. Though you CAN create another crew and assign them something different, so there's nothing stopping you from having some ships from each nation.
The nations are
United States -
USN
Kriegsmarine (Germans) -
KM
Royal Navy (English) -
RN
Imperial Japanese Navy -
IJN
There are better resources than me that'll help you make the decision which one to focus on but basically the strengths and weaknesses are:
USNpros: USN is the balanced nation, they can pretty much do everything OK, but don't really excell at anything. Also their CVs (aircraft carriers) are arguably the best. Also I use 'em, so they must be good!
cons: They're balanced, so their ships can go either way. Some really suck, while others shine in the right situations
KMpros: KM has the longest range guns, range can be a HUGE factor, especially in battles with larger ships. They also have some of the best engines
cons: They have some of the weakest shells, so you want to be hitting the other guy a lot from somewhere where he can hit you back
RNpros: Ah the UK, the most cried about nation by far. They have some great ships, great shell damage and godly armor. REALLY godly armor. some would say they're the best all-around nation
cons: Some ships are utter crap, and I've heard the grind can be painful at times.
IJNpros: IJN love torpedoes, which it why everyone hates 'em (you'll see what I mean when you have a japanese light cruiser lay down a solid wall of torps and sink 5 ships in one go. They also have the most diversity in their aircraft carriers
cons: sometimes it seems like the Battleships are armored with freakin rice paper.
I'm tired of reading, can I just look at some pictures...
These are pretty big so I'll just link 'em
A Docked US carrierPilots and seamen alike being sent to a watery graveOne of those torpedo walls I mentioned, You'll learn to hate theseWhich Server?
There are 3 servers (plus a test server) I'd reccomend Arizona, it's informally called the vet server but really you'll see plenty of new people and there are plenty of modes you can play that will keep you with people of your level so your tiny frigate won't get one-shotted by a yamato class battleship.
There is also a small PA clan in existance on Arizona, Imperial Arcadia. post here and we'll have someone meet up to let you in
edit: The main draw to NF is that it's not like any other Korean MMO. No anime inspired / diabetes inducing character designs (see my Trickster online thread if you have a taste for the
Sho-Shweet style. Navy Field is a damn fun
WWII era tactival navy simulation with some strong RPG elements.
Basically how many rabbits will you kill in NF? the answer is none
Posts
WWW.NF-Guides.com - Some very helpful and newb-friendly guides here that cover most of the basics and some advanced topics
Navy Field Data Store - This site's an incredible resource, think of it like an encyclopedia for everything Navy Field
Every hotkey you could want to know
part 2 - some of these you'll probably never need, but the in game list (F5) leaves some of these out. Mostly the plane control keys which you won't need until you get a light cruiser and start scouting out the battlefield for your teammates
Some basic tips for new people
sending tells
First you need a radioman, level any neut sailor to lvl 7 and then convert him to radioman. don't waste a sailor with decent stats on this as he doesn't help your ship in anyway other than letting you communicate with other players.
while in the harbor you'll notice a little red circle at the bottom-left corner of the screen, stick him here. Right clicking and left clicking on him will bring up different options. Right click to add friends, after you have a friend added you can left click him and a list of those people will show up. Just double click someone's name and a dialog window will pop up and you're good to go
- Probably the most important thing before you start fighting is your FCS, I forget what that stands for but it controls the ships aiming. By default when you first login you get an aiming FCS, this means click where you want the shots to go and hit space. The problem with auto FCS is that besides being not that accurate it will really hurt you in the long run if you rely on it. I'd reccomend sticking an aiming FCS on that ship right away. It'll be tough at first but once you get the hang of things you'll have a huge edge over anyone who still uses auto
- The CTRL key. This toggles the TDA which stands for "Make your turrets move a hell of a lot faster". You won't want this on while you're trying to lock onto an enemy ship but when making a turn or making significant changes to your gun angles it'll save you prescious seconds.
- Types of rooms! (I'll add screenshots later to make this part clearer)
I'm not going to cover everything but here's basically what you'll see when you look for people to shoot.
when you get your ship all set up and venture out of the harbor click the yellow "crosshairs inside a circle" thingy. This will zoom out to a view of the world, basically every possible place you can fight. You want to go to area #12, cause that's where all the action takes place.
Once here you'll see a bunch of little boxes with titles describing what type of battle in contained theirein.
- Standard Rooms - These are your basic battles, they'll usually have a name like FF/DD/CL which refers to the type of ships that are allowed (in this case frigates, destroyers, and light cruisers).
CV hunts are fun (unless you're on missouri, in which case you're outta luck). One team is made up of aircraft carriers while the other team is anyone who isn't a carrier. You have to get all the way across the map to reach the carrier that'll send wave after wave of planes at your team. This is a great place to practice using AA guns.
You'll also see things like AW (All Welcome) this is a free-for-all where anyone can join. This is basically a Grand Battle 2 without auto-team-balancing and the exp/credits aren't shared, you get what you earn.
- Grand Battle 2 this is the first shared experience game-type they added. Which means the amount of credits and EXP earned is based on how well your team did (with the losing team getting a penalty and the winning team getting a bonus)
- Blitzkrieg - This is the newest mode and the one new players will want to spend the most time in. Blitz's allow FF through CA class ships, so no battleships and no carriers. Also you get tons of exp and credits here. in a decently sized ship it's not unlikely to get 10k credits and around 6k EXP per game you win.
Ship Acronyms (in order of when they appear on the ship trees
FF = Frigate
DD = Destroyer
CL = Light Cruiser
PCL = Premium Light Cruiser (you need real $$ to get these, though you can also buy one in game if you find a player willing to sell one)
CA = Heavy Cruiser
PCA = Premium Heavy Cruiser
CV = Aircraft Carrier
BC = Pocket Battleship (there aren't many of these, they're better than CA's but not quite as heavy as a BB)
BB = Battleship
each class of ships can also be divided into tiers. For example the USS Brooklyn is a CL1 and the USS Cleveland is a CL2. Though that doesn't necessarily mean that a CL2 will always beat a CL1, it's mostly just to denote where they fall on the ship tree
STATS
ok this I'll keep simple because some of the links above go into this in much more depth (specifically the one on sailors at NF-Guides.com)
Each stat has growth and Ability. Growth is the amount a stat increases each level and ability is how good their current skill with said ability. When rolling new sailors, ignore ability all you really care about is growth, no matter what the lvl 1 ability is the growth is what helps you in the long run.
The maximum growth value of each stat is 12, except for potential which can go up to 15. Each sailor specialization has certain stats attached to it, you want these to be 11 or 12. 10 if you have a 12 in the main stat. for example the 10-10 gunners you start with are ok, but 12-10 is even better with 12-11 being ideal. Don't let stats drive you crazy you can (and WILL) spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to get two 12-11 acc gunners (unless you buy them) but stats eventually max out so you aren't going to be crippled. My main gunners that I made way back when are 11-10s and I've never felt gimped compared to similarly level players who may have superior growth in their gunners, worst case scenario I max out a few levels after them.
Break down of what each stat does.
Potential - This only matters for your BO it affects how far away he can mark shells. You know those little blue marker dots whenever you fire? in the future you may find that you can put guns on your ship with great range, but if you fire them as far as they can go it won't show you where they landed, if this happens you need to level up your BO a bit.
Accuracy - Determines how likely your shells will land where you want them too, this is known as spread
Reload - fairly obvious like Acc. how fast they reload the guns
Torpedo - how fast you reload torpedos
AAW - When planes fly over enemy ships you'll notice the sailors on board automatically fire the ships machine guns at 'em. That's AAW and this stat affects how often it fires and how powerful it is, however AAW sucks and if you want to shoot down planes you'll want to mount quick firing guns in the T-slots of your ship and man them with reload gunners. So you can pretty much ignore this stat
Repair - How fast your support sailor can repair damage to the ship
Restore - this affects Soft Defense which is sorta complicated, again NF-Guides.com is your friend
Engine - This deals with engine repairs when you take a lot of damage as well as how often you can overheat the engines to gain a speed boost
Aircraft - A good stat for all pilots, affects how far scouts can see as well as how hard bombers and fighters are to shoot down
Fighter - Fighter pilots damage
Bomber - Dive / Torpedo Bomber damage and I think accuracy
there are a few linked screenies in the OP, here are a couple more
Colour me interested if I go Royal Navy!
Manual Aim (yes manual, you'll want to drop the crutch that is the Auto FCS as soon as possible) is a steep hill to climb, and often enjoyment is inverse to your skill with it.
Although that's not to say if you suck at aiming you can't be an asset to your team. The main sidlines to shooting cannons at other things are Anti-Aircraft and carriers. For AA you'll want a fast ship that can hold a decent amount of AA guns (though not necessarily the ones labed AA, there are often better alternatives) and shoot them fast, providing flak cover to protect your team's big boys. There are plenty of low-level ships that can AA very effectively, in fact small faster ships are preferred as you'll spend a lot of time on the front lines where one or two lucky volleys from a battleship will sink you. AA is also the best way to make a lot of money per battle
Aircraft Carriers are a whole different game, you won't be firing cannons often if at all, pretty much everything is launching the right planes for the situation, be it scouting (generally the team that has a better view of the battlefield is going to win), providing fighter's for air cover or using torpedo and dive bombers to take out big targets.
So basically to fill these roles, any nation will work, though some fit in better than others
IJN - the japanese are the way to go if you want to dive into air combat ASAP, they get the Oyodo at around 30. Don't get me wrong, the Oyodo is the weakest Carrier in the game, and at that level your planes are going to be a joke. But you won't care, cause carriers are fun. Japan is also the way to go if you find you really like torps, they're the only nation that gets the ships designed to drop walls of 20+ torps in one go
The other nations can cover all the other roles well, just some will take longer that others. Namely you won't get carriers until around the time you start getting CAs and BBs
Yeah the early grind sucks, especially since you have to fight against people with the cool ships you want. The grind to the really fun ships is worth it, but only if you're like me and really enjoy the game for what it is, thus making the grind not feel grindy at all. That said it is a hell of a grind
winning usually gives 2x those amounts if I shoot down a decent amount of planes / bomb ships that are 2-3 gold bars higher in rank than me
this is what an especially good winning game looks like, people in BB/Cv5-6s typically get 4-5 times those amounts, so basically don't worry about scaling, it is your friend
Setzer is a player-bought pilot, hence his much higher level, the rest I "birthed" and have level from lvl 1-onward. Also, I have no use for most of those points, if anyone finds themselves intersested in the game and in a point crunch light up the Fleck-signal, I can spare a few million to keep you going until you start getting more points that you can spend, which doesn't take too long
I could only find some old version (about 10 versions out-of-date) but it downloaded 4 times faster, and I figured I could just patch it. So I downloaded it. And the executable did nothing: it wouldn't install.
So I guess I'm not playing it now.
did you try the helios DL in the OP? Last time I tried the official site's version it DL'd super slow and was corrupt... which I warned about in the OP when I linked the alt DL, which for me was a consistant 300/kbs, and worked
edit: by randomly searching you run the risk of unwittingly installing a different regions Navy Field (There are 2 other regional versions and they're very different from the US version, though it's easy to grab the wrong one based off a google search)
Go to http://fleethelios.com/dl/ and nowhere else and you'll be fine
the moral: read the OP, I know it's long but I stuck the good DL link within the first few lines
edit: to anyone still fighting the good fight, check area 13 once in awhile for a room titled "Arcadia" I'll semi afk there sometimes and it's the easiest way to add people to the PA clan
NF devs have been upping the importance of clans and fleets lately (a fleet is basically a flag, to use Puzzle Pirates Comparisons, not that anyone will get that ^^. A fleet is made up of a bunch of clans and they can do things like take over harbors and get special event ships if they perform well in server-wide events. And I want those ships!!)
Basically they can help (depending on Nation, United States I would suggest buying the Premiums if you Like NF, if you went UK? not so much, they dont' need Premium ships (on the other hand the UK gets the Moltke, which is super hax.... if you have one I hate you.
The only worthwhile purhcase off the NF site is the Supscription fee, and in that case it only applies after you get to lvl 30 and decide NF is an MMO you've enjoyed enough to pay for
yep, that's correct, a premium ship will eventually become obsolete, a boosted (adds a % to any sailors stats) / premium sailor (lvl 1 bought sailor that starts with the maximum + 1 in whatever skill you buy it for) will stay with you forever and only get more useful as time goes on.
What I like about the real money for better sailors system is it doesn't skew the balance. Premium Sailors didn't come out until I had leveld a decent way into the US ship tree and have no plans to go back and raise a bunch of lvl 1 sailors, the nice thing is this doesn't put me at a significant disadvantage to people who may have done just that, they're just a couple levels above me in terms of sailor stats
I still need to patch or whatever, but you know.
XBL
- Get a sailor to level 7
- Take him off the ship
- Click the [cls] button to the lower right of his picture
- turn him into a radio man
- Stick him in the red circle on the lower left of the shipyard screen whenever you log in to do community related things
Stats mean absolutely nothing to a radio man, so it's not hard to have one ready by your 7th blitz battle. Unless you plan to start a squad / fleet you'll never need to level him beyond lvl 7 (to start a squad / fleet [squads are what we have, 30 people or less, a fleet can participate in wars and take over harbors, and get a customized symbol next to their name, they cost 200k and 1mil respecively and require a lvl 24 / 50 radio man])
edit unrelated: I've been doing some research on the test server, which I think will let you try out the high end ships without having to earn them though hours and hours of NF play.
It's a little convoluted to access but here's an FAQ from the hive of scum and villainy that is the official forums
I haven't tried it yet, too busy grinding towards the Essex, but I at least checked the links and they're active.
been sending you tells in game, though I know it's tough to notice them mid-battle. Send me a PM next time you're online and I'll jump on and add you
edit: I have a habit of posting random tips on the bottom of unrelated posts in NF threads. Soo.....
It's wise to work on being able to identify a ship by sight. This will be a huge help in the long run.
ex. Dark long ship, roughly BB size, little smaller? that's a US guam, if I'm a Kriegsmarine Captain I know there's no way in hell that thing can shoot as far as I can, but it's 4x faster than me.
thus charging it is a bad idea, and you'll have no problem sinking him before he can get any shots anywhere near you. Even more likely: with decent scouting, (hell, this will happen with crappy scouting) a KM ship can often sink a US ship before they can even see where those shells are coming from
I believe adding friends is case sensitive, tomorrow I'll A. test that and B. update the OP to reflect exactly what everyone's ID is.
I've been thinking of getting the premium sailors upgrade. Has anyone done this before? I just want to know if I apply it to my existing sailors, or if I have to start over again.
Premium Sailors start out at level 1 with whichever stat you bought them for 1-higher than you can roll in-game, so a premium bomber will have 13 in bombing to start with.
However Boosted sailor is an upgrade you apply to already existing sailors, I forget the exact amount but it raises all their stats by a certain %. I don't have any premium sailors but I Boosted my gunners and pilots, it's worth it in the sense that they'll always be performing a few levels above what they would be with unboosted stats
edit: I missed the damn july 4-6th double exp weekend ^^
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
While I'm here... They've changed a bunch of stuff for the better since this thread was active.
Subscription model was changed for the better, now free accounts gain 100% exp / cash instead of 40%, while subscriptions accounts get 150%, so basically half the grind for free
The first release of a new nation shipline (the French) is supposedly coming soon. I won't hold my breath for it happeningby the end of the year tho.
There's also some Xmas event coming up that will no doubt involve even more Exp, dunno when that starts
Confirming that 100% exp/cash is awesome, and makes the grind as a non-sub account way way less painful.
Also, for the duration of the Christmas season dive bombers are now Santa Sleighs that drop presents on your ass, with EXTREME PREDJUDICE. In addition, shells now appear as christmassy stuff, and the login screen plays 'jingle bells'. Mostly though, the 100% bit is awesome, I no longer am struggling like a mofo just to have enough cred to pay for the next ship up the line when my BO can use it.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Having only played in the past very briefly, the change to free account XP is pretty awesome and it's nice to feel like I'm actually progressing. The comparisons to a large scale gunbound w/ boats are pretty apt too.
We'll see how playing the same map over and over again stays interesting, but I'd really like to at least get to 60 and try out a decent CV.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
And this is a kind of silly question, but how do I add you guys to my friend list anyways?
My radioman is only the basic lvl 6, so I'm not sure if that makes any difference. I just can't really figure out this archaic chat interface :P
I got 4 of the +10 vet increases, and 2 of the +100 experts from random drops, but I have no idea how much they're going for in the current economy and if I can even sell them.
I've been rolling some +12 base neutrals, but the market seems very slow there as well.
Guess it's back to AA whorage and Blitz
Also, it seems like the playerbase has pretty much all moved up into BS/CV (or all the lower level players stopped playing) so most GB games are nearly pure BS/CV fights with a little aa support and subs thrown in to the mix. I miss the old days of lots of DD/CL running around GBs.
On another note, hedgehogs rock, I've had a sub shoot at me, and I launch the hedgehogs at the spot I think the sub is at, and often it's a one shot kill. Best use I can find for my back slots on the Dunk.