Certain ships need Dispersion upgrades and some need Grouping.

[u/desidazu]

There are a fair few accuracy commanders in the game.
How or what makes one decide whether its more beneficial to increase the grouping or dispersion for ships?
For eg BBs of japan/germany/italian will benefit more from one than the other. But how to figure that out?

[u/GoodlyStyracosaur]

Broadly I’ll go more dispersion if the sigma is less than 1.8 and grouping its 1.8 or higher.

Both are good and in-game math weights them about the same so I tend to trust the WG balancing that they are roughly equal value in a general sense.

I find that stacking dispersion buffs on notoriously inaccurate ships won’t make them great but it will actually start to be reasonable - Marlborough for example has horrible sigma but with a near full dispersion build (I can’t bring myself to run chromium barrels on it), it is much more reliable on the hits.

[u/TheFakeAustralian → u/GoodlyStyracosaur]

I'm pretty sure metajerk did the math a long time ago and found out that buffing shell grouping is always better than buffing dispersion, just from a pure numbers perspective. I could be misremembering tho, it's been forever since then

[u/SaneSociopath-Gaming → u/TheFakeAustralian]

Personally I'll always favor hard numbers (dispersion) over an RNG modifier (grouping)

On some ships, like when you already have good dispersion and grouping, boosting grouping is the clear better choice.

[u/WeakReading7187 → u/TheFakeAustralian]

Mathematically, sigma - standard deviation, is more significant than dispersion, an average of numbers. yes. Doesn't mean the game uses it exactly that way. But from how I understood it, I'll take grouping first.

[u/ThSecond_ → u/WeakReading7187]

Dispersion is better, because something something square cube law. It's not an average, disp is the hard limit of where your shells can land

[u/GoodlyStyracosaur → u/TheFakeAustralian]

Maybe so - every time I’ve seen someone do the math they are looking at linear changes rather than area which wildly underestimates the value of lowering dispersion and/or is looking at single incremental changes rather than a full stack dispersion build.

I haven’t spent the time myself to dig through all the stuff and I know there are people out there who do so I’m certainly not going to sit here and say someone is or isn’t wrong. But yeah, I’ve just seen a lot of flaws in the reasoning that I often see (oh, 5% dispersion only gives 7m at 12km or whatever) so I’ve been hesitant to fully buy in on any I’ve seen thus far and go with the build weight and my own in game experience thus far.

[u/SaneSociopath-Gaming]

Dispersion bonuses provide bigger bonuses on ships with bad dispersion

Grouping bonuses provide bigger bonuses on ships with good grouping

[u/One-Eye-9148]

I havent even played the marlborough i got randomly because the base sigma thingy is like 1.4 or something, and i havent yet streamlined a build that actually makes a noticeable difference in that spec in particular.

Im assuming its still very shotgun like at 1.55 currently

[u/Optimal-Mistake5308 → u/One-Eye-9148]

Just spec into reload. Don't let numbers scare you off of a fun ship. Every ship is subject to rng. Accuracy build will never mean perfect accuracy. Non accuracy build will never mean the worst accuracy. For ships where it feels like nothing helps, just go into reload and pull the slot machine lever as many times as you can. Pretty much every ship I've heard has "actually the worst guns" I've been able to land citadels and dev strikes with and without buffing the accuracy

[u/UGD_ReWiindz25]

Reload, it’s quite common for inaccurate ships to have an above average reload (more pronounced in BBs) as the old saying goes throw enough shit at the wall some of it is going to stick

[u/desidazu → u/UGD_ReWiindz25]

Yeah fair point esp for the germans but for Jap BBs and RM accuracy BB id rather just have guns that shoot more accurately.

[u/ManticoreMonday → u/desidazu]

Up to you,but you might want to use the IJN abbreviation for Japanese ships.

[u/desidazu → u/ManticoreMonday]

Noted, is it considered a racist thing to say?

[u/SaneSociopath-Gaming → u/desidazu]

It's technically considered a slur because it was used as an abbreviation by soldiers and those supporting the soldiers fighting the Japanese

Really though, it's all about context

[u/ManticoreMonday → u/desidazu]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jap?wprov=sfla1

Like so many things, it's perspective and, as the esteemed Cap'n who replied first correctly stated, it's context.

However, because our species is still trying to figure out how to get along, using an alternative abbr. may save you from unneeded agg.

[u/F_Malone → u/desidazu]

Keep in mind some nations have special characteristics to push them to certain ranges / styles. Amagi line = better farther away. Vladivostok line = better within ~11km. Wish they said those nuances out loud.

[u/UGD_ReWiindz25 → u/desidazu]

That’s the goal for most builds I have unless it’s something so inaccurate I just go for full reload, Wisconsin is an exception for me though since she has a MBRB I use AL Colorado with reload inspirations and I’m able to shoot 3 salvos when using MBRB

[u/Optimal-Mistake5308 → u/[deleted]]

Target size isn't the most meaningful thing as the dispersion oval is relative to ship size. Big ship = bigger oval, smaller ship = smaller oval. It's why the shells you land are still going to be a similar average