#priority research

[cursedalthoughts]

alright sure. whatever.

[ashvalentine16]

Priority Research Series 7 is installed~!!!

I'm so excited!

Is this Battle Simulation new? I don't remember this being an option.

[cursedalthoughts]

holy fuck

Mmm... Commander? I was just resting my eyes. I didn't think you'd get here so fast... Ahem. I'm battleship Kansas with the Eagle Union, and I'm ready to fight for you any time. By the way... are there any missions I need to fight in today?

[cursedalthoughts]

Priority Research 7 Predictions - Sakura Empire

It is time for one of the biggest factions in AL to get their PR prediction post. Last year, the Sakura Empire got Shimanto, a choice I was honestly disappointed with - not because of her design or gameplay in Azur Lane, but because Shimanto is an utterly unremarkable ship in World of Warships.

So, as usual, I will mention some of their most likely choices. None of these selected ships are guaranteed to make it into PR7 - we may not get a Sakura girl this time, but all of them are ships I would be interested in seeing. Hell, some of them I've turned into OCs of mine lol ALSO, I mentioned some of these candidates last year. Because I just really want them in AL damnit.

Bungo

Bungo is funny.

She's an upscaled Amagi hull with 457mm guns (no clue why they aren't 460mm). Her gimmick is accuracy. Yamato is already well known as a very accurate battleship, but Bungo takes it to a whole another level. She's so accurate that, assuming you aim perfectly; you will most likely encounter aiming bugs that no other ship really experiences (because WoWs is built on a mountain of spaghetti code)

As a special consumable, Bungo gets access to a 'High-Precision Spotter Plane' that further reduces her dispersion by -20% for a minute and five seconds. You can get two whole salvos out very comfortably, due to her 26.4s reload.

Honestly, if you miss with Bungo, it is your fault. Easy DR material.

Adatara

Adatara is the predecessor of Bungo in the tech tree. She's Tier 9, her spotter plane reduces her dispersion by -10% instead of -20%, and has one less turret. Her reload is longer, too, at 30s.

If Bungo is DR material, Adatara is PR material.

Tsurugi

As much as I love Tsurugi, I see a lot of people compare her to Georgia, which is just innacurate.

Both ships enjoy 3 double 457mm gun turrets with short reloads and remarkable accuracy, but Georgia has American Super-Heavy AP that does devastating damage, and Tsurugi's AP shells do a pitiful 13.5k damage - Georgia's AP shells do almost 18k damage each.

Also, Georgia has very fun secondary guns. And can tank damage, since she's an Iowa hull variation. And is superbly fast. Tsurugi has none of those things.

Tsurugi has 15km-range deep water torpedoes (that can only hit battleships and aircraft carriers), as well as a 'Torpedo Reload Booster' consumable that reduces the 150s reload down to just 10s. Also, while not enjoying Georgia's 46+ knots speed, Tsurugi can easily do almost 37 knots, which is faster than a lot of cruiser.

Sadly, Tsurugi also suffers from pathetically weak armor.

Tsurugi could be a very fun PR battlecruiser in AL, however.

Iwami

Iwami is a variation of the Izumo design. Much like Izumo, she has fairly accurate 410mm main guns. Much unlike Izumo, her overall gun layout makes sense, with 2 frontal dual turrets and two back dual turrets, much like a Nagato.

Iwami has two gimmicks of particular interest: Two sets of torpedoes, one per side, which are taken straight out of Shimakaze (4 20km torpedos per launcher) that also deal devastating damage, but can be seen from orbit (relatively speaking - their detectability range is 2.5km. Normal hydroacoustic search detects torpedoes at 3.5km)

The second gimmick of Iwami is access to a surprisingly strong secondary gun array.

Iwami could be a PR battleship with a support role.

Shikishima

As I said last year, Shikishima is "The USS Georgia of the Yamato-class."

Her main armament consists of 3 dual 510mm turrets boasting of improved accuracy compared to the Yamato-class, as well as a 27s reload. She shares all the flaws of Yamato and Musashi, mainly having incredibly weak armor and a glacial turret traverse of a whole entire minute to turn 180º, but she's a fun ship that can do insane damage. She relies a lot on sheer overmatch, being the second ship to have 510mm guns - Satsuma is basically an upscaled Shikishima, and HMS Incomparable "only" has 508mm guns.

Also, for some reason, Shikishima also has a very nice secondary gun layout, guns that also have improved accuracy and reload times; meaning you can run a full secondary gun Shikishima build without losing much main gun accuracy.

Due to being a Yamato hull, she'd be DR.

Yoshino

Hey, wouldn't it be funny if Azuma had even more torpedoes than Shimakaze?

Yoshino is just that, a bigger Azuma with a total of 16 torpedoes. She gets a choice between the 'suicide' 12km torpedoes of Shimakaze, which deal almost 27k damage each; or the same torpedoes that Iwami has, 20km range.

She's different enough from Azuma to be somewhat likely, but she's also not really that much different than Azuma. She'd be DR, for sure.

Hayate

A unique (for Japan's standards) destroyer that has both good guns and good torpedoes. They normally excell only at guns (Kitakaze) or only at torpedoes (Shimakaze) - Hayate is good with both.

Past me summarized her pretty well. She's a decent mix between Shimakaze and Harugumo - Harugumo being Kitakaze's bigger sister.

PR rarity for sure.

Yamagiri

Ok, but what if you wanted a pretty good mix of Shimakaze and Harugumo, instead of a decent mix?

Yamagiri is an upscaled Hayate that mixes the two lines of destroyers. She gets access to the same amount of torpedoes Shimakaze has, while having access to some formidable main gun armament as well.

While Hayate is a PR, Yamagiri would be a DR. However, there's one main issue with Yamagiri as a PR7 choice:

She's a Superdestroyer. A Tier 11. We have never gotten a Tier 11 PR ship, and there are much more fun and bombastic options for the first Tier 11 in Azur Lane's Priority Research.

[cursedalthoughts]

PR6 - Kearsarge

Ok, don't laugh.

I can't find any good 'accurate' angel iconography right now - at least nothing that matches what I see in Kearsarge, but her design is very angelic. In the literal sense, unlike Plymmouth and Brest; who have divine elements in their design, but are not angels. No, Kearsarge is something else. Not angelic, but a proper angel.

However, she is not a normal angel. No, far from it.

According to the lore (that I can remember right now, meaning I'm probably getting something wrong), Priority Research ships are pulled in their entirety from different realities. The process of building them is similar to 'blueprint ships'. A blueprint ship, according to Kirov in her debut event Northern Overture, is a ship that didn't quite exist in our reality, but still had enough planned components to qualify as being somewhat real - Brünhilde, Sovetsky Soyuz, Tosa, Prinz Heinrich, those ships that didn't exist but we can acquire through the gacha are blueprint ships.

Priority Research ships take this concept and run with it until the very end - by getting ships Wargaming has designed for World of Warships, but that's the meta out-of-universe explanation. In-universe, they are ships that, in some cases, weren't even planned to begin with. Roon is the best example, in my opinion - and by extension Hindenburg as well, I believe. Roon wasn't planned at any point during WW2. There were some designs, to the best of my knowledge, about a potential triple 203mm turret, but that's the whole extent.

On the opposite side, you have Ibuki. Ibuki was being built in real life, as a heavy cruiser in fact, but they started converting her to a seaplane tender before WW2 ended, and they never finished her.

USS Kearsarge is the name Wargaming chose for an insane design by Gibbs & Cox - Project 1058.1, of a hybrid battleship commissioned by the USSR. As Kearsarge herself says in her introduction, let's refer to this as Hybrid Idealization X. Designed from the keel up to be a pure hybrid BB, unlike the Japanese hybrids. This design, however, was never properly built. A good read about this 'Project X' hybrid is this article by Wargaming themselves: Kearsarge — The Legacy of Ship “X”

USS Kearsarge

How does all of this relate to Azur Lane and why her design is so angel-like?

The way I interpret the game mechanics and lore we know, is that PRs are from another universe entirely. My interpretation is that we don't get the other universe's version of, say, Chkalov; but an interpretation of her.

This is my headcanon: Kearsarge, in her original reality, is an attempt at creating an angel. I suspect she comes from either Anchorage's reality (based on how similar their design philosophies are, as if Anchorage were a little cherub, explaining her infant-like personality), or the reality we visit in Yorktown's II event. Maybe they are the same. Maybe one of the realities is an alternate universe of the other one, making them related.

Kearsarge has a sort of halo device that acts as a sort of physical interface between her and her rigging. She is literally hooked up to her halo, and her halo is in turn connected to her own rigging.

Her rigging, while only having two 'wings', is designed in such a way to appear as if she has more than two wings. Like a seraph, she gives the impression of having six wings.

I don't really have a conclusion. This is reaching, but this is what brainrot does to you.

--

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Anyway. I want Kearsarge right fucking now.

[cursedalthoughts]

Priority Research 7 Predictions - Ironblood

Screw it. Time to speculate who the mandatory Ironblood PR is going to be.

As always, these are just the possible options, alongside speculation about their rarity - either PR (Priority Research/SSR) or DR (Decivise Research/UR), and maybe some vague idea about what their skills could be in Azur Lane.

The Ironblood have, perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of options; just like the Northern Parliament.

KMS Mecklenburg

Fuck it. Let's start strong.

Mecklenburg is, essentially, a battlecruiser. She shares her hull with both Preussen and Großer Kurfürst, however, the main difference with both of those ships (Preussen having eight 457mm guns and G.K having twelve 406mm or 420mm guns (depending on your setup)), is that Mecklenburg has sixteen 305mm guns. With a 26 second reload. And an anomalously high (for a German battleship) main gun accuracy.

This thing is a ludicrously effective cruiser hunter. She has fast shells with an almost pin-point accuracy.

Mecklenburg also has two quadruple torpedo launchers, one per side, on top of the standard highly efficient secondary gun layout comprising of 128mm gun turrets that enjoy German 1/4 HE penetration rules. Oh, also, she's faster than both Preussen and G.K (both doing 30 knots), at a top speed of 32.5 knots.

Yeah, Mecklenburg is easy DR material.

KMS Schröder

Schröder is a personal favorite of mine. You can think of her as a "mini-Prinz Rupprecht".

As a supercruiser, Schröder has eight 305mm main guns in dual turrets. She has no torpedo armament to speak of. Her gimmick(s) lay on the fact that Schröder is one of the best secondary gun cruisers in the game, rivaling both Napoli and Michelangelo (which We'll Get To in the Sardegnan post). A total of 5 dual 128mm gun turrets per side as well as a total of 3 triple 150mm gun turrets (the same ones Nürnberg has in total), and a maximum range of 12km; Schröder has very fun secondary guns.

On top of that, she gets access to a very high base speed of 32.5 knots and a speed boost consumable that boosts her speed by 15% for 3 minutes. Schröder is great at flanking as she can relocate from one side of the map to the other in a relatively short time.

Honestly, she works as either a PR or a DR; but I would prefer her being a DR.

KMS Manfred von Richthofen and KMS Max Immelmann

I'm putting them together as equally likely DR candidates for a simple reason: the only thing that differs is their air complement.

To simplify Richthofen; she's a bigger August von Parseval. Both are carrier conversions of the H-39 battleship design (so, Friederich der Große sisterships).

Max Immelmann only has access to torpedo bombers and skip bombers - the same kind of bombers found on the Soviet aircraft carrier line (so, Chkalov).

Richthofen is a standard research ship and Immelmann is a premium ship. Immelmann was over-hyped by the community as a much superior carrier to Richthofen (the entire tech tree line of German CVs is impressively bad), but she's mediocre at best. Honestly, the funniest thing you can do with both carriers is a full secondary gun build; but Graf Zeppelin is much better at that at Tier 8 than these two at Tier 10.

However, Azur Lane has a track record of taking mediocre-at-best warships and turning them into very good PRs; so if any of the two gets chosen, I have hopes.

KMS Z42

From my cursory two-minute-long Google search, it seems Z42 in this configuration was never planned - or that there was never a Z42 to begin with, I can't find concrete info on that (again, after looking at it for two minutes. I'm sure there is actual info somewhere).

Z42 is a surprisingly good little ship. Her torpedoes are rubbish, but they're not the star of the show. Z42 utilizes German 105mm secondary guns as her main guns - here they are on the sides of Bismarck:

These funny little guns share the standard German 1/4 penetration rules for their HE, meaning that despite the smaller caliber they deal a considerable amount of damage. On top of that, they get access to AP; a thing that doesn't exist when they're in secondary gun form, and this AP does very funny damage against anything broadside.

She's PR material, just like Felix Schultz, but she could be a very good mini-Roon in terms of gameplay and abilities in Azur Lane.

KMS Wiesbaden

To me, this is the 'fuck it we ball' option. Wiesbaden is still in testing, she isn't in the game yet; but I believe she might release very soon.

Wiesbaden is a T8 light cruiser equipped with 6 dual 128mm gun turrets. That's right, she's a German Atlanta!

While Atlanta and Flint have a 4.8 second and 5.1 second reload respectively, Wiesbaden "enjoys" a 6 second reload on her main guns. However, that is compensated greatly by the fact that as all other HE guns from Germany, she has - you guessed it - 1/4 pen on HE shells, as well as six torpedo tubes per side with an 8.5km range. Oh, and a smoke screen generator. Like a destroyer.

Undoubtedly, Wiesbaden would be a PR in rarity.

KMS Preussen

Finally, the Roon-to-Hindenburg analogue of Friederich der Große. Preussen is an enlarged Friederich der Große, a made-up modification of the H-42 design with 457mm main guns. The real H-42 design isn't present in World of Warships; however, H-43 is the Superbattleship Hannover. But that's besides the point.

Preussen is a bigger FdG, so why her? We already have FdG and she's already a DR. This option is more based on vibes than anything else, as Hindenburg is a bigger, better Roon. Preussen could be the same: imagine a battleship that can equip two main guns instead of just one. Also, it's been a few years since PR2. PR7 is as far away from PR2 as PR6 was from PR1, and Roon was a PR1 shipgirl.

I don't know. She's more of a random guess. G.K is more likely, but I'd prefer Mecklenburg over G.K personally.

[cursedalthoughts]

Priority Research 7 Predictions - Dragon Empery

We kick off the official PR7 prediction posts with the smallest faction this time around - Dragon Empery.

In this series of posts I will also try to predict their possible skills, as upon doing research into them, I realized the PR shipgirls have skills that align with the gimmicks of their WoWs counterpart.

Dragon Empery has, in my opinion, two possible DRs.

Lüshun

Lüshun is the first of the two potential Decisive Research shipgirls, imho.

Lüshun is a Tier 10 Destroyer.

She takes a lot, and I mean a lot, of inspiration from the Soviet Tier 9 destroyer Neutrashimy, a destroyer with a reputation for being a zombie. Lüshun and Neutrashimy both have access to specialized repair teams - Lüshun in specific having access to the 'Heavy Repair Teams' consumable, meaning they can last long into the end-game if played correctly.

Lüshun also has access to two dual 130mm turrets that reload every 1.7s, which is an insane reload time only surpassed by the American destroyer Forrest Sherman (or with the USS Austin when her Reload Boost is active - more about her in the Eagle Union PR7 post).

To top it all off, being a Pan-Asian desroyer means Lüshun gets access to deepwater torpedoes (the same ones that Harbin has, which in AL are called 'impactful torpedoes'). These torpedoes can not hit destroyers due to their depth, but are stealthier and have higher flood chances when hitting cruisers, battleships, or aircraft carriers. They also deal more damage overall.

I expect Lüshun would have a skill reflecting her endurance as well as a skill to boost her torpedo damage. She'd be a very good hybrid DD with good guns and good torpedoes, but awful speed.

Jinan

I checked, the recent DE shipgirl Chi An seems to be named after a different place than Jinan.

Jinan is the second possible DR shipgirl. She is based on the American CL-154 light cruiser design (we will see this again when viewing USS Austin later on). She boasts of 5 dual 127mm gun turrets that reload every 3.5s, making her essentially another glorified destroyer - just like Harbin.

In fact, Jinan is very similar to Harbin, just... better. In all regards.

Harbin doesn't have a skill reflecting the consumable that makes the Pan-Asian light cruisers shine - their torpedo reload boost, which makes Jinan's torpedoes reload in 8 seconds. This means that, if played right, Jinan can have 40 torpedos in the water at the same time - as she has 10 torpedoes per side with a 13.5km range. These are deepwater torpedoes as well, so, just like Lüshun, they can't hit destroyers.

Jinan would essentially be a DR version of Harbin with a skill that randomly insta-reloads her torpedoes.

Sun Yat-Sen

Sun Yat-Sen is very much like Georgia in a lot of aspects. Georgia is a sidegrade to the Iowa-class that replaces their triple 406mm turrets with dual 457mm turrets. And also has a ludicrous speed boost. And amazing secondary guns. Georgia is all-around a funny ship. Sun Yat-Sen is not.

Sun Yat-Sen replaces the main turrets of Sovetsky Soyuz - triple 406mm guns that are scary accurate at short ranges and more inaccurate than usual at long ranges - with dual 457mm guns that are overall very accurate. The problem with her guns is that she only has six guns in total - and as anyone that has played Gneisenau can tell you, six-gun battleships are annoying to play. Battleships are the most RNG-dependant class in the game, so having more guns is generally better to lessen the RNG. The upside is that Sun Yat-Sen has a 23 second reload.

Sun Yat-Sen would be of PR rarity and have a skill similar to Warspite, as in, a "fuck you in particular" skill that allows her to have an extremely accurate salvo every once in a while.

Tianjin

Tianjin is, much like Sun Yat-Sen and Lüshun, a Soviet ship first and foremost. Tianjin is a copy-cat of Riga, the Tier 9 Soviet heavy cruiser. The differences between them are small - Tianjin has average cruiser dispersion instead of the Soviet 'shotgun' dispersion pattern Riga has. Tianjin has worse reload at 15s compared to the 14s of Riga, but more range. Both have the same shells, but Riga has flatter shell arcs, meaning she can easily hit citadels at longer ranges. These differences are technicisms at the end of the day.

However, the main and only selling point of Tianjin (as she is a premium ship costing 63€) is that she has access to a High-Precision Spotter Plane.

Here is the aforementioned spotter plane in all her glory.

This plane gives her a 10% dispersion boost and a 10% range boost for a short while, while having a short cooldown and a lot of uses.

Tianjin in Azur Lane could get a similar skill that allows her to be very accurate for a short amount of time.

She is PR material.

[cursedalthoughts]

Priority Research 7 Predictions - Royal Navy

This year, the Royal Navy has some very strong candidates for either PR or DR. I will explain gimmicks and try to predict possible skills.

HMS St. Vincent

St. Vincent is a battlecruiser developed from the Project I3 designs. With a bizarre turret layout of 2 front-facing triple 457mm turrets and one midship triple 457m turret, St. Vincent is a very good DR choice.

She has two underwater torpedo launchers, singular torpedo each. Just two torpedoes in total is rather pathetic, but each one does almost 30k damage. However, her gimmick resides in her guns. They are not quite 460mm, but they are still enough to punch through a lot of armor. They have very short AP fuses, which means she can easily do devastating damage against cruisers of most kinds. Her accuracy is impressive too.

St. Vincent could be an off-flagship sniper with some self-buffing skills if equipped with her own guns.

HMS Defence

Defence is a brand-new ship that got added in the Christmas event of 2023. This ship was locked behind an absurd price consisting of more than a million coal, or equivalent; that's a lot of coal to farm.

Defence is a bizarre ship. She has 3 of the dual 356mm gun turrets found on the KGV-class battleship (she's a cruiser, by the way); four underwater torpedoes per side of similar characteristics to St. Vincent's (but each torpedo does 21k damage instead of 29k), and a smokescreen similar to the British destroyers.

Defence is prime DR material as well.

HMS Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a British heavy cruiser with all the gimmicks of their light cruisers. In other words, she's the only British heavy cruiser that's worth it.

You might be inclined to believe she's a bigger Drake - and yes, she is. However, Gibraltar: 1. only has access to AP shells, 2. has much improved penetration angles on those AP shells, 3. has a standard British light cruiser smokescreen 4. has a standard British light cruiser hydro.

She's essentially a Minotaur but with 12 234mm guns instead of 10 152mm guns. The only thing she lacks is torpedoes, honestly.

Gibraltar could be a very all-rounder heavy cruiser with utility skills for the fleet, as well as huge raw damage numbers. 234mm guns are big for a standard heavy cruiser. I kinda want her as a DR, honestly.

HMS Minotaur

Second-to-last DR of this post is Minotaur, a now very old light cruiser. You know her gimmicks, as Gibraltar has the same ones. However, Minotaur gets access to 10 152mm guns with a blistering 3.2 second reload. These guns will completely eat through the health pool of a broadside battleship in no time.

Minotaur also suffers from British Light Cruiser Armor Syndrome, which means the armor that protects her citadel is only 101mm thick and that she has a massive, impossible to miss above-water citadel. She is, and I can not stress this enough, very fragile.

One of her other less remarkable gimmicks is that, as the T10, she has an absurd acceleration. I don't know the exact numbers, as I don't have a Minotaur myself; but she can get to top speed in no time. That and her AP-only spamming abilities could be some nice skills.

HMS Malta

Malta is the last possible DR I'm going to cover in this post.

I mentioned Minotaur having very pathetic armor. Well, Malta is the perfect aircraft carrier to hunt down cruisers wtih ridiculous armor like Minotaur or Jinan from the Dragon Empery post.

Each of her bombers carries 3 500lb AP bombs capable of piercing a considerable amount of armor and detonating inside of the enemy ship. Her torpedos are surprisingly fast and so are her planes - which are Blackburn Firebrand, these bad boys:

My bet is that they would add an attak aircraft and dive bomber variant of the Firebrand if Malta gets added to Azur Lane.

As for her skills, she could have an offensive skill which boosts her damage against heavy cruisers and light cruisers; since she'd be DR, that damage could be absurd.

HMS Hampshire

The first of the rather few PR options, Hampshire.

She's, quite literally, a British Atago. Same guns, same layout, similar reload, same 203mm callibe.

As financial advice, Hampshire is worse than Atago. She gets slightly improved pen angles on her AP, but she only has AP - Atago's AP is not that good but she has excellent HE. Also, she has 4 instead of 8 torpedos per side, of a worse range and damage. Don't buy Hampshire in World of Warships, basically.

However, in Azur Lane, she could be a heavy cruiser with special buffs to deal with medium and heavy armor in specific.

HMS Nottingham

Nottingham is somewhat similar to Hampshire - she is based on the Project C heavy cruiser. Her main guns are arranged in a very familiar setup, similar to Nelson or Rodney (or Defence), having average AP and HE shells. She does have double the torpedo armament as Hampshire, but they have even less range at 8km. However, Nottingham gets access to a short-burst smoke generator similar to that of the British destroyers (it's their main gimmick), a smokescreen that doesn't last very long but reloads fast and has a lot of uses.

Nottingham hasn't been available since February of 2023, though. I highly doubt she will find her way into Azur Lane, but if she does, she would be a PR.