Hi all.

first of all, my primary language is not English, so I may use wrong grammar or stupid words. Please don’t be too offended when you see these, it’s just not my intention.

I will bring all the exact informations as much as I can cause SDE refuses to reveal its informations to public for some reason. It is not that they do not want it to be public because they tell us the informations kindly when we asked them personally. I hope they provide detailed guides us soon.
This article will contain my personal points of view and it might make some people uncomfortable. But I am willing to take responsibles for what I am saying. Anyone is more than welcome to make an opposite opinion, flames, grammar police or even insults as long as those contain some reasonable thoughts.

OK let’s start.

1. OK. I want to play a CV. Which country should I play??
- Simple answer is ‘Go for the country you like’. Since all that matters to your CV play can be handled by your control. Yes some countries have better advantages when it comes to CV but advantages are so small, you can get over it by your control, trust me. But it is fact that each country has some different advantages/ disadvantages you might like to know.

*** USN CV ***
- +5% AA damage for fighters
- -1 defense grade
- +10% Air plane capacity
- +10% air-bourne capture point

*** KM CV ***
- +5% AA damage for Fighters
- 3rd tier Fighter has lesser fuel storage (-1 minute amount of fuel, can stay in the air for 3.5 min while other fighters can stay for 4.5 min)

*** RN CV ***
- +10% torpedo damage for TB (torpedo bombers)

*** IJN CV ***
- +10% torpedo damage for TB
- +10% torpedo travel speed for TB
- lesser Air plane capacity (except last tier) (This is not true anymore since they patched it a day ago)

- Personal Point of View (POV) : I will not discuss about low to mid tier CVs. Because you will get to the last tier eventually in couple of months and you will play it most of time.If you want air superiority then USN CV Essex has best offers. +5% fighter AA damage and more capacity for planes. But it has only few turrets which are weaker than tier 1 DD and its defense grade is 1 lower than others. So self defenses to threats coming from surface and air are very weak. You might need some escorts to keep you safe. But still, most important role for CV is keeping air superiority, Essex is best in that part. If you want traditional fashioned CV then Essex has best offer.

If you are sick of getting torpedoed by close ranged DD or bombed by DBs and you love to do some hybrid deals then KM CV project A3 has best offer. Cause it has couple of 11’ triple turrets(it was quadruple before the nuff bat ;) and the one turret is just next to the other one. It promises you good accuracy even if you don't have accuracy officers in your deck. As you might know only BB can mount 11’ guns (except 11th tier KM CA) which means that A3 can easily compete with even battle ships as long as your fighters are keeping air clean from enemy’s recons. Also it has best fighters along with USN fighters but it can travel one minute shorter compare to other fighters. Its weak points are it has relatively lesser plane capacities and it travels slower than other CVs (about –2 knots). So if you want powerful self defenses and hybrid deals (turrets + attackers) then A3 has best offer.

If you just cannot stand still awhile when you see some big ships hanging around. Then IJN Kaga has best offer. It has best TBs which promises you better damage to surface ships. +10% damage and +10% speed bonus for torps coming out from TBs. Also it has moderate self defenses too. Kaga can easily compete most of CAs (and below grade ships) as long as your fighters are keeping air clean. But its fighters cannot compete with USN,KM fighters if conditions are exactly same but as I said earlier you can get over this disadvantage by doing some decent control. So if you want to hit harder the enemies then IJN CV Kaga has best offer.

If you are bored of game life and want to spice things up then RN CV Ark Royal has best offer. It has advantages of +2500dp, +1 defense grades and can travel 1.5 knots faster which are almost useless advantages for CVs and yes, it has best look compare to other CVs. Its TB has +10% torps dmg compare to KM and USN TB.
Its weak points are its fighters cannot compete with USN,KM fighters if conditions are exactly same and TB’s torps have no speed advantage while IJN TB does. Its self defense is the worst among other CVs. You might want to get ready for the next round if you found a DD closing in. It cannot defense itself even from tier 1 DDs (even if they don't have torps loaded). So if you want to play CV in hardcore mode RN CV Ark Royal has best offer.

2. OK I chose the country, What should I do with my captain and officers.
- You can put 7 officers in your aviation slots in total. You can start with 5 officers and rest of slots will be opened each time when you spend 20 and 40 of your captain stat points to aviation stat I advice you to put your capt stats to aviation from the beginning until it reaches 40. Yes, you don't need 2 officers while you are playing a CV that is tier lower than 8 but you might want to lvl up aviation officers as earlier as you can. Cause you will use all 7 officers when you reach tier 8 CV.

- here are what each abilities stand for

● each intercept point = 0.11% increase in AA damage
● each evade point = 0.11% increase in evade attacks from Planes and Automatic anti air weapon from ships (does not effect on turret AA shells)
● each bombard point = 0.11% increase in bombing accurate

- According to SDE your aviation officers get bonuses from each points you spend on aviation. It seems it would be wise to spend all your capt points on aviation, and yes I did that and played with 100 Aviation for a month but later I realized that I’m getting so little benefit from it so I changed my capt stat to 20 weapon, 40 support and 40 aviation. With this I was able to get more defenses and I was even able to play BB and SS when I got bored on CV (I was able to get on tier 11 RN submarine). And I was doing good at CV too. I couldn't feel the differences. But it depends on your choices because SDE didn't give us any exact informations on capt stats. Just go with 100 aviation or 15 support, 85 aviation if you have no ideas yet it wont hurt you.- Bomb stat does not effect on manual bomb drops. I personally advice you not to give any points to bomb stat. first reason is that you should be able to do manual bombing as quick as you can. I will give you detailed explanation about it later in this article. Second, you will use DB instead of TB later anyway. DB does not get effected by bomb stat too. will explain it later too.
- POV : There are so many opinions on officers’stat. I will not give you any advices on this cause I cannot confirm exact informations and numbers. but here are what I had before. (I had an RN Ark Royal) * 45 intercept and 56 evade on credit officers* 76 intercept and 56 evade on prem officers

- I give my stats assuming that they will fly fighters. Cause when you get to the later tier. You will be forced to use all 7 officers as fighters at the beginning of the round, I will explain it later.

3. cool I have my officers ready and I am ready to play.

- Before you get into the battle you must get used to hotkeys. Yes you can do all the controls with mouse buttons and shift key but you are near useless without being expert on using your hotkeys.

**** Hotkeys ***
(key) <<< does not mean default key. It shows what I am using now. You can change it on settings as you like.
(RMB = right mouse button)
(LMB = left mouse button)

- F1 ~ f7 : will select certain platoon as you assigned on settings. Press again to move your screen to where selected squad is located.
- Shift + RMB : Attack move. All kinds of planes (doesnt matter whether it’s a fighter or a recon) will automatically engage with enemy planes on sight. Will chase the target if enemy is trying to escape. ALWAYS move with this mode when you are controling fighters except for when you are using them as a scout. It takes less than 10 seconds until you lose your fighter squad if you are controlling it by move mode and meet a enemy fighter squad moving in attack move mode. But you should be careful with this mode. Cause your planes wont care when they are being suck into enemy ships. If your enemy succeeded luring your planes to enemy ships then you have 3 seconds until you lose all your fighters. Will engage and chase enemy planes even when they are reached the object area.
- hold Lowering altitute key (Q) --> Hold Shift too --> release Lowering altitute Key (Q) --> release shift key : will lower your squad to the minimum altitute. get used to this control. You need it when you use torpedo bombers and luring fighters to ally ships.
- hold rising altitute key (E) --> Hold shift too --> release rising altitute key (E) --> release shift key : will rise your suqad to the maximum altitute. get used to this control too. You need it when your TBs are escaping when they just dropped torps. - return to base, taking off, ready the planes, cancel the ready (R) : no need to explain.

- Dropping bomb, air bournes, torps (space) : fire whatever your plane has.

- Manual Bombing (F) : your DB squad will dive into the surface where your mouse is pointing. Red circle will appear on the dive point. This will promise you better accuracy when you are using DBs. You can use it to evade anti air weapons too. I will explain manual bomb mode on advanced CV manual later and will explain evade on expert CV manual. Practice it now!

- Shift + (+1),(-1) to number of plane ready key (W), (S) : You can get your suqads ready quickly by using this hotkey.

- Shift + (left selection),(right selection) to change plane type (A), (D) : You can change type of planes when you are trying to ready your squad. It also will quicken your squads ready.

- Shift + LMB drag : will draw a rectangle and will select all squads in that area. You can drop all the bombs or torps from all selected squads at once.

This is just 1/4 of what I have written. But I need more time to translate it to English.
I will write advanced manual and expert manual for CV players if I am not too drunk today. Watch this video, it may help you understanding why you should practice manual bomb mode.

(wider screen + 1080P mode is recommended)