This is not about ship balance but reward balance.

I ran three games in my DD2 where I rushed in living between 2-3 minutes and only doing 2k attack via guns then sinking and retreating.

Credits after repairs ran (167, 190, 162) and experience ran (363, 392, 355).

I was able to do these three games including the time to find matches within 15 minutes giving me a total of 519 credits and 1110 experience.

I then played a game with the same DD2 where I helped cap a base (80 bonus credits), did 60k+ attack including sinking a BB, got sunk around the 10-11 minute mark and was the next to last on my team and the game ending in a loss about a minute or two later.

For that I received 350 credits after repairs and 519 experience. This game also took roughly 15 minutes between finding the match and the battle lasting about 12-13 minutes.

True, if the match was a win for my team my reward would have been doubled (especialy if I didn't get sunk) but even with a 50%+ win rate it's clearly more beneficial to suicide run and quit.

While I have verified that lasting 2-3 minutes and doing 6k+ attack using torps only before being sunk has a big penalty I believe something needs to be done for the gun rushers as well.

Perhaps lower repair costs the longer you last in battle.

Currently you pay 50% credits earned towards repairs (at least at DD2 level).

How about every minute you survive past the first 3 minutes that rate is reduced by 2.5%?

Die at the 2 min mark 50% repair costs.

Die at the 5 min mark 45% repair costs.

Die at the 11 min mark 30% repair costs, etc...

A penalty could also be put in place for retreating before the match ends.

Say if you retreat within the first 2 min 50% current exp, first 4 min 25% less, first 6 min 10% less, after 6 minutes full exp.

Let me know what you think.