TB Lotus by Kestrel

User friendliness:

Super impressed by how professional the manual is for the entire boat, listing every feature of the boat, even dangers and how to avoid or fix it, the dash is colour coded so it is easy to tell the functions of each panel. And it's also the only boat we didn't have to slap range/fuel use controllers in to figure out how far we could go. Small rails are placed along the deck to prevent falling overboard, which is a nice, thoughtful addition. Everything important in the boat is labelled. Only nitpick I have is that the dash is very cluttered

rating: 8.5/10!

Performance: 

The lotus has a good speed, the range at top speed is a bit mediocre at around 30km but can easily be extended by switching to a higher gear ratio and slowing down a bit. Manoeuvrability is good too, there's no kick when turning and it doesn't list at all because of the stabilizer, The boat doesn't handle larger waves too well because of the low freeboard and the turret ring being only ~1m above the waterline which causes it to flood. It isn't meant for high seas so this isn't a big problem, but might screw you over when a storm rolls in during combat. That aside, the guns and weapons perform well!

rating: 6/10 

Effectiveness:

With all the guided weapons and chaff this small craft can definitely put a dent in any AI naval force! The gun has a nice feature of being directly controlled by the gunner or helmsman and is very useful for shredding light boats, annoying warships, or even taking down helicopters. The torpedoes are very well made and have a nice indicator light if they found a target and homing in on them, they miss or don't detonate every once in a while and are relatively slow but are still more than capable of destroying large targets. The depth charges are nice too, for blowing up warships by dropping them next to it for example. The visibility from the bridge is good and the bilge pumps help buy some time for repairs. Due to the low freeboard it can be quite easy to flood the front magazine compartment which will take you out of the fight for a bit.

rating: 7/10 

Looks: 

The digital camo looks great and the large glass windows on the bridge give it a nice modern feel, the polish flag is also a pretty neat detail and the colours aren't too dull or bright in general but the bright red underside is a bit too saturated for my liking. The gun turrets look amazing  and  the interior is great with the addition of a nice looking kitchen, although some of the exposed piping in the crew quarters may look a bit jarring and the colour of the lights is not the best. 

rating: 7/10 

Overall rating:7.125/10 

(since you won this one we will promote you to birdman)

I15 Fast Torpedo Boat by Dio.

User friendliness:

Very good layout and nicely labeled. Everything is easy to reach and made so it is operative even from the helm. One issue, the "turn everything on" key also locks the throttle at a constant 1, however does not turn the engine on. Slightly weird, but nothing too damning.

Another thing, there are three speeds given, all of which seem to be in m/s and just bare speed sensor inputs, which is odd, since one is at vertical setting (which really does nothing for this boat). Two of them are practically duplicates, as they are directional and horizontal.

Actually controlling the boat is very simple, but sadly is a bit lacking, some features (especially with the gun control and second helm), don't seem to properly work. One thing that threw me personally off, was the toggle trigger for every weapon, as it for me feels a bit unintuitive. Also, there is no way to read out any engine information.

rating: 7/10

Performance:

This boat is fast and accelerates very quickly. It is quick in turns and can really turn on a dime. It sadly does not hold too well in high waves as it is rather heavy due to all its armor. It also accelerates very quickly and doesn't jerk around too much when engaging the clutch (if it even has one, don't know). As for engine temp, there sadly is no way to read it out, same for fuel, which makes even estimating range and heating... weird. A thing to mention, the engines ECU is set to reach 500 FUCKING RPS, but only reaches 15 RPS at full throttle. For short bursts of speed, it is more than capable tho.

rating: 6/10

Effectiveness:

While testing the torpedos at even almost stand still, they tend to be a bit of a "hit or miss" gamble. Sometimes they function very well, other times, they completely go off to Narnia. As for the armament all in all, this boat is a proper gun boat. Armed with every caliber from battle cannon to machine gun. It would probably be capable of taking down even destroyers. However, its torpedo capability is seriously lacking, as the torps will bounce back and shoot out of the water, when launched at any speed above 10 m/s. This has also caused me to hit the boat itself while testing. Which was nice. About the battle cannon dual turret on the rear. The ammo setup is lacking in capacity. For how big the turret is, there are only three or four shots for each cannon. Also, they easily desynchronize, which does not seem intentional. 

rating: 5/10 

Design:

The basic shape and layout of the boat are very good. It has a nicely shaped bow, typical American styled "cut off" rear and sides. The overall paint design is very solid. The blue cow-moo-wave pattern works well and the "shark teeth", fit well with the design (although that could have used a bit more contrasting against the camo). The bridge and internal design range from basic to very nice. The bed and living areas are nicely done. The bridge is also basic, but well done. What is not detailed are the engine room and other internal room. They are hard to reach, lack any detailing apart from what is absolutely needed and feel a bit lacking.

About the external design. It is solid and adds nice pieces of detailing here and there, equipment boxes and life savers and all that. Very nice.

rating: 6/10 

overall rating: 6/10

Pigeon class torpedoboat by shimozukachi

User friendliness:

The bridge is very minimal and only has the essentials like fuel, speed, compass , and engine temperature. Everything is labeled correctly and its very easy to start the boat, flipping 2 switches and pulling a lever is all you need to do.

Visibility is good because of the elevated bridge and the ammo counters for the guns are also quite useful a few odd things I noticed was the unconnected control handle on the main gun, no reverse gear, an unconnected dial on the instrument panel and the speed being in m/s again which is pretty odd. Speed and controllability are good and I had some success fighting AI ships

The guns are very difficult to aim manually and are only really useful in autotarget mode.

rating:6/10

Performance:

The torpedo boat goes about 45km/h fully loaded, which isn't bad for a ship this size, steering is easy and it handles wind pretty well being mostly stable in 100% wind. The range is decent at about 55km at full speed. Not much more to say here, it works pretty well

rating:7/10

Effectiveness:

First, I tried the torpedoes against some target boats and they hit every time, what they didn't do every time however was detonate, the torps tend to bounce off the target at higher angles(45+ degrees) and because of the lack of safety crashing while they are still attached will detonate them.

After that I found some AI boats and decided to test them against them too. This is where the cannons start being an issue, I was not able to hit the AI while manually aiming and the autotarget for the main cannon got disabled after a few autocannon hits because the radar is completely exposed, the light ac turret on the back took out a small AI boat and I killed 2 warships with the torpedoes before sinking., Bilge pumps would have kept me in the fight a lot longer

rating: 5/10

Looks:

The shape is decent and the ship is covered in cow-moo-flage( refuse to say it any other way). The colours could use some work, its too harsh and bland, softer colours and more variation (red colour below water line) would have helped. The interior is quite simple but has all the rooms you would expect on a boat except an ammo room and is painted pretty much exclusively white making it feel unfinished.

rating: 4.5/10

overall rating: 5.375

CHMS Riddler by Willie Lee

User friendliness:

Very basic helm and control layout. Everything is correctly labeled. Sadly, there is no readout for anything, whatsoever. No speed, no engine RPM or temp, not even a compass or anything more than the absolute bare minimum. Another thing, engine throttle and clutch engagement (the "drive" so to speak) are controlled by the same throttle lever. This is not only a slight bit confusing, but also makes acceleration a pain, which is only furthered hampered by the one small engine this boat uses. There is not much to say about it otherwise, as there really isn't much to talk about. Which on one hand keeps everything "simple" but on the other, too much so.

rating: 4/10

Performance:

It is dead slow. As there is no way to read out any actual speed, I would estimate roughly 8 knots top speed. This is slow, slower than a torpedo boat should be. A thing it does well is turn, mostly due to its lack of speed, but turning is very smooth, there is no back kick when entering the turn and the boat stays relatively stable.

As for sea capability, the small size and slightly top heavy balancing make this thing bad in even the slightest of waves. It shakes and rocks like a thrill ride.

About the "submerging", it's a cool idea, especially for a "stealth" boat that substitutes everything for delivering a devastating blow without being seen, it feels a bit like a submarine precursor/early submarine (with a good bit of kamikaze added). However, while the flooding of the compartments is very quick, pumping them out is not.

Also, turning while slightly submerged causes the boat to often nose down, which is very dangerous, as it can easily drown itself, as there are no measures to prevent this.

rating: 5/10

Effectiveness:

In testing the "torpedo" (it really is more of an explosive lance) against my own torpedo boats, it achieved a respectable amount of damage. (It couldn't sink the boat though, as I accidentally hit the fuel tank section.) However, this also has shown a few problems, as stealthy as this boat is, once it gets closer, it is easy to spot and its small size makes it easy to take down by even smaller armaments. Another thing, due to its lack of speed, it really can only be used against similarly slow crafts or in "ambush" attacks against anchored ships. (However, it was described as such a craft, so this is no problem.)

rating: 7/10

Design:

The shape of the ship, with its very basic, boxy design and helm and air intake sticking out is a nice idea. It is reminiscent of other early torpedo boats and small submersibles that popped up in the 1860-1880s. Sadly, it lacks refinement. A bit more detail and a bit more work put into the shape and design of the body would have gone a long way. Secondly, the color scheme. It's a bit weird. The purpose it is meant to serve is clear. Disguise a ship against the waves, sadly it covers the entire ship, and makes it look more like it got into the hands of a deranged Gucci designer. The interior also lacks any color. Everything is white and monotone. It looks boring and rushed more than anything.

rating: 3/10 

overall rating :4,75/10

Waterskeeter mk2 by (Aurora)

user friendliness

The user friendliness is meh, things not working and control issues are the main reasons for this. Turning when using the hydrofoils is basically impossible and just destabilizes the boat, only 80% of the buttons are labeled, there's a lot of running around and a bit of a confusing layout also speed is only in m/s again . Throttle lever is upside down which is also kinda confusing. Repairing the boat is not possible because some critical components are located in inaccessible areas

rating: 4/10

performance

The speed as a normal boat is average, reaching about 60km/h and is pretty good when using the hydrofoils at a little less than 100km/h. The ship is decently fast, but the engines have some issues, they don't start correctly 50% of the time which severely impacts your top speed and the cooling is not set up correctly resulting in the engine exploding after about 3 minutes. Even if all the engine issues get fixed you won't get far because of the very small amount of fuel, the max range is only about 11km

rating: 4/10

effectiveness

The effectiveness of the boat is really not that great, poor range, terrible turning when using hydrofoils. Then there's the weapons, the turrets are not set up correctly and don't rotate/shoot, the torpedoes have issues too. Even though the boat has 3 torpedoes you can only use 1, the other 2 torpedoes cannot be loaded because of the contact sensor on the front. The torpedoes are pretty slow and don't seem to have any stabilization to keep them straight and only have a contact sensor making it pretty unreliable at angles because they just bounce off, they do cause a nice amount of damage if they do hit because of the medium warhead. 

rating:3/10

looks

The boat looks pretty good on the outside, it has nice colours, camouflage (even though it could have been smoothed out with paint blocks) and shape, but there are a lot of unpainted blocks and the interior could use some work its extremely simple and consists of 2 boxes with some beds and equipment on the walls. The lights are also pure white which doesn't look the best.

rating: 5/10

overall rating: 4/10