Naval Strike guide

How to play Naval Strike

• 2 players
• 10x10 grid
• 5 ships each

Before your first battle

Naval Strike is a two-player game played online only. Press Find a game, browse public lobbies, create a lobby, or join a friend with a code.

Each player places five ships on a 10 by 10 grid. The fleet is a Carrier of five squares, a four-square ship, a Cruiser and a Submarine of three each, and a Destroyer of two.

Placement has a 60-second clock. Pick a ship from the panel, then a square on your grid. Press R, or the orientation button, to switch between horizontal and vertical.

Auto-Place All fills any ships you have not placed, and Ready to Battle locks your fleet in. Until then, selecting a placed ship removes it so you can try again. If the clock runs out, the game places your remaining ships for you and the battle starts.

In battle, Your Fleet and the enemy waters sit side by side on a wide screen and stack on a phone. The arrow keys move across the target grid, and Enter or Space fires.

Placing a fleet that survives

Ships may touch on OverTime. Placement only refuses ships that overlap or run off the grid, which leaves you a lot of freedom.

Spread your fleet rather than clustering it. When ships sit together, one hit can lead an opponent from one ship straight into the next.

Vary your layouts from game to game. A regular opponent will soon learn a favourite corner or a habit of lining ships along an edge.

Auto-place is a fair choice when time is short. Its layouts come from a private random stream on the server, so your opponent cannot predict them.

Hunting and finishing ships

The rules explain why searching every second square cannot miss a ship. What separates good players is what they do after the first hit.

After a hit, try the four squares around it. A second hit gives the ship's direction, so keep firing along that line until the ship sinks.

If a line of hits is capped by misses at both ends and nothing has sunk, you have found two ships side by side. Turn and test across the line.

Track which ships are still afloat. Once the Destroyer is gone, the smallest ship left is three long, so you can space your search shots three apart.

Every shot passes the turn, hit or miss, and the first shooter is chosen at random. A hit earns you information, not an extra shot.

Mistakes that cost games

These errors sink more fleets than bad luck does.

• Assuming the water beside a sunk ship is empty. Ships may touch, so the squares next to a wreck can still hide another.
• Leaving a wounded ship. Every turn spent elsewhere gives your opponent time to finish your fleet first.
• Firing without a pattern. Scattered shots take far longer to find the small ships.
• Waiting out the placement clock. When it expires, any ship you have not placed is set for you, which can undo the layout you planned.
• Leaving during placement. Placement is part of the match, so leaving then forfeits it.

Ratings and results

Online matches are rated. Your Naval Strike rating starts at 1500 and is separate from your other games.

The results screen shows your shots fired, your hits and your accuracy. Watching that accuracy over several matches is a good way to see your search improve.

Placing a ship or firing a shot counts as playing. If a player does neither, the match is recorded unrated, even when the clock placed their ships.

If your connection drops, your seat is held for 15 seconds after Find a game, or 30 seconds in a custom lobby. Rematch opens a new lobby.

Where to go next

Mine Sweep is the solo version of the same deduction. Every number narrows where the mines can be, just as every miss narrows the enemy fleet.

Drop Four is another quick two-player match, where reading your opponent's next move matters as much as making your own.