How to play

Every rule, from the first ship placed to the last one shot down.

If you know Battleship, you already know most of this. One rule makes this game different, and it changes everything — skip to the cockpit below if you want the short version.

The idea

Each player has their own grid and hides a fleet on it. You cannot see your opponent's fleet. You fire at a square, learn whether you hit something, and keep going until one fleet is gone. Destroy every enemy craft and you win.

The cockpit — the rule that changes everything

Every craft has exactly one cockpit cell. When you fire:

This is the big departure from Battleship, where you must chew through every single cell of a ship to sink it. Here one well-placed shot can end a craft outright. Matches are shorter, swingier and far more nervous — and where you put your cockpit matters more than where you put the craft.

Whose turn it is

A good streak can wipe out half a fleet in a single turn. It also means the first lucky hit is worth more than it looks: it buys you the right to keep firing exactly where you just found something.

The craft

Every craft has a fixed shape that you may rotate into four positions when placing it. Shapes cannot overlap or hang off the edge of the grid.

CraftBounding boxCells occupied
Plane4×38
Boat3×35
Submarine3×58
Destroyer4×38
Helicopter5×512
Station5×517

The bounding box is the rectangle the shape fits into; the cells occupied are how much of it is actually craft. A plane is a cross: 8 cells inside a 12-cell rectangle. That gap matters — the empty corners of the box are water, and an opponent firing there misses.

Placing your fleet

Before the match you position each craft: move it, rotate it, confirm it. Rearrange as much as you like until you press ready. Once confirmed, your fleet is locked — nothing can be moved mid-match, and the server enforces that, so it cannot be cheated either.

The match begins when both players are ready.

How it ends

You win when every enemy craft is destroyed. In Hard mode, where ammunition is limited, a match can also end by running out of shots — see game modes for the tie-breaking rules.

What the game deliberately doesn't have

No accounts, no free-text chat, and nothing you can buy that gives you an advantage. Craft skins and themes are purely cosmetic: a differently painted plane occupies exactly the same cells and dies just as fast. In-match communication uses preset phrases rather than free text — see Enigma messages.

In short

Hide your fleet, hunt for cockpits, never break a streak once you've found something. For the rest, read the strategy guide — or just start a match.