Before You Start

Battleship is simpler than you think. At its core, you're trying to guess where your opponent hid their ships on a grid, while they're doing the same to you. The player who finds and sinks all five enemy ships first wins. That's it!

Don't worry about strategy yet - this first game is about understanding the mechanics. You'll learn strategy naturally through play. For now, focus on understanding what each action does and why.

Time needed: Your first game will take 15-20 minutes including setup. Later games go faster as you learn the interface.

Step 1: Starting Your Game

Visit Sinkships.com and you'll see the main game screen immediately - no registration or downloads needed. You'll see options for difficulty level: Ensign, Lieutenant, Commander, Captain, and Admiral.

For your first game, select Ensign. This is the easiest difficulty where the computer fires randomly. You'll learn the game without pressure, and you're almost guaranteed to win, which feels great for your first experience!

Click "Play Game" or "Start" to begin. The game loads instantly since it runs entirely in your browser.

Step 2: Placing Your Ships

Your first screen shows a 10x10 grid - your ocean where you'll hide your fleet. You'll see five ships of different sizes listed on the side:

• Carrier (5 squares) - the big one
• Battleship (4 squares)
• Cruiser (3 squares)
• Submarine (3 squares)
• Destroyer (2 squares) - the tiny one

Placing Your First Ship

Let's start with the Carrier. Click on it in the ship list, then click anywhere on your grid where you want it to start. The carrier appears on the grid. Click again to rotate it between horizontal and vertical. Try both orientations to see how it works.

Once you like the position, move to the next ship. Ships can't overlap, so the game won't let you place ships on top of each other. Ships CAN touch edge-to-edge though - that's legal and sometimes strategic.

Quick Placement Option

If you're not sure where to place ships, look for the "Random Placement" button. Click it and the computer instantly places all five ships in legal positions. This is perfectly fine for your first game! You can always manually place them in future games once you understand the strategy better.

Confirming Your Setup

Once all five ships are positioned (manually or randomly), you'll see a "Confirm" or "Ready" button. Click it. Your ships are now locked in place for this game - you can't move them once the battle starts.

Step 3: Understanding Your Battle Screen

After confirming your setup, the screen changes. You now see TWO grids:

Your Fleet Grid (usually on the left or bottom): This shows your five ships exactly where you placed them. You'll see enemy shots appear here as red markers (hits) or white markers (misses).

Your Targeting Grid (usually on the right or top): This is completely empty at game start. This is where you track YOUR shots at the enemy. Your hits and misses appear here, helping you remember where you've already fired.

You'll also see information like: Whose turn it is, how many ships remain, and total shots fired.

Step 4: Taking Your First Shot

You always go first at Sinkships. Look at your targeting grid (the empty one) and click any square. For your very first shot, it doesn't really matter where - pick anywhere! Let's say you click on E5, right in the center.

Immediately, one of three things happens:

• Miss: The square turns white or shows a splash. That spot is empty ocean.
• Hit: The square turns red or shows fire/explosion. You hit part of a ship! But you don't know WHICH ship yet.
• Sunk: Rare on first shot, but if you hit and sink a ship, you'll get a notification telling you which ship was destroyed.

For your first shot, you'll probably miss - remember, ships only cover 17 out of 100 squares (17% of the board). Missing is normal and expected!

Step 5: The Computer's Turn

After your shot, the computer immediately fires back. Since you're playing Ensign difficulty, it picks a completely random square on your grid.

Watch your fleet grid (the one with your ships). A marker appears showing where the enemy fired. If it's on empty water, you see a miss marker. If it's on one of your ships, you see a hit marker, and that segment of your ship is damaged.

Don't worry if the computer hits you early - with random firing, it's pure luck. You'll get more turns to even things out.

Step 6: Continuing the Hunt

Now it's your turn again. Look at your targeting grid and click another square you haven't tried yet. The game won't let you click squares you've already fired at.

Beginner tip: Don't just click randomly all over the place. Try to create a pattern, even if it's simple. For example, fire at every other square (skip one, fire, skip one, fire). This covers the board more efficiently.

Keep taking turns. You'll probably get several misses in a row - that's completely normal. Remember, you're looking for 17 ship squares hidden among 100 total squares.

Step 7: Your First Hit!

Eventually, you'll score a hit! Your targeting grid shows a red marker, and you might hear a sound effect (if audio is enabled). Exciting, right?

Here's what to do next - this is important: Don't just continue your original pattern. When you hit a ship, you know it extends in one of four directions from that hit (up, down, left, or right). Your next shots should test these adjacent squares to find the ship's direction.

Let's say you hit at E5. Your next shot should be E4, E6, D5, or F5 (the four squares touching E5). Pick any one and fire. If that's also a hit, you know the ship's direction! If it's a miss, try another adjacent square.

Step 8: Sinking Your First Ship

Once you determine a ship's direction (you have two hits in a line), keep firing in that direction. If you hit at E5 and E6, try E7 next. Keep going until you miss, then go back to your original hit and try the opposite direction.

When you hit the last segment of a ship, you get a "SHIP SUNK" message telling you which ship you destroyed. The entire ship usually highlights or changes color on your targeting grid so you can see its full location.

This is a big moment - you've eliminated 1/5 of the enemy fleet! Four ships remain.

Step 9: Return to Searching

After sinking a ship, go back to your systematic search pattern. Look at your targeting grid and see where you haven't fired yet. Continue your every-other-square pattern (or whatever pattern you chose) in areas you haven't checked.

The game continues this way: search for ships, hit them, sink them, return to searching. Each ship you sink makes the enemy weaker and brings you closer to victory.

Meanwhile, the computer is taking shots at your fleet too. You might lose ships yourself - that's part of the game. As long as you sink all five enemy ships before losing all five of yours, you win!

Step 10: Victory!

When you sink the enemy's fifth and final ship, the game immediately ends. You see a victory screen showing your statistics:

• Total shots fired
• Accuracy percentage (hits divided by total shots)
• Which ships survived on your side
• Time elapsed

Congratulations! You've won your first Battleship game!

Don't worry too much about the numbers. Your first game probably took 60-80 shots, with maybe 20-25% accuracy. That's totally normal for beginners. These numbers improve dramatically as you learn better strategies.

What You Learned

In your first game, you experienced:

• Ship placement and grid coordinates
• The turn-based attack system
• How hits and misses are marked
• Finding ship direction after first hit
• Sinking ships completely
• Managing two grids simultaneously
• The satisfaction of victory!

These fundamentals form the foundation of all Battleship strategy. Now that you understand the mechanics, you can start learning tactical improvements.

Your Second Game

Ready to play again? Here's what to try differently:

Ship Placement: This time, manually place your ships instead of using random placement. Try spreading them out across the grid instead of clustering them together.

Search Pattern: Use a deliberate checkerboard pattern - fire at every other square consistently. Start at A1, skip A2, fire at A3, skip A4, etc. This covers the board much more efficiently than random firing.

Target Priority: When you hit a ship, make it your absolute priority to sink it completely before resuming your search pattern. Don't leave wounded ships partially damaged.

These three improvements alone will dramatically reduce your shots needed and increase your win consistency.

Next Steps

After 2-3 games on Ensign difficulty where you feel comfortable with the mechanics, you're ready to level up:

• Try Lieutenant Difficulty: The computer uses a checkerboard pattern, providing a real strategic challenge
• Read the Tips & Tricks page: Quick tactical advice for immediate improvement
• Study the How to Play guide: Comprehensive tutorial covering everything in detail
• Learn about Advanced Strategy: When you're ready, master probability and optimal patterns

Most importantly, keep playing! Battleship rewards experience. Your intuition for where ships might be, which squares are high priority, and how to sink ships efficiently all develop through repeated play.

Play Your Second Game Now!