Battleship Rules, Fleet Placement, and Search Strategy

Build a fleet that is hard to map

Use both orientations and avoid making every ship share the same rows or columns. A fleet concentrated in one corner can survive an unfocused search, but it can also collapse quickly once the opponent recognizes the pattern.

Manual placement lets you shape a deliberate layout. Randomize provides a complete valid fleet that you can keep or replace before confirming. Your placement becomes permanent when you confirm it.

Search efficiently

Early shots should cover the board without clustering. Because the smallest ship occupies two cells, a checkerboard-style search can find every possible ship while skipping cells that cannot yet add information.

After a hit, test adjacent horizontal and vertical cells. Ships never bend or run diagonally, so a second aligned hit identifies the direction and lets you continue toward either end.

Read the saved battle state

White markers show misses and orange markers show hits. A sunk enemy ship is revealed completely, while every unsunk enemy position remains private. After the match, both fleets are shown for review.

Nudge saves each shot before handing over the turn. You can leave the game and return later without losing placement, hit, miss, or sunk-ship information.

Protect information with varied placement

Your opponent learns from misses as well as hits. Long straight gaps can rule out the carrier, while crowded hits may suggest that two touching ships are present. Vary the distance between ships so one discovery does not automatically point toward the next target.

Edges are legal and often under-searched, but placing every ship against an edge creates its own recognizable habit. Mix central, edge, horizontal, and vertical placements. The best fleet is not a single perfect diagram; it is one your regular opponent cannot predict from earlier games.

• Avoid repeating the same favorite corners across rematches.
• Do not align several ship ends on one row or column.
• Use random placement when you want a pattern independent of your habits.

Return to each turn with a plan

After time away, review the last-shot highlight, the remaining enemy ships, and the open hits before choosing a coordinate. Continue an unfinished target line when one exists; otherwise return to your wider search pattern. This short reset prevents duplicated ideas and turns the saved board into useful evidence rather than decoration.