Doomsday Warship Drain: When a Fleet Is Worth Holding, Scrapping, or Evacuating

Direct answer

When your side falls below the bar under the Doomsday Clock, your fleet stops being a neutral asset and starts bleeding on a drain that is far steeper than the one your troops take. Troops bleed at 2 percent of max per second, ramping linearly over ninety seconds up to 5 percent per second, and the drain settles at a 5 percent floor of max so a side is crippled, never wiped, by the bleed alone. Your warships bleed on a different curve: they start at 1 percent of max health per second and climb on a steep convex ramp, shaped by an exponent of 8, up to 50 percent of max health per second once the full ramp has elapsed. The source comment in the engine is blunt about the asymmetry: a ship caught the moment its side is first doomed lasts about as long as its troops, but a side that has been under the clock for the entire ramp loses its ships in roughly two seconds. The drain never sinks a warship outright: it floors at 5 percent of each warship’s veterancy-adjusted max health, the same 5 percent floor the troops sit at, and the floor is never removed by the bleed. But the floor itself decays from 40 percent of max down to that 5 percent over the second ninety-second window, and a doomed side cannot repair its navy at all, so a warship docked in a port does not recover: it idles there while the drain grinds it toward the collapsing floor. The hold-or-scrap decision is therefore not “do I want to keep my ships” but “where is my fleet on this convex curve, does my side have a realistic path back above the bar before the floor decays, and is each warship still generating more value than the drain is taking from it.” The answer flips at a specific point on the curve, and that point is the entire game. To make the decision in a live match you need only three inputs: the seconds since your side fell below the bar, which tells you where you are on the convex ramp; the value your fleet is generating right now, which you read from whether it is denying a crossing, forcing a trade, or protecting a landing; and whether your side has a realistic path back above the bar before the second ninety-second window closes, which tells you whether the floor is still a comeback window or a death sentence. The first input sets the drain rate, the second sets the value side of the comparison, and the third sets whether preserving the fleet is even worth the cost of preserving it. The rest of this guide reads those three inputs in turn and turns them into the hold, scrap, or evacuate call for each warship.

Version boundary

The Doomsday Clock, and the warship-drain parameter set that this guide reads, have been stable from the v0.33.10 release that introduced the Doomsday Clock mechanics through the current v0.35.5 formal release cursor. The relevant defaults live in the engine configuration under the Doomsday Clock defaults block, and they have stayed at the same defaults through the v0.34 and v0.35 patch series. That stability is what lets you treat the numbers in this guide as fixed rather than patch-dependent: the troop drain starts at 2 percent and ramps linearly over 90 seconds to a 5 percent maximum; the floor sits at 5 percent of max; the floor decays from 40 percent down to 5 percent over a second 90-second window; the rot, which is the actual finisher, only begins once a side has been doomed for the full 90-second ramp and its troops have reached the floor; and the warship drain runs on a gentler 1 percent start, a 50 percent maximum, and a convex curve with an exponent of 8. Three of those numbers matter for the decision and none of them have changed in the version range this site tracks. The first is the warship maximum of 50 percent per second, which is ten times the troop maximum of 5 percent and is the single reason a doomed fleet decays so much faster than a doomed army. The second is the curve exponent of 8, which is what makes the drain convex and what produces the “gentle at first, catastrophic at the end” shape that the whole hold-or-scrap decision hinges on. The third is the 5 percent floor, which is the same for troops and warships and is the reason the drain alone can never finish a player: it can only cripple the fleet to a 5 percent sliver, and the elimination comes from the rot that follows once the floor has decayed. Because the Doomsday Clock is itself a lobby modifier and is off by default in a standard ranked or quick match, this guide applies only to games where the clock has been enabled, and its decisions are only meaningful in the endgame window where a side is actually below the bar. A match with the clock disabled, or a match where your side has never dropped below the bar, has no warship drain at all and this guide’s decision does not arise. The version boundary is therefore a double condition: the clock must be on, and your side must be doomed, and the numbers in this guide are the defaults that hold across the version range this site tracks, which is the range from the release that introduced the clock through the current formal cursor, so a player reading a client inside that range can use the table and the decision without adjustment.

The drain curve and the floor

The single most important fact in this guide is the shape of the warship drain curve, because the convex ramp is what creates the hold-or-scrap decision in the first place. The drain at any moment is computed by taking the elapsed seconds since the warning window closed, clamping it to zero, and comparing it against the 90-second ramp. If the elapsed time is under the ramp, the drain percentage is the 1 percent start plus the span, which is the 50 percent maximum minus the 1 percent start, multiplied by a curve fraction; if the elapsed time has passed the ramp, the drain is simply the 50 percent maximum. The curve fraction is what does the work. It is evaluated as the ratio of elapsed seconds to ramp seconds, raised to the eighth power, computed in fixed-point integer arithmetic by squaring down from one over eight steps. That exponent is the whole story. A fraction of one half, raised to the eighth power, is one two hundred fifty six, which means that at the midpoint of the ramp, forty-five seconds in, the warship is only bleeding at a small fraction of its eventual maximum. The curve is a flat shelf, not a shallow ramp: it stays essentially at the 1 percent start for the first two-thirds of the 90-second ramp, which is exactly why a ship caught the instant its side is doomed appears to be holding fine well past the half-ramp mark, and then it becomes a cliff in the final third, where the drain jumps from 2 percent at the 60-second row to 7 percent at 70 seconds, 12 percent at 75 seconds, 20 percent at 80 seconds, and the 50 percent maximum from 85 seconds onward. The troop drain, by contrast, is linear: the same elapsed-time-fraction applied with no exponent, so it rises at a steady 2 percent to 5 percent per second with no early-then-late shape. That difference is not cosmetic. It means the warship drain is forgiving at the exact moment you would most want to commit the fleet to a counterattack, and it becomes devastating at the exact moment you would most need the fleet to still be healthy, which is late in the doomed window when the floor is decaying and the rot is about to start. The 5 percent floor is the other half of the mechanic. The drain is clamped so that it never removes more than the warship’s current health minus 5 percent of its max; a warship that has already fallen to its floor is simply not touched by the drain, because there is nothing above the floor left to remove. So the drain alone can only bring a warship down to a 5 percent sliver of its max health, and it cannot sink it. The elimination of a doomed side comes from the rot, which only begins after the 90-second floor-decay window and only while the side’s troops are at their floor. The fleet survives the drain; it dies to the rot that follows, or to enemy fire that a crippled, non-healing fleet can no longer trade against. That separation is what makes the floor a comeback window rather than a death sentence, and it is what makes the hold-or-scrap decision a decision about the window, not about whether the fleet can ever die to the bleed alone.

Hold, scrap, or evacuate: the decision framework

The hold-or-scrap decision is not a single switch; it is a comparison between the value a warship is generating and the drain it is paying, and that comparison changes as the curve climbs. The drain is a cost in health per second, and a warship’s value is whatever it is doing with that health: blocking an enemy crossing, forcing the enemy’s warships to commit, protecting a landing or a trade route, or holding a choke in the water. A warship is a net asset while its value exceeds its drain, and a net liability while its drain exceeds its value, and the point where that flips is the point where you should stop holding it. Three things drive the decision. The first is where your fleet is on the curve. Through the first two-thirds of the ramp the drain holds near its 1 percent start, a small fraction of 50 percent per second, so even a warship that is doing only moderate work is still coming out ahead of the bleed; the fleet is a net asset and you should hold it and use it. In the final third the drain climbs from a couple of percent to its 50 percent maximum, so a warship is losing most of its health in the seconds after the ramp completes, and only a warship that is doing decisive, board-shaping work, like holding the one crossing the enemy needs, can justify that cost; a warship that is merely patrolling or covering a flank the enemy does not need is a net liability and should be pulled back. The second driver is whether your side has a realistic path back above the bar. The floor decays from 40 percent to 5 percent over the second ninety-second window, and the rot starts at the end of that window, so the entire doomed window is a bounded comeback race. If your side can realistically climb back above the bar before the floor decays, the fleet is an investment you are protecting, and the correct move is to evacuate the warships out of the contested water, pull them to a safe holding position, and hold the fleet until the side recovers, because a fleet that survives the doomed window is a fleet that wins the war the moment the bar flips. If your side cannot realistically climb back above the bar, the floor decay and the rot are coming regardless, and the fleet is a sinking cost; the correct move is to spend the fleet’s remaining health on the highest-value trade it can make, forcing the enemy to commit warships against a doomed fleet that is about to die anyway, and then stop caring about its health. The third driver is healing. A doomed side cannot repair its navy at all, so a warship docked in a port is not recovering; it is idling while the drain grinds it down, and the engine explicitly cancels a repair retreat for a flagged owner because docking a doomed warship just pulls it out of the fight to idle there forever. That means “evacuate to port” is not a recovery action in the doomed state; it is a way to preserve the fleet’s hull for the moment the side recovers, or it is a way to park a fleet you have decided to stop spending. The decision is therefore: hold the fleet while its value exceeds its drain and the curve is shallow; evacuate the fleet out of the water and park it while the floor is still high and a comeback is live; and spend the fleet’s remaining health on a decisive trade while the curve is steep and a comeback is not live.

Scenario: FFA, below the bar, a contested water crossing

Consider a twelve-nation FFA match with the Doomsday Clock enabled, in the endgame, where you are a mid-tier nation holding 6 percent of the land mass and the bar is now at 8 percent, so your side is doomed. You field three warships, each at 1000 max health, and the enemy nation that is pressing you toward elimination holds a fleet of two warships that is currently contesting the one water crossing you need to reach the land mass that would push you back above the bar. Your troops are already at their 5 percent floor because you have been doomed long enough that the ninety-second ramp has run, which means the floor-decay window has started and the rot will begin at its end. The question is what to do with the three warships. The drain is at its 50 percent maximum because the full ramp has elapsed, so each of your warships is losing 500 health per second, and your side cannot repair them. Holding all three to contest the crossing costs you a fleet of 3000 total health bleeding at 1500 per second, and the crossing you need is one you will only reach if the enemy’s two warships do not stop you. The enemy’s two warships are not doomed, so they are at full health and can heal at their own port, which means they are bleeding at zero. The honest comparison is that your doomed fleet is a net liability at this point on the curve: it is paying 1500 health per second to contest a crossing that the enemy’s healthier, healing fleet is better positioned to deny. The correct decision is not to hold all three. It is to commit one warship to a deliberate trade against the enemy’s two, spending that one warship’s doomed health to force the enemy to commit at least one of its two, then evacuate the remaining two warships out of the contested water and park them at a safe holding position on the far side of the crossing, out of the enemy’s reach. The one warship you spend is not wasted because it was already a net liability and it bought the time for the two you saved to swing to the land-mass push that actually puts you back above the bar. The two you saved are the investment: if your troops can climb back above the 8 percent bar before the floor decays out, those two warships are a full fleet at a 5 percent sliver of health, and a fleet at a 5 percent sliver that is on the right side of the water is still a board-shaping asset the moment the bar flips. The failure mode is holding all three on the crossing out of habit, which is the move a player makes when they have not internalized that the drain is at its maximum and the fleet cannot heal, and the result is a fleet of three that bleeds to its 5 percent floor in the open water while the enemy’s two heal up and take the crossing, leaving you with three crippled warships and no land mass and no path back above the bar.

Scenario: team match, a port behind you, the floor still high

Consider a two-team match with the Doomsday Clock enabled where your team is below the bar in the mid-endgame, so the side is doomed but the ninety-second floor-decay window has not yet started. Your team holds a warship at 850 of 1000 max health, docked in your home port, which sits on a coast that the enemy team does not need to cross to reach the land mass that is deciding the match. The bar is 7 percent, your team holds 5 percent, and you have a realistic path back above the bar if you can hold your current coastline for the next two minutes, which is inside the doomed window. The question is what to do with the docked warship. Because your side is doomed, the warship cannot repair, and the drain is running on the convex curve. At the moment you are reading this, the ramp is partway through, so the drain is somewhere between the 1 percent start and the 50 percent maximum, climbing. A warship docked in port is idling while the drain grinds it down, and the engine has explicitly decided that docking a doomed warship is not a recovery action, so it will not heal even though it is in a port. The correct decision is to undock the warship and pull it out to a holding position in your own water, where it is not contesting anything the enemy needs but it is also not sitting in a position where the enemy can trade it cheaply. The reason is that the floor is still high: the decay window has not started, so the 5 percent floor is still well above the 5 percent sliver, and the warship at 850 of 1000 is far above where the drain will take it before the floor starts to move. By undocking and holding the warship in your own water, you preserve its hull for the moment your team climbs back above the 7 percent bar, and you keep it in a position where it can immediately swing to the contested water the instant the bar flips, instead of being stuck in port at a 5 percent sliver with no way to heal back up. The alternative, leaving it docked, looks safe because a port is where warships go to recover, but under the clock a port is not a recovery point for a doomed fleet, and the warship will sit in your home port bleeding to its floor while your team either climbs back above the bar and the warship is already crippled, or does not climb back and the warship was never going to matter. The failure mode is assuming that a port is safe under the clock and leaving the warship docked, which is the move a player makes when they have not internalized that healing is suppressed for a doomed side, and the result is a warship that was 850 percent healthy at the start of the doomed window that is a 5 percent sliver by the time the window closes, with zero of that health preserved for the comeback that your team actually needed.

Failure modes and counter

The most common failure is holding a fleet that has no tactical role. A doomed warship that is not blocking a crossing, not forcing a trade, and not protecting a landing is paying the full drain for no value, and at the 50 percent maximum that is 500 health per second of pure loss. The fix is to ask, for each warship, what specifically it is doing with its health, and to evacuate or spend any warship that cannot answer the question. The second failure is retreating to port to “recover” a doomed fleet, which is impossible because healing is suppressed for a flagged side; a warship in a port under the clock idles while the drain grinds it down, and the engine explicitly cancels the repair retreat for a doomed owner. The fix is to treat “evacuate” as a hull-preservation action for a live comeback, not as a healing action, and to pull the warship to a safe holding position in open water rather than a port. The third failure is misreading the curve. The drain holds near 1 percent through the first two-thirds of the ramp, which makes a doomed fleet look healthy at the moment you would most want to commit it to a counterattack, and then it climbs into a cliff in the final third where the drain jumps from a couple of percent to the 50 percent maximum within the last fifteen seconds, which is the moment you would most need the fleet to still be whole. A player who reads the curve linearly will commit the fleet at the flat shelf and then find it at the 50 percent part of the curve, where it is bleeding to its floor in seconds. The fix is to treat the first two-thirds of the ramp as a commitment window and the final third as a spend-or-save window, and to make the hold-or-scrap decision on the assumption that the drain is about to climb to roughly fifty times what it is right now. The fourth failure is overvaluing the 5 percent floor as a safety net. The floor means the drain alone cannot sink the warship, but the floor decays from 40 percent to 5 percent over the second ninety-second window, and the rot begins at the end of that window, so the floor is not a permanent floor; it is a temporary one that collapses at exactly the moment the rot is about to start, and a fleet at a 5 percent sliver that is then hit by the rot or by enemy fire that it can no longer trade against is still a dead fleet. The strongest counter to all of this is that a fleet can be worth holding even when doomed, because a doomed warship that is holding a crossing is still denying the enemy the water, and the enemy cannot freely use the water without committing a warship against it, which is a trade the enemy may not want to make. That counter is real but bounded: it only holds while the crossing is genuinely contested and the enemy needs the water, and it stops holding the moment the enemy has an alternative route or does not need the crossing, at which point the doomed fleet is a pure liability and the hold-or-scrap decision collapses to scrap or evacuate. The correct response to the counter is to hold the fleet only for the duration of the contested crossing, and to pull it the moment the contest ends, because a doomed fleet is an asset only for as long as it is denying something the enemy needs.

Mode and map adjustments

The fleet’s value under the clock changes with the mode and the map, and the hold-or-scrap decision should be adjusted for both. In an FFA match, the fleet is more valuable under the clock than in a team match, because the water is more contested: in FFA, multiple sides are trying to reach multiple land masses, and the crossings between them are the choke points that decide who climbs back above the bar, so a warship that can contest a crossing is denying a route that several of your opponents need, and its value is the sum of those denials. In a team match, the water is less contested because there are only two sides, so a warship that can contest the crossing is denying a route that one side needs, and its value is a single denial; the fleet is worth less under the clock, and the hold-or-scrap decision should lean toward evacuate-and-preserve rather than hold-and-contest, because the single denial is less likely to be worth the 50 percent per second drain. Map size matters the same way. On a large map with multiple water crossings, the fleet is more valuable because there are more crossings to contest and the enemy has more routes it needs to keep open, so a warship that can move between crossings and contest them is a board-shaping asset even under the drain; on a small map with one crossing, the fleet is less valuable because there is only one route to contest and the enemy can simply not use it, so the warship’s denial value is low and the decision should lean toward spend-or-save rather than hold. The placement of ports also matters. A fleet that has a port behind it can undock and hold a warship in its own water at low cost, because the port gives it a safe holding position and a recovery point the moment the side recovers above the bar; a fleet that has no port behind it cannot do that, and its warships are stuck patrolling the contested water or sitting in enemy reach, which means the fleet’s value is lower and the decision should lean toward spending the fleet’s health on a decisive trade rather than trying to preserve it. The adjustment that ties all of these together is to read the fleet’s value as the number of contested crossings it can deny multiplied by the number of sides that need those crossings, and to compare that value against the drain, which is a fixed 50 percent per second at the end of the ramp, and to hold the fleet only while that value exceeds the drain. In FFA on a large map with multiple crossings, that value is high and the fleet is worth holding; in a team match on a small map with one crossing, that value is low and the fleet is worth evacuating or spending. The decision is the same in every mode and every map; only the value on one side of the comparison changes.

Fleet ROI under the clock

The table below reads the warship drain at each point on the curve and compares it against the 5 percent floor and the floor-decay window, so you can see at a glance where the fleet is a net asset and where it is a net liability. The drain percentages are computed from the engine defaults: a 1 percent start, a 50 percent maximum, a 90-second ramp, and a curve exponent of 8, applied to a warship with 1000 max health. The floor is 5 percent of max, so 50 health, and it decays from 40 percent, which is 400 health, down to that 5 percent floor over the second ninety-second window. The “net” column is the value judgment: while the drain is below the value a warship is generating, the fleet is a net asset and you hold it; while the drain exceeds the value, the fleet is a net liability and you evacuate or spend it. The numbers are the fixed part; the value you compare them against is the part you read from the board.

Seconds under the clock	Warship drain per second	Health lost in 10 s (1000 max)	Floor state	Net decision
15 (early ramp)	1% (~10 HP)	~100 HP	40% floor (400 HP)	Net asset; hold and use
45 (mid ramp)	1% (~10 HP)	~100 HP	40% floor (400 HP)	Net asset; hold
60 (late ramp)	2% (~20 HP)	~200 HP	40% floor (400 HP)	Net asset; hold
75 (cliff begins)	12% (~120 HP)	~1200 HP	40% floor (400 HP)	Marginal; hold only if decisive
90 (ramp done)	50% (500 HP)	~5000 HP	Floor decay starts (400 toward 50)	Net liability; spend or save
120 (floor decayed)	50% (500 HP)	~5000 HP	5% floor (50 HP)	Net liability; spend or evacuate

The reading is that the fleet is a net asset for the first two-thirds of the ramp, where the drain holds near its 1 percent start, and a net liability for the final third, where the drain climbs from a couple of percent to the 50 percent maximum, and for the entire floor-decay window. The 15- and 45-second rows are the moment a doomed fleet looks healthy and a player is tempted to commit it, and it keeps looking healthy right up to the 60-second row, which is why the temptation is so easy to fall for. The 75-second row is where the cliff begins and the fleet stops being a clear asset, and the 90-second row is the moment the drain is at its maximum and the floor has started to collapse, and the 5000 health lost in ten seconds is the number that should stop you from holding a fleet that is not doing decisive work. The 120-second row is the floor at its 5 percent sliver, which is the moment the rot is about to begin and the fleet is a 50-health sliver that cannot heal and cannot trade. The decision is to hold the fleet while you are in the first two-thirds, make the hold-or-scrap decision hard as you enter the final third, and default to spend-or-evacuate once the drain starts climbing and through the decay window, unless the fleet is denying a crossing that the enemy absolutely needs, in which case you hold it for the duration of that one contest and pull it the moment the contest ends.

Verify the mechanics

You can verify every number in this guide directly in a live match and against the upstream source. In a live match, enable the Doomsday Clock in the lobby settings, fall below the bar, and watch a warship’s health bar: it should bleed at a rate that starts slow and visibly accelerates, which is the convex curve with the exponent of 8, and it should stop at a 5 percent sliver of max health, which is the floor, and it should not heal even when docked in a port, which is the suppressed healing. The drain should never sink the warship on its own; the elimination should come from the rot, which begins after the ninety-second floor-decay window and eats the side’s territory. Against the source, the relevant defaults are in the Doomsday Clock defaults block of the engine configuration: the troop drain start and maximum and ramp, the 5 percent floor and the 40-to-5 percent decay, the 150-second rot, and the warship drain start, maximum, and curve exponent. The drain computation is a single function that takes the warship’s max health, the seconds since the warning closed, the drain configuration, and the curve exponent, and returns the health to remove, clamped so it never removes more than the warship’s current health minus its 5 percent floor. The warship-specific drain uses the same function with the warship configuration, which is the 1 percent start and 50 percent maximum, and the same 5 percent floor, and the curve exponent that shapes the ramp. The heal suppression is in the warship execution, where a flagged owner’s repair retreat is cancelled and the warship is not healed. The rot is in the Doomsday Clock execution, where it only begins once the floor-decay window has elapsed and the side’s troops are at their floor. If you change the Doomsday Clock lobby settings, the numbers in this guide scale with them: a faster ramp, a higher maximum, or a lower floor all shift the hold-or-scrap decision, and the curve exponent is the parameter that most changes the shape of the decision, because it is what makes the drain convex and what creates the commitment window and the spend window. The defaults this guide reads are the in-game defaults as of the v0.35.5 cursor, and they are the values you should use unless the lobby has been modified. A useful in-match test for the convex shape is to note the warship’s health loss over two equal ten-second windows at different points of the ramp: in the first window of the doomed period the loss is small, and in the final window before the ramp completes the loss is several times larger, and that ratio is the exponent of 8 doing its work. The same test on a troop shows a steady, near-constant loss per window, which is the linear troop ramp, and the contrast between the two is the single fastest way to confirm you are reading the warship curve correctly. If your live numbers do not match the table, the lobby settings have been changed, and the one parameter to check first is the curve exponent, because a lower exponent flattens the curve and makes the drain near-linear, which moves the commitment window earlier and the spend window later, while a higher exponent makes the curve steeper and compresses the whole doomed window.

Related guides

The warship drain is one side of the Doomsday Clock endgame, and the other sides are covered by the guides that read the clock itself and the recovery decision. Start with the Doomsday Clock guide, which reads the modifier, the rising bar, and the 30-second warning window, and then the Doomsday Endgame Recovery guide, which reads the challenger-below-the-bar decision, the 5 percent floor, the rot, and the MIRV-ladder branch that is the alternative to holding the fleet. The Warship Veterancy guide reads the fleet’s health in peacetime combat and the Port healing that the clock suppresses, and the Warship Fleet Decisions guide reads the fleet’s value in contested water, which is the value you compare against the drain in this guide. The Nuclear Stalemate Breaker guide reads the standoff break that is the alternative to a fleet trade, and the Doomsday versus Overtime guide reads the two end-of-game clocks side by side and when the Doomsday Clock is the right one to enable in the first place. Together these six guides cover the full Doomsday endgame: the clock and its bar, the recovery decision, the fleet’s health and value, the fleet’s drain under the clock, the standoff break, and the choice between the two end-of-game clocks. The guide you are reading owns the one decision none of them own: whether a doomed fleet is worth holding, and the answer is a comparison between the fleet’s value and the drain, read at a specific point on a convex curve, in a bounded comeback window that the floor decay and the rot close. The way to use these six together is to read the Doomsday Clock and the recovery guide first so you know the shape of the doomed window and the comeback math, then read the warship guides so you know the fleet’s peacetime health and the value it generates in contested water, then read this guide so you know how the clock changes that value into a net-asset or net-liability reading, and finally read the stalemate-breaker and overtime guides so you know the two alternatives to a fleet trade, the standoff break and the threshold overtime clock. The order matters because each guide assumes you already hold the numbers from the previous one: you cannot read the drain table without knowing the floor, and you cannot read the floor without knowing the ramp, and you cannot read the ramp without knowing the warning window that starts it. This guide is the one that ties the fleet’s value to the clock’s drain, and it is the one to consult the moment you fall below the bar and your fleet is the asset standing between you and elimination.