Play Battleship Online With a Friend

Press Challenge a friend, send the link it gives you, and deployment starts the moment your friend joins. The whole sequence:

1. Press Challenge a friend. Open the game, sign in, and press the button in the menu. SALVO opens a private room for the two of you and shows “Waiting for your friend…” until they arrive.
2. Share the invite link. Press Share invite link. Where your device has a share sheet (most phones do), it opens so you can send the link by text, chat app or email; otherwise the link is copied, ready to paste.
3. Your friend opens it and signs in. SALVO emails them a sign-in link and a 6-digit code; either one works, and after signing in they land in your room. Whoever opens the link first takes the second seat, so send it only to the person you want to play.
4. You both deploy. Drag your five ships into place, or press the shuffle button for a random layout, then press Ready. You have 60 seconds; when time runs out, the layout you have stands.
5. You both aim, and the salvos land together. Each round you have 25 seconds to aim one shot per ship you still have afloat, give or take loot; then both salvos land at once. Sink all five of your friend's ships to win (if both fleets sink in the same round, it is a draw).

That is the big difference from the boxed game, where players take turns calling one shot each: in SALVO neither of you waits on the other, and neither sees where the other aimed until both salvos land. Specials and loot are covered in the Salvo rules guide; if you are new to the game, start with how to play Battleship.

Rematches

When a battle ends, either of you can press Rematch; your friend's button turns to Accept rematch, and once you have both pressed it, a new battle starts in the same room, back at deployment. No new link is needed, and each rematch is rated like any other battle.

A modern web browser and a free SALVO account each. There is nothing to download, and you don't need the same kind of device.

• Any phone, tablet or computer. SALVO runs in the browser, so phone against laptop is fine. You don't need the same Wi-Fi or even the same city: the link works anywhere online.
• An email address you can check. Sign-in works by email: you get a link and a 6-digit code, and there is no password. Reading your email on another device? Type the code where you asked to sign in, since the link signs in whichever browser opens it.

A dropped connection pauses the battle for up to 45 seconds; leaving on purpose counts as resigning. In detail:

Yes. Every finished online battle moves both captains' ratings, friend challenges included. SALVO uses the chess-style Elo system: everyone starts at 1000, one battle moves a rating by at most 32 points, and beating a stronger captain earns more than beating a weaker one. Games against the computer never count, and the leaderboard shows the top 20 captains.

Two friends rated 1000 play once: the winner goes to 1016 and the loser to 984. If the loser takes the next battle, they finish at 1001 and 999, so friends who trade wins end up about where they started. Whatever the winner gains, the loser drops:

The same math is why farming a second account earns little. Say you and a fresh second account both sit at 1000 and you beat it again and again: your first win pays 16 points, your 10th pays 7, and from about the 26th on each win pays 3 or less. Thirty straight wins lift you to about 1200, where one win over a real captain at your level pays 16, more than the next five farmed wins combined. By the 100th you are near 1300, earning one point a win.

SALVO has no chat or voice of its own, so for a friend far away, run a call alongside the game. A few things help:

• Paste the invite into the call's chat or a text, so your friend can open it while you talk.
• Don't share your screen. Your own fleet is on it.
• Keep your targets to yourself. You aim in the same 25 seconds, so calling your shots out loud gives your friend time to dive their submarine.
• Use two screens if you can. The call on one device and the game on another keeps the board full size; on a single phone, an audio-only call leaves the whole screen for the game.

You can still play a person (Quick Match and open battles are rated, like friend battles) or practice on your own:

• Quick Match pairs you with the next captain looking for a battle.
• Open battles lists the captains waiting for a rival right now; pick one to take them on.
• Play the computer to learn the game; it never touches your rating. In the game itself you still sign in first.
• The practice round on the home page needs no sign-in at all.

In the same room and would rather skip the screens? SALVO works with a pencil too: print our free SALVO sheets, one per player, and play salvo for salvo, specials included. Both of you write your shots down first, then call them out, so the rounds stay simultaneous just like online.