Balancing Battleships

Solution

There are three types of clues: some clues are normal, some are one more than the actual number of ship segments, and some are one less than the actual number of ship segments.

Once the grid is solved and each type of clue is found, looking at the operation required to make the clue normal created a code called Balanced Ternary (hinted at by the title and flavor text). Converting the bal3 to decimal, and then to letters yields the solution.

MALINGER