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Work in progress: Dreadnoughts


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On 7/30/2018 at 5:18 PM, Sir R. Calder of Southwick said:

1890-1930 or so would be good.

 

On 8/3/2018 at 2:10 AM, Nick Thomadis said:

Torpedo boats, destroyers, light cruisers, armoured  and heavy cruisers, battlecruisers and follow their evolution from 1890 till 1930+.

 

Ah-ha! So I hit the time frame perfectly!

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Let Dreadnought learn from NA-OW...

@admin

If you want the opinion of someone who knows nothing about the gaming industry and is so old he remembers porn in paper magazines, but is here ready to help...

NA-OW didn’t leverage enough off the testers and personally I feel lost a missed opportunity. I don’t mean listening blindly to them, but giving them specific tasks and roles at certain times. Managing your Lab-Rats effectively. Rather than using them just as a database watering hole in the middle of dry desert.

DREADNOUGHT lets have some real information... The What When Where How and Who... Don’t want company secrets, or treated like a mushroom either... if it’s a No-Go then Cut it and say it. First Cut is always the cheapest (learned this the hard way).

Otherwise I’m keen to devote time if required...

Who’s leading it...?

@admin

@Nick Thomadis

Contact Mods...?

@Destraex

@BungeeLemming

@Sir Hethwill the RedDuke

First split “Work in Progress...”

This thread now six pages in length, but is hiding Dev replies within. Needs opening up.

Thread one “General chat”. This is what it says and follows in principle to the Work in Progress. Thread two “Dreadnought Progression” is @admin or Dev starter posts ONLY with player reply follow up like the Patch and Dev News threads. That is all to start with...

What Is the Synopsis...?

Lose General idea, and what is its “Me 2” equivalent game with the differential hook?

Rough and Loose Business Plan (edited). What CORE key things are needed in place in order of importance at what time. Where and when do you want and need Tester input?

 

Let me know if you think its rubbish, or if you can offer a better solution likewise.

 

Norfolk nMahan

 

Edited by Norfolk nChance
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I think @Norfolk raises some good points above.

 

I love Naval Action. But the development decisions have been..."questionable" at times. I don't say that to judge or point fingers, but I don't think controversy helps in these situations. Like Naval Action, this has a tendency to be more niche than a lot of mainstream games out there. But certain design decisions aside, no one can argue with the quality and love of work that went into both Naval Action and Ultimate General (both iterations). I think that's the strength to continue to build on.

 

I also don't know much about game development, in full disclosure. But what I do know about is naval history, armament, and tactics and strategy (I am a real naval officer and marine engineer/architect after all). So, like I said at the beginning when I posted a picture of a piece of my library on naval information, I am happy to help.

Edited by Sir R. Calder of Southwick
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On 8/3/2018 at 11:44 PM, Nick Thomadis said:

Aviation is something that could be considered later, to function abstractly.

In ww1 iirc warships launched aircraft as spotters. Seaplane carriers also operated to launch strikes at land targets such as zeppelin bases. Which brings me to zeppelins :) which may have sometimes used as spotters at sea iirc???? It also brings me to ww1 and before using flags and radio sets that were very unreliable and caused constant confusion. Will command and control be simulated? 

My opinion is that you could however fairly safely do up to the end of ww1 without aircraft. But ww2 would seem a little silly without aircraft. Especially since a significant part of a warships armament in late ww2 was Devoted to AA. 

This of course presents a problem. Because most games either do aircraft and not ships well or ships and not aircraft well. Why? Because aircraft carriers and land based airfields are really strategic assets that cover massive distances and therefore are really tricky to include because this distance challenge requires a whole new game module. Separate from the B.B. lines firing at each other. It means that aircraft would be launched from a strategy map and may even find the enemy during a shore support engagement or even a ship to ship engagement.

World of warships of course does them poorly because they are launching aircraft from battleship main fun range. Missing the whole point of aircraft carriers. Although carriers did get caught in the open a few times as up in norway by German cruisers or as with that escort carrier in the pacific. 

Also bringing in Ww2 means bringing in submarines at least on the strategic map. 

Ww2 Atlantic is not as bad but ww2 pacific means turning the whole game into a carrier strategy game. Once both sides have carriers the game changes completely or risks looking silly like world of tanks... operating tanks in a vacuum like dodgem cars.

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@Destraex

 

You make some real valid points here. If it’s a single player then I assume a lot easier to build in more realistic rules or mechanics. Aerial combat I thought was mid to late WWI but apparently not...

http://www.brianwillson.com/bombing-history-including-u-s-record/

On an MMO like World of Warships [WoWs] they run into a major issue with aircraft Tier 4 -5 or WWI era. It’s the total accuracy when spotting. The lack of fog of war is what kills the strategy. Rather than a “Enemy Destroyer spotted at SQ A7” it gives the live position on the map...

Another issue (including NA-OW) [WoWs] is having more realistic fleet mix deployments and fleet strategy. The [WoWs] Carrier runs solo hiding without fleet support. It hides...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/321410/Command_Modern_Air__Naval_Operations_WOTY/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2910/Fleet_Command/

These two games although modern era feel better, more realistic? Maybe that’s for @Sir R. Calder of Southwick to answer on pre-WW1 fleet deployments and air support. I know in NA-OW a 73 gun-Bellona never sailed without a fast frigate escort and First Rates carried a small armada when moving anywhere.

Air inclusion and Fog of War must be equally balanced in my opinion

 

Norfolk

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Please, no aircraft.

There are plenty of wars during this time frame and aircraft are just too much of a distraction and almost certainly in the end will be used as an exploit.

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The first aerial takeoff from a surface ship happened in 1910 from an anchored ship. It wasn't done on an underway ship until 1912. Seaplane carriers came into being (in the French, British, US, and Japanese navies in that order) at about the same time. Aerial spotting in WWI did exist, but was not nearly as effective as, for example, WOWS would make it seem. @Norfolk nChance is completely correct in pointing out the various meta-flaws of fleet composition that appear in both NA and WOWS (I play both so am quite familiar). WWI also saw the first rudimentary carrier attacks but their damage was generally minor.

 

One thing I will say about WOWS as it pertains to carriers, is that while at higher tiers the carrier is quite effective at striking targets with planes, the whole disposition of the carrier as it relates to the rest of the fleet is exactly what you would expect if you have a pre- or early-WW2 admiral the ability to design such a game: a carrier which scouts for the battlefleet and provides aerial support. It completely ignores the power of massed aerial strikes. Granted, I would imagine it does so for gameplay reasons (which in this case are valid - even as is there are frequent complaints about carriers being "OP") but it still shows a poor approximation of what carriers were ultimately used for in conjunction with the ships that they accompany.

 

If we take at face value that the timeframe of Ultimate Admiral will be about 1890-1930, then yes carriers come in at the end. However, given that any "scenario" or "campaign" shortly becomes, as it were, alternate history, it is not a great stretch to leave much of the evolution of naval aviation out of it for both gameplay and the fact that the name of the game is "Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnouhgt", not "Ultimate Admiral: Naval Evolution from 1890-1930".

 

Consider that at Jutland in 1916, the fleets actually saw each other - while spotting aircraft in some form might have existed, they certainly played no significant role in the battle.

 

I would therefore argue that, if the game consists of a type of "campaign map" that spotting aircraft whether as fixed wing, balloon, zeppelin, etc should do no more than increase your ability to detect an enemy fleet at an appropriate range. I.e., a range greater than that of a lookout on the ships themselves. Spotting aircraft should have no role in tactical fleet combat, like it does in WOWS.

 

Since part of this game looks to be the designing of your own warships, then certainly there will come a time when it becomes an option, perhaps even a desirable one, to put a float plane on your ships. But that plane should do no more than provide greater detectability range for your fleet.


Finally, while acknowledging as I did earlier that any sort of open campaign creates an alternate history path, it's important to remember the history of the aircraft carrier as well as it relates to the time period. While the first aircraft carrier in anything approaching the modern sense came into being with the HMS Ark Royal in 1914, the first purpose built carrier (which was the tiny Hosho) was commissioned in 1922. The first large carriers that we think of were not built as carriers at all: the Lexingtons, the Akagi and Kaga, and the Glorious and Courageous were not laid down as carriers, but were converted from large capital ships in the case of the former four, and cruisers in the latter two into carriers. Without the Washington Naval Conference of 1922 to have sparked this, these carriers never would have existed. Considering the Lexington and Saratoga were the first ones finished (in about 1927) we are rapidly getting to the end of our 1890-1930 timeframe. So while @Destraex raises valid points, I think that they can safely be discounted as it was not well into the 1930s that ships began equipping any significant AA defenses. Consider as an example the last pre-WW2 US and British battleships, the Colorado class and Nelson class respectively, and the pre-London Treaty of 1930 US cruisers (Pensacola class). None carried significant AA defenses untli 1930s era reconstructions. The same goes for the Japanese warships.

 

Therefore, TL:DR: carriers - and by extension significant naval airpower - as we know them do not become relevant to the very end of the timeframe in question so as a factor in gameplay for a game focused on dreadnoughts (and time appropriate smaller ships) to begin with, can safely be discounted as a game mechanic.

 

Edit: for some specific examples, pursue the Wikipedia pages of the classes of battleships and cruisers of the late WW1 and immediate interwar period. Their AA complement in the as built configurations is almost laughable.

 

 

Edited by Sir R. Calder of Southwick
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It would be interesting to involve a land war that you don't control, so say you play as the British and someone like Haig wants you to support a Zeebrugge like raid or the BEF gets utterly destroyed and you have to carry out a Dunkirk like scenario 

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@jekct1212

Like the idea, maybe as a Campaign. The object is to find or hold areas stopping NPC land forces action. Choke points etc...

Just like this guy lectured...

http://forum.game-labs.net/topic/26545-book-naval-strategy-by-captain-at-mahan/

This was a big part of Mahan ‘s lectures. He studied Nelson and the British rise to power. All other countries raising armies while Britain built a navy. Using Blockades, the French never had the opportunity to cross and invade England. Napoleon’s far larger and superior Grande Armee was rendered irrelevant.

He used military theories of Jomini applied to a Naval thesis of choke points or FORCED MULTIPLIERS. Holding “Choke-Points” and locking out the main attack he cites examples time and again.  Genius...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine-Henri_Jomini

Norfolk

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyOaQe9_Mos

This might be basic but gives a great introduction. Naval engagements rare and Jutland the only major battle. Need to understand why on this. Below HRH Prince Andrew gives a lecture on the era as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW4WdrDg3Bo&t=49s

A study of Jutland I believe is this weekends reading. I'm just soooo old now

 

Norfolk

 

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“There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today...?”

Fleet Admiral David Beatty

Battle of Jutland, June 1916

 

Thought I’d share some Jutland stuff I was looking at. Great idea for a Campaign @Nick Thomadis maybe? The battle approaching the end of our DREADNAUGHT period the wiki shows Air and subsurface attack craft plus all ships and classes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jutland

Battle details strategy tactics and all and orders of battle. Submarine and Zeppelin deployments. Outcome and assessments. UK Seaplane Carrier and minelayers and German torpedo boats also included.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_UryFjKUsM

Battle account narrated by Admiral Jellicoe’s grandson as part as the Centenary Commemorations. Some brilliant map graphics. Covers the strategies and tactics used and the outcome. Highlights the British Senior Hierarchy Admiralty had bred over the years leading to some costly mistakes.

Its revealed after the battle Admiral Scheer in a letter to the Kaiser was using Mahan theory. He states a victorious end to the war can only be achieved by wearing down the British economy and not going head to head with her Navy. Scheer wanted to change the focus to an aggressive campaign by using the U-boats on the British trade routes starving the island into her submission.

Scheer tried for a year to get the Kaiser and his Cabinet to agree unsuccessfully. Just a few decades later the first two years of World War 2 Great Britain suffered badly at the hands of the Seawolf Packs of the German U-Boats. If Scheer had got his way it just does not bare thinking about...

 

Anyway, let me know what you think...

 

Norfolk nChance [ELITE]

Ps @admin and @Nick Thomadis or @Ink come on lets have some input I like this DREADNAUGHT idea...

Edited by Norfolk nChance
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19 hours ago, Norfolk nChance said:

Naval engagements rare and Jutland the only major battle.

That all depends, of course, on when the developers care to begin the game. If they also include the pre-dreadnought era you have a number of battles occurring in various wars, such as the First Sino-Japanese war, the Spanish-American war and the Russo-Japanese war. My feeling is since this is going to have a strategy overlay, it probably won't start on the date that HMS Dreadnought was commissioned.

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While Jutland was the only fully fledged fleet action of WWI and the controversy over who actually won/lost will never be satisfactorily be decided by Great Britain or Germany, it should be remembered that there were many smaller battles that took place, The Falklands, Dogger Bank, The Bight, all had an impact on strategy one way or another, and all will very probably be the most likely form of battle as opposed to the major fleet battle at Jutland. 

It is ironic that less than half a century on the same protagonists fought almost a mirror war at sea in the Atlantic and North Sea with the same result. Perhaps it is not surprising since the issues facing both navy's had not changed, neither had the respective positions (in the world order of the time) of both navy's changed at least until 1941.

At first glance this game has potential, especially in that ship design may be either historical or a what if scenario, for example if the Battlecruiser design been even slightly  modified, and the practice of stockpiling cordite away from the protected areas within the RN for faster reload times been discontinued, would it have changed the battlecruiser loss rate at Jutland? Or even prevented the loss of HMS Hood in a later war? Certainly for whatever reason Great Britain suffered the loss of Battlecruisers far out of proportion to any other navy in world war I and to be honest  Beatty may have been wrong, it may never have been the case that there was something wrong with his bloody ships that day, but more likely, the way they were fought.

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Is there anything more that @Nick Thomadis or @admin can provide at this time? I, surely like many others, am very excited and eager to see how development is coming along for this.

 

On 8/9/2018 at 6:37 AM, LAVA said:

That all depends, of course, on when the developers care to begin the game. If they also include the pre-dreadnought era you have a number of battles occurring in various wars, such as the First Sino-Japanese war, the Spanish-American war and the Russo-Japanese war. My feeling is since this is going to have a strategy overlay, it probably won't start on the date that HMS Dreadnought was commissioned.

Like I said before, if there is any kind of campaign overlay then alternate history immediately kicks in. Just because historically there weren't great dreadnought clashes doesn't mean there couldn't have been.

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Not yet something important to share. Development continues but is now focused on AI and Ship Designer Techs. The Campaign needs more work to become ready for a full release but it should have all the necessary ingredients to be always different in each play, provide many what-ifs, many different possibilities for every nation. To achieve this, it needs certain mechanics and content that we had not yet found the time to implement, thus be able to answer specifically and with images, what works and what not.

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@Nick Thomadis

 

Thank you for the reply, its genuinely much appreciated.  

I understand time is a rare resource and you can’t give out certain information. But I think exploiting the Lab-Rat talent pool available may help more than hinder. The NA-OW forum frustration of PCs going around in circles with the same POSTs just though lack of feedback or direction is a waste.

Any specific areas you wish the Dreadnaught Rats to look into am sure we are all willing to help...

 

 

Norfolk nChance [ELITE]

 

 

 

 

Let Dreadnought learn from NA-OW...

NA-OW didn’t leverage enough off the testers and personally I feel lost a missed opportunity. I don’t mean listening blindly to them, but giving them specific tasks and roles at certain times. Managing your Lab-Rats effectively. Rather than using them just as a database watering hole in the middle of dry desert.

DREADNOUGHT lets have some real information... The What When Where How and Who... Don’t want company secrets, or treated like a mushroom either... if it’s a No-Go then Cut it and say it. First Cut is always the cheapest (learned this the hard way).

Otherwise I’m keen to devote time if required...

Who’s leading it...?

@admin

@Nick Thomadis

Contact Mods...?

@Destraex

@BungeeLemming

@Sir Hethwill the RedDuke

First split “Work in Progress...”

This thread now six pages in length, but is hiding Dev replies within. Needs opening up.

Thread one “General chat”. This is what it says and follows in principle to the Work in Progress. Thread two “Dreadnought Progression” is @admin or Dev starter posts ONLY with player reply follow up like the Patch and Dev News threads. That is all to start with...

What Is the Synopsis...?

Lose General idea, and what is its “Me 2” equivalent game with the differential hook?

Rough and Loose Business Plan (edited). What CORE key things are needed in place in order of importance at what time. Where and when do you want and need Tester input?


 

Edited by Norfolk nChance
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On 8/14/2018 at 1:01 PM, Nick Thomadis said:

Not yet something important to share. Development continues but is now focused on AI and Ship Designer Techs. The Campaign needs more work to become ready for a full release but it should have all the necessary ingredients to be always different in each play, provide many what-ifs, many different possibilities for every nation. To achieve this, it needs certain mechanics and content that we had not yet found the time to implement, thus be able to answer specifically and with images, what works and what not.

this is a bit of topic mate but you are the guy that used to make the Darthmods for TW right? 

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5 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

@Norfolk nChance 
When the game enters a phase of development to make it ready for more interaction with the community, we will organize a special forum and we will share more information at a constant base. Thank you for all the positive energy and interest.
 

@HachiRoku
Yes, it's me :)

I often wonder what you would have done to Rome 2 :) You were the one the made empire playable.

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On 8/18/2018 at 7:50 AM, Nick Thomadis said:

@Norfolk nChance 
When the game enters a phase of development to make it ready for more interaction with the community, we will organize a special forum and we will share more information at a constant base. Thank you for all the positive energy and interest.
 

@HachiRoku
Yes, it's me :)

One of my favorite eras ever, can't wait to start building my dream fleet!

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On 8/3/2018 at 12:50 PM, DeRuyter said:

Protected cruiser within time frame:

 

 

 

Olympia bell.jpg

Olympia gun drill.jpg

Tall Ships Phila Olympia.JPG

Is it just me, or do others immediately begin reading the signal flags to figure out which combat bonuses this ship will receive in WoWs? 

 

A beautiful shot of the Queen of the Pacific with Philadelphia as a backdrop. The Flying O was a hell of a ship in her time. 

 

I also like the shot of the snout of the USS Becuna on her starboard side. 

 

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This past week, I took my daughter and nephew to tour the USS Texas, "The Last Remaining Dreadnought", which is moored just outside Houston  and is now a permanent museum ship. A trip I have made many times.  

In particular is the layout of the ship, the gun deck where its secondary batteries poke out of the side armor rather than placed in the 5" ring guns that will become ubiquitous (and deadly) on future US battleships. And the five primary gun turrets configured in AB-Q-XY formation holding two 14" naval rifles each. And the primative rangefinders located all over the ships, a novel invention when she was launched.

She is also the first US ship to mount dedicated anti-aircraft guns, and to have launched an aircraft (from #3 turret) from a moving naval vessel. She provided shore bombardment both to support amphibious operations during the Normandy invasion; and later at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. 

It's ships like this that really excite me about this game, and the ability to design and deploy a gradually more and more technologically advanced fleet. The position of the primary and secondary batteries, the possibility of early AAA, torpedo blisters and tubes, primative recon aircraft to help spotting. So many exciting possibilities. And the ability to site the batteries in front of the superstructure, as in HMS Nelson or IJN Izumo; or behind to kite an enemy and bombard while pulling away. 

USS Texas, which would be the end of the production lines this game will encompass (I am guessing that some sort of Jutland type engagement will be Nick's last battle to cap the game) has a fabulous history, and is in desperate shape. It needs to be placed in a permanent drydock to prevent further corrosion of her hull. It would be a shame if this ship were scrapped, too much of our history has become disposable. 

USS_Texas-11.jpg

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@Andre Bolkonsky

 

“One of my favorite eras ever, can't wait to start building my dream fleet!”

 

Would love to see the USS Texas when next in Houston great looking ship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN_ThoXR9GQ

[WoWs] Legend advert

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sjx0YFyekt8

Stats breakdown and gameplay at 16:50 or so. Are the stats close in accuracy?

 

A Huge supporter of @admin and GLs hard core style but would say caution is needed regarding Aircraft and peripheral machines in the game. Read @Sir R. Calder of Southwick comment on aircraft at the time.

World of Warships [WoWs] creates the USS Texas beautifully in the game. However, gameplay I find very weak indeed (the entire game). Major floors occur regarding the use of Aircraft carriers and spotting as a whole. The threat of introducing Torpedo boats, submarines not destroyers received a major backlash.

Fleet mechanics is terrible on the Random game but better on a Campaign style mission which is Co-Op. When ready I’d like to hear a general game outline and a similar Me2 product. [WoWs] doesn’t do it justice in my opinion.

With @Nick Thomadis on side maybe the MMO style is not the way to go? But I’m no games developer...

 

Norfolk nChance [ELITE]

 

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