Gsam

Any idea when early access will happen? I signed up for your email mailing list and have heard nothing.

Have literally been saying this for months. Doesn't matter how far away you are or what year of the tech. I can never get higher than 3-5% accuracy with cruisers.

IMHO the biggest failing of this game is the research system. YOu need to throw the whole thing out and overhaul it. We need to be able to have a larger level of customization on how we want our tech to go. If I want to invest 1 trillion into research cause I have that kind of money laying around let me. If I want to skimp on my navy and rush research, let me. Right now research feels more like an impediment and not at all intuitive rather than a fun component of the game. YOu had a wonderful opportunity to bring national flavor to this game via research or via perks to ships for each nation etc. and none of that is here. I would strongly encourage you to consider re-doing the above.

Fair response. I think whats puzzling so many of us is "why the rush?" You have a bunch of testers here who have put hundreds of hours into this game and are still showing many problems. I would imagine this decision has left them scratching their collective heads and saying "how is this ready?" Is this some sort of deadline you have to hit with steam? Is it something else? IS it a financial thing? If I were in your shoes I would have handled this a fair bit differently. I would have posted to the community saying something like the following: Admirals, Thanks for your hard work.... Could not have done it without you... We are going to go out of beta / early access now... I understand there are still issues such as (list the major ones...) Rest assured, they will be fixed and we are not moving past this game until they are right. As for what else you can expect from this title... you can expect the following...... Thank you again for your support. Game Labs

Does this mean you have fixed the bug where BB's and BCs are constantly resetting accrued firing solutions and have like a 3-4% hit chance on ships that are 1-3 KM away?

This checks out with what I am seeing as well. I am fully focused on one ship, doing all the things right (speed, not changing course, etc.) and not getting hits despite upgrades etc.. Very low hit chances.

Current issues. The accuracy is horrific. Before every jumps my case and says L2P I have all the upgrades possible and have been rushing rangefinding, towers, guns, seasoned crew etc.. I am steady on my course, at cruising speed to increase accuracy and I have like a 3.2% chance to hit a BB that is 3 KM away from me in a BC. Meanwhile AA using 9 inch guns is absolutely shredding me hitting about 15% of shots and They have changed something with the accuracy mechanic. Its horrid right now.

This game is not even close to ready for release. I am now in 1910 and the feedback from the USA. 1) Fuel issues are maddening. Trying to figure out distances, where you can refuel, how far between ports. etc... Absurd 2) Ships Seem to want to go to wrong places even when you are clicking on someplace else. I have ships in the med, I am try to send them to San Diego, and it keeps trying to dock them in panama. 3) Trying to invade minors. Mexico is an ally of Germany who I was at war with. I blockaded both ports in Mexico and had my fleets set to invade, nothing happens for turns and turns. 4) Turns are taking way too long. When I have HOI4 running on the other monitor because it takes so long to process turns, you have a problem. 5) Research still seems too slow despite having one of your 3 vials dedicated to certain tech trees. You really need to redo technology as a whole. Why do I have to research a bunch of crap I don't want to get to what I do. For example. Why do I need to research light cruisers and heavy cruisers in the same "cruiser" line. Why can't we break these down. If I want to rush battle cruisers at the expense of my DD's or light cruisers, let me. I don't want triple turrets for my secondary guns. I want the ability to put 5 main guns on my ships. IRL would people making ships say "OH! Sorry, We cant work on putting a 5th main gun turret on our ship because we have not yet figured out how to put triple turrets on a ship" Scrap what you have, and redo it. 6) There is no national flavor at all. The only thing that feels different is the flag and what ports you have. Really need to differentiate the countries to add replay ability. 7) The lack of a wraparound map is brutal. Gotta fix that or implement it. 8.) Totally unclear how to get trade agreements or ally status with minors. The AI can do it. 9) The political system is not good at all. Certain countries are just going to like you at all, despite going for the non historical setting. They are always going to ask you to ally, by declining you get a huge boost to naval status and they are still your friends. Meanwhile to try and improve relations you fail like 90% of the time and it hurts you.... Come on. Not even worth engaging in that. 10) Ship Flaws. I made 16 ships. 6 of them were flawed. That is insane. I am talking so flawed that they had to be scrapped. More than 10% defect. I understand trying for ship variety, but damn thats brutal. You almost have to build an extra 40% of what you need for your fleet so you can delete the ships that come out hot garbage. If that is something you want to have in game, can we develop a ironworkers slider where we can spend extra money to have better workers and reduce flaws? Or Incorporate that into dockyards as we increase the size? Make it a research thing? How about letting us have positive outcomes too? Ship X was made exceptionally well. +5% speed or something.

Turns are taking SOOOOOOOOOO LONGGGGGGGGGG

You answered my question. Thank you Panda!

While we are on the subject on fatigue @pandakraut does it work the same way for the CPU? I am playing Fredericksburg as CSA and the opening engagement has the union troops running full speed through swaps to get into the forest. IT does not seem like they have any ill effects on condition because of it.

Great questions!

Is the skill that allows units that dont participate in the battles essential? I am noticing I need to use my stronger unit to win battles with acceptable losses, but If I don't use the * star units, They do not progress.

went back to drawing board. Spent about 200k to make a bunch of speedbump 0 star units. Increased army size by about 10k. Managed to pull it off. Army is pretty well shot to shit ~37% casualties. Most of it from my front line units. The speedbumps were in the 3rd position holding the flank at the bottom of the map. Before anyone asks why I spent 200k on speedbump units I didn't. I took the 200k and upgraded my * and ** units to give them better guns and then took the 1842 and reboreds and gave them to the speedbump units. (removed general name because its my personal name)

I think I hit the end of my campaign this go around. I am playing as CSA on regular difficulty. I am at antietam and I am just getting swamped by 3x the numbers I have. I am roughly ~30k infantry, and about 200 guns. 2 full corps with 20 brigades per 1500 man infantry, 300 man sharpshooters and anywhere from 12-20 guns. 4 cavalry units 2 melee 2 carbine. I am facing off against enemy infantry counts in the ~70k range and they have roughly 350 guns. I simply cannot hold the massed kamikaze charges despite having brigades supporting behind every brigade. Artillery just doesn't chew them up quick enough. Perhaps I am playing this wrong.

Fantastic info! thanks Panda!!! I learned so much from this. Have a great new year!

@pandakraut Loving the mod as usual. I play it about once as year as things evolve. Thank you for staying with this. IT brings new life to this game. That being said, I have questions. I feel like every single map, the enemy armor has roughly ~20 skirmisher units. Is this normal? Cavalry can hardly scout anywhere due to number of skirmishers all over. Everything feels very congested and there is not much room to move. A few suggestions / questions / thoughts: 1) Skirmishers are too strong in melee. The problem is they are like U-boat wolf packs also. If you charge one with cavalry (which seems to be the only way I have found to deal with them) not only will a single unit cause ~10% damage from a straight up fight to an equal numbers cav unit, they are never alone. You are gonna get shot by 2-3 other skirmisher units and cannons. The AI is so much better about supporting its units. This makes for LONNNNNGGGG slogs of matches because you have to clear a path using up ammo and troops just to approach the main event. IMHO they personally have far too big an impact on the game in the current form. 2) Have you looked at the timers? I am a more methodical player and I HATE being rushed to fight a certain way. I am forced with a decision often times to fail the mission or grind my troops up taking positions that haven't been softened up appropriately yet. Couple that with the point I Made in #1 with the glut of skirmishers slowing down progress, IMHO this begs looking at. 3) Sharpshooters - I feel like the cost / benefit does not pencil here. They are some of the most expensive units, they require a ton of micro management and they do not seem to have a very large impact on the battle. Not to mention, one mistake and they can get wiped out instantly. 4) Due to the Carnage in the game as you make it, it feels like Medicine is the main career perk I should be getting. I am assuming that the "restore" keeps their weapons too so I don't have to purchase them again? 5) Cross Key's - This battle borders on not even being worth it. This is an absolute bloodbath. Even cycling units through the meatgrinder most of the units even playing in heavy cover in the woods took near 50% casualties. At one point at the top of the map there is nearly 6 units shooting at one in heavy cover. 3 of which are skirmishers and thats like a slow damage over time just picking away at you. I won it decisively but even doing so, having ~3-4k casualties for a minor battle is harsh to recover from that early in the game. After the battle, most of my units were worse than they were before starting the battle because you have to be frugal with veterans. Artillery obviously improved. Questions: 1) is 12 still the magic # on guns. I looked at your artillery chart and it looks to be the best bang for the buck. 2) IS there a magic unit size that you have found is the most efficient. I have been using max size of 1250 for infantry, 12 guns, 500 cavalry and 250 sharpshooters. 3) Which guns have you found to be best for counter battery fire? I like to clear out the guns before I make my moves but the 3inchers don't seem to do it despite the range. 4) IS there a way to disable timers? 5) Do you have any plans to adjust cannon strength at different ranges? I understand nerfing the 24 howitzers canister, but counter battery feels lacking. 6) when if ever is it worthwhile to use the repeating guns (henrys etc.). I want to try them, but due to the prohibitive cost I am very leery of doing that.

Averaging about 2 minutes per "next turn" click. I am in 1903 playing as USA. Not on a potato PC. Doesn't that seem kind of long?

Thanks for doing this so quickly. Will we need to start a new campaign or will it work with existing campaigns?

Appreciate your efforts. Don't get down by the few people hammering you. We do appreciate you.

I am giving them the benefit of the doubt. they have a shown that they will see things through to the ends. UG:CW was amazing and I loved it. UA:AoS was garbage and I hated it, but they at least finished it all the way.

Problem is, right now it does not appear engines are optimized to handle it. I fought over 150 ships in a battle and I have a pretty beastly rig and it brought the game to a crawl. Like 1 frame every 5 seconds.

Im noticing the same thing. I normally go battlecruisers. I can't build them with 16inch guns anymore without stripping the things bare. Yesterday I could

I hope they focusing on improving the existing content and making it work properly before adding more to the mix. tHey still have a long way to go about balancing the tech tree's improving them and giving each country a national flavor. Not to mention fixing things like accuracy, economy, angling of armor, etc.

IS it normal that the AI players get like 250 points a turn automatically and I get 0? I am playing Germany and there are no ships in the north sea yet Britain continues to get points every turn. They are not sinking my trade ships, I am sinking theirs according to the messages I see.