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SlowTrot

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Everything posted by SlowTrot

  1. The one caveat is for late era BB ambush missions, if you're the one ambushing - I've found the auto-resolve to typically sink at least 1 BB, and more importantly, limits the damage to my own DD's. If you do the actual fight, and it's calm seas, a well equipped BB with good training, it's easy to lose the full slate of DDs if you actually try engaging. But yeah... never auto resolve against anything with torps - those seem to have a huge weight in the dice roll.
  2. Yeah, this is a big nuisance. Typically lose at least 1-2 ships to this in a large engagement between all the micro. "One Hit Wonders" (aka CLs) are particularly vulnerable. There's always that one DD you forget to turn off the torps that decides from 10 km out on "save" to fire either ahead or back into your line. Yeah, thanks for that! Easy fix is to fix the "save" for torps for when the target is no more than say 5 km out.
  3. Ah I got them confused with e-torps tbh, which I do think are useless. Oxys do have some use, but still it's a hard sell on the extra cost and weight.
  4. I think we as players have to have a dose of realism at present - the devs are largely Ukraine based, and are obviously going through some very tough times. I'm not sure how this will effect the long term of this game, and tbh I think they have other more important personal priorities at present. Unsaid so far, but at a minimum we should expect some major delays. But fingers crossed here, I'm wishing them the best through this.
  5. Well done! It takes some cheese to be sure. I use DD's as projectiles often, particularly against other DD's. Much easier to ram than to shoot with the lousy aim of small cal weapons at present. Ram a ship, slow it down, come in close for a torp kill.
  6. I think this is an extremely important point - at present, oxy torps are practically useless for the human player. In the era they're available, they just aren't fast enough. If BB's are going 28+ kn, and CA's (laughably) near 40 kn, they're just not going to catch up. And you get into situations where you're running a destroyer 0.2 km from a BB, full broadside, a kill shot happening any second, unable to fire torpedoes (argh!).
  7. I've been thinking that the damage location is to some degree, or large degree, randomized. So, once a hit is recorded, a random roll determines what is hit; eg, 30% chance for non-essential compartment, 10% hit to cause engine trouble, 10% chance secondary gun, 5% chance main gun, 1% chance for primary tower.
  8. Looks like an Oscar Mayer design - hot dog filled with god-knows-what garbage. Classic DU-MB gun arrangement.
  9. Tcat, that's a beautiful, high-end destroyer. It would do well in the campaign (although expensive!), but these tough “commando” scenarios, for better or worse, you've got to make some difficult sacrifices and specialize to make it work. Think Doolittle raid style - bring only what you need. I’m sure they would’ve flown naked if they wouldn’t freeze to death. In this case, 3 DD’s is going to be very hard. I won with 4 once, but would not be able to do so consistently. The issue is the BC's will hit your incoming DD's at least once, slowing them down. (I swear a hidden game mechanic is an accuracy bonus prior to landing the first shot, a discussion for another day). That's going to severely hamper your ability to land torps. You need a few sacrificial DD’s to absorb the hits while let others close in. In this case, that simply means more. More means cheaper – start tearing everything out but the torps. Standard quarters? Nah. Armor? Useless against close range big guns. Then come the painful bits – guns? Again, useless against the big ships, and by the time the enemy DD’s arrive, you’ve got to be in the wrap-up phase anyway. Engine? All you need is speed – get the weight savings elsewhere. Even training – doesn’t seem to help with torps anyway. Strip it all off while optimizing speed and torps and you can get 10+ ships. Not pretty ships alas, but BC killers. The player gets some pretty atrocious BC’s for fun, so good luck with them… BTW Near Jutland is a great scenario to test your torpedo attack skills - short and sweet, if you can win consistently, you’re in a good place.
  10. I think this is one of the more essential compromises of the game unfortunately. Spammy, annoying, and unrealistic to be sure - but the AI torpedo strength is basically the only thing that the AI does well against the player (apart from running away!). In all games, AI's get significant boosts one way or another - it's just a universal computational reality at present. Maybe it doesn't have to be torpedoes, but the AI needs something boosted (eg, accuracy) to be able to have a chance. Either way, it'll be gamey and annoying, but essential in some form. A 30-40% cut in detonation chance sounds like a great solution though as it would improve realism while still ensuring the torps are a major threat, and you can’t just run through an enemy formation with your perked out battlecruiser. And there are excellent ways to mitigate! 1. As folks have mentioned, the player gets a huge cheat in seeing when torps are launched, as well as their range- take immediate action accordingly 2. Design ships to meet the threat - anti torp, bulkheads, and other resistance boosting elements mitigate damage. By late years a torp hit is really not that bad. High end maneuverability perks are less important than resistance perks as long as you follow other tactics here. 3. When in torp range, keep your capital ships maneuvering in S bends - especially if you know torps are incoming. This does cost you accuracy. Be very wary of running parallel to torp launching ships - this is when your ships are least maneuverable vs. incoming torps, and at the same time exposes you to the full field of an incoming torp spread. Obviously don't keep them in game set formation - they need to be detached and maneuvering independently. 4. Put destroyers and other maneuverable ships between cap ships and the enemy to screen - they will see torps first. They will also be targeted first, which is less of a problem given how maneuverable they are, and force the enemy to waste their precious torps. Seeing a column of 20 torps heading straight out to empty sea will make your day. 5. Torp equipped CA’s are most dangerous given how many they carry. Target them first. Target DD / TBs after, prioritizing the ones with the most remaining torps. If they’re empty, these ships are practically useless and to be targeted last. 6. Consider slowing speeds, especially for cap ships – slower speeds make ships more maneuverable (to often improbable degrees at very low speeds). At least, keep them at ‘full’ speed to also boost their gun accuracy. 7. As soon as you spot incoming torps, pause the game, look at all ships that could cross the torp path and start evasive maneuvers. Use the manual rudder to turn closest ships hard upstream or downstream from the incoming line of torps (this also disables anti-collision mechanics, which will otherwise sends ships straight into torp paths!) – use the green line curve to ensure the maneuver takes the ship out of the path. Heading into the origin direction of torps is best as it helps mitigate mistakes leading to rudder loss (they will likely hit the bow). If you’re careful, you can even run your ship between torpedoes – helpful in wide spread spam situations. If your ship path still crosses a torp path, that’s rough. Again, still try turning hard to avoid the full spread. Once you’re in the turn, click on the ‘reverse rudder’ – that may gain you a tiny margin at the cost of temporary engine paralysis (be sure to de-select the revers rudder soon after). And cross your fingers that the damage isn’t that bad... Hope that helps!
  11. First, excellent mod - thanks so much to both of you, Panda and Jonny. It's been many hours of fun (and at times pain 😉) It's been a massive improvement over vanilla. I've made it past Malvern Hill now on Union Legendary thus far and have a couple observations: I've also experienced the save-game loss of wounded officers that gomurr mentioned above - I've lost a good handful of colonels before noticing this was an issue. I'm a slow player and play a grand battle like Shiloh over the course of a few days. This ends up being a big hurdle to overcome the extra loss of leadership... I'll try and delve further to see where this breaks. Skirmishers are super op - my couple 500 man brigades armed with Lorenzes routinely get over 3,000 kills per battle. They basically carry the day in the way artillery used to be. That being said, I have no idea how to beat Shiloh without them... Artillery for the most part is pretty balanced. Perhaps still a bit op, but it's now rooted in reality and the curves seem to work great. I feel the perks are the most flushed out - for instance you really have to think hard about weather to take the extra 10% range at the cost of firepower. The 14 pndr seems to generally perform the best for me, though I'm not sure how realistic that is I haven't had much trouble raking-up officers - running up to 2nd Bull Run, I have 3 Lt. Generals, 3 MGs, and several Brig. Gens. despite the aforementioned loss from the save game issue. I just followed your tip on training officers on new units, particularly artillery. I honestly enjoy the challenge of trying to rank them up / balancing command on top units. Your youtube videos are a huge, huge help - thanks for taking the extra time to do them I find it really hard to justify to justify anything but the accuracy perk for the first perk for infantry - most of the time, the extra firepower is essential. I'm not sure how to gauge the value of medicine - I have a feeling that most of the time, you're just better off with higher training and filling losses with cheaper veterans. But the weapons returned may tip the balance? After a while, having to massacre army after army gets a bit tedious - it sounds like moral and surrendering is being reworked, which sounds great to me! Thanks again!
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