Skeksis

Some academy missions puts you in that very position, also it’s not up to us to debate others tactical decisions e.g. if some one wants to kamikaze ships firing torps on each side as they go then that's up to them, players should play the game however they want. Historical tactical references are irrelevant since this game is not exactly historically accurate i.e. visible ranges, weights, tech bonuses, armor, torp reloads, lack of all four arms, penetration, speeds, super hulls, the list continues and it is quite long! best to take the game as is, what it is.

As feedback from WotS, complexity works! I use the pause button all the time to set every fire-control and set manoeuvring on every ship/sub/aircraft, that amounts to gameplay, alot of it. I always maintained UAD needs more interaction and now I know it. UAD time compression is used too much IMO, too much time is just watching the battle unfold, more battle interaction wouldn't be detrimental.

Exactly, so when the main is knockout the user would be forced to assign the next best director, which would have less values, and so on until only the local default is left, sounds like RL to me. There has to be some streamlining when it comes to fleet simulations, some compromises. Somebody has to work out the ship’s course, launcher angle and firing timing, I would have thought they were near or in contact with the bridge, not down on the deck next to the launcher – "local", except when everything else is destroyed. Firing-control, even be it a pencil, for both guns and torpedo's could be simulated the same way, to suit streamlining. Yes that's OP intentions, to firer on both port and starboard sides, why not torpedo's too? And it would influence designer too, in deciding if torpedo’s to be center-lined or placed on port or starboard based on the number of directors.

You’re overthinking it. As far as tracking goes, cost in cpu power is negligible. The director doesn’t do anything other than supply the target ID to its weapon grouping and that’s upon selection of targets or grouping weapons, nothing else. Maybe director animations would take up some but no more than any other rendering mesh. As far as the firing solution goes, that's where all the work is done and it would be per grouping, not per director, not per turret. Then the number of firing solutions to compute would probably be the same as we have currently. As far as designing with directors goes… Take DDs, they would only fit 2, atop main superstructure and local (default), maybe 3 min to cover mains/any secondary/torpedo's grouping. CLs, would fit 3, main/aft/local, that's one atop main and aft superstructures. CA, would fit 3-5, main/aft/port/starboard/local. BB/BC, would fit 5-7+, main/aft/port x2/starboard x2/local. But alot of this would be govern by costs, weights and the practicality of adding too many (Dev’s could restrict by class too). Mostly users would try to keep the highest volume of weapons/groupings trained on the same target to destroy it asap, using one or two directors at a time. And why would anyone target more than 5-7 anyway! With directors as a design option, it increases the scope of designer somewhat and that's the game’s asset and that is where it matters the most. UI complexity depends entirely on the implementation.

Even hull ‘Dreadnought 1’, the game's flagship, can’t fit its 12" side turrets when rotating them to be aligned in the forward direction!!!

Using directors to target has been suggested many times in the past but to no avail. But since the market has changed somewhat, so maybe the team is looking for some improvements and also something for the new guy to do… Maybe this… For each director you place onboard you get +1 in targeting, with local turrets or no directors equaling a single target only. And with a system of assigning/grouping turrets/weapons (in battle) to a director, by any selections of combo’s of mains/secondaries/torpedo’s. E.g. if a ship is big enough like a heavy cruiser then you could place a main director, aft director and then port and starboard directors, which would give you 5 possible targets, local + 4 directors, local for turrets that are not director assigned. Altogether this would give the user the ability to target wherever, whatever and however. Points of interest for such a setup… Directors to give the target info and an singular accuracy’s bonus. Multiple directors assign to the one target to give more accuracy bonuses, maybe! Torpedo accuracy bonus could be applied to the spread value. All superstructures to be amended to accommodate for at least one director on top, except very early ships. Directors should animate like turrets. Should be different director types e.g. large & small mains, aft/side large & small. Each director adding their own accuracies value/weight etc. More directors could serve as backups too, for the loss of others. Scrap the current 3 mains/secondaries/torpedo’s targets and just have the singular local target director as the default, you can't have it both ways, it's either this or the current. Lead ship should control the whole division. And the cons. Wouldn’t splitting the division and then have each split independently target achieved the same thing, hmm! Should singular ship combat be considered, given that divisions are already controlled by group logic. UI battle-wise, how to implement it and to be user friendly, more difficult to answer.

Yes @Cpt.Hissy is quite right! Here's the alpha introduction (see under section "controls")... That's self explanatory and it hasn't changed since, your description is of something else that needs another explanation.

Pretty much everything that has been commented on in this forum for the last 2 years is in that game, along with what has already been mention above is some little things like one load of torpedo on destroyers, logistics/cargo/supplies and a high degree of authenticity (historical content). Has UAD missed the the boat! What UAD has got going for itself is a different time period and designer tool, which is a pretty big asset, is it enough. Don't know but IMO to completely outmatch or outclass WotS, UAD world map is got be of the highest quality, its AI challenging too i.e. not pasted enemy quantities, including hard/easy modes and UAD should be moddable (it's a reasonable part of the market these days and will hurt if not). One thing is for sure, this genre has alot of interest, going by steam frantic forum and charts, so that has to be good for everybody. PS, I forget to add some more of UAD assets that WotS doesn't have, R&D, crews & assuming captains, multiple playable nations and pollical/diplomatic/rebellion/alliance role playing.

Suspicious isn't it... or great minds think alike!

Best time to get the game was 3/10/2019 (released date of alpha 1), hope that helps.

At this stage and with UAD team, I’m a bit surprised that moddable (text, config) files isn’t a thing already. Would have been a better way to go for changing things like Custom Battles 'unlock' mode.

With War on the Sea you can give yourself some extra command points, create an extra fleet or two with them. 😊

And to add to that, interactive damage control, sub & depth charge actions, aircraft & AA actions, realistic collision damage/sinking, column formations and... A interactive world map, which I do like very much, nothing better than to see your fleets move about the globe in RT (turn base is fine too, e.g. TW). I hope the campaign revamp means scraping RTW2 spreadsheet map format and replacing it with a visual representation of fleet movements (But you know with Gamelabs when they use any words like 'revamps', it should be speculated on the 'smallest' of scales, like it would be unlikely revamp means anything too differently from the RTW2 format). RTS combat, well you gotta give them him credit for that.

Yeah, this thread should put alot of weight behind the development of steam workshops, blueprints and scenario exporting and importing. Hopefully some treaty options implementation too.

I looked into early cruisers once upon a time (was wanting too) and found there’s not that many reasonable differently shaped cruisers hulls/superstructures between 1890-1914 (even up to 1920 as you mention in another post), mostly similar as longer deck hulks, these or more variety hulls maybe difficult to procure.

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I don’t think so, I think the model motions is pivoted from a centre point and the model angles are calc based on weather level, wave point (calc from the wave time increment), object direction, turning speed and sinking state. If so then that means it could be flatten out based on the game speed (and maybe enable/disable based on zoom distance) to give alittle aesthetically pleasing view at faster gaming speeds.

Most games are developed hidden from public view, the ones that can afford it! and people do not see the true development time. These games are announced in an almost readied finished state, they’re marketed for alittle while then released. People associate that marketing timeframe with all games and think that the one’s that are developed in the public eye should release content in the same manor. EA and alphas mistimed “excitement” and “it’s been awhile” complaints are just part and parcel of public development, not for Dev’s to ever let themselves be burden by such things.

Then you should have not used the word "bobbing" to describe "friggin hurricane" conditions for the battle instance. As for ships bobbing like ducks at faster game speed, to what I through you were referring to (incorrectly), my suggestion still stands as visual bobbing suppressor and it is not complicating visual bobbing effects in the context of that said.

This could be fixed by tying the bobbing in with the game speed e.g. normal speed full effect, x10 plus no effect (or very minimal effect), speeds in-between scaled to suit effect. This should solve the over bobbing visual effect at faster game speeds and a simple scaling calc when the user adjusts the game speed wouldn't effect any performance.

Yay 😄 Nice informative roadmap, we appreciate it very much. I wonder what kind of improvements this actually refers too, could be many things, very interesting (not going to speculate though!).

I hope captain/commander names or portraits can be display in the battle instance, to provide a connection from the crew/captain/commander interface to the battle. Playing a game recently with companions, it has that correspondence. UAD can do it with captains or division commanders, names/portraits (maybe voiceovers) would create the same atmosphere. To expand on this, when the division lead changes a message could be displayed e.g. “Commander Beatty has taken command of division 1”. There could be quite a few battle related commander messages, maybe campaign messaging too.

I think it’s more to do with unavailable hulls rather than not including them, the team just has alot of work ahead of them. Even though we didn’t see any new hulls in the last couple of updates (produced turrets instead etc.), generally the team does produce them at a steady rate e.g. alpha 5 30+, alpha 6 33x destroyers.

Yes. If you want to support the project then I recommend it since there is enough content (gameplay) to cover your initial outlay, i.e. 50+ 'Academy Missions' and a 'Custom Battle' editor.

You are either for all hull/components access for every nation or you’re for nation specialized traits, you can’t be both! I’m for each nation to have there own unique hulls/components, this way each nation should be different to battle against, different to command and especially it’ll be different in the way we build/design ships of those particular nation. The scope of the game increases with each and every variance and we can play those variances by selecting its retrospecting nation. Wouldn’t this way make for a better and re-playable game? Including custom battles, like if all the hulls were accessible, why would you bother selecting nation type? I’m not so sure UAD would be more limited compared to RTW2. RTW2 has fixed turret spots, they just have alot of them, basically they have just covered all the conventional spots but you cannot place/include turrets in any other position. Whereas UAD has multiple fixing nodes where you can finely adjust positions, even all the way along the hull, side to side, therefore ultimately vastly more variable. And as with every single other player who has ever play this game, there needs to be more placement freedom, it's the ultimate must have. I think this has become the most difficult and continuous conundrum for us to convey to Dev's.