JANXOL

Many people have pointed out that gun reloads are too slow, but I was rather focused on the torpedo reload. Which is too damn fast. Way too fast. In fact, I would argue that deck mounted torpedo tubes should have NO RELOAD untill late in the game. Historically that was the case, as destroyers and torpedo boats would carry all their torpedoes in tubes and reload only in dock. There were a few classes that did carry reloads, but these appeared pretty late (Japanese Fubuki and later destroyers, Soviet Leningrad). So i would say that it should be represented in the game. Lower the weight of deck torpedo tubes. Remove all reloads from them (unless appropriate tech is researched). That reload should last a lot longer. Reload time of submerged tubes should also be increased. As it is now, a single destroyer can just rapid-fire torpedoes, wrecking most of enemy fleet. A crippled TB can fire 2-3 torpedoes from its singular launcher while the battleship attempts to finish her off with her secondaries. Torpedo spam is outrageous.

I know the modern ones can do that, yes. Didn't know about the des moines. And you could technically do that if you built the mechanism appropriately, the question is does in-game tech go to that point? I saw it mentioned that these autoloaders aren't meant to represent something as advanced as post-WW2 tech. So I guess the main question would be how advanced are we talking, and how much tonnage that would require. But as I said earlier to me it would be good to have 2 options - one with a lighter, limited elevation system, and one heavier without elevation penalties though possibly with a reduced fire rate.

Agreed, but in that case the fire rate isn't the problem, as lowering the barrel is part of the "manual" reload. In case of autoloader's you'd need to either 1. Reduce elevation 2. Include the time of lowering the gun into firing cycle and lower the maximum autoloader fire rate. I see both options as fine to be hoenst, maybe two separate options? One for maximum fire rate at the cost of elevation, the other for max fire rate without sacrificing the elevation.

I mostly agree. There could be a range limitation for automatic loading, as the process requires the barrels to be lowered, especially for large calibers and long shells. And autoloaders only work within limited barrel elevations.

That is not correct to my knowledge. Especially since "battlecruiser" idea is older than "heavy cruiser" which only came into being because of the naval treaties (and is descendant from light cruisers, rather than ACs). The German Battlecruisers were indeed different than British ones in that they were heavier armored and carried smaller guns, but note that these "smaller" were still battleship-grade caliber (11 and 12 inch). Regarding the battlecruiser's resistance in game, i think it would make sense for them to be *slightly* less resistant because of their hullform, and it would also make sense for the armor to weigh more than the same armor thickness on a dreadnought (because battlecruisers tend to be longer and thinner (sleeker) and hence the belt would be longer, at least when not using AoN). Otherwise I see no reason why the hull would be inherently weaker than a dreadnought hull.

One more thing to add to formations is that i have found ships in line ahead formation to stop dead in the water when you order a U-turn. They will wait for the first ship to complete the turn and move a bit before starting to move again and turning. The better option would be to have the following ship continue on their course and initiate their turn at the point where the lead ship did so, in a snake-like fashion. And as mentioned before it would be good to have the option to order a simultaneous turn especially to avoid torpedoes.

Accidentally i succeeded on the first try, only later did I leanr about the torpedo problems. Pure luck, I guess.

I meant the anti-torpedo boat guns, like on hms dreadnought. I realize why they did away with them, but they were used for a time. Inability to fire while main guns are in use is a valid point, as such I would understand if these dont make it into the game. I haven't heard of any ships other than Kearsarge class that used that peculiar arrangement, so I would call that a gimmick rather than "often" and it was in fact not what I was referring to.

I am mostly going to criticize but I am aiming to do so in a constructive way. I will split my points into major - regarding features, mechanics or lack of thereof and minor - mostly UI, usability and details. Major: 1. The designer is terribly restrictive. In my opinion it is absolutely crucial to have more control over several design characteristics, the first of which would be hull shape. You have already stated that ships will get wider as well as longer with displacement and that's a good thing, but i also propose the following: add another slider underneath displacement slider called "hullform". That slider will control the length to width ratio while keeping set displacement. Hulls already have hullform statistic, which could be used as a middle point. Moving slider to one side would make the hull longer and thinner - improving the hullform statistic, acceleration, and centerline space. Moving the slider the other way would make the hull shorter and wider -> the armor belt and deck weight would decrease (because it is now shorter), there would be more space for side mounted guns and stability would improve (wider ship will lean over less in a turn). 2. Continuing with design characteristic that we need more control over - towers placement. As opposed to main battery turrets and funnels (which must be placed where the hull is deep enough) there is absolutely no reason why "this forward tower cannot be placed any further back, even though the hull is perfectly capable of supporting it". The only limitation to placing tower should be that rear tower must be aft of the forward tower. Even if you want to associate some sort of spotting penalties if the forward tower is in the rear half of the ship, the player should be able to build ships such as Nelsol and Rodnol Nelson and Rodney. There is already a weight balancing factor player needs to consider when placing things (and that's a good thing). 3. Casemates. Let us remove them. And not just leave them empty, add a button to the designer that says "Remove empty casemates", which will replace all casemates without guns with smooth hull. Having the empty/welded over casemates will be awesome if you're planning refitting ships in campaign (see visible spots were casemates were before removal on US Battleships), but having them on brand new ship designs is awkward. 4. Funnels and machinery. Machinery does provide a weight balancing aspect toward the middle of the ship and that's a good start, but I feel like it would be better (and more sensible) to tie the exact point where this weight is applied to the funnel placement. It should be underneath the funnel (or in case of multiple funnels, halfway between them) rather than the exact middle of the ship. It would open up a lot more balancing options, especially when trying to build ships like Nelson, where you could use the machinery to counterweight the all-forward armament. 5. OPTIONAL. As in "it would be cool and helpful to have in the game, but not strictly necessary". Allow the players to indirectly control the citadel size and thus its mass. The citadel would span from the most forward main battery turret/funnel to rearmost main battery turret/funnel. It would allow for additional incentive of all-forward armament (with shortening of the citadel and associated weight saving). You could also gate that ability (adjusting citadel size) with tech, to simulate the adoption of all-forward scheme. 6. Towers. Right now the towers are strictly on the basis of "this one is heavier, more expensive and better than the other one", I'm hoping more towers will be added and that there will be multiple in the same tier, for example: one that gives a bigger accuracy boost, one that gives a damage control boost, one that is better at spotting, etc. Make the player think "what do I want?" rather than "can i somehow fit the best tower on this hull". Also, I would hope for addition of towers with inbuilt barbettes also in a barbette-less versions (especially if said barbette on a capital ship tower is too small for capital ship-grade calibers) 7. I don't know if this is already a feature in the game, but I couldnt find any mention of it, so I'm mentioning it: There should be accuracy penalties if a lot of different caliber guns are shooting. (Difficulties with rangefinding and differentiating splashes from one another, especially if calibers are similar). It shouldnt matter much at short range (which is why pre-dreadnoughts had a very mixed gun armament), but become more relevant as range increases. If it's already in the game, congratulations, you deserve a cookie. 8. OPTIONAL. . There is a barbette armor slot on the left side of the screen. But what does it mean exactly? Will heavy armor on a barbette be the same regardless of whether ship has 17 or 5 inches of armor? Consider giving us an additional armor thickness box for barbette instead of that unspecified protection level. So that we can say "14 in turret armor, 12.5 in barbette". 9. Allow us to mount secondary guns on top of main battery turrets. It was often done on early dreadnoughts. Minor: 1. Give as a button in the designer that will highlight all empty casemate mounts and display a number for their max size. It will save clicking through all casemates caliber trying to find ones that fit. 2. Let us use the forward underwater (?) torpedo launcher on the TB. The launcher is modelled as part of the hull, but you cant put anything in there, and i don't think its functional. 3. Restrict certain combinations of engine-fuel-boiler setup. Otherwise I present to you the brand new diesel engine fueled by coal and using induced draft boilers. (In that case probably combine all the bonuses into the diesel engine and completely disable the other two selection boxes) 4. Rotating side guns only rotates one of them, while the mirrored gun is pointing the default way. 5. Moving "incorrectly placed" mirrored guns only moves one of them There might be more of the minor category but right now that's all that comes to my mind. In summary, the designer feels good when designing pre-dreadnoughts, but when attempting to design a legitimate dreadnought it feels clunky and restrictive.There is however a lot of potential and space for improvements and i hoping there will be improvements, as this is still early access. I hope my criticism was helpful and if you need me to elaborate on any of the points above feel free to @ me. Cheers