Zak MacKay

I sank 1 enemy battleship assuming the lone division. With the 2 battleship division still existing. After some time battling I sank enough destroyers and the mission just ended. The requirements say sink all their battleships which I clearly did not do.

I would rather they be known for the most part. Missions are meant to be more a test of skill and learning right? If I wanted random missions theirs the custom scenario for that. I feel like missions should be more crafted events where restarting for a new seed is not a big factor. Having a crafted ship may give players hints on what a good ship looks like. Instead of something vomited out. With random ships it may be reset and try again. Which is just a RNG check not skill. Where if you lose against a pre determined ship you just need to learn and improve. I feel like hard missions could then be much harder. Because theirs no randomness to make the mission easier or harder. So it would be a achievement to do it without some seeds being impossible to win. Yes you can prepare exactly for it but the challenge does not have to be randomness it can just be a unfair fight you need to win with superior crafting ability. Maybe their should be a second type of mission which are more random and intended for fun. But I don't think their really needed.

On the ships being samey that is more a issue for dreadnoughts. Fast battleships have a lot more customization. Older models also tend to be a lot more restrictive then newer ones. But many of my ships tend to be similar as ships just seem to trend towards a few designs. Things that don't show in the picture tend are where the main customization is. Theirs probably quite a few major differences between are ships. But on a surface design they are similar with similar towers, weapons, and secondary layouts. Armored cruisers are kind of in a weird place they should be closer to battlecruisers which can get 8" casemate. They have not gotten much love and attention yet so it may just be time before justice is given to them. It is a alpha game. Plunging fire can be kind of important. Its not always the best idea to close in. In the mission the US ships do seem to have high armor but most of my damage comes from deck penetration it seems. So closing in against them may actually reduce damage not increase it. You can also soften them up from a range and once they have some damage close in. If you have a advantage in long range gunnery you can really exploit it. Same with maneuverability you can often use it to get a advantage. I am often liking to put 1 torpedo in to disrupt their formation and give tool to help finish them off. Many of my battles are determined more by plunging and long range gunnery then closing in to finish them off. Some I will just bum rush them though. Slow heavily armored ships I often defeat by maneuvering to reduce their accuracy. Moving in a straight line would increase your accuracy but that may not be in your favor. It may sound cheesy but I will often cross the T when attempting to close in. From both the front and rear of the enemy line. But shooting and moving at a long range is probably the majority of it. 8" secondaries are a interesting conundrum. I know many of my early ships had a very big secondary battery but I am now heavily cutting it down. I think I had a ship with 20 barrels of 8" secondaries per side in a combination of turrets and casemates. When I realized how insane roll was it dramatically changed my designs. Roll is actually kind of insane at times.

FWI alt screenshot to take pictures of windows without your desktop Are you sure its not your ships? You seem to be using protection and maneuverability focus right? Your using 8" casemate, mk1 guns, 7.1% fore weight, and a far ends of the ship. Your ship has many features which almost make it as inaccurate as possible. Just because you have 14" does not make them the best weapons. You are using mk1 instead of mk3 guns. Also are you sure you did not hit and failed to penetrate. Without the better gun option you need to get dangerously close to have a chance to penetrate instead of hitting from far. Ships of the biggest size tend to have weight issues. I am preferring smaller to mid range ships now instead of biggest possible. Casemate guns tend to cause excessive roll especially 8". On the ship details scroll down to see how insane your roll is. Your also investing a lot of money into something which probably makes your ship worse. 5 or 6" are my most used secondary sizes because their cheap, and effective. 8" secondaries are more useful against cruisers and battleships instead of destroyers. Or at later tiers where you need extreme ranges for oxygen torpedoes. Just because the AI is bad at piloting does not make it a unbalanced mission. Destroyers are easy to counter if you know what you are doing. AI are often bad so would have issue dealing with them. Here is a ship I made with firepower focused. When I let the AI have control I hit on the first salvo of the fight for a penetrating hit. In fact I absolutely stomped the enemy ships in every category with no need for a second chance as they where just utterly devastated. No torpedos where shot as the destroyers where torn apart as soon as they where spotted. The Americans scored their first partial penetration when they where half dead. They only did minor damage with 99% structure remaining on one ship. I possibly could have resisted these as my deck was on the lower end. But I have been playing this game for a while and am a min-maxer so I know the ins and outs of ship design. You may just need to better know what aspects of ships are needed and not needed. I cut many things from my ship which allowed me to get 3 of them. It also lets my invest in things that actually matter and not just meaningless fluff. The reason I picked firepower focus was just for more firepower. In the majority of scenarios its just the better option. In some protection is nice but firepower is better here. Theirs also a lot of accuracy benefits added by firepower focus while survivability is more weight. Things like auto loaders and super heavy shells can make a massive difference and. My 14" guns fire like 10" guns giving me more chances to hit. With the higher penetration from shell weight and tiers my 15km belt penetration is comparable to 5km. Getting better armor just lets you get closer. Where with better guns you don't need to get closer. I did not pick the biggest but picked the most economical guns I could find. In this case it was mk3 14" vs mk1 so it was a easy decision. 15 and 16" where mk1 so where just inferior weapons. 2 gun turrets are more cost/weight efficient over 3. I will often only have 4 turrets but was kind of forced to have room for the fifth turret. 15x2 will shoot faster and more accurately over 10x3. Destroyers are fragile the most important thing is hitting them instead of destroying them with a single shot. 6" where historically one of the most used calibers as they packed a good punch while being quick to fire. My ships can fire at 66.88rpm per side each. If I used 8" I would only be able to get 29.22rpm with 8" guns. Another advantage 6" have is their mk4 over mk3. This means their only a bit less accurate over 8" which is compensated for by volume of shot. The cost and weight savings of 6" are about the same as a 2 vs 3 gun 14" turret. 6" are often the best secondary as they just work with a reasonable cost.

Theirs also the 299.4kg of propellant. Together they are 1524.4kg which would be approximately the same.

I put my guns ontop of my ironclad. You expect you to not be able to put guns their but you can and they preform a lot better their. Yes a casemate ironclad with no casemates. 2 ironclads with 3 guns each. Maybe the enemy monitors just had too weak belt extended as they where penetrated and sank their.

I think they kind of due that already. I think I have had issues due to excessive listing not allowing me to properly shoot. If I remember ships do capsize when sinking. But a few will just break apart and sink in place depending on how it sank.

The limitation is kind of weird and seems more like a holdover in custom battles. I feel like CA and CL are getting more of a defined difference right now. Before the displacement limitation was more involved instead of just a few years. But in the most recent update their was a lot more CL's added and the displacement limit seems to be removed for many years. Armored cruisers seem to be in a weird place. They should be treated a lot more like battlecruisers which get 8" casemate guns. Instead their treated more like post treaty cruisers and restricted in size.

They are just not fully fleshed out. Some like france is made from components of other ships. It's in development and until recently many did not exist. UK for example may get a KGV for modern battleship. I think N3 is one of the few interwar hull forms. So their may be more comparable to it eventually. The game is in pre early access stage. It's getting developed. Austria hungarians modernized dreadnought is pretty strong imo. It's a large ship reaching if i remember super heavy battleship sizes. Its resilience is the highest in the game letting it greatly reduce damage taken. I think the difference is more hull form vs resistance for them. Dreadnoughts are thicker and have good resistance. Modern battleships are thin and can go fastm Some of them have bad hull form so not as suitable for fast battleship designs. You can still do it just you need to spend a lot more money and weight on it.

You could create 2 balanced ships and see how they do against each other. Or get a proper challenge like a another 18" armed super battleship. Not a 15" armed ship. You would also have a better idea how powerful your ships are if you compare it against your own. It would also let you have a kind of multiplayer. Where it could be my ship vs your ship.

Triples are also my go to turret. But I am frequently using 4 of them as their is a bit easy to spam. Twins don't cause that much pitch as their lighter and put a more even placement on the hull. I was just looking at twins and their just good. If I was weight/cost restricted I would use 4 twins instead of 3 triples or 4 triples. For larger secondaries I am now using twins as I had a nasty tendency to over invest on triple. Some secondary placements I use triples as space is more restrictive then weight. On the side 5-7" gun spam to reduce weight. Where a few key placements of 3-4" triples on the super structure. 4x2 have greater output in terms of shot then 3x3 while being more accurate.

Talking late game not early game. Single turrets I have found to be effective only really when using lighter ammunition. Casemate guns in particular can be quite a bit lighter but tend to cause roll. Twin guns I find to consistently be the most effective for weight and cost. Triples are space efficient. The 5% accuracy and ROF reduction is just too much reducing their weight efficiency quite a bit. I often use triples as I can only fit a few turrets on most ships. If you compare 4 twin vs 3 triples. Twins weigh less, shoot faster, and are more accurate. The size difference is really not that extreme either its a single barrette. So I am often using 4 twins or 4 triples. Twins are just kind of so much stronger then triples right now. I feel like a mechanic is needed to make triple main guns better. Maybe a overall weight increase as if you give up things like torpedo defense you can have a ton of guns. It would make it harder to make 12 or more gun ships. But compacting the hull and all or nothing around would help remove this weakness.

Maybe I should give the new super cruisers more of a try. One thing I don't like about the Japanese super cruiser is the 3" secondaries on the towers

My most recent ships with 6-7" secondaries have preformed reasonably. While their not as destructive I have found they can force back destroyers which combined with evasive maneuvers stops torpedo attacks. Which is their goal stop torpedo attacks so just because the enemy is not dead does not mean their doing a bad job. I found myself placing way too many secondaries before but have since reduced how many I put down. Lets say you have 2 dual 8" turrets per side you could in my custom battle test have 11 dual 5" or 4 dual 6". Secondaries tend to be on the otter edges of the ship where they can cause extreme roll. The roll and weight makes them best used in the center line. Navies put a ton of emphasis on larger guns. They just kept growing and growing until treaties forced them to stop. I have found myself frequently not using the biggest guns but often a smaller higher tier weapon. But only to a point. If you want to spam 12" 3 I think one of the things with this and secondaries is aiming time. It may be reworked in the future so you need a specific amount to be effective and cannot just use a single triple 8" and expect it to work at 15km. So at a given tonnage you cannot effectively use 18" and have to use 16" instead. Maybe campaign would solve that more with a tech system and in general. Naval academy missions right now are kind of based around building 1 ship. In the campaign it may not be viable to build just one super ship The only solution I can think of this is disabling systems like radar when shot. So they can disable parts of ships but cannot destroy the entire thing. That is just how things where. Theirs a reason dreadnought capital ships where so important back in the day. They where naval power. Technology! During the 20th century technology advanced at a extreamly high rate. On Wikipedia their is a naval artillery ranges to give a estimate. What is close range to a 1940's ship a early dreadnought cannot physically hit. Even though their only a few decades apart. Ships where not just outdated but obsoletted at a rapid pace.

So what is your current favorite hulls or ship types to build? For battleship mine is the Austrian modernized dreadnought. Its a flexible hull. Its engines can get up to 79.4% capacity with maximum speed and minimum size making it reasonably fast. It has the highest resilience in the game letting it get -82% torpedo and gun damage resistances. The towers have a very flexible position letting you place 3 guns forward. But I mostly like it for the massive resilience. I also like the new light cruisers and battle cruisers but don't have any exact favorites. Heavy cruisers I just find kind of boring to design.

While I would like more features I don't think MP should be a priority. I have a feeling only a small portion of the player base would actually use MP. I would prefer more mechanics in other areas then MP. Being able to pick the enemy and a good AI should be good enough to challenge your friends. Or community sharing features

Looks good. Incoming argument about are large cruisers battlecruisers? But that is probably the most fitting place for them in terms of game play. I am looking forward to seeing the difference between heavy and light modern cruisers.

That was one of the planned features on the trailer. But I think they are shelving it due to complexity and AI. I would kind of like some more customization and options.

I was thinking simpler of just single, double, and triple being different sizes. Easier to implement and more straight forward. Not a large mechanical change like doubling turret options. Just increase the difference between existing. Right now once you get though tech singles are just bad with little advantages. Doubles I calculated have some weight/cost advantages and triples have space. With the change you can use smaller turrets in places where triples would not fit. Getting better arcs or on smaller hulls. I think the british 18 inch monitors and large light cruiser mounts where adapted from the 15". So instead of needing a yamato sized turret for a single gun it's much much smaller and would fit on most barbettes. Triple secondaries would no longer fit everywhere meaning you use doubles or singles. Unless you downsize for smaller guns.

Right now if you can fit a double you can get a triple in. What if their was a size difference to greater diversity options. So on some narrow places of hull only a double would fit. Like the pensacola cruiser with superfiring triple over twin turrets. Or on some narrow hull designs you could not fit a triple so have to use twin if you want the biggest guns. Even if the actual mounting options did not change. A smaller twin turret would have better arcs. So on something like the bismarck you may pick twin to get better arcs and The standard barbette right now can use triple 15" guns. With the size difference it could also be able to use twin 16", and if added quad 14". I think this would give more options in which size guns you use For secondaries you would not be as locked into a single size. It would hopefully mean if you want the strongest secondaries you don't just cover it in tiny triple mounts but instead single.

You should have just picked the more money if you thought it was too expensive. You either need to make cuts but get higher tier weapons or you need to use lower tier. You really just want both options and no build challenge. Here is one with everything you kind of want. 30kn speed, Armored against 18" guns between 10-12.5km with turtleback and generally high HP, Good firepower with highest tier fire control and highest tower, and every secondary filled with twin. I made cuts to things like using steam engines. I could probably make it more refined increasing armor for higher distances and against 16" instead. Some of the weak secondaries removed. But its just a general idea that it works. But more realistic you should use a smaller hull and towers. The newest missions are some of the few I did not auto use the biggest tower and size. If you use highest tech you should probably use a smaller ship. If you are using higher cash you should use a bigger ship. Also the actual H class used 16" and 16.5" guns. Except the less serious ones which had no work done. H-39 used 16" not 15".

The newest missions are more a challenge due to cost limitations. I personally picked more money in most of them to. Because before you start the mission you have 2 options either a more high tech and restrictive ship or a lower tech but bigger/more ships. These where some of the few missions I considered more budget a great idea. You cannot have your cake and eat it. You could probably get 4 twin turrets instead of triples. Or you need to drop something you considered necessary. Maybe your secondary battery is more extensive. Have you considered twin secondaries they are often more cost efficient. It's a challenge with working on a limited budget. You need to actually cut things and learn what is worth it and not. If you just include useless stuff just because you would have a bad time. Designing ships not to the limit has made them more reasonable IRL. I have ended up cutting down the secondary battery and tower massively. This leads to my ships shrinking in size. In the US mission I was using 3 triples to save on cost. My custom battleships no longer look like a meme with a ton of secondaries.

On the speed part ship size also changes engine efficiency. So a smaller ship will have better engine efficiency. I use speed as one of my main anti torpedo methods. Just sailing away from the enemy destroyer and they won't be able to torpedo you. Battleships and especially battlecruisers can move extreamly fast meaning they cannot torpedo you at that range. Torpedoes also cause the enemy to panic. You may be able to shut off half the enemy main guns when they turn to avoid torpedoes. It also prevents destroyers from approaching you and a lot of good things overall. Citadel protection also increases resistance which reduces torpedo and gun damage while increasing armor's thickness. On the hull you are using All or nothing reduces gun damage by 10% and turtle back by 22%. It seems a bit heavy and costly compared to armor but its actually not the worst. I think its more due to armor overall being worlds ahead of everything else which makes them bad. But their not super far from being viable. Some towers and funnels are definitely heavier then they first seem. Barrettes are also just way too heavy and big meaning I am shying away from them. Many towers act as barrettes for secondaries so kind of have the similar issue of your paying this high premium for placement. I changed a ship from having 2 turrets forward and 2 aft to having 3 forward and 1 aft and it just seemed a lot better. The arcs seemed better, I reduced weight, and even opened up some secondary mounts on the tower. Because the huge barrette was just really huge. The secondary barrette I tried to find a use for but it just seems awful. Would I rather have better arcs in one place or place a separate gun somewhere else. Its a pretty obvious answer with more guns covering more area and being less weight. Small guns seem like they should be a lot lighter making it useful. A 4" gun is just pretty heavy and spamming them across your ship can add hundreds of tonnes to its weight without really adding anything. Many high tier towers benefit is being able to spam a bunch of 3-4" guns which are just worthless later on. It seems like single mounts should be different somehow to make spamming them on towers more effective. But right now I would heavily consider if the secondary gun will actually be worth its weight.

I used max money and made 2 battleships. Using superior speed (36kn) and a mass of secondaries to stop the DD's from getting close. I focused on sinking the larger division and let the lone one escape. Speed also helped a lot in chasing them down at the end. 2 Battleships gave me 18 18" guns which are fast and well protected from gunfire. The secondary armament of 10 or 15 6" guns worked quite well in repelling the DD attacks while moving away from them.

I have done it a few times so far as I really like the hull. I found exploding them to be pretty lethal thing. Balanced tech seems the best. I focused heavily on speed and firepower. My stratagy was to just rush it and engage inside a duel. They had no chance to get to the convoys as we where dueling. Aggressive torpedoes and trying to maneuver my ship to launch torpedoes and fire on its broadside. Constantly maneuvering and using my speed. I often ignored the heavy cruiser and focused on the battleship.