SwaggyB

I don't have the statistics on accuracy of gunfire by type of warship so you, and others in this thread, may very well be correct. I'm sure there are many people here more knowledgeable than me on this issue. I guess my argument is that these ship do not operate in a vacuum and that because there are many factors involved i would dislike one class of ship to have a natural advantage in accuracy. I would rather accuracy be affected by things such as fire control directors, rangefinders, crew quality, quality of gun etc. In this way a battleship can be more accurate by virtue of the equipment installed (and it will have more room for said equipment) rather than just having a natural advantage. Regardless of whether a battleship is more accurate than smaller ships, i still agree with OP that smaller calibre guns are too ineffective. It is almost laughable how inaccurate smaller ships can be.

Naval gun accuracy is incredibly complex and the actual movement of the ship in the sea is a very minor problem when compared to accurately determining where a shot will fall. I dont accept your argument that a battleship will always be more accurate based solely on its size. When it comes to battleships having superior fire direction systems, this is nonsense. The Fletcher class destroyer had far superior fire control systems than any japanese battleship. Naval gunfire accuracy is heavily dependent on the technologies used to aim guns. Accuracy should be determined by these technologies (also training of crew, quality of gun etc).

I dont believe the original poster ever stated that cruisers and destroyers should be at the same level as battleships, merely that they are too weak. I agree with the general point that destroyers and cruisers need some kind of improvement, whether that be buffing torpedo damage further or improving the accuracy of smaller calibre guns. What is unrealistic is battleships having far superior accuracy than smaller ships. Also your point about cruisers and destroyers being inferior to battleships is pretty meaningless. They are inferior in terms of cost and size but there are many examples of smaller ships defeating or driving away larger ships or dealing heavy damage (Jutland, Samar, Surigao, sinking of Svent Iztvan etc) Smaller ships were often capable of dealing decisive damage and I do not think it is realistic or fun to have the battleship be near immune to damage from smaller ships.

Not quite. The destroyer was developed in response to the torpedo boat. They were originally called Torpedo Boat Destroyers

I agree, there has been some utter nonsense posted in this thread. Carriers are obviously a hugely important area of naval warfare in this period but I would rather the current mechanics of the game be perfected rather than rush CV's into the game and mess up the balance.

I think it would be good to be included as a Japan special tech, possibly with a small chance to explode when the ship carrying them is hit on the torpedo tubes?

The original point of this post was to claim that the Type 91 shell was a very important aspect of Japanese naval design and now the OP is saying it was only ever used once. This seems somewhat contradictory? I'd put this in the same category as the awful rocket AA on Hood as a nice idea that came to nothing. It would be better for the devs to focus on more important things imo

I'd be really annoyed if this game developed into anything other than a single player focused campaign game to be honest

The point i am trying to make is that whether or not a shell hits is determined by the actual aiming of the guns and corrections made by the crew, assisted by whatever technologies are available. If the guns are aimed poorly, it does not matter what size the gun is. This game uses the logic that no matter the situation, a larger gun is always more likely to hit. This, to me, is illogical and i fail to see how you could come to this conclusion considering that there are so many variables affecting gun accuracy in warships at the time. I believe a more sensible solution would be to use a similar system to rule the waves whereby accuracy is determined by: rangefinders/directors, technology increases, training, crew level and the quality of of the gun.

Why would a larger gun be "inherently" more accurate, i don't know how you could possibly evidence this? During this time period the accuracy of guns was dependent on rangefinding, fire control and the abilities of the crews of the ship. These guns were not fired in a vacuum.

I know others have raised it, but i just wanted to add my 2 cents. I do not understand why higher calibre guns get an accuracy bonus. The size of the gun should not affect accuracy, this does not make any sense to me. Accuracy should be affected by things such as: rangefinders/fire control directors, shell quality and crew skill (if this is to be included in the campaign) and not just by the calibre of the gun.

This may seem like a strange concern but due to the fact that the largest calibre guns get accuracy bonuses, i'm concerned that in the campaign the player will have to go with the larger calibre guns (e.g 17/18 inch) or else be handicapping themselves. I hope that the smaller calibre guns will still be viable in the late game and the player will be able to succeed with all types of different battleships rather than being forced to use Yamato style designs.

That's because it never happened. There is no evidence the Yamato scored a hit at that range and the damage caused to White Plains was from a shell that missed and exploded underwater causing minor damage to White Plains, therefore, not a hit anyway. The longest range hit was Giulio Cesare, delivered by Warpsite.

1) My favourite missions are: Armed Convoy Attack - I like the fact that there are multiple strategies - either ignore the defending ships and go straight for the transports or kill the escorts and have free reign to mop up the transports. It offers a good challenge due to this and i like that there are a variety of ships to choose from. Battlecruiser v Dreadnought - again it presents a challenge and because the displacement limit is low, you must carefully design your ship to suit your strategy (e.g glass cannon or heavily armoured but weaker firepower). 2) My least favourite missions are : Torpedo the Dreadnought. What i dislike about this mission is: The low funds available which limits the number of ships you can build. I think the mission would be more enjoyable if you were able to build a few more destroyers. I find the dreadnought's main battery fire too accurate, often the mission is essentially over after a few salvos from the dreadnought. The lack of damage from torpedoes Finally, i feel like it relies too much on landing lucky torpedo hits and this leads to less enjoyable gameplay Destroyers v Torpedo Boats Again, i think the funds are too low considering the number of torpedo boats you face The Destroyer's guns are too innacurate, even at close range. You need the battleship to destroy the cruisers in order to succeed but you cannot design the battleship, i find the battleship is often fairly useless. For me, either you need more funds or to lower the number of torpedo boats. 3) My suggestions for missions: A modern (i.e 1939-1945) Destroyer mission. An example of a historical battle that could be used: The battle of the Malacca straight where a number of British destroyers fought the Japanese cruiser Haguro. This could be especially interesting if the battle could be fought in heavy rain/squalls with low visibility. A Jutland style battle could be interesting (maybe not the exact same scale) but it could have you designing super dreadnoughts to rescue your retreating battlecruisers. A modern (again 1930's to 40's) light cruiser v heavy cruiser battle that allows you to build multiple light cruisers to face a modern heavy cruiser. Historical examples - the battle of River Plate (although this included Exeter) or the battle of the Barents sea. This mission could involve chasing down a heavy cruiser and overwhelming it and could involve destroyers. This mission would require a limit on the armour thickness of the heavy cruiser i think. 2-3 inches of belt armour similar to the Admiral Hipper class. Hopefully, some of this was useful. Keep up the good work.

Large calibre high explosive rounds seem too effective against heavy ships to me. I just played the search and destroy mission with 2 BC's with 14" guns and had HE salvos regularly penetrating the enemy BB's decks (one salvo cause flooding) at long range. Whereas AP seemed to have little effect. At short range HE was more effective as well. In the game's current state there seems to be no point in having your ships fire AP.

I have a few queries/suggestions Will you allow a bit more flexibility with tower placement, in particular will you allow the towers to be placed to the rear of the ship in order to allow for all forward main battery arrangements as seen on Richelieu/Dunkerque/Nelson? Will you allow dual turrets and superimposed guns on destroyers? I appreciate there have already been suggestions regarding hulls but i would just like to add that it would be great if there were options for widening hulls as i have found it difficult at times to add a decent secondary battery to some dreadnoughts, particularly with ships with large main armaments. Overall i have found the ship designer fairly good and appreciate that it is not overly complex.