Tousansons

If people are crying over and over again for the same stuff during the development of a game. It's probably because this "stuff" is not there or doesn't work. A better armor model is basically something some of these "crying guys" are asking for since.. Well, the moment they realized it wasn't there. Armor model is needed in UA:D if we want a semblance of realism. Even if I wasn't always happy about the way this feedback was delivered, you can't say it was just pages of "cry". A critic is still a feedback, it's even more valid if it is backed with evidence in game, like it generaly was.

I remember writing something like: "I don't care about spreadsheet accuracy as long as basic things like crews or a more detailed armor model are missing." But hey, soon after there was pages of poorly scanned documents and military archives about the penetration value of a german 2inch shell between the 2nd to 3rd august 1912 at 6000 on a steel plate 100mm thick. I don't know if this caused the back and forth of balance/band aid fix of accuracy and penetration value we experienced, it surely took some pages space. Here we are now. Basic things are still missing and if I read the OP correctly this will not change for quite some time. I still don't care about history spreadsheet. I played a shit ass naval browser game with better logistics and formation handling than Rule the Waves and there was no realism in it, just the abstraction of historical trivia about warships. And it was awesome, if too much of a grind. Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnought is okay and probably ready for the wider steam audience in early access. There is decent fun to be had with the naval academy and battles are always nice to watch. The ship builder allow some fun design, broken meta boats, and if you don't look too much into the numbers, it "feel" like designing a warship with a set of technical limitations. The problem lies within the presentation and like some have always pointed out (although not the way I wanted it) the core. UI need work, we don't have a tactical map/minimap in a strategy game. Armor model need an overhaul, I don't want to remove the ability to flee of the IA just because I can't pen it's inner compartiments in a stern chase.. With 18inch guns. Where is the crew? Even abstracted as another "HP" layer that add modifiers in accuracy/reload and damage control it would be better than nothing with the occasional nerf/buff to X gun calliber. If shelving the campaign can give me a tight game with an okay random battle designer, a medium sized naval academy with cool puzzles and all the aforementioned things working in a decently modern looking game. I'll gladly take this road. Even if it take 5-6 months too. Please, just work the core. I don't want the campaign.

Curious to see the new auto generation of ships and eager to retry the missions with less fleeing enemies. As for the campaign, it was obvious we would have to wait. They already have a pretty big chunk of numbers to crunch and balance (armor model, for exemple), we are still lacking some sort of crew modelling, and the UI while functional is in dire need of improvement before an early access release on steam. I'll wait... Eeeh... Maybe if we could have more options to the battle generator... Pretty please?

You're right I made the assumption this will be possible to an extent in the game. However, it would be a mistake to not give at least "some" control of political matters to the players. And if politics fails once again, as a player you should still be able to not search a decisive fleet battle against a nation who field way more BB's than you do. Avoid major battles, raid, seek for peace as soon as possible. As long as you can keep your battlebotes afloat, you're winning in the long run.

In game perspective this will be rather easy. Pick Germany. Build a fleet. Don't pick a fight with someone way bigger than you. Keep a good and relevant naval strenght for the rest of the campaign. Pick Japan. Build a fleet. Don't pick a fight with someone way bigger than you. Keep a good and relevant naval strenght for the rest of the campaign. I fail to see where it will be un-fun to play. Just don't repeat history and you'll be fine.

Just to nitpick: Task Force Admiral is made by a totally different studio than killerfish called Drydock Dream Games. This game main focus is carrier operations and planes. Killerfish is actually developing a ww2 themed game named War on the sea. A game which seems to focus on general ww2 surface engagement with or without carriers. In the end we all know the real game is named Sea Power - Naval Combat in the missile age, developed by the split team of Killerfish, Triassic games. This game will focus on cold war naval operations and is already looking glorious (no bias here) If we add Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnought in the equation. We have a year full of really interesting upcoming naval games.

Increased funds for player. Increased funds for player. Increased funds for player. Increased funds for player. Increased funds for player. This and some mission where the enemy will finaly stop retreating is a really nice change. For some missions (like heavy duty and number don't matters) it will also mean you can fit more guns or add more steel boards with no armor or speed to the party \o/ I know Academy Mission are designed as puzzles, but in a game where luck is present, you can't expect a tight budget and scrict objectives to work well when a single 152mm hitting the propulsion of a DD means game over. Allowing more room for the player to design more silly design could be a very nice way to make academy mission unique and really fun, because let's be honest, most of the time in these mission you create a monstrosity that will never fit in a campaign.

Carriers in itself is nothing more than a moving and vulnerable airfield requiring extensive escort, good weather condition and obviously good planes. Using video-game analogy and avoiding the critical function of every other ships in a regular fleet containing a carrier is a bit unfair. Battleship are not used today because they are obsolete and add redundancy to the role other class can now perform the same way, if not better for a fraction of the maintenance cost. This doesn't mean carriers and planes didn't have a role in their obsolescence, but it is hardly the only reason. During ww2 battleships were still used extensively by the allied forces, to hunt the remaining axis warships, but also to protect their carrier forces with their numerous (and quite efficient AA) and finally to support the landing or knock down shore installations. Let's not forget there was american BB's firing their 406mm guns and newly fitted missiles during the gulf war in 1991. In war, you stop being used when you have no role, not because some shiny new toy make things go 'BOOM' faster than you usually do. The fleet composition and its supply train, its modernity and the competence of its admirals, finally the courage of the poor sods working their asses loading the guns or cooking in the boiler rooms. This is the true naval power. Oh, and the lucky shot that detonate in an ammo storage. Now UA:D: The reason carriers are probably added as offmap assets like submarines is UA:D is probably due to the massive change of scale and range this would impose to the game. I wonder how this will work out, but as far as I'm concerned, I will continue to claim that we need a working dreadnought game before thinking about the whole new layer and complexity of air operations in a naval game. As for their power in games. I will once again use the exemple of RTW2: Even if the player know that carriers are the powerful end game tool to get before missiles, he must build a significant battleship force before he can field a significant and efficient carrier group and so does the AI. Then, during all the remaining year of the campaign, even if he doesn't build anymore battleboats, he will keep a portion of this force (dwindling by the year, obviously). The game simulate pretty well the need to "impose" power with sheer tonnage until the end, battleships are perfect for the role. You can also refit them with AA guns. And if you scrap them, the other nations might laugh at you and your prestige will suffer. Because in the end, it's all about the end game score, right?

This bothered me, so I made some more test. For the most part, I think you are indeed right on the fact that DD's seems to be hit more frequently than the other ship classes. But, let me detail a bit: - I made several custom battles: year 1924, using the best fire control technology on various hull. From light cruisers to battleships. I played on the DD side too with the same settings. DD's with 40kn speed, cruisers/BB's with generally 31+kn. Four DD's on one side, one cruiser/BB on the other (hardly a fair fight, but eh.) Starting range was 14km, but battle usually happened at 10km, finishing at 4km and lower. I used cruise speed as soon as contact with the DD's was established. My hit rate (all calibers mixed) was around 2-3% (with some exception). One hit is generally enough to cripple a DD (as expected) and said DD returning fire do jack-shit (as expected too). - I also made a custom battle with 2BB, 1CA, 2CL, 6DD: year 1924, 14km engagement range with the battle starting at 11km. I let the AI play this one. CA and CL on my side where left mostly untouched for the duration of the battle. The BB's took some hit from the rather inferior enemy one. DD's exploded from both side with my side gaining the advantage. The mixed hit ratio was 7% on my side, 2-3% on his. Numbers are not really relevant with such a small sample, but on randomly checking hit ratio on ships this was still 2-3% hit against DD's. On the other hands, CL survivability is really high, not because they are more evasive, mainly because they are never fired at by anything bigger than a DD (and remember, DD guns can't do shit for now) On one hand we can say that the screening by the destroyers was a success (even with the losses) On the other hand what was important in this battle was the target priority of the AI: BB (main caliber only) = DD > CA > CL If my memory is right, this is a recurent scenario, the AI probably focus on the less armored target before switching to battleships with all it's remaining might. No wonder DD's are getting wrecked all day, anyday. - What can give the impression that DD's are hit fairly frequently in my opinion: First, they get focus fired by the AI with near maniac behavior. The CA loaded with guns exposing her flattest broadside? Nope. The CL rushing with the destroyers to make a torpedo run? Nah. The little girl 8km in the fog already inside smoke and trying to sail away? You bet she will get the attention of everything. The combinaison of short range effectiveness and lack of endurance make the destroyer an easy target to focus (and sink) by the AI. With this, even a 1-2% hit ratio is sufficient to score a hit on one or two destroyers at the beginning of an engagement. Second, Destroyers are really easy to take out of a battle. One or two hit with something ranging from 127mm to 203mm is enough to cripple a tin-can. Mixed with the above rain of shell, this can clearly give the impression that destroyers are subject to more frequent hits. A catastrophic hit on a DD is easily catched by the player eye, her structure bar take a massive hit, or even the game tell you right away "DD X sink due to structural damage" the other fact that DD's are deployed in numbers means that they sink in numbers too. BB's and cruisers can take some big hits, but this is usually less frequent due to the fact that they have better armor and need to be penetrated by guns with longer reloads before taking significant damage. - To conclude: I'm curious to see what quality of life improvement will be made for the destroyers. Better AI handling of the target selection could be one thing, their pathfinding in bigger formations, crew members allowing DD's guns to effectively do something against bigger target? More importantly what will be their roles in the upcoming campaign? If they spend most of the wars with convoy and screening duty while sinking in minefield, air raids and the occasionnal "decisive battle" it's still plenty occasion where they can make some heroic acts, even in their current state. PS: I did not do extensive testing for years above 1930 and the later technology. In my opinion this will not change much, except the fact that destroyers will sink probably a bit faster, if they are spotted sooner, shot at with more accuracy at longer range and with increased rate of fire.

Some Destroyers achieved "impossible feats". Most of them where sunk without achieving anything other than "being gallant". The exception should never be considered like the norm. If Yukikaze never took any serious hit during the war, despite being in some pretty Burger-eating heavy environnement, I would rather use the fate of the other Kagero class destroyer to judge the overall usage efficiency of this particular (and sexy) class of destroyers. Destroyers "can" deal serious damage but they are way easier to sink than something heavier. The fact that they where used extensively as escort, picket, vanguard and other very safe assignement further added to the rather heavy casualties. For now In UA:D, use destroyers as screen, use torp at range, don't hope too much of your guns (yet) against anything bigger than a light cruiser. I'll wait for the crews and the way of killing them before saying that a ship type "sucks". They have a role to play and sometimes, they can make some pretty neat heroic acts.

The flash fire animation is pretty neat, I like it a lot. The new academy missions are strange. Who knew naval engagement including a lots of tin can and torpedoes would lead to a whole new world of RNG. I'm curently struggling with Mission Impossible and Torpedo Bonsai. I like the new detailed UI. It's not much, but clearer numbers display is always a nice addition. The soundtrack is okay, if a bit generic. The ambiant parts are definitely better than the action one. I will not nitpick too much about something so trivial though. And the ducks. The Ducks are here \o/

I'm really curious about the new combat statistics. ..And the Ducks. Praise the Ducks.

HE spam was in since the beginning, it was always more reliable to load HE at long/mid range, in alpha 3 these HE could pen and flood as easily as AP. In alpha 4 it seems to work better now that AP penetration is so low, but trust me, nothing really changed here. I agree with the "overcompensating adjustement" and in my opinion it is a mistake. Tweaking accuracy/pen/whatever numbers this dramatically when crucial parts of the game are still not here feels wrong and could just blind the feedback in the direction of these said numbers before the important part that are broken since day 1.

Some initial impression: - I don't know if it's good or bad, I don't care if it's historical or not. Battle last longer while still requiring low to no user input. The fact that time compression is locked to *5 doesn't help either. I'll do more battles to be sure and will eagerly wait for the campaign before making some final assumption (right now I mostly play custom battle, generaly with mirror opposition) - Ship AI is still retarded. I will continue my quest: this is one of the top priorities right now, ships can't keep with formation, especially when they decide to fall back into the line. They tend to bump into each other and this can lead to blobs of easy targets. This is not the kind of micromanagement an RTS can be proud of, especially in a game with such a long reaction time and distance between units. - Larger ships are sturdier, flooding are less frequent, damages after penetration are not that high. I'll do more ship design and test in this one but I think it's easier to design heavily protected design with impressive speed and decent armament. Note that the added survavibility doesn't change much for the battle outcome, AI ship design (and decision in battle) are still lacking and the only difference is the added time needed to sink them. Price is probably what will make the difference in the campaign. Overall i'm not sure about the added lenght to battles and find the patch to be a bit underwhelming (as expected with the initial patch note). The glaring issues of pathfinding and performances are still there, ships designer is still a bit wonky in some area (like the need to rotate the two small 2inch at the bow of the US modern BB) all for two new hulls and some puzzle missions.

Internet forums falling for a troll and deviating from the original post past half the second page? Who knew? I don't remember the term Wehraboo having some political meanings. It's a fun way of mocking "these" obligatory internet guys and their (often) false ideas about german military, nothing more. They also exist for the other nations, although to a lesser extent. I know looking for politics in memes and internet subculture is the way of the new insecure crowd to try to add some "control" and "definition" to all of this mess, but can we stay clear from that in a naval game forum? Are we really going overboard with one guy saying it was sad to see some navy kraut wet dream in UA:D in a three line long post? hey at least be more entertaining, add some pictures, .gif ect. It was funnier with the sextuple turret topic.

I'm mildly interested to see how the ability to choose target with main/secondary will work with the (needed) change of penetration/secondary armament power. It's a nice little addition BUT if secondary power is finally toned down, I don't really see the point other than heavy LARPing. All big guns BB's with a strong pest reppellent escort is in my opinion the way to go as long as there is no planes involved. On the other hand it's needed for torpedoes and I welcome it. I'm much more interested in the durability of capital ships, change to secondaries damage, improvement in AI ship design and hope to live long enough to see the day when large caliber HE shells will not be the one and only choice at long ranges. Finally, alas the day has come when the ugly Bismarck show her hull. Looking forward to next week!

True. But don't forget that what is fun for you.. I get it, you don't like the way the AI is handled in RTW. You also don't like the way the game tell you that specialized ships will most likely not be deployed where you want and you probably don't like some other things seeing how virulent you are against it. But hey, I'm not bothered by that and I find it quite fun to "master" one or two aspect of the meta-game of RTW. This doesn't mean there is no problems with it, just that you (and probably more like you) did not find that fun while the others (like me) though the opposite. I will not try to argue against your fun (because I understand you want a fair opposition and while it did not bother me there is not really one in RTW) But I think talking about AI is still really interesting: Let's be honest, AI in RTS's are hard to develop. You can't emulate an human mind without a lots of time and efforts. If games like Starcraft or Age of Empire can't make an AI who doesn't cheat, can't defend itself in lower difficulty or feel unaturally stronger than it's human opponent in the higher ones, I doubt games with the scope or RTW or now UA:D will fare better. There will be some compromise, and way to make it stronger or last longer. For exemple I quite liked how UG: Civil War handled its campaign. While the AI is clearly advantaged with numbers through it (It never really runs out of manpower even after several crushing blows), it never felt "that" cheap and was engaging until the last phase of Richmond (For some reason there was basically no defenders here) Finally like I said earlier, I agree with having some kind of control over our fleet deployement or why not diplomacy in UA:D. But now let's see how the campaign work first.

That is simply not true. In Rule the waves the player can easily turn the tide of a war in a single fleet battle, even after loosing several "unfair" small engagement where he decided to fight when the option to flee was easily available. The combination of often vastly superior player ship design and his better control over his fleet (in battle AND in the world map) are beyond the ability of RTW AI. RTW can be frustrating at times (mostly with its random event, in my opinion), but his way of giving some advantages to the AI is rather elegant and add an interesting challenge for the player. While there is no incentive to stay at peace in RTW there is definitely several ways to gently push the odds to go to war against something you can and want to beat. Spying is one option and the game love to throw you events where ou can brag against a chosen nation. Likewise, you can slow down the process and try to avoid a conflict against someone you don't want for quite some time if you don't mind losing some prestige points.

I don't see RTW way of advising the player to design and build multi-purpose and efficient designs as a failure, at least certainly not it's greatest. I'm much more annoyed by the constant raider battles taking the place of more important stuff. Worst, the arbitrary "One of your X as been torpedoed and sunk by an enemy submarine" that keeps happening even after going overboard with ASW patrols. At least in RTW if one of your specialized/subpar/obsolete ship is pitted against something she can't face you have the chance to just make an heroic U turn and leave the combat as fast as you can. Most of the time you doesn't lose war points if the battle ends up as a draw. I'm with akd on this one. I'm fine with "randomly" scrambling ships from an area to form a fleet before an engagement, I just would also like to have some control over a basic organisation to influence the odds of having the group of ship Y sailing together when this happen.

- Better formation pathfinding. This is especially important in larger battle, micromanaging bad unit pathing is the bane of RTS's. Right now it's usually a terrible idea to cross the path of a battleship with even a nimble destroyer. I also already made a statement about the automatic fall back feature too. This need to be adressed even before the campaign. - Better performances in larger battles OR a better way to tweak graphical parameters. Naval academy missions runs pretty well, but it's easy to turn the game into a slideshow with custom battles. This is a common issue with game made on unity, the more assets on the area (not necessarily on screen), the more it will choke. - Crew members, how they will affect battle performances of a ship and how they will react when it's under pressure. "If" the campaign have some kind of experience model for ships and crew, I think it's important to add them before hand, allowing the player to test different quality in custom battles. On a final note: In my opinion all values, be it guns, armor, morale or whatever should not be a priority as long as all of the gameplay elements are added. I fail to see the point of changing numbers in a part of the damage model or accuracy when (for exemple) the aforementioned crew is not even present on board. Working on balance (or historical accuracy in this case) in an incomplete game feels a bit wrong and a waste of time. Tweaking them to allow the player to test it properly is a different beast, of course.

Options tweaking some in game stats or different difficulty options in the campaign are not unreasonnable. For exemple It already exists in Ultimate General: Civil War, or in more complex games, this could range from easier to play to easier to use (You can choose the number of days in a turn in GG: War in the pacific). In the end this would indeed add some value to the overall experience while still being options. This doesn't mean you have to add them right now, this would be ridiculous and I don't think this was ever Teckelmaster intention. @arkhangelsk Why are you on a crusade against this hotfix, And why are you making your damnest to confuse everything with the final release? You spend a lot of time in long winded posts, fighting against an imaginary crowd who wants nothing but arcade fun without realistic numbers. The topic in its vast majority want some change in the accuracy and in the damage model and the various feedback already pointed the problems. You are losing yourself here with the tale of "arcade DLC" or "they can't show that in their promotion" and your obsession with reverting to a previous alpha. You're here to test and give feedback. If things are not good, you are right to point it (as we all did in different ways) I m confident a lots of value in accuracy and in the damage model will change in the next few patches. Playing the doomsayer is not a good way to achieve these changes.

Now I clearly think this is you who are making rather unfortunate confusions. I will take accuracy as an exemple, it's a hot topic right now: In game, accuracy is determined by a number of factors. You can improve it in the ship designer by using better technologies. In battles you can improve it by reducing your speed, targetting something bigger, moving closer to the target (or wait for a quick hotfix :wink:). There is numerous external factors further affecting accuracy, target size, ship roll, target speed, smoke ect. In the future, crew quality could also play a role in the general accuracy of the ship guns. Despite all that, you don't "waste time" with accuracy in UA:D, the game calculate all of these things for you, it abstract the number crunching needed before calling a gun elevation/range/whatever (I m not an expert, don't bite me) because even if it wants to depict realistic naval battle between navies and wants to use historical values, it is not a gun battery simulation. In battles you are not "aiming", you let the game do that for you. This is what I call abstraction. It as nothing to do with it being realistic or not. Its here to ensure something complex is more convenient and easier to use in the scope of a particular game. The fact that as of now accuracy is busted as also nothing to do with the way its abstracted in game. This just means that the numbers used to calculate it are wrong and needs to be tweaked to more logical/realistic values.

Either I m pretty dense and didn't understand what you just wrote or I wasn't clear and you missed my entire point. There is no denial of fun (I already agreed of it being pretty subjective), nor confusion between tactics and technology, I use them as exemples to prove the need of abstractions (of any type) in a video game environnement, especialy a more realistic one. The use of technology to apply a tactic in a realistic game is often abstracted because the use of that technology doesn't fit the core gameplay of that game. This is why in armored brigade you don't "make" radio call, but the game abstract them in longer reaction time for your units. Or closer still, this is why in UA:D you don't use signals/radio to order a turn to your fleet, this is simply abstracted in easy to use mouse-clic or drag. Am I wrong somewhere?

I ll try to develop a bit on realism, even if I agree with most of arkhangelsk said. You can't emulate reality in a video game. Some things will always be abstracted or removed because they are not interesting, too difficult to implement in the engine. For this reason, I don't think you can call it objective or universal in this particular environnement. You can use realism as a selling point and make sure your video game use accurate historical values, but in my opinion there will always be some concession needed. A video game is first and foremost a game, the "fun" factor is an important part of it and reality is not necessarly a fun game. Though like you said, fun is subjective and what the person X will like is not necessarly the taste of Y. In UA:D the game part is the way the player can design and pit massive lumps of steel with guns against each other in a somewhat believable 1900+ era sandbox. This is already not a grognard wargame with detailed OOB and a hundred pages manual. The realism part in the final product should be the use more historical values in battles and ships designer, but the realism part will stop the moment you name you're 40k tons japanese battleship BAEruna and refit her with 16 inch guns in 1935. Now to push it a bit further and still ignoring the whole alpha patching we have so far in UA:D, I ll be taking another exemple. The simple fact that you give orders to ships by a simple clic on the screen is already an abstraction of the whole (and often complicated) command chain used to move a fleet. In real life they used signals, later they used radio, what about the time needed to pass the orders among the ships officers and decipher them if they are coded? For movement orders alone you can have different level of realism (Rule the waves use a simple abstraction on the whole signals layer). That's also why we have things like the game Armored Brigade. Here you have an interesting take on this chain of order. There is a timer on each command given to a unit on the field, depending on different factors. The more orders there are pending, the more time units will have to wait before receiving the orders to move/disembark at a location. There is other abstractions in it (like off map artillery) but I hope your getting my point here. I honestly like both approaches as long as it bring something new to try and ultimately master in a video game. Now with what I just read in the topic I want to try and sink a BC with a single destroyer while it last.

First, I m not seeing "everyone" insisting on the use of secondaries. I ll be nice and say that I see a lots of valid complaints about the damage model. Which is true, this hotfix made light about some problems with it. It's silly to flood to death a BB's with a few HE shells at long ranges. The old balance wasn't good for testing as I stated: The "good way" was to slap as many big calliber guns on BB's, use the free weight on armor and enjoy hours long battle at long range spamming HE because of that. It was perhaps more "accurate" in term of battle duration, but the logic in term of ship design was flawed in my opinion. If warships of these era were designed with secondaries in mind, I think it's a good call to buff them (even if it's too much now) in game to at least motivate player to use them. Fun is everyone taste, logic is to the developper alone and I think this hotfix was a good call because of that. Now on the other hand, what bother me is the overreliance with realism/immersion/historical value, ect. I already said that I m not against "some" spreadsheet to back an argument. What I'm seeing here is a lots of spreadsheet to back one argument. It add nothing to the overall discussion and make it just harder to read and understand. All of these pretty detailed historical statements are (for now) rarely backed with concrete in game events other than "I played one game, this happened in minutes". So much for precision. "Minutes" in what? Normal speed, *2? What year? How many ships? What gun callibers? Armor schemes? 'ect For exemple: yesterday I made one 1914 battle with 3 BB's 1 CA 2CL et 12 DD's. I designed the BB's with the best gun tech, propulsion and armor improvement for the years. 8*14 inch guns, 10+ 4inch secondaries 14inch belt/turret armor 4.4 deck/turret top, 5 belt extended, 1.5 deck extended. It took me more than 15 minutes at speed one to cripple the first battleship and overall the battle lasted for 2 hours + in game time (I speeded up the game two or three times) While their BB's had "only" 11.2 inch of belt armor, they probably used the same deck/extended as me. Destroyers could do something against other destroyers with their 3 inch guns, previously they couldn't. I got two occasions to shred one CL and one DD with the secondaries of one of my BB, previously they couldn't. Two DD's and a CL were enough to hound and sink a CA, the engagement took a good 15 minutes and the only damage taken was from a torpedo she fired at one point (It wasn't enough to sink a DD). The AI started to flee after his second BB took a beating. I fired only HE shells, the AI fired mostly AP. I lost no ships to gunfire. 8 DD, one CA and one CL to torpedoes. And the only damage to my BB's was two torpedoes which damaged one engine and caused some minor flooding. For now the real danger to the player in battles are torpedoes and to an extent large calliber AP shells at close range. The AI can't use shell switching properly, this result in most of the "fair" engagement (as in the same numbers of ships/type) being one sided if no mistakes are made. To conclude: can we think more in game terms? I don't see anything changing with just book quote, historical value and "Oh I prefer that I will not test/talk about this." Remember, we still don't have the crew value in game. How will they affect ships behavior? If accuracy is "too good" now, will it be influenced by crew quality later? What about damage control, ect. Even if we nerf accuracy/buff sturdiness now, we will not have something close to reality.