AML

Any changes to wing turrets being treated as secondary guns instead of as part of the primary battery planned?

Sounds like the AI's ammo saving kicking in. Once the shells get down to certain point, not sure on the specifics of what that point actually is, the AI will halt all firing and in my experience isn't very reliable about resuming fire. Sometimes the shooting resumes as I close in but other times you can be in close enough to board and not a shot will be fired.

Not totally sure on the implementation but variable turret sizes would be a nice additional layer to ship design. Perhaps just a basic standard or cramped toggle with cramped turrets sacrificing rof and dispersion in return for being a bit lighter and taking up less space. Obviously a standard turret is preferable but when an arms treaty or inadequate infrastructure is limiting how big you can build such tradeoffs are worth exploring. The Kirov's triple turrets are a perfect example of this irl

No I mean that when you split targets between your main and secondary guns the wing turrets will fire at the secondary guns target, even when they are the same calibre as the centreline turrets and should be firing at the same target as them.

Wing turrets are still treated as secondary guns, not as part of the main battery.

I'd say the simplified and incomplete nature of compartments/flooding is the bigger issue rather than torpedo damage. Right now there is just flooding with no danger of capsizing and once that becomes a thing then torpedoes will be much more lethal I hope.

Got a few more rounds in, was mostly focused on trying out the split fire mechanics so I will stick to that and leave the durability discussion to others for now. As I posted early wing turrets are apparently treated as part of the secondary battery regardless of their calibre, a pretty big issue for early dreadnoughts which will need to be addressed. Otherwise I'm satisfied with how it seems to have turned out, not noticing any other bugs or questionable behaviour at this time. I do wonder about possibly adding another layer of target selectors or fiddling with what is considered to be a secondary gun for pre-dreadnought battleships and large armoured cruisers. Intermediate batteries might have some issues at the moment, I'd want my 8-10" secondaries engaging the same target as my main guns, not firing at destroyers with the smaller pieces.

Seems to be an issue with how guns are assigned to be secondary vs primary, I've noticed that wing turrets will fire at whatever has been assigned as the secondary target despite being the same caliber as the centerline guns which will fire at the designated main gun target.

Gonna risk offering my two cents on the issue of planes. I would LOVE to see planes in this game; seaplanes, catapult launches, carriers, and the whole array. BUT what I want even more than planes is a fully functional surface combat naval game and that should take PRIORITY. There are lots of adjustments to be made to the standard combat, proper armour modelling alone will be a large task for the devs and as for the campaign I can only imagine the mountain of 'to-dos'. I would much rather see all of that get done properly before how to add aviation is even considered. It would be a ton of work to pull off and remember this is not exactly being made by a huge team. A focused product that is well done beats something that was rushed and tried to do too much in my opinion.

This would tie in nicely with differing nations designs from each other. A few nations focusing on large gun calibre, a few on best quality, and the rest going for a balance would provide a nice variety of possible opponents.

Curious to see what people think of the ships the AI comes up with. Any tweaks you think it could use or trends you've noticed in designs? In my experience bulkheads could maybe use a small bump in priority, seeing lots of designs with few or minimum which has led to some quick sinkings. In a few BB duels I've actually managed to sink the AI before its ship was even fully identified thanks to some quick flooding hits.

Looking forward to this update, splitting secondary and primary targets will be a nice leap for the combat I think. Also I appreciate the temporary removal of AI retreat. Its nice to know the AI won't be suicidal come campaign release but it made testing combat a bit frustrating.

Honestly I'm probably only remembering the worst occurrences but as long as I can have my units be relatively homogenous in their capabilities I will be satisfied. Whenever I play RTW I feel like my squadrons are always the greatest possible mishmash of classes despite there being enough ships of all the classes involved to form more cohesive units. Being able to play around with some more specialized designs like flotilla leaders and not be totally wasting my time would also be nice. Not gonna complain about ships being caught in situations they weren't meant for, that's just reality, but when a light cruiser is never gonna actually lead a destroyer flotilla why bother pretending otherwise.

Going off of this point I wonder if structural damage could be separated from a ships sinking and tied into its fighting efficiency instead. A heavily shot up ship could have penalties to various soft stats so its still afloat but more vulnerable.

My main issue is that the ship designer feels pretty constricting and kinda cookie cutter to me. Basically the game already has decided what can more or less go where and I'm working around that. Now more hulls will certainly alleviate this problem but I'm not sure will totally fix it For example the pre-dread battleship 1 hull has a line of casemates that are only good for 4" guns. I don't want to only mount 4" guns, I want to try mounting other stuff and have a design thats more my own. Just because that original design pictured 4" pieces doesn't mean I should be so restricted (within reason- not asking to put a 12" casemate). As long as the displacement is fine and there is sufficient space players should be free to mount what they want (again with the limits of plausibility).

As disc says above the IJN and USN both upgraded their 8in guns but otherwise it was not very common as far as I know. Especially when looking at pre-WW1 refits to various cruisers you usually see a larger main gun getting swapped for something smaller, Franz Joseph-I class mounting new 15cm's in place of the old 24cm guns for example.

I'm finding the AI is running way more often than just when it's been heavily damaged. Yesterday I tried making a small armoured cruiser that was only 8k tons, armed with 6" guns and it got put up against an AI design that was just under 12k tons mounting heavier 9" & 7" guns, thicker armour, and greater speed. Outside of lucky torpedo hits tipping the scales my ship should have been doomed and indeed was starting to get chewed up until the AI randomly decided to disengage despite still being at 92% structure with no critical damage vs my 75% with a knocked out bridge. No torpedoes were in the water, it just suddenly turned and left still loaded with ammo, holding every advantage. And no I didn't quit before the ship reengaged at longer ranges, it just sailed off

Yeah doesn't seem to take much either, I've had ships turn and run while still at over 90% structure. I understand trying to preserve a damaged ship while in a campaign but I think its way too flighty atm. In the meantime I've been putting some more emphasis on my forward firepower...

Yep, played a couple of 1v1 custom battles today in various classes and eras, every single one turned into a stern chase the moment the AI took a moderate amount of damage. Even when my own ship had taken as much if not more of a beating and the AI had a decent chance of winning they would still turn away and run. Cue loading HE because AP just ricochets off everything and slowly running them down or just leaving the battle due to lack of speed or patience on my part.

Haven't gotten a chance to check too much stuff out yet but I am certainly noticing the improvements. I definitely appreciate being able to try out the different technology levels in custom battles vs the academy's presets.

I agree it would make the ships look more natural if unused casemate slots were smoothed over when you are constructing a new ships. After a refit when some guns are removed keeping the spots would be nice though, such changes are a natural part of the ships life.

Some more freedom with casemates would be nice and allow for some more varied designs imo. For example on the Brandenburg old pre-dread hull most of the casemate spots are limited to 4" guns, why can't I place a 5" or 6" gun there instead? Just have the bigger guns make the slots beside them unusable to reflect the extra space needed.

Well regarding a torpedo "battleship" the Russians considered it kinda sorta but obviously nothing ever came of it. Would be great fun to be able to give it a go in game though! http://www.e-reading.link/chapter.php/1007019/15/Vinogradov_-_Poslednie_ispoliny_Rossiyskogo_Imperatorskogo_flota.html Dimensions: 203,4m x 25,5m x 8,2m Displacement: 23.000tons standard Engine Power: 72.000shp, 2 shafts Maximum Speed:28knots Maximum Range: 1.250nm on 14knots Armour: Belt: 400mm, 450mm near the citadels and 50mm at ends, Deck: 85mm (75+10) with 40mm (20+20) lower deck Armaments:4x3 180mm Guns 84x1 457mm Torpedo tubes

Being able to create divisions/flotillas rather than making do with whatever combination of ships RNG decides to throw your way would be very welcome and imo makes things much more interesting for the players. In a pure RNG system certain ship types like flotilla leaders aren't practical to build. A big DL design getting treated like its any normal DD is a waste while a small Tenryu-esque cruiser design getting matched up against a fleet cruiser is futile so why bother building either? I know things never work out as planned and that's fine, a little RNG representing engine problems etc. combined with the fortunes of war will force players to adapt in much more entertaining ways than just rolling the dice. "Hmm, between battle damage and maintenance needs my 1st BC squadron is down to just 2 active ships...should I reinforce it with some older ships knowing they will slow down the unit or risk keeping it a small but homogenous unit?" Vs. "Here's your scouting group of 3 different classes, deal with it."