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23 hours ago, AurumCorvus said:
For less extreme versions, the British did a lot of refits to strengthen deck armor after Jutland. I know the Renown class had a lot of completely new deck armor added. Combining with the above, there's really no reason that ships are truly completely bound to the armor scheme that they came out. It's (like you mentioned) a cost and effort vs effectiveness argument. You'd have to rebalance the ship and make sure the belt is thick enough if you change from turtleback to AoN, but there's nothing really that stops you. Superstructure can be removed to get access to the deck armor (after all, towers are often changed around; just see the Queen Elizabeth's gaining the Queen Anne's mansion superstructure).
There is one practical limit to adding armor, though: the face-hardening process. You can add as much backing as you want; that's the relatively soft metal and doesn't require much. However, you can't make "more" face-hardened armor. That's one of the reasons refitted armor is slightly less effective than true designed-for armor. It lacks the same ratio of face-hardened to soft armor that would otherwise be present (because it only has the 'face-hardened' amount that it originally had).
The one part I am concerned about is the double/triple hulls, though. I'm not aware of any refits off the top of my head that would give historical justification. But it kinda makes sense if you consider that you're carving out space on the inside to add a hull? Maybe? It's not like a torpedo bulge where you get more displacement; your displacement is fixed, you're just changing the internals, and mostly with structural steel, I would think.
Replacing belt armor is usually easier than improving deck armor, so long as plates are available. With decks, one has to figure out how to maneuver the plates through all the overlying structure, which can be tough. Might have to raze everything above that deck, first. I think barbette armor would also be fairly difficult, and actual movement of the barbettes would become exponentially harder with bigger turrets.
Deck armor is almost always homogenous, incidentally, with a few odd exceptions.
Several US battleships in the interwar period were partially refitted with triple bottoms in place of their old double bottoms. This was, I think, exclusively under the machinery, and usually only under the boilers. These were replaced with smaller models, so builders were able to fit in a new skin above the previous inner. I think some of the ships that got new turbines also got triple bottoms beneath them. The other parts of those ships (under magazines, ends, etc) mostly kept their double bottom. There was also some thought of thickening the inner bottoms of some ships, but I'm not sure this was done to any real extent.
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The term "light cruiser" did become popular around the time of WWI. The later Towns were called light armoured cruisers, and the name was shortened soon to just light cruiser during (maybe a little before?) the war.
"Heavy cruiser" was actually a term that was used to describe big cruisers by around 1900, especially in contrast to small "scout cruisers." I don't know the earliest mention, but I've seen it in the 1903 Brassey's and in an 1894 publication. "Light cruiser" is at least as old a term.
Officially, there were many variations on names, but a common scheme was three or four "classes" of cruiser based on size, with 1st class being the biggest and 3rd/4th being the smallest. Some protected cruisers were indeed extremely large, and some small ones had absurdly big guns.
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2 hours ago, akd said:
Awesome! But what is "Super HE"? I know there were "Super Heavy" shells (e.g. US 16-inch), but that seems to be covered in a separate design choice in the designer for light / standard / heavy shells (would be nice if this could be picked per gun-caliber, rather than forcing it on all guns / ammo carried).
Probably refers to high-capacity, or HC. Thinner shell walls, but more explosive filler. Though I would rather it be called HC than super-HE!
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On 7/13/2021 at 8:14 PM, Evil4Zerggin said:
Have the faster turrets slow down to the RoF of the slower turrets (still pretty unfavorable to such setups).
Believe this was typically the US approach. I'm not sure it was considered a huge disadvantage, for whatever that's worth. I'm not sure the difference in ROF was quite as pronounced as in the game, though it's a bit tough to say.
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54 minutes ago, Elrerune The Honorbound said:
No need. History teaches me everything. I do not need to learn from those who constantly try to rewrite history.
Another way to put it is “History is Written by Victors.” and that's the version of history I definitely have no intention of doing homework on.The sheer existence of the Lost Cause myth should lay the "history is written by the victors" idea to rest.
Since you do seem to be a fan of WWII Germany, you should know that much of the US military's historical manuscripts on the Soviet-German war were written by Fritz Halder. This is the former general who wrote the evil Commissar Order... unsurprisingly, he is the source of many discredited "Clean Wehrmacht" myths.
In regard to German warships, Koop and Schmolke are excellent sources, and they served in the German WWII navy. They specifically point out the atrocious reliability of the high pressure steam plants adopted, as well as the extreme fragility of the modern light cruisers.
There was also the failed attempts at 15cm destroyer guns, and the idiotic Type XXI submarine fabrication system, and the foot-dragging on aircraft carriers, and the lack of usable aerial torpedoes, and the splintered cooperation with the air force that led to friendly fire....
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55 minutes ago, Admiral Lütjens said:
For example, the ship eats torpedoes from the nose, takes water, the nose part does not sink, the ship lies on its side
Nice point, I think this would be a great visual improvement
Whole compartment system is a little contrived. There's no side compartments, wing spaces, double bottom spaces, etc. Some ships did have boilers and engines in three central rooms, but there were lots of other arrangements!
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Fantastic information, thank you!
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8 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:
The game reflects the necessity of using your broadside and large number of main guns to acquire a target at long range. The aiming process needs at least two turrets to function properly. A single turret may never find optimally the range of the target, if the target is at a large range and moves very fast. The turret may fire but with large error margins and its accuracy is expected to be the lowest possible.
For what it is worth, a quad turret can successfully bracket a target by itself.
The idea is that the next salvo is aimed by checking the farthest and nearest shell splashes from the last salvo. The splashes should surround the target. If the most distant shot in the salvo is on the near side of the target, then the salvo was short and the next one needs to fire at a longer distance. If the closest shot is on the far side of the target, then the salvo was long and the next one needs to fire at a shorter distance. When the extremes are on either side of the target, then probably the shooter is dead-on. The shots between these extremes should thus have a high chance to hit the target (hits may or may not be visible).
This technique ("gun ranging") would be used in conjunction with optical rangefinders. Fire-control radar usually would be able to pick up splashes, too, so this would be used in that manner too.
A three gun salvo will probably work too, as the "middle" shot should have a decent chance to hit, but four was generally the minimum desired. At short ranges, of course, range brackets are not nearly so important, so (partially for this reason) earlier battleships often had mixed batteries and fewer big guns.
The classic 8-gun broadside could be fired in half-salvoes, giving two smaller but more frequent 4-splash brackets. This was the British approach in WWI. Of course, this could be scaled up if the ship had more guns (9, 10, 12, etc), with proportionally more shells in each half salvo. The US WWI approach was to always fire full salvoes, evidently to get a solid spread.
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4 hours ago, ThatZenoGuy said:
How is armor weight calculated? Logically it would be the height of the belt times the length times the thickness, using the material density of iron/steel (they weigh the same in real life).
Seconded, this is a good question. Deck armor can be calculated about the same way, length times average width times thickness times density of steel (which is about 8g/mL, or 0.29lb/in^2). Transverse bulkheads would work the same as belts.
Barbettes and turrets can be a bit complex, but an easy approach is to assign a diameter to each and treat them as cylinders and rectangular prisms. Then calculate armor weight based on surface area. This technique can be extended to conning towers and steering gear boxes.
There would be some snarls with this approach. First, belt length and height right now is too simple and is essentially identical on all ships. No thinner upper belts, tapers, etc. Second, armor weights can have knock-on effects. More weight may require more structure to hold it up, especially with turrets. And third, different armor fasteners and wood/cellulose/cement/steel backing layers add variation in weight (an interesting example is Japanese heavy cruiser belt armor, where the armor plates are part of the hull girder).
So this calculation may be too simple, but I think the gist of it is good.
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4 hours ago, Skeksis said:
Is this intentional, new bug or actually a reintroduced bug?
It is assuredly intentional. Those numbers neatly match with Imperial to metric conversions.
One modern inch is equal to 25.4mm. The game ticks up by 0.1in at a time, giving increments of either 2.5mm or 2.6mm with rounding.
2in is thus 50.8mm, 3in 76.2mm, 4in 101.6mm, and so on. The example image "124.5mm" and "200.7mm" are rounded conversions from 4.9in and 7.9in, respectively.
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I think it may expand the "flagship near" and "far" radii. But I have never tested this. Often not worth it, I'd agree
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On 5/9/2021 at 3:25 PM, Stormnet said:
Nick (a pseudonym for Maxim Zasov, the CEO of GL acording to SF, or is Maxim a diferent guy?) wont have a say on how the company will run.
Nick Thomadis is the lead game designer. Maksim Zasov is his boss. Thomadis may have special privileges within the company, though.
Game Labs is based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Total of 24 employees. Believe Thomadis works out of Athens. There are 2-4 other developers for Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnoughts, probably in Greece or eastern Europe.
Stillfront is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, and owns a broad number of internationally placed semi-independent video game studios. Most are focused on a F2P model.
This deal was probably attractive to Game Labs because it provides a large amount of capital, an experienced marketing network, and substantial cash / stock payments to principal shareholders. Management and developer teams appear also to have been preserved.
Stillfront likely wishes to diversify its holdings, and a move to purchase a growing, less mobile-oriented company with grand strategy themes is their line of attack.
The two companies apparently have similar internal organization, with internationally placed small teams working on disparate projects.
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Based on the compartment viewer in battle, each ship is divided evenly into seven longitudinal parts. The first two and last two parts are covered by the extended belt. The middle three parts are covered by the main belt. I am less sure about the decks, but I think they cover the same areas respectively.
I don't know how the extended belt is actually laid out. My suspicion is that it is considered to be at about 45 degree angles from the centerline, so that the belts form a hexagon in plan.
It is unclear where the magazines are, but I think the idea posited is that they are directly below the respective turrets no matter what. The engines are evidently inside the main belt/deck.
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On 5/5/2021 at 3:27 PM, admiralsnackbar said:
There are some edge cases where spotting is not always going to be symmetrical:
1) One side has Radar and the other doesn't (At night or in other weather that obscures visual spotting)
2) One side is shooting in the dark and the other is not
3) One side has star shells and the other does notMissing two other scenarios:
One side has a spotter plane and the other does not.
One ship in a division can see the enemy, but the others cannot due to smoke etc. The blind ships can get spotting data from the one in visual contact using special equipment.
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We'll have to see how this current patch pans out. I am especially hopeful that the AI and fire changes will be useful. I'd rather development be slow than half-baked.
I strongly suspect this patch focuses more on models because of division of labor. IE the programmer(s) is/are doing a ton of campaign stuff, where perhaps the modeler(s) don't. That said, I would like to see more pre-Dreadnought hulls. They are a bit restricted right now, both in number and customizability.
8 minutes ago, Stormnet said:Also, there are quite some systems (especially gunnery, AI designer and AI tactics) that need to be remade from scratch or seriously changed because, right now, they just aren't working. Any attempt of balancing without major changes just causes a flow of new issues. These systems are fundamentally flawed and simply patching them wont work.
I am not sure gunnery is that flawed. The armor and damage model certainly is, but the statistical approach for shells seems reasonable enough.
The AI designer is not perfect, but I don't mind it. I do like seeing the bizarre ships it cooks up. Maybe that will change.
The AI tactics certainly need a lot of work, based on the 11 patch.
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What sort of tradeoffs did it make for the speed? If the answer is "not many," then that's not too ideal!
My own experience has been that the AI's fast "battleships" tend to be very fragile, but of course I don't know what you saw.
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On 4/27/2021 at 6:47 AM, brucesim2003 said:
Just had a custom where the AI thought a 31kt battleship in 1914 was a good build.
Well, HMS Princess Royal was completed 1912 and made 28 knots. HMS Renown was completed 1916 and made 32 knots. So, sounds pretty close... for a battlecruiser, anyway. Though Princess Royal had armor broadly comparable to battleships of about 10 years prior.
I'm still a bit uncertain how the AI makes range decisions, but I have seen them begin circling the player fleet if they are free to maneuver. They sometimes go well outside weapons range, and the destroyers -- not shooting or being shot at -- will launch smoke, giving away exact position and approximate heading. I think there are set distances that the AI tries to fulfill. Once it reaches that range, it will circle in order to maintain it.
TBs and destroyers will make suicide runs if you get close, but battleships will typically angle away from the nearest enemy. This may be related to the escort mechanic.
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6 hours ago, HailCOBRALA said:
I had an AI destroyer that was flooding, had 4% flood value left and miraculously recovered back up to 30. Hit him AGAIN, back down to another 4-5%. Back up to 30. AGAIN I hit him, back down to 4, back up to 30. It's ridiculous. That destroyer should have been dead after the first or at LEAST the second flooding, ESPECIALLY after his superstructure was down to 30%.
It appears that a partially flooded compartment always will be pumped out eventually.
However, if the water reaches the top of the compartment, the space is permanently flooded and can never be emptied.
I believe this is why ships can recover from extremely extensive flooding. I am not sure if structural integrity (grey, green, yellow, red) is a factor.
Weird mechanic.
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On 4/21/2021 at 8:33 AM, SonicB said:
There was also comparatively little innovation post-1940 in battleship design as wartime priorities changed, hence why we saw no significant design work around the 20" calibre beyond German and Japanese napkin designs. This seems to me a good argument for 1940 as a cut-off point, not vice versa.
I'd say there was innovation, but it was in certain special areas. For example, the US with the combat information center and nuclear shells, the UK with the Admiralty Fire-Control Table MkX, France with the Jean Bart AA refit, Japan with incendiary-shrapnel shells. Everyone with radar.
Post-war cruisers could carry the most advanced AA and ASW weapons and act as flagships, so the price of missile battleships just wasn't worth it. The proposals for extensive Iowa refits, for example, did not materialize.
The exception being the Soviet Union. Stalin was still convinced new gun-battleships would have great value. The Soviet projects were cancelled only after his death in 1953.
22 minutes ago, Cpt.Hissy said:Imagine a story, that started with a warship being freed of masts and sails, clad in hard iron, driven by a novelty of time, steam engine.
For what it is worth, ocean-going ironclad battleships generally had sails from their inception in 1860 until about 1880. Ships like Monitor and Merrimack/Virginia lacked sails and consequently had poor range, limiting them pretty much to coastal areas.
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1 hour ago, SonicB said:
And that includes turrets of different sizes but the same calibre, as we see with King George V (4+2+4), Conte di Cavour and Andrea Doria (3+2+3+2+3), and Nevada (3+2+2+3). All classes had a unified fire-control system and fired broadsides in unison, with no appreciable difference in rate-of-fire or accuracy between the larger and smaller turrets - assuming the quads on KGV actually worked as designed.
The lesson here is very simple: guns should be grouped only by calibre. Furthermore, the difference between turrets of multiple sizes within that calibre should be in cost, weight, technology and (in campaign) reliability. Accuracy or rate-of-fire shouldn't be a factor.There was precedent for decreased accuracy and rate of fire in multiple turrets. The French warship designer Emile Bertin particularly seemed to dislike dual turrets and favored singles.
- He reasoned that two guns would decrease accuracy due to off-axis impulses and disruption of the gunlayers by blast.
- Supposedly twin turrets would be a bigger target, too, although I think that is certainly wrong on a per-gun basis. However, it is also true that damage to a multi turret would disable more guns.
- It was also thought that twin turrets would fire slower, due to blast disruption and cramped space, and in this there was evidence. Comparative trials in the late 1890s had shown that the French 164.7mm twin had only 1.4 times the output of a 164.7mm single.
- The early French turrets were naturally ventilated, and exhaust-gas from two guns was particularly suffocating.
But, I would argue that most of these problems were largely solved over time or with careful detail design. So, all Dreadnoughts had their main guns in multi turrets.
- It seems that better training machinery was able to deal with off-axis slew well enough, and central control with salvo timing delays significantly reduced the blast problem.
- The "too many eggs in one basket" fear never went away for multi turrets, but their space and weight efficiency largely overcame this.
- Bigger, more automated turrets would increase rate-of-fire in multi turrets. I see no particular reason why a modern independently sleeved three-gun 16in turret would fire much slower than a two-gun version. It appears that smaller guns with heavily manual loading may still have had a certain ROF advantage in singles.
- Fans and compressed air scavenging can vastly reduce gas accumulation.
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The "100%" accuracy I suspect is rounding from values exceeding 99.9%. I'm not certain how individual gun accuracy is modeled anymore, as they seemed to make big changes a few months ago (for example, shells can now hit nearby ships they weren't shot at). I'm not sure if shells curve in flight these days.
I doubt that there is an intentional obfuscation of the numbers -- though of course I don't know that. There certainly might be bugs, though. I reckon the trouble may be the interface.
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4 hours ago, Cptbarney said:
Seems to effect DD's more than any other class for some reason too.
I think this is due to the "loose" formation, because I have noticed it in light cruisers too. I don't believe I've ever noticed it in "tight" formation. Once again, I sure wish there was a testing mode!
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Anecdotal evidence is pretty bad when examining statistical phenomena. Leads to extrapolating to false extents.
To make conclusions about RNG, then there must be either data-mined source information or solid tabulated results (gathered under known conditions) to make anything beyond an educated guess.
This is not to say that the game's RNG is not flawed. There could easily be a horrible algorithm or a huge bug making issues. It's just very hard to conclude that right now with much confidence.
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6 hours ago, HEEL_caT666 said:
I already submitted a bug report for this, but I'm surprised many people here dont seem to have the same issue.
Interesting. I certainly have not been experiencing this.
>>>Beta 1.05 Available!<<< (Update: 5)
in General Discussions
Posted
I found an extremely weird bug.
In my 1890 France campaign, there are no battles of any kind. Each nation builds up an absurdly large fleet, and uses it to attack merchant ships only. Germany and Austria Hungary never, ever leave their ports.
Consequently, Austria-Hungary has more than two hundred cruisers stuffed into their three ports. Each harbor has about 300% of its rated capacity, more than 300,000 tons in one of them.
The world is a state of constant piracy. There is extreme financial instability, because the merchant marines of the world occupy a terrifying Hell-scape, and the navies are continually built up for battles that never happen. Warships never engage each other and are never sunk. In ten years, not a single one has been lost or scrapped.
So, things are going pretty well for France.