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disc

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Everything posted by disc

  1. There have been a bunch of discussions about damage, especially with regards torpedoes v. guns, small guns v. big guns, and AP v. HE. I was wondering what is actually known about damage mechanics. First, when are gun hits calculated? Is the hit determined when the gun fires? That is, does the shot "curve" mid-air to hit the target, even if the target maneuvers post-firing? Or does the accuracy statistic affect only the initial trajectory, with the hit determined by collision modeling? Or is it some combination of these methods? (perhaps the shell has x% chance to hit within a certain distance from the target) What is the penetration formula for AP? HE? How are shell damage values calculated? Are they dependent only upon precalculated values (gun size, shell weight, shell filler), or does shell velocity or impact angle play into things? (separate from penetration, that is) How is ship impact location calculated? Is it "3D," or is the shell "randomly distributed" to a compartment given that the ship is hit at all? What are the hitpoint values for guns, towers, funnels, etc? How are critical hits inflicted? How is fire and flooding damage calculated? How many hitpoints does each ship have? I figured it would be a good idea to gather what is actually known, instead of speculating.
  2. Some testing may be in order, but most (all of?) the bonuses are multiplicative. For example, with 5% base accuracy, +20% tech bonus, -3% instability, -5% poor weather, +10% slow target, we apply the multipliers 1.20, 0.97, 0.95, and 1.10. 0.05 * 1.20 * 0.97 * 0.95 * 1.10 = 0.0608, so any one shot has a 6.08% chance of hitting. I don't know what goes into base accuracy, unfortunately. I think it is a value inherent to each gun model (for example, the Mark 3 17 inch gun), but I don't know how range fits in. Hopefully someone else with more knowledge can pitch in.
  3. A naval vessel does not need to sink to be considered a total loss. There are other reasons a warship can be permanently disabled or destroyed. I have enumerated the biggest mechanisms here, which may aid us in figuring how to improve the game. It is extremely important to note these methods are not mutually exclusive. It would be more common than not to suffer from more than one cause. 1. Flooding. This is the essential means by which a ship would be sunk. Air escapes, water rushes in, the vessel founders. Flooding may be accomplished through gun hits, torpedoes, mines, ammo detonation, grounding, instability, and any number of additional causes. Damage to or failure of pumps and generators may worsen flooding. On top of outright sinking the ship, flooding may kill crew, disable vital systems, cause extreme instability, and exacerbate structural damage. Example: HMS Audacious, a super-dreadnought sunk by a single mine. 2. Crew incapacitation. Killing crewmen or rendering spaces uninhabitable can lead to loss or abandonment of the ship. The crew can be killed, wounded, or forced to abandon through direct attack (eg exploding shells), rapid flooding, slow flooding, smoke, poisonous gas, heat, and morale effects. By incapacitating crew, non-automated systems will be crippled, damage control will fail, flooding and fire can progress, and the effectiveness of remaining crew can decrease. The remaining crew may scuttle or abandon ship to avoid further loss of life. Loss of leadership can have downstream effects. Example: SMS Emden, a light cruiser run aground after major topside damage. 3. Fire. A fire aboard a ship can be extremely dangerous. It may incapacitate crew, destroy vital equipment, cause ammunition and fuel explosions, and weaken the ship's structure. Explosions may cause further extensive damage and can disseminate fire. Heat and smoke may also render spaces uninhabitable and stop damage control efforts. Failure of fire mains may make fires uncontrollable without portable pumps. Example: Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, and Hiryu, aircraft carriers all burned out and scuttled at Midway. 4. Structural failure. The loss of girder strength in the hull, or a loss of too much hull plating or other structural effects, can cause a ship to break in half or otherwise be ruined. Major causes are massive torpedo damage and ammunition detonation. A small or lightly built ship may be particularly vulnerable to this. The ship need not immediately sink -- the bow or stern may still have some reserve buoyancy. However, loss of life is typically severe and may be total. Holing and local structural damage may increase flooding, cause equipment failure, and make spaces uninhabitable. Example: HMS Invincible, a battlecruiser split in half after magazine detonation. 5. Mobility failure and stranding. If a ship loses mobility, it may be scuttled, abandoned, or made prey to advancing enemy forces. The ship may actually be in no danger of sinking, but its position is untenable or its firepower neutralized. Failure may encompass boilers, engines, steering, generators, intra-ship communications, lighting, and sundry minor systems. Damage control may be knocked offline, allowing progression of fire and flooding and preventing repairs. Mobility failure may be a consequence of grounding, intentional or not. Example: USS Darter, a submarine scuttled after grounding on a reef. 6. Instability. A ship that pitches or rolls excessively may be lost from flooding or capsizing. Excessive tilt may also dislodge equipment, stop boilers, generators, and turrets, and cause ammunition detonations. Small ships and those with excessive topweight are particularly vulnerable. A ship that capsizes may not immediately flood or sink, either, though this is often the case. Flooding by itself can lead to instability and capsizing, especially if weather is rough, there is great free surface in the ship, or there is much off-center flooding. Example: USS Hull, Monaghan, and Spence, destroyers capsized in Typhoon Cobra. Failure of weapons, inter-ship communications, and other equipment (unrelated to propulsion or damage control) are not usual causes of ship destruction, but they may heavily exacerbate coexisting damage. Currently, flooding, fire, equipment failure, and "structure" damage are simulated in the game. "Structure" damage is apparently a combination of crew incapacitation, general equipment failures, and local frame, plating, deck, and armor damage. Crew has not yet been added, and damage control is not degraded by crew death or equipment failure. Capsizing from instability is not present either, except in the sense that emptying the flooding meter will sink a ship. I would like to see more along these lines.
  4. Yes, indeed torpedoes seem to deal too little damage to structure. For example, the cruiser Helena was sunk by three torpedoes. In terms of simple flooding effect none of them appears to have been a killing blow, but the third hit essentially destroyed all girder strength amidships and the ship split in half. It is important to note that guns were not considered a "killing" weapon as we might think. In the age of sail, it was not very common to sink a ship outright with guns. Even with the advent of technologically advanced guns in the latter years of the 19th century, it was thought unlikely that any one shell could sink a warship. Instead, a cumulative effect of many hits would be needed to kill. That Russian ships were sunk quickly by naval gunfire alone during the Russo-Japanese War came as a surprise. This was readily explained, as it were, because many flammable items were carried on deck for the long voyage from the West. But the Royal Navy, for example, did not believe they could easily land a knockout blow with a few first hits. Naval exercises often assigned a "time-to-kill" to neutralize an enemy dreadnought (for example, about thirty minutes of firing at a certain range). The sudden destruction of the battlecruisers at Jutland came as a surprise. Though this might be seen as proof of the knock-out power of a single hit, the British high command (probably correctly) attributed the detonations to very poor magazine practices, with charges poorly stowed in all sorts of dangerous and unofficial areas. The official blame on thin deck and turret armor was basically a cover-up to avoid morale effects. Thus the conception of guns being a slow-but-steady weapon did not change even post-war. The WWII loss of Hood loss within a few salvoes was shocking. It was more commonly thought that battleships would be sunk in the way of the Bismarck, with a pouring-on of gunfire leading to total disablement before torpedoes or slow flooding sank the vessel. Torpedoes and mines, in contrast, were a one-and-done deal. Even one could (and did) sink a WWI dreadnought: see HMS Audacious. Before WWI, only the Americans had tried to incorporate torpedo belts on battleships. Pre-dreadnoughts were generally even worse, having very bad watertightness and subdivision. The vast majority of ships in those times were fueled with coal, which required big bunkers too difficult to truly waterproof. Tactics to a great degree depended upon torpedo range, because of this huge risk. One of the major reasons the Royal Navy invented the idea of fire control was to get out of torpedo range, so that during daylight, guns could outrange new long-running torpedoes. Though any one torpedo could do huge damage, they were fairly slow and had long travel times, so it was hard to get daytime hits (even including browning shots). This was the reason for extra stowage, not individual ineffectiveness. American destroyers carried between 4 and 8 reload torpedoes from the Farragut class to the Fletcher class (except for the Porters, as I recall), per Friedman's US Destroyers, the authoritative text on the subject. These would not be reloaded during direct combat, but it was the intention that they would be reloaded during long lulls in the fighting. Jutland was very much in mind, where the British had expended all their torpedoes at once and had no reloads for actions later in the day. Underwater torpedo tubes usually had a few reloads per tube (about 2-4, to my knowledge), but there were few tubes to begin with. Above-water rotating launchers did not carry more than one reload per tube -- I cannot think of a single exception -- though Japanese cruisers with fixed topside launchers carried up to two reloads per tube. Too many reloads would add too much topweight. Furthermore, it was nearly impossible to coordinate different divisions at a distance from one another. Misidentification was rampant in battle. Even with the advent of radio, it was incredibly difficult to form an accurate picture of the tactical situation. This was the appeal of line-ahead formation -- little could go wrong, and it was easier to determine who was on your side. The game's idea of many perfectly plotted ships under the control of the admiral is pure fantasy for any navy without radar-integrated CIC rooms. Torpedo-carrying ships therefore could not execute the highly complex large-scale maneuvers we see in game until some time into WWII, except perhaps through pre-arranged set piece attacks. I don't have a great answer for how torpedoes might be changed in this game. They don't do enough damage, but the hit rate is unrealistically high -- it was hard to get a good firing position, and the enemy would often be alert for torpedo attacks in the day. The battle simulator is just too divorced from reality for a purely historical fix, I think. Perhaps the best solution would be to moderately increase torpedo power, especially structural damage, and slightly decrease available reloads for above-water tubes. I think duds would be pretty infuriating.
  5. This is a cross post from the "shipyard" subforum. I collated a bunch of requested changes for the ship designer. General Allow design saves. (To be addressed) Allow name and nation changes. Add crew category(ies). Add deckhouses, allowing raised placement of items and improved "crew" effects. (To be addressed) Better explanation of funnel capacity. Allow display of citadel, magazines, turret trunks, boiler/engine zones, conning tower area, and other important places with a selectable viewer. Possibly add an armor viewer. Possibly allow paint scheme changes. Displacement, Hull Stress, Stability, and Seakeeping It appears difficult to build armored cruisers, among other designs, to realistic displacements. Possibly rebalance some weights? Give option for 50 or even 25 ton displacement steps on destroyers and torpedo boats. Increase hull stress and/or reduce seakeeping for turrets or items too far forward or aft, proportional to size of turret/item. Possibly add small accuracy or seakeeping bonus for guns or torpedo launchers higher above the waterline, to reflect reduced spray. Inversely proportional to gun size. Armor Improve armor thickness selectors so that values can be typed in or otherwise changed by large amounts quickly. Allow gradations--for example, on most pre-dreadnoughts only the waterline belt would be full thickness, the belt above being thinner. Change citadel options to only three: Protected (turtleback deck with no belt), Armoured (belt with turtleback deck), and All-Or-Nothing (belt with a flat deck). Protected is cheapest and lightest and replaces "belt" value with "deck slope" thickness, but it has poor overall resistance. Armoured has bonus to short range resistance but penalty to long range resistance. All-Or-Nothing is lighter, possibly cheaper, and has bonus to long range resistance, but must be researched. For All-Or-Nothing, extremity belt and extremity deck armor might be restricted to an arbitrary small amount (splinter protection), but extremities would have better compartmentation and resistance to damage. Each of these options might have tech upgrades to increase overall resistance by some amount. Some hulls would have only one of the citadel options available. For example, destroyers were usually too small to mount turtleback decks, so the "All-Or-Nothing" option would be the only one available and would require no research for those hulls. Add transverse bulkhead thicknesses for (at least) all-or-nothing designs. Add barbette thickness selector. Add weather or top deck thickness selector. Possibly add turret side and rear thickness selector(s). Possibly add conning tower roof thickness. Possibly add rudder room armor thicknesses. Add underwater belt armor thickness selector, only if diving shells are implemented or are planned to be added. Does not contribute much to torpedo protection: indeed, on some real designs it reduced torpedo resistance. Lengthen citadel armor (with commensurate increase in weight) to accommodate turrets close to bow or stern. Armament (To be addressed) Increase flexibility in barbette placement. Increase number of barbette sizes. Ideally, allow barbette to auto-scale to whatever turret is placed on top. Add secondary barbettes and raised torpedo mounts. Allow laterally offset barbettes (off centerline). Useful for secondaries and used on "K" German light cruisers. Allow barbette stacking, to allow "super-superfiring" turrets. That is, a turret that can fire over a superfiring turret. This was sometimes done for secondary turrets (Yamato, Des Moines) and was not uncommon for main guns in paper designs. Allow placement of guns and torpedoes upon deckhouses (for bigger guns, this would also add the same weight as a barbette piece). Do turrets mounted directly on the deck have "internal" barbettes below them? If not, they should. Do barbettes extend all the way down to the citadel? If not, they should (or a smaller diameter armored trunk tube should). Increase shell penetration with tech research. Increase rate of fire with tech research. Separate gun propellants from shell fillers as options. What are the autoloader and faster loading options supposed to represent? Readjust or rename this option. Add indicator to show if guns are too similar in caliber (ie, if accuracy is thereby reduced). Are diving shells implemented? AP shells should be able to hit underwater if falling slightly short at long ranges. A tech research upgrade should be available to improve this effect. For explanation, shells have unusual hydrodynamics, so they tend to follow an "inverse" ballistic trajectory in water, with their travel tending to flatten out relative to their impact angle. At this point most of their energy is exhausted, and they sink. Flat-nosed shells, like the Japanese Type 91, have more stable trajectories and travel much farther before losing energy and sinking. HE shells, of course, tend to explode when hitting the water surface. Not sure what exactly happens at short ranges to high velocity shells hitting water. I suspect they often break up or tumble, or ricochet in a bizarre direction, so any diving effect would be pretty small. Probably not worth simulating water ricochets. Allow larger torpedoes, up to 24 or 25 inches. Possibly allow smaller torpedoes, down to 14 inches. Add torpedo fuels/engines, such as: compressed air, dry heater, wet heater, burner cycle (semi-Diesel), oxygen-enriched, pure oxygen, and peroxide. Compressed air would be default, being the oldest, slowest, shortest-ranged, and cheapest. Electric propulsion would be folded into this category. "Fast" would be separated into another category. Create a speed/range setting for torpedoes: Slow, Default, and Fast. Slow would have long range, default would have medium, and fast would have short range. Could further balance this with torpedo detectability. Impose more penalties for underwater torpedo tubes (reduced underwater protection, reduced accuracy, or detonation risk). Allow deck-mounted torpedoes on higher-tech dreadnoughts. Blank off unused casemate gunports, that is, put plating over them as was done in reality when guns were permanently removed. Alternately, eliminate unused ports entirely (this may prove difficult). Provide some means of showing which guns will fit in a given casemate gunport. As is, trial and error is necessary. Other Items (To be addressed) Increase flexibility in tower placement. Add catapults and spotter planes. Add fire control computers and/or other fire control instruments as selectable categories. For example, four options might be: None (default), Dumaresq with Range Clock, Analytic Computer, Synthetic Computer. From "None" to "Synthetic Computer," base accuracy and cost would steadily increase, and long range accuracy would dramatically improve. Each option might have its own tech research upgrades. They do not need to be named, but, for example, it could include "Continuous Aim" for None, "Range Averaging" for Dumaresq, "Improved Plotting" for Analytic, and "Stable Vertical" for Synthetic. Tower effects on accuracy might need to be adjusted if computers are added as a category. Add cross-roll effect. Guns firing close to exactly forward or exactly aft have penalty to accuracy. This is one of the reasons why broadside tactics predominated in the pre-dreadnought era. Fire control tech research upgrades would vastly reduce or eliminate this penalty. Add turbo-electric drive option for main engines, giving an increase in underwater compartmentation but with high engine weight. This could be an option in the "Engines" category, or it could be its own category: diesel-electric drive and steam engine-electric drive are quite possible, although to my knowledge neither of these latter options was used on surface warships of that era. Possibly allow heavy cruisers to mount hydrophones with a special upgrade, though possibly with a penalty. Possibly add mine rails and minesweeping sets (if mines are added) and depth charge rails/launchers (if submarines are added in campaign) for destroyers and light cruisers. Depth charges could even be mounted on heavy cruisers and even battleships with the right upgrade, but with a very big scaling penalty to effectiveness. Add a twin rudder option. Increases maneuverability, increases cost, increases weight. I do worry that adding too many of these changes may cause overcomplexity, but I figured I would include many options that could be pruned down if implemented.
  6. You make an excellent argument about the high power of torpedoes. I agree with much of what you say, although your grammar makes the post...kinda hard to read. Torpedoes should be quite strong: the major issue is that it is fairly hard to hit another warship with them. Not really sure Bismarck's torpedo belt was particularly impressive. Good depth, but bad compartmentalization, and the innermost bulkhead was probably too heavy. Also, Indianapolis was sunk by conventional 21in submarine torpedoes. Midget submarines were not used, and primary accounts deny the use of manned torpedoes, for that matter.
  7. I collated a bunch of requested changes for the ship designer. General (Partially addressed) Allow design saves. (Addressed) Allow name and nation changes. Add crew category(ies). Add deckhouses, allowing raised placement of items and improved "crew" effects. (To be addressed) Better explanation of funnel capacity. Allow display of citadel, magazines, turret trunks, boiler/engine zones, conning tower area, and other important places with a selectable viewer. Add an armor viewer. Possibly allow customizable towers, funnels, and turrets. These "preconstructed" modules could then be added to a hull as on the current system. Potentially would reduce need to add new modules; players could make their own out of simple building blocks. Possibly allow paint scheme changes. New Classes and Hulls More cruiser and destroyer hulls, superstructures, and funnels. If campaign allows, add bases and forts. (Partially addressed) Possibly add monitors / gunboats, though only if campaign has a place for them (ie attacks on bases and forts). Possibly add armed merchant cruisers, avisos / dispatch vessels, torpedo cruisers, and / or corvettes as classes. Possibly add motor torpedo boats (ie, E-boats, PT boats, etc.). If submarines are implemented (even in an abstract sense), possibly add destroyer escorts / frigates. These could be simulated by adding special destroyer hulls, but this approach might cause them to get into sticky spots if campaign treats them as normal destroyers. Displacement, Hull Stress, Stability, and Seakeeping Allow ballasting. Adding ballast to a ship would have various postive and negative effects. It could reduce port-starboard and fore-aft weight imbalances and increase stability. On the other hand, it could increase displacement, decrease freeboard (ie reduce seakeeping), decrease speed, and reduce resilience to flooding. (Addressed) Give option for 50 or even 25 ton displacement steps on destroyers and torpedo boats. Allow displacement values to be typed in, or otherwise add a simpler way to adjust displacement. It's awkward to fiddle with the slider to get precise values. Increase hull stress and/or reduce seakeeping for turrets or items too far forward or aft, proportional to size of turret/item. It appears difficult to build armored cruisers, among other designs, to realistic displacements. Possibly rebalance some weight displays? Possibly add small accuracy or seakeeping bonus for guns or torpedo launchers higher above the waterline, to reflect reduced spray. Inversely proportional to gun size. Possibly add penalty to casemated guns along the hull side, to reflect spray (this is somewhat inherent to placement along the ship side, in reality). Armor (Addressed) Improve armor thickness selectors so that values can be typed in or otherwise changed by large amounts quickly. Allow armor gradations. For example, on most pre-dreadnoughts only the waterline belt would be full thickness, the belt above being thinner. Lengthen citadel armor (with commensurate increase in weight) to accommodate turrets close to bow or stern. Add transverse bulkhead thicknesses. Add barbette thickness selector. Add rudder gear room side armor thicknesses. Possibly add fore-and-aft bulkhead thicknesses (on some ships, such as the later US battleships, the rudder compartment was protected by a belt contiguous with the main belt, so there was no fore bulkhead). Add weather or top deck thickness selector. Possibly add turret side and rear thickness selector(s). Possibly add conning tower roof thickness. Possibly add separate armor thicknesses for magazine belts and roofs. A possible citadel improvement: Change citadel options to only four, Protected (turtleback deck with no belt), Armoured (belt with turtleback deck), Belted (belt with low thin flat deck), and All-Or-Nothing (belt with high thick flat deck). Protected is cheap and light and replaces "belt" value with "deck slope" thickness, but it has poor overall resistance. Belted is cheap and has better resistance than Protected, but it is heavier. Armoured has bonus to short range resistance but penalty to long range resistance. All-Or-Nothing is lighter, possibly cheaper, and has bonus to long range resistance, but must be researched. For All-Or-Nothing, extremity belt and extremity deck armor might be restricted to an arbitrary small amount (splinter protection), but extremities would have better compartmentation and resistance to damage. Each of these options might have tech-tree upgrades to increase overall resistance by some amount. Some hulls would have only one of the citadel options available. Turrets, Mounts, and Barbettes Resize turrets based on number of guns. Gun turrets are now all of one size for a given gun caliber and tech level. A single-gun turret should have a much smaller diameter (and smaller barbette diameter) than a quad turret. (Partially addressed) Quadruple turrets are a must. Consider quad mounts for smaller guns. (Addressed) Blank off unused casemate gunports. That is, put plating over them as was done when guns were permanently removed. Alternately, eliminate unused ports entirely (this may prove difficult). Provide some means of showing which guns will fit in a given casemate gunport. As is, trial and error is necessary. (Partially addressed) Increase flexibility in barbette placement. Allow laterally offset barbettes (off centerline). Useful for secondaries and used on "K" German light cruisers. (Partially addressed) Increase number of barbette sizes. Ideally, allow barbettes to auto-scale to whatever turret is placed on top. (Partially addressed) Add secondary barbettes and raised torpedo mounts. Allow barbette stacking, to allow "super-superfiring" turrets. That is, a turret that can fire over a superfiring turret. This was sometimes done for secondary turrets (Yamato, Des Moines) and was not uncommon for main guns in paper designs. (Addressed) Allow placement of guns and torpedoes upon deckhouses (for bigger guns, this would also add the same weight as a barbette piece). Do turrets mounted directly on the deck have "internal" barbettes below them? If not, they should. Do barbettes extend all the way down to the citadel? If not, they should (or a smaller diameter armored trunk tube should). (Addressed) Possibly add different turret designs for the nations. Possibly add two-story "superposed" quadruple turrets, as on USS Kearsarge and USS Virginia. Guns Separate gun propellants from shell fillers as options. Add indicator to show if guns are too similar in caliber (ie, if accuracy is thereby reduced). Reduce (displayed?) shell weight. Tooltip numbers are grossly too large, by about 50% compared to many real weights. Is this because the charge weight is combined with the shell weight? Add diving shells if they are not already implemented. AP shells should be able to hit underwater if falling slightly short at long ranges. A tech-tree research upgrade should be available to improve this effect. Might be as simple as a chance to hit the lower compartments above a sliding-scale range. Allow changes in gun qualities, such as barrel length. Most simply, allow more primitive guns to be used if a newer Mark is available (such as the Mark 2 vs. the Mark 4). (Addressed) Possibly allow guns up to 20in, to match the very large available hulls. May need to de-incentivize them to prevent creep. Possibly consider additional gun caliber variation. There is interest in 5.5in (140mm) guns, for example; possibly it would just be better to allow specification to one millimeter or one-tenth of an inch? (Partially addressed) Possibly increase shell penetration with tech-tree research. Currently this is essentially foldered into the gun Mark; I am unsure that it necessarily needs to be separated. (Partially addressed) Possibly increase rate of fire with tech-tree research. Currently this is essentially foldered into the gun Mark and the "autoloader" option. Possibly add machine guns and autocannons. Low weight, high rate of fire, can be placed in high places, poor damage, very low range. Possibly add dual-purpose and AA guns. This would depend on if and how aircraft would be implemented. Torpedoes (Addressed) Allow larger torpedoes, up to 24 or 25 inches. Allow smaller torpedoes, down to 14 inches. (Partially addressed) Add torpedo fuels/engines, such as: compressed air, dry heater, wet heater, burner cycle (semi-Diesel), oxygen-enriched, pure oxygen, and peroxide. Electric propulsion would be folded into this category. Compressed air would be default, being the oldest, slowest, shortest-ranged, and cheapest. "Fast" would be separated into another category. Create a speed/range setting for torpedoes: Slow, Default, and Fast. Slow would have long range, default would have medium, and fast would have short range. Could further balance this with torpedo detectability. Impose more penalties for underwater torpedo tubes (reduced underwater protection, reduced accuracy, or detonation risk). (Addressed) Allow deck-mounted torpedoes on higher-tech dreadnoughts. Add fixed and semi-fixed above-water torpedo tubes on some hulls. Change size of torpedo launchers to reflect size of torpedo. Possibly add different cosmetic launcher designs for the nations. Possibly prevent torpedo launch if launcher is not close enough to deck edge. Might be complicated, as raising the launcher (as in US destroyers) reduces this issue. Bigger launchers also have less an issue than small ones. Engines and Rudder Add a twin rudder option. Increases maneuverability, increases cost, increases weight, possibly slight decrease in speed. (Partially addressed) Add turbo-electric and Diesel-electric drive option for main engines, giving an increase in underwater compartmentation but with high engine weight. This could be an option in the "Engines" category, or it could be its own category. Allow players to select number of engines and shafts. Possibly increase number of engine/boiler criticals. Four might be appropriate (many vessels have four prop shafts). It might be reasonable to separate boiler and engine criticals -- for example, four engines and four boilers. Possibly allow combined plants. For example, partial Diesel and partial turbine propulsion, as on some German light cruisers. Other Items (Mostly addressed) Increase flexibility in tower placement. Allow unlocking of all towers for all hulls. Add fire control computers and/or other fire control instruments as selectable categories. For example, four options might be: None (default), Dumaresq with Range Clock, Analytic Computer, Synthetic Computer. From "None" to "Synthetic Computer," base accuracy and cost would steadily increase, and long range accuracy would dramatically improve. Each option might have its own tech research upgrades. They do not need to be named, but, for example, it could include "Continuous Aim" for None, "Range Averaging" for Dumaresq, "Improved Plotting" for Analytic, and "Stable Vertical" for Synthetic. Tower effects on accuracy might need to be adjusted if computers are added as a category. Add cross-roll effect. Guns firing close to exactly forward or exactly aft have penalty to accuracy. This is one of the reasons why broadside tactics predominated in the pre-dreadnought era. Fire control tech research upgrades would vastly reduce or eliminate this penalty. (Addressed) Possibly allow heavy cruisers to mount hydrophones with a special upgrade, though maybe with a penalty. (Addressed) Possibly allow battleships to mount hydrophones, though maybe with a penalty. Possibly add mine rails and minesweeping sets (if mines are added) and depth charge rails/launchers (if submarines are added in campaign) for destroyers and light cruisers. Depth charges could even be mounted on heavy cruisers and battleships with the right upgrade, but with a very big scaling penalty to effectiveness. Add catapults and spotter planes. Implementation may be messy. I do worry that adding too many of these changes may cause overcomplexity, but I figured I would include many options that could be pruned down if implemented. I added more points.
  8. Definitely interesting ships, but not incredibly successful ones. The 320mm gun was far too unwieldy on them. Each averaged around 1 round per hour at Yalu River; in total the three ships fired thirteen rounds in five hours. They did make two hits, which is decent accuracy, but probably the class would have done better with more QF guns. The stability no doubt would be far superior.... Speed was indifferent, around 16-16.5 knots, rather slower than most contemporaries. The Alger class is probably their closest relatives, and they got about 19 knots, while the Royal Navy Apollo class was around 18.5-20 knots. I'm fairly certain they were the slowest of all the Japanese protected cruisers. The heavy turret armor might not have been worth it. Matsushima lost its 320mm about 4 hours into Yalu River, and I think armor against small or QF guns (ie ~6in thick or less) would have served just as well. In fact Japan never did order any more cruisers from France, after these. One wonders if the Matsushimas alone were why, or whether Unebi flat-out disappearing was the big reason.
  9. I have also noticed that guns on the destroyer forecastle have the same bug as the torpedoes. It’s not just visual, the gun can and will fire through the bridge. In terms of barbettes, they should be available for secondary armament, too. It would be nice if barbettes auto-scaled to match their turret, but I understand that might be a pain. I also think there should be the ability to place barbettes off centerline. This isn’t very “practical” for battleship main guns (although it might look cool!). But this was done on the German “K” light cruisers and with secondary guns, notably on the Nelson class. Of course, offset barbettes would increase hull stress and might decrease stability. Considering hull stress, there should be a penalty applied as heavy placeable items get too close to the bow or stern. For example, there’s no apparent reason not to put big guns at extremes to get better firing arcs, leading to awkward ships that would have terrible hogging in any real seaway. I think we should have the ability to create whatever idiotic designs we desire! …just with appropriate disadvantages. As others have pointed out, (I assume this is in the works) shells should have increased long-range belt penetration with increased tech, to a point. Additionally, there should probably be some increase in rate of fire with improved tech. Gun propellants and shell fillers should be separated as categories, as they tend to have vastly different properties and different effects. Additionally, the use of TNT as one of the “top” fillers is odd, as pure TNT is generally too sensitive for naval shells. Torpedoes should go up to 24 or 25 inches in size, to encompass Japanese and British types. For balance this may require rework of damage numbers. Might be interesting to have bigger guns available, too. The Japanese famously considered 20in guns, so that could be a practical limit. Understandable if 18in is kept the maximum anyway. More torpedo fuel differentiation would also be nice, such as semi-Diesel, oxygen, peroxide, etc. Alternately this could just be abstracted into tech research for increased torpedo weight/explosives/speed/range. For pre-dreadnoughts, perhaps we could place small secondary guns on top of the casemates, with a big penalty attached? I imagine future pre-dread hulls with space for secondary turrets would mitigate this, so it might not be a long-term issue. Likewise, guns in low or far forward casemates could have penalties from water spray. Underwater torpedo tubes should impose more penalties. They may reduce the protection of the torpedo belt (if there is one), are difficult to subdivide, and they can blow up if hit (is this already implemented?). Finally, side tubes are hard to launch accurately at high speeds. I think it might be interesting, but maybe too complicated, if amidships big-gun turrets interfered with the engines in some way. Amidships turrets had certain advantages (hull stress, protection from spray, wide torpedo protection), but they tended to crowd out the engines, and insulation from hot steam could be an issue. No idea how any of this could be implemented. Might be a waste of time. Could also be interesting to add fire control computers and other fire control instruments as selectable categories. The game is fun to play and is very impressive. Good job!
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