ColonelHenry

I really think going for a pre-made ship hull is the second biggest mistake. There is nothing the AI could make using this hull without building HMS Dreadnought that is 1. Historical, because it's HMS Dreadnought hull, you can't do much with the hull because it was built to house exactly the guns and the superstructure, limiting the kind of weapons you could put on it without looking absolutely ass like above. (To clarify as in you cannot put anything outside of the 12inch--> 13inch and still have the ship look like a Dreadnought because everything would be too out of place and either making it a weird futuristic design or ... again, like above) 2. Good looking and competitive, because it is an AI that is being forced to CREATE something that can beat a human and be visually appealing to the human. I mean... If AIs could do such things, I'll bet my life saving an indie game developer isn't going to be the one to invent this AI. Seriously... Please... Can we get a shipbuilder patch, solely focusing on ship building and hulls?

I do not want to go around and bad mouth the game. I do want the game to be good and represents the naval combat of the late 1880s --> 1920s faithfully. The rest be damn because I do not care much about WW2 naval combat without aircraft. Again, going for hit chance isn't bad if you can mask the hit chance well. This game just does not do that good enough so the illusion breaks very easily.

Well... you should have joined the discussion sooner because all of these had been brought up 2 years ago when it was first released in alpha state. The devs had chosen % instead of shell simulation. People had written books worth of feedback on why the devs should switch to simulation but I think it wans't enough. Now, % isn't bad if done correctly. But for the last 2 years, it was barely worked on regarding the gunnery system so... we're here, with a pretty bad gunnery system where shells are just graphical representation. The "real" shell is the %. If it says that the shell hits, it will hit. If the % say the shell doesn't... well, yea it doesn't. No matter how physics defying it looks.

I really really hope that further development of crews or crew morale is being considered to help mitigate 1% floating ships angling away while stationary and still shooting.

Which means if anything, the current partial pen is sorely needed because nothing in this game is built to stop you from having 20 inch of belt armor and just be an invincible floating box. It will have to do until we get detailed armor layout. They don't? But again, repeated hits into the same spot should be equivalent of a penetrating hit anyway.

Fire does to my knowledge but crew loss atm barely means anything. Every single time, the ship is sunk before even losing more than 25-30% at the max in all of my battles. I'm not sure if flooding causes any crew loss. I'm just tired of 1920+ combat where a BB can tank 200 BB grade shells and still floating while shooting back. Every single battle is just a waste of time... Urgh. I hope the December chosen feature list is solid.

I mean with torpedo protection in this game... ships are literally floating while tanking hundreds of flooding damage hits... It's just that IRL internal systems would be nothing more but randomly placed pieces of metals and camp fires comparable to a crowded tourist beach. Meanwhile in this game, the ships can still fire all the guns... accurately. I can live with the hull stats if internal damage is implemented because then a floating hunk traveling at 3 knts that can't fire back is as good as dead hull stats or otherwise.

For the love of god. This is Ultimate Admiral Dreadnought. I wouldn't even be commenting if the "Dreadnought" part is completed but it's not even close. The game is named Dreadnought but you can barely build any. Let the devs finish the bloody part that is supposed to be in the game first.

Always upload to imgur and then link the image here. I never had any luck with uploading image directly to this site.

If I remember correctly from the book @DougTossmentioned to me earlier in this thread, the 4inch hit would have to be on the engine compartment in order to get a TB out of action, otherwise hits elsewhere would not stop it or larger shells at the time would not be able to detonate due to the thin armor. But I do agree that the current damage damage is just too fantastical (aka assuming every single component would work even when everything surrounding it is shot to hell). And like I have said, beside the somewhat fantasy damage model, even if the damage model is accurate, we still have crews fighting to the death and magic repair wands. So what I think should really happen is that beside giving ships accurate damage models, the repair mechanic need to be nerf according to the revised damage models. Especially, flooded ships should not be able to pump water out like it's nothing after taking multiple hits. At best they could keep it partially flooded. Fire should be a real threat throughout the entire campaign from 1890 to 1940. Right now, crews after 1910 with all hull upgrades can just basically ignore fire. This is absurd, unrealistic, and in terms of gameplay unbalanced. Crews need to be actual people instead of a number. Again, we should have crew morale and officers simulated. A ship losing most of its engine, and flooded heavily should be scuttled/abandoned, and if you want some fun/gamey aspect to the mechanic, add an extreme rare chance of a ship being scuttled but not sink, allowing for capture (higher chance if the crew is less experienced?)

If your arguments boil down to "no u". Then I might as well stop here. People have said more than enough to put into a book of its own about spotting, gunnery, damage models, etc. And all you said back is how you specifically feel about the topic.

Completely DISAGREE. The only emotion that this system "immersers" the player in is frustration. I cannot tell where the enemy ships are to come up with a strategy in a strategy game before they are already above me is straight-up (sorry for the language toward this system)organic garbage especially for the early era.

1. Damage Models I have heard that this is in the works but I think people would like to get an update on how it's going and how detailed it is going to be. 2. More 1890s-1910s hulls. Since this is in the works also, I would like to see some updates on the progress if possible. 3. Crews You want feedback on crews? Here it is. They are unbalanced. Very, unbalanced. In terms of the strategical side, there should be a better way to train crew other than duke it out the death with another nation. I mean, there are numerous accounts of crew trained in peace time achieving very high hit rate during war time. AI really needs to stop cheating with Veteran crews on ship that never even seen combat. I mean my two years battle hardened BB crew can only attain Regular status while a BB I have never seen before in my life has Veteran status... and there are TWO of them?! On the tactical side... they are a little bit too decisive (in terms of gameplay). Veteran crew can just fix fire, flooding too quickly, like... inhumanly quickly. Damaged rudder by 13 inch shells? Not anymore. Flooding? I've never seen water in my life. Maybe this needs a revision. EDIT: And crews seem to suffer casualties from silly things like a shell bouncing off armor? But like suffer only 5%-10% when a flash fire happens? 3.1 Improvements Please @Nick Thomadis. You guys have done an amazing job on the crew side for AoS. I would not complain one bit if the crew morale mechanic is port straight to this game with no code change. I will never forget the fact that I could make a first rate SOL surrender in less than 2 minutes by having another ship raking its stern with a full broadside causing 300 deaths and a surrender. And the moment leading up to that stunt, having to steer my ships into position in order to pull such a feat reminiscence of HMS Victory action at Trafalgar. Such a crew morale mechanic would be a great improvement for Dreadnoughts. Right now, ships can survive insane amount of damage because the crew would not give up the ship no matter what (as well as magic repairing ability but this is not about that). Something along the line of crew scuttling the ship when it is heavily damaged (say 50% flooded and half the ship is red, going barely 5-7knts) and cannot be saved, reduced accuracy under intense accurate fire, surrendering (extremely rare %), chance of officers dying and crews suffer from lack of leadership, crew suffer permanent morale loss due to casualties sustained, etc. 4. AI Ship Design Templates The AI ships from 1890 - 1910 are "fine" in terms of realism and "difficulty" if sometimes misguided placement of guns (like 2 wings main turret that are placed too close, resulting in a non existing firing arc). But 1920 going forward is just... too much. Especially the amount of torpedo launchers. They would just build the heaviest ship there is and battles become slug fest ships tanking hundred of shells while still firing back with accurate fire without sinking (partly related to Damage Models and crew). I think this could be vastly improved with a template. For 1890-1910, this means even better AI ships to fight against since they kinda nail down the basics. For 1920 onwards, this means putting a cap on the AI and guide them toward certain ship designs that are balanced, fun to fight against, and not frustrating. The last part I think is important. Frustrating designs to play against. Sure I can dodge 100 torpedoes and wait for my ship to score 200 hits on a single target but if that's what I paid 40CAD for then I might as well save that to go the movies 4 times with my friends or blow through a karaoke session. 5. More Open Ship Designer Am I the only one who think that the designer is too limited and way too much stat based? I find myself building the exact same ship over and over again because... that's all the superstructures available to me allow. I really think that if you could work your magic and give the ability to design the superstructures like the main tower, funnels, and aft tower, you would see immediately improvement in the variety of ships that could be built. Allow us to use different turret housing if not outright slightly design them, or even have another technology node specifically for this. Do I expect every single one of these to be added to the list for the update after December? No. These are big asks. I know they are especially 5. but I believe they can very much be done. And like others have said, we really appreciate that your stepped up and start interacting with the community!

Again... I know vaguely how the currently system works with all the spotting bonuses. And what I am saying is, it is not realistic or fun. People have wrote paragraphs before me on how to change it, and I'm not going to write paragraphs of what have already been said better.

I would rather have the spotting mechanic heavily reworked. Again, a ship should be able to spot another ship up to the horizon as long as the weather condition allows. A 1890 BB is probably not going to be able to engage another ship at 10km unless new firing mechanisms and gunnery techniques were research, but it should be able to see that other ship coming from beyond 10km (20km+ or whatever). It has nothing to do with towers being too decisive. It has everything to do with the spotting mechanic being absolutely gamey, unrealistic, and frustrating.

We should be able to put heavier guns on smaller vessels in general. Stuffs like single 12 inch guns on coastal defense ships should be a possibility in a ship designing game.

Will the spotting mechanics be reworked in the near future? Will screening for the fleet get a rework in starting position at the beginning of a battle? I am serious. The spotting is so bad that it should not stay in the game as it is. Again, I tried to play a 1910 campaign and somehow, a BB can't see a 1100t DD at less than 5km during the evening, well within the range of its torpedoes. Meanwhile the fleet of DD can just use magic smoke to approach and avoid hits while still aiming perfect torpedo shots all the while my supposed screening CL is on the other side of the fleet. This is ridiculous. And I'm tired of writing walls of text explaining how these are terrible designs in terms of gameplay and realism. I want to like this game, I do like many things that it's trying to do but they are either not finished yet, or half-baked. More questions: Will the AI stop turning away forever during stern chases that it cannot escape? Will rudder destroyed actually means something for the AI other than a slight disagreement in turning for them while they can still evade broadsides of torpedoes? Will the game stop telling my ship what to do and what not to do while I'm trying to manage my fleet? (Like suddenly switching targets when I'm trying to destroy a particular bunched up destroyers? Or perhaps stop telling my ship to NOT turn when clearly the player input will not result in a collision while the AI just keep the ships from doing anything that will in fact lead to a collision?) Will... you get point. There are some terrible designs that still plague this game since the very first Alpha. And I hope coming to Steam doesn't mean it gets flooded with negative reviews.

The x10 x30 was available for all ranges during the first few updates of the Alpha versions. But they removed them due to "instability" or whatever. Yea. I would like them back please.

I mean this is the solution to the problem of ships tanking hundred of shots and still floating. Technically and physically speaking, if every single defense mechanism worked as intended, the ship could stay afloat for quite some time. However, I'm pretty sure in real life, ships that were severely damaged would either beach themselves or scuttle to avoid enemy capture. Did fighting to the bitter end happened? Yes. But more often than not, these last acts of defiance did not result in the enemy ship taking multiple accurate and damaging hits that happen every single battle in this game. Please, if the damage model is not going to be updated any time soon, add crew morale for the love of god, it is way easier to do. There is already ships surrendering and crew capture mechanics in UA:AoS, maybe you guys can look at how to implement such system in this game?

Idk if you are a closed tester but seriously, the torpedo boat tanking multiple BB grade shells should be fixed ASAP. Torpedo boats now are too good at fixing flooding. How the hell are you going to fix multiple 11 inch holes for such a small vessel? They shouldn't sink on sight, but they shouldn't be flying around with holes on their hull while still aiming torpedo at 100% accuracy.

I will say one last time, maybe your "naval warfare" knowledge is better than mine. But your reading comprehension skill is of a first grader who looks at familiar words to bark on command. You cannot even understand the basis of my argument, yet you act like you're professor know-all. You do not argue with fact, you mention facts, and then piss off to fantasy land afterwards. It has been proven again and again. But you do not listen. Your stupid ego prevents your brain from reading better than a first grader. What started this argument was that I was asking for accuracy below 1000m. And all that the video you sent said about that was all about above 1000m. Everything else in the video about accuracy below 1000m is that it is easy to aim with the eye. That's it. Nothing else. So I asked the question what happens when the engagement gets below 1000m? Should the game have higher accuracy under these circumstances for 1890s tech? So perhaps now you understand the argument, you can argue like a normal person. And stop straw manning. There baby brain, can you read now?

Oh yea? Maybe it's because they patched it? Such ignorance. And, for the record, you have again, and again argued in bad faith, lying, misrepresenting people arguments because your ego does not let you to be wrong for once in your petty life. Maybe use a dictionary and learn these words, maybe then you can win an argument.

About the campaign so far, I think the campaigns for 1890 -> 1910 are currently the most balanced. 1920 and above just feel a bit too much (aka hit chance too high, the damage model being absolutely rudimentary shows its ugly head, super-battleships). The only 1920 campaign that I beat was the Royal Navy campaign. Playing as Germany, you would have to be a masochist and into CBT right now because you cannot prepare for war but instead immediately build a fleet and fight, of course, you will be out numbered and outgunned. Is it winnable? Absolutely. Is it fun? Eh. *shrug*. No, do not increase Germany funds any further. I think it just comes down the the fact that the campaign is immediate war instead of a naval build up. Though an already established concern about 1890-1920 campaign, we desperately needs more variety in hulls and gun models for all the nations (yes, even the ones that aren't in the campaign right now). Another point is balancing heavy cruisers. Right now, I feel like heavy cruisers are a waste of money. For the 1910-1920 campaigns that I have played, I made the decision to not build any CA but instead building 3x twin 11 inch armed Battlecruisers with the displacement scale all the way to the left, fast, heavily armed and armored CA. For Germany, I could stand up to RN other BCs which have the distinct disadvantage of having eject-able turrets. For the RN, it is almost broken. I could build x10 of these BCs beside 5 top of the line BBs and 5 slower 23000 tons BBs while also building another 5 normal 12 inch armed BCs. For a total of 25 BB/BC. Literally, one battle, I had 1BB/4BC vs enemy 1BB/3CA and the amount of 11 inch shells I showered on this lone BB was insane. Maybe CA needs a buff in something. Usually the enemy CAs are slow even in 1920 campaign (<20 knts!) which are subject to mass torpedo attack. They are expensive, unable to stand up to BBs. Any thoughts on this anyone?

@DougToss @arkhangelskSo I read through the accuracy report that was snipped from the book, and at least what I could see is that it were not the guns that were inaccurate but the technique being used were not good for accuracy as well as not enough training was done? For 1890s technology I meant. Then there's the attack on the fort which was indeed terrible accuracy for a stationary giant target... I'm not sure how we could represent that better in-game? Right now, everything is done through technology research and crew experience. Do we know anything about the gunnery training that was done by Percy Scott? Because the hit percentage seems pretty insane for 1899, but what was the range and was the simulated target moving? For now, the in-game accuracy under 1km is okay-ish I think. I can't test much because it's getting busy before Christmas. How are you guys finding the gunnery system after these few hotfixes?

I don't usually name other games on other games' official forums but I played War on the Sea and my god are the star shells fun. Man... I would kill to get that game visual presentation with this game ship building.