Purgato

- Did it happen during battle or during fleet loading phase? I was loading into the new "pocket battleship" mission after finishing my ship, which was the most modern heavy cruiser available with 3 10 inch triple guns. - How many ships were involved in the battle e.g. (You 1xBB vs AI 1xBB, 1xBC, 2xCA etc.) Unknown as I never made it into the battle, nor even saw the loading screen, just ship builder, but with the ship absent. - Which nations were the opponents? France (I think) - Did you notice something else more helpful? (e.g. crash happened when certain ships fired their guns, or made a hard turn etc.) nothing jumped out, but here's a screenshot of when it crashed to help anyways. UPDATE AS I WROTE THIS: The battle loaded in and is playing fine, but the error is still hanging in the background. I currently have it paused to see if I can figure anything out from here.

Weight and how destroyers are fundamentally used changes, since it turns a destroyer that has say, 3 double tube mounts from needing a squad to carry out an attack before pulling off to fend off the opposing destroyers as a screen.(Or hell maybe even SAVING their torps to be used once the right occasion makes itself known) to just pulling away, deploying smoke, and coming around for another two passes. One destroyer with the way mounts work right now is severally overvalued from their historical counterpart, at least from the meta way you're describing. Again, I'd rather just have it so there is a more game-y meta along side an option for no reloads for torps, both can exist fine if there is an option before starting a game. I don't want to argue, I just want a fun game at the end of the day.

I'm unsure how the treaties will work, but with the campaign looking closer to being done by the day, I have a feeling it'll be known in more detail before the end of the year. Still, I do hope, like you said, that there is more interaction then just "there is a naval treaty now, you are limited to x things" and instead had more of a interaction from the player, maybe being able to argue for ships currently being built to have a grace period to be finished, or maybe try to squeeze a few more tons out of the requirements, or even just flat out make unreasonable demands so the whole thing falls apart before anyone can agree on anything. It just seems like big event the player, as the head of the navy should have some influence over, and would seem to be something quite fun to work around.

The German pre-dreadnought battleship 3 hull has been an annoyance to me for as long as I can remember it being in game. For one the more upgraded 'front tower 3' mount needs to just have that GIANT GAP in between it and the upper deck for it to be placed. Which means you are heavily limited on what guns can even be mounted in the front for more or less no reason. It isn't even an issue of true collision since when you try and place it flush with the deck behind it, it looks like a perfect fit and the designer just yells "OVERLAPS WITH BORDER" instead. Worst of all is that the older tower you can mount gives you about the same amount of space on the raised part of the turret deck and YET it can be fit on the node where the other tower was overlapping even though the back walkway on it SHOULD be currently jammed into the upper deck. Also, the rear towers don't even get close to lining up with the upper decks, they are more or less half a floor below it. Something I'm not entirely sure is a problem, but has always been slightly annoying was the near requirement to have double 5 inch gun mounts, it would be nice to be able to mount some single 6 inch mounts in their spot, but that's more of a personal gripe then anything. TL;DR, The front tower is very messed up and the rear is kind of messed up.

I honestly would just want an setting that could be swapped between since the last thing I'd want is to mess up how people like to play their game, but would like torps to be represented a bit more accurately within that alternate option. Although I wouldn't say that just because the game is going to lend itself outside of history and probably for some neat alt-history situations once the campaign is out, doesn't make for a good reason to just ignore how something worked. Placing a turret, barbett or torpedo tube in a non conventional way is one thing. How those work within the game is another matter entirely.

I have come to the realization that reloading torpedoes while at sea is not really a thing (with the exception of the Japanese in ww2). And while I do like having a few destroyers have several massive, repeating broadsides, I was curious if there would be a slightly more realistic option. Maybe a setting so "in combat torpedo reloads" can be toggled for the sake of preference. That, or turn the reload into a nation specific bonus for the Japanese in the late game. I'm unsure if this has ever been addressed, so I wanted to make a post to see if this subject has been brought up before.

I'd say this but with one slight change, have it be listed as obsolete, but sill usable. Although maybe even that would be hard to judge. Who's to say having a turbine instead of the more advanced version to save on cost is a bad plan? Hell, maybe you do use a very old engine on a ship, but know it'll only be used for coastal patrol duties and doesn't need all that expense. The point is there are some reasons to have old stuff in a new ship. Not every ship, but old tech has it's place.

I have the feeling many of the values in the game are very much placeholders. By the time of a campaign I could easily imagine some tech penalties penalties for certain nations that may allow for that sort of a situation. Like probably China, Russia and Spain will have some difficulties keeping up with naval tech. Or hell maybe you could just have a larger focus elsewhere as the player, maybe having newer engines never became too much of a problem because of other areas of focus for your nation? Point is I think there will be room for this sort of thing later on, but for now, yeah it isn't much of an option at the moment.

I think there are certainly a few ways to go about it. The simplest, and probably least interesting would be making it purely an aesthetic thing. Something a bit better would be to simply make it a flat penalty to spotting ships and aiming. Now what could make this more interesting is using some of what you mentioned, flares, star shells, searchlights. All of which could be different tech that would needed to be researched to help night combat go more effectively, all of course having their own drawbacks and bonuses to assist. Making it visual as well could be extremely nice, plus it would give the player an idea if whatever night fighting tech they have is actually working or not. Although as you mentioned as well, this would make many battleships into torp fodder. Which isn't unrealistic, but abusing night battles would be something that, while could make some tactical sense, may not be the greatest for game play. Like maybe allow for a tendency towards night battles if you wanted, but making you ships only engage at night would seem just silly. Plus it could act as more of a sudden turning point, maybe give very little clue to what fleet you'd be encountering, making it hard to tell if that battle will go in your favor or not. Still, not having night battles would be a serious disappointment, even if they only are visual.

Not sure if this thread is still being utilized, but I'll throw my two cents here. Having an extension to the dreadnought era feels almost like a must. Even if it's only later down the line, a 5 or 10 year extension back could make the later dreadnoughts feel like that much more of a technical leap. And while pushing it (especially since all it was was the topic of an April fools mission) Having a situation where even ironclads could be prevalent, even if only the last of their classes, could be another chance for the player to experience a massive leap in technology. The only other major thing that could be improved is maybe breaking up the main towers somewhat. Make it a more modular situation of being able to add different pieces together to let the player have more freedom with their designs. like being able to chose if there are mounts for funnels, secondary guns, maybe even a barbette for main gun,etc. At the moment many of the current towers just feel like they tend to restrict the player, making them design a ship far from what they otherwise might have done if they had more ability to change it around to their liking.

What scenario are you in and could you please post the design of said ship? But to answer your question there isn't really much of an after action report at the moment. What I would recommend is looking over the ship overview and ship details both of which are in the ship building screen on the top right as a drop down which can provide a lot of helpful info when making a ship. Also I'm a little confused. Why couldn't a Battleship's battery fire at a ship within their range if even if another ship is in front of them? Certainly they should be able to range it in, even if a cruiser was closer. The only thing that may make that difficult is if said screening ship was utilizing it's torpedoes to keep the battleship from closing properly.

Damn, never realized this was talked about before. Although I do think there is more to be said on even a hypothetical level. That thread was months ago and although the updates haven't been total overhauls since then, the way it could be imagined could certainly have changed. Plus I think having what will end up being common procedure in the main campaign be brought up and discussed certainly can't hurt.

Actually there may be a bit of an issue now that I think about it. If the towers on a ship are the only components to them, we can't have a situation like the early US dreadnoughts replacing their cage masts, since the towers have a bunch of the components you mentioned all crammed inside them. Although the game is still quite early on, so I could see some changes to that. Either way using history as a guide does seem at least somewhat useful to assist in getting an idea here, but I almost swore there were situations of larger ships having their guns swapped out for other larger ones. Granted, maybe you just mean they never added even more then they started with. So I guess beyond a situation of replacing a turret having a double mount with a triple if it can be afforded there shouldn't be too much of a reason to add more main turrets on a ship that large?

While the campaign is still quite far off I can't help but think about how refits would work. What I'm very interested in, maybe because of the recent April fools update is a situation similar to the SMS Leitha. A Monitor having several refits decades after she was first built, ending up being used during and after the first world war by several powers, even if in a more limited capacity late in her career. She also had several different turret layouts, new engines, had new guns installed in older, but still functional turret mounts, etc. My question here is what the limits of a refit should look like. Should the amount being changed have some proportional cost to it? Like up gunning a battleship a few years into service, while cost intensive, being a few month process that'll bring new life into an otherwise soon to be outclassed ship? Or should it be more simple as in replacing older quality guns for newer ones? I can assume making modifications to the hull is out of the question, but what about superstructure, funnels, etc? Where exactly should the line be drawn and how much freedom should we have on a refit? Feel free to throw ideas around, but this isn't anything to pressure the devs, more just think over what the limits a refits may end up looking like.

That may be your problem. While 6 inches are fine, using a 5 inch gun is just a barely capable gun. It should be used maybe as a backup at most, that or just something small to keep damage up on longer lasting engagements. Also getting the reload time as low as possible would be a good plan. Maybe even try light shells along with reloading tech. But I will say using as many guns as possible is still probably viable even with 5 inches. But like @madham82 said, the AI for destroyers is a little bit busted. I seriously think there isn't too much wrong with the mechanics of hitting them or around them. It's more just their insatiable and near suicidal blood lust at the moment. Which I hope might be fixed one day soon and that they might function a bit more realistically in the future.

Sorry I didn't ask before, but is there a particular mission you're currently doing? That may make it a little easier to help out with this situation. I ask since over time towers and other technologies can help out with even spotting the smallest ships at range. Also I will fully admit, it can be messy to try and keep a battle line somewhat together at this point. If the whole thing collapses I'd recommend pausing right as the leading ship in a column switches and removing the old one it from the group and manually pulling it away. You can do that as well if any of the ships within it may be near to running into some torpedoes to manually maneuver them away.

Something that might be a better fix for this may be reducing that penalty depending on the gun. But more specifically, the smaller the gun (to a point) the easier it is to hit a fast moving smaller ships. Granted this would only be at close ranges, which may be pretty much null and void once you get to the 10 plus km distances you get in later battles. But this is only if anything did need changing which I don't think there is. Something to take into account is a lot of the time destroyers do not get in close without a scratch. Even if there is a low chance to hit them enough fire aiming at a destroyer will land shots. A single 6 in HE shell penetrating can and will do damage to a ship of that size, maybe even slow it down and make it easier to shoot at with more shots. Also remember, secondaries are in mass most of the time for a reason, the chance of a shell hitting only goes up the more shells there are flying at a single target. Also screen ships, while maybe not a major factor in the game right now can mitigate this issue a lot. Having some cruisers able to keep the smaller ships at a distance allowing them and the battleship's guns to fire at an arm's length is something else that may assist. Honestly, just keep experimenting as well, destroyers will remain a major threat, torpedoes are definitely a major threat for any ship. Keeping them out of range of launching them or (and I'm unsure if they'll patch this out later) seeing when they've launched due to the torpedo reloading starting is a good way to avoid them in the first place.

Actually that is a very good point. Considering how the AI has some issues already with how ships can be constructed, giving them even more tools may make them look like a pile of slapped together lego (granted that could be amusing in it's own right). And giving the AI only the pre-made hulls we have now would make them appear a little bit same-y after a time. But yeah, maybe I'm just being a little pessimistic. I really do hope what gets added going forward brings further improvements. And maybe then we can get some oddball ships like the Thunderchild going. I mean, mechanically we're mostly there with the ramming.

I have to agree but the reason I've said after release is that I'm nearly positive the devs themselves said that. It would seem silly to implement it after adding... actually I'm not sure on the number of hulls, now but I'll assume it's over 50 at this point. Because every hull they end up adding will make the ability to make everything modular for them that much harder, or at least more time consuming. I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm optimistic they'll keep their promise of modular hulls after launch, but it would make way more sense to fix it up before it as you said. And I think DLC hulls might make that problem even worse.

I'd rather not have DLCs be the first thing that comes to mind when adding new content. Of course the devs need to make money somehow, but going down the paradox line of "only adding new features in 20 dollar DLC packs" isn't the way the game should go and is a slippery slope I'd wish to avoid. Again, getting a robust customization system started after the game's release should be what allows for this, not piles and piles of new ship hulls for 5 dollars each.

Yeah the way towers are set up at the moment really don't allow for anything close to this, plus making that superstructure is more or less impossible since it's more or less all the way towards the back. I really do hope the devs can focus on other things like more modular hull customization once the game is closer to release or maybe a bit after.

Although there is some jank to the mission, mainly when getting a bit close to the enemy, this needs to stay in the game. It's a fun little pair of missions and would be a shame to not have it be available later down the road.

I really do hope this is less of a simple joke of an update and more testing the waters for having a type of ironclad ships within the game. Even if it's purely the last ones to act as a mostly outdated class before pre-dreadnoughts, it could add a bit of fun insanity with heavily armored short ranged ships brawling it out right at the start. Maybe an 1870 or 1875 start could give these ships just enough time in the sun to give the player a real feeling of progress purely from gaining pre-dreadnoughts, let alone what may come after. Or hell maybe have a few starting options for those who don't want it and start right at 1890. It would be lovely to see.

YES, my dream of a massively fast, heavily armored and nearly unarmed BATTLE RAMMER can come to fruition! In all seriousness, this update looks like it'll shape up to be a very good quality of life change to combat and ship design. And I hope the game will only get better.

I want to see more hulls in the game. But I almost would rather have more generic ones with more utility if it means you could have more variety in ship design because at the moment there are several hulls were it's bordering on restrictive, especially the current cruisers and destroyers, and I feel some of the historical ones could fall into a similar trap. Maybe just have a generic option on top of the other historical ones that'll inevitably be added, but being railroaded into using one specific historical hull for a nation's destroyers or light cruisers would probably lead to some real same-y feel to most ships build of that hull after awhile.