Mycophobia

I don't think this is needed at any point before the full release, but it should be something the dev can keep in mind in making the game. Making the game mod-friendly imo will be extremely helpful by allowing the player to create more assets and enriching the content of the game. This is not a function we need any time soon, but I think it is probably much easier to make the game keeping it in mind compared to trying to add that functionality in the end.(which might be impossible by that point)

Awesome to finally have custom battle, even if it may have some issues. Definitely didn't expect for this to come so soon. Thank you very much for the hard work! Most gameplay and balancing changes looks great and is heading towards the right direction as well!

Hopefully not too nerco'ing but I just want to add Victory at Sea Pacific's campaign system is worth looking into. It did a very good job combinging the strategic maneuver of ships with tactical combat, and became even better once carriers are involved. Even without, it can help making the tranisition between tactical combat and fleet movement over the waters more smooth. I don't think it will be too easy to incorporate into a very RTW style campaign right now, but is a good possibility to look at. Peace time management however should definitely remain fairly similar in style to the RTW games, with some polishing and quality of life improvements ofcourse.

I Like HOI's emphasis on range of operation and more relevant positioning of ships, task groups and roles compared to RTW. But the overall turn based structure and campaign mechanics should be more focused to RTW imo, at least during peace time. The old Steam and Iron game is great for operational campaign during war time, which I feel is probably better than HoI. That said, its probably quite difficult to effectively integrate. Giving how similar the campaign is rtw during my brief experience with it in 0.60, I'd be pretty happy if its simply "RTW Plus". Main things I hope for is more control over task group formation (I still want RNG to make me fight in non-ideal situations, but at least some agency over fleet composition even if I cant always have every battle with the "ideal" fleet), and some more strategic decision making besides putting a buncha of ship in 1 sea zone and hope for stuff to happen in your favor.

The actual benefit of armor angling is very questionable in reality. A plunging fire hit will care very little about how your ship is angled if it impact the deck and not the belt. A horizontal belt hit benefit from angling, especially at closer range, but then without the silly "autobounce"/"overmatch" mechanic, they are far more likely to hit bow and hit the transverse bulkhead, which will not be angled against such a hit. Not to mention in that case almost any hit you receive are likely going through the transverse bulkhead into your magazine/fore turret barbette... Not to mention head-on turret hit should be far more deadly than they are in WoWs, and close range-bow tanking basically means shots are more likely to go to the turret. There can be some defensive benefit to angle yourself a bit(and something like a 20 degree angling, not bow tanking....) at a shortish range, but certainly not a core-mechanic you plan battles around or do all the time. From a realistic perspective, you'd think if bow tanking was very useful people would do it where possible. Warships are designed to take hits on their belt armor, not their bow.

With regard to quality, as of the current patch, the over-estimation of armour quality are still an issue. As mentioned in the old armor quality post, the game use close to IRL penetration value against krupp armor for its guns, but the starting point for in game armor is wrought-iron. This issue have been somewhat mediated in the current patch due to the small upward shift of gun penetration, but armor still feel somewhat too effective. Regarding the overall gunnery model, I don't think there is any issue with a "simple" model that does not have WoWs/WT like ballistic. RTW operates entirely on abstracted numbers and can deliver a quite realistic simulation. There is no issue with being "gamey" if the number/factors themselves are not "gamey or exploitable". The game accounts sufficient factors that I don't think the min/max, which as pointed above is something all real life naval designer do, is something easily achievable. I'd only be concerned if the accuracy factors are overly simplistic and unrealistic, making it easily exploitable by cheesing certain factors. Currently I think my only issue with accuracy is the comparative inaccuracy of secondary guns, especially at close range, which looks like is going to be addressed for the next patch. Ofcourse, for something that has a visual element like UAD, there should be some effort to smooth out the visual presentation. Currently seeing shell passthrough non-intended targets is quite immersion breaking, and I think the game should at least account for the possibility of shells impacting none intended target. (I.E Italians overshot the British BB during battle of Calabria but damaged escorting British DDs)

Besides independent secondary targeting, I'd also like ability for secondary ammo choice to not be tied to primary gun's ammo choice. Formation AI also need serious rework at the moment, while I don't know if its appropriate to ask it to be fit into this patch given the amount of work that seems to be already on the table, it should be tackled sooner than later. My other pressing concerns, namely incredibly durable ship near death, underpowered secondary, and poor torpedo warfare seems to be worked on in that patch, so I look forward to see how things turn out. Lastly, I personally think it will be best to either release campaign in limited scope, or some kind of custom battle that places everything on a more even tech level rather than the current bouns we get from Academy. It will help us better gauge the balancing change if ships can actually engage each other at comparatively tech levels. For example, having very modern guns in the attacking armed convoy mission may skew our perception about effectiveness of those weapons, likewise being able to put very heavy guns on pre-dread in "power of dreadnoughts" may also give a false impression. This patch note is looking good so far, keep up the good work!

I don't agree that this necessarily needs to be the case. Its not that the game is systemically incapable of simulating certain aspect of reality with any degree of accuracy. Rather, the current game is also deficient in other areas of realism, therefore enforcing realism on only one part of the game will cause imbalance. Before modification of torpedo damage itself, what should be done Is another look at the damage system overall, which may have chain reaction on both the durability of smaller ships and effect of torpedo on ship in of itself. If smaller ships can be more effectively stopped from reaching an easy firing position, I don't see any issue with moving torpedo damage to be closer to reality. Torpedo warfare in game needs to be changed, because DDs doing loop after loop within 2-3km of enemy ship and scoring volley after volley of torpedo hits to slowly wittle down a BB that cant hit them except relying on high caliber "secondaries" or its main battery is neither realistic nor enjoyable. Whether current the torpedo themselves needs any actual change will depend on what other changes are being done. I agree duds is likely a bad idea, but if we end up still seeing extreme ease of landing torpedo hits, torpedo reliability may be a way to balance that (Though in that case it will be much more appropriate to make torpedo hits harder to achieve) Signaling and coordination is another issue entirely, and probably an important choice the game have to make down the line. However, even if player is given ability to issue directional order to each destroyer squadron, I am of the mind the degree of micromanagement plus the fact that we don't actually decide the exact angle of launch of torpedo attack should, to an extent, make it difficult to execute overwhelmingly effective torpedo attack, especially against enemy with effective screening and secondary fire.

I wouldn't mind "spacing the guns" just makes it slightly harder for the turret to be knocked out if its too much work to actually model the two-halves turret.

Torpedo hit and the bulkhead damage seems to at least be location based, with a bit of randomness, which is good in the sense that you can try to aim for the undamaged parts. Bad in the sense that you can end up with repeated hit in the same general location keep re-flooding the same bulkhead.

I can understand the need to avoid PR drama, but general outline to show what the team is currently working alone would be great to know what the team is working to address. This can help shape forum discussion in the right direction and help us understand dev's position. If anything, I'd be happy with the pre-.62 patch update from the dev to tell us what are some changes being worked on for the next patch.

I think he replies with regards to torpedo damage, not torpedo effectiveness overall. As far as damage is concerned, submarine torpedo hits are just as viable source of information. How torpedo hits are best achieved and how that should be balanced is more complex of course. But like you said, some change to the current bulkhead system/dmg to small ships could already make significant change to remedy the problem, we will just wait and see.

Overall I like the idea, I suggest for ease of player understanding, each turret create a visible turret barbette going down into the ship on the bulkhead views, and hit to that corresponding bulkhead risk damging said barbette. This is probably a good way to help player visualize the extent of the area that are at risk and protection. Rather than mandatory citadel size scaling with turret/machinery, we could have options of narrow/normal citadel protection. So the player can decide whether they wants to spend the extra weight to give those out of citadel turret additional protection, or cut back and bit and take the risk with BE. As for funnel, I think the current system is fine since it is unlikely that you get to place funnels in a way that actually puts them closer to either end of the ship than turrets anyways. (Although that maybe a cool way to incorporate all-forward arrangement without special dedicated hull). A little thought to add to AoN. It doesn't need to necessarily eliminate flotation damage nor does it needs to restrict BE/DE. What it should do is reduce the relative weight of non-citadel bulkheads has on flotation and possibly structure. AoN ships should not sink without damage to its citadel space. BE/DE can still be used for a bit of protection against small caliber if you dont want to take on some minor flooding that may slow you down etc.. but lose some of the weight saving you could've recieved. (for example, 8" hit outside of citidel on South Dakota was able to cause some flooding and minor damage, not threatening to the ship, but can be troublesome.) And armored scheme choices like, Sloped Deck v. Flat Deck should have a bit of influence on how the actual armor value of the ships are calculated, weight, and some possible effect on comparmentlization. Whether AON is applied can be separte from this (To my understanding most if not all AON ship had flat deck, but I am not sure if this necessarily had to be the case)

I also feel the dev can potentially open the floor on some of the more contentious subjects like damage model, torpedo's, or carrier. It will help the player understand the position of the team and hopefully either produce more contributive discussion, and ensure that useful points are focused at one place rather than spread across probably 10 threads right now. A dev dairy is also extremely helpful in keeping us informed and connected with the devs and knowing what they are planning. A general roadmap can also be very helpful as well.

I don't think a game cant successfully combine both, and the transition period is extremely interesting and fun as well. Look at RtW2 for example, the system at Victory at Sea also allows for both. That said, rather than abstracted carrier content or somewhat rushed carrier ops, I much rather have a highly flushed out dreadnought era, with some additional content for what-if (or even realistic) developments past the 20s. We are dealing with somewhat alternative historical development in a game like this anyways, its not like we are modelling the pacific war but leaving out the carrier content. The game was never advertised as one that is carrier centric, and I am okay with that. If carrier is going to be included at all, it deserves more attention than a kind of abstracted system.