RedParadize

There was a typo in my last post, I mean "It could not be not great". You seem to have understood anyway. I am gonna edit it just for clarity. I had to dig up a bit, most of my knowledge on the subject come from research I did on Air-Air and Ground-Air radar of the 50s 60s and 70s a while ago. This does not apply directly to Surface-Surface radar, ship do not move as quick, so firing solution is not as hard to obtain. Having said that, even for ship, target position do not equal firing solution. Just like for optical range finder, radar imprecision scale with distance. Mk8 mod 0 had range accuracy of ± (15 yards + 0.1% of range.)*. Having said that, a Mark 8 mod 0 could spot 16-inch splashes out to about 18,300 m.* So above that there is not much firing solution possible unless with forward observer and good Communication/Coordination. It probably got better has the system matured, but I doubt a good enough accuracy could be established with a S-Band radar of the era. To go back to what really concern us, I still think that fire without sight should have a negative impact on accuracy. -25% is justified from that point of view. *Source I provided are a bit dodgy. I however found similar result on many other site, they may still all come from the same wrong data trough. If someone find better, more reliable source that contradict this I will gladly take them.

If this list is open for addition, I would like to have some way to influence what modifier have have. Sometimes model just doesn't fit aesthetically. Sometimes you want the stats but not the platform etc.

Mk8 is S-band. It could not be not great, but definitely better than predecessor or no radar at all. I don't know its detail but it probably provide some fire corrections capacity, up to a certain point. Let's flip the argument around, smoke do not negate radar bonus, it just add a malus. I would say it's far. Lost visibility would definitely have reduce accuracy in that era.

It can't be super structure hit, there is extended deck and belt hit in that. This is more or less just weak spots mechanics at work.

@Marshall99Armor is a bit wonky since last patch. You get much more critical damage than before. The problem you are having is accentuated by this. (I am still unsure if its a good thing or not. There is good sides to this as well) Having said that, pre dreadnought were notoriously bad at damage control.

Target position do not equal firing solution. For example, shell flight characteristics are altered by meteorologic conditions, its small for such large shell but over distance it matter. For the given period radar weren't that good. For range finding it was a powerful tool but for the rest optical targeting was both quicker and more reliable. There is few instances of night fight were radar the primary tool in late WW2, but its marginal. Bottom line is that it took a long time before gunnery took full advantage of what radar could offer.

@Marshall99 I think @Hangar18is right. Bulkhead are as if not more important as armor. My design rarely goes under "standard", my go to settings is"many". I am not certain of how exactly it works, but with max bulkhead every ship section can be sealed. Some water may get in adjacent compartment but can get pumped. The pumping rate depends on some of the options you choose, like auxiliary power and flooding protection.

@arkhangelskYeah I have seen that tread. It isn't what I would call procedural part, but it definitely follows the same spirit. As for the rest of your comment I do not have any particular disagreement. That this way we would many things that were often requested. Also, it would adresse so issues that will need to be addressed in campaign. -upgraded turret often do not fit on old ship. -What about ship refit. Do you change tower and turret placement? -Unlimited number of mark. No big steps between just 5. -There will never be enough funnel. Their looks do not always fit between them. -There will never be enough tower. Their size and mass do not necessarily match the features they have.

Ah, I didn't know that. Regardless -42.9% at 24.8kn might be a bit high.

I often find myself wishing that I had Tower A stats but on Tower B. Sometimes Tower A stats are better but do not need the gun platform or vise versa, sometimes I just don't like the look of it. I fell the same for the rest of the part. Would be cool if we could chose turret, tower and funnel 3d model and give them the attribute we want? This is a big suggestion, I know. Its quite a departure from the game current system. It may not be practical in scenario and custom battle. Say its limited to just the campaign. Here how it I think it could take shape: Guns: A bit like the ship designer, you have a choice of 3d model to select from at the bottom. On the left you get to play with characteristics, caliber, barrel length, shell size and so on. More advanced it is longer it will take to develop, possibly years. Once completed, to simulate development problems, RNG make it slightly worst or better. This is not definitive trough, over time design get fixed up as it is used. Turrets: Turrets more or less the same process. You select their look, the gun, number of gun, and ring diameter and optics, all limited by era. Now ring diameter may not be compatible with guns with too much elevation, or other factor. Size would affect reload rate and maybe also the ability to upgrade gun later on. Too cramped and jam risk get increased. It could have to be done per ship or not separately like the guns, with development time or not. Tower & Funnels: Same process as guns and turrets, but for their respective attributes. Better stats would make them heavier may be incompatible with smaller model. The mesh could be scaled a bit, specially the funnels. This would have to be done per ship class, ideally directly in the ship builder. What do you think?

While I have a 15% hit chance at 10k in my unarmored BC. The AI fleet is having 0.3 and can't shoot. Enemy is going at 24.8kn and I am getting a -42.9% Target fast speed. No Idea what it is at 49kn. Now I understand it is extreme speed. But even at more reasonable speed it is much better to invest in speed over armor.

Ok, here is the test I was talking about. The Idea is simple, if I take a Battleship and armor it to its maximum and keep it within range were its armor is effective, what will penetrate is trough armor weakness. So I be measuring more or less just that. I took the year 1929 so that enemy are less likely to have guns that can penetrate my armor. And 3 enemy battleship so that they don't flee to the sight of my unarmed 120kt Battleship. I set the distance to 8km. Here is the ship: Here is what I recorded. It Was painful as low priority disappear after few sec. However not within what I posted. (Note to the Dev: The minute counter have 90sec instead of 60sec. So 2 minute is in fact 3.) Roughly, 1/12 of the shot penetrated, regardless of the caliber, most of them on deck.

@Hangar18 Sorry I just edited that. Doesn't change anything for your comment I think. They would not have been able to damage main system yes. That still would leave allot secondary system and crew exposed, the turrets too. Everyone would probably have changed their armor layout to counter this. @RAMJB I see. Still, given the number of reported hits, I would expect some of them on the belt. Anyways, thanks, I would leave that part aside. We are still left with having to add citadel to the external armor. I did some test with token guns and max possible armor, but overrided image by accident. I will do new one and post result.

Yeah, penetrative power scale with diameter. But if you split armor in two and place a gap in the middle the its defeated. I think that if warship to warship would have still be a thing then by the end of WW2 then it might have become a thing in naval warfare. Having said that, probably not in 16", but smaller caliber would have become capable of going trough main belt, deck and Turret, doing substantial damage. Edit: Nevermind, at range a 16" HEAT would have been useful as HEAT penetration do not decline with range.

@RAMJB Welcome back Good analysis. One small thing: I said Belt (and deck), not lateral protection. Atm, citadel do not work as a separated armored layer, so I did not include them. To achieve similar armor level without citadel, we currently need to add citadel armor to the belt and deck. This is borderline possible with the larger hull (and clearly not what AI does). I did test up to 26" belt and deck. Penetration were still surprisingly frequent, even from smaller caliber. Might be due to how weak spot mechanics works. From my test 1/12 shots seem to ignore armor completely. To go back to the Bismarck case and RL penetration potentially being overestimated: What bug me is that during wreckage exploration, it is said that "The expedition found no penetrations in the main armoured belt, above or below the waterline. The examiners noted several long gashes in the hull, but attributed these to impact on the sea floor." I honestly do not know what to make out of that. Given the number of 14" and 16" that is said to have hit the Bismarck, I would have expected Belt to be "Swiss cheese". I am watching "Expedition: Bismarck" I still waiting to see good camera angle on sides trough. As for the Heat shell. Yeah, spaced armour is the way to defeat it. This is why I provided value against non spaced homogeneous armor. I still think it would have been valuable, on turret and auxiliary system and room. Not asking to have them ingame trough...

Yeah I agree with that. I can make ship that are virtually impossible to hit. To the point were AI stop shooting in fact. About target size, I do not know how much can be attributed to the Hull versus Target Signature. A trimmed down, two turret seem to do quite better at avoiding shot.

You are making a strong case here. My personal preference was White powder, I will try the ballistite.

uh by a small amount... but iirc, the in game values are for iron. its about 3x the expected value. To give you an idea, thats about double what the mk6 16" guns found on the Iowa will penetrate. A modern HEAT warhead would struggle to go through that... The best armor bonus you can only get to +118%, so a bit more than double of iron value. Bismarck had 12.6" belt and 4.3" on deck. That's 27.4" and 9.3" with best ingame modifier. Yet it proved quite capable of stopping, most of it at least 14" and 16". Problem could be the +118%max modifier. But even there, Rodney and King George V fired from pretty close at the end of the battle. I think that penetration might have been a bit optimistic in real life. Edit: About HEAT round, typically they can penetrate 200% (some can do much better) of their diameter of non spaced modern homogeneous steel. That's at any range of course. A 16" HEAT would be pretty nasty...

There is a mod called SSTU in KSP that basically do that. Its the best mod ever because all part, being generated by math, are defacto balanced against each other. More of a problem for a game like this. Hull and stuff have complex shape...

Currently, biggest hull in UA:D is 120kt. already deep in the ridiculous category. 144kt is not too far from that. I am not against it. As long as it is equally ridiculously expensive! Would be nice to have draft, shipyard etc restricting its viability trough. Just to portrait such large ship as unpractical as they would have been in reality.

Yeah, I am curious to see what they will do with WW1&2 and other historic even. If they go for historical even then there will be huuuge gap where nothing will happen. I think RtW formula was pretty sweet.

I would swap "Realistic" and "historical" for "representative of reality" and "representative of history". The difference is subtitle form user point of view, but for the maker it is the difference between can and can't do. Trust me, I work in the movie industry. (yes, ones of those that take all these outrageous shortcut!)

This is a fair point. Would be nice if it affect spread and amounts of dud torpedo. Would be fun to have few fail in early age, like torpedo slowly turning or oscillating.

One thing I would take is if torpedo hold order would be applied to all the formation instead of having to do it one by one.

@akd @Tousansons If I may interject: The process of making a game is itself backward from reality. You start with the game concept and only then you start building up the mechanics and universe around it. Having said that. I have no doubt that the dev what to achieve the maximum level of realism... within their game concept and mean.