DeiLwynnA

i dont encounter that many odd ai made designs myself but just got this one today against my upsized bismarck (wounded beast mission) a bit of an odd nelson/richelieu/dunkerque style ship, has got to be very front heavy since it has nothing on the stern

i think you are talking about COG (center of gravity), not displacement, but yes, it would be nice to be able to move the internals around for better COG since the boilers and turbines are the heaviest part of the internals (except the shell storage), being able to rearrange the boiler and turbine compartments to change the COG. would also be nice to be able to place the smokestacks and superstructure more freely, as well as a slightly better displacement range on the modern battleship (and allow placement the smaller barbettes on battleships) so we can make proper richelieu or dunkerque class ship once we get the quad turrets

if you are on the defensive in a ship of similar design to the richelieu class and dunkerque class then yes, being able to reverse should be an option, the front guns just doesnt have that good of firing angles backwards when you are trying to keep a distance in those cases. as for the reversing while in a forward motion should not decelerate you faster, the shafts and gearbox (aka transmission) gears are usually not built to handle the forces of that type of action, not to mention the screws that take the brunt of the force. there is a reason you dont put a car into reverse while driving forward, you will blow your gearbox or sheer your driveshaft from that force.

this is exactly why i set it to "off", so they dont fire the torpedoes until i am close enough that i know the torpedoes will hit. with shells its not a big deal unless you are close to running out of ammo

if you let it automatically target, it will separate targeting between main guns and secondary guns but the drawback is that it often changes target which wastes ammo as it has to retrain the ranging by firing a ranging volley every time it changes target

i send in a formation of 3 destroyers, with torpedo firing turned off, towards enemy battleships, lead ship takes enough damage to pass on the lead ship role to next ship in line, torpedo firing setting is reset to normal... the destroyers prematurely fires their torpedoes... all torpedoes miss because well.. the ai literally reacts instantly to them... now i have to wait until they reload and by that time they have sunk 2 of my 3 destroyers. all those firing settings SHOULD be saved in the formation itself, not just that one lead ship, same should go for when you detach a ship from a formation; it should retain the settings from the formation it was detached from

whenever i built a battleship, i have failed at catching up to the enemies in time, though when i have built battlecruisers, i have been able to catch them very easily because of the higher top speed, this design in the picture below has never failed me on the search and destroy mission, i could replace one of the turrets midship with a funnel or two to get higher engine efficiency so i could chase even better

i dont know the he shell penetration values in this game but i do know they still do damage, although just minor, when it hits armour plating that ap shells of same size would just shatter or bounce on

there are no friendly dds on the modern battleship mission, only have whatever you design/build

if you exclude the bonus in long range accuracy and better mark 3 turrets from the tech boost option, i rebuilt the exact same ship i tested before on more funds except that i had added a gen 1 radar, suddenly the mission was a walk in the park because destroyers was suddenly visible from further than 3km away

depends on the shell size, weight and range, when i can go with heavy 16" shells or better, i use he shells at all times, even when firing at a battleship at long range, deals up to 3500 damage per hit with heavy 16" at ~22km range, its depending on their armour thickness, bulkheads and where i hit

the 16" guns arent the issue for me, my issue is that without any radar whatsoever, i cant spot the destroyers until they are within 3-2km range, at that range my ship/-s are too slow at turning to avoid the torpedoes, eating those torpedoes disables my engines making me a sitting duck with destroyers just circling around me which the gun turrets cant keep up with at that close range. just the 1st gen radar would be enough to make it plausible for me, then i would be able to spot the destroyers at long enough range to avoid torpedoes

the ai for the screen and even ships in a single battle line is why i prefer to use a single, large, powerful ship instead of several smaller ones

you do realize the game is supposed to be up until around 1940, there is a 1930 start option in the campaign? it was in the 1930s when the french started developing their quad gun turrets and even built 4 battleships with quad turrets, 2 dunkerque class with 330mm (13") quad turrets and 2 richelieu class with 380mm (15" (actually 14.96")) quad turrets before the german invasion in early 1940 though richelieu and jean bart wasnt finished when the invasion began. jean bart was so delayed because of the invasion and being sunk and refloated a few times during the war that she wasnt fully finished until 1955

any unarmoured ships, like this games default armour scheme of a light cruiser, could be sunk by even 2" gun fire when it hits the right places, i have even had 2" shells starting fires on my heavily armoured modern battleship (both extended and core deck/belt armour between 10"-20")