Steeltrap

How can I review a game by its alpha history? Let's have a look at the quote you exploded on the screen for a clue. Let's focus on the important bit: The very quote of mine tells you I am going to review the game on the basis of how various things have been addressed BY THE TIME OF RELEASE. Just as everyone else not given a press release key (should they decide to do that) will do. In other words, you went to the trouble of quoting me to demonstrate I was NOT going to do the very thing of which you were accusing me. 🤔 🙄 OK, perhaps that makes sense to some people, but I'm not one of them. 🙂 As for the rest of your accusations, you can't imagine someone could look at the evidence and make a 'fair' review? I'll put that down to "projection" on your part. I might add that my year long history on this forum suggests one thing I value highly are FACTS and DETAILS of how things perform. Where I have a difference based on 'preference', I pretty much say so. Where I don't like things because I have good evidence to suggest if not clearly demonstrate something is INCORRECT, I say so. There's a BIG difference. I've also spent quite a bit of time giving feedback on various potential bugs, and a bunch of other things not always in the main forum. ALL designed to help the game achieve success. Sure, some of it is because I think the choices are not supported by known evidence and that ought to matter when the devs have themselves pitched this game to the public as containing 'high degrees of realism' or whatever the quote is from the Steam Page (I linked to it somewhere else not long ago). Again, when it's a case of "I don't think this is a very good/accurate/effective treatment of 'X' aspect of naval design and combat of the period", that's what I say. If it's "This doesn't appear to be working properly, but I'm not sure (because often we don't know)", I will tend to put that in the Technical Issues forum where it belongs and let Ink and Nick and whomever else is relevant deal with it as they choose. Sometimes they say it's working as expected, others they've said they'd look into, and some they've confirmed were indeed errors they would look to fix. The fact that it would be utterly ridiculous to "review" a game based on its Alpha state versus its RELEASE state ought to make clear I WOULD NOT. Just In case that wasn't obvious enough, however, I EVEN SAID SO and YOU QUOTED ME DOING SO. Seriously? Part of writing it so small was to see who might bother to examine it and how they would respond if they did. IT WAS A JOKE. My bad. 🙃 Nobody who knows my history here could honestly believe otherwise, not unless they themselves were being deliberately dishonest or spectacularly stupid. I'll leave it to others to answer the implicit question in that statement. 😀 Anyway, thanks for the entertainment. Have a +1 on your splurge. 😎

I've been saying more or less the same thing for a LONG time now. You can see just how great an effect that has had. 🙃 As you said, early game is what a lot of players will encounter first if they start with the Academy missions or dive straight into the campaign, and the mechanics are the mechanics regardless of what era ships you are using. You might expect, therefore, that those things would be the priority, or at least mechanics plus an approximately equal spread of attention to the main periods of shipbuilding. If one were to be harsh one might suggest the Devs appear to chase the loudest "give me every possible fever dream ever to occur to any Admiral or naval architect" cries in the forum. Addressing really serious flaws/shortcomings of fundamental mechanics for 12 months? Crickets. It's why I, like others who have said the same, don't even bother playing the game. If I do, all I see are the same old problems regardless of whatever latest 1940-50 tech monster BB nonsense is thrown at us as distractions. The only thing of any significance from my perspective that's supposed to come in the next version is the revamped formation system. Formations ARE really desperately in need of fixing, and it's great attention is being shown to the system. The continuing absence of attention to, or even acknowledgement of, the other serious, baseline stuff that has been highlighted for a year or more, is as disheartening as it is puzzling. I've spent the money and there are other things keeping me entertained/busy, so I suppose it doesn't really matter. ((other than to the nature of the review I'll write for Steam depending on how well those things are addressed by the time of release 😎).

If only we could dictate to the shipyard how we want guns to be placed and other details and then it gives us a hull that works, rather than it giving us ones that don't meet our needs. 🙃 As a compromise, perhaps we could alter the beam and length using a slider rather than the catch-all of pre-locked displacement 'versions'? The current one suddenly stretches or shrinks around certain displacements, but also never changes its beam to the best of my knowledge.

OK, so I needed to be more specific? Thought I'd addressed it but will have another go. The point I was trying to make, and I did mention it specifically, is that if you can't build a ship that existed historically without suffering really cripplingly bad penalties for fore/aft imbalance, there's something wrong with the system. Or are we suggesting all those ships had woeful stability if not being permanently down by the bows? It just doesn't make sense to me. The system as it is currently implemented forces you to move certain things around because you CAN'T move others in ways that matter. It's as though the hull were delivered without ANY thought as to the armament and its layout, the armour and required machinery to achieve design speed. I'm pretty sure the naval design process didn't start with "here's a hull, see what you can do with it", lol. Besides which, hulls in the game ALREADY has baked in factors as to how they cope with different sea states, wind etc etc. The builder makes the point that changes you make to the ship can modify THOSE. My suggestion was to get rid of the fore/aft modifiers that AREN'T already in the hull so we don't tie ourselves in knots doing weird things to get proper balance (like sticking a 3" or 4" mount on the bow, for example, something I've used often on the early BC hulls). Even IF I were to accept your assertion "there's no difference between the system and what you suggested", I don't see a suggestion as to the problem of "you can build HMS Nelson for example if you like but holy cow will your gunnery suffer some additional penalties by putting the turrets ahead of the superstructure, even when hull is designed with precisely that layout in mind with the superstructure and machinery aft" if we leave things as they are. My basic assertion is the system gets it backwards. Ships were designed with armament, armour and machinery as known factors. Yet placing armaments where they were designed to go can force you to jump through hoops to achieve a zero fore/aft imbalance, something the ship would have been designed to have with the guns in the intended layout. That's why I somewhat worked backwards, wondering if it wouldn't be possible instead to have a system where you input intended armament (and layout), armour and speed and the system gives you a hull that will achieve those including being correctly in balance. You know, pretty much exactly how the process worked historically. Having said all that, thanks for the feedback. Always interested to learn how others may view things differently from how I do. Cheers

Some comments on design generally from a different thread, starting from the matter of longitudinal stability (bow/stern axis) and what it means when trying to recreate the famous designs with all main guns mounted ahead of the superstructure. That whole mechanism (balance and other aspects) works backwards. You start with the parameters of armour, speed and armament. You make multiple variations on a theme, which is why there are so many different potential versions of ALL the last BBs such as KGV, North Carolina through Iowa, etc. Eventually you settle on one. Normally it's built around the concept of the armament you want, its positioning and how to minimise the space required for the 'citadel' in an all or nothing scheme. The Nelson was a classic illustration of doing that within the treaty limits while managing to squeeze in 9x16". The price was speed and an unusual armament arrangement, but it can't be said they weren't powerful, effective ships (consider how quickly Bismarck had its main armament silenced, something like 20 minutes from the first shots being fired). I would far prefer the system reflect that design process than the current one that arbitrarily forces some pretty bizarre things in the interest of 'balancing' the ship or, worse for the AI, not doing so and suffering very serious penalties to gunnery accuracy. It could be altered such that you have armament and armour and designed speed parameters. You tell the designer what you want, and it gives you a basic version of that with ZERO fore/aft balance issues. It ought to produce a ship with the required parameters and the MINIMUM length and displacement required to do so. You can then modify it if you wish. That means if you want a 14" belt and 3 triple 16" mounts and 28 knots, it's possibly going to end up VERY large if you don't have good enough engine tech. Indeed, it might even say "there is no available design to meet those requirements with current technology". Of course that also raises the question of hull shapes, themselves a product of design wishes. I pointed out in a different thread the differences in the bows of KGV v North Carolina because the quad turret required more width of hull than a triple. The North Carolina had to make compromises to the forward part of the torpedo protection because of the width of hull relative to its 'A' turret and magazine requirements, and South Dakota class had various changes based on lessons from NC. In short, it's horribly complicated, which I'm sure people know, which is also why 'simulating' it is tricky. In practical terms for the game, it's an illustration of WHY the armour system really needs a thorough overhaul. The size of the space to be included within the citadel of an all or nothing scheme is REALLY significant in terms of possibilities. There are good reasons everyone didn't have ships with 20" belts and 10" decks but, as yet, the system really doesn't do a good job demonstrating it. In fact if you look at the 'immunity zones' of the latest BBs built it's rather remarkable how distant they were due to the power of the most modern armaments (NC's supposedly started at 19,000 yards/17.4km, for example). The idea of these ships closing to under 10km in conditions where they could control engagement ranges is silly because they generally knew the potential vulnerabilities to various enemy guns and the effective range of their own and thus would try to manage the former as best they could while also maximising the latter. In short if you can hit and damage your opponent reliably at ranges where they cannot do the same, that's where you want to fight. Some further thoughts on the question of hulls. I'd like to see the ability to make design choices when it comes to hulls that favour speed or minimise displacement for a given armament/armour scheme and so on, because in essence that's rather crudely how it worked. I'd even go so far as to say certain hulls have certain maximum limits. Why the game allows BB hulls technically to have 40 knot limits escapes me as that simply has NEVER been realistic until nuke power plants and other tech advances arrived. It's an open question as to the extra displacement, length and massive power plant the Iowa had to take on board for about 5 more knots speed over NC/SD wouldn't have been better spent elsewhere, for example (one might argue that's what Montana was all about). She proved a very effective class, some might argue the best rounded BB of all, not least because the nature of war altered so greatly that speed to accompany the fast fleet carriers was paramount. For a straight up gunship, however, I suspect a 30 knot design with more armour etc might have been a better choice. Interestingly enough it was found that Vanguard was able to keep pace with Iowa easily in anything other than the smoothest of seas because she turned out to be a highly effective design when it came to maintaining speeds through any sorts of conditions. In short, your hull shape is in no small part dictated by your other priorities. You don't start with a hull and say "what can I stick in this?", you say what you want to have on board then do your best to design a hull that allows you to meet your design requirements re speed, armour and armament. I find it odd the game doesn't include the effect of seas on a ship's ability to maintain speeds given it's one of the most significant effects of bad weather. I know of at least one instance where an Iowa class left its DDs behind as they couldn't keep up with her in heavy seas, lol (I think she slowed once they realised what was happening). Consider Hood and Queen Elizabeth class hulls as a great illustration; same armament, different armour (although surprisingly not massively so), VERY different speeds. Hood necessarily ended up MUCH longer with a different length:beam ratio because, again, the physics of hydrodynamics etc etc all but demand that. Sure, improvements in power plants can somewhat mitigate the extreme differences (watching the Drach video on naval boiler development is worthwhile to show just how much that can matter), but you have to design and build a hull with the technology available as a design constraint. TL;DR? LOL While there's a lot they COULD do, there's one thing I would do regardless: get rid of the longitudinal balance entirely. That DOESN'T mean removing pitch/roll penalties (pitch would have to be tied to the hull and NOT placement of components, possibly greater if you choose to lengthen it although I'd like to do a bit of research on that), but I just don't see what the system adds that's worth having. I don't see what it adds, and I KNOW the AI produces things with awful gunnery penalties. Ask it to do a design for you see how some of them turn out in that respect. If you can't build ships that existed without awful penalties then there's a flaw (or several) in the system. If you want to stick all your guns in the bows, you ought to be able to. We all know there were designs that did just that, and they didn't sail around 3 degrees down by the bows because their naval designers couldn't work out how to achieve appropriate weight distributions. Otherwise? I've underlined the bits I think are the best statements of 'principle' the designer ought to do its best to accommodate. Cheers

Sadly that's a link I can't follow.

Just curious, how would you explain the RN 13.5" AP shell performance at Jutland, for example, with respect to this simple rule? How would you define "solid shot" in the context of large calibre naval rifles? Have you a general source to which you might direct me for a more detailed explanation of this "over-match" rule? I'm always keen to read more on the topic.

Fuze activation required a resistance equal to 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) of armor at 0 degrees obliquity or 0.375 inches (1 cm) at 65 degrees obliquity. That's the fusing information from the so-called superheavy USN 16" AP shell, more accurately the 16" AP mk 8 mods 0-8, and the Mark 21 Base Detonating Fuze (which featured a delay of 0.033 seconds). Gee, a 16" AP shell, and its fuse will be activated by resistance offered by a mere 1cm of armour struck at 65 degrees of obliquity? It DOESN'T ricochet harmlessly even at THAT angle? A question: I wonder had I asked how much armour and at what angles would provide sufficient resistance to trigger the fuse of the USN superheavy 16" AP shell what people might have guessed? I also wonder if it might lead people to consider how the current armour/penetration/damage system compares with easily discoverable facts and, if substantially different, whether that's necessary or a good thing. As an aside, anyone know how easy it is to find that info? It's a site I would assume anyone posting about any of these sorts of topics would know intimately (and indeed doubtless has bookmarked). Cheers

I noticed that, but it also says in the version notes that difficulty is a placeholder and has no effect, which is probably why you can't change it back.

The only reason I write these sorts of things these days generally is in the hope that Nick and the team might see them and give them due consideration. There have been so many nonsensical claims made on this forum over the last 12 months** that some people with VERY extensive knowledge simply got sick of correcting them. Some of them quit after a while, which is a shame because finding replacements for people with many books and thus able to provide detailed citations on the relevant stuff, some of which HAVE been provided in the past to make the point (which of course the people calling for them never went to read nor acknowledge their mistake if they did) is difficult indeed. The supply of people who frequently know SFA about very technical subjects and/or historical records yet claim they do, on the other hand, is seemingly inexhaustible. The issue of "realistic levels of accuracy of gunfire" and "effectiveness of secondary batteries on BBs from WW1 through WW2" are just two such examples where people claimed all sorts of total crap until someone duly provided relevant reference materials and the like. It's like whackamole. I suspect you don't know this due to having arrived here fewer than 2 weeks ago, but there have been a FEW varieties of "how HE works" tried through updates because of perverse results when it comes to AP v HE mechanics. Plunging fire with HE on a BB caused HUGE damage while the exact same guns using AP bounced, for example. In part that was a base mechanic issue, and then came down to a specific gun issue. Sound familiar? They also keep playing around with how they decide "partial penetration", and it doesn't stop there. If the devs were seemingly "chasing the appropriate 'balance' of HE/AP" rather than having very clearly understood parameters and mechanics from the start, why would you believe THIS particular aspect is "realistic" when some other, far more basic ones were not? [as an aside, WG similarly chased "balancing" HE v AP many times in WoT (I played Beta in 2010) and again in WoWS from Alpha to Beta] Which is why I really can't be arsed to pull together the necessary materials to demonstrate why a certain mechanic the devs have put in the game is POOR, especially one where there have been several iterations because of the flawed nature of earlier versions. The true argument that we ought to see is in fact from the devs explaining on what basis they made those design choices. What was THEIR accurate source material? I'd be willing to bet in this instance the answer would be none. Not that I am expecting to take time to provide such, but the INITIAL status needs to be based on accurate materials as opposed to building one that ISN'T. So much of this stuff is deja vu. That might not be satisfactory for you, but c'est la vie. You are welcome to believe as you like. ** irrelevant piece of info, my 1st year anniversary is 26th October, or 3 days from time of writing, lol.

Gunnery Model Issue: Losing and Reacquiring "Target Locked" Modifier Some aspects of the gunnery model/aiming have bothered me for a long time, one of which is the VERY slow regaining of "target locked" status if you've turned so the target is now on the opposite side of your ship. What often happens is if you fire while some of your guns are obstructed, you lose lock. After that happens, it can take AGES to achieve lock again. Here's the problem, however. If you tell your ship to target something else, then tell it to target the original target on which you just lost locked status (and regardless of how long you may have had lock), it IMMEDIATELY LOCKS once a single turret fires at it. I fail to see how that make sense. First of all I don't see WHY you lose lock if you move a target from broadside to your forward arc at least. I don't think the main fire control director typically was limited to broadside firing arcs, although I suppose that might depend on the tech and class of ship. Even if you DID, why couldn't you quickly reacquire lock with the fore or aft fire control director as relevant? Regardless of that question, however, it CANNOT be the case that it takes longer to gain lock on that SAME target than it does to lock on another with one shot then lock back on the original one with the next shot. How can the system lock on TWO DIFFERENT TARGETS more rapidly than it can on the ONE target on which it was originally locked? I make extensive use of the 'exploit' to avoid it, or otherwise I change the main guns to "stop" until I've finished the sharp turn and then turn them back to 'Normal'. The turrets turn and then fire without ever losing lock. Neither of those techniques are exactly user friendly if you've a fleet with several elements, yet NOT micromanaging it can mean you have ships firing at targets and not achieving lock. As an aside, I will add that the AI's fixation on pointing its bow at you (presumably for "angling of armour" nonsense), it LOSES lock and frequently NEVER regains it. I've had battles where half the enemy fleet is stuck with the "Ladder Aiming" penalty for as long as their ships are pointing their bows at me, which, as we all know, can amount to a VERY large part of the battle. I don't think the AI needs that additional handicap, and it doesn't make much sense that it occurs at all. Cheers

With respect to the possible differences in fusing it's far more complicated than the issue of time delay alone, given there also are matters of base or nose and caps and a host of other things. Regardless, the explosion of an HE shell on the surface is NOT a penetration, yet the game displays such hits AS penetrations while allowing the same armour to produce a ricochet of AP (which itself is almost entirely BS under those conditions except perhaps in a vanishingly small number of cases). Yet AP bounces almost always, and HE never does. If an HE shell were striking very thin armour at an angle that's still broad enough to arm the shell, it's all but certain the AP round MUST go through it. The physics involved are pretty horrendously complicated, yet there are great articles etc one can read to get a pretty decent view of it. Suffice to say what the game offers, especially in this specific case, is 99% bollocks. There CAN be cases where an AP shell might shatter or partially penetrate or other possibilities while a 'common/HE' shell might explode, but that's not anything like "one ricochets and the other works entirely effectively", which is what we see in the specific case I raised. The armour thickness has little to do with it. It's the whole "auto-bounce" mechanic that seems only to apply to AP (which, incidentally, almost certainly explains the AI's programming when it comes to the hokey-pokey I mentioned). The same ship's 6" HE shells work fine, yet the 12" AP bounces? In fact if I've learned anything it's that as soon as the enemy points its nose at you, which it assuredly does, you ought to change your ammo to HE precisely because armour that bounces 12" shells will take damage even from 2" and 3" superstructure mounted casemate guns firing HE. I've even had my main armament ricochet while a 3" penetrates and causes an ammo explosion. There's so much wrong with that case that I'm not even going to bother starting on it. Anyway, getting back to what you assert is 'realistic', would you care to calculate the energy of that 12" AP round and the 2" HE round, and then capacity of 1" of armour to dissipate that energy without cracking/failing, and then explain how it's realistic for it to deflect the first while taking "full damage" from the second? There's a VAST array of materials looking at the extremely complicated issues of high calibre naval shells v armour. We can't both be correct, so I'll leave it to others to review and research and decide which is more accurate in their characterisation, namely my "I think it's 99% bollocks" v your "it portrays this realistically". I have no inclination to go into any greater depth myself if for no other reason than the fact I can't be arsed any more. While you may well have seen it, I'll leave this superficial yet excellent very high level thing on naval shells from Drach. Cheers

The overhead view is really the one that's best for comparison, if one can find any. The German BBs are the obvious exception to the more "slab sided" general characteristic, as they WERE more teardrop shaped than a relatively equal width down much of their lengths as other BBs tended to have. Bismarck Otherwise the more modern designs of most nations were more similar than different due to the inherent characteristics they were balancing. If you look at the King George V class against say the North Carolina class, they're much more the same than different (USN 'fast' BBs had a somewhat more tapered and longer bow, but even there a significant factor is the nature of the main gun mount you're using dictates the minimum width your hull needs to be at the front turret, and the quad of the KGV means it needs quite a bit) yet they ARE different from Bismarck and Scharnhorst classes. HMS King George V USS North Carolina Even so, the shape of the hull will be considerably influenced by how great a top speed you want. One reason for the "exaggerated" shape (large, wide aft 3rd of the ship) of the Iowa class was the gargantuan power plant they needed to achieve those extra ~5 knots of speed. HMS Hood was very long for the armament she carried (bear in mind the Queen Elizabeth class had the same armament although in different mounts yet was ~220ft/66m shorter and some 14,000t lighter at full load) for the same reason, namely a 'stretched' hull (high length:beam ratio) plus large power plant are needed for higher speeds (she originally topped 32 knots). As others have said, it's more likely a matter of making the ship builder simpler. Others have mentioned wishing to be able to specify beam to length ratios and other such things, which undoubtedly would be great, but I can see why the devs don't see that as a priority and may never. Reading the design histories of the various ships is really very interesting when it comes to realising how and, more importantly, why they ended up as they did. It's also fascinating to see how the various nations took somewhat different approaches and why. 😀

I took the points @Friedrich was making as an illustration of how the current gunnery model has significant issues because you're often better off doing manoeuvres for no other reason than the penalties they apply given they are greater for what's shooting at you than for you shooting back. In other words, aren't you both sort of agreeing? One saying "this is what the model encourages" and the other saying "well that's dopey because it's NOT generally how things were done". Yet another example of the chronic issue of "we KNOW many of these things, they are well documented. Why aren't you building a model that accurately portrays it to match what is known?". Cheers

Agreed, except the problem as it stands is we are NOT doing that, not even close. It's still not clear to me what the "it's not meant to be a sim" minded people think of the list of issues I've pointed out. Do none of them trouble them? To be clear, I am not meaning that as any sort of slight for those less interested in somewhat more realistic mechanics, I'm simply curious as to how far from any claim to realism the game needs to be before it will trouble them. As I've said many, many times, I don't expect "realism" because there's no such thing with today's technology. But I won't accept blatant, immersion-wrecking absurdities, either. ESPECIALLY when there is little to no excuse for them being present in many cases; it's not as though many of these things aren't relatively well documented aspects such as gunnery control, manoeuvrability, shell performance and so on. Here's something I wrote 4 months ago on the whole concept: As to expectations, there have been direct quotes as to how the game is being marketed on Steam. If they're going to talk about... a unique opportunity to design and build countless variations of realistic looking warships combined with extremely in depth realistic combat model ...then those are the bases on which they are inviting customers to judge them. Both the ability to design and build ships, AND an extremely in depth realistic combat model. Not one or the other, BOTH. If they deliver a product that's potentially anything but in the minds of a significant number of potential customers, whether the perceived failure is the building mechanic OR the combat model, I'm pretty sure that might not be well received. [source Steam Store] I don't want to drop the game for one mechanic not being realistic, I don't want to drop it at all. I didn't buy into this and spend as much time writing on all sorts of elements because I wanted to drop it. If it WERE only one mechanic, I'd almost certainly be fine with that. It isn't. It's arguably EVERY CORE MECHANIC as they are presently, just to varying degrees. That's my issue with it. Anyway, we know they're planning crew stuff and plenty more besides. I just wish they'd set some time aside for an indication on how satisfied THEY are with various core elements. I've volunteered in the past to assist doing just that, or organising specific threads aimed at gathering specific feedback and curating them ruthlessly. I've also said if they want at some point to send me a file with ALL THE TEXT IN THE GAME I will proof read it for them. I've done all these things professionally. I think anyone who thinks my constant banging on about "realism" is unreasonable or, ironically, unrealistic, is perhaps not looking more broadly at the issues and my approach. Not that I'm feeling under any sort of attack. I always welcome healthy discussion of IDEAS, and do my level best to criticise IDEAS, NOT those who post them. We'll all just have to wait. Come to think of it, perhaps it might be a nice idea to start a thread on "what we DO like about things at present" if for no other purpose than to remind ourselves there's plenty we have in common, particularly a love of these sorts of games and an enthusiasm to see this succeed. A welcome secondary purpose might be to remind Nick and his colleagues we love them and appreciate their work; I'd not want them to think I'm saying they're anything other than hard working and trying to make the best game they can. Anyone want to do that? Shall I? Only reason I've not is because I sometimes think having my name attached to things can colour people's perceptions before they read it, in good and bad ways. Or perhaps not. Sorry for another walloftext, LOL. Cheers all.

I have FREQUENTLY stated that I do NOT expect "100% realism", as though that would be possible regardless. What I DO want is patently ABSURD situations to be addressed. By which I mean aspects that are SO far removed from ANYTHING within even a very generous and broad definition of "reasonable" or "accurate" or, dare I say it, "at least makes some sort of sense". THOSE I want addressed. CLs and CAs that are nigh indestructible because of MAX bulkheads while the pre-dread BB next to them is sunk by 2 hits that cause flooding in the bow and stern and apparently the BB had no transverse bulkhead? Yeah, that's patent garbage. Pre-dreads even of the late 1800's had VERY substantial transverse bulkheads bow and stern (go look at a few in Wiki, for example). So how has this remained in the game since I started playing it, even being asked "What's wrong with bulkheads?" by Nick himself not long ago. Really? Are you serious? It's only been mentioned a few hundred times over the past 12 moths or so, LOL. How about your 12" AP rounds that can ricochet from the bow of a CL at 2km yet the same 12" gun firing HE never, ever ricochet? How does that work? If the armour can deflect the shell with greater pen, how can it NEVER deflect that with less pen fired from the same gun? Doesn't bother anyone? @Mindstrip has done a fantastic job of capturing the problem with ship manoeuvre, too, something that's been raised many, many times. I'm genuinely curious to know how often everyone is playing. What battles are you playing? Do NONE of you find it diminishes your interest in the game when you can predict with near certainty the result of battles as soon as you check the armour and bulkheads of the enemy capital ships? Or the other often commented upon core issues that remain unaddressed and, often, unacknowledged? Or the AI that has individual ships/divs sailing towards you, sometimes to daftly short ranges, even when they don't have torpedoes, only to turn around and sail away, the only discernable purpose of which appears to be some arcane naval hokey-pokey of which I have until now remained ignorant? While I agree modding might be nice, I suspect the sorts of things we're discussing here WON'T be subject to modding as they're absolutely core elements. Either way, I've no intention in putting my faith in mods. Relying on others to fix substantial issues that ought not be present is, to my mind, unacceptable. I could go on (and on, lol), but won't because I've said it all before. I do have a LOAD of pictures to highlight all sorts of elements, but I don't think I can be bothered. I'm sure some of you will be happy to hear it, LOL. Just to be clear, in case people haven't noticed it in other posts I've made, I do NOT expect these things to be resolved quickly or immediately. That's NEVER been my point. What I WOULD like is to have some clear statement as to whether those core elements are more or less as the devs are expecting them to remain with the exception of some minor adjustments here or there, because that's what's important to me. It's not how quickly things are addressed, it's whether the devs consider (and ideally acknowledge) that these ARE problems TO BE addressed. Hope everyone's safe and well. Cheers

My point was that in 99.9% of cases a secondary build WAS having half a brain because not only was it less than ideal for all other situations, a secondary build on most BBs won't even be very effective against DDs. I would have thought that was perfectly obvious. Who builds full secondary on BBs where that makes no sense? I try to view people in the best light I can, not the worst, and only the worst would be taking full secondary builds on anything other than VERY few BBs. In which case most DDs charging a BB are NOT dealing with secondaries as a great threat. That's the point I made, I didn't at any stage say YOU have half a brain, so I fail to understand why you're so animated. I might restate that a BB generally who gets charged down by a DD has probably screwed up significantly anyway, plus that by far the greatest threats were HE spammers and CVs. Having played WoWS from Alpha (and I, too, played WoT Beta in 2010), I no longer play, so I really don't care one way or another other than to say that THE LESS INSPIRATION THIS GAME TAKES FROM WOWS THE BETTER. Cheers

Personally I find this introduction of additional bling underwhelming. AI, damage model, armour model and damage control are where things have stalled. Second tier I'd add the other core factors of the gunnery model itself (any of you notice a ship doing 0.1kn can put the exact same penalty on your gunnery as a ship doing 30kn, for example? LOLWTF), manoeuvring (ship performance but also formation station keeping) and visibility (how do the devs justify early 1900's ships being able to shoot at ships they can't see simply because another of their ships can? I'd really like to know how that makes it into a game selling itself on realism, Haven't they read about Jutland, LOL?). Put whatever turrets and gun sizes you like, just make sure you "angle properly" and select MAX bulkheads in all your designs and it's pretty much insta-win, unless the AI manages to do the same in which case it becomes a nonsensical slugging match between zombie ships. The fact that I know that is why I don't bother playing, and there's nothing in this announced patch that changes ANY of it from what I can see. So, for me, still no reason to play because it'll be another model or two doing the same things under the same mechanics and thus producing the same results. I ought to be clear, I don't particularly care if others want 30 inch guns and 6 barrel turrets and the decs are happy to make them (well, to be honest I'd like to be able to keep them out of my game, but I digress). What I DO care about is the devs spending time on what I consider "bread and circuses" instead of the glaring issues. Anyone remember when I got asked what the problem with bulkheads is? I confess I find it peculiar that others don't seem to be troubled by the lack of attention to those vital core mechanics for more or less a year, which is roughly how long I've been here. Ping me when THOSE things get attention please, Barney. Cheers all. p.s. If this seems harsh, I would say I'm keen to see the game develop towards genuine, ready to market success. Sticking quad gun turrets and 20 inch mounts are not strictly necessary, or at least nowhere as necessary as the much less glamorous stuff I bang on and on about.

You're correct, most BB players who take a secondary build DO have half a brain, if that much LOL. Makes largely no sense to build for secondary other than Massa and arguably the Germans, although even there it's not necessarily the ideal build for German tiers 9-10. DD rushes aren't the greatest threat to BBs, although it was true back when I played that the lower tier ones (tiers 4-5) could charge your same tier BB and there was very little you could do due to the absurd dispersion at even close range. No, the greatest dangers are the ridiculous HE spammer ships and CVs. BBs who die to DDs at higher tiers are probably demonstrating that they're playing a higher tier than their skill level suits, which isn't really their fault in that WG makes it absurdly easy with bonuses etc to rush to tier 8 at least with a premium account and fewer than 100 battles in total. As to effects on DDs, we do have the example of the infamous Battle off Samar where at least one was being hit by 14" guns at least. Yes, not much fun, but, in part because of the closer range and thus relatively flat shell trajectory, they mostly punched clear through wherever they hit and exploded upon hitting the sea 50m or more on the other side. Somewhat hilariously, however, contrast that with the 2nd and 3rd battles of Narvik in which you get a TRUE idea of just how vulnerable DDs could be to their own calibre guns. Making DDs MORE durable as this latest update says it will makes me scratch my head Put MAX bulkheads on it; are people saying they're too easy to sink as they are? If they don't have MAX bulkheads then there's your problem, well that and the grossly inflated hit rates generally in this game. A DD attempting to charge down a BB where the BB sees them coming is likely to be a dead DD fairly soon. Throw in weather and light conditions and that will change accordingly, obviously, but then so will the DD's ability to get a decent torpedo solution. (As an aside, WoWS uses ridiculously time warped speed and distances which means you close distances at about 4 times the accurate rate which of course has very large consequences for ships who fire once every 30 seconds. At 30kn you'd close about 463m every 30 seconds. Doesn't take you long to do the maths on just how much fire you could be under and for how long if trying to close from 10km to a torpedo range of 6km. Go to WoWS and see how long it takes), It surprises me more people aren't concerned about the overly arcade aspects apparently being baked into THIS game. Even the next update does NOTHING to address what I consider the REAL issues that have pretty much stalled any interest I have in playing. Stick 6 barrel turrets and 30" guns in the game if you want, they'll just be more bread and circuses to keep the rowdy mob entertained. Much like WoWS, however, eventually you run out of ways to dazzle players to stop them looking "under the hood" to see what makes the game run, just as you have all been doing and I have added to with respect to WoWS. I'm interested to know how much longer before many if not most of you start doing that with THIS game. AI, damage model, armour model, damage control model, gunnery model and manoeuvring/formations. They're all in various states of incompletion, and I'd argue NONE of them are at the point of being fit for purpose. I joined a year ago and have been writing about all those things ever since (I'm sure some of you might like me to stop, lol). So, how long until the bling stops working for you? Cheers

Yeah.

I made a comment a LONG time ago that this game would sink or swim in large part on the basis of the AI. My favourite surface naval combat game was Great Naval Battles of the North Atlantic: 1939-43, released in 1992 (!!). It allowed you to play as German or RN in the Battle of the Atlantic. It had some really great elements to it, one of which for example was the damage/damage control system. It included the rather remarkable ability to "follow" a shell that penetrated an enemy. You'd see it go potentially through a compartment or two then explode. That could also go DOWN decks (ships were laid out according to decks), depending on range and hence angle of inclination. Important elements were shown, such as engines, boilers, magazines. The explosion could damage or destroy those elements. It could start fires. If striking at the waterline, a penetrating shell could cause flooding. Your ship had limited damage control resources with which you could fight fires, pump out flooding, counter-flood plus conduct repairs. The ship had a display of degrees of list, and you very quickly learned (as was historically accurate) that preventing instability that might cause a capsize was REALLY important at the start of flooding. You often had to use pump resources to flood opposite compartments to manage that before worrying about shoring up and pumping out unintended flooding. Similarly you had to fight fires, and if things were going badly you might have to choose which to fight or even to flood compartments (such as magazines). Some shots from it were posted quite a while ago. There are plenty of other good things about it I could mention, In fact I have long wished for a modernised version of it, but such a thing had to address the following, game-breaking issue: The AI was dumb as a post. It had NO concept of relative strengths, If the Graf Spee encountered a convoy with an R class battleship as heavy escort on top of DDs/DEs, it would charge at you. Similarly, Atlantic Fleet had exactly the same problem, and nowhere near the complexity (pretty sad when you think about it). TL;DR? It doesn't matter HOW magnificent all the elements of the game are if the AI has no concept of what's a fight worth fighting and what's one from which it ought to run. Similarly, if within a battle it sends a ship or two YOLO at an enemy against which any damage is all but impossible, then it has failed. Right now, the AI fails. That does NOT mean, of course, that it can't be worked on. But if it can't get the basics of when to fight, when to run, and to some degree HOW to fight (including using fleet resources in combat as a fleet instead of individual elements), the rest won't matter. Cheers

This is exactly what I had in mind to suggest, just haven't got around to it. I want to be able to position my ships as I please, not according to a limited available format; think of it as the formation equivalent to having fixed available barbette locations vs more flexibility. No issue with the AI using certain 'vanilla' formations, nor players electing to use them as well. I, however, would like to be able to choose to place my ships, and formations, as I wish if I can be bothered. While it's more programming and thus more work and testing etc, the whole matter of how ships are manoeuvred is a MAJOR factor and topic. I want to be able to set a fleet speed without having to jump to each formation IN the fleet. I also want the ships to be able to maintain specified distances of separation, even when they may be capital ships with differing performance characteristics. As an aside, I suspect part of the reason the AI gets so charlie-foxed at the moment is this issue, including the fact the lead ship of a division will accelerate to the ordered speed and leave its other members behind. That's fine if the speed isn't flank or near flank, but when it is it means the other ships have no way of getting back to their positions. That's NOT how navies manoeuvred. I also want to be able to dictate a course in degrees through a simple input for either the fleet OR formation OR individual ship. A simple box into which we could type the (compass) course in degrees would suffice. It used to annoy me no end that SH III used to make me jump through hoops to achieve that (I used to use periscope view then the hotkey to set course to view). If I want the FLEET to head on course 125, I ought to be able to set a number into a relevant input mechanism and have the whole fleet, or division, or ship, depending on how I select the command, turn to that course. They should also maintain separation WITHIN the formation and BETWEEN the formations as/once they do so. Ideally I think their ought to be a mini-map/control station we can 'open', within which we can set courses, speeds and even order which ships to fire at which targets. If it doesn't have the last bit that's ok, but the others really are VERY basic "plot and combat information" functions. That example @SonicB showed of the manoeuvring board is showing the gist of it. The fact I've failed a mission because I've no way of knowing where the last merchant ran away and can't catch it in time is really irritating; your crew would take note of those sorts of things, including the "last observed position, course and speed estimates" of anything that had been reported to them. Obviously I don't expect these sorts of things to pop into being immediately, but I DO think it's where the devs ought to be heading (pardon the pun, lol). Just another case of asking "what do we KNOW to be fact and thus realistic, and how do we build that or as close as we can manage?" that I would imagined the guiding principle to have been from the start of the project. Cheers

I'm fairly sure that "engine efficiency" simply modifies acceleration, although I may be incorrect on that. With earlier tech levels, which is where I tended to play given that's where a large part of the playing experience in the campaign would be, I almost never bothered with achieving 100% efficiency. It could be that the "loss of torque at high speed" penalty you get from lower efficiency shaves something off the achievable top speed, or maybe it goes into calculating the final acceleration number. Odd thing is you can have a bonus to acceleration AND a torque loss from the same engine efficiency. I haven't studied it enough, although it wouldn't take too long to do so, but what I AM fairly certain of is once the acceleration number is arrived at it is applied as a constant in battle. In other words, you can accelerate from 18 to 22 knots in exactly the same time as 22 to 26 in a ship with a 26 knot top speed, or indeed a ship with a speed beyond 26. The point is current speed appears to have NO effect on rate of acceleration. According to all that I've ever read on the subject that's simply not correct. I agree that there's such a thing as being TOO exact on "realism", but from my perspective where there's a case of something clearly being unrealistic AND able to be addressed likely with little effort then it ought to be corrected. Thus I'd add something like a final modifier that takes that "base acceleration" as shown in the shipyard and turns it into a curve where the rate diminishes as the speed increases. Cheers

We can agree to disagree and not clog this thread any further. Cheers p.s. I've been subscribed to Dr Clarke's channel on YT for some time. His video makes pretty much exactly the points I did as the opening of my previous post when it comes to tactics etc. Not aware of any reference to "angling to provide a more difficult gunnery target" or "improve armour". I'm pretty sure there was no way any of the RN ships could "bounce" an 11" shell no matter what angle, which I'd have thought might get people wondering about how that battle would play out in this game.

I pointed out some time ago that in all the versions I've read of the Battle of the River Plate (there are quite a few, some including alleged statements from Langsdorff himself) not one of them mentions "angling" for the purposes of presenting a narrower target (except for torpedoes, but that's a different issue entirely). From what I've read, Langsdorff clearly was attempting to reduce the rate at which the CLs were closing the range (it was to their advantage to get closer) PLUS reduce the danger of enemy torpedoes (a torpedo solution from astern is a bad deal). Meanwhile, the Brits' approach to the battle was to behave as though they were a destroyer squadron. Engage with the CA and attempt to flank/torpedo with the CLs. For Graf Spee it's control the range and mitigate the threat of torpedoes. On at least one occasion she was even splitting her fire; not ideal, but then fighting 3 ships solo was hardly ideal and all her opponents held technical speed advantages. The ridiculously high hit rates in this game are skewing everything else. If your hit rate is around 5% it was MUCH more important to maximise your guns on target and your stability as a gunnery platform than worry about "angling". When your hit rate is more like 30% then the game has to come up with ways of ships surviving far more hits than they might have expected to take. Mind you, sinking ships with gunnery could be a notoriously unpredictable thing. REALITY was the point was to get as many of your guns pointed at your enemy under the most favourable conditions for you then blaze away. Yes, that would include potentially turning towards or away as a means of controlling the engagement RANGE, but, unless someone else can present me with specific instances, I maintain the suggestion of "narrowing profile" or "angling armour" is a load of nonsense. What's the good of a theoretical immunity zone, for example, if captains spent so much time angling that they kept straying into/out of it? I've seen claims about HMS Hood so-called "angling", yet her chosen course was a perfect illustration of what I have been saying. She wanted to close the range to minimise the known danger of plunging fire, doubly so as her aft spaces had not had their horizontal protection increased whereas her forward magazines etc had. That was it. No other factor. Had her armour not caused the Admiral and Captain to conclude they needed to close to a certain range, she would have turned to bring her aft battery to bear whenever that was deemed appropriate. In fact the evidence suggests she was making a turn to port to unmask her stern battery when she suffered her fatal blow (in her aft propellant/magazines). No "minimising profile", no "angling for armour", just a clear tactical choice based on DICTATING RANGE and perceived effectiveness of her armour scheme (again, reference to 'immunity zone', not that I believed she had one against Bismarck). I suppose I'd sum up my understanding as follows: 1. Capital warships tended to head toward or away from enemy ships for reasons of controlling range. 2. Danger from torpedoes was well known and any Captain would definitely keep that in mind. Exactly what Langsdorff did, and exactly what Jellicoe did in his statement of intention as to how to use his battle line (right down to the ranges at which he felt gunnery would prove decisive, and how many minutes he had before the anticipated wave of German torpedoes may arrive). 3. Ships could and did manoeuvre extensively when the combat odds meant survival was itself by no means certain. Thus you see things such as "salvo chasing", laying smoke (which anything could do; HMS Prince of Wales withdrew under smoke) and various other things besides. None of THOSE are about doing anything much other than opening the range while making the task of the enemy maintaining an accurate gunnery solution as difficult as possible. 4. Despite the thousands of hours of reading I have done over 30+ years I have never seen anything about a general principle of "presenting a narrow profile" or "angling to improve armour". How is that, if it's as common a tactic as claimed? Have I simply not read the correct sources? I've not seen any who think it was a thing ever present any sources to support their claims, so it remains a mystery to me. If anyone's got a bunch of sources that DO demonstrate how presenting a narrow profile for the purposes of being a more difficult target, for example, was the goal itself as opposed to an incidental consequence of wanting to close/open range or turn away from a torpedo threat (all the things going on at River Plate), please do list them because I am always happy to go from being ignorant to having more knowledge. I don't mind accepting I was ignorant or mistaken when presented with evidence that is contrary to my views. To maintain opinions despite substantial evidence to the contrary strikes me as pretty foolish. It's why I try to provide evidence, although I tend to do so only when presenting a view that's perhaps misunderstood or seriously contentious. It's also why I like others to present evidence under similar circumstances, and why in this instance I'd love to see some actual, primary or secondary source evidence in support of the supposed purposes of presenting narrow angles as some have claimed. Indeed, and frankly more importantly IMO, I'd love for the devs to explain their whole approach to "angling", including the quote I mentioned from the game's help pages. On what are they basing all that? Why? We can discuss all we like, but it's what the devs choose to put in the game that really matters. Meanwhile, I watch the AI insist on this angling and then eventually that brings them to ranges that are rather suicidal for their ship(s) against mine. It's even harder to explain when it's a lighter ship that doesn't have torpedoes doing it. What, exactly, are they hoping to achieve? Then what happens? Well, they can turn away, but then they get smashed because they lose that (nonsense) "angling" benefit. Or they slow right down and keep their bows pointed at me, which means their firepower is usually at least halved, and even worse they often lose their "target lock" so they can't hit crap anyway. Yes, seems like brilliant tactical doctrine. Probably explains why I've NEVER read about it happening, let alone happening so often. Cheers