Spitfire109

I cant start battles due top the game telling me I have 'Unfinished ships in fleet.' or 'You must select a ship of the required type.' This is in custom battles and seems to happen at random. Verifying integrity does not fix.

Maybe, but then that should only apply to the AI not us.

Id like there to be no upper or lower, especially lower limit on the armor for ships. This is especially needed on heavy cruisers or certain BBs and BCs. Some ships historically had lower armor due to treaty restrictions or the need to maximize certain other traits. Things like the Kongo cant really be replicated easily. Or certain heavy cruisers like the Pensacola or Furutaka only have 76mm belts which isnt allowed on Heavys.

So the error where the superstructure is considered badly placed is still occurring. I hope this is known as a bug? There is also this, where if I try to spawn a battle of only 1940 CAs it says the designs are invalid or unselected and I cant start the battle.

Overall improvement of the cruiser and destroyer classes of ships. Their guns are in need of an overall improvement to their damage and accuracy. Cruiser duels currently feel like waiting for the other guy to run out of ammo cause at any reasonable range you almost never go over a 2% hit rate. Destroyers and TP Boats are almost useless outside of Torpedo Payloads.

I got to thinking and something id like to see is being able to decide the AI behavior. In campaign and academy the enemies AI should be sorta random but in a custom battle you should be able to set the enemy AI to say 'Aggressive' 'Defensive' or 'Balanced' in a way. Obviously an aggressive AI will fight at closer ranges, try for torp runs, and in general try to sink you fast and try to start engagements. Defensive AI would fight at longer range and try to be more careful. I think in general the AI needs to try and stick to a range where gun hits will be reliable. Id like to set the same for your own AI you can assign your ships to in battle. Right now your player AI fights kinda like a coward. Often running out of ammo without even hurting the enemy.

I like what the Moray said. As much as I adore CVs and Carrier warfare. (Enterprise, its a sin they didn't save you.) but they need to finish the battleship piece of this puzzle. That being said I wont be mad if they add them, but I want more ships for the ww1 and below eras first and AMCs are a must. Id be okay if Cargo ship refit carriers were really the full extent.

So lets start off with a current aspect of the game that I think the Devs are going to address but im not sure. This games armor system is a bit...limited, and quite easy to exploit. As it stands armor layouts in the game are not accurate in the least. Belt lines cover the entire ship and extended belts and extended decks are far too easy to make impenetrable. Makes battleships and Heavy cruisers rather insurmountable to ships with smaller guns, and super structures dont really seem to get hurt as easily as they maybe should. As we all know the actual armor layouts of warships is quite the complex layout. I hope the game will evolve to a point where we can have a more detailed representation of this. It would be nice to sorta customize things like where the belt armor goes or even to be able to place things like a torpedo bulge on the hull. It would also make going bow in less viable as you cant just easily make a bow armored up to 200 or more millimeters. I dont expect it too be exactly true to life, but some more detail would be nice. Furthermore the current citadel and armor composition are pretty boring and too... gamey. The fact Krupp IV would make something like 250mm of armor be treated like about 500mm to 600mm of armor seems sorta strange to me. I suppose this will be balanced out in the campaign with financial costs but it still makes me think that the game will be won buy whoever can afford the thickest belt. Im not an expert and perhaps one of you who has a bit more knowledge on something like that could explain it better, but I have a feeling that the Krupp armor shouldn't just be X% better than something. Lighter for sure, but a simple % seems too simple. I would also like to see a more visual representation of what the different types of citadel protections do and look like. From what we see Turtleback and All or Nothing seem exactly the same, except that one does this and one does that. It would be nice for people who dont know what those are from doing research or are new to naval history to be able to see what those are doing for the ship, not just stats on a screen. Onto the more entertaining stuff. Trying to build replicas. Uhh... this is supposed to be New Mexico. We are missing two 5inch sponsons, and I think its a bit too short on length... but most of it is there! She also is 2000 tons too heavy but putting it at 32000 tons shortens the boat too much. And im still not exactly sure what armor makeup and aiming system to use for her. Its not easy to find that sorta information. Hmm... im not sure that I got her really. Hopefully in time the games dockyard will let us actually make these ships in full. Post some attempted replicas you guys have attempted.

Boats perhaps die a bit quick in the game right now.

Id Also like to be able to go smaller. If you try to build a 30 or 40s era ship based off a real one, say the Northhampton class, youll find the UA ship to be too big.

Soooo destroyers in the game are currently in a weird place. This place balance wise isn't even a bad place, it makes them quiet strong actually. This place is called Torpedo hell. They exist for the soul purpose of slinging torpedo's and hiding in smoke. This actually makes them probably even deadlier than a BB per pound but its not what DDs were made for. Id like to know if the general UL:A community agrees with me. What ive found is a few things, First Destroyers practically never hit or damage anything at all with their guns, even other DDs. Secondly torpedos are faaaar too reliable as weapons, being unaffected by accuracy debuffs, and essentially requiring guess work to dodge or just a very fast boat. Lastly they live and die off of smoke. the moment the smokescreen drops all the DDs disintegrate. It makes them into smoke belching torpedo spewwers. First thing I think needs to be addressed is they shouldn't get reloads unless given the higher torp amount, as it was historically. They should be a little more resilient, not tanky, but not papier-mâché as its just kinda silly how many destroyers you can lose in one single battle. They should also get an accuracy boost, so that they can contribute in some meaningful way to a gun fight, and achieve their IRL role of a screen, allowing them to effectively engage other DDs, TB, and even CLs while still remaining as a 'Potential' threat to BBs and CAs with the torpedoes, but not unreasonably dangerous due to less torps and perhaps less torp accuracy.

I love destroyers, and i believe they need slight buffs in regards to being just a tiny bit more durable and their guns being a bit more capable so as to ensure they still have a place once they do run out of torpedos. Having one or two reloads should be an option, makes you heavier and more vulnerable to damage but it lets you fire off more of those deadly tubes of death. A destroyers place is to be the scout and protector, not the big stick that beats everything to death, thats the job of the CA, BC, BB. Reloads should be historical option not just a thing that gives you like 10 torps for you twin tube..

Armor is currently broken, or not as realistic as it should be. Distinction should be made on the citadels and armor layouts too. Currently its far too easy to give BBs and CAs ridiculous amounts of armor on the prows making them immune to smaller ships. and the ships 'belt' appears to cover its entire side hull instead of just the main belt line. And upgrading from say Krupp 1 to Krupp 3 is a no brainer, even if its expensive because now you're just immune to anything below 10 inch guns.

This, Torp Boats and destroyers still kinda suck. The game is still overwhelmingly in favor of battleships despite cruisers and destroyers historically going toe to toe with them and achieving what seemed to be an impossible battle. Might I reference USS Laffey going head to head with an entire Japanese fleet and causing incredible damage before finally being sunk.

i assume we still cannot modify or save designs for custom battles? Or modify the enemy ships designs?

coverage is also way too extensive I say. The main belt covers way too much of the hull, which we all know is not exactly how it works.

Too me it seems that the armor upgrades in game are a bit drastic. Getting any of the Krupp tier armor makes putting a ton of armor on too easy and it also makes the ships absolutely impenetrable, throwing 500mm of armor with Krupp IV makes the ship only vulnerable to torpedoes and the absolute largest guns. Does anyone else feel the same way? It just feels like smaller weapons even on battle ships, and I dont mean 5 inch guns, i mean the 13-14 inch weapons are just not viable for very long.

Is there currently any benefit yo using different powders besides the 'newest' one for the year? For example if Tube powder and TNT are available, and you can afford TNT, is there ever a reason to use Tube Powder?

So we all want custom hulls eventually. I think that's a given. But id like to be able to personally set the inch or millimeter to a certain type as opposed to all the common types. This isnt too big a deal on the large main guns on battleships, but is more noticeable on smaller ships. For example German cruisers preferred 150mm guns, while Russians preferred 130mm. We have 152 and 127 mm currently but there is a difference especially if you're trying to make replicas. While on the subject of guns, I do want to see little things like AA or machine guns added. Even if no aircraft are added, they still see use against torpedo boats and small destroyers, and just make the boat look cool. As well as quad barreled guns, cause those where actually rather common leading up too WW2.

So I haven't seen a popular thread about this so I wanted to make a statement for it. It think variety of looks and the ability to change how certain things look should be considered. Examples of what I mean, the 12 inch gun turret and 15 inch gun turret look very different from each other. But what if you like the way the 15 inch turret looks? Or how its armor facings are? Or cant afford to weight of the 15 inch battery? They should allow us to change and select the different looking things and whatnot for things like turret housings, torpedoe tubes and launchers, turrets, casemates, and even details on the hull. I think that would greatly help people make replicas or stylize their ships according to a particular country or idea. And they need to add a lot more variety of such things when the game is ready. I think it would help immensely with immersion and player free will.

In the case of Iowa youd need cruisers of equal caliber. Des Moinse class or Baltimore class Cruisers, truly state of the art ships for their time. While say something like a Pensacola Class would get devastated by an Iowa. That's just the nature of Naval warfare is the Newsest boat is usually well above the ones before it in some cases. Like HMS Dreadnought vs any Pre Dreadnought, or USS Iowa vs maybe IJN Kongo.

Its fully reasonable in my mind for a battleship to be able to handle three or so lesser vessels, its what they were made for. But if I've got like Eight heavy cruisers all with 8inch guns and maybe toros? I expect all but the greatest of battleships to suffer.

I'd love to see a multi player campaign. Similar in all respects to the single player one.

Such things like ships surrendering or scuttling themselves due to the crew or captains decisions where also prevalent.

Crew should be something the game eventually takes into account. If we want true realism (and the true horrors of war) then we need casualties to affect vessels.