Druzki

You shouldn't be so harsh. Keep in mind this game has a tiny development team, and is the first game to combine ship design with realistic combat and 3d graphics. This game already has far more sandbox content and replayability than most other sandbox RTS games. I'm thankful that we have it. To put things into perspective, in which total war game can you design the armor, equipment, and weapons of your warriors? Total war just has preset troop types per faction that you have to adapt to, removing real opportunities for alternate history scenarios(like what if the diadochi kingdoms successfully created a manipular system for their infantry?)

I love this game, but formations really stress me when playing and aren't well implemented. 1. Attaching ships is really tedious. I can't simply right click on a ship I want to attach. I have to choose a lost of ships in the task bar, which is made as tedious as possible because you can't see the names of the ships. 2. I can't place my ships the way I want before the start of the battle. Why is it random? I want the freedom as an admiral to decide the formation before battle, than working with a random arrangement. 3. Ships break formation if one of them is damaged. This is nonsensical. In a formation, all ships go as fast as the slowest ship.smd and shouldn't automatically break. It's useless when if the lead ship suffers engine damage, it tries to go to the back. Why is this mechanic here? It does nothing useful. 4. Bugs. When in the avoid torpedo mode, one ship goes crazy making evasive maneuvers, and 80% of the time bugs out and moves in circles, never reforming. This isn't a problem with formations per se, but the bug makes formations too much hassle. Better to pause and micromanagile each ship.

However the vast majority of cold war until the 1970s ships were refurbished WW2 or 1930s designs. Most US aircraft carriers and cruisers of the 1960s were modernized essex class carriers while the cruisers were worcester, des moines, etc classes with terrier SAMs slapped on. Most soviet warships were 1930s designs like the kildin, sverdlov, kanin with some P-15s slapped on. US aircraft strike groups were still expected to bomb ships with dumb bombs. Cold war naval combat until the advent of antiship missiles with ranges of more than 100km and advanced radar would've been very similar to WW2 naval combat. Early cold war ships up to 1970 are therefore have very different combat compared to ships 1980s onwards.

Yes anti-ship missiles are low priority and should come after aircraft carriers an AA gun implementation. However if AA is implemented, anti-ship missiles would be more straightforward to implement than aircraft dogfights .

Didnt exist until the late 1960s. Didnt exist until the late 1960s Didnt exist until the late 70s early 80s 1960s naval combat had very little relation to 1970s to present naval combat. The vast majority of ships were WW2 era designs, aircraft were still using dumb bombs, helicopters had a minor role. The fritz x isn't a ship launched weapon though.

Do these ships look modern to you with kevlar armor? We already have automatic/semiautomatic dual purpose guns modeled. As I said earlier, antiship misssiles until the mid 70s like otomat, p-15, KSSch had a 40-60km range, similar to the range of 16-20in cannons and 24in torpedos. Aircraft carriers had a 200+km strike range by 1940, yet these will probably be added somehow. The H-20, montana class, des moines class, gearing class, shimakaze aren't dreadnoughts. If people are asking for aircraft carriers, the ill ask for this.

I said this is a long temr suggestion in my OP

It clearly doesn't stop exactly where it should if it has autoloaders, 40s dual purpose gun mounts, radars, 20in cannons, 24in liquid oxygen torpedos, and freaking gas turbines. Antiship missiles made ships viable surface combatants again rather than being glorified AA/ASW carrier escort platforms in WW2. Whats the difference if you can two shot a ship with a 20in gun at 40km vs two shotting it with a P-15 termit from 30-40km away?

DISCLAIMER: THIS IS OBVIOUSLY A LONG TERM SUGGESTION WHICH IS A LOW PRIORITY I know many here believe that anti-ship missiles and SAMs are completely out of the scope of the game and have too many new mechanics, but please please hear me out. Here are the reasonns why I think they can be implemented in an entertaining way: Until the mid 1970s, the vast majority of anti-ship missiles had less than 100km range, and SAM ranges rarely exceeded 50km. Given that 16in+ shells in the game already exceed 30km in range, this isn't such a massive increase in scale. Both ASMs and SAMs before the introduction of VLS systems have similar mountings as torpedos and guns, with either angled racks or turreted armed launchers. The ship designer therefore wouldn't need to be completely overhauled. WW2 era ships were retrofitted with missiles, so there is a precedent to add them in game, plus you wouldn't need to add drastically different hulls. When you think about it SAMs simply guided artillery shells with longer range and much higher damage with higher accuracy which however can be shot down or spoofed. Apart from new visual effects and, a guidance mechanic and spoofing mechanic, everything else is already in game. Targeting with an ASM can be abstracted in terms of aim time just like torpedoes. Finally, Who doesn't want to retrofit their iowas with harpoons, or recreate the indo-pakistani and arab-israeli naval engagements? Here are the challenges and new features which would need to be added , which I think are surmountable and wouldnt break the game: SAMs would be more difficult to add, since we don't have anti-aircraft mechanics in game. However, their mechanics wouldn't be that much different to AA guns if theyre added . Both SAMs and AAA have to lock on to their targets, rotate launchers, reload, etc. If flash fires can be animated, the plume of a SAM motor can be animated too. Helicopters for midcourse guidance if target is beyond the horizon A 2D map to zoom out. This feature would also be useful for WW2 era ships already in the game, since its annoying to move your camera 20-30km between your ships and the enemy Ability to add different radar mounts on masts Ability to add chaff and flare launchers on ships

Hey, is anyone else experiencing a bug where when you have your formation on avoid torpedo, the ai controled ships just run in circles and they cant be controled?

I dont think it would be a good idea, since you wouldnt be able to to change time speed, which would either make the game too slow or too fast. the beauty of this game is being able to control ships at your own pace.

I'd like to suggest 2 naval academy missions relating to the the Russian navy: 1. Clash with the Ottomans Design a dreadnought using late 1900s russian technology to destroy a numerically superior but predreadnought ottoman force with superior training 2.Worker's fleet And anglo-French task force with several super dreadnoughts and cruisers has ventured into the black sea. You only have access to light cruisers and destroyers which are however very fast and well armed. Design a response force to cripple the task force. Also I'd like to see bow mounts for torpedo tubes for torpedo boats, since many models like the durandal and bulgarian druzki class had them. Some torpedo boat hulls in the game also already have bow tubes visually modeled

It is important, but not as much as the base mechanics and scenario creation.

The devpost just mentioned that they're only going to work on the campaign, besides minor bugfixes. They admit that nearly 100% of their time and resources will be spent on developing it. The game can be almost just as replayable by giving players more freedom in creating custom battle and naval academy scenarios(as I said multiple times, designing more than one ship class and designing the enemy fleet), as well as ship designer improvements and this could be done sooner in order to keep interest, rather than hope enough players will wait 5-6 months for a campaign that will not be complete by then anyway. Paraphrasing what someone else said, the base of the game hasn't been ironed out and improved as much as it could.

If the wait for the campaign is that long, and the custom battles aren't improved upon at all, Im afraid to say the gameplay will become too stale for me, especially because you cannot design multiple ships in the custom battles and naval academy missions and you cannot design the enemy fleet in custom battles. I honestly dont understand this obsession with a campaign. Its seems like the majority of the player base(including me) is more interested in realistic ship mechanics with complex ship design as well as maximum freedom in designing custom battles and the campaign would be a cherry on top. By focusing exclusively on the campaign the devs seem to be hoping to attract potential casual gamers while alienating a loyal playerbase.

Keep in mind early submarines usually attacked while surfaced. Since there are already commerce raiding missions for ships, it wouldnt be that difficult to model WW1 submarine combat in real time. In actual battle submarines would be very hard to hit but very slow. You can already design very slow ships in UA:D in which require the player to give himself superior positioning Also bow and stern mounted torps are already modeled, so this could readily be incorporated into submarine hulls in the game. In campaign, I see no reason why the player shouldn't command a submarine tactically if he chooses to. He can position himself in the strategic map near a probable enemy ship squadron/convoy, go to tactical combat, fast forward time given the slow speed, position himself, try to ambush. If successful, try to escape, if outrun, go back to strategic map and try again with another enemy. Of course given the complexity of modelling ASW weapons and diving depth, this should be low priority, but given the current mechanics in the game, I think its possible to implement subs more easily than carriers or anti-ship missiles.

Hey, I'm really loving the missions in this game because most of them are really well designed and have a high degree of replayability, and have a balance between challenge and fun However for me the only exception to this rule is the defeat the semi dreadnought mission. Now before alpha 5, I had managed to win this several times. I understand that this mission is a challenge where you are at a disadvantage, but honestly the stats of the enemy ships are so above your own that it gets almost impossible to win without being extremely lucky. 1. Semi dreadnought is way too fast In the previous alpha versions, the AI would design the semidreadnought with a reasonable generally historical 16-21kn speed, but now the majority of the time its designed with speeds above 25kn, sometimes reaching over 30, outrunning its cruiser escort. Even when it spawns with maximum bulkeads, it usually reaches speads above 26kn. This not only makes your odds stacked unreasonably against you, but it completely breaks the immersion. 2. Semidreadnought is way too hard to pen Even if you put highest calibre gun possible, its very hard to pen , even at close range with 11in+ guns. I remember in the previous alphas it was tough but quite possible to pen . Even when its spawned with a very high speed, it usually gets 12+in belt armor, both outgunning and outspeeding you to a massive degree. Having one with 16in+ of krupp armor also breaks the immersion. 3. Your cruisers are useless They have extremely low survivability, accuracy and speed. I understand that Im supposed to be in a technological disadvantage, but. even using your cruisers for torpedo attacks against the semi-dreadnought is impossible majority of the time, since theyre spawned with <2km range torps, if they even have torps at all. Also the semidreadnought is usually at least 40-50% faster than them. Possible improvements that could make this scenario more possible to win without just luck while keeping it a challenge is that the semidreadnought has a speed cap and armor cap (<14in belt)and either the enemy cruisers are reduced in technology or yours are increased. Regarding the hulls available to you, the battleship III hull is such that you can only mount max 10in guns, which with the current armor quality that the enemy spawns in, makes it almost useless. Does anyone else find this mission to be a bit too unbalanced?

We already have medium barbettes for medium guns. Unfortunately for some reason even late era cruiser hulls don't have hardpoints for them, which is ridiculous. Another useless feature is that whenever you place a standard barbette, a hardpoint for a medium barbette appears behind it(The only time medium barbettes are available), but you can no way in hell put it because the hardpoint is covered by the front/secondary tower on almost all hulls.

This is about player freedom, which is very important in a sandbox game. If we're given the ability to design enemy ships, it doesnt mean that the option to fight AI designed ships won't exist.

Aaaaand this patch doesnt have it.

There is no info about this in the alpha 5 thread.

Being only able to design one class(and only one design of the class) of ship in a custom battle and having absolutely no option to design opposing ships is so limiting. Its ridiculous that it wasn't added from the get go. Why wasn't this added? I want a true sandbox custom battle mode. The current custom battle mode is just a random naval battle mode with few sandbox elements. If this isn't added I will eventually become bored and no amount of new hulls will change this.

Currently theyre only for iron plate and it can be tedious to convert the penetration value to other armor types. It would be useful to add values for them too.

He meant not every nation had the industry to manufacture armor of a certain thickness.

Keep in mind the majority of ship losses in ww2 were caused by aircraft were because of very underwhelming AA battery coordination(think the yamato's atrocious 25mm) and not enough AA mounts on ships because back then aircraft weren't considered a primary threat. Players will have this hindsight and invest in tons rapid firing radar guided AA batteries much faster than IRL. Also bad weather amd nighttime will still allow artillery duels between ships with WW2 tech and lower.