captinjoehenry

That's how it used to be but now I have these lovely ??? instead https://imgur.com/a/qoHA3F5

Is there a file or something I can change to access all the naval academy missions? As I'm not really interested in redoing them all

Not really? The damage South Dakota took didn't put it in risk of sinking or anything so the ship wasn't in danger of being lost. But both of them explicitly say the ship took enough damage to render it largely unable to fight until damage control could be done correctly.

I totally agree that the AP performance of low caliber guns is out of whack by quite a lot. The HE performance of secondaries in the current patch feels fine though and effective against the targets that they should be effective against. The problem is that low caliber guns have far too much pen. This honestly might also be a problem all the way up to the low end of BB guns but if so it's to a vastly lesser extent

I think those pens are probably on the unarmored super structure? Or other unarmored parts of the ship?

personally I've found that High TNT is probably the best. The hull weight saving is really nice and it gives a bunch of extra shell damage and a bit more pen. But it is really expensive.

Also I think the modern BC have a problem of being flat out impossible especially in the era we are talking about. As the modern BCs can get up to 49 knots on a 51,000 ton warship using 540,000 SHP which is more than any ship that's ever existed. Even the Nimitz class aircraft carrier has less than half that much power at 250,000 SHP

@Nick Thomadis I feel you were a bit excessively harsh on @RAMJB as while he does repeat himself a bit he's stayed rather civil about the whole discussion and provides plenty of sources and other information to back up his point and has largely engaged in civil and productive discussions.

Totally agree with you. I only think this massive amount of flooding is appropriate in the case where a BB HE shell hits an effectively unarmored waterline location. Which would mostly just be on DDs and CLs where they don't have armor. As I can easily see a high caliber HE shell blasting open a massive hole in an unarmored waterline part of a ship leading to mass flooding. But when an area has a good amount of armor the impact really should be slim to no flooding.

On playing some more in the new patch I do definitely feel that BBs are quite a bit too squishy. Especially from non penetrating hits. Also flooding does end up feeling rather excessive for heavy ships from gunfire. As while I can see a BB shell causing massive flooding on light ships like DDs and CLs from HE waterline hits it doesn't really make any sense for heavy ships.

Honestly I don't disagree with you. But at the same time getting the last 5%~ of a ship down in the past took an ungodly amount of time. Which means in the last version ships were super tanky as I feel is more proper but they got FAR too tanky once they were nearly dead making it excessively hard to do that last tiny smidge of damage to actually knock out the ship. As in most of the compartments of the ship last patch were totally destroyed but the ship wouldn't die as your shells would just hit the already dead parts of the ships. So basically I guess what would be more ideal would be the old system for the vast majority of a ships structural HP and the new system for the last bit. As while admittedly in real life ships could be floating wrecks for a long time before being sunk it does get to a point of just being a bit silly that your mass salvos of 9~ BB shells smashing into the enemy doesn't actually damage them any further.

For your first point I'm honestly not sure. I guess the game might more be showing theoretical accuracy instead of actual accuracy? Frankly though I'm not really sure. I know that I like the gameplay where you can actually design ships around long range fire where various real world designs were intended for even if it wasn't actually possible. As for the Bismark and the bounding it took I don't really have any great experience of that. I mainly mess around with end game super BBs with 12 18 inch cannons and an ass ton of armor. And in that case my BBs have no problems what so ever punching clear through enemy ships armor and have a far larger destructive power than the 16 and 15 inch guns that were used vs the Bismark. So I can't really give a good comparison other than the fact that 18 inch super heavy shells can rather easily punch through most armor and then deliver a much bigger explosive inside. So I guess the best way to put it is the Bismark is the best example we have but with the bigger guns we have in game like the 18" don't seem to have any vs ship damage other than the light DDs and escort carriers so I'm unsure how well or if 18" guns can be compared to the 16 and 15 inch ones used vs the Bismark As for the ship sinking due to structural damage I think that's supposed to represent the situation where the Bismark was rendered effectively unable to fight in any way. The guns being silenced and the ship being unable to move which you said happened like 30~ minutes in? Sinking more involves the flooding situation which gun fire VS BBs is not that good at. So I think this game abstracts a ship being rendered effectively dead but not sunk as 0% structural damage and just skips the need to actually flood it out to sink it.

I do not have any of those numbers mostly due to not really knowing where to look for them. My opinion more comes from guess work to be frank. But taking 10+ high caliber shells into the citadel and explode in there is going to mess up and destroy all sorts of important combat needed systems which I would think would kill a ship fairly quickly. Sadly I don't have any sources to back this up so I could well be wrong as I'm simply going off of the power of the explosives within high caliber BB shells going off inside of the area of the ship that holds all of the ships most important parts. Which I would guess would rather quickly render a ship non combat capable.

I do agree but personally I think when it comes to 1940 and big BBs slugging it out are about right. Ships might be a bit too squishy but taking a whole bunch of 18inch AP penetrations to the citedal probably should kill a BB rather quickly. And when it comes to super BBs they are still tough but can actually die to BB shells that cannot pen the main belt which I am a bit so so on. On the one hand having a butt load of BB shells hitting any ship should mess it up but failing to punch into the citadel or turrets or even the secondaries does make me think that maybe non penetrating hits are too lethal? As having all of your main protected areas remain unpenetrated should leave a ship more alive than dead. As for the accuracy it feels good and right historically for 1940 with top of the line fire control but for lower tech ships it's probably quite a lot out of line of how it should be.

This type of performance does sound rather incorrect. I more felt the performance of secondaries are good for 1940s. As at that end of the tech line it feels right. The problem is more at the start of the timeline now. The biggest issue I think is that the impact of rangefinders / gun marks might be too low. As I think gun marks are supposed to bake in new generations of fire control added to in part by the rangefinder / radar you choose. The overall total impact feels correct for 1940s but I think the base stats at tech level 0 are probably too high and the impact of improved fire control, shown by gun mark and rangefinder type, is probably far too small. Basically drop the performance at the 0 tech down a fair bit but increase the impact of gun marks and rangefinders so at 1940s you get the performance we currently have from 1940.

I cannot speak for the magnitude but the smaller ship should have an easier time hitting a bigger ship than the reverse. As the bigger ship is a far bigger and easier to hit target while the small ship is much harder to hit due to being smaller and usually also due to being much faster.

All I can say is things feel a lot better! Secondaries seem to actually work and be effective against DDs and other ships! Also it's really nice how ships are a bit more fragile. No more enemy ships running away at 10%~ and never dying. It still takes a while but it doesn't feel nearly as hard to pull of now. All in all Great Job! The game feels a TON better with this hot patch

Upon playing further one thing has come out to be rather annoying. And that's the rudder being knocked out more or less all the time. Which is highly annoying as it's protected with belt extended armor instead of being armored with main belt thickness as in real life rudders were heavily armored instead of just being lightly armored

Another problem is it's effect on engine waste and cost. 40 knot 51,000 ton BC ( The Jap modern BC ) As you can see it needs 287,000 SHP while it's engine weighs 4,700 tons and cost 25,700 For additional context this is a BC that weighs 51,000 tons, goes at 40 knots, has the same main armament as the Yamato and a comparable armor belt which seems a bit insane for 51,000 tons Next up is the 120,000 ton BB at 30 knots ( The super Jap BB ) It needs 201,000 SHP which is 85,000~ less SHP than the BC. But this BB with the same type of machinery and being a modern design like the BC has a 6,100 ton engine costing 33,5000. Which means that the BC has an engine that produces 45%~ more power yet weighs 25%~ less and more importantly costs 25%~ less which seems to me to be massively incorrect if not impossible considering that both of them are using turbo electric geared turbines which in theory means they have the same style of machinery and yet the BC is getting far more than 50% additional power per weight while ALSO costing less. I can also add in examples from the US modern BB as a halfway house which while not as extreme also has a notable difference. Personally I'd recommend if hull form is going to effect engine needs per speed, which it should, it should more effect how much HP is needed per knot instead of magically making engines perform vastly better for less weight and cheaper cost.

Just did some basic testing and it feels like the maintenance reduction of Hull Form is insane. When keeping total tonnage the same a 40 knot fully equipped and set up 51k ton modern battle cruiser costing far less in maintenance than a Dreadnought IV at 51,000 ton at 25.5 knots and a stripped hull with identical propulsion and protection selected and everything else stock it ends up costing over twice as much as the Battle cruiser in maintenance per month. A modern US BB at 56,000 tons at starting speed and propulsion and protection setup identically ends up costing almost exactly twice as much in maintenance compared to the BB. This seems highly odd to me considering just how much higher performance and maintenance intensive a battle cruisers 40 knot engine cranking out about 3 times as much power. And keep in mind this is a fully set up Battle Cruiser with all the bits and bobs vs a blank hull for the Modern US BB and Dreadnought IV Battle Cruiser: 156 = -91% maintenance US Modern BB: 123.5 = -59% maintenance Dreadnought IV: 102.7 = -38% maintenance

Alright. Only thought it was a bug as previous patch every single ammo detonation that I saw did massive damage. While this patch I've seen a fair few of standard damage pens that just so happen to have also been ammo detonations which seemed odd

That is fantastic and insane XD I'd love to try and fight that with my own 120k ton monster. I go for 30 knot speed 4 tripple 18 inch turrets and then just an ass ton of armor so my single BB can take on a fleet of enemy BBs with minimal damage even when they have 18" guns of their own.

Sorry if this wasn't clear but this is happening even when all turrets have firing arcs. Even in such cases as giving the enemy ships a full broadside. One volley will be all 4 turrets the next volley will be half the turrets and the volley after that will be all 4 turrets again without the turrets seeming to rotate at all.

Sadly I understand why this is the case. In naval academy the possible options for ship design are fairly fixed VS custom battles where you can change FAR more things just by changing the year count which would make implementing a save function for custom battles a fair bit more complicated even if it would be more useful.

Awesome! Thanks! Do any of our current armor lay out options include an inclined belt? And if not how would it be added in? A sixth type of citadel or a modifier checkbox type of thing?