WelshZeCorgi

Torpedoes are definitely the weakest part of the game so far. They're simply frustrating to use and for the most part, the Naval academy missions I hate the most involve depending on torpedoes to win the battle. Trying to replicate real life torpedo tactics requires a ton of micromanagement and even when you pull it off, the ship AI still sometimes screws up. Also, weird that the AI does not take turns into consideration, if a ship was consistently turning, instead of leading the turn, it instead leads as if the ship stopped turning and maintained course on the the exact heading the second the torpedoes leave the ship. Sometimes, a torpedo does not fire. If it had 5 torpedoes in the launcher, it sometimes launches 4. If it was because UAD simulates duds or launcher malfunction, that's cool, but as far as I know, it doesn't so it's kinda weird when it does that.

Also there are some deck and AA guns where gun crews should be visible.

I managed to do it in two ways. One is focusing on long distance dueling, trying to find guns that balances range, accuracy, penetration and damage, get thick deck armor for plunging fire protection, angle your ship to try and deflect the incoming shots as you take the inside circle to keep them at range. And it's a waiting game, trying to keep out of their big gun's effective range. The other was a heavily armored brawler with smaller, faster firing guns. I tried with torpedoes but the cruisers are agile enough to dodge them, so don't put those on, as you're also increasing ammo detonation while their low rpm limits their usefulness past the first shot. but definitely prepare to put a torpedo belt for the cruisers torps. Put plenty of belt armor and try to have Max bulkheads and citadel for ammo detonation prevention. And don't make your tonnage too high, your ship too big, cause you'll need to be a hard to hit target. Plus heavier ships are also harder to maneuver so try to keep tonnage to a minimum, this means trying to get away with 80% engine efficiency, little armor on secondaries, deck, towers and turret top. Try to balance hitting power with reload speed as you'll be outgunned and need both to negate it. Angle your armor on the approach and try to go for the last in line and work your way up. The long range version takes a lot of time and gets boring and even then it's not a sure thing that you'll win. One lucky shot can cripple you. Shorter range is a bit more difficult but takes much less time and allows you to fine tune the ship in less time. If one of the cruisers looses engine power (both engines, not just one) and falls out of line, it's a tough decision to either try and sink it or move on to a more dangerous target. If it has knocked out main guns as well, it's better to switch targets to try and knock out more guns attacking you.

1. Which guns can fire at my target? How much turret traversal play do I have? Sometimes it is necessary to angle your ship to maximize your armor but sometimes in your design, your guns have limited field of fire. I would be nice if you can see which guns are able to fire on a prospective target and warn you if one of them is at their gimbal limits. 2. Closure rates? Sometimes your ship is well designed for combat at certain ranges, where your guns are most accurate/penetrate best (or enemy guns are at their worst) or your armor can best potentially deflect enemy shots (or a range where your shots are most effective for plunging or direct fire). But it is difficult to maintain that distance, as there is no indication of closure. Its too easy to get distracted and discover that you're now 5km away when you should have tried to stay at 10.

I took a pair of screenshots to better convey what I noticed. Before the first screenshot was taken, I had the fore gun turret fire on the lead ship, I paused and then targeted the next ship in line. Then I took the first screen shot just as the aft turret fired, then took the second screenshot a second later after the first screenshot. I'm not great with photoshop, I tried to overlay the 2 pictures, but I couldn't figure it out. Or I don't have the proper software. But you can see that there is a slight bearing difference between the two pictures for the aft turret. I'm trying to say that when you're switching targets, the turrets seem to fire BEFORE the guns complete its traversal. It should complete its traversal and elevation (if there is a great range difference) before it fires. It's not much, a degree or two, it just caught my attention and thought it was a bug.

I think it's fitting to have CVs in the game, yes the game is titled Dreadnoughts and its mainly about Dreadnoughts, but I look at it and see the birth, development, flourishing maturity with the arc complete with the eventual aging and death of the battleship concept in that era.

Agreed, didn't think about that. Would be nice to have the freedom to pursue your own personal naval development history rather than be completely railroaded by history itself.

look for parts colored yellow. Or is that just bad firing arcs? Also I think there is a bug where it just says that for no reason, I've experienced it uploading old ships.

Oh, I thought you meant in real life. But your point still stands as players in the game. I totally read that last sentence wrong. Actually, that's a really interesting perspective... Yes, fleet subs in tactical combat may not do much, but it might affect battles in a more indirect, nuanced way. I would hope we could at least be given the opportunity to experiment w/wo subs.

Can you ever really know for certain that no submarines are present in a fleet engagement?

I'm a little confused, are airplanes and carriers just going to be flat out not in the game? Not even in the strategy/campaign map? (not the battle map where we watch the battheships fight.)

Could the difficulty work sort of like the paradox games? Where it tells you how difficult playing a certain nation will be? I don't like the idea that all the nations available to play as in sp campaign all start at the same basic level. Probably should clarify: nation's that historically had more trouble dominating the waves should be counted as higher difficulty, as the nation in the actual game will have more limited resources, manpower, low political points, whatever was actually a problem in history. Me being opposed that all nation's start with the same money, tech level, ship parts, etc...

I do sort of like the idea that the specific combat number crunching is done under the hood while a abstract dogfight is visually presented on screen. Though I would like to avoid health bars.

I can't tell by the schematic if the extended visual range is locked with the plane itself or just automatically applied to the ship in a whole 360 degree I think the spotter plane should have its own visual aura. It would be weird and not so intuitive mechanic if that spotter plane could see a ship on the polar opposite side of the friendly battleship it launched from, but not a battleship just outside the extended visual range right next to it.

I like the thought that you could face real players, I just think it wouldn't really work for this kind of game with such a small development team.

Definitely have subs in the game, I just meant having subs in the actual battle map alone. Like when one attacks a convoy. But definitely have them on the campaign map.

When you order to switch targets, ships sometimes fire instantly at that new target without first turning their turrets to bear in the new target.

Pros: it would be kind of awesome to play as a submarine, who doesn't like a good silent Hunter game? Would def break up the ship to ship combat. Cons: it would most likely play slower than ship to ship in an already slow paced game. And that also brings up the question, when should the game start? When the sub makes first visual/radar, hydrophone contact? Or when they're near firing position? All that time spent positioning, waiting, firing, evasion eats up a lot of time. And some sub evasions in real history took over 20 hours. Not sure how that would translate to a game. It would also be hard to present wolfpacks realistically to the player. In reality it was very difficult, trying to coordinate with other subs basically with little to no communication, filling the communication gap with pre-planned assault tactics with roles being defined based on the subs location relative to the convoy and enemy formation and composition. It would be unrealistic for one player to command several u boats and able to see all the friendly pieces locations with certainty. Element of surprise. Subs work off surprise. Even today, if a Los Angeles or a Akula class sub went into a battle with the enemy without surprise on their side, their chances of survival is decidedly lower. If you were pulled off the campaign map and into the battlemap for apparently no reason, automatically you know a sub is your opponent. Because of that, the enemy AI has a much lower chance of success than the human player, making it impossible to balance this mechanic to be fair along with the AI. Might be repetitive. There were a lot of sub attacks for any given nation during times like ww2. I think that any campaign that had a realistic number of uboat battles might make it repetitive. Technology. Tech changed asw late in the game. Essentially turning the hunters to the hunted. I don't think it would be fun to spend hours getting ready for an attack on a convoy, only to get depth charged by bombers or hedgehoged and defeated. Better radar and hydrophones and sonar made hiding much harder and would easily be the most frustrated aspect of the game as tech catches up with the silent killer. Just a thought experiment but say your opinion.

Oil slick trails on water surface when puncturing the fuel tank (only makes sense with liquid, non-coal fuel onboard) like Bismarck.

It seems like overpenetrations are a bit too simplified IF they're operating the way I think they're operating. I think that penetration is only really is calculated on the very part the shell makes first contact with and doesn't factor in the structures past it. I notice that in long range chase scenarios, causing high angle plunging fire, if a shell over-penetrated the smoke stack or the towers, the shell didn't simply continue into the deck and either explode there or somewhere below. I'm wondering if anyone can clarify if over-penetration does not factor in structures and parts of the ship behind the component that has been over-penetrated. Does the game engine continue modeling the shell as it passes through the ship during the event of overpenetrations? There are sometimes events where direct fire to the belt over-penetrated, but it doesn't represent that visually, because shouldn't you be seeing shells punching through the other side and tumbling into the sea/ exploding just as it exits the other side of the ship?

I see your point and I think I agree. I'm just wondering if this is a giit gud scenario.

Are there certain choices (i.e. money, more torpedoes, bigger guns, mixed tech) inherently wrong? It feels like some choices are impossible to win a battle with. It seems more money always seem the hardest, as the absence of a tech boost seems to make your designs rather flawed.

Ship Design ui is a bit clunky. Would be helpful if you could just swap out parts Front tower 2 to front tower 3 or vice versa with the scroll wheel for example, without having to delete the part, navigate the menu, pick the other tower, and re-place the part on the ship. Saves time.

Maybe designing these impractical monstrosities can give small tech or industrial bonuses just for researching them. Building them can also give their own little tech/strategic bonuses, but the ship itself would be impractical and useless in actual combat.