DougToss

I just wanted to say again that the tempo of work and communication is appreciated. I know I’ve been hard on @Nick Thomadis asking for gunnery and ballistics improvements for years now. To actually see them begin to come to fruition is really reassuring.

I agree that spotting, gunnery, ballistics and particularly ship systems need very serious work. There's been a lot of progress, and I think development has trended in an overwhelmingly positive direction, especially since the Devs are far more engaged with the community. Still, now that the bare bones of the campaign are there, these unglamorous underlying systems could probably use a dedicated update or two IMO. I know it's a lot of work, so maybe that's a project to work on over the quarter or year, but I think it would go a long way.

Is there a changelog? Maybe in the Steam News page?

First and foremost, Spotting, as others have said. Height-based spotting to the horizon, that is then reduced by time of day and weather. Gunnery - as others have said, more closely match historical data, separate precision from accuracy. Fire Control - More errors of the type we would expect to see: Miscalculating range, error in range rate etc. rather than target speed influencing gunnery. Even the best fire control in 1890 was very, very poor beyond 1000m. Ballistics - Ideally more realistic dispersion due to spin drift, atmospheric conditions etc. This would be nice, but it's not as essential as above. Damage - I'm going to limit this to floatation for the moment: Flooding and capsize as major factors, as well as stability changes from taking on water and so on. Warships sank from cumulative damage, so it would be good to see how each shell further reduces the fighting ability of a ship - in more ways than a simple health bar.

Honestly this would likely make the biggest difference both here and on Steam.

Sorry for tripple-posting, but you say this about every single game system, endlessly. We’re here, prior to release giving feedback, because we paid money with the understanding our input would change things. Otherwise why have early access? Listen, I don’t really understand what your deal is or why you so vehemently oppose other players on this for seemingly no reason, maybe you think if we clam up the game will be “finished” sooner, but “Oh well fellas, it is how it is.” is worse than counterproductive. If you’re happy with how things are - great! You don’t have to provide feedback then, and I’m glad for you, but running interference when other people try is not doing the Devs a favour, it’s just bad form.

This seems to be the main issue for nearly all of this - gunnery, fire control, floatation, survivability, propulsion. On the scale of the ocean, 20km is a tactical distance, like 400m is to the rifleman.

I think this sums it up. People are used to games where you can hit whatever you see. It’s why they complain that accuracy is too low (it’s not, and should be lower but I digress) and that visibility is too far. They, naturally, want there to be distances where ships can’t be hit - @Skeksis argument - by virtue of not being seen. That makes sense in gameplay terms as they understand it. They want units to be survivable, or else it would be a battle of annihilation - but that’s only true if gunnery and fire control were exponentially better than in reality! What I’m saying is, Detection ≠ Engagement! Seeing a distant ship and hitting it are not the same thing! This is what @Littorio means! The better optics let you better engage (hit) them, because otherwise they may as well be invisible - you can’t hit them anyway. In reality, we are talking about single digit hit rates on warships that can only be sunk by cumulative damage (another thing they complain about)! Seeing the enemy ≠ shooting the enemy ≠ sinking the enemy.

Motte Bailey or, if you like; Motte Bailey

Do you see what @akd @Steeltrap @ColonelHenry and @Littorio mean yet? Listen, if you just say “I like WOWS mechanics”, it’s fine. I disagree, of course, but then I won’t have to try to convince you of something you are dead set against being convinced of. Right now it seems as if you keep missing what everybody else is saying, despite them putting quite a bit of work into their arguments.

Nick had a run of being active for about a week, a week or two ago, but… ugh. It’s frustrating for sure, especially as we’re trying to help them address the flaws by pointing them out. I’m still bothered by the community being called “toxic” by the devs, that was a slap in the face.

Jackie Fisher? Is that you!? 🤔 It would be suicidal for a country to throw away their fleet-in-being for no gain. Their goal is to avoid a decisive battle unless they have the advantage of bringing a smaller part of the enemy to battle.

It was fairly common for that to be used, I believe by the Royal Navy, possibly the High Seas Fleet as well.

You can’t manoeuvre your fleet to cross the T of the invisible fleet that is firing on you from 3000m away on a clear day. Real tactics require real conditions. Consider the speed and turning radius of a warship - those manoeuvres exist on a battlefield that can be seen to the horizon, and planned accordingly.

I know better than to argue with you by now, but this is the opposite of reality. I cannot stress that enough. For most of the dreadnought era, the larger fleet would be unable to use a numeral advantage because they could NOT concentrate fires. They had no way to coordinate, and no way to tell their own splashes apart from those of friendly warships and make adjustments. It made their gunnery effectiveness and accuracy much MUCH worse. Later, range clocks, bearings painted on turrets, dye bags and better signals remedies this somewhat, but good lord you could not be more wrong if you tried.

Right - which is why we’re saying the tower visibility thing and target signature are bad systems. They’re unbalanced because they have no basis in reality, and don’t feel right because they aren’t right. The closer the system approximates reality, the more balanced and natural it will feel.

You open by saying there aren’t artificial limits on visibility And then immediately go on to describe how artificial it is: Not only is the mechanic invented out of whole cloth (the only way spotting tops determine how far you can see is their height. That’s it, that’s all), but you want another layer of artificiality do “balance” that. Taller mast = higher vantage point = horizon is further away. There’s your balance. Higher masts increase top weight and centre of gravity, especially as fire control equipment gets heavier, masts can be damaged in combat, but stronger cage and tripod masts are heavier, “Pagodas” and “Queen Anne’s Mansions” can fit large amounts of fire control equipment and are more structurally sound than tripods and cages, but are heavier, costlier and have the aforementioned impact on stability. All of that means that building the highest possible mast is not always practical. It’s much easier to have a very tall pole mast than to build a Queen Anne’s Mansion to the same height, but pole masts were limited in how much equipment they could fit. As design considerations: ship vibrations can impact the effectiveness of the spotting tops, smoke and heat from funnels could make them nearly unusable when masts were placed aft of funnels, as in early British dreadnoughts, there has to be backup fire control equipment elsewhere on the ship, either on the superstructure or turrets, which - being lower down - have more limited horizons. Those are all real factors that have to be “balanced”. Why would we need fake ones? To summarize: There are all sorts of factors in mast design, but only height of observer determines visual distance. That’s fine - the other stuff provides more than enough that needs to be taken into account.

No, it means how far you can see is limited by time of day (night) and weather (storms). Those are natural limitations on visibility I wholeheartedly support. I am only against artificially limited visibility. I’m saying you should be able to see as far as you would given the light and atmospheric conditions.

Yes. Absolutely. That doesn’t mean visibility is perfect all the time - this is where weather, time of day, time of year and later destroyers laying smoke and smoke rafts come in, but artificial Fog of War? Not only do I think it should be removed, I’m puzzled why it was ever included in the first place.

The Fog of War is as far as you can see. At sea, on a clear day, that’s the horizon, around 20km. Everything beyond that is still in the Fog of War. You’re thinking too small in scale. Think about the Scarborough Raid or Jutland - fleets still missed each other, or were surprised out of the Fog of War. Now, if you like, there can be little animated fog beyond 20km of a selected ship. Certainly, there will still have to be a way to indicate what is visible and what is over the horizon.

The “Fog of War” is an abstraction used to represent unknowns. At sea, what you see is not one of those on a day with good visibility. The Fog of War then is: -is this the main force of the enemy? - Could it be a screen or patrol? - What are their strength and intentions? - Where are they going and why? - What do I think their tactical mission is? - How do I achieve mine and prevent them from achieving theirs? - What how do I use manoeuvre, firepower, dispersion and concentration to achieve this? - How do I bring the most firepower to bear at the critical point to achieve my goals? - What manoeuvres are required for this position relative the enemy to be achieved? It’s not a literal fog, it’s about putting together the larger picture based on the information available to you - including visual information that may be very good. The Fog of War is as much about what you can see as what you can’t and also - in this instance - also means anything not within the horizon is in the Fog of War as you described it. The horizon isn’t infinite, you still only have that radius around your fleet, which on the scale of the sea is infinitesimally small, and you have to find out what’s lurking in the “Fog” beyond it. The Fog of War then, is also whatever is outside of the horizon. Imagine a ship viewed from above, as in an RTS. Draw a circle around it. That’s visibility distance, anything beyond it is in the Fog of War. We actually agree about that. That circle is around 20km because the directors are located about 30m up in the air in this example. Now, you’re saying that’s way too big, it eliminates the Fog of War. What I’m saying is, zoom out, and looking from above, 20km on the scale of the ocean is nothing, and you still have a Fog of War extending in all directions around the ship beyond that circle. You’re thinking too small in scale.

There is a huge difference. Again Detection ≠ Engagement. Alright, so you can see them. You still have to plan and manoeuvre to effectively hit and sink them! That’s where the tactics come in! And that is where the difference between shooting not seeing at 5, 10, 25 kms comes in. There is a massive difference between engaging at those ranges. The challenge is positioning yourself so you can bring the enemy under effective fire, crossing the T, closing range, breaking contact when in a bad position etc.

I want to have fog in war, like in the North Sea. On the strategic level, the fog of war is finding the enemy fleet and bringing them to battle in the first place, which is an equally exciting game of cat and mouse, as well as routine patrol and fumbling in the dark. Lots of opportunities there.

Literally yes, that is what we want!! Lol What you’re missing is the chance to disengage and not fight to the end - which we also want! There are lots of ways to break contact - but they require tactics. Manoeuvre, use of screens and smoke, speed. I want fleets to try to disengage, break contact with an enemy that can see them as far as the horizon, and head for home, without fighting to the last ship. Because that’s what happened! That’s what doctrine, ships and tactics were designed around. As @Steeltrap said fog of war is only “needed” because of harebrained Borg spotting and insane hit rates.

Please feel free to list examples of that happening. A ship you can’t see also can’t see you, which means it cannot stealthy approach you. At best, you’re describing fleets blundering into each other under poor visibility conditions. This did happen, but contact was not initiated in favour of some “stealthy” side, but rather both sides detected each other, where their respective training and equipment - not stealth or visibility - determined the outcome. Being trained for night fighting, the proper doctrine, and with good searchlights and star shells, you have a better chance of making the best of the situation once the action commences, but that’s not stealth either.