SmoCro

With the "cheat" it works.

I solved the USS Monitor mission no problem but I am unable to do the Merrimac. The ship is simply unable to do damage. Does not really matter whether it is fire or direct shell damage the damage output of the Merrimac, even with the heaviest guns you can fit in (10' for the spinal positions, 8' for the sides) is completely insufficient. I could maybe sink one if inundated it with fast-firing HE and getting lucky, but two? No chance.

Recently I saw a torpedo run under one of my ships and run out the other side. No detonation, no nothing. I have also seen this maybe once or twice with my torpedoes and enemy ships. Is this a bug or realistic torpedo duds?

If the armor is too thin there is a chance of a complete penetration (not an overpenetration) that then ignites your internal magazines. Without knowing how you built your ships, it might simply be that you are unlucky or that you give your ships too little armor. Also, take care to use Barbette armor, penetrating the Barbette armor is also a great way to blow up the magazine.

Maybe load up your logistic train and march forward... see how far you get.

No, dilettants who have no ideas about strategy or tactics focus on logistics... but only if they are American because everybody else simply does not have the ridiculous and obscene amounts of material to drown their enemies with.

More. Before you could sink a battleship with less than ten salvos if you produced good hits. Now even ten hits from 18" do not even start to scratch the HP bar.

Yes, had that too. I am quite alright with the shell debuff I must say. Looking at Jütland for example apart from the BCs that went boom rather spectacularly the Germans lost one (!) ship but had lots and lots of ships with hundreds of holes in them. So the shell damage strikes me as more realistic than before. As for the torpodoes... They were already too weak against battleships in my esitmate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_of_22_September_1914 Three armored cruisers sunk by a u-boat carrying eighteen inch torpedoes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Majestic_(1895) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Triumph_(1903) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Pathfinder_(1904) Two pre-dreadnoughts sunk and a Scout cruiser, all by the same u-boat, all falling to 20 inch torpedoes. And yet even destroyers frequently survive multiple hits from 24" as long as their bulkheads are sufficient; A 24" torpedo is about 3/4 of a ton of explosives applied directly to the hull combined with the structural integrity being strained by the ship "falling" sideways in the hole in the water caused by the displacement of the torpedo explosions. Even smaller torpedoes like the 21" and 18" ones still brought a couple hundred kilos to the party. Torpedo damage needs to be buffed. At the moment, within the world of UA:D there is no reason to develop the destroyer, for torpedo boats are harmless.

I now literally have to hammer ships to death. My last battle (one 1940 BB against 3 1930 BBs with 5 CLs) ended with me sinking the BBs at less than 10 kilometers with my 16" still doing neglible damage (I am also disappointed that even 24" torpedoes hardly do more than scratch the point, even if I manage to pump 8 into one BB and 4 into another). The CLs died to the last grenades I could scrounge up from the depth of my magazines. That is all definitely a change. I think I like the fact that the BBs can take a hammering but I would like to see more damage from torpedoes.

Can we sum up the ask as "We want the AI to be good"?

The table mentions a rangefinder... don't rangefinders usually have magnification?

+1 I quite frequently have 5" guns both in turrets and casemates on my ship. I can see the turrets elevating to 45° at maximum range. All else being equal the casemate guns would not be able to elevate that high.

I'd rather have the option of deploying a smoke generator on any ship during design.

There is in battle a screen on the left when you mouse over a ship or even just a piece of sea that breaks down the accuracy of your guns.

How far the horizont is away is not how far you realistically can see things. I have a castle near my home, on a good day I can see for 150 kilometers. But I cannot see houses. I can only see cities. Even with a glass it is just a blotch. And this is over land. Over the sea there is water vapour. Always some. And that breaks light. A destroyer might very well be completely in the lower quite opaque levels of water vapour making it "invisible" until it is well within your horizon. By comparison substantial parts of the battleships would be out of that layer, allowing the destroyer to spot from farther away than the other way around.