I know I’m late to the party, so I don’t know if the devs will ever see this but here are the things I would really like to see in future updates.
Naval Academy
1 -Split the Naval Academy into two sections on the main menu: Naval Academy, and Scenarios.
Reason: “Naval Academy” sounds like a tutorial. There are currently 35 Naval Academy missions (thank you Devs and keep up the good work!). The first 8 or so missions teach you the basics of the game, while the other 27 are there for experimenting and exploring the mechanics you learned in the first few missions. For someone coming in for the first time, it is a little overwhelming to see what looks like a 35 part tutorial. So keep the 8 or so ”learn the basics” missions in the “Naval Academy” and move the rest to a “Scenario” list.
2 -Give the player the ability to design and use more than 1 type of ship per mission.
Reason: This would massively expand the enjoyability and replayability of the missions. E.g. In the “Destroy a full fleet” mission, you can build BBs, BCs, CAs, CLs, or DDs. So you can either build 2 BBs, OR 20 DDs. It would be really cool if I could build 1 BB, 1 CA, and 6 DDs. This would allow the player to experiment with fleet composition, which will be very important in the campaign. The way I see this being implemented, (not being a game developer) would be to use the save system that is already in game. Add a slider to each save slot that sets how many ships of that type you want. So you could design a BB that costs 50% of your budget, then set the slider from 2 ships to 1 ship, and now you still have half your budget left for building a ship in the next save slot. I don’t know if this would work from a technical standpoint, but this feature would add so much to the game that I think it would be worth figuring out a way to implement this feature.
Custom Battles
1 -Switch the positions of the Quick start and Back buttons.
Reason: Simple quality of life. Most programs go with the convention that left is back and right is forward. Maybe it’s just me but every time I want to go back to the main menu, I almost click on the quick start button instead of the back button.
2 -Give the player the ability to save and design multiple ships per mission.
Reason: Mostly the same as in the Naval Academy missions, but even more needed here. Having very little control over the designs of the majority of your fleet can be annoying.
3 -Give the player the ability to design the AI’s fleet
Reason: This would allow players to reenact historical battles with all of the ships involved being as historically accurate as the game allows. It would allow hypothetical battles between historical ships that never met, (like Yamato vs. Iowa) again with all of the ships involved being as historically accurate as the game allows. It would allow the player to experiment and pit their own designs against each other. I think this is a key feature that would greatly improve the game.
Shipyard
1 -Give the player full flexibility with the placement of towers, funnels, and barrettes anywhere along the centerline of the ship.
Reason: I know I’m not the first to ask for this and the ship builder on the whole is amazing, so thank you devs for your great work, however the ship designer still feels very limited because of the placement restrictions on some parts. I’ve heard that this hasn’t changed because the AI can’t handle the extra freedom. If that is the case, I would recommend that the player be given more freedom than the AI. Force the AI to use the hardpoints that currently exist, but give the player the ability to place towers, funels, and barbetes off the hardpoints with ctrl.
Battles
1 -Add a battle result screen at the end of battles showing stats for each ship.
Reason: It would be nice to have more information on how each ship did in the battle. Things like total shells fired per caliber, total hits scored, damage taken, damage dealt, etc.