madham82

Suggestion: Missions which state to sink percentages of enemy fleet/keep alive allied ships should be changed to sink/save X number of ships. Reason: Currently percentage base numbers are vague, especially when the number of enemy ships does not translate into whole numbers of ships. The only time percentage should be used is for player built ships, which could vary depending on funds. The enemy numbers are always fixed, as is the number of allied ships. Example: Sink 70% of enemy fleet, keep 40% of allied fleet alive. Enemy fleet consists of 4 ships, and allied fleet of 3. I have played multiple missions where I wasn't sure how many ships I needed to sink/could lose and still win.

Where in the world did morale and fatigue get thrown in as part of modeling ships to actually having crew casualties? For one, battles frequently lasted several hours. Did crews give up in real battles after a few hours due to fatigue, no. So why in the world would someone expect that to be issue. The number of crew on ships is already modeled. Just need to model casualties from incoming fire to it. Pretty simple and not at all micromanaging to me. You don't have unlimited ammo do you? So we already past arcade. Glad the devs have already made it a stated goal of crew modeling. Next someone will start complaining about the fact the ships have maintenance costs and build time values in the campaign.

Honestly the whole scuttle/abandon ship (and withdrawal) idea could be handled like this: On the battle map, there are two withdrawal zones, one for each side (Victory at Sea used this same mechanic). Any ship reaching their respective zone can flee the battle (if all ships from one side withdrawal, victory for the other side obviously). This would also serve to remove the current frustration with AI ships fleeing, caused victory conditions to not be met even though the player forced the AI to flee). Scuttling/abandoning ship would be handled with the key factor being which force controls the battle area at the end. If you do not control the area, your ships are scuttled to prevent capture. If you do control the area, you have the option to salvage or scuttle them (in the case they aren't worth it). Like someone mentioned earlier, there is a real issue with ships still firing effectively despite being a burning wreck from bow to stern. I think when crews are implemented we may finally get this fixed. My thinking would be that once the crew has taken enough casualties, they have to abandon the ship. Then the above mechanics would go into effect as to what happens to the ship after the battle. Also agree with structural sinkings being too arcade like. If they can implement something like above for the crews, then structural sinkings can be replaced by crews abandoning ship.

You could make that work by having the ship scuttled/abandoned at X% or even better, when it's main weapons/engines/steering/other vitals are all destroyed. Maybe create some kind of value for combat effectiveness and use that to determine it.

If this is true, the issue would be present when not bow/stern on as well. Plunging hits have to be doing some damage to lower decks otherwise you would never get an ammo detonation against a BC/BB at those ranges. Now maybe it isn't fully fleshed out, but has to be some modeling of it in the game's current state. Also if you think about it, why should you expect to sink a fleeing BB at that angle? Short of a lucky hit to a magazine it would never have happened IRL. Steeltrap's reply below sums up the reasons, but I agree better simulation of the armored decks is needed. Even if a plunging hit didn't damage the vitals because the armored deck stopped, it should be doing some structural damage. You nailed it. However I kind of see the high accuracy as part of trying to achieve a balance between fun and realism. Sure it isn't realistic, but I don't think 3 or 4 hour engagements that result in few ships sunk or damaged would be fun. Could things be improved, sure. Historically most engagements ended in one side withdrawing. IMO this should be worked into the game. Some of the missions that force you to sink X ships are unrealistic, especially when the AI can simply turn tail and make it impossible to sink them. Forcing the enemy to withdraw should be counted as victory.

Yep exactly. If you look at how the Hood approached Bismarck on that fateful day, the captain charged in at high speed to get under plunging fire range. Then turned broadside when he thought he was close enough. Just turns out it was too late anyway.

At 3KMs your shells are nearly flat in trajectory. So if they are stern on, unless you hit a vertically flat or slightly angled part of the ship, your shells will bounce on the deck. I'd have to look at the deck pen numbers on those 18"s and the deck armor on the BB you were shooting, but I would bet the pen value is lower than the deck. So your first statement backs this up because you have destroyed most of all the structures on the deck already. Hopefully someone else will confirm this is expected behavior, and I didn't overlook something.

What have you noticed that makes you think bow tanking like WoWS? I have definitely landed pens against a bow on target at the right ranges for plunging fire. The only real issue is that bow on is a very small target to hit. Typically when my accuracy is high enough to hit consistently bow on, my shells are no longer plunging.

Light Cruisers’ maximum gun size is now 7-inches (from 8-inches) so that we reflect better the class distinction between Light and Heavy Cruisers. This is interesting, I only started playing with alpha 4 but I definitely encountered 2 CLs with 9" mains. Believe it was in random battle but it may have been a NA mission. AI will design more effectively the ships allocating weights for guns and speed in a more balanced manner. So will this help eliminate AI BCs with 12 15" guns, 9" of armor, and 49kt speed? I just played a random last night with my mostly accurate Yamato build. Needless to say I had to close to point blank range and still almost sunk b/c of not being able to hit it. If wasn't for a couple of lucky hits that slowed him to 32kts, the result would be different. BTW I sunk it's two escorting CAs within 2 or 3 salvos, probably shot 150+ salvos at the BC. Lesson learned, don't play random with AI BCs until something is fixed.

Unfortunately downplaying Soviet capabilities in Western countries is common, but this isn't the case for this time period. The last Russian battleship was built in WW1 and was more a long the lines of HMS Dreadnought. That's a 20 year lapse in design and construction. The Soviet tank and aviation industry never saw that kind of lapse like the Soviet Navy did. Can you imagine if they had that kind of abandonment in tanks or planes?

Yep poor phrasing. No worries.

Think you misread my post. My point was Yamato was actually built and sailed. Project 23 never really left paper.

Is mystifying even the right word? Think what you were going for is "making the German proposed designs mythical". To which I agree. They were paper designs that were not really achievable. Exactly like your Project 23. As for it rivaling a Yamato, not really, Yamato was actually built and sailed. What year was the last Soviet BB built? Even its concept was lacking as from what I read, they could not build armor of sufficient quality and thickness. And 9 16in guns of the type the other reply mentioned don't rival Yamatos 18.1s even on paper it seems.

Honestly torpedoes should probably be buffed to be more damaging to "unprotected" ships, since many DDs, CLs, and other light ships frequently sunk out-right even with a single hit. But at the same time this was highly dependent on where the hit occurred, how well the ship was built, and how good damage control was. New Orleans here being a great example. I wonder if the devs can answer how it is being implemented. Is it just a percentage roll each hit or does it take into account where the hit occured. My guess is probably the first. It just occurred to me that proximity (magnetic) fuses on torpedoes were implemented in the 30's. So a magnetic fusing system would eliminate the chance of one pening the hull then detonating. But maybe that's getting too detailed for the game. They also had questionable reliability but that is indeed another issue.

This was what I was looking for. So I did see something about fuel storage also being located in that part of the ship. It's amazing it survived. I wonder if the magazine was not fully loaded or the propellant used for the 8"s just not volatile. Either way this confirms I think how it should be implemented. Torpedo bulges should effectively eliminate the possibility, but ships without should have a chance. New Orleans was up armored from the preceding classes, but this also shows the importance of bulk heads as that is probably what stopped it from wrecking more of the ship. Good discussion guys!

Think you are forgetting that dud torpedoes (which happened frequently to US and German subs) didn't penetrate hulls when their contact fuses failed. They simply bounced or dented the hulls. These aren't huge objects travelling at high speed in low resistance air. These are relatively slow speed and travelling through water. They don't have that kind of kinetic force without explosives. Perhaps some did pen some very thin hulls like a DD or light CL, but that implies their contact fuse didn't work since they are not delayed fuses. Modern torpedoes use proximity fuses to detonate directly below the ship because explosives underwater work best when they use the force of water being displaced to damage/snap the hull. Again how do you get a flash fire in a compartment being flooded? That's how magazines explodes, not by shock. Torpedoes cause shock damage. Indirect fires caused by yes and in every case I have read where a ship has exploded after being hit by a torpedo, it was minutes after not the hit itself. I think you are confusing treaty cruisers being sunk by torpedo flooding and hull damage with magazine explosions. The point of torpedo bulges was to protect the inner hull from flooding, providing a cushion against the shock damage from the explosion outside the hull and water rushing in. So yes any ship without such would be in serious trouble. Also ask yourself, what is the first thing damage control does if there is a threat to the magazine, flood it.

I agree with Steeltrap, no way a torpedo should be able to trigger an ammo detonation. Torpedos do not penetrate anything, they blow the hull open or crack keel. Torpedos do not cause fires directly since they hit underwater. Their explosive force is transmitted through the water to smash the hull open and flood any compartment they hit. So right there you can't flood and cause a flash explosion. Now a torpedo hit could cause a fire to start by rupturing a fuel tank or something else volatile which interacts with another ignition source, sure. So unless someone can provide an actual example of underwater explosion causing a magazine detonation, this needs to be pulled from the update. HMS Barham is a case example of what can happen in terms of a torpedo resulting in a magazine detonation, but it happened four minutes after the hit and was caused by a fire spreading unchecked. Which brings up a suggestion to implement, fires spreading below deck should have a chance to cause an ammo detonation. This could be worked into the existing fire extinguishing/ammo detonation mechanics, making bulkheads that much more vital.