madham82

1+2: I agree they are definitely not simulating actual naval engagements. They also aren't very good at teaching concepts in the game either. Some of those very early missions are close to this, but it becomes obvious in the later missions they were just built to showcase hulls and "dribble" in some content to keep backers happy. The Devs really missed the opportunity here, as they should have introduced saves and custom battle enhancements first, then came out with these missions before the campaign. Speaking of the campaign, people are really going to be in for a rude awakening playing the campaign. As these missions will not help them understand basic design and fleet use during most of the time period. Think about how many of the missions have late era ships, then compare to how many deal with the pre-dread and WW1 timeframes. 4: There's some truth to what you are saying, but there's also a lot of technological and practical knowledge that has nothing to do with treaties or alternate history. Gunnery works the same, tactics remain the same, national capabilities and infrastructure to for the most part. The only thing the treaties changed is what the end game looks like. Which again, is basically the last 10 years if the campaign ends in 1940. This is sandbox in the era of dreadnaughts, but not sandbox in that reality is thrown out the window. This isn't taking place on another galaxy far far away after all. It's earth 1890, some things just don't change. As for those 19 and 20" guns and 100K+ hulls, the community begged for those. I'm fine with them being included as development may have indeed went that way if unchecked. But at the same time, why were they prioritized in a game where such technology would only be feasible for a few years of the campaign.

LOL I love the John Wick BB analogy. I completely agree with the NA missions. I have stopped playing them completely, especially after the recent progress wipe.

Valid points on Jellicoe and indeed most of the 20th century. As for realism, it's just as big a realism breaker to be able to see and order ships outside your flagship to the degree we can too. At some point we have to accept it is a game. Some things need to be done make the game easier to manage for humans. The challenge should not be the interface, it should be the gameplay.

I hope you are not serious. Do you actually understand how naval gunnery works?

Yea not arguing whether it will change, but could be done. The easiest way would be to assign an accuracy penalty to any ship firing that is not in visual range. This penalty could be reduced the existing radio, radar, and crew mechanics. Still gamey, but I think many would accept it as a reasonable but less than ideal compromise.

Think you are misreading what @Steeltrap was after. Not 1v1 ship sightings ranges, but the fact that if 1 ship in a fleet can see an enemy ship, all ships in range can fire at it without penalty as well. Or am I missing something?

I would be happy with how RTW2 handles it (which is realistic), the problem right now is we have neither. RTW's victory doesn't count on sinking all or X percentage of ships like we have here either. For reference I'm not talking about the campaign (which we can only make assumptions about anyway), but the game as is playable today. The directional messages won't help if the fleeing ship is faster, just reinforce how you will have "lost" the battle because the AI decided to make a straight line away from you until the timer expires. Not really engaging gameplay is it? But I agree I it should be got rid of once other updates are made.

It's one thing for the AI to disengage when there is a point to it (i.e. try to make it to a retreat zone to leave the battle), but there is no point to retreating in the current win conditions. It's also would be fine if the AI retreated to repair and re-engage at a better range, but it doesn't do that either in most cases electing to simply sail away in one direction for all eternity. You see it as a way to increase difficulty, I see it as an exercise in madness. You have seen the AI sail in circles when it knows it can't outrun you right? It can have a destroyed rudder/engines but still be able to keep its stern on to you, and therefore limit the chance of taking enough damage to sink. That's not "improving difficulty", that's pure fantasy due to poor game mechanics. Retreating should be an option, but it should also mean forfeiting the battle. These "sink ships only" victory condition belong in an arcade, not a game with this aim and scope.

I find it laughable how many late game hulls have been added vs. early/mid game hulls for a game that is launching a campaign next. Who disrupted GameLabs in prioritizing those? I don't mind the stuff that has been added. I mind that it was put in before the early stuff which people will spend most of the campaign not having all the hulls that have been added over the past year. How many dreadnaught and pre-dreadnaught era hulls do we have again?

While you have a point on "seeing" torpedo bubbles, that was exactly why the Long Lance didn't leave any. So if the Japanese launched 164 of these wonders, but only achieved 3 hits then seeing really isn't the factor (not to get into weather factors). This goes back to how you get a firing solution. It is the same techniques used for guns. The spread is not that dissimilar to dispersion which gun crews trained to be aware of. Both are trying to "bracket" the expected target's position when the ordnance arrives. As for dodging, ships could and did dodge shell fire. Take a read of the account of Taffy 3 at Samar as an example. But your point backs up mine as that is the reason submarines had such great success at sinking ships with torpedoes. Being close enough that reaction time and maneuvering ability ensure minimal chance of evading due to being able to approach stealthy. My whole point is the torpedoes (ship launched) were simply not that accurate, even when used in mass. But at the same time, 3 hits resulted in 3 ships sunk (obviously ships without real torpedo protection). It kind of reminds me of the fear over plunging fire, when in reality the accuracy of that kind of long range fire was abysmal as well.

Definitely agree the game is poorly optimized. It would push my GPU (on medium settings) to 70C+ when Elite Dangerous running on ultra settings would barely get into the 60s. Locking framerate definitely helps.

I'd suggest watching Drach's video on the Tillman designs. The US did not "think" they could build them, especially in 1917. Ultimately it was an exercise in futility because putting designs on paper exposed how far from reality they were in cost, infrastructure, and technical ability to build any of the designs.

It is a good point, but there is also a WW2 example that shows that in practice, ship launched torpedoes still were not that effective in mass attacks. "The Battle of the Java Sea One USN CA and four DDs, one RN CA and three DDs, one RAN CL, and two RNN CLs and two DDs attempted to attack the IJN invasion convoy headed for Java. Two IJN CAs, two CLs, and 14 DDs fended off the ABDA ships and inflicted serious losses on the opposing force but failed to destroy it completely. During the action the IJN ships executed 38 separate launches of a probable 164 Type 93 torpedoes, scoring 3 hits which sank the RNN CL De Ruyter, CL Java and DD Kortenaer. This is a probable hit rate of 1.8%, dismal for such a massive expenditure. This action fits into the Decisive Battle scenario as representative of a medium size engagement between one of the beam line Japanese night attack groups and a significant portion of the US screen. It shows how mutual maneuvering for position can deny both the attacker his objective and the defender decisive damage to the attacker." http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-067.php The whole article is a good read, but this battle from my research represents the largest expenditure of the torpedoes against a fleet. The key takeaway is that for torpedo attacks to be effective, you need to be very close and have the element of surprise. This is why almost all ships sunk by torpedoes in both wars were launched by submarines, not surface ships. Seems pretty clear giving the realistic accuracy numbers for shell fire, torpedoes would be worse as they are slower and fired in lower volumes. After all, the same techniques used to give you a firing solution for your guns is used to plot one for torpedoes.

Some kind of morale mechanic would be needed to make it happen. Could be tied in with how much armor the ship in question had to determine the affect on morale from being under fire.

Think it goes back to a point I have made many times since getting the game. Control of the sea (i.e. the battle map) should be the only thing that counts as a victory (in campaign). That would leave your nation's intelligence service as the only way to know if something badly damaged made it back to port unless intercepted again. In custom/missions, it should be control of the sea first, then use a points calculation based on damage dealt/received and a bonus for ships sunk outright. Lots of ways to make this part work.

Couple this with victory conditions all currently revolving around sinking ships with no options of retreat, and you have most of the reasons why the game is struggling to adhere to realism or make it fun. We obviously have to balance the two somehow.

I'm probably reading this wrong, but they were aware they could never armor the deck enough to solve plunging fire. The reality though was being able to hit at those ranges was beyond remote (look at the ranges Warspite and Scharnhorst made their longest hits). So tactics dictated closing to "acceptable" range (to improve accuracy for one), and then the shot fall was within the ability to armor against. But your screen shot definitely looks funny. Lower than 45 degrees would be the ranges 8" deck armor would be adequate, and vertical armor pen would be higher. We used that same 16" graph from Navweaps as an example in the thread before.

Are you saying this is in the game currently? I have seen no evidence that protection is reduced by subsequent hits. Quite the opposite, TDS offers a flat reduction based on level selected (and probably other values). I've dumped over a hundred 24" torpedoes into a 100K+ super and watched 100 damage register as near simultaneous hits occurred. IRL, even the best TDS systems greatly lose effectiveness from multiple strikes to the same side.

Well said, and something I would be fine with if implemented as such for a "historical" campaign option. But at the same time I think there should be an option to disable/pick nation traits and/or randomize them. That would give more replay value. They could also introduce techs that could apply the same perks to new construction (or just more hulls unlock after). Then any nation could build such ships, if they spent the research/resources on it.

Food for thought, I don't think I heard of this before: Torpedowarn (TAG) Designed as an early warning system for incoming torpedoes, the TAG was installed on the Type XXI and intended for future generation U-boats. It was connected to a loudspeaker inside the pressure hull which would give audible warnings on an approaching torpedo. It functioned by listening in to certain pre-programmed sounds, which would trigger the alert status. http://www.uboataces.com/hydrophones.shtml Now if they could make an automated system in '44/'45, you bet an at least competent sonar operator could detect an incoming torpedo.

Cherry picking ships that exploded due to poor safety procedures doesn't back up your point. Neither does mentioning Hood which by the evidence was a 1 in a million hit. PoW retreated b/c of her malfunctioning turrets had made her useless (she continued to shadow). She would also be sunk by 4 torpedoes the next year, mainly due to one hit being in the worst possible spot. But how about Scharnhorst being put out action by a single mine, then spending a year in dry dock? But this is besides the point. The Germans did build exceptional ships. Anyone who reads logs of the final engagement of Bismarck can easily see that ship was built extremely well. But as is frequent in history, nations did not consistently build great ships. So the idea one nation's ships should have a magical trait is completely unrealistic to begin with.

Was pretty sure observation is the foundation of science. The Germans on two separate ships (probably more if we dig through more records) and the US Navy both validated it's ability to detect torpedoes. Scharnhorst was not in calm perfect seas, it was in the North Sea during winter. Not at all ideal weather/seas. I believe I also heard Yamato had passive sonar for this purpose as well. Originally the game did not feature sonar on BBs/BCs until people posted evidence. But you are free to disagree. I'm not going to argue the effectiveness/testing done on the units.

My bad, my sarcasm was lost. Wasn't arguing about it existing in game, was just being sarcastic that it was in the game to start with. In general hit rates are much higher than IRL already, so no surprise there are issues with balance.

Rather that arguing over semantics, are you saying you do not believe the logs from Scharnhorst or the US Navy's test of Prinz Eugen’s (which is the same passive sonar system) that they were able to detect torpedoes? I mean the US Navy liked the unit so much they mounted it one of their submarines. Or are you just arguing the game handles detection unrealistically? The concept clearly has merit, it's implementation in UA:D may not so much IMO. For reference, this is from the wiki on the GHG sonar used by the German ships. "The group listening device (‘’Gruppenhorchgerät’’), abbreviated "GHG", consisted of two groups of 24 sensors (one group on each side of the ship). Each sensor had a tube preamplifier. These 48 low frequency signals were then routed to a switching matrix in the main unit. The sonar operator could determine the ship's side and the exact direction of the sound source. To improve the resolution, there were three switchable crossover with 1, 3 and 6 kHz center frequency. A disadvantage of the side mounting, was a dead zone of 40 ° to fore and aft. Range: 20 km to individual drivers, 100 km against Convoy"

1. Submarines are a hell of a lot quieter than a torpedo, which is the primary threat sonar is used against today. 2.The depths they can operate are much different than a torpedo on the surface. 3. Related to the depths they have to take into account thermal layers and there impact on sound. 4. Today's sonar can hear ships at great distances, even in the 1940's subs would submerge to listen for ships because they could hear them farther away than they could see them in many cases. Ships are actually quieter than torpedoes at the distances we are discussing. 5. Most importantly, you don't need precise information to dodge an incoming torpedo. It doesn't take much analysis to determine the bearing and whether you are closing/opening the range. That's all that is needed to take evasive action. The key with torpedo avoidance is detecting them as early as possible. Now here's what is too "gamey" about UA:D. We should only get a bearing and direction from sonar detection. The game should not render an actual wake until visually detected. This would make evasion more realistic and make for more calculated decisions on when to take evasion action.