DarkMaid

Looks tasty! Thank You!

Can we mount medieval catapults? Because I think those would hit better at close range than modern naval artillery (they could keep them in armored lockers and the crew could roll them out when ranges get to <1 km). Obviously I'm being facetious but the (lack of) accuracy due to a certain accumulation of factors becomes comically bizarre at times. For example: Mission: Prove Your Might Option: Main Guns & Fire Control In this mission you are a British BC trying to sink the equivalent of the Bismarck & Prinz Eugen while defending your convoy. You also get a couple of destroyers (that are usually useless because their torp range is rarely over 9 km). So for this battle except for a couple of early salvos fired at the battleship at >20 km I headed bow on towards the accompanying cruiser firing at it with two triple 17" Mark III turrets. (It's a tactical decision whether to just ignore the cruiser and concentrate on the BB or you can spend a bit of time eliminating a relatively squishier target so that you aren't peppered with 8 or 9" guns the whole time not to mention torpedoes. I've done both approaches in previous tries in this mission). Anyway, leaving that aside, during the whole time it took my ship to get to point blank range (0.9 km) I hit this enemy CA the grand total of TWICE for any decent damage (not counting a few bounces/non-pens). The enemy cruiser was not some 46 kt destroyer zig zagging around under smoke, it was a big CA doing around 26 kts (its top speed is listed as 34 kts) and most of the time presenting a broadside target. I did not have the best towers but as far as bonus go there wasn't a whole lot of improvement and I needed to trim the weight or cost down for that particular design. I did have Radar 2 , Stereoscopic V, Oil fuel. When the range got to about 7 km I did lose my front tower (red damage) and it was yellow damaged before that. Looking at Shoot Info, specifically the red numbers: -15% 3 barrel Turret tech -- normal for all 3 gun turrets -25% Fire Control Damage -- front tower become red damaged at about 7 km to target (doesn't explain not getting more than 2 hits before that) -7.7% Hull Stability & Tower -- ship was level with normal pitch. Ship was balanced for weight (< 1% fore or aft offset). -22% Target fast speed -- enemy was doing about 24 kts. Seems realistic I guess. -68% Target maneuver -- enemy was making a very sharp turn; I think the ai was trying to make use of loaded torpedo launchers on its disengaged side. Again, for most of the engagement it was steaming in a straight line broadsides on. As I got much closer it started turning to make use of its torpedo launchers. -49.6 Damage instability -- I had zero flooding. I don't get this one at all. My ship was trimmed with no roll. Personal comments: 1) Central fire control and radar should only be a big deal at longer ranges for noting fall of shot (short, longs, straddles). As ranges get down to under 10 km losing central fire control should not be as large a factor as it appears to be made out in this game. Turrets had their own rangefinders to fall back on if central gunnery control was knocked out and at short ranges (frozen rope trajectory) as long as the turret could be made to bear it should be over 50% to get a hit WORST CASE at that range (900m) or about 2.5 ship lengths away. 2) Damage instability. As noted I don't know what this is. I had no flooding; ship was level in all directions. -49% clearly it's meant to simulate something important that is affecting gunnery that isn't already covered by some other factor. 3) Target fast speed and maneuver. Together it added up to -90%. Against that there is a +91.8% Target ship size positive factor. So that evens out? But most of the time the enemy CA was steaming in a straight line broadsides on and I still only got a couple hits. "Speed tanking" also seems to be a bit of an issue in decreasing hits more than should be expected. Remember that most salvos are going to be a group of 4 or 5 shells (assuming broadside firing situation) spread in a pattern so it's not about "dodging" one shell but a group of shells. Fire control's job is to get the shells close to where the target will be and after that it's the number of shells in the salvo that up the percentage of a hit or two. That's one of the points about all-big-gun, uniform caliber ships that made long range firing viable: it wasn't two or four shells landing plus all the medium and small caliber splashes, it was that group of five or six of identical ballistics shells that really upped the chances of a hit and allowed centrally controlled gunnery from a tower position rather than every gun crew doing their own spotting. Anyway, please take this as constructive critique. Maybe there needs to be some "reality check" final equation or something because looking at the screen shot I can't believe 12% to-hit chance: is that per gun? Shoot info also lists salvo hit (any of 6): 53.4% and Half-salvo hit (3 of 6): 5.2%. Watching my 6 gun salvos sail over or land anywhere BUT the target was surreal. Truly a medieval siege engine would do a better job (if it wasn't for all the shrapnel flying around). Golf clubs? Tom Sawyer's slingshot? Tbh it shouldn't even get to this point in daylight with 1940's tech. It's not 1866 or even 1896. The curve for hits landed as ranges approach 10 km or so should get so severe that ships would have their guns knocked out long before this (or their powerplant or magazines destroyed by penetrating hits since no belt armor would suffice other than possible deflections).

Looks like I have a couple more missions to do before I get to that one but I'll give it try with the 16 inchers as you suggest. For enemy DD's a design with 36 kts, mounting most of my secondaries near the stern and turning away until they are destroyed by the secondaries usually works for me but I guess I'll find out.

Somewhat esoteric (or picky), but I noticed that in battles involving a British convoy that the merchant vessels were flying the White ensign which is reserved for the Navy. The proper flag for British merchantmen (the Merchant Navy) is the Red ensign. There is also a Blue ensign which would be for merchantmen commanded by Royal Navy Reserve officers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_ensign The location of ensigns should also be at the stern rather than at the bow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_ensign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_flag

I'm down to a handful of Academy missions left to do but thought I'd mention that the combination of 18" guns, Super heavy shells, Gen II radar, Stereoscopic V in missions like "Numbers Don't Matter," "Modern Battleship", "There Can Only Be One" and "Heavy Duty" is so effective that it pretty much breaks these missions. I'm getting accuracy of over 25% at 34 km. Even with only 2 turrets of two 18" guns it's only a matter of minutes before you land devastating hits on enemy ships -- often only 2 or 3 hits are necessary and you get a message that "???? enemy sinks due to structural damage". TNT propellant especially. My "There Can Only Be One" and "Heavy Duty" missions were over faster than I can type this post. In "Heavy Duty" I sank a 100kt battleship (according to the mission description) with two 18" hits and it was all over in under 3 minutes. I didn't even get a chance to inspect the enemy ship. After I've completed the Academy I'd like to put together some more detailed feedback for the missions but this warranted special mention. Conversely in earlier missions I noted that one lands too few hits at near point blank ranges (to the point that you're playing ramming games with dreadnoughts -- something that should never happen unless its pitch black darkness and no radar). Nevertheless, I'm having a blast with this game although I could see myself purposely not using this 18" + radar combo if I want more interesting games.

Will do. I will attach the latest log file and also the earliest. (And the screenshot). Hopefully the first logfile will be relevant for the Installer(?) which almost stopped my installation (until I worked around it). The Launcher, although also large and a bit off screen (although less un-centered than the Installer was) isn't stopping me from playing.

Chiming in. I had the same issue when installing: the installer window was so large and off centered to the point that the important buttons required to continue the install were completely off-screen, including the maximize button that would have revealed them. I was only able to install at all by very carefully moving the window upwards by dragging it enough to barely reveal the button I needed to continue installing. The drag-able area of the window is near the top (like any window) and I had maybe 30 pixels of room to inch it up (repositioning my pointer when it hit the edge of the screen until I ran out of drag-able area altogether). However, it was enough of a drag (no pun intended) to barely reveal the button I needed to allow continuing the install procedure. (Also docking my taskbar elsewhere or changing screen resolution didn't change the situation). Even now, post-installation, the launcher is still massive and pops up off-centered and partially off-screen but as you can see from the screen shot at least the top of the Play button is visible as well as the maximize button. The installer was off-centered even more to the bottom right (as described above). Having such a large installer window with the important buttons in one corner is begging for trouble from future customers' installs. May I suggest smaller installer and launcher windows? Or at least putting the important buttons in the center? Or making the window re-sizable by dragging from any of the four sides? Anyway, I'm ok now but I thought I'd mention my install experience. The screen shot is currently what I get when I play the game, functional as is but almost not so. Running Win7 (yes, call me a dinosaur :).

Thanks for expansion on that but my point was more about the shells exploding after encountering the slightest impediment (I'm quoting the British liason officer by memory here and it seems to me "slightest impediment" was what he used as a description). Or else my memory is off. As I mentioned I need to get my books out of storage for a proper reference. Anyway, whatever the overpen is for HE for various calibers it's something I'll have to observe and adapt to. It's also possible that in-game calculations have to be simplified to some extent in order to have a working game using typical home computers. Edit: Just won the mission using guns only. As suspected switching to 4" was the biggest factor. First TN went down at 4:54 and the last one at 35:15. As before I used Extra Funds for four ships only this time mounting 12 x 4" singles and 4 x 3" casements. I even went with Light Shells to further avoid Over Pens (though I kinda of missed losing 5% range). Going with the 4 inchers instead of the 6 inchers also allowed a 0.5 kt speed boost and various upgrades like Citadel II. All ships returned to port to navy bands celebrating their return. Battle-wise the escorting AC sported 6 x 9" fore and aft and no less than 30 x 7" arrayed in 10(!) triple turrets (five per side). 23 kts. A broadside of six 9" and 15 7". It also kept itself in the fight often right in the middle of the convoy so I really had to peck away at near maximum 4" range. Ended up having one CL attack one side of the convoy, two on the other and the most damaged CL directly behind. No collisions by the convoy though there were a couple of close calls. As a result of the operation a couple ships had a damaged engine, one had 65% float, the rest were all above 80% in float and structure. And Wilhelmshaven ran out of Iron Crosses

Makes sense but I also recall reading accounts of the British observer during the Battle of Tsushima who noted that the Japanese shells exploded after encountering even the slightest impediment. All my books are in storage but I did find this on Wikipedia: "The Japanese also used mostly high-explosive shells with shimose (melinite), which was designed to explode on contact and wreck the upper structures of ships.[44] The Russians used armour-piercing rounds with small guncotton bursting charges and unreliable fuses.[45] Japanese hits caused more damage to Russian ships than Russian hits on Japanese ships, setting the superstructures, the paintwork and the large quantities of coal stored on the decks on fire." Not being an ordnance expert I can only form an opinion and impression on what I've read over the years (well, decades)

Great video! Appreciate you making another one for the same mission but with guns only. Some observations: 1) I also noticed overpens for small damage while using 6" guns and this doesn't seem right if it's HE. I was noting the damage from those 4" guns and it was dwarfing anything I was doing using 6" HE. It's always been in my head that HE explodes after encountering something. AP, of course, is for getting past that something (armor) and hitting for less damage but in a more critical space (engineering, magazines, gun turrets. etc.) If HE has even minor armor piercing capability I'd like to find out what it is so I can make a more informed decision when I make the HE or AP choice while in combat. (Not addressed to you but to the game developer). 2) You verified the collisions that also occurred in one of my games when approaching the convoy when it is headed toward you. The ai then had the convoy turn away but the pathing is so bad that some of the ships ram their neighbors. The ai needs to have convoy maneuvers simplified so that all ships in the convoy do the same turn OR follow the ship ahead of them with the lead ships turning in unison. Or something. Someone with knowledge of convoy navigation practices in WWII would need to chime in. 3) I was also surprised at the number of hits you were getting at those ranges. Tower IV or V on the bigger hull really helped. Even so you just squeaked it through (the collisions helped). Really good job on avoiding damage and your range control. Something I have to work on myself. The BC didn't even find you (I guess it was hanging with its AC buddy way up at the van of the convoy). I'm pretty confident now that just switching to 4" guns for this mission should make a massive difference. IMO overpens should not exist for HE ammunition -- as far as I'm concerned in land or sea or air the bigger the HE shell should always be more destructive than a smaller one (if it hits). Overpens with HE is completely counterintuitive at least to me. Overpens should only be a consideration for AP shells. Gonna try again this evening I'm actually enjoying these challenging missions more (as long as they aren't TOO luck dependant and actually possible.

At first blush I thought this one would be near impossible, too. First try using Extra Funds and a fleet of 4 CL gunboats (each with two 7" and four 3") and the defending CA was a real boss: 15,000 ton AC covered in triple 7" or 8" turrets (surprised it didn't roll over when firing a broadside lol). It drove me off, disabling one of my CL to half speed. I withdrew out of visual range, then turned around and closed the rear of the convoy again but not too long after that the BC showed up and it was game over. I think I sank maybe 5 TN's total. Pecking at the TN's from 5 km or more takes too long. Granted, a single 7" in chase mode wasn't very effective (on 3 ships plus the trailer). Second try I went with the Shells and Torps option for just two CL each armed with eight 4", four 3" and a 5 tube launcher amidship. These CL's weren't any faster and only had Standard bulkheads (ie. they weren't any better defensively than the four CL's previously). I thought I'd try anyway just to see how one multi torp launcher per ship would fare. I expected to lose one or both CL's way before tallying 12 TN but I wanted to practice my torpedo firing on a real convoy and also to see if a mostly guns and one quintuple torp launcher ship would fare (ie. a CL that made sense historically rather some torpedo only fantasy design). The torps were a big difference. The TN's are so bunched that every volley got at least one ship. Even just the one launcher (for two total launchers). I used every reload, too, so the TN kills and near-kills by torps really added up (and my guns were doing damage as well). If the player had the ability to set the spread of the torps to a wider arc I could see nailing 2 or 3 ships per volley. The CA also seems quick to turn away whenever there are torps in the water (even though I only targeted the cruiser once) so it never closed to effective range and was constantly circling around instead. That was probably the biggest factor. Although some of the TN's had guns, they never did much damage to me. I won: it was still tough and I felt that any minute my whole fleet could be vaporized if the ai decided to actually get serious. Like you mentioned, no real life commander would take on an AC like that using tinfoil CL's other than maybe to launch a one spread of torps (spray and pray) and withdraw. He'd be rushing down to the boiler room to help his firemen shovel coal faster before his command got turned into giant cheese graters. If a human played the CA it would be no problem to wipe out the German CL's before losing 12 TN's. Certainly not in daylight. There's no way a human with a 15,000 ton AC and all those guns would allow 2 tinfoil CL's to survive long enough to reload torps 3 or 4 times like I was able to. The only difference seemed to be the torps in the water cowing the escort from getting too close. I did go back and try to win the mission with gun-only ships (better load outs with smaller guns instead of single 7 inchers). The closest I came to beating it was using 2 of the larger CL hulls (better towers), and mass 5" guns. The CA escort sank one of my 2 ships actually fairly early but somehow my remaining ship was able to keep whittling down the convoy. It even ran out of 3" ammo (I went with reduced ammo). Again, I was saved by the escort ai not closing to just blow me away. I was looking at the TN list and thought I was on the last TN when over-the-horizon shots from the BC started arcing in. My ship was down to 4 kts and under 40% in both float and struct. The last TN was 3 kts and burning stem to stern but wouldn't die. It was a race to see if I could kill that last TN before getting sunk myself. It took forever but I finally sank the TN but it turned out my math was off by one ship. The rest of the convoy was already out of sight and the escorts were content to keep escorting rather than finish me off. My battered ship turned for home and a lengthy stay in drydock. Failed the mission but left me with the impression that it's not impossible with guns only. I had one mission where all 3 of my CL were sunk before the 24 min mark (it took at least 10 mins before shots were fired). Ammo detonations were brutal. Another mission I happened to approach the convoy while they were heading toward me. When the TN's turned away at least 2 got rammed by other TN's. I was wondering what those loud noises were. Might want to tweak the ai pathing a bit because TN's were turning in all sorts of directions. If I'd had torps it would have been a turkey shoot. Inspecting the TN's they do come in a variety of designs and mix of bulkhead loadouts which was nice to see. I agree that the max bulk ones are real damage sponges. With a near perfect optimized fleet composition, practice, luck, and a squeamish ai I think a pure gunboat strat is definitely possible but it's nowhere near as effective as even having one torp launcher available is. Well, maybe that's one of the points to learn anyway: if short on time, ships and the enemy has two monster escorts on hand or on the way then guns alone are too slow. I will win that mission yet, though (without torps) Edit: Tried again with 4 CL using Extra Funds. 12x6", 4x3". No torps. Failed almost same way: the escort sank 3 of my 4 ships then sort of got bored with me and let my last damaged cruiser pick off about 4 more TN. My speed was too slow (11 kts due to a damaged (more like destroyed) engine) to catch up with the undamaged TN's which were out of sight by now. I had the perfect start: I came up the convoy from behind with the escort on the other end. Quickly sank 4 TN's and then the AC starting wrecking my ships one at a time despite making it switch targets, etc. One thing I learned though: rather than destroying the TN's in turn, instead try to slow down the twelve you need first that way even if you have a mangled attack force near the end you can possibly mop up later. The escort seems to stick with the undamaged portion of the convoy so if you can avoid a few mortal blows from the AC or the BC you might be able to pull it off. Going to try that idea next.

Since we're discussing speed readouts, I found the enemy speed display. If you expand the arrow beside the icons of the enemy fleet ("a" in my graphic) and then hover over the larger thumbnail (my mouse pointer wasn't captured but it was hovering over the Irresistible's icon) you'll get some info on the enemy ship. It looks like you have to expand for each division or class of vessel and only one group can be expanded at any one time. While I'm here I'll mention something about the ship logs. Elapsed time is given for events ("b" in my graphic) but the little clock up in the top left ("c") shows time remaining. So you have to remember how much you had at the start and do some math if you want to know how long ago an event occurred. The actual elapsed time should be shown instead of remaining time (or show both). Also, 26:60 should be 27:00. Just little things I'm sure will be smoothed over eventually (hopefully)

^^ Ah, ok. Thanks for pointing that out. Kinda figured I was missing something as useful as a speed readout somewhere. It would be handy if they also added the speed in that empty spot to the right of Struct and Float on the elevation of the damage graphic, too. It would be a way to get the enemy speed as well.

First off I have to say I'm very impressed with the product -- it's very playable in its current state and it's only going to get better as it's refined. Been waiting for something like this for 20 years -- or longer tbh. In my teens I used to make sketches of dream battleships and I'm in my 50's now so it's been a long time coming. So on to my first impressions now that I've had a chance to get about a third of the way through the Academy missions. Visual and especially the sound effects are awesome! The ship constructor is very good with heaps of options to tinker with. The combat portion is based on probability without the players having anything to do with aiming -- which is what I want in a naval simulation (for that reason I never even bothered with WoW). So a few things that did bug me and a few ideas: 1) The graphic in the top right corner showing ship damage in elevation and plan views is too busy especially with those animated flames and loud cross hatched damage coloration. I would much prefer a more static, less loud version that shows immediately at a glance which guns are knocked out (for the plan view) and for the elevation an estimated "time to pump out" for flooded compartments. Compartments that are permanently flooded can be colored dark blue and compartments that can be shored up and pumped out shown in light blue with the time indicator showing up after being shored up and pumps started. For the plan view I'd like to see the gun turrets that are operational very clearly shown in, say, solid white (on a medium grey deck background perhaps). Damaged (not on fire) and under repair in solid yellow; damaged and burning in solid red; permanently knocked out in solid black. It's not that that info is currently missing but having to squint through all the dancing flame and crosshatching to find my guns and what state they are in should be much easier. Clarity should be the order of the day for that particular graphic. The elevation is mostly fine (aside from adding "time to pump out" for shored-up flooded compartments). It's mainly the plan view that needs simplification. If I want damage animation and what not I can get that cool factor by zooming in on the ship model as it's steaming through the water. The damage graphic needs to show at a glance without dancing flames, etc. exactly what the status of my guns, etc. are. 2) Current speed of ships should be shown somewhere at all times without having to click on the rudder control and hovering over the telegraph. It should also appear on the damage graphic I just finished discussing, maybe even over top of each ship model on the water. Unless I'm missing something it seems too hard to keep track of your (and enemy) ships' speed. 3) Use of red. I'm red-green color blind which means it's very hard to pick out dark red on a dark background or distinguish red from dark greens and dark browns. The dashed red line that shows which enemy ships are being targeted (when you left-click your ship) is very difficult to see (for me) without actually zooming in or even pausing the game to take a closer look. Similarly the use of various red shades on the damage graphic adds to the difficulty in immediately getting information. It's not a game-breaker but it would be great to be able to customize some of the colors used. Bright, lighter reds are better than darker, duller reds. If you use greens and reds as indicators than make sure that one is bright and the other darker. Like a bright red and a dark green is better than both being bright or both being dark. Some possible features for the future: 1) A way to move the actual machinery around to help with weight offset. Boiler weight should be tied to funnels so moving a funnel should also move the boilers (more-or-less). That would be a big aid in balancing. Engines are aft of the boilers so moving the boilers would also move the engines (but at some point the engines would run afoul of a main gun turret installation (not the turret itself but the barbette that extends below deck housing the shell ring, hoists, etc. as well as nearby shell rooms and powder magazines)). 2) A button available to export battle logs for all ships to a text file. 3) Splinter damage from large caliber shells (near misses). Speaking of near misses, the shell splashes seem to be a bit small (but then again I haven't messed with anything larger than 13"). Anyway, that's enough for now; I've been reading threads discussing the damage of HE vs AP, accuracy factors and similar details but I'll leave my thoughts regarding those things to others with more experience with the game. I did note that as opposing ships get close it seems to me there should be a more dramatic increase in hits and pens to the point that opposing ships both with working guns should never get within several ship lengths of the enemy -- one or the other would've been obliterated way before ramming would be a consideration. It also seems that it takes a lot of shells before guns get knocked out though I'd have to experiment with my gun armor values before saying for sure. Looking forward to many great battles to come

New player here: finally managed the semi one after about 15 tries. As of typing I've failed that convoy mission one 3 times for same reasons as you: enemy CA's wreck one of TN's before I can get close enough to draw all the enemy fire. Edit: For the convoy raid it seems you just have to keep re-starting until you get a game where it places your warships between the enemy and your TN's. Did it on 2nd try after I got the "proper" placement. Probably would have beat it on 1st such setup except one of the enemy ships decided to switch fire on to a TN halfway through the battle. Anyway, just unlucky that I got about 6 starts in a row on the wrong side? That's pretty bad luck... So for the semi battle I went with extra funds for two BB II hulled ships. I beat it on about the 5th try using this strat. Design: (pic attached): BB II hull, max displacement, 19 kts, many bulkheads. Steam 3-Exp, Coal, Natural Krupp I, no barbettes, no anti-torp, single hull, reinforced bulkheads I, anti-flood II, no citadel Heavy shells, Standard amount, gun cotton, enhanced reloading Rng-S I Belt/Extd: 14/9.8 Deck/Extd: 5/1.8 Conning: 11 Turret/Top: 11/2 Sec: 6 Front/Rear Tower II, Standard Funnel Main Guns: Forward 2x12", midship 2x13" Secondary Guns: quarterdeck centerline: 2x8" no casements 1.2% forward offset The 2x8" was a change from earlier designs with a single 12" on the quarter deck but I found that it often was unable to bear due to maneuvers so I switched to a 2x8" secondary which could be placed further aft for a much improved arc. Tbh any secondaries 6" or smaller I found to be a waste of money/tonnage that's better spent on a bit more armor instead. So two ships with a total broadside of four 13", four 12" and four 8". Cost for one was 100% weight and 44% cost so I suppose there was room to coax a bit more out of the design. Battle: Immediately paused and removed all formations. Slowed up the lead BB so the trailer could get closer to the lead ship. Turned to bring all guns to bear on the semi, firing HE on Aggressive (I wasn't worried about ammo). My CL's were both sunk within 3 minutes despite deploying smoke (for themselves as they were too slow and too far behind my BB's to try to shield them). They only had 18 kts and 1.6 km torps anyway and tbh I've never been impressed with ANY of my own CL's gunnery (except for when I tried Enhanced guns as an option in earlier attempts). The enemy BB was a 26 kt ship with Standard bulkheads. I forgot to check the guns but I believe it had a mix of 12 and 11 inchers. Didn't check the armor. As usual it had Schneider-level accuracy (its first salvo hit my lead CL). When the enemy BB started firing on one of my BB's I would have it turn away (while keeping broadsides) and have the other move towards the enemy BB. The ai tends to switch to the nearest target (though not right away). Kept making it switch targets so both my BB's shared the damage. The enemy accuracy has to reset as well. The action got quite close (I even tried to ram the semi with one of mine but failed). One of my BB's got torpedoed by one of the barely scratched enemy CL's but the BB managed to survive and continue at reduced speed. Fortunately the semi was targeting my other BB or else it would have been game over. Landed enough HE for decent fires and when one of my BB's had got to 1600m range changed to AP for some fatal hits. The previous 4 or 5 attempts with 2x BB's the semi fled into the mist after getting to 35% float or so (at least 3 battles failed that way). A couple other times I lost one of my BB's to either a torp or too much damage from the enemy BB before I could make it switch targets. At first I tried various single ship solutions using all three options but none of them came even close compared to the first double BB battle when for the first time I actually caused the enemy to flee instead of watching helplessly as the semi whittled my single ship design tries into smoldering scrap iron (while barely getting the semi below 95% on structure or flotation).