SonicB

Just dropping in this treasure from Alpha-9, because when you have five 19" turrets who needs to see where you're going?

Yep, reported this in the bug thread yesterday. I was hoping it would be fixed in alpha-9 but apparently not. Main battery salvos under central direction just need to fire all at once. This was accepted practice since Jacky Fisher rigged up electrically controlled broadsides on HMS Bellerophon back in 1877. It's the only way to avoid roll and recoil screwing up the aim. The only exception to unified salvos should be an option to fire under local control, if for instance the main tower or conning tower is destroyed, or if you just need to target multiple close-in enemies at the cost of long-range accuracy.

This. This would be perfect. Would need a little tweaking so as to not allow the AI to build barbettes in weird places, but yes. Each turret with its own barbette option would be so much better graphically than we have at the moment, too (I actually came here to post this problem with the base of the new British turrets.)

I'd hoped that Alpha-9 would solve this issue, but it seems to have persisted. I've noticed that occasionally ships will not fire every turret in a salvo, even when the target is locked. This seems more common at long range, and possibly more common with triple and quad turrets. I've played four quick battles since the patch released and have had this issue in three of them. As an example, most recently I had a British 1925 battleship with three quad 16" turrets in a two-forward superfiring, one-aft configuration. About one in three salvos, the forward turret did not fire. Range was a constant 17km, my bearing and speed was steady at 26kts, and target was locked on the beam at 3-5% accuracy. I find this bug so frequently that I have to ask if it's intended behaviour, and if so, why?

FREE THE BARBETTE! (also our funnel and superstructure comrades)

Thank you for the response. I agree full freedom would be unrealistic at the bow and stern, but turrets can already be mounted over machinery spaces, and they penetrate further when not mounted in a barbette. In fact, one of the central turrets of the Fuso class had to be raised on a barbette in order not to conflict with the machinery spaces beneath.

@Nick Thomadis Are you planning to allow the free placement of barbettes/funnels/superstructure in future, as with turrets? If not for the AI, then for player designs? I know I'm not alone in thinking this would be a huge improvement.

I think that's the only ship hull that could actually be improved by the AI autodesign.

Ideally I would love to have a situation where I can take the figures from my Jane's and Brassey's reprint books and plug them directly into the designer, but I doubt we'll ever get that level of complexity. What I would like to see is a more flexible way of determining the size and position of the main belt with the placement of funnels (above machinery spaces) and turrets (above magazines.) As I understand it the armour is simply divided into fixed sections of hull at the moment.

Just had a thought. With the improvements to formations, will we also see improved targeting logic, or more options in targeting? Historically it was standard practice for each ship to concentrate on its opposite number in the battle line, in order to facilitate spotting and ensure no enemy ship was able to aim and fire without disruption. At present, there is very little control over individual ships' targeting when in formation, and we often find ships impractically concentrating their fire or shifting targets unnecessarily. I therefore nearly always separate my ships with follow commands in order to maintain control. My ideal solution would be threefold : Targeting preferences for a formation as a whole: Target In-Line (default), Target Lead, Target Rear and Free Targeting (what we have now.) Individual targeting overrides for each ship when in formation. For even better control, the option to targeting by calibre for both formations and ships, not by an arbitrary 'primary/secondary' division. For instance, 8" and 2" secondaries should not both be aiming at torpedo boats. Failing that, the addition of a 'tertiary' category (2"-4") for small calibre weapons on large ships.

FTFY

Agreed, some more variety in sea state would be great. Mostly on the calmer side though I have to say. 'Calm seas' bonuses in what looks like a sea state 4-5 where small ships would even struggle to fight is... weird.

Thanks for the update - as ever, we appreciate it. Initial reaction is as expected, looks like a lot of small positive changes with a few question marks about how the formations will work in practice. Given the time taken I had hoped for a little more fundamental reworking of the armour model, the ship designer, or both, but fingers crossed those are on the roadmap. (Seriously though, just take those damn fixed turret/tower/funnel hardpoints away and I'll be a happy man.) Still love the game, still hoping to love the end result even more. Keep up the good work guys, and please keep your supporters in the loop.

Likewise. Specifically, in 20" calibre.

Comrades! What is revolution without...

Every so often, I find an AI ship that's such an eye-wateringly awful design that it makes the early French pre-dreadnoughts look like masterpieces of naval architecture. I've taken to screenshotting them, and since we're all a little bored, I thought I'd present some of the more recent exhibits here. Would love to see yours. Exhibit A: The Pick'n'Mix "Sorry sir, but we're out of triple secondaries. But can I interest you in our mix-and-match funnel special, four for the price of three?" Exhibit B: The Optimist I feel sorry for this one. Who's going to tell him we aren't getting planes for a while? Exhibit C : Compensating For Something What happens when you build a battlecruiser with the turrets higher than the bridge? Exactly what you'd expect. We'll just forget about the mixed-calibre turret farm on the other ship. Exhibit D : The Self-Own Reckoned by German strategists to be quicker and more efficient than fighting the Grand Fleet in open water. Incidentally, did someone get the 3" and 6" mounts mixed up after a little too much Berliner Weisse? Exhibit E: The Imminent Capsize What in the name of Kaiser Wilhelm's immaculately waxed moustache is that? Eh, pretty soon you'll need a scuba suit to figure it out.

It would certainly explain the time Alpha-9 is taking. That's a good thing. If they are including some more fundamental changes hinted in previous months, such as reworked armour/damage model and ship designer improvements... fingers crossed there'll be a fundamentally solid game engine on which to build the campaign. It also makes sense because if the engine and ship designer can be largely baked at alpha-9 (with the expected hotfix a couple weeks later), it makes campaign balance a hell of a lot easier to fine-tune on its own.

Generally speaking larger towers should have more attribute points to distribute, as they became heavier to support more fire-control equipment, but yes, this is a good idea. Just ties into the biggest source of frustration to me with the ship designer, which is that you often have to trade off stats for historically accurate looks or end up with an inbred monstrosity like the AI creates. Pretty please let's allow some purely aesthetic choices once in a while?

A little off-topic to OP, but if you're interested in the politics and decision-making of the naval arms race and during the First World War, "The World Crisis" by Winston Churchill (free at gutenberg) is a great read - very well-written and goes into a lot of detail about naval design and procurement. It's a little self-exculpatory in some areas [cough] Gallipoli [/cough] but as a first-hand account from the man in charge of the Admiralty at the time it's well worth reading.

'Close' only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades and heavy naval artillery.

Yeah, I'm not aware of any completed dreadnought designs with greater than 12"/305mm off the centreline, presumably for weight reasons. When the RN (which had preferred wing turrets to superfiring) moved to 13.5" with the Orions they also chose an all-centreline superfiring layout. That said, assuming the model physically fits, it would be nice to allow 13" or even 14" turrets just so we have the option to make that tradeoff.

Just an issue I brought up a while ago that makes sense to post here since the British (quad turrets) are coming. Any plans to group the aiming of main and secondary batteries by calibre alone, not by calibre + turret type + turret location? Building a KGV-type arrangement with these new turrets will be nerfed significantly if the single twin turret has separate targeting to the double quad turrets. Even the whole point of a uniform main battery in Dreadnought herself is faulty because the game requires centreline and side 12" turrets to aim separately.

Yeah, I accept that's likely true, but I can't really think of any medium-calibre triple or quadruple mounts that worked well enough to become commonplace. That indicates to me that the compromises required to design an effective mount of that type were considered great enough to not be worth the advantages. That said, the maths might be different if the campaign allows/requires us to design ships to different priorities than existed in historical reality. For instance, triple turrets probably didn't make sense on a large battlecruiser, but if the Royal Navy found itself designing coastal defence battleships with limited deck space but enough beam and topweight to support them, the tradeoff may well have been worthwhile. For instance, had they been fitted to RN monitors operating at low speed in littoral waters, they might have proved more successful. So I maintain that in most cases triple and quad turrets should be as disadvantaged as they clearly were historically. However, I'll add that there should be a minority of situations (or hulls) where the disadvantages are outweighed, and a good campaign should allow us to discover those niches.

Well, I'm generally going on the principle that if no sane navy built it more than once, it's probably got some pretty significant problems. Even the British 3x4" battlecruiser mount referenced above was awful enough that the RN never went back to triple mounts, mostly (iirc, don't have books with me) because it was very difficult to lay and work the guns consistently under battle conditions or high sea states. Thus I would add a pretty significant RoF and accuracy penalty, and/or, if it's eventually implemented, a higher chance to malfunction.