akd

They may have attempted to do something in 1.03 patch: I have not tested in battle yet.

Something seems very off in the calculation of engine efficiencies. As a comparison test, I put something together somewhat analogous to the historical two-ship Delaware class. The two were built largely to the same design, but USS Delaware had the latest VTE engines (in game Steam M-Exp II), while her sister USS North Dakota was built with 1st gen (Curtis) turbines instead (in game "Turbines"). This was for the purposes of direct comparison, so both were extensively trialed. Endurances for the two ships in reality: Delaware - 18057 km North Dakota - 12149 km 49% gain in endurance with VTE engines over 1st gen turbines with other design factors held constant. And Curtis turbines were actually somewhat more efficient (power for total space and weight) than the more typical Parsons turbines that dominated the early market (but they proved less reliable in use). https://navypedia.org/ships/usa/us_bb_delaware.htm Now in game comparison: 0.004% gain in endurance for VTE over turbines with other design factors held constant. Turbines seem to just save weight (or gain a bunch of HP for same weight) with no trade-off. There should be huge endurance trade-off for selecting 1st Gen turbines over VTE-type engines. With the later New York class, the US Navy even reverted to triple-expansion machinery due to these efficiencies and the need for endurance in the Pacific, before finally sticking with turbines in the following Nevada class due to the improved efficiency provided by her reduction gear turbines. Nonetheless, VTE machinery remained more efficient for lower cruising speeds, and so still dominated in slower merchant ships until diesels provided an efficient alternative. One other thing observed while putting this together: the topmost superstructure deck on this hull does not let you place anything while holding CTRL. You must used the existing mounting points for towers, funnels and guns. And several of the mounting points for guns (the 4 on the back) give you "border" errors if you try to mount guns on them. Also, these Dreadnought (USA) hulls don't work at all for most US dreadnoughts as can be seen with the turrets above. South Carolina was really more of a pre-dreadnought hull narrowly altered to fit the additional super-imposed turrets (some refused to refer to her as a dreadnought at the time because of the total number of guns and her small size compared to other dreadnoughts). You can see how the shape of the hull and superstructure changed significantly in the subsequent Delawares:

Regarding early light cruisers, they look very strange currently, mainly because the AI consistently over-arms them and the larger main guns are either all fully-enclosed gunhouses (7 inch guns of all Marks) or are fully-enclosed gunhouses in their Mark I versions (5-inch and 6-inch guns) like those seen on battleships and large armoured cruisers. They look silly and are often placed on hulls in ways that should be totally non-functional. Please use open / shielded mounts for all light cruisers (2nd class cruisers, protected cruisers) guns of all marks up through at least the mid-20s. (Omaha-class of 1923 is probably the first, although a weirdo in many ways.) Only after that date do fully-enclosed gunhouses (with 1 or multiple guns) make an appearance on light cruisers. Add open / shielded single 7-inch and 8-inch guns as possible armament for light cruisers to represent early Elswick-style protected cruisers with this type of armament. Probably limit to 2 per hull.

I think the change is meant to address this:

Sounds like good improvements and fixes. Will check them out shortly.

Nope, this was a bi-level gunhouse, not two separate, independent gunhouses. The 8-inch guns could only elevate independent from the 13-inch guns in the lower level. The whole idea was that the 8-inch guns could be brought into action during the long reloading cycle of the 13-inch guns and could fire several times without affecting the firing cycle of the bigger guns, but by the time the ships were actually built big gun reloading had improved drastically and firing the 8-inch guns would interfere with the firing cycle of the big guns, lowering their RoF (and vice versa). Completely failed idea that is still isn’t what the game has with completely independent turret mounted on top of another which should provide a light armor route for shells to enter and then flash into your main turret while also hugely complicating ammo supply to the turret on top of a turret, i.e. an incredibly stupid and unworkable design. What ships did have for a limited period was open anti-torpedo gun pedestal mounts on top of main gun turrets. This was because it was assumed that the two systems would not be in use at the same time. Torpedo boats would only attack at night and be seen at very short range where the main guns could not be brought into action and would not be participating in the sort of daytime actions where the main guns were in use. These guns simply could not be manned while the main guns were firing. Same was true for light AA guns later placed in similar positions.

Also turrets on top of turrets. This was never a thing

No, the distribution of misses is not directly related to the accuracy against the actual target, but at the same time any shell path that intersects something in between firing ship and target is treated as a hit (it used to not be, with only the actual target having any chance of being hit by the firing ship, even if another enemy ship was parked in front of its guns, but this was complained about). It seems that the game pre-determines whether a shot is a hit or miss against the target, then somewhat arbitrarily places the misses in a way that doesn’t really correlate with the accuracy on the actual target. Target’s with, e.g. 1% accuracy should have much larger “spread” of where shots land in relation to the target than they do in the game. The shots fired that miss are not being distributed in 3D by actual ballistics (precision) and error in aiming (accuracy). At least that is my hypothesis at this point, but it bears further testing and closer examination.

No, because you have situations where you are targeting a ship and getting only 1% accuracy then another ship comes in between you and that ship at basically the same range (right next to the target ship) and suddenly it is getting hit with 50%+ accuracy. If you switch target to said ship, accuracy will be low like the original target and most shots will go back to missing. The misses are “faked” to some degree (i.e. not really tied to the accuracy and likely tending toward clustering too close to the target and biased short at closer ranges), but are allowed to hit anything their artificial path intersects with on their way to displaying a miss splash.

That hit did not penetrate main belt, but is another example of hits to area that game considers main belt that don’t simply ricochet and do no damage, but do significant (but not critical) damage without even touching the citadel armor.

I'm not asking you to agree with my opinion, I'm asking you to look at the documented history. J.A. Fisher used "torpedo boat destroyer" in his official report and conclusions on the 1885 fleet maneuvers: British Cruisers of the Victorian Era, Norman Friedman Destructor was laid down in 1886. It is without a doubt a central part of the story of the development of these types of vessels, but it didn't exist in isolation and it didn't take the form that later entered service more widely and in multiple navies as the "torpedo boat destroyer." Agree entirely that there a huge, gaping holes in the types of ships available for a campaign start in 1890. It is almost comical building a fleet almost entirely from stubby forms of later hulls.

I already pointed out why you were wrong on this, so I'll repeat facts when you repeat fiction. It's not the "large torpedo boat / destroyer" as it is in game (high speed, low freeboard, short range hull form, i.e. scaled up torpedo boat), and it is not the first conceptualization of the "destroyer" role in a broader sense. That is making way too much of the actual name of the ship, when the naming for the concept was still in flux (e.g. RN was pursuing same concept earlier, but under with names like "catcher" not "destroyer"; regardless, use of "torpedo boat destroyer" in RN documents precedes Spanish Destructor, so it was not even the origin of the name, much less the broader concept). Destructor was a torpedo gunboat. It is a unique form that we need in game. Suggest something that is based in fact, not fiction. https://navypedia.org/ships/uk/brit_dd_grasshopper.htm https://navypedia.org/ships/uk/brit_dd_rattlesnake.htm https://navypedia.org/ships/france/fr_dd_bombe.htm https://navypedia.org/ships/austrohungary/ah_dd_blitz.htm https://navypedia.org/ships/spain/sp_dd_destructor.htm

Spain had no such ship in 1890. What she had was a torpedo gunboat (albeit a fast one at 23kn, but probably not trialed to the same standards as RN ships, so this is likely somewhat exaggerated for comparison purposes with other torpedo gunboats of similar design achieving 19-20kn). Spain's first large torpedo boat / destroyer (of roughly the hull form in the game) was laid down in 1896, in line with many other nations and behind some.

Nevermind, I was thinking of mouseing over the division "card", which then gives you a popup listing the current max possible speed for all ships in the division, not the individual ship cards, which do show the current speed same as mouseing over the slider.

Yet they were made, and the number of battleship vs. battleship fleet actions that actually happened in the era of the battleship torpedo battery is an extremely limited sample. This tends to be an overly effective tactic in game because the early torpedoes are far more accurate and reliable than they were in reality and the damage model does not introduce any additional vulnerabilities from space under the waterline dedicated to torpedo flats.

Pretty sure the “card” shows the unit’s current possible maximum speed (with damage), and the x-ray viewer the design maximum speed. The only way you can get exact current speed that I have found is to hover over the speed slider and it will show current speed —> ordered speed.

Quite the opposite issue, actually. The damage from large-caliber AP shots that don’t penetrate main deck armor and main belt armor is extremely minor in game. A main deck partial penetration would have already passed through several decks and would do significant damage. The armor protected the ships vitals; it did not protect the ship from all damage. Battleships were not tanks and didn’t carry their primary armor on their exterior skin in most areas*. The whole idea that battleships can take a large caliber AP hit and receive zero damage is mostly bogus. *Early belt armor was mostly exterior, but almost never extended all the way to the upper deck from bow to stern. Note however that later inclined belts were interior or partially interior to the hull and any hit would do exterior hull integrity damage. Turrets and above deck barbettes were the elements of the ship that had uniform armor “skin,” but even here a large AP shell hitting and failing to penetrate would likely shower unarmored areas of deck and superstructure with large, penetrating splinters. The zero effect, 100% block “ricochet” concept as implemented in game is World of Warships, not history. It should be very rare in reality, more confined to smaller caliber shells deflecting off turret armor, etc. Note in particular the damage from 8-inch AP partial penetration of main belt forward of rear turret. Also note the 14-inch non-penetrating hit on the rear turret barbette. https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/w/war-damage-reports/uss-south-dakota-bb57-war-damage-report-no57.html

I strongly suspect that what is happening in these circumstances is the launcher constantly trying to aim for a new “correct” solution (even if there is basically no incorrect solution at these ranges), but the short ranges leading to relative motion that the launcher rotation can’t keep up with.

War on the Sea has a pretty good system for controlling torpedoes, without handing over finding a target solution to the player. Most importantly, it gives you three options: FIRE (immediately turn launchers toward current target (solution) and fire; HOLD turn launchers to current target, but don't fire until FIRE command is issued (allows tracking target while solution builds); and CEASE which returns launchers to default position. Otherwise you can select number of torpedoes to fire per launcher, spread for torpedoes and can activate and deactivate launchers individually. You are shown the current solution % for the target calculated by the director. Also no BS reloading deck launchers during battle (but as noted you can control how many are launched to keep some in reserve). some early underwater tubes actually were trainable using a water proof ball joint. You can see the arc shaped track for setting deflection for the tube on floor of USS Oregon torpedo room: After development of torpedo gyros, the desired angle could be set by gyro and the torpedo launched from a simpler fixed underwater tube.

If that is a necessary minimum then there is something seriously wrong in the game. Or did you mean belt?

Had an extremely boring battle to end a war that illustrates many issues in current version of game. Medium encounter, daytime, cloudy. My 3x BCs and 2x small DDs vs. Brit 1x BB, 2x BC, 1x CL and 3x DD. Appears that immediately after initial encounter (ships are heading toward each other when spotted at approximately 8km, but Brits appear to almost immediately turn away. Never saw more of their ships than the 2x BCs. Possibly the withdrawal was initiated by damage to 1 turret on one of the BCs. Hard to tell, but absurd. Battle then turns into an extremely boring game of borg-targeting destruction of helpless enemy. Tactics consist solely of this: keep my DDs at range where they can see rearmost BC of retreating enemy (approximately 3km) but still can't be seen or hurt by the BC because of magic visibility bubbles, so they are invulnerable yet somehow able to perfectly direct the fire of the entire fleet (just a reminder that remote fire direction by ships not sailing close together in same division against other ships was never a thing in this time period). Now my BCs can all sail at long distance and rain shells down on the BC, correct their aim without being able to see their fall of shot, all without the BC ever shooting back. Continue this for two hours until the "HP" of the hull is stripped away by cumulative hits, finishing it with a long range torpedo shot because I ran out of main gun ammo for BCs and trying to strip the remaining bit of hull away with 6" secondaries from outside of magic visibility bubble was too tedious by far and risked possibly running the clock all the way down. Enemy BC only got few shots in at the very end because of closing closer to edge of visibility bubble to use 6" guns and occasionally crossing it. And yes, the BC was shooting at me even in this state (hull completely red and mostly on fire) because even after all these large caliber hits all of its guns were at 100%! Apparently the gun systems exist in a parallel universe totally separate from the ship itself. I suspect there is something wonky going on here with the zero damage to main tower and all guns. I did lose a DD to bad course click under time compression that brought it closer than the "I can see you, but you can't see me, tee-hee-hee" bubble, at which point every ship in the enemy fleet (most of which I had never even caught a glimpse of) opened up instantly together and wiped it from the sea. Oops. But I still had another DD to direct the borg mind. When all minds are melded into one hive mind, the loss of an individual is meaningless! Long live the borg collective! Note however that even in this state the BC was able to turn about 90 deg. in it's own length to dodge one of the two torpedoes. Bow thrusters clearly! Final outcome, also showing the significant advantage Brits started with: Killing capital ships without even getting shot at is a certainly an appealing way to end a war, but it is boring and has nothing to do with actual naval tactics. What's the fun of a naval sandbox that doesn't give you anything close to the world actual naval tactics developed in to play around with the "what ifs" of naval design and compare and test them against the realities? Now let's consider how this scenario would have worked in reality, setting aside that Brits would never have run and that 8km is probably not a reasonable hard visibility limit for middle of the day cloudy conditions, but it is not totally out of the realm of possibility for the North Sea (although it would likely involve sea level mists / strong haze in addition to cloud cover, i.e. something that directly obscures vision beyond a fixed range for all ships at sea level, not just a reduction in light levels that makes ships somewhat less likely to be seen right away, but not unseeable). If for whatever reason the enemy fleet decides to withdraw, I only have one option: pursue and engage with enough firepower to force an engagement. That means my ships both need to be fast enough to catch the enemy, then engage them with enough firepower that they can't be ignored. If I can bring my firepower to bear, then the enemy can also bring his (if I can see you and shoot you, then you can see me and shoot me, but only on a per ship basis), so they would also need to be sufficiently protected to sustain this engagement long enough for the rest of the fleet to reach a range where they can also see and engage the enemy. The Brits here likely would have had a significant advantage when attempting to retire with their larger guns. I could try and close with my destroyers, but they would not likely survive to get into a position to torpedo a capital ship, which is their only hope of forcing an engagement if my capital ships are not in range to see and engage the enemy, and be seen and engaged in turn by most of his firepower. That would leave me to approach within 8km of the rearmost enemy unit with my foremost BC to gain sight of it and engage. The 8km hard visibility limit then makes this a 1 vs. 1 until more of my units close to a range where they can also see and shoot, so a very up in the air match-up. Furthermore, since I am pursuing and the enemy is retiring, all it would take is a turn by the enemy line to have my lead ship pursuing right into a position where multiple enemy ships might gain visibility and engage, while my lagging units are still catching up (and if their rearmost ship is being sacrificed for the rest of the fleet to escape, then it should aggressively fight the foremost pursuers before the rest catch up). Real tactical decision making would be necessary. But as demonstrated, due to wonky hard visibility bubbles and borg-targeting, no real tactics are necessary. Tedious micromanagement of visibility bubbles is the sole "tactical" concern.

Tried this battle two ways: 1. Attempted to fight the battle. Loaded in to daytime, cloudy battle. Endless chasing of smoke on the horizon. Apparently enemy CL ran before even seeing what it was against. CTRL-ALT-DEL. (And before someone says "well maybe it saw you before you saw it and ran away," if you can see the smoke of another ship, you will see that ship the moment it is visible over the horizon. It can't see you without you seeing it in those conditions.) 2. Auto-resolve: Apparently AI can't run from auto-resolve battles, at least not without fighting first (even though it should clearly run from this encounter, if the logical conditions of knowing what it has encountered are met). Game design that encourages auto-resolve by providing better outcomes or outcomes that are impossible in actually playing the battle is not good. Players should not be encouraged to auto-resolve gameplay, but make that choice as a matter of convenience.

Ah yes. Noted previously, but several of the new French towers: 1. Don't have the lifeboats / davits removed if you try and mount them on the hull in a position where the lifeboats / davits clip with existing hull structure (other towers remove them automatically), thus forcing you to place them very far forward. 2. Don't remove the lifeboats / davits if you try to place an object on the hull or superstructure that would interfere with them after the tower is mounted, contrary to typical functionality where they are just automatically deleted.

You can sometimes get away with this by using "R" and "T" to rotate the gun / turret before placing, for example: But I agree that if a mounting point only offers a more limited arc, the gun / turret should automatically rotate to fit.

It's because they are set as fixed percent of tonnage, not an actual weight based on tonnage. They should just be fixed weights based on the type of equipment. If the equipment is too big for small ships, then it is too big. Equip something smaller even if it is less effective.