akd

Yes, and this is no doubt doubly confusing for new players, but even with the correct visuals in place it would still be a baffling system. If a ship can see my ship at night and fire on it, then the moment it fires it should also be seen. The visible horizon doesn't change at night, just the light levels, and a firing ship is generating its own impossible to miss light. If it is hull up above the visual horizon, it will be seen. If some sort of visual obscurant is present (rain, fog, etc.) then if ship A cannot see ship B, Ship B cannot see ship A. If ship A spots ship B sooner because it can discern objects at that range and ship B is a larger, easier to spot object amidst the obscuration, then again the moment Ship A starts firing it is again equalized. If Ship A can visually discern Ship B to fire on it, then Ship B will see Ship A firing. If neither ship can see because obscuration has completely limited the potential range of vision (think a fog bank), then neither ship should have any chance to see the other until both are within some limit of maximum vision (and only then should relative size modifiers come into play, and only for ships that are not firing).

Of course, but these are warships with dedicated crews allocated to the task and in sufficient numbers to ensure coverage. At least in clear daylight, the idea that it would be the difference of seeing something 5-10k yards sooner is absurd. Even the smallest TB is still a relatively large object (generating even larger clouds of black smoke) relative to the visual horizon and should be seen just as readily by an 1890s B as by a 1930s BB.

Possibly more spotters on average, but also less funnel smoke, so probably works out about the same, at least for conditions where you can see to the horizon.

The idea that spotting distances were lower in the pre-dreadnought era vs. later is bonkers and the real problem. Human eyes and binoculars did not "upgrade" and battleship ship spotters were able to observe roughly the same distances in 1890 and 1930. Only radar changed things significantly (and radar is not visual observation).

@Nick Thomadis the above appears to be a fairly significant error in the ship builder. Is it being looked into?

In UA: Dreadnoughts, it appears to work like this: If ship happens to be listing, it works like this, I think, i.e. the entire side of the ship is "belt" that can neither have its top submerged or bottom exposed and the entire top of the hull is deck armor that is always horizontal: Designer menu selections (citadel design, double hull, torpedo protection, etc.) are just percent modifiers applied to hits.

What is the basis for these fully-enclosed "Mark 1" 5-inch, 6-inch and 7-inch turrets for light cruisers? Not that any gun should be be placed 3 in a row on the front or back like that, but these look especially silly.

I'm inclined to think that there is a chance of magazine detonation from aft and fore armor penetrations even if there aren't guns in those areas based on some past experiences. But it is indeed not variable. Mouse over enemy ships and you will easily see the distribution of main vs. fore/after armor based on the colored penetration chance preview. It appears to just be simply assigned to the 2 foremost and 2 aftmost columns of damage "compartments." (note: the top row shows deck, not side armor) Fired up a quick custom battle and you can see here that the enemy BB has his aftmost main turret completely in the area of weaker aft belt armor and his foremost main turret partially overlapping the fore belt area. Likewise my own auto-designed BB has both the foremost and rearmost main turrets entirely within the fore and aft belt sections.

I thought it was a bug that would have been fixed by now, but still seems baked into the shipbuilder: why are we not able to mount 6" (152mm) secondary guns or casemate guns on armoured cruisers? All the British and German armoured cruisers and first-class protected cruisers (can't really build the latter in game, even though it was the primary large cruiser type in 1890-1900) had either secondary batteries of 6" guns (5.8" / 149mm for Germans) or a unified batter of 6" in guns, in either case with most of the 6" guns usually mounted in casemates. Just look at Navypedia listings: British armoured cruisers and 1st class protected cruisers from Imperieuse (1886) through Duke of Edinburgh (1906): https://navypedia.org/ships/uk/uk_cruisers.htm All German armoured cruisers (and one large protected cruiser): https://navypedia.org/ships/germany/ger_cruisers.htm It's literally every ship! (I think, might have skimmed over some odd man out).

There doesn't seem to be a way to undo ship building when you are building a starting fleet. Just had to abandon a new game after a few hours designing because I accidentally built 6 Bs when I meant to build 6 cruisers. I tried scrapping, but this did not seem to return the starting funds, instead only a fraction (as if I were scrapping existing ships before the game has even begun). I would suggest that scrapping ships when building a legacy fleet simply return the spent funds in full.

A good article: "One of the biggest problems is that the use of the term ‘barbette’ was and is incredibly sloppy." I think the game sees it in the most modern terms, i.e. the armored tube (above or below deck) that a turret (in modern terms) is on top of. Of course in practice in game it is either a 3D bit that lets you put turrets in different relative positions that has no known armor value (maybe it is derived from some other value?) and for which hits / destruction are determined in some obscure way, or it is a stat-modifying menu selection that has no real connection to the actual armor design of the ship.

95% of new players aren't going to check the weather conditions (which doesn't even show you anything unless you mouse over it) and assume that the 3D environment reflects the conditions. This, combined with an already very confusing spotting system, will cause huge amounts of confusion and frustration. I would strongly recommend removing any weather / time conditions that the needed art / effects are not ready for yet from the battle generator, lest this truly bomb on Steam. There are lots of unfinished and unpolished aspects of the game, but this is baffling.

It's not perfect, but the system used in RTW2 is more consistent, easier to understand and produces more authentic gameplay (directly connected to the technology and tactics of the time). And in concert with more logical starting positions for battles based on conditions, it also produces gameplay with much better tempo.

No, especially when, e.g., a small ship pops into view at close range and suddenly fire is raining down on my ship all at once from unseen / unseeable foes, even more so when that happens and I haven't even seen an enemy ship yet. That gives me very different feelings about "tempo."

This is some extremely convoluted rationalization that isn't even consistent with how things actually work out in the game, even if it were desirable. A byzantine, unintuitive visibility system is not a good way to govern game tempo.

oops, meant to edit, not post

Or maybe unless you are able to use the cover of darkness / obscuration*, small combatants should have to work in concert with a fleet to survive a close approach against the far greater firepower of capital ships? *Ironically, the current system actually has the opposite effect. Let's say you want to make a surprise attack on capital ships at night with torpedo boats. Sure, you can get close before being spotted (which is how low visual signature should work in concert with obscured visual conditions, although you should also need to keep your speed down), but then the moment you are spotted by any ship every gun in the opposing fleet instantly engages your TB because there is no relative spotting and there is nothing else spotted on the map for them to engage.

Another RTW2 exercise, but now with day / "poor" weather selected for scenario. Result is only low clouds (so not crazy poor like rain or fog). Max visibility for day is 15,000 yards, for night 4,000 yards. Visual limit for Bs at start of scenario at 2pm is 15,000 yards, for DDs 11,500 yards. The opposing B is spotted at the edge of the visual limit (there can be no beyond visual limit spotting of smoke columns because the visual limit is less than the horizon). Opposing DDs are first spotted somewhat inside the visual limit of my B (and this make sense as visual signature / size matters more when vision is degraded to less than the horizon). Weather conditions later change to overcast and max visibility increases to 21,000 yards, presumably because the earlier "low clouds" conditions were assumed to accompanied by more sea level moisture / mists), but max night visibility drops to 3,500 yards (presumably because ambient moon / star light is blocked more by overcast conditions). 1 hour before dusk B visibility is 21,000 yards, DD 16,800 yards. Note that even in overcast / low clouds day conditions all these early ships are able to see all targets beyond the maximum range of their guns. At twilight with weather remaining overcast, visual circle for B drops to 13,000 yards, for the Ds 10,800 yards. Then with the onset of night (accompanied by a slight increase in the max day sighting range to 22,500 yards and night to 4,000 yards due to some small change in conditions) the B and D both have their visual sighting circles limited to 4,300 yards. Note that in these extremely restricted visual conditions, the greater height of the spotters in the B no longer provides any relative advantage in spotting distance, compared to the nearly 6,000 yard advantage in clear day conditions with clear vision all the way to the horizon. There are no visual spotting upgrades to ships at any time in the RTW2 timeframe, as spotters working with eyeballs and standard optics remained the primary means of acquiring targets until the advent of radar, which was of course a revolution, not a gradual upgrade.

Bow thrusters perk? 😂

Increasing fore deck / belt armor values is decreasing fore weight offset % (but bizarrely it will also decrease an aft weight offset %). The opposite is also true, i.e. increasing aft deck / belt armor is decreasing aft weight offset %. Finally, if you have the ship set up with no offset % fore or aft, you can increase fore/aft belt/deck armor to any value without affecting weight offset. Something is either broken or communicated very counter-intuitively.

Would be nice to see some tactics when withdrawing instead of just constantly turning to face away from nearest unit, but without real smoke the possibilities are limited.

Early torpedoes did not run straight at all (nor were they necessarily very good at holding the right depth), and did not reliably detonate at low impact angles. I agree that the damage from early torpedoes is about right, but they are far to reliable. If the "box" that is associated with the engine machinery is destroyed (red), the engine damage is permanent. The problem with torpedo boats is that shells of all calibers (small to large) and types (AP and HE) always over penetrate, so it is really hard to deliver the necessary damage to destroy a "box" and its associated components unless you hit them with very, very big calibers (such that even the over pen damage can still destroy). Even AP shells should not over pen if they are passing down the length of the ship or at lower angles in general, but currently all shells always over pen no matter type, caliber or angle. It's like the only over pen calculation is whether or not the shell's initial contact is with a no / low armor location, nothing else is considered.

This. A thousand times this. I will note that in RTW2, there is a max surface visibility range for the map based on current time / weather conditions, but that different ships have different visual ranges. However, I believe this is simply decided by broad class, not by individual ship properties, i.e. battleship / heavy cruiser visibility equals the listed max surface visibility for the map, light cruiser a bit a less, destroyers the least. Just fired up RTW2 and started a fleet exercise with pre-built 1900 ships. Conditions: Day / Clear. Day Visibility = 28,000 yards (I believe that this can max out at 31,500 yards, but there are variations in even in clear conditions). Night visibility = 5,000 yards. The Bs (pre-dreadnoughts) have their visibility ring (i.e. distance to horizon) out to 28,000 yards, the DDs to 22,400 yards. Encounter starts with closest enemy vessel a bit outside the farthest (battleship) visibility ring, unidentified, but with an exact location on the map. I believe they can only be identified if brought within the horizon ring. Radar is a separate sensor with its own "ring," i.e. radar does not extend visual detection range. I also, I believe ships must be able to see a target themselves to fire on it in RTW2. No using other ships as spotters. The whole system is much simpler, clearer, and much more authentic to the time and tactics.

The deck and belt armor are part of the citadel, so this doesn't quite make sense. Of course you could have complex arrangements with multiple decks of different armor thicknesses, or plates behind the the exterior belt armor, but at its core the citadel is formed by the primary belt and deck armor. What is crucially missing in the game is: actually different armor arrangements, especially protected cruiser scheme that was of huge importance in 1890. bulkhead armor settings to set the thickness of the fore and aft ends of the citadel, making all or nothing armoring possible.

Rescueing crew would be a better task for torpedo boats / small destroyers than the silly multiple torpedo reloads, particularly in a campaign context.