Iuvenalis

Still having the same problem

I didn't have it happen to me, but I noticed the enemy ships losing crew mysteriously within seconds of the battle starting and when we were no where near each other

Also you seem to need to keep the design if you have active ships of that class.

Same problem. Beat the 1890 campaign for both but can't unlock anything. Given the limited development during that period, it is kind of a downer to no be able to move on.

Ah, got it, thanks! Bug still exists about not unlocking the next time period though

@Nick Thomadis EDIT: I just restarted the game and saw there was another patch to update, but still can't select any other time period. Will play another campaign and see if it is still broken. so I achieved a minor victory as both the british and germans in the 1890 campaign, but I didn't unlock the next time period for either. Both times it seemed a little wonky. As the british, the germans offered a peace treaty, I accepted and the war didn't end. A turn or two later they offered again and I accepted and then it ended. As the germans, the british offered a treaty and I selected fight to the end. The game ended saying they accepted peace.

Love the little bit a got to try so far, but can someone help me out with some of the mechanics of the campaign map? Why should I put a ship in port A vs port B? Do I need to "defend" each port? Do certain ports cover certain sectors of the sea? (Ex. my English channel ports only enter English channel battles?) What does the "In being" vs. "Sea Control" choice do in game? (I understand the real life concepts) If there's a guide post I missed and should be reading, point me to it. Other than that, a solid start, Nick!

Sounds like someone needs more fast cruisers!

I remember playing Silent Hunter 3, 4 and 5 on full realism and feeling like a big shot, manually calculating my shooting solutions with a high degree of accuracy with my paper and pen. Then I read about the insane calculations that go into naval gunnery and realized I was playing in the junior leagues...

It is more than just the range to the target, it is the target itself and how it is behaving. Large calibre guns train and elevate very, very slowly in the pre-dreadnought period and with a relatively poor amount of precision. Meanwhile, torpedo boats of the period were very small and for the period very fast at 24ish kts. They also would have a nasty habit of not simply motoring along in a straight line while you try to blow them up. Combine that with anything but flat seas and you can begin to see how aiming and hitting a target, even at close range, becomes very difficult. In fact, the close range may actually make it MORE difficult at a certain point. Your target may only occupy a fraction of a degree of your field of view because of its size, yet because of its speed it may move faster through your field of view (in degrees/sec) than your guns can accurately train and elevate. This actually isn't that surprising since the guns you're talking about were never designed to be used against these targets anyway. Think of those crane arcade games where you try to line up the claw to get the prize. (It's right there! You can see it. Oop, nope to far to the right, oh, no too far to the left now, try going back, oh, no now I think you're too far forward. Aannnd you missed...) Now image the prize is moving around and very small. That's what it is like trying to aim a pre-dreadnought large calibre battleship gun at tiny, torpedo boat. If you're finding yourself frustrated by torpedo boats charging up against your helpless BBs, then you probably need better secondary batteries and even more importantly a better fleet screen of cruisers to detect the TBs and allow you to evade and destroy them. Also, if you have fleet screens engaging them they probably will dump their torpedoes at them who should stand a much better change of taking evasion actions. For reference, here is the US TB-1 (USS Cushing). Now image trying to hit it in the sea state of the second picture of a German torpedo boat in 1915. In anything but clam seas your target is going to be disappearing behind swells while bobbing and weaving. Hitting it with a big calibre gun is no easy task!

Here's hoping!

It's tomorrow Good news?

Turn down the graphics. I play on relatively low settings on a laptop and it runs fine unless I make a battle with an insane number of ships. You may, however, be disappointed if you're here just for the Civil War content. It's only available in two missions and it is very limited. That said, if you like that period of naval history, the game picks up again at the end of the ironclad era/beginning of the pre-dreadnought era so it may be a fun way to explore a new era!

^Oh, no, they served a purpose, undoubtedly. I was specifically talking about captial ships in mid to late WW2. The 5"/38 served a purpose on large ships during that time, but as the war evolved they were used for AA duty far more than anti-surface. There are no aircraft in UA:D so that was my terrible joke about them being useless.

Very much so. In terms of the OP's original question, yes, secondaries should be useless by the time Iowa was commissioned in 1943. Although designed as dual purpose guns, the Iowa's (and other large ships armed with secondary batteries of the 5"/38) doctrine for them had shifted and they were expected to do mostly AA duty. If surface combatants got close enough to something like the Iowa to be using the 5" guns, it would have meant a failure of the fleet screen. Since there are no aircraft in UA:D, then yes, they should be useless, no? haha

Correct, but it was a sliding scale over time. You're describing what was basically the "end" of naval artillery development in the 20th century as a primary armament, missiles taking center stage in the 1950s and onward. (Yes, I know development continued and guns are still used today, but they're generally not the main armament of a major surface combatant). The better the targeting tech got, the less important it was, and the less likely you would be salvo firing with secondaries.

To my knowledge, salvo firing was historically very important, particularly the longer out your range is. Secondary batteries did engage in salvo firing. This was one of the disadvantages of a secondary battery (or any battery) of mixed calibres, or having different batteries of guns too close in calibre. For example, a pre-dreadnought carrying 12" main guns and 6" secondary guns firing at a target a few thousand yards away could easily spot and discern a 12" splash from a 6" splash and the crew members directing fire for each battery could adjust. Now take something like USS Virginia, BB-13, (ridiculous superimposed turret layout aside) which had an intermediate battery of 8" guns between the other two calibres and try to hit a target 12,000 yards away. Suddenly those 6" and 8" splashes get blurred together. Batteries of guns also did engage in rapid fire. This could and did happen for a variety of reasons, including things like the enemy being at point blank range where fire control was not necessary to score a hit, or having your fire control equipment disabled and having to locally aim the guns. In the latter, without the ability to centralize fire, increasing your chance to hit through rate of fire becomes a viable option versus more carefully trying to zero in salvo by salvo. To your point, it has always bothered me that it seems the "aggressive" stance for guns doesn't seem to do anything. The "Save" option will cease fire if the hit probability drops too low, but "Normal" seems to just fire at maximum range anyway. I think the "aggressive" stance should do as you say ignore all fire control and lose the accuracy bonuses but pump rounds out at a faster pace. This could be an interesting option in situations where you're badly damaged, have a disabled bridge or fire control, or the enemy is so close you're at or near 100% chance to hit and want to give a sort of "fire at will" command. While wasteful, it worked for Dewey! "You may fire when ready, Gridley" - Admiral George Dewey, Manila Bay, 1898

This is a much better representation of my reaction. lol

And we all laughed at the AI for designing ships with every small caliber of gun in a mix of single, twin and triple mounts... guess there IS a reason for it!

*Enters room* ... *Shakes head and leaves room*

Doubtful. Plus, the time period covered by the game would require you to basically make multiple games, late 19th C, WWI, WW2, etc.

I don't agree with that at all. The developers have put a lot of work into giving this game depth. I think the game allows you explore different designs for different situations utilizing different solutions that will create advantages and disadvantages depending on your playstyle and tactics. I don't think there is one "right answer" to ship design. If the answer to every ship design was just "BIG GUN GO BOOM!" then it wouldn't be very fun. I concede that where I said "I'm actually better off..." I should have said "I actually MAY be better off...". There are situations where your "Bigger is Better" philosophy will work and there are plenty where it will fail. Let's take this to the extreme as an example. You advocate the largest calibre possible, which basically answers OP's question by saying "yes, secondaries are useless". By your logic, a battleship design should have as many 20" barrels as possible and no other armament. I challenge you to make that design (on a reasonable ship size, not a 150k ton meme-boat) and pit yourself against a fleet of CLs and DDs. I think you'll find you'll knock a few out and soon then be eating torpedoes faster than you can chew. You're also mistaken in some of your assumptions. For example, your 2nd paragraph is flat out incorrect. I encourage you to look through the tables on various guns in different years/tech levels. An 8" does not always have better accuracy at a given range than say a 5". Also, to put it as kindly as I can, your point about overpens and HE doesn't make any sense, as I never advocated smaller guns to avoid HE overpen. Lastly, I based my comment on my experience getting overpens and was speaking to OPs original question about fighting off light cruisers at close range. You can tell me all you want that I'm wrong, but when I use a bunch of big guns with penetration oriented components against light ships, I get plenty of overpens. I was offering my experience and thoughts to OP to give ideas. After all, one of the fun factors of this game is supposed to be experimentation. My suggestions worked for me in the battles that I played and I had fun implementing them.

So there's quite a bit to digest here... For the purpose of your question, I'm assuming you're talking about secondaries on a capital ship (BB or BC). 1. Mission: It depends on what you're using the ship for. Naval academy missions to me are basically puzzles with a narrow goal, so unlike a realistic design that must be versatile for whatever may come, I found in these missions I was often making a big-gun armor tub, as the missions often involve killing specific capital ships and I just kept the speed up enough to dodge any fleet screen. I think when the campaign comes out, we all going to find ourselves buildings more balanced ships, as the specific goals will shift over time and designs will need to match up against a variety of enemies across different engagements. Secondary batteries will certainly become more of a necessity then. 2. Enemy Design and Armour: While a "Light Cruiser" does have some limitations build into it in the game, it still depends on the ship you are hitting. The AI will sometimes build some pretty heavily armored designs at which point if your 6" guns are hitting at longer range and the enemy is dancing around in a while where you're hitting at sharp angles, you're far more likely to have ricochets, partial-pens, and blocks. 3. Your component choices and ammo type in battle: After the last update, your combination of propellant, explosive charge and shell weight (Lght, Standard, Hvy, Spr-Hvy) matter more than ever, particularly when selecting your ammo type in battle. I tend to design my ships around penetration, as wells as my own safety. I'm generally going to fire AP shells, since I'd rather go for that critical hit to the magazine or engines. When it comes time to sling HE against lighter targets, I'm at a disadvantage. With that many floodings and little structure damage, I'm going to guess you may have had a similar setup. 4. Your caliber choice: Bigger isn't always better. As I said, I tend to choose setups that are geared toward better penetration. If I happen to come up against a very lightly armored target, I'm actually better off hitting with a smaller gun. A 6"-8" gun, especially at close range, may just be punching a pair of small holes in one side of the ship and out the other, the over-penetration just causing minor and quickly remedied flooding. On the contrary, in the same scenario smaller 4" or 5" shells may penetrate, detonate and deal full damage. So are they useless? I'd say not. Though they may not be effective against all targets, no gun is. In your design you had 12" main guns, so I would have gone with a lighter, faster firing secondary battery for the close in work. If I'm not penetrating, then I'll have a ROF advantage when I switch to HE. Last note, pay attention to the stats on each caliber when choosing your secondaries (or any gun). Depending on the year and the tech levels, etc, there are often "sweet spots" terms of accuracy, dmg/ton, rof/ton, DPS/ton. (IE, in a given year, a 5" gun may be more accurate and put out more damage over time than the guns above it per ton)

Thanks for the reply. The launcher wasn't still running. I had completely rebooted the system. I think if the whole system crashes it seems your DRM in the launcher doesn't recognize that the game has stopped running. You can logout/close the launcher and restart it and it still thinks the game is running and prevents you from launching it. This seems to time-out after about 10 or 15 mins and then restarting the launcher allows you to start the game normally.