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Abuse_Claws

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Everything posted by Abuse_Claws

  1. This! It's been a problem since forever, so much so that usually 90% of my attention during a battle is focused on ensuring that my BBs stay on the designated target. Please add "stay on target" firing mode, where the ship will not switch targets unless target is sunk or the player manually selects a new target (EDIT: or if the target goes out of sight I guess, although even then I'd implement a waiting period of a few seconds in case the enemy pops back in sight). Even if the ship is at the moment unable to fire at designated target, please let it stay on it. Even if it still loses the aim bonus due to whatever whatever, just make it so we can tell a ship not to switch fire from an enemy BB 10km away to some crippled CL 16km away that will immediately pop smoke and disappear when fired upon, thus triggering yet another target switch. Also of note, can we please have some way not to alter the course of the ship while trying to select targets? It's *SOOOO* annoying to try and pixelhunt an enemy ship 20km away only to realize you accidentally changed course 4 times in the process and your ship is now headed directly at the enemy while this was never the intention
  2. As the devs said in the FAQ thread, the AI does not cheat. Maybe the AI uses smaller torps to improve reliability and sometimes designs ship with good gun accuracy, but overall in my experience (700+ hours across updates since early beta) I'd say the AI has never cheated, maybe with torp dodging a little bit in some updates (to match the player being able to spot torps before they are *spotted* as per game mechanics), but not in the current state of the game, I don't think At the moment, the only thing difficulty affects is money, so I'd suggest playing US/France/Britain on Normal difficulty as a stand-in for 'Easy'. On the other hand, playing, say, AH on Normal difficulty is closer to 'Hard', as it has very little money compared to the US As a game developer myself (not working on UAD or for Gamelabs at all, to be clear) I can tell you that adding multiplayer to a game that didn't have it originally is a GIGANTIC pain in the ass. I wouldn't expect multiplayer to come anytime soon, maybe in like UAD 2 or even UAD: Online, if something like that ever happens, but not in the first game. I think that kind of goes against the whole point of Naval Academy as a set of progressively more difficult challenges to help you learn ship design and combat management. I haven't played much in the last update, but it used to be just as (if not more) likely to produce slow thick bricks, as speedboats. Maybe with the new armor limits in place the devs forgot to adjust the armor thickness selection of the AI, idk. Dictatorships existed well before 1915 (case in point: Paraguay). The history in the campaign is not exactly equivalent to the real world, nor do I think it should be, as otherwise we would get the same sequence of events in every playthrough Again, a huge feature that I wouldn't expect to come before UAD 2 if ever. I don't think Age of Sail was a big success, so I'm not sure how many of the features of that game the devs are willing to copy to UAD. Sadly, treaties of this kind (or even Washington-style naval treaties) are not part of the game. Would be nice to get a Politics DLC of some kind with more intricate (and less random) campaign politics, including treaties
  3. That would be me vs the Spanish small DDs I mentioned above xD That is literally how that fight went more or less, with me spending a few in-game hours and burning through the entire 1k HE 12" rounds I had just to sink 20 fast bois Honestly - the most thrilling battle in UAD I've had in months. But I get what you're saying. Still, there should be some balance point between IRL "3% accuracy of the German fleet at Jutland was regarded as a display of outstanding marksmanship for the era" and the current in-game "The hyper-intelligent 16 inch shell will hunt you down from extreme range no matter what you do! You can run, but you can't hide! Coming soon to cinemas near you!"
  4. True, though that penalty is not nearly enough I'd say. Gun accuracy is too good in general I think, with some designs genuinely behaving like missile cruisers, achieving 60+% accuracy at like 40km range, whereas IRL the longest recorded naval artillery hit was 24km iirc. That was in early 1.4 updates though, maybe they fixed that in 1.4.0.7-9 EDIT: it was earlier than I remember, 1.3.9.9 actually EDIT (x2): https://imgur.com/a/Nj5nW4V
  5. I think that's still hull-dependent, right? Like, for more streamlined hulls the doubling point should be higher. And then also what's the displacement here? In-game the Italian Large Cruiser II hull I used for this test has 38.5kn "max optimal speed" and 105 "hull form", while the American Fast BB hull (which I presume should represent the Iowa?) has 32kn "max optimal speed" and 82 "hull form", whatever those are. So the super-cruiser is much, much more streamlined than Iowa and also has significantly larger length to beam ratio from the looks of it at least. If IRL Iowa could reach 35kn with her hull being rated 32kn in game, I guess such a hull as the Large Cruiser II could in theory reach 40 with 38.5kn rating - although whether such a perfectly streamlined hull is technically possible is a huge question
  6. I did cross-torp them, but messed up the timing big time. One of the BCs still just waltzed right into torpedo soup, ate about 8 and sank. I can't say whether there was a way out for her, as I was more focused on getting my DDs the hell away safely. Maybe just the sheer number of torps made escape impossible, IDK Sequence firing would be nice, yes. I remember some designs from UAD letsplays where say triples and quads were used on the same ship to try and make them fire separately with some gimmicks, so that their reload cycles would de-sync and then they could be fired one group after another, something to that effect. Also I wonder if acoustic torps would be fun or break the game. Another point is, I don't think you can quite dodge shells the same way you dodge torps in UAD. Shells have a hit chance, where target speed and maneuver are just modificators. So if I'm not mistaken, if the enemy ship fired with say 80% accuracy and you then proceed to make a sharp turn and head away from the original point of aim, you still have an 80% chance of eating that shell. Am I wrong? IDK the exact mechanics for this. Whereas torps you can actually see in the water and turn away, even before the exclamation point thingy appears if you pay attention. With hand-targeting you can usually persuade the ship to stay on target and keep gaining accuracy long enough to achieve hits on AI DDs. For example, when the AI tries to surround my ship with two groups of DDs, I usually turn to tangentially approach one of them and keep targeting the closest enemy DD in that group no matter what. This way, the futher flank of the enemy fleet is kept at range by their own maneuver, while the other flank can't get too close either, because the closest ship keeps getting destroyed time and again until there's none left. Usually works if I'm focused enough to spot and dodge enemy torps in time. The other option being just running away at flank speed and also always targeting the closest ship to slow down the enemy approach. And when enemy DDs go on reload, I can come back and strike down a couple before running again. Rinse and repeat until there are no more DDs. Why the AI keeps switching targets every two seconds is honestly beyond me. This happens sometimes even in capital ship battles, where the battle lines sort of just sail in a straight line, so there's exactly zero reason to switch. If the AI was just better at staying on target, it would be a much more challenging opponent IMO.
  7. First test for me controlling the DDs: 10 Japanese giga-TBs vs 5 Italian super-cruisers 4 cruisers sunk for 1 sunk and 3 damaged DDs. The last cruiser escaped (the only two DDs of mine with torps left were damaged and could not properly chase down the enemy BC due to the speed penalty) IDK if AI got worse at dodging torps or what, but the AI BCs seemed not to even change course before being hit with torp salvoes. On the other hand, the AI somehow detected my DDs a bit further away than when I did the opposite test (20-25km, sometimes even up to 30 vs 15-20km back then) EDIT: Also, the AI kept switching targets like every two salvoes, so that's why the BCs couldn't hit shit and that's why I have to constantly wrestle with auto-targeting when playing big gun ships myself
  8. This is what I came up with for my "smaller DD" design. Mixed feelings - on one hand, it's extremely expensive for a 1300t torpedo boat, on the other hand - it's much harder to spot, and those pesky little ships appearing out of fog and smoke less than 10km away is genuinely scary. However, I did manage to beat twenty of them - on my second attempt, that is. In the first run I got a bit too complacent, got ambushed, ate a dozen torps and sank after destroying only 3 enemy DDs (still technically cost-effective, but not impressive by any standards). In the second battle I had to muster all my concentration, skill and patience. I still ate 4 torps for a total of 2.8k damage, but carefully timed hit'n'run attacks did the trick. Maybe I could've won against the giga-TBs too with the same tactics, but that I will find out some other day
  9. Actually, we don't know. The BC concept was largely abandoned after the Jutland fireworks, some BCs being converted into BBs or carriers, other spending the rest of their service life in what the game describes as "Limited" state, and HMS Hood, well, following the trail of her predecessors. The only post-1920 BCs that actually saw service were the Alaska-class ships (not counting Soviet missile cruisers). Also, with the development of carriers and torpedo bombers, fast capital ships lost a lot of their meaning: you can't exactly outrun a Swordfish squadron. You needed a shit ton of AAA on your ship more than you needed speed Also also, the Washington and London treaties happened IRL, which severely limited any BC development: you couldn't exactly label them as cruisers due to tonnage and the capital ship tonnage limit meant that building modern BCs just to see whether the concept works was not an option even for rich nations. All three factors aren't really applicable in the game: planes don't exist, naval treaties are not a thing and if you don't use cordite/dunnite combo with insufficient barbette protection, your BCs won't go boom. The one modern BC that did get (mostly) completed (Stalingrad) had a top speed of 35.5kn at 40k ton displacement (whereas my BC for this test has 40kn at 34k ton displacement). Now, sure, the gap between 35 and 40kn is harder to close than one between 30 and 35, logarithmic scale and all that. But consider a world, where BC development went unhindered all across the globe. Constant search for improvement and competition between nations, Air Force doesn't exist at all, so a bigger percentage of military spending goes to the Navy and related research. No carriers are needed, so there's more room in dockyards for artillery ships. Is it possible under such conditions that a 40kn 30k+ ton BC is developed? I'd say yes. Another thing to consider: unlike planes (where more engine mass means more lift is needed) and cars (where more engine mass means more friction), more mass in a ship doesn't neccessarily increase water resistance: you can (to a reasonable extent) make a ship longer. In theory, as long as the hull structure holds, you can increase the engine weight (and hence top speed) quite a bit on a ship, if you are willing to make it larger and more expensive. USS Iowa at light load could almost match the speed of USS Fletcher (35.2kn vs 36.5kn) despite being about 23 times larger in displacement. And you can't exactly call Iowa just a speedboat - it was a 16" BB with decent armor and a whole load of secondaries, plus spotter planes and later helis.
  10. I'm trying to eliminate factors one by one. Now we see, that AI designs were responsible for some of the effect, although it should be noted that the DDs I built are much more expensive. I also wanted to iterate through DD designs to see what works, so than I can use more successful ships when I switch to the DD side. I also want to do one more test vs AI light ships to see if a smaller DD design will work (minimal dimensions, max speed and say 2 quint launchers, still oxygen torps and radar III), as the capital ship will have a hard time detecting them. They should also be quite a bit cheaper, so when doing the "same cost" battle, they wouldn't find themselves in a 10v5. Then I will probably do two tests playing for the DD side (one for the Japanese super-DDs and one for a swarm of smaller DDs). As the AI is indeed not great and will probably blunder a single BC immediately, I will do this test in the "same cost" format, so 10 super-DDs vs 5 BC super-cruisers and presumably 20v5 for the smaller DDs, IDK since I haven't built those yet. BTW, if you wish to help with these, I can show you my BC design. It might be better, as you are more well-versed in light ship tactics than I am. Actually, I don't think that's the case anymore. Huge props to the devs, the AI can now sometimes produce a real threat. In my 1915v1920 attempt, the AI-controlled light ships did pretty well and ate me for dinner, while still being AI designed too. The cost comparison there was certainly on the AI side too. This doesn't happen often, but sometimes the AI finds its game and valiantly fights back. Also of note, when I'm saying "light ships are useless" what I mean is "all the tactical applications for light ships in late game are either obsolete or better performed by capital ships, particularly BC-based fast cruiser killers and/or frigates". What are those tactical applications? ASW - best left to the frigates. Why? Maths. Frigates are dirt cheap, you can build dozens and dozens, and you need the numbers to bring up the average. You can build a 2622 ASW frigate for 20-25 mil, so at least 5 of them for the cost of even a cheap universal DD, let alone super-DDs such as ones used above, which cost 1.6B apiece Mining/sweeping - same thing, frigates are the best tool due to numbers. Even when I run normal light ships in my campaigns, I still use frigates to perform ASW and mine duties, so that I can remove all that gear from battle-line light ships. Spotting - as we can see, it is more or less obsolete by the late game. radar-equipped capital ships can spot even large DDs at 20km in Overcast weather. With clear weather or larger enemy ships it's even further, super-BBs sometimes can be detected at extreme range like 40+km. That's enough for me honestly. Sure, there may be some tactical advantage in using dedicated light spotter ships, but they would need to be manually controlled at all times with extreme care so they themselves are not detected and destroyed. And I need my full attention for dodging torps and wrestling with the AI auto-targeting on my capital ships. Keeping enemy light ships at bay - as demonstrated by the test above, the super-cruisers do this quite well. A squadron of them can pulverize enemy light ships before they can harm my capital ships, while being quite cost-effective and not suffering partial losses: even if my BC is beat up, it still can be repaired, and since most of the crew survives, the training level doesn't drop that much when crew is replenished from reserves. In contrast, if say 3/10 DDs are lost, they are dead, and so is their crew. Hunting enemy capital ships with torps. Honestly, this one is mostly a matter of personal taste. Doesn't really matter if the enemy BB is sunk with big guns or torps, as long as it is sunk and you haven't lost your ships. The last batch of tests (player DDs vs AI super-cruisers, maybe also player DDs vs regular AI BBs just for the fun of it) is specifically aimed to test this application. Keep in mind, the sentiment is applicable both ways: are light ships any good for the player in the late game and are they any good for the AI? The second part may even be more important: while the players can build whatever they personally prefer and are best at controlling, what the AI builds impacts greatly the level of challenge it presents. You said it yourself, most of the time the AI doesn't feel like a hard opponent to beat. It's more about "how long will it take me to beat this giant AI fleet", whether it is possible or not isn't much of a question. Among other things, I'm trying to look for ways the AI may be improved.
  11. Nope, I'm still controlling the BC, but the AI-controlled DDs are now hand-designed
  12. Made some tweaks to my ship (reduced armor slightly here and there to get Sonar III and Increased ammo). Killed 16/20 DDs before going down, that's roughly 8 times the cost of my ship. Honestly, it may be possible to tweak the BC even more to combat those giga-TBs, but I want to still keep the BC campaign-viable and versatile, so I don't want to say cut the range to add a larger anti-torp belt Edit: also I could've removed the 2" guns and try to squeeze in 1 extra grade of torpedo belt instead, but I want to keep the AA battery if only for the looks Edit (x2): I also calculated the costs without crew (as in the campaign you can't just buy a veteran crew), it's still about 2 DDs for the price of one BC
  13. Dropped some range and reduced hull to double bottom, in exchange made launchers quint instead of quad, switched to oxygen torps, installed RDF and Gen III Radar. Oh, and upped shaft to III because I had some displacement left. Sure, this time I've lost the fight, but only after taking down 10 enemy DDs with me and severely damaging 4 more. Keep in mind, those DDs cost 1.6b each, v.s 3.2b for my ship, so I took down more or less 5 times the cost of my ship (more than that if you count the crippled DDs). Oxygen torps seem to work... As long as the DDs can get in range, that is. Most of the damage was taken after I ran out of HE shells, so possibly with Increased ammo the result would've been a bit different. Also of note, I only have Sonar I on my ship, as the AI usually does not go THAT much torpedo-heavy. Might change that too, give me a minute
  14. Okay, 20 of those dealt a grand total of 10 damage to my BC. Apparently, they are too large, and me spotting them at 20+km even in overcast weather means they're toast before they even realise what hit them
  15. @GrantK can you please show me a DD design of yours for 1940 Japan. Haven't designed late-game DDs for so long, I honestly don't remember how to do it well anymore. Experimental DD hull, 3x4x24" torps and maximize speed I guess? EDIT: Is this fine or should I change something? https://imgur.com/a/SGkfGio
  16. With late-game super-cruisers having 40kn top speed the difference is really not enough, considering the detection range with radar. Long-range torpedo spam proved ineffective, especially considering the fact I was playing on x5 the whole time, so my reaction time was extremely limited, and yet I still managed to dodge most if not all torps. Sadly, PvP is not a feature UAD has, so we have to rely solely on human vs AI tests (or AI vs AI, but that is not quite representative of how the game is actually played). I can try designing the DDs myself and also switching sides, will post on that here when I get to it
  17. I tried the same test in 1915 (vs 1920 light ships) and got demolished. Twice, actually (tried two different designs, one BC-based and one BB-based). No radar, no autoloader, no sonar - the AI light ships swarmed and destroyed my poor creations quite efficiently actually. I did manage to beat 20 DDs both times, but with extreme effort and heavy damage to my ship, anything above that - forget it. And the cost ratio was not in my favor this time. It seems that specifically in the late game light ships are weak - at least under AI control, but here's the thing: I can't effectively control 40 ships at once. If I play with 40 light ships instead of 1-2 capital ships, they will mostly be AI-controlled anyway
  18. So I decided to test, whether my disdain for late-game light ships was reasonable I've designed an Italian 1935 BC (Large cruiser II hull, 3.2b total cost, 40kn speed, 4x4x12" guns, 2" secondaries mostly for looks, pretty much max everything, 16-8.4-4.4" Turtleback armor scheme). I did give myself veteran crew, as most of the time by late game I tend to have veteran crews on my capital ships. Keep in mind, that I did it in Custom Battles, so the enemy light ships were not encumbered with depth charges/mines/sweeping kits. This is pretty much a normal ship type that I tend to run in my campaigns with small variations. Now, one mistake I did make was taking increased HE and base-fused HE shells. Normal type distribution and some type of capped HE shells would've probably been more effective. The enemy got a 5 year tech advantage (to accomodate for faster construction and refits of small ships), also I set the weather to Overcast, so that enemy light ships and torpedoes were somewhat harder to spot. All enemy ships were autodesigned by the AI, as I was to lazy to do it myself. Also, the enemy was Japan every time, as they have the best late-game DDs IMO and I was too lazy to switch the enemy country for the CLs 1BC vs 10DD: Flawless victory, 0 damage taken. Haven't even seen a single torpedo in the water. The enemy DDs were extremely cheap at 156m each, so I destroyed about half the cost of my ship without so much as breaking a sweat. 1BC vs 21DD: (as the last time the DDs were about 21 times cheaper than my ship). This time I did receive 1.2k damage, mostly from the two torps I ate in the end when I got bored and sailed straight between two blobs of DDs, putting myself into torpedo soup. This time, however, the enemy DDs were MUCH more expensive at 1.8b each, so I destroyed about 10 times the cost of my ship while my BC was only lightly scratched (and even that mostly because I got cocky) 1BC vs 40DD: Alright, despite my best efforts the horde of DDs swarmed my lonely ship and sank it by turning water into lava with their torps... Just kidding. I won again, while receiving 3.1k damage. 2.2k of that came from a single 24" torp hit - the only one the whole gang managed to land on me, as after that I turned away and kept them at range by hand-targeting those that came too close. DDs cost 762 mil each, so I basically destroyed the same amount of money as last time. Alright, I don't think my laptop can render 81 ships without dying, so let's switch to CLs 1BC vs 10CL: I actually forgot to pause the game when going AFK, so most of the time my ship sailed in a straight line perpendicular to the original enemy direction. The CLs tried their best, dealing 4.4k damage to my ship with an ungodly amount of 4" shells (luckily, they had no torps, so I didn't get punished for AFKing that hard). Each CL cost 1.5 billion, so I destroyed almost 5 times the cost of my ship while it was seriously damaged due mostly to my negligence. 1BC vs 20CL: Okay, this one proved to be a challenge... Mostly because I AFKed again and ate 4 23" torps in quick succession. 9.5k damage received put my ship into "orange" status by the end of battle and I had less than half buoyancy left. Also, for this battle the enemy was actually slower than me (39.2kn max speed vs 40), so I could've just run away if I so desired. Each CL cost 1.8 billion, so I destroyed more than 10 times my cost while getting a serious beating in return (once again, massive negligence on my part), yet still keeping the BC afloat. 1BC vs 40CL: No jokes and AFK this time, I've met my match. The AI managed to design a CL that was both inexpensive (1.1 billion), survivable (required 2-3 good salvoes to sink) and deadly (12 tubes per ship plus 4x2x6.6" guns). Now, until I ran out of AP shells things were fine. But then, as base-fused HE shells were less effective, the AI managed to push closer, force me to eat 6 torps by putting me in crossfire and ultimately destroying me with thousands (3500+ hits) of 6.6" shells. Keep in mind that these CLs were only marginally faster than my BC (40.4kn max speed vs 40), so I most likely could've disengaged at some point before my ship was slowed down by damage, but a) this is a custom battle and b) I wanted to see the full trade, so my poor Ruggiero fought to the bitter end. I still managed to sink 18 CLs and seriously damage 4 more (and scratch like 10 more to various extent. Honestly, if my ship hadn't constantly switched targets for no reason, I would've probably had killed at least a couple more. Still this was a good trade, 3.2 billion for 20+ billion So, all in all: Super-cruisers seem to be quite capable escorts, as even one or two of them can keep dozens of enemy light ships at bay with ease AI-controlled light ships don't seem to be willing or able to do close-range torpedo runs (if I was running the 40DD battle, I'd probably have zerg rushed the opponent with all I had and sunk the BC while losing most of my ships in the process - still not the best trade honestly) Long-range torpedo spam against few player-controlled ships (when the player still can micro-manage their entire fleet effectively) seems to not work that great. As the AI is notoriously insanely good at dodging torps, I'd say that vice versa it would've been about the same. This is even with the light ships being designed solely for battle, while in the campaign some of the money and tonnage would've gone to mine and sub warfare gear Using BCs as escorts is even more cost-effective, as they are not so often destroyed as light escorts, and even when they are, they can take down quite a chunk of the enemy fleet with them Spotting seems not to be really relevant after the development of Radar at least, as capital ships are more or less able to spot the enemy at long enough range themselves. I still see exactly zero reasons to build non-Frigate light ships in the late game. They just become obsolete, plain and simple. Same goes for torps in general. No use. If I'm wrong in my conclusions or there's a flaw in my testing process, please let me know.
  19. First of all, I want to thank the devs for this game. Designing custom warships and taking my own creations to battle is an amazing experience, and every penny & hour invested in the game was definitely more than worth it for me (700+ hours in the game plus about as much watching BrotherMunro and Stealth17, bought UAD for myself and gifted to a friend). I've seen this game develop from Alpha all the way to release and played all the major updates since I think 1.0.6 or something like that. However, as the game reached later stages of development, I've found myself having progressively less fun playing. It is to be expected, that after 700 hours I may just be tired of the game, but I don't think that's the case. I'm still excited about the game as a concept, I still return to it from time to time, but no matter how long a break I take, some things are never fun. I've been thinking about this for a while now: what is stopping me from having fun in UAD? What new features could solve the problems and let me have fun again? What quality of life improvements could prevent the game from feeling like a chore at times? This is a thread of my personal gripes and feature requests in no particular order based on those thoughts. I do not expect the devs to follow my advice, these are just my thoughts and suggestions on the current state of the game. Maybe some modder can find inspiration in this, IDK. Personally I don't think I will have time or resources to make a mod out of this. Gripe 1: Random/uncontrollable politics. Yes, the player is but a minister of the navy / head admiral, not the ruler of the country. Yes, it is realistic for political events to take unexpected and often really dumb turns. Yes, random is the cheapest way to simulate AI behaviour. But. Random politics in the game feel terrible. Be it an alliance that falls apart the next turn after forming with no consequence for the AI admiral responsible, the government making peace with the enemy a turn before province is captured, the government accepting peace even though the enemy refused to surrender requested provinces, the army repeatedly invading the same minor nation time and again with 0 chances of success (I'm looking at you, China and AH) or the government plain refusing to see a gigantic invasion fleet primed and ready near the coast of say Northern Egypt, it sucks to not be able to influence important decisions at all or at least nearly enough. It's always a gamble. Same goes for some basically uncontrollable aspects of politics, mainly the GDP. Sure, we get random events now and again that have a minor effect on GDP. Sure, we can build extra transports. We can stay out of wars for decades just to see that number climb... All for nothing. Why? Because the base value of GDP growth dominates all other factors. An absolute monarchy can never be as effective as a centrist democracy. If say France rolls a good base value for GDP growth and is not destroyed early, the campaign is doomed. No matter how well you develop as say China, you end up 50 years later with your GDP being a fraction of that of France. You can't change your government form save for intentionally losing a war to get Unrest really high while trying to keep Naval Prestige from sinking... Which honestly feels like so much of a hassle, I've never done it and don't want to try. A Navy minister is a political figure after all, and a Navy minister with 500 Naval Prestige (which is basically Ruyter levels of admiration if 100 is "admired" I guess?) sure as shit will have a say in political matters, definitely those that in one way or the other concern the Navy. Gripe 2: Submarines and mines. But mostly submarines. Just open any feedback topic on this forum, scroll for a minute and you'll see a post complaining about subs. I don't think there was an update in which the subs felt good. It's all been said, but I'll reiterate a few points: They are random; they are never balanced, jumping from being useless to being insanely OP and back; they may just freeze large fleet groups in place for multiple turns. Mines honestly feel much better between the two: sure, they deal damage, but at least they don't straight up prevent movement. Also, demining seems to work fine and a TF with a sufficient number of mine hunter DDs will pass through unimpeded, while a TF with not enough mine sweeping capability will get decimated (which often leads to AI TFs consisting exclusively of damaged ships at least for me). Gripe 3: Nonsensical TF behaviour Sometimes a single DD will block an entire fleet for literal years without ever generating a battle. Sometimes a force of old and slow AI BBs will just escape fast modern player BC hunter groups. Sometimes two giant fleets would sit side to side again for literal years without ever generating a battle, at least a full-scale one (you will sometimes get like a "cruiser duel" with 2 CLs duking it out while 3 dozen BBs just sit and watch the show I guess) It's not great. This is a game about naval battles, and all these TF shenanigans just prevent the player from having a battle in the first place. Gripe 4: Light ships in late game This is a bit of a curveball, let me explain. Suppose the year is 1930. Capital ships are almost as fast as light ships. Every capital ship can be equipped with a radar and a sonar, making it able to detect enemy ships and torpedoes (in a galaxy) far far away. Gun accuracy is sufficient for say a 4x3x12" supercruiser to effectively demolish numerous light ships with 2-3 salvoes each at the range of two dozen km while never letting them get close enough for a successful torpedo attack. What do I do with my DDs and cruisers in battle? Close-range torpedo runs are out of question, long-range torpedo spam doesn't seem to bear fruit aside from making the enemy zigzag like crazy. Supercruisers perform much better as escorts, as they can keep the enemy light ships further away while also not dying randomly to a single stray 16" HE shell and being able to punch up against even super-BBs to some extent. I'd take a single super-cruiser instead of 5 CLs any day. What about small engagements, where there are no capital ships? I simply do not care. I usually try to retreat and autoresolve if that fails. No matter who wins, it's so few VPs that I can't be bothered to spend 20 minutes trying to hunt down an enemy CL or whatever. Out of battle, there are mines and subs, sure. I do need some (and by "some" I mean "a lot") of DDs with every task force for ASW and mine laying/sweeping. But should they participate in battles? Hell no. Hence the Frigate-class, which I have in every campaign from as soon as DDs are available right to the end. Minimal armament and modules, no armor, max mine and ASW equipment, 30-35kn speed to be able to more or less reliably run away from any threats. I build hundreds of them. I've just built a BB or BC? Here, half a dozen Frigate escorts to keep it safe. A small port on the far side of the map that needs to be protected? Build a dozen Frigates there, so they will set up a minefield that will effectively delay enemy ships while a strike force sails to the rescue. Enemy subs wreaking havok? Send a few Frigates to deal with it or at least prevent it from attacking more valuable ships. A TF of Frigates got intercepted and destroyed? No matter, I can replace it for the cost of a cup of tea in but a few turns. I'm honestly trying to find reasons to build any non-Frigate light ship in the campaign after 1930 (in my last few campaign runs I switched to Frigates as early as 1910 with no apparent downsides), and I can't. Gripe 4.5: Torpedoes in the late game This is intertwined with gripe 4, but basically I don't think torps serve much of a purpose in late game, aside from the AI forcing me to micro-manage my ships like crazy and thus making large TFs of smaller ships unsustainable, further worsening the previous problem. Gripe 5: Random invasions Holy hell, aside from subs this is probably the most frustrating part of the game. You come in with 4 times the required tonnage, you get a 60% success chance due to a single enemy DD loafing around that you can't catch (see Gripe 2), you wait 5 turns with most of your fleet being stuck in a single point of the map, you fail the roll. Rinse, repeat. I get that random is neccessary here, but maybe the odds can be a little more controllable, aside from just putting all your ships near the target and praying. Gripe 6: Clicker simulator It honestly is what the game sometimes turns into. "Recent provocations of such and such were simply ignored..." - click! Submarine engagement or single CL duel - auto resolve. A bunch of Frigates got intercepted by an enemy TF - retreat and auto resolve if failed. Mine damage to the fleet of a country I'm not at war with - click! I need to improve relations with someone? Click-click-click every other turn and then an extra click on the result. Random political event for which I already chose a policy once and wish to keep excercising it indefinitely? (i.e. always spending extra money on economy boosts where applicable). Sigh and click. I wish I could only dedicate attention to really important matters where I, the player, do have a more or less definitive say. Gripe 7: Bland battles From the AI rarely presenting an actual strategy or challenge to there basically being no variations in battles aside from the occasional convoy attacks, the battles themselves may need an overhaul so that they don't feel the same every time. Feature request 1: Wrap-around map. Partially addresses Gripe 6 I mean... It's only the most frequently requested feature since the entire world map was added. Just saying. Feature request 2: Cutting subs. Addresses Gripe 2 There hasn't been a single update where subs got a positive feedback I think. Trying to make them balanced and fun seems to take a lot of precious devs' time away from other stuff like AI or campaign economy while achieving little. If you ask players whether to make subs balanced or cut them out entirely and make any other improvement instead, I think 8/10 would choose the latter. Mines on their own seem more or less fine, I don't think it's necessary to cut them. Subs gotta go. Feature request 3: Coups, revolutions and political affiliation. Partially addresses Gripe 1 In the Politics tab, add a list of options for own country: ⦁ Stage a coup: massive cost in NP (about 100 I'd say), massive cost in Unrest (immediately rising by say 25), although possibly cheaper if Unrest is already high (as the people welcome the changes). Some NP refunded if coup is successful (success chance is determined by current Unrest and NP and clearly displayed prior to making the choice). On success allows the player to hand-pick any government form they desire. ⦁ Incite a revolution: only available with 25+ Unrest and positive NP. On success, a revolution immediately happens as if unrest got maxxed out, the new government form is chosen randomly, NP is set to zero on success, -50 on failure. Success rate is mostly determined by current Unrest and somewhat NP. ⦁ Mitigate tension: exchange NP for Unrest reduction ⦁ Denounce government: exchange NP for Unrest increase The latter two options (as well as "Improve/Worsen relations") may get an option to auto-repeat them X times if possible to partially address Gripe 6. When an election happens, add a list of options: ⦁ Endorse ruling party: slight NP bonus, if ruling party loses, it turns into a penalty. ⦁ Stay neutral: no effect ⦁ Endorse opposition: costs 10 NP (refunded with a bonus if selected party wins) to increase the amount of seats for the selected opposition party. Feature request 4: TF behaviour setup Addresses Gripe 3. Give TFs a list of specific stances, for example: ⦁ Avoid combat: do not attack enemy TFs under any circumstances. no control radius, reduced fuel consumption and no passive ammo consumption. Enhanced movement speed on map. ⦁ Hunt: attack only when advantage available (enemy ships damaged, overall power advantage, convoy raids, maybe port strikes, possibly like trying to separate some enemy ships and gang up on them, idk). Enhanced control radius, max fuel and passive ammo consumption. Reduced movement speed on map. ⦁ Blockade: attack ALL ships that come within control radius. Destroy transports whenever possible. Enemy can only disengage backwards, unless "Blockade run" option is selected (described below). Reduced control radius, reduced fuel consumption, max passive ammo consumption. EDIT: NO movement speed at all. Forgot this part while writing it first ⦁ Engage: attack enemy TFs while ignoring transports. Normal control radius and normal fuel consumption, some passive ammo consumption. When two TFs meet, i.e. one is in control radius of the other, the latter may choose to attack depending on its stance. If both TFs can and wish to attack each other, Hunt attacks Blockade, Blockade attacks Engage, Engage attacks Hunt, for same stance it's 50/50. Depending on the owners choice, some ships in the attacked TF may try to make escape rolls depending on speed difference between them and attacking ships (for the attacker it's the minimum of all speed values in the TF, for defender it depends on their choice), other ships may engage in battle straight up. Ships that successfully disengage keep moving as a TF along their previous route unless otherwise specified (see Blockade). The ships that end up in battle (including the attacking side) do not move this turn. AI ships that end up in battle DO NOT RETREAT (as it is considered that either they do not want to do so or that they've exhausted their retreat options) The attacked side has the following options (selected in the engagement popup): ⦁ Counterattack: all applicable ships get into battle. If the attacker is in Hunt stance and there is some mechanic of them trying to separate the attacked TF, get a bonus to resist ⦁ Every ship for herself: all ships try to disengage on their own, making individual escape rolls. ⦁ Organised retreat: all ships try to disengage as a unit, making a collective escape roll with minimal of their speed as the collective speed. ⦁ Sacrifice escorts: a separate checkbox. Capital ships (CA+ in this case I guess makes sense) that wish to disengage, do so with a bonus. CL, DD and TB end up in battle automatically. If any capital ships fail to disengage, they start as reinforcements. Bonus depends on number of escorts with no escorts effectively nullifying this option. ⦁ Blockade run: a separate checkbox available only if attacker is in Blockade stance. If selected, all ships that try to disengage do so with a penalty, successful ships keep moving along previous route, failures end up in battle. Feature request 5: Battle missions Addresses Gripe 7 and potentially Gripes 4 and 6 in that light ship battles may start to matter if mission VP prizes are high enough. Kinda like Warhammer 40k the board game: there's a main mission that's the same for both sides and some side missions of their own like: ⦁ Reach a certain point on map (prevent enemy from reaching it) with specified ship ⦁ Sink (save) the specified ship ⦁ Control points ⦁ CTF Basically, whatever goes. Any mission can get some flavor text like "capture important intel", "warn allies of danger" or "kill prominent admiral", and I think realism here matters less than fun that can be had if battles are no longer just "try to sink all enemies unless you kinda feel like running away, then do that I guess". Mission success results in a hefty VP bonus, so that sometimes you can get ahead on VP even while losing most or all ships. Feature request 6: stabilized invasion rolls. Addresses Gripe 5. Basically, I propose to do them like this: every turn there's a certain success chance calculated more or less like it is now, maybe TF stances (see Feature request 4) may have an effect on that. You then do say best of 3, 5 or maybe even 7 depending on province size I guess (or just a fixed best of 5 maybe).
  20. So I haven't played the campaign for a long while and decided to try it once more on vanilla 1.4.0.7Opt2. Italy, 1890 start, Hard-Random-Create own Here are the related screenshots, as I can't post any more images on the forum itself. So the campaign kicked off with a very early (like 1891) invasion of Ethiopia, on which I had no influence, entirely an AI decision. And it's so bad! Like why would you attack a country that has almost ten times the troops?! Naturally, the invasion was crushed in just a couple of turns with all my troops in Italian Somaliland butchered. Okay, not a big deal, moving on. (screen 1) I can't not say something about Naval Prestige. The thing is totally pointless. By 1893 Germany had -74 and I had 75, which in no way, shape or form affected the game. Like NP is just a pointless number in the corner of the screen at this point, especially for the AI, as getting fired for low NP doesn't seem to affect the AI behaviour at all. (screens 2&3) So by late 1890s or something like that I decided to go to war. As I had positive relations with all countries and degrading them manually would've taken a long time, I decided it was easier to make an alliance with the US and enter their war against AH. What a fool I was. You see, the alliance offer was but a clever trick of the American admiral, as he managed to break the alliance literally the next turn. Like, I click "accept alliance" -> "end turn" and the first notification I get is "Alliance broke between Italy and America". (screen 4) About seven years later I'm finally at war with the Brits. Taking their Mediterranean ports is an obvious first priority, so I proceed to attack Gibraltar and Malta... Only to find, that the mere existence of a single enemy TB or DD nearby could drop the success chance from 90+% to like 60-70%. Still, I captured Gibraltar on the first try and Malta on the second. (screen 5) After that the British AI finally decided to address the insolent little dog that was me (at the moment, British GDP was like 8 times mine, same with fleet tonnage). The British fleet arrived to the Med from the Red Sea finally I got my first actual battle of the campaign... Only to find it a MASSIVE disappointment. For some reason (keep in mind, the year is like 1905 at this point) the Brits brought 1890-era ships, but even then they would've had a chance... If only they had tried. 40 British ships just sort of stumbled around and did nothing while I destroyed them one by one. Not one tried to do a torpedo run (and there were TBs and CLs present, even a couple of more modern DDs iirc). The battle ended with all 40 British ships sunk by my 4 BBs and 2 CAs (the latter almost didn't participate at all), with the Brits only scoring 3 hits for a grand total of 53 damage. Why is the AI so passive now? I'm glad it doesn't just run away anymore, but sitting and waiting to be slaughtered is not much better IMO. (screens 6-8) Then I got another battle, this time against a modern British BB, even more advanced than my ships in some aspects... And it did the same thing. It sailed somewhere in a straight line while occasionally firing at my ships while 3 small BBs ground it to dust with their 9" guns. The escorts never tried to torpedo-rush me (keep in mind, my ships had NO secondaries, so all I had to distract the escorts was main gun fire from the 4th BB). In the end the Brits managed to deal 400 damage before being sunk, which is honestly not much of an improvement. (screen 9) Finally, I got my 3rd and last battle of the war, as after that I captured Cyprus and the next turn peace was made even though I objected to it. This time it was a destroyer attack on my lone BB (still with no secondaries, keep in mind!). I tried to sail away as best I could, but the stormy weather meant I was capped at 20kn, so the enemy DDs quickly caught up... And then turned away. Again and again. Apparently, the new logic prevents the AI from running away, but the DDs still don't like to go against 10x2x11" guns of my new BB, causing the game of peek-a-boo to last for like an in-game hour or two before I finally got an "end battle" button. BTW, before the battle I tried to retreat - unsuccessfully. Can we please, please get an auto-retreat if the enemy is not willing to fight? (screen 10) This marked the end of the war with Britain, and honestly I don't feel like playing the campaign anymore unless some major changes are introduced in the next update (I'm talking mostly about AI behaviour improvements). Custom battles might still be fun, but with this new "sheep in a slaughterhouse" AI setting IDK about that either. It almost feels like the game is in a worse state than a few months ago, but I might just be misremembering things
  21. Haven't played the game for a while, idk if it has been changed, but since transport losses are increased, it would be nice to also increase transport building capacity. It used to be the case that like 10+ years into the campaign max transport budget only provided about 0.1% growth a month without transport losses. Therefore, it took literal years to restore transport capacity back to 200% after a war. It didn't make a lot of sense, and if it's still in the game, I would very much like to see it fixed.
  22. Those honestly cause quite a few failed designs for the player too. Like, I think it was at least a dozen times that I went "huh, it would be interesting to try this layout", and then I see that it has like 45% fore weight offset and go "naaah". Some balancing instruments would be nice (like the engine room moving somewhat towards center of balance if possible, or maybe an option to add ballast to increase stability and reduce weight offset at the cost of floatability and mass) That seems like a logical error. IMO barbettes should only exist in autodesign as turret attachments and be only placed together, although I don't exactly know the autodesign logic, maybe it's not a viable option
  23. There seems to be an issue with (at least some) shared designs not being shown during enemy ship design in custom battles. The design is saved, it is available when designing own ship, but not for the enemy. The year is set to the same value for both sides, both sides get 1 CA (which are the designs in question). Made 1 CA for AH and 1 for Britain in Shared designs, both only show for own ship design in custom battles. Report filed in-game
  24. Screenshots And here for some reason a triple turret is bulkier than the quad, despite seeming to be the same type of turret
  25. Screenshot So even if one barrel out of four (okay, maybe two) is blocked at some vertical angles, the whole sector is excluded from the firing arc? That seems a bit excessive. So this tower is basically a solid wall wider than the ship itself as far as firing arc calculation is concerned UPD: this seems to be a common issue. Here I don't see any reason whatsoever for the guns not being able to fire in this direction. Please double-check firing angles for new models
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