Panzergraf

Tuesday at 09:01 PM

Do you have enough crew in your crew pool to man them?

September 18

200+ Resistance is still possible on hulls with high base resistance, though the max number has been lowered somewhat compared to before, and I notice some of the ships I built previously have slightly lower Resistance than they did before.

The in-game tooltip still states that this should give me -100% gun damage, but I haven't checked if that's the case in battle yet.

September 17

That was with no mods installed, completely "vanilla". When mousing over the Resistance modifier, I see that it gives a -100% damage reduction already from 192 resistance (a number not attainable before).
There is some damage from enemy shells taken, but it's really minimal to the point where it might as well be 0.

Fires still cause damage.

September 16

Did some testing. Many hulls, pretty much anything with a base resistance of 90 or so, can reach 192 Resistance with the right set of modules and maxed out displacement. Some can get over 200, but that's really not needed.
Because at 192 Resistance a ship has a -100% gun damage modifier.

I sent some ships up against 10 Italian battleships (Shared Designs by Brosilly, so you know they're potent) and let them tank damage for 10 minutes straight. One my ships had 0" armor, one had 2" all over, and one had very good battleship armor, but not enough to fully protect from 20" guns. None of them took any serious direct shell damage, just fires.

I like the concept of Displacement now directly impacting Resistance, but the current implementation leaves a bit to be desired.

September 14

A max displacement German Super Battleship II can no easily get more than 200 resistance, which results in -100% gun damage. At that point they pretty much take no damage from enemy shells, even hits from 20" guns score fractions of 1 damage...

September 12

7 hours ago, xPorkulusx said:

Some levels of the “Advanced Battlecruiser Design” description does not explain what the tech does in a concrete way. No displacement or armament changes are listed, the description instead says that battlecruisers are “larger and more powerful.” Is this intentional? Does this technology have any effect at all and if so, should it be listed?

Depends on the nation you play as. Some have new hulls you unlock with that tech, others don't. (hopefully those nations will have new hulls in 1.7 to fill in these gaps?)

September 7

Weird thing in my current China campaign (1940 starting year);
Diesel II was unlocked from the start, as expected, and I assumed Gas Turbines would be the next engine tech in line after that, as it usually is.
But turns out the next one was Advanced Marine Engines. Fine, some times the order of techs gets jumbled a bit, it's happened before, so I just gave it a priority and hoped Gas Turbines would come in after that. But nope, now researching the next upgrade to Advanced Marine Engines (it's a repeatable tech that just goes on and on, giving small % based improvements to all engine types).

So were Gas Turbines removed from the campaigns, or is this some kind of bug?

August 31

Still, as unfair as the Steam reviews might be, it's certainly not good from a marketing perspective.

August 31

5 hours ago, justMike247 said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_U-864

Ok, so it did happen, and I found a handful of other cases too.
But compared to the number of subs lost to surface ships and aircraft, or surface ships lost to submarines, it was exceedingly rare, and I stand by my previous post that sub VS sub battles should have the lowest priority of being generated each turn.

21 hours ago, Panzergraf said:

Do submarine battles have higher priority than surface battles?

I ask, because whenever I position a task force to engage an enemy task force and there is an enemy submarine nearby, I get a submarine battle instead.

It's my main gripe with how subs are implemented in the game. I don't actually think they're overpowered or anything, as a TF with decent ASW escorts typically inflict more damage to enemy subs than they take in return, I just don't like how they prevent me from playing the game by giving me Submarine battles instead of Meetings.

And when I just now moved two of my own subs to hopefully attak a lone unescorted enemy battleship, I instead got a sub VS sub battle, three turns in a row with the lone BB just sitting there...
~~Did sub VS sub battles even happen historically?~~

I think it would be much better if submarine battles were prioritized lower than surface engagements.
So surface VS surface meetings first, then sub VS surface TF, then sub VS transports, and then maybe sub VS sub last if there's nothing else there.

August 30

9 hours ago, Zuikaku said:

Yes, there were sub vs. sub battles from the WW1 on .

Maybe some, but were they that common? I still don't think they should be prioritized over pretty much anything else a sub can (and should) do.

August 30

Do submarine battles have higher priority than surface battles?

I ask, because whenever I position a task force to engage an enemy task force and there is an enemy submarine nearby, I get a submarine battle instead.

It's my main gripe with how subs are implemented in the game. I don't actually think they're overpowered or anything, as a TF with decent ASW escorts typically inflict more damage to enemy subs than they take in return, I just don't like how they prevent me from playing the game by giving me Submarine battles instead of Meetings.

And when I just now moved two of my own subs to hopefully attak a lone unescorted enemy battleship, I instead got a sub VS sub battle, three turns in a row with the lone BB just sitting there...
Did sub VS sub battles even happen historically?

I think it would be much better if submarine battles were prioritized lower than surface engagements.
So surface VS surface meetings first, then sub VS surface TF, then sub VS transports, and then maybe sub VS sub last if there's nothing else there.

August 25

The AI will use Shared Designs at the start of a campaign, but it helps if you design them for a few years before the actual campaign starting date. You know when the campaign generates, it starts generating a few years in advance?
So if you start a campaign in 1910, it the game will "simulate" 1906-1910 first, often taking quite a long time for 1906. That's when the AI's build their ships.

August 21

Also worth pointing out with torps; torpedo crews seem to be the first to die, and with reduced crew manning the launchers they are even slower to track and launch than usual.

August 21

2 hours ago, TheFurTrapper said:

Yeah that would be nice too. Are there any examples of ships having their hulls widened or lengthened while in drydock? Not counting torpedo blisters and ships that lost bows due to battle damage.

The Kongos were lengthened a bit during one of their refits. I don't know of any ships having their beams widened other than by installing torpedo bulges though. I imagine it would be a much more complicated procedure than lengthening a ship.

For reference, some images of a cruise ship being lengthened.
https://maritime-executive.com/article/photos-fincantieri-begins-first-ever-cruise-ship-lengthening

August 13

I notice Ammunition has been halved for most guns compared to previous versions of the game.
Before, ammo count for a 14" twin turret would be 220/220 with a standard balanced ammunition loadout (equals 110/110 per barrel)
While now it's 110/110 for a twin turret (55/55 per barrel)

Is this intentional?

August 10

Disclaimer: I recorded and uploaded this video this morning, in the latest 1.6 beta version, but then patch 1.6 went Live before my video did...😅

I don't think much has changed in the Live version from the last Beta build version though.

Findings:
Fires seem to no longer spread too much or kill too much crew until a ship has had its Structural Integrity reduced by a lot.
A lot of crew will still die though, so I imagine it will be hard to keep your crew level in the long run in a campaign. Crew Pool might become a very important number, rather than something we just don't care about after a certain point.

A lot of small guns (5" in the case of the Light Cruisers) will still chew through a battleship - if they get close enough. Hordes of very fast DD's might be better at this than the CL's I threw together.

A big gun AP-firing BB will kill a small gun HE-spamming BB, even if the latter starts close enough to negate the big gun's AP range advantage.

Light Shells, Triple Base propellants, and longer barrels are now viable again (in 1.5.1.6 they were objectively the wrong choice no matter what you were going for).

August 7

6 hours ago, Urst said:

The shell weights' ranges are applying backwards modifiers.
Heavier shells are supposed to increase range by the tool tip but are decreasing range and light shells are increasing range when the tool tip says they should penalize range.

It's because they also modify muzzle velocity, which range is calculated from.
Light shells would add even more range without the slight range reduction that somewhat counters the range increase from higher muzzle velocity. Inverse for heavier shells.

August 5

You can uncheck the Beta-thing and the game will revert to 1.5.1.6, which is the current live version.

August 5

Fires caused by small caliber guns (like the aforementioned 4" guns hitting a dreadnought) would mostly be superficial external fires, right? Like deck planks catching fire, or potentially fuel for spotting planes on catapults. Not something 40% of the crew should sacrifice their lives for by using their own bodies to smother the flames.
Even if the ship had already suffered crew loss during the battle, and what remained of the damage control parties were busy plugging leaks, an external fire on deck could potentially just burn itself out, right?

July 27

I made a video on this topic.
While the patch notes for 1.5.1.1 (which introduced these changes) only mention Barrel Length, the actual issue is Muzzle Velocity.
And the biggest effects you'll see here is actually Propellants and Shell Size, not the barrel length itself.

I really don't like how it works currently.
Some components, like Super Heavy Shells and Tube Powder, now have no actual disadvantage and plenty of strong advantages, while Light Shells which are supposed to give you longer range, are rendered useless because they kill your accuracy at long range. Not just reduce your accuracy, but actually give you 0% accuracy, so their supposed advantage becomes another disadvantage in addition to the lower pen and damage. The same is true for Triple Base propellants, which is less safe than Tube Powder for the supposed advantage of more range, but that advantage is no longer actually true either, as you will lack any real accuracy out to that max range and you're better off with the safer Tube Powder anyway.

Note for example the 6" guns on my light cruiser at 2:32 in the video. Only 45 caliber barrel length, which is in no way an extremely long barrel or anything, and with a supposed max AP range of 22km. However, accuracy drops to absolute 0% at 15km, and is really poor up until that point too. At 0% the game won't make any of your shells hit, and the ship won't even attempt to fire. Why? Triple Base propellants and Light Shells.

Conversely, the 7" secondaries on the Japanese battleship I've lengthened by 22%, which is the max barrel length you can add. They're still only 44 calibers long (they were really short to begin with), but still, +22% barrel length. Quite extreme, right? But they still have decent accuracy out to their maximum range.
Why? Tube Powder III propellants and Super Heavy Shells.

I think one of the biggest issues with this is that the AI simply doesn't know this. I've come up against AI built ships in the campaign that have really long maximum range, thanks to light shells, triple base, and/or long barrels, but absolute 0% accuracy past even half their max range - making them absolutely no threat at all.

I think the way this was balanced before was better. Yes, more muzzle velocity (from long barrels, propellants, shell size etc.) would give you more range, but it did come at the cost of Weight, Cost, Rate of Fire, and Deck Penetration. Could accuracy still be reduced a little bit from what it was? Sure. But not to absolute 0%. That's just silly.

July 17

Conquest battles; they some times pop up, and you get the chance to invade a minor nation.

Some times those minor nations, if they've been or are allied to a major nation, have a lot of ships in their ports.
But very very rarely do I get a Strike Missions VS those ports. Some times I do, usually I don't.

This makes me wonder, when we're conquest-invading a minor nation, are we actually at war with them?

Out of curiosity I went and checked the savefile itself, using JSONeditoronline, and I couldn't find anything about me being at war with either Persia or the Ottoman Empire (which I had active Conquest battles against).
There's a tab for Relations, but that's just between major nations.
There's a tab for Minor Allies, but that just covers minors allied to major nations, nothing about any relations beyond that.

July 2

Other than the AI having a lot more money on higher difficulties (which in turn gives them a higher tech budget), they don't have any advantages the player doesn't have, at least not that I've seen in 1000+ hours of playing campaigns and custom battles.

If anything I'd like to see them actually get some extra tech at the start of a campaign, at least on higher difficulties, to make up for their ships just not being as good as the ones a player can make. And this might also get them to build Shared Designs more often, if enabled.

June 16

I'm typically in the green (making profits) in peace time, and in the red (losing money) in war time.
In peace time I have all ships in port, set to Limited, unless they are involved in conquest missions.
Setting them to limited really saves a lot of money. If they are older ships, or brand new with no crew XP I want to maintain,

The game will tell you that Limited status will negatively effect crew training, but I really haven't noticed it take a hit, even after multiple years.

I will set the crew slider just low enough that they are on Low Crew, which combined with Limited makes them even cheaper than having them mothballed. And as a bonus they retain some crew XP (but not all, Veteran ships will be reduced to Seasoned when re-crewed), and there's no re-commissioning cooldown like there is with mothballing.

I have a pretty massive navy at this point in my Italian campaign, 20BB, 30BC, and lots of other ships, so having most of them at sea will cost me a lot of cash even with a war time naval budget. But having saved up a bunch during peace time, it's really no problem.

So it's perfectly possible to keep a huge navy in service in peace time, as long as your ships aren't being too active.

It's also worth noting that while some engine types, like Diesel and Turbo Electric, make your ships more costly to build, they will reduce maintenance cost, potentially making them cheaper to keep in the long run than less costly alternatives like Geared Turbines.

May 31

2 hours ago, Markus1985 said:

3. Give a visual indicator at what heading the enemy ship is spotted. For a long time now you've had the warning "Smoke spotted [insert compass direction]" . But I've always been wondering from what ship I should base my course corrections for. Is it from the flagship? But why does it take so long to find the enemy I've "spotted" for so long now.

Hence why I'd suggest you to add some kind of visual indicator, an actual smokestack that appears on the horizon in the direction of this "spotted smokestack". It would make it a lot easier to hunt or run from that graphical element rather than a very general compass direction that doesn't update for said amount of minutes, during which you might end up steering in the wrong direction and miss this imaginary smoke stack you've been trying to chase.

I'd like to see "smoke spotted" with the same visual cue as we get from Radio Direction Finder (a green arrow from each ship to each radio contact), just a bit more vague.
RDF could then be updated to also include distance (with some error applied), and Radar should show us a rough estimate of the size of the contact (even early Radar should be able to distinguish between a DD and a BB, at least some of the time)

May 12

Didn't some fire control systems compensate for recoil somewhat?

I think it would be a good idea to have some kind of Recoil Mitigation tech baked into some of the existing techs.
Similar to how we can reduce the effect of Own Guns' Splashes and Other Guns' Splashes, which cause problems early on, but by late game the malus doesn't even show up in the Shoot Info table.

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