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>>>Combat Feedback<<<


Nick Thomadis

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First I would like to say that this is a great game, and I am already impressed by the current state of the game in alpha!

Maybe this is possible. If so, can someone please tell me how, but I have the impression that ships can only fire at one target at a time? I had instances when moving my fleet inside an enemy fleet passing ships both port and starboard and they seemed to not fire at all with the secondary/casemate guns at the not assigned enemy target passing my ship on the opposite side.

Edited by Tycondero
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Could it be an option to add a function/button to order ships to automatically zigzag to avoid getting hit? I think making this an order/option would help to improve playability and perhaps can be effectively used by the AI. Of course this order should reduce accuracy of firing back at hostiles and the travel speed of the zigzagging vessels.

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After playing almost the half of the naval academy missions, IMHO, the big problem of the game, in this moment, is the caothic perfomance of the enemy. As player, i can manage the shps of my fleet, give orders of maneuvre, fire, screen, etc, but the IA seems only be concerned about fire and evade collision between ships. Because of this, in the middle of the battle, only the player ships had some kind of order but the AI run without sense, stops, move in circles. It's very easy focus and defeat. Only seen some order in the TB when act in screen mode.

 

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Had multiple instances of ships being at 0% structural needing several strong direct hits from main guns before sinking.

Why no engine reverse option? Needed to make evading torpedoes more user controlled as well torpedoes need a good sized damaged boost. Haven't played enough to see if torpedoes can be duds or not but that could be a feature. But they also need minimum distances to arm. DD's tossing 6 torpedoes at +/- 250m is not cool.

Needs sector fire options and controls for independent turret targeting to combat multiple DD's charging or at minimum allow selecting of guns by sizes to select target.  I do see the batteries auto firing at none selected ships when the current target is past range. But on modern battleship scenario I had 3 of the DD'S and 1 CA charge in and could only fire at 1 target at a time.

Games very fun but would like to see more depth in user control as the current state is fun but feel it's to easy to master and might loss its flavor to soon at that rate.

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On 10/6/2019 at 5:00 PM, TBRSIM said:

One very important reinforcement of a statement in one of the previous posts, since I played some more naval academy scenarios:

Ditch visual "detection range" and "spotting bonus" balancing! It is ludicrous for ships to have thousands of metres disadvantage in visual sighting versus others due to "technology". Have you ever been at sea? In clear weather you can litterally see to the visual horizon (which depends on your eye height). While there were (and are) some advantages to higher masts for visual detecting ships their main purpose within game timeframe was spotting fall of shot. Any "sighting advantage" is at most for initial detection, in general, if one ship could see another in daytime it could be seen in turn. Mast tops etc. are quite visible, especially if you have smoke (including gunsmoke) and gunfire noise to give you a cue and bearing to search. The differences in bad visual conditions (rain, fog, night) are more a matter of training than design of the ships, with a minor excetion for small DD/TB.

The current visual detection mechanism is one major element in retarding the major potential of thius game to "arcade" status. Mast design could represent additional fire control capability and things like easier estimation of contact course, quicker identification etc. and result in boni on identification speed and hit chance if you want to play with stats.

The one exception where major differences in vice versa detection range can exist within game timeframe (barely) is radar, once that is available it may become a one-sided detection capability at night and in bad visual conditions for the side which has it against the one which does not have it.

Well like you said seeing to the horizon depends on eye height. Smaller ships with smaller masts wouldn't be able to spot ships as soon, I'm thinking light cruisers and lower but it's probably a minimal difference so I get what you're saying. 

Unrelated to the above in the future will it be possible to know the speed of enemy ships in combat cuz right now I don't think it is.

EDIT: Nevermind about the speed thing I found it. On the top of the screen there are the number of enemy ships and if you expand those boxes to see the individual unit cards for the enemy it tells you their speed.

Edited by Jatzi
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I've just got the game and I'm really enjoying it! But their are some kinda to be worked out.

For an example AI CLs, DDs, tend to spam smoke screen immediately while under fire. This hurts the AI as now everyone has an accuracy penalty from the amount of smoke everywhere.

Also screening is largely ineffective the ships don't stay in line near the ships their supposed to protect and will charge the enemy despite orders

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When you change settings, like torp and gun aggressiveness, it only affects on ship in a division. It should change that setting for all of them. And then if we want an individual ship to be different we can select just that ship and change it. And another thing about that, you can't tell different ships in the same division to target different ships. You have to detach them from the division to get them to target another ship. You should be able to have individual ships target different enemies. They'll target different ships on their own sometimes but usually not.

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After only a day of playing, here is some of my feedback!

- I've seen it above already but I'd like to be able to control targeting by weapon system instead of forcing all weapons to target the same enemy. I've had to turn my BB's main armament against incoming DDs despite having ample secondary guns that should be able to discourage their torpedo run

- Speaking of torpedoes, I saw they will receive a damage buff, I agree this is needed, I also have a suspicion, as someone else mentioned, that the AI detects torpedoes too early and can avoid them too consistently with ships that shouldn't be maneuverable.

- A very minor thing, I'd like to see some basic ship coloring customization. Let us decide if we want light grey, dark grey, blue painted ships, etc.

- Reload speeds for main battery guns as you get into the later generations of ships seem excessively slow. The Yamato could reload well within 30 seconds when at a low gun elevation, and it is suggested that the Yamato could reload, during an average engagement, in 35 seconds. The 18inch guns I see have much longer reload times, even in the final scenario.

That is all I have, love the game and keep up the great work! :)  

Edited by Haveatya
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8 hours ago, Tankaxe said:

I've just got the game and I'm really enjoying it! But their are some kinda to be worked out.

For an example AI CLs, DDs, tend to spam smoke screen immediately while under fire. This hurts the AI as now everyone has an accuracy penalty from the amount of smoke everywhere.

Also screening is largely ineffective the ships don't stay in line near the ships their supposed to protect and will charge the enemy despite orders

I'm not really a fan of the smoke dynamic.  They need to image search real DD's laying real smoke screens- in general, they don't lay them for themselves, but to screen others, and it doesn't form a fart cloud surrounding the ship like its a Romulan cloaking device, but would stream out the funnels or smoke generators at the stern to form a 'wall' of smoke (local wind notwithstanding) behind the DD.

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5 hours ago, Haveatya said:

- Reload speeds for main battery guns as you get into the later generations of ships seem excessively slow. The Yamato could reload well within 30 seconds when at a low gun elevation, and it is suggested that the Yamato could reload, during an average engagement, in 35 seconds. The 18inch guns I see have much longer reload times, even in the final scenario.

I agree that anything above 12" guns is at the moment undergoing long reload times. However as for your Yamato example, if I recall correctly it had 18" guns. Is the 30s reload you mention unattainable atm? I can imagine the Yamato had some pretty advanced reload tech implement to achieve those reload speeds? What is the current reload speed with the best tech available for 18" guns??

Edited by Tycondero
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First words ... great work, great idea ... please finish it! I'm Rule the Waves player and I see this like great improvement ... 

Some feedback from battles:

  • I saw many hits by torpedoes (about six to BB) and no sink ... it should be balanced
  • I tried ram BB by CA ... full speed, from side ... no damage, it should be balanced
  • my BB fired on TB at really close distance ... only 5% possibility to hit, it should be balanced
  • it looks repair teams at early ships are really effective ... I would like to see more damage progress over time ...
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17 minutes ago, Matto said:

First words ... great work, great idea ... please finish it! I'm Rule the Waves player and I see this like great improvement ... 

Some feedback from battles:

  • I saw many hits by torpedoes (about six to BB) and no sink ... it should be balanced
  • I tried ram BB by CA ... full speed, from side ... no damage, it should be balanced
  • my BB fired on TB at really close distance ... only 5% possibility to hit, it should be balanced
  • it looks repair teams at early ships are really effective ... I would like to see more damage progress over time ...

in an early version, I hit one BB with 50+ torpedoes and did not sink it and reported this to Nick as a bug, who told me to check the armor value of the target and the size of the torpedoes. The torpedoes were ancient and the armor was very high tech. No wonder they bounced. 

What we learned early was the size and tech of the torpedo matters greatly. Big fat torpedo sink big fat ships, small torpedos scratch the paint unless it hits a vital area. Look at this again is my suggestion, torpedoes are very fun to play with but take some finesse.  

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Another "feature", which looks strange ... my BB was surrounded by enemy TBs, but ship was able fire only on one target lets say from starboard. So all medium and light guns on portside were silent ... 

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In my last battle, one enemy ship was heavy damaged by my BC. Heavy flooding damage, burning all, 11% extructure. However, all of your main guns (12), in four turrets, was intact. The ship continue sailing at 11 knots and fire against my line. IMHO, its very difficult imagine that one ship in this situation continue fire normally. 

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On 10/6/2019 at 7:44 PM, TBRSIM said:

I just played the scenario where the player is supposed to attack a convoy escorted by a CA with DD's. That CA is still floating and fighting after about three dozen or more (36+) 22inch torpedo hits...

For any ship, even an Iowa class BB, 12+ heavy "late" torpedo hits (even contact fused) would be "the end". AFAIK there is no historic evidence of any warship surviving more than three torpedo hits.

That written, without a redo of how secondaries work against close-in DD/TB the balance could well tip too far in the other direction when torpedo damage is increased. Because the other lesson from the above scenario is that my DD's do not receive enough hits for minutes spent within 1km from the AC...

Torpedo damage re-balance is arriving.

On 10/7/2019 at 12:00 AM, TBRSIM said:

One very important reinforcement of a statement in one of the previous posts, since I played some more naval academy scenarios:

Ditch visual "detection range" and "spotting bonus" balancing! It is ludicrous for ships to have thousands of metres disadvantage in visual sighting versus others due to "technology". Have you ever been at sea? In clear weather you can litterally see to the visual horizon (which depends on your eye height). While there were (and are) some advantages to higher masts for visual detecting ships their main purpose within game timeframe was spotting fall of shot. Any "sighting advantage" is at most for initial detection, in general, if one ship could see another in daytime it could be seen in turn. Mast tops etc. are quite visible, especially if you have smoke (including gunsmoke) and gunfire noise to give you a cue and bearing to search. The differences in bad visual conditions (rain, fog, night) are more a matter of training than design of the ships, with a minor excetion for small DD/TB.

The current visual detection mechanism is one major element in retarding the major potential of thius game to "arcade" status. Mast design could represent additional fire control capability and things like easier estimation of contact course, quicker identification etc. and result in boni on identification speed and hit chance if you want to play with stats.

The one exception where major differences in vice versa detection range can exist within game timeframe (barely) is radar, once that is available it may become a one-sided detection capability at night and in bad visual conditions for the side which has it against the one which does not have it.

The visibility of ships is going to be refined when more weather variants become available (night etc.)

On 10/7/2019 at 1:10 AM, Skeksis said:

Range cursor

It follows the mouse around all the time (at first alittle bit distracting), maybe add a toggle option so it can be only used as and when a player needs to range find (like mouse button 4). 

Yes, we are going to improve this. Weapon ranges should not be always visible by default. They can fade out after some secs and if a player wants them always on, he could set it up in options.

On 10/7/2019 at 1:10 AM, Skeksis said:

AI evading torpedo's at max range.

As the torps travelled about half a mile (less even) the AI is already turning, evading, given the slow rudder shift and turning arc, it seems that the AI must have begun its rudder shift as soon as our torps were launched, AI torpedo spotting distance maybe too great, if this is an issue 

The AI does not cheat. It uses the same visibility mechanics as the player. The AI though can react faster than the player, since player will need some precious seconds to spot the incoming torpedoes by eye.

On 10/7/2019 at 1:10 AM, Skeksis said:

I felt there was some room for micromanagement, there was time available (downtime) to do much more with the ships, if dev’s are thinking about this then let us know, we'll debate it! e.g. things like selecting independent targets for main and secondary guns, damage control, close range modal targeting...etc... 

Any feeback will be welcome. Idea brainstorming always helps.

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On 10/7/2019 at 8:16 AM, Tycondero said:

Maybe this is possible. If so, can someone please tell me how, but I have the impression that ships can only fire at one target at a time? I had instances when moving my fleet inside an enemy fleet passing ships both port and starboard and they seemed to not fire at all with the secondary/casemate guns at the not assigned enemy target passing my ship on the opposite side.

Guns currently fire per caliber battery. They do not target per gun independently, but we will see what we can do with secondary guns. 

On 10/7/2019 at 9:51 AM, Tycondero said:

Could it be an option to add a function/button to order ships to automatically zigzag to avoid getting hit? I think making this an order/option would help to improve playability and perhaps can be effectively used by the AI. Of course this order should reduce accuracy of firing back at hostiles and the travel speed of the zigzagging vessels.

We will consider it.

On 10/7/2019 at 1:30 PM, fremen said:

After playing almost the half of the naval academy missions, IMHO, the big problem of the game, in this moment, is the caothic perfomance of the enemy. As player, i can manage the shps of my fleet, give orders of maneuvre, fire, screen, etc, but the IA seems only be concerned about fire and evade collision between ships. Because of this, in the middle of the battle, only the player ships had some kind of order but the AI run without sense, stops, move in circles. It's very easy focus and defeat. Only seen some order in the TB when act in screen mode.

Pending to be improved in next patches: AI distance keeping + Ship auto-evasion mechanics.

22 hours ago, Rustyedge said:

Had multiple instances of ships being at 0% structural needing several strong direct hits from main guns before sinking.

Pending to be improved in forthcoming patches.

22 hours ago, Rustyedge said:

Why no engine reverse option? Needed to make evading torpedoes more user controlled as well torpedoes need a good sized damaged boost. Haven't played enough to see if torpedoes can be duds or not but that could be a feature. But they also need minimum distances to arm. DD's tossing 6 torpedoes at +/- 250m is not cool.

Reverse engine movement is considered but currently postponed to make other more urgent features. Torpedo damage is getting a rebalance in next hotfix.

22 hours ago, Rustyedge said:

Needs sector fire options and controls for independent turret targeting to combat multiple DD's charging or at minimum allow selecting of guns by sizes to select target.  I do see the batteries auto firing at none selected ships when the current target is past range. But on modern battleship scenario I had 3 of the DD'S and 1 CA charge in and could only fire at 1 target at a time.

Multi-targeting of guns is considered for further improvement, as mentioned above.

19 hours ago, davidjruss said:

Will realistic ranges be modeled in the game? I.e will Capital ships engage at 10-20,000 yards and not ultra short range as in Alpha

The ships already engage at very long distances depending on their weapon technology and visibility. No other game, as I know personally, simulates the realistic engage distances so dynamically and easily manageable, without any fake scales of speed and ship sizes. The tendency of some players to come very near and play constantly in x5 speed is something we cannot prevent, but only "harass" with AI improvement and some improvements in gun penetration according to range.

4 hours ago, Matto said:

First words ... great work, great idea ... please finish it! I'm Rule the Waves player and I see this like great improvement ... 

Some feedback from battles:

  • I saw many hits by torpedoes (about six to BB) and no sink ... it should be balanced
  • I tried ram BB by CA ... full speed, from side ... no damage, it should be balanced
  • my BB fired on TB at really close distance ... only 5% possibility to hit, it should be balanced
  • it looks repair teams at early ships are really effective ... I would like to see more damage progress over time ...

As said in other threads, torpedo rebalance on the way!
Ramming damage is pending to be added.
Torpedo boats already melt (arguably) if they stay near to heavily armed BB, BC, CA. The accuracy estimation is per gun (not per turret). The turret salvo accuracy estimation can be seen in detailed targeting info, and is much larger.

3 hours ago, Andre Bolkonsky said:

What we learned early was the size and tech of the torpedo matters greatly. Big fat torpedo sink big fat ships, small torpedos scratch the paint unless it hits a vital area. Look at this again is my suggestion, torpedoes are very fun to play with but take some finesse.  

Well said, this is going to be emphasized more in the coming hotfix.

2 hours ago, Matto said:

Another "feature", which looks strange ... my BB was surrounded by enemy TBs, but ship was able fire only on one target lets say from starboard. So all medium and light guns on portside were silent ... 

Multi-targeting guns is considered as said above. But is something very risky to touch now.

59 minutes ago, fremen said:

In my last battle, one enemy ship was heavy damaged by my BC. Heavy flooding damage, burning all, 11% extructure. However, all of your main guns (12), in four turrets, was intact. The ship continue sailing at 11 knots and fire against my line. IMHO, its very difficult imagine that one ship in this situation continue fire normally. 

When we implement crew, it is going to be implemented the realistic incapacitation of a ship. 

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Note on torpedoes.  Until late in WWII (earlier for the Japanese) torpedoes that were fired had a high percentage of duds.  Currently, any torpedoed hit detonates.  This was due to the very high cost of testing torpedoes which navies preferred to spend elsewhere.  Advances in tech tree could allow for improved detonations in time.  Also, beware of making torpedoes too powerful, especially as targeting small craft is very hard to hit, and all weapons must be currently targeted at one ship.  Otherwise you will end up with a Jutland type paranoia where admirals flee at the mere hint of a torpedoes attack.  This would negatively impact the playability of the game.

Note on fire control.  Visual ranges can be very short.  Due to the curvature of the earth, the horizon is not far away and large ships will appear to rise above the horizon close by.  This does show the importance of spotting towers as the increased hight allows for a greater visual range and is highly important.  Review comments by Engilsh officers and spotters at Jutland.  However, range finders did make a difference in she'll accuracy (again, different nations having different tech) once that spotting occurred.  It would be great if there was one tower and spotting tech for secondary weapons and torpedoes (perhaps the aft tower which would allow for dual targeting) and the primary tower and spotting tech for the mains.

Note on tech.  Nations for various reasons were nation centric in their tech and rarely copied other countries even when the other nations tech was proved superior.  Some was copied, but by no means all.  I recal that the ineffectual spotting tech of the English to the German in WWI was not changed because a retired Admiral was the one promoting the poor tech and used his influence to line his pockets at the expense of his nation.  It would be a nice touch if a ship's design was limited by the tech of the nation they represent.

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1 hour ago, Nick Thomadis said:

The AI does not cheat. It uses the same visibility mechanics as the player. The AI though can react faster than the player, since player will need some precious seconds to spot the incoming torpedoes by eye.

In fact, only the player can “cheat.”  Simply watch reload status on selected enemy ships for torpedo launch.*  If you begin evading at the moment of launch, torpedoes have near zero chance of hitting unless very close or fired against a disabled ship.  Spotting torpedoes in water does not matter in that case.

 

*you can also listen for the (relative to gunfire) very loud torpedo launch sound, but that is not quite as reliable.  Still, circumvents torpedo spotting mechanics which is the only way the AI can avoid torpedoes.

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You know I'm not sure if it's totally torpedo damage that needs to be increased. I was playing the campaign, someone told me how to do it, and a light cruiser hit my legacy BB with like two torpedoes and it sank. The same thing happened to one of my legacy light cruisers. And in the Naval Academy I've seen plenty off pre-dread era ships only take like two or 3 torpedoes and die. Part of it might be torpedo protection being too good. Just a thought.

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