>>> Ship Designer Feedback<<<

[TypeZeta]

Hello, New here. I would like to see hardpoint restrictions removes for main guns and structures. but also Barbettes because I like trying to build ships as close to their historical counterparts as possible but the restrictions currently don't allow that. and it would be nice to be able to do that

 

[Xenol]

I know that what a lot of what I’m about to say has been said before, but I feel suggestion reports often work on a principle of ‘accuracy by volume’

I will preface this by saying that the compelling facebook adverts (which have slowly ground down my will into purchasing a £40 over the course of several months) are pretty misleading since I now see on here, that the devs have said back in October that they have no intention of implementing a similar system to adjust the hull. This borders on false advertising which I don’t think is fair for a game of this price!

In general I find designing a vessel a very straightforward process and which produces very realistic-looking designs, but the limitations are such that I find myself getting frustrated — which is sad since otherwise this game is the answer to my prayers. 

Essential changes:

• Superstructure and barbettes are extremely limited on placement. I understand locking to the centre line (although don’t necessarily agree) but having a very small margin of placement makes no sense to me. What If I wanted to make a Nelson-style ship on one of the ‘dreadnought’ hulls? Personally I think you should be free to place them anywhere there’s physically sufficient beam to fit it.

• ‘Secondary Tower - is needed’ ‘Main Guns - at least 2 needed’ Why? I understand mandating the main tower and funnels, but what if I want only one tower? What if I want to have no ‘main’ guns and use lots of heavy secondaries? Obviously there’s disadvantages to this, but that should be up to the player to discover, not the game to dictate.

• Similar to the above, why does it limit the number of some things? Why not let me have two secondary towers? Even worse, why limit the number of barbettes/turrets? Dreadnought/superdreadnought hulls seem limited to 6x centreline turrets, which is not only unnecessarily limiting to the player, but ahistorical (HMS Agincourt having 7).
• Although it seems trivial, cosmetic customisation will be key to maintaining player interest. The ability to place spotlights and lifeboats for example (and perhaps the ability to customise how the bridge superstructure looks?)  gives the player the ability to sink more time into customisation and become attached to their designs.

 

Nice to have 

Things which I don't consider essential, but would still greatly improve the general playability of the game. 

• Mirroring is very unintuitive, sometimes decides to turn off, the icon isn’t particularly clear either. Perhaps have a ‘ghost’ version of the mirrored item? Also, rotation should be mirrored.

• When you are in item-placement mode, left-clicking on an object already placed should automatically clear the selection. For example, if you’ve just placed a funnel, your cursor is still ‘loaded’ with the funnel. Currently if you click on, say, a placed tower, you’ll get an ‘overlaps with tower’ warning. Instead, it would be more intuitive if clicking clears the funnel and selects the tower.
• Left clicking on an object shouldn’t immediately pick it up, but simply highlight it. A second click should be required (or alternatively a click-and-hold) to move the object. This prevents you messing up a placement by clicking on an object by accident.
• Pressing esc while ‘holding’ an object should clear it. Then you’d press esc again to bring up the menu.
• Current casemate system is very restrictive, limiting you to the pre-provided slots, and leaving you with said slots if you decide to not have casemates. Instead hulls could be blank by default. When you select casemates, a strip will be shown on the hull for acceptable placement. Once casemates are placed, a slot will be rendered.

 

Basically, TL:DR this game currently doesn't allow you the level of customisation that is suggests, limiting your building needlessly. ALLOW PLAYERS TO BUILD WEIRD THINGS! If I wanted a generic 4 turret superfiring battleship I'd play World of Warships!

Thanks for coming to my TED talk

[Frnknbry]

A # of things I would like if possible a way of replaying the last say 10sec's or kill shot a lot of the time I would just love to get a close up view of it weather it was me or the opponent. the next  thing will we be able to design multiple ship in the custom battles say like a Battleship, Cruiser & destroyers? And lastly are we ever going to be able to design ships like the Agincourt or the French quad turret battleships?

[DougToss]

 

On 5/15/2020 at 2:14 PM, Xenol said:

‘Main Guns - at least 2 needed’ Why? I understand mandating the main tower and funnels, but what if I want only one tower? What if I want to have no ‘main’ guns and use lots of heavy secondaries? Obviously there’s disadvantages to this, but that should be up to the player to discover, not the game to dictate.

I agree with most of what you said, but you are describing a primary armament. If you have lots of heavy guns, those are you main guns. 

Now, if you are arguing that a ship laid down in 1900 should have the main armament arranged in broadside, either casemates or like in the age of Nelson, I think that's absolutely absurd and should not be allowed, because it would never be designed or built. Fantasy or no, there has to be some grounding in reality. What nation would allow a 20, 000tn vessel costing what would be roughly $267,606,118 USD in today's currency (based on Dreadnought) with an armament that they would know, from the earliest napkin sketch, would be totally ineffective? 

I like that players have freedom to design imperfect, even bad designs, I don't think there is any point allowing them to design impossibly terrible ships, especially since that is a recipe for frustration for players that don't understand the theory and practice of ship design. 

[thesethawa]

I'd like to say I expected the design to be much more freeform than I got when I bought the game. The ads made it look like you could make your own hulls and everything. Just having sliders and a few snapping points for attachments is kind of lame.

 

The game is interesting but currently it feels like I've wasted my money.

[Xenol]

21 hours ago, DougToss said:

 

I agree with most of what you said, but you are describing a primary armament. If you have lots of heavy guns, those are you main guns. 

Now, if you are arguing that a ship laid down in 1900 should have the main armament arranged in broadside, either casemates or like in the age of Nelson, I think that's absolutely absurd and should not be allowed, because it would never be designed or built. Fantasy or no, there has to be some grounding in reality. What nation would allow a 20, 000tn vessel costing what would be roughly $267,606,118 USD in today's currency (based on Dreadnought) with an armament that they would know, from the earliest napkin sketch, would be totally ineffective? 

I like that players have freedom to design imperfect, even bad designs, I don't think there is any point allowing them to design impossibly terrible ships, especially since that is a recipe for frustration for players that don't understand the theory and practice of ship design. 

I'm only saying that the game should not make arbitrary impositions on the numbers of specific items you can place. What If I wanted to make a vessel with a similar layout to the Victoria class ironclads but modernised? (Aka, a single extra-heavy turret). In the current game you are FORCED to place at least two main turrets... there is no need.

As for stopping the player producing totally absurd designs – you would have to have a very loose grasp on actual naval history to believe that mere absurdity was a barrier to many naval architects – one only needs to look at French vessels of the period – or ridiculous ships like HMS Furious, Admiral Popov, Virginia Class etc etc to see this.

What if I wanted to make a true 'large light cruiser' armed with many small-calibre weapons on a battlecruiser hull? Such a vessel could have practical use in certain scenarios.

At the end of the day I'm paying a not-inconsiderable amount of money for a game which for a long time likened itself to the Kerbal Space program yet forces to essentially build the same ship each time. 

14 hours ago, thesethawa said:

I'd like to say I expected the design to be much more freeform than I got when I bought the game. The ads made it look like you could make your own hulls and everything. Just having sliders and a few snapping points for attachments is kind of lame.

 

The game is interesting but currently it feels like I've wasted my money.

This pretty much sums it up. 

[Xenol]

Oh, and another small suggestion:

[DougToss]

On 5/22/2020 at 9:25 AM, Xenol said:

What if I wanted to make a true 'large light cruiser' armed with many small-calibre weapons on a battlecruiser hull? Such a vessel could have practical use in certain scenarios.

An aside, but what mission could this ship fulfill that whatever number of smaller vessels built for the same cost could not? What is the mission and why is that ship the right choice for the mission?

A large light (or protected) cruiser might be overkill for a raider, but size allows for extended range and faster, more reliable propulsion. That size being much smaller than a BC, but still larger than typical for a light or protected cruiser of whatever year it is, in both own and competitor fleets. That makes sense, in certain circumstances. A lightly armoured ship like that could be a valuable raider, a more heavily armoured one could scout for the battle line, though both would probably be more expensive for their mission than conventionally sized light/protected cruisers. The added size, and hence attendant protection would probably be wasted for scouting, as a scout should not be employed in a way that takes it under the fire of guns any heavier than its own. It should certainly have the mobility to stay out of the fire of armoured cruisers and the enemy line, because that's the critical mission of a scout. If it trades protection for mobility, it's not really a scout is it? What do you learn through "reconnaissance by being fired-at" that you couldn't learn from not taking that fire? 

Chasing off enemy CLs is the mission for armoured cruisers, so there is not really a benefit to over-protecting the CL in anticipation of that mission. After all, a ship well armed and protected enough to do that is probably not going to be able to evade enemy CAs, and so might as well be one. Using a 20000tn vessel to chase away scouts and screens is just asking for a torpedo, and with that armament you would have to be well within their torpedo range to pose a credible threat, while yourself presenting a massive target. You'll either end up designing a CA or a CL without a viable doctrine or mission. 

Using a battlecruiser hull with light armament is conceptually flawed for at least those reasons. As a scout, the tremendous size and cost is completely wasted. If it is armoured like a CL at that size, it is just a huge, fragile target. If armoured like a BC, then it is protected against targets it itself can't fight. If it can't engage the targets it is protected against, why is it coming under their fire in the first place? 

It's a ship without a doctrine or a mission or at best with a doctrine or mission that could be better accomplished by a lesser vessel for lesser cost or several lesser vessels for the same cost. 

Now if you say, "because I want to" and "it's fun", well I have to give it to you. It's entirely subjective and I'm not against people having fun! 🥳

 I'm just saying there are many, many reasons why certain designs were never theorized or built, and because ship design and naval combat is not intuitive, design limitations channel players into areas where they will find success independent of them having theoretical knowledge of the subject. 

Edited May 25, 2020 by DougToss

[Xenol]

5 hours ago, DougToss said:

It's a ship without a doctrine or a mission or at best with a doctrine or mission that could be better accomplished by a lesser vessel for lesser cost or several lesser vessels for the same cost. 

I never said it was a good idea 😉

 

Quote

Now if you say, "because I want to" and "it's fun", well I have to give it to you. It's entirely subjective and I'm not against people having fun! 🥳

 I'm just saying there are many, many reasons why certain designs were never theorized or built, and because ship design and naval combat is not intuitive, design limitations channel players into areas where they will find success independent of them having theoretical knowledge of the subject. 

If I'm honest, nail + head. I want to mess around! It's really no skin off the dev's back to free up many of the current constrictions to improve the player experience. At the end of the day it's a matter of what this game is marketing itself as, and for whom. Perhaps a compromise would be some sort of system in the campaign which means that designs can be vetoed by some faceless 'navy controller' if they're too stupid, but give you no such limits in the individual missions or free-play? 

[sbadkins4]

Suggestion:
Add/modify early IJN hull, to allow for Satsuma class (both in actual 2x2x305 / 6x2x254 and proposed 4x2x305 / 4x1x305 designs?) and Kawachi class.

[Fuems]

I'd brought this up before, though it was probably as relative in that thread - so at the risk of redundancy, I'm still desperately hoping to see usable secondary mounts on the Hood and Nelson -styled forward and rear towers. I don't know if these specific spots were intended for small (50-76mm) secondaries or casemate mounts, but at the moment neither can be placed.

[BobRoss0902]

On 5/28/2020 at 4:46 PM, Fuems said:

I'd brought this up before, though it was probably as relative in that thread - so at the risk of redundancy, I'm still desperately hoping to see usable secondary mounts on the Hood and Nelson -styled forward and rear towers. I don't know if these specific spots were intended for small (50-76mm) secondaries or casemate mounts, but at the moment neither can be placed.

yea thats an issue on some U.S superstructures as well for quite some time now.

[traeng]

On 5/25/2020 at 6:41 PM, DougToss said:

An aside, but what mission could this ship fulfill that whatever number of smaller vessels built for the same cost could not? What is the mission and why is that ship the right choice for the mission?

A large light (or protected) cruiser might be overkill for a raider, but size allows for extended range and faster, more reliable propulsion. That size being much smaller than a BC, but still larger than typical for a light or protected cruiser of whatever year it is, in both own and competitor fleets. That makes sense, in certain circumstances. A lightly armoured ship like that could be a valuable raider, a more heavily armoured one could scout for the battle line, though both would probably be more expensive for their mission than conventionally sized light/protected cruisers. The added size, and hence attendant protection would probably be wasted for scouting, as a scout should not be employed in a way that takes it under the fire of guns any heavier than its own. It should certainly have the mobility to stay out of the fire of armoured cruisers and the enemy line, because that's the critical mission of a scout. If it trades protection for mobility, it's not really a scout is it? What do you learn through "reconnaissance by being fired-at" that you couldn't learn from not taking that fire? 

Chasing off enemy CLs is the mission for armoured cruisers, so there is not really a benefit to over-protecting the CL in anticipation of that mission. After all, a ship well armed and protected enough to do that is probably not going to be able to evade enemy CAs, and so might as well be one. Using a 20000tn vessel to chase away scouts and screens is just asking for a torpedo, and with that armament you would have to be well within their torpedo range to pose a credible threat, while yourself presenting a massive target. You'll either end up designing a CA or a CL without a viable doctrine or mission. 

Using a battlecruiser hull with light armament is conceptually flawed for at least those reasons. As a scout, the tremendous size and cost is completely wasted. If it is armoured like a CL at that size, it is just a huge, fragile target. If armoured like a BC, then it is protected against targets it itself can't fight. If it can't engage the targets it is protected against, why is it coming under their fire in the first place? 

It's a ship without a doctrine or a mission or at best with a doctrine or mission that could be better accomplished by a lesser vessel for lesser cost or several lesser vessels for the same cost. 

Now if you say, "because I want to" and "it's fun", well I have to give it to you. It's entirely subjective and I'm not against people having fun! 🥳

 I'm just saying there are many, many reasons why certain designs were never theorized or built, and because ship design and naval combat is not intuitive, design limitations channel players into areas where they will find success independent of them having theoretical knowledge of the subject. 

Ships like the Scharnhorst exist.

Had small guns to raid convoys.

[traeng]

My opinions on the game so far:

-Lacks some freedom when making ships, I think, as everyone else, that most snap points shouldn't be a thing.

-Customizable hulls part by part. You answered to this previously that you experimented with this. Yes, it increases the time spent while making ships. but that is exactly why we are here for.At least make this a feature, an option to select "separate hull parts Y/N" So that some of us players can take their time and make the hull of their dream.

-2 main guns needed, secondary tower needed. No, please let us do what ever we want, place the main tower everywhere, no secondary tower should we chose to do so. A rangefinder doesn't need 2 towers, but 2 towers should have with long range targeting.

-Add more spots for underwater torpedo launchers. All along the ship. Look where mikasa's launchers were placed, we can't do that in game.

 

[Whomst'd've]

18 hours ago, traeng said:

Ships like the Scharnhorst exist.

Had small guns to raid convoys.

The Scharnhorst class was armed with triple 11 inch turrets because of the treaties after WW1 restricting their max gun size to 11 inch. The Scharnhorst's triple 11 was also build around a barbette wide enough to be switched out for dual 15 inch turrets as that was preferred. So I would not say that arming the Scharnhorsts with 11s was just because of raiding convoys. 

[1MajorKoenig]

I gave this feedback also in the Ship Designer section but it might be better off here:

 

Can we please split the module “main tower” into 

• bridge/conning tower
• mast

It would be great to be more flexible to design the ships we dream about! This ship designer function is awesome in general but it would be a lot of work to include all parts we need as presets. If broken down eg like the proposal above we would ble to get more flexible without blowing the dev effort through the roof 

Also it would be good to have smaller bridge structures for dreadnoughts. I struggle to create eg a “en-echelon” setup as the bridges are too large currently. 

[DougToss]

Masked casemates on hulls and superstructures is looking more and more important as so many of the placement points we have now just don't work. 

[Cptbarney]

Un-used spots need to be covered up, kinda werid just seeing them on the hull and makes the ship somewhat ugly plus makes no sense as a ship wouldnt run around with armour gaps where casemates would be for example.

On 5/25/2020 at 11:28 PM, Xenol said:

I never said it was a good idea 😉

 

If I'm honest, nail + head. I want to mess around! It's really no skin off the dev's back to free up many of the current constrictions to improve the player experience. At the end of the day it's a matter of what this game is marketing itself as, and for whom. Perhaps a compromise would be some sort of system in the campaign which means that designs can be vetoed by some faceless 'navy controller' if they're too stupid, but give you no such limits in the individual missions or free-play? 

You could do something even better, have an option for unrestrictive (more money and resources, i would assume) ship design for the campaign and restrictive (more grounded in reality) as well. Then apply whatever nessecary measures are needed for the restrictive option.

[Shaun]

Xenol your post is legendary.

[ozzy.88]

On 5/15/2020 at 8:14 PM, Xenol said:

Similar to the above, why does it limit the number of some things? Why not let me have two secondary towers? Even worse, why limit the number of barbettes/turrets? Dreadnought/superdreadnought hulls seem limited to 6x centreline turrets, which is not only unnecessarily limiting to the player, but ahistorical (HMS Agincourt having 7).

There is one issue with this: it would allow player to put centerline turrets all the way from aft to bow creating an impossible design with no place for engine rooms. There are two ways to solve this: either limit the number of centerline turrets (like in RTW) 

OR

reserve some portion of the hull for the machinery. It would be under the deck so it wouldn't collide with superstructure, only with gun barbettes. How much space exactly it would take would depend on ship's displacement, speed and technology. Since the machinery would be in the middle it won't restrict placement of casemate guns and wing turrets. It could also add penalties to funnel capacity/engine efficiency if the player placed funnels away from the boiler rooms.

Pic rel:

 

[Alias72]

6 hours ago, ozzy.88 said:

There is one issue with this: it would allow player to put centerline turrets all the way from aft to bow creating an impossible design with no place for engine rooms. There are two ways to solve this: either limit the number of centerline turrets (like in RTW) 

OR

reserve some portion of the hull for the machinery. It would be under the deck so it wouldn't collide with superstructure, only with gun barbettes. How much space exactly it would take would depend on ship's displacement, speed and technology. Since the machinery would be in the middle it won't restrict placement of casemate guns and wing turrets. It could also add penalties to funnel capacity/engine efficiency if the player placed funnels away from the boiler rooms.

Pic rel:

 

In addendum. Please allow for split machinery such as on the Fuso class

[coalminer]

On 6/15/2020 at 3:11 AM, Alias72 said:

In addendum. Please allow for split machinery such as on the Fuso class

This is very suitable for the game to be in line with realism that the game strives for, early designs would have less compact machinery which would result in larger machinery spaces and lesser room for large armaments. It also kind of underlines why predreads and wing turrets were predominant until machinery layouts were optimised. Naval Ops (and the warship gunner series) did ship design very well with unobtrusive and intuitive designer that factored in for barbettes and machinery size. https://youtu.be/z9qSlCOflIg?t=357 (not my video, but gives a good glimpse into how the designer was handled)

Speed would be less of an arbitrary number and more of how much HP was installed and the efficiency of the gearbox, this would be compared to the "ship resistance" value of the hull to obtain the max speed capable. So higher engine tech naturally led to faster ships rather than the 40 knots BC and BBs the AI randomly dishes out now and then.

Barbettes are also easily handled through raising and lowering of the gun mounts without having to manually place (ill fitting) barbettes. The current addition of more barbettes sizes and heights is a good idea but in execution only provides a illusion of choice. Putting a tall barbette does automatically provide another slot infront for a raise barbette to easily make raised superfiring A B C mounts.

 

[1MajorKoenig]

23 hours ago, coalminer said:

This is very suitable for the game to be in line with realism that the game strives for, early designs would have less compact machinery which would result in larger machinery spaces and lesser room for large armaments. It also kind of underlines why predreads and wing turrets were predominant until machinery layouts were optimised. Naval Ops (and the warship gunner series) did ship design very well with unobtrusive and intuitive designer that factored in for barbettes and machinery size. https://youtu.be/z9qSlCOflIg?t=357 (not my video, but gives a good glimpse into how the designer was handled)

Speed would be less of an arbitrary number and more of how much HP was installed and the efficiency of the gearbox, this would be compared to the "ship resistance" value of the hull to obtain the max speed capable. So higher engine tech naturally led to faster ships rather than the 40 knots BC and BBs the AI randomly dishes out now and then.

Barbettes are also easily handled through raising and lowering of the gun mounts without having to manually place (ill fitting) barbettes. The current addition of more barbettes sizes and heights is a good idea but in execution only provides a illusion of choice. Putting a tall barbette does automatically provide another slot infront for a raise barbette to easily make raised superfiring A B C mounts.

 

Would be good to place machinery spaces manually.

 

Determining where you can put funnels as a result.

 

Determine where you can put main guns as a result 

[Heinrich_Woldag]

First of all, please understand that I am Japanese, so my English is not very good and that makes it difficult for me to reply.

The game coalminer cites as an example is a game created by Koei in Japan.
It's called "Warship Gunner 2".

I basically think we should be able to design warships like this game, and we should be able to design our warships at will.
This is because when designing warships, setting too many requirements makes it difficult to design special ships like the Die Admiral Graf Spee.
For this reason, we think that the smokestacks and bridges of warships should be a little more liberal in their placement than they are now.

Also, unrelated to the above, but I think the image may be different from the introduction of the Queen Elizabeth class battleship that appears on the waiting screen.
Please check the description of the Queen Elizabeth class battleships and the image of the Revenge class battleships as I believe they are displayed.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Heinrich_Woldag

[Cptbarney]

16 hours ago, Heinrich_Woldag said:

First of all, please understand that I am Japanese, so my English is not very good and that makes it difficult for me to reply.

The game coalminer cites as an example is a game created by Koei in Japan.
It's called "Warship Gunner 2".

I basically think we should be able to design warships like this game, and we should be able to design our warships at will.
This is because when designing warships, setting too many requirements makes it difficult to design special ships like the Die Admiral Graf Spee.
For this reason, we think that the smokestacks and bridges of warships should be a little more liberal in their placement than they are now.

Also, unrelated to the above, but I think the image may be different from the introduction of the Queen Elizabeth class battleship that appears on the waiting screen.
Please check the description of the Queen Elizabeth class battleships and the image of the Revenge class battleships as I believe they are displayed.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

I agree with this fully. Having the ability to design whatever is still a key fundemental and core part of this game and reducing it unless you allow for the option/s to go down a more historical route while also presenting the ability to still have a fully fledged designer will hurt the game more thna it will help.

What this game needs is options for both historical and unhistorical for the campaign and the existing game modes so that peeps can simply design whatever they wish with no limitations or whatever limitations people put on themselves while playing.

Plus theres lots of ships i want too see added and hopefully the devs will be able to implement the modular style they were going for when they first advertised this game.