>>> Ship Designer Feedback<<<

[Heinrich_Woldag]

Thanks for the reply, Cptbarney.

I'm also looking forward to an improved version of Warship Gunner 2. I am.

Because Koei probably won't be making a sequel anymore.

Apart from that, there are two other things I'd like to see improved.
Firstly, the warships that are automatically generated in "Custom Battle" do not look like the ships of the country.

The bridge is always the same, even though it's a Japanese, American or Italian cruiser hazmat, and the ship is always provided with a bridge that doesn't resemble the design of the country's navy.

The Italians were building ships specifically for the Mediterranean region, and the Americans needed to build ships large enough to pass through the Panama Canal for operation in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Japan needed to build warships that could be used in the Sea of Japan, one of the roughest seas in the world.

In this way, each country's warships have a design concept that is the result of careful consideration of the needs of the country.

Therefore, it is uncomfortable for ships that do not match their design philosophy to fly the flag of their respective countries.

And secondly, I believe that the error in the position of the flag flying needs to be corrected.
During combat, the Japanese Navy does not fly the flag on the bow.

It may not be accurate to say that it is the rear ship's bridge that is raised.

I can't translate well, but it seems to be often raised aft of the stern and bridge.
I'm not an expert, so my information may not be correct.
But at least they're not flying the flag on the bow.

 

[coalminer]

On 6/18/2020 at 9:52 PM, Heinrich_Woldag said:

Therefore, it is uncomfortable for ships that do not match their design philosophy to fly the flag of their respective countries.

And secondly, I believe that the error in the position of the flag flying needs to be corrected.
During combat, the Japanese Navy does not fly the flag on the bow.

It may not be accurate to say that it is the rear ship's bridge that is raised.

I can't translate well, but it seems to be often raised aft of the stern and bridge.
I'm not an expert, so my information may not be correct.
But at least they're not flying the flag on the bow.

 

On this point, you are correct. At least from my experience on a modern frigate, bow jack and stern ensigns are taken off during sailing and only flown from the mast for practicality purposes. (wet bow wet flag, aft is the helicopter deck and it interferes with helicopter operations. instead the naval ensign (or battle ensign if going into battle) is flown from the main mast (or for some modern ships, the only mast they have). 

I would hazard a guess that for older vessels the battle ensigns are hoisted on the aft mast or atleast aft of the smokestacks to clear the smoke.

[Cptbarney]

On 6/18/2020 at 2:52 PM, Heinrich_Woldag said:

Thanks for the reply, Cptbarney.

I'm also looking forward to an improved version of Warship Gunner 2. I am.

Because Koei probably won't be making a sequel anymore.

Apart from that, there are two other things I'd like to see improved.
Firstly, the warships that are automatically generated in "Custom Battle" do not look like the ships of the country.

The bridge is always the same, even though it's a Japanese, American or Italian cruiser hazmat, and the ship is always provided with a bridge that doesn't resemble the design of the country's navy.

The Italians were building ships specifically for the Mediterranean region, and the Americans needed to build ships large enough to pass through the Panama Canal for operation in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Japan needed to build warships that could be used in the Sea of Japan, one of the roughest seas in the world.

In this way, each country's warships have a design concept that is the result of careful consideration of the needs of the country.

Therefore, it is uncomfortable for ships that do not match their design philosophy to fly the flag of their respective countries.

And secondly, I believe that the error in the position of the flag flying needs to be corrected.
During combat, the Japanese Navy does not fly the flag on the bow.

It may not be accurate to say that it is the rear ship's bridge that is raised.

I can't translate well, but it seems to be often raised aft of the stern and bridge.
I'm not an expert, so my information may not be correct.
But at least they're not flying the flag on the bow.

 

Ye, i hope they do add more superstructure, bridge and turret models, plus even barbettes and casemates, and allow to swap out out different segments of those afforementioned sections of the ship to allow for truely creative designs.

We need moar hulls as well for each nation and era, for more creativity. I really hope most of the game is soft coded, den i can finally add muh models in!

[1MajorKoenig]

On 6/21/2020 at 5:55 PM, Cptbarney said:

Ye, i hope they do add more superstructure, bridge and turret models, plus even barbettes and casemates, and allow to swap out out different segments of those afforementioned sections of the ship to allow for truely creative designs.

We need moar hulls as well for each nation and era, for more creativity. I really hope most of the game is soft coded, den i can finally add muh models in!

Is there any information on whether the devs are going to release some additional features and/or parts for the ship designer anytime soon?

[Cptbarney]

22 minutes ago, 1MajorKoenig said:

Is there any information on whether the devs are going to release some additional features and/or parts for the ship designer anytime soon?

There is this from ink.

We will update the community on the progress by posting the internal campaign patch notes at least once every month.

The only development focus after Steam keys’ delivery will be the campaign. We will, of course, occasionally switch to critical bugs or minor features, but campaign is and will be the only main priority

So, i don't know exactly if we we will get moar stuff for the designer but i hope we do, there isnt enough content atm to tie people over and that can and will cause a major problem during steam release and people dropping off and forgetting about the game entirely.

[1MajorKoenig]

2 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

There is this from ink.

We will update the community on the progress by posting the internal campaign patch notes at least once every month.

The only development focus after Steam keys’ delivery will be the campaign. We will, of course, occasionally switch to critical bugs or minor features, but campaign is and will be the only main priority

So, i don't know exactly if we we will get moar stuff for the designer but i hope we do, there isnt enough content atm to tie people over and that can and will cause a major problem during steam release and people dropping off and forgetting about the game entirely.

That‘s exactly my fear. I think it’s a great start but I also think we need some improvements to the ship designer if we expect people to stay tuned for half a year. 
 

If we could at least get some improvements like splitting up modules into more granular parts, more freedom of placement and some additional hulls, towers and such. 
 

All I really play at the moment is custom battles and I would appreciate food for moar ships :–)

[Cptbarney]

1 minute ago, 1MajorKoenig said:

That‘s exactly my fear. I think it’s a great start but I also think we need some improvements to the ship designer if we expect people to stay tuned for half a year. 
 

If we could at least get some improvements like splitting up modules into more granular parts, more freedom of placement and some additional hulls, towers and such. 
 

All I really play at the moment is custom battles and I would appreciate food for moar ships :–)

Same, if they could moar stuff to both things it should help even if the game is still missing some key features or existing features not being totally indepth. Frankly im more interested in the ship builder, custom battles, campaign and mods than anythign else really.

I also want to build california since weegee did her dirty in wurld of dankships, and i want to build yashima/shikashima too. But we need 20.1cm (510mm) guns for that too be a thing.

But yeah could defo do with more freedoms in modules and hull placement especially widening or thinning plus lengthing the hull (so you can go for those russian style hulls if you wanted too).

I havent even checked if the hotfix has arrived yet at all.

[BuckleUpBones]

Wouldn't it be nice if the team spent the whole of July working on custom battles and then 10 days of internal testing up to the 10th of August.

Forget about the campaign until then, once/if/when the next update of custom battles was out, then the team could fall back into campaign mode without hassle. 

[High Lord Baron]

So, one thing I noticed it's hard to differentiate between different hulls when using the unlock option in later years. So maybe add some way to sort them.

Furthermore, I think that you should allow more things (like barbettes) to be placed everywhere, instead of snap points only.

Lastly, I would be very happy if we can get the ability to create custom freighters!

[High Lord Baron]

Also, it would be great if we could disable the weight limit in a custom battle!

[Worry_Rock]

You should add the Quad-turrets that were on the Virginia class Battleships or the USS Kearsarge.

Edited October 28, 2020 by Worry_Rock
They're adding Quads

[Legioneod]

More Hull types.

 

 

Remove fixed points so I can place towers/barbettes anywhere I want. Currently customization is severely limited by this "feature"

 

More tower types for US ships.

 

[Worry_Rock]

You should add the single gun 18in turrets of the HMS Furious

[Harry Nak]

A very enjoyable game so far, perhaps adding the following features might improve it even more:

 

• More flexibility in designing the hull; e.g.,  being able to choose different bow and stern sections.
• Being able to design belowdecks, for example placing crew quarters, turret machinery, and ammo storages.
• Adding various ship camouflage and dazzle pattern options.
• Crew morale effects.

 

Edited July 18, 2020 by Harry Nak

[gamerfromspace]

On 10/6/2019 at 1:53 PM, Nick Thomadis said:

Gun turrets will be strictly tied to technology, but some special hulls will be available only to specific Nations. Barbette thickness/function is planned to become more detailed in the near future.

by tied to technology, do you mean tied to individual nation's technology, or just generally, also i largo number of players do want more gun turrets specific to nations, to make their ships more authentic. For us players when the super structure and weapons are the same for multiple nations just ruins the immersion that we want from the game, I have made a forum post about turret suggestions

[gamerfromspace]

On 7/10/2020 at 11:54 AM, Legioneod said:

Remove fixed points so I can place towers/barbettes anywhere I want. Currently customization is severely limited by this "feature"

This really needs to be added into the game

[AdmiralGunzo]

This is a pretty good looking AI ship: the secondaries aren't all over the place and so on.

 

but it was one typical problem: the ugly barbettes.

 

IMO. the AI should prioritize the right sized barbettes.

 

Edited July 28, 2020 by AdmiralGunzo

[gamerfromspace]

On 5/15/2020 at 7:14 PM, Xenol said:

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

I so strongly agree with this and so should be added

[The Sidhe]

Showed the game (I have Limited Edition) to a friend of mine who is so impressed, especially witgh the designer, that he intends to get his own copy.

 

That said, he pointed out a flaw in the list of components for the 1890s designs in tower/mast structures. He commented that, while many warships used the Type 1 Forward Tower Structure, in the 1890s the overwhelming majority of warships, especially capital units, tended to have a fairly simple pole rig structure at the rear of the ship, with a fairly simple spotting top mostly for plotting shot. He sugests amending the designer so that pole masts are a viable option.

 

[Adm.Hawklyn]

I would hope at the very least that they add additional sticky points for the barbette system, and while I seem to have read something about AI being limited, I'm not really sure if that's such a big factor... Considering how many have asked for this feature in a near continuous mantra/chant, they should perhaps just add them in regardless of  the possible AI issues and let us help them test it out, that is what Alpha is for really...

And Quad turrets for Jean Bart and other weird French battleships...Although, the British tried quads at one point I think... Anyway, I agree with everyone's previous feedback as well...

[Worry_Rock]

Something I've been wondering about is if Refits and Retrofits will be possible in the Campaign mode?

also,

On 8/27/2020 at 4:48 PM, Adm.Hawklyn said:

And Quad turrets for Jean Bart and other weird French battleships...Although, the British tried quads at one point I think... Anyway, I agree with everyone's previous feedback as well...

 The British used two quad 14in and a twin 14in as it would have been a delay of 18 months for the three triple 15in they originally wanted to use.

[1MajorKoenig]

On 9/3/2020 at 12:15 AM, Worry_Rock said:

Something I've been wondering about is if Refits and Retrofits will be possible in the Campaign mode?

I think they said it would be possible although we don’t know how that would work in the game.

I hope for the same - it would be a shame if you couldn’t be keeping your ships up to date 

[Grandpa Canuck]

I have a concern with the ability to use swivel torpedo launchers centerline mounted on many designs.  This was impossible on most ships as the technology of the era made it not possible to throw the torpedo any great distance before gravity dropped it below deck level.  There needs to be a max beam width as to where torpedo launchers can be placed swivel center line mounted.  Note the picture attached below even with this minimal width they could not use a centerline mount.

 

[Steeltrap]

Some comments on design generally from a different thread, starting from the matter of longitudinal stability (bow/stern axis) and what it means when trying to recreate the famous designs with all main guns mounted ahead of the superstructure.

That whole mechanism (balance and other aspects) works backwards.

You start with the parameters of armour, speed and armament. You make multiple variations on a theme, which is why there are so many different potential versions of ALL the last BBs such as KGV, North Carolina through Iowa, etc. Eventually you settle on one.

Normally it's built around the concept of the armament you want, its positioning and how to minimise the space required for the 'citadel' in an all or nothing scheme. The Nelson was a classic illustration of doing that within the treaty limits while managing to squeeze in 9x16". The price was speed and an unusual armament arrangement, but it can't be said they weren't powerful, effective ships (consider how quickly Bismarck had its main armament silenced, something like 20 minutes from the first shots being fired).

I would far prefer the system reflect that design process than the current one that arbitrarily forces some pretty bizarre things in the interest of 'balancing' the ship or, worse for the AI, not doing so and suffering very serious penalties to gunnery accuracy.

It could be altered such that you have armament and armour and designed speed parameters. You tell the designer what you want, and it gives you a basic version of that with ZERO fore/aft balance issues. It ought to produce a ship with the required parameters and the MINIMUM length and displacement required to do so. You can then modify it if you wish.

That means if you want a 14" belt and 3 triple 16" mounts and 28 knots, it's possibly going to end up VERY large if you don't have good enough engine tech. Indeed, it might even say "there is no available design to meet those requirements with current technology".

Of course that also raises the question of hull shapes, themselves a product of design wishes. I pointed out in a different thread the differences in the bows of KGV v North Carolina because the quad turret required more width of hull than a triple. The North Carolina had to make compromises to the forward part of the torpedo protection because of the width of hull relative to its 'A' turret and magazine requirements, and South Dakota class had various changes based on lessons from NC.

In short, it's horribly complicated, which I'm sure people know, which is also why 'simulating' it is tricky.

In practical terms for the game, it's an illustration of WHY the armour system really needs a thorough overhaul. The size of the space to be included within the citadel of an all or nothing scheme is REALLY significant in terms of possibilities. There are good reasons everyone didn't have ships with 20" belts and 10" decks but, as yet, the system really doesn't do a good job demonstrating it. In fact if you look at the 'immunity zones' of the latest BBs built it's rather remarkable how distant they were due to the power of the most modern armaments (NC's supposedly started at 19,000 yards/17.4km, for example). The idea of these ships closing to under 10km in conditions where they could control engagement ranges is silly because they generally knew the potential vulnerabilities to various enemy guns and the effective range of their own and thus would try to manage the former as best they could while also maximising the latter. In short if you can hit and damage your opponent reliably at ranges where they cannot do the same, that's where you want to fight.

Some further thoughts on the question of hulls.

I'd like to see the ability to make design choices when it comes to hulls that favour speed or minimise displacement for a given armament/armour scheme and so on, because in essence that's rather crudely how it worked. I'd even go so far as to say certain hulls have certain maximum limits. Why the game allows BB hulls technically to have 40 knot limits escapes me as that simply has NEVER been realistic until nuke power plants and other tech advances arrived. It's an open question as to the extra displacement, length and massive power plant the Iowa had to take on board for about 5 more knots speed over NC/SD wouldn't have been better spent elsewhere, for example (one might argue that's what Montana was all about). She proved a very effective class, some might argue the best rounded BB of all, not least because the nature of war altered so greatly that speed to accompany the fast fleet carriers was paramount. For a straight up gunship, however, I suspect a 30 knot design with more armour etc might have been a better choice. Interestingly enough it was found that Vanguard was able to keep pace with Iowa easily in anything other than the smoothest of seas because she turned out to be a highly effective design when it came to maintaining speeds through any sorts of conditions. In short, your hull shape is in no small part dictated by your other priorities.

You don't start with a hull and say "what can I stick in this?", you say what you want to have on board then do your best to design a hull that allows you to meet your design requirements re speed, armour and armament.

I find it odd the game doesn't include the effect of seas on a ship's ability to maintain speeds given it's one of the most significant effects of bad weather. I know of at least one instance where an Iowa class left its DDs behind as they couldn't keep up with her in heavy seas, lol (I think she slowed once they realised what was happening).

Consider Hood and Queen Elizabeth class hulls as a great illustration; same armament, different armour (although surprisingly not massively so), VERY different speeds. Hood necessarily ended up MUCH longer with a different length:beam ratio because, again, the physics of hydrodynamics etc etc all but demand that. Sure, improvements in power plants can somewhat mitigate the extreme differences (watching the Drach video on naval boiler development is worthwhile to show just how much that can matter), but you have to design and build a hull with the technology available as a design constraint.

TL;DR? LOL

While there's a lot they COULD do, there's one thing I would do regardless: get rid of the longitudinal balance entirely. That DOESN'T mean removing pitch/roll penalties (pitch would have to be tied to the hull and NOT placement of components, possibly greater if you choose to lengthen it although I'd like to do a bit of research on that), but I just don't see what the system adds that's worth having.

I don't see what it adds, and I KNOW the AI produces things with awful gunnery penalties. Ask it to do a design for you see how some of them turn out in that respect. If you can't build ships that existed without awful penalties then there's a flaw (or several) in the system.

If you want to stick all your guns in the bows, you ought to be able to. We all know there were designs that did just that, and they didn't sail around 3 degrees down by the bows because their naval designers couldn't work out how to achieve appropriate weight distributions.

Otherwise? I've underlined the bits I think are the best statements of 'principle' the designer ought to do its best to accommodate.

Cheers

[Skeksis]

17 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

get rid of the longitudinal balance entirely. That DOESN'T mean removing pitch/roll penalties

What is the difference between your suggested “pitch” penalty and the current font/aft offset?

Nothing right, they're the same thing, except the offset that shown is a 'general user warning', to let users know that there are penalties, apposed to be listed within the general stats of which would be harder to determine or not even listed at all.

General warning helps the layman and is a lead for new users that stats are important, it’s helpful. Also it’s something for the designer to achieve, to bring their design back into balance (more interaction).   

Removing warnings could result in extreme alts without the user really knowing what’s going wrong…

 

With help...

 

Edited October 28, 2020 by Skeksis