What is communications range good for ?

[Norljus]

What is communications range doing in the game ?

[Goldeneye55]

I have a feeling it is something that will help for the campaign more than the naval academy battles we have available to us.  

[Entropy Avatar]

In Rule The Waves 2, you can lose control over divisions that are too far from the flagship, reverting to AI operation. What happens in this game if you sail your flag ship and escort in opposite directions for long enough?

[Maachlan]

I thought it increased the radius of the Flagship bonus

[Nick Thomadis]

We will expand more this function. It expands the radius in which ships gain an accuracy bonus from the flagship. Beyond a certain distance away from this range, accuracy penalties apply.

When radio communications become available, this communication range becomes very large so that ships are more effective at long distances between them.

[akd]

29 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

We will expand more this function. It expands the radius in which ships gain an accuracy bonus from the flagship. Beyond a certain distance away from this range, accuracy penalties apply.

When radio communications become available, this communication range becomes very large so that ships are more effective at long distances between them.

Would love to see a more sophisticated implementation of this, along the lines of:

• malus for multiple ships firing on same target (aka "concentration fire")
• offsetting bonus from being within command range and firing on flagship's target, but only the most advanced radio and central fire control computer combination would completely offset the "concentration fire" malus
• ships not within the flagship's own division would never gain sufficient bonus to fully offset the malus regardless of tech level

Some associated techs:

• gated by visual communication range:
  • range clocks - large range dial at masthead of flagship facing aft to visually relay the range the flagship is currently firing to to next ship in line, relayed in turn to following ships in division by same
  • bearing marks on turrets - same purpose, but for current bearing of guns
• gated by radio communiciations
  • dedicated divisional fire control channel for communicating firing data
  • fire control computers able to automatically incorporate firing data from other ships in a division into firing solutions
• probably others I am forgetting right now 😉

Edited October 9, 2019 by akd

[Nick Thomadis]

4 minutes ago, akd said:

malus for multiple ships firing on same target (aka "concentration fire")

Yes, this is pending to be introduced asap.
Among the others mentioned, they can be simulated by the effect of "indirect fire", so that ships that visually see a target can share this information with errors to the other ships that do not have the direct visibility.

 

[akd]

Well, this form of indirect fire was really just within a division sailing together, not using a distant ship which introduces a lot of additional problems.  Also, it feels really off when a single enemy ship in a large fleet spots your ship and the entire enemy fleet simultaneously opens fire on you.  Having one distant ship control the fire of another already presents a near insurmountable fire control problem (perhaps it could be done in exceptional circumstances), but having one ship control the fire of an entire fleet is just insanity. 

Edited October 10, 2019 by akd