>>>"Alpha-2 v.63" General Feedback<<< [LATEST UPDATE: 26/10/2019]

[Steeltrap]

2 hours ago, AnonymousPepper said:

So uh... am I just an idiot, or is the weight limitation, like, oppressively small on the early destroyers and torpedo boats we get to play with? Like I'd love to toy around with them a bit, but there seems to be basically no wiggle room to do anything.

Is this intended and historical?

Pretty much, yes. It's a case of cram engines for performance into the hull then slap on a torp launcher or two and a few popguns and that's a DD. 

The Admiralty M class DD that escorted the 1st Battle Cruiser Squadron (Beatty) at the battle of Jutland was ~1,060 tons at full load, had 3 x 4" quick firing guns and two twin 21" torp launchers. They had steam turbines and could make 34 knots.

German equivalents were more or less the same, differing in armament (88mm/3.5" v the RN's 4") and numbers of torps. Speed, size, tonnage and crew much the same.

As I said, they were as large as they needed to be to fit steam turbines and carry the armament.

[Nick Thomadis]

Fellow Admirals,

Your participation in the forum, your comments, suggestions, criticism, everything is deeply appreciated and acknowledged. We have been quite silent the last days, because we are extremely busy preparing our next update and planning all the necessary features before releasing the game on Steam Early Access. Our main development team consists of only 3 people and currently our hands are full!

The complete road map with the main features is going to be provided next week. Soon, we will  inform you about our forthcoming update "Alpha 3", at least those confirmed, since we continuously add and improve aspects of the game, based on your feedback.

Thank you a lot for your patience and your extraordinary help!
 

[Cptbarney]

9 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Fellow Admirals,

Your participation in the forum, your comments, suggestions, criticism, everything is deeply appreciated and acknowledged. We have been quite silent the last days, because we are extremely busy preparing our next update and planning all the necessary features before releasing the game on Steam Early Access. Our main development team consists of only 3 people and currently our hands are full!

The complete road map with the main features is going to be provided next week. Soon, we will  inform you about our forthcoming update "Alpha 3", at least those confirmed, since we continuously add and improve aspects of the game, based on your feedback.

Thank you a lot for your patience and your extraordinary help!
 

Yeah thats fine, never knew the dev team was so small. Which actually goes to show how talented everyone is working there (seriously this like open beta level work for a closed alpha/indev stage this is very promising).

Seriously take your time, id rather have a polish product that is delayed than a game that is rushed released and is then marked as bad.

Feel like an arse lol. Hope i was too condicending with muh posts.

Im suprised you have a road map was gonna assume it would ready by alpha 6-8.  That and i thought you had 30+ peeps working on the project (too used to triple 'AAA' companies and their 'funnies').

Thank you guys and keep up the noice work!

[AnonymousPepper]

Damn, that's all you have? Color me beyond impressed, lads.

I'm no programmer or artist, but if you need somebody to help with community management so you can all concentrate more on making this game even better, I'd be happy to help.

Thank you so much for everything so far, my dudes.

[Steeltrap]

6 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Thank you a lot for your patience and your extraordinary help!

As a long time naval history enthusiast and having played naval combat games back to board games like "Victory in the Pacific" and "Midway", then on to things like "Jutland" with individual counters moved around on a floor and using a "range measurer" and rules for accuracy and individual paper sheets for every major unit with armour values, hit boxes and the works, I love what you're attempting here.

Been starving for a game like this since 1992 (I still can't believe it's that old) saw the remarkable "Great Naval Battles of the North Atlantic: 1939-43" with its brilliant damage system (if crappy graphics of course, and very poor AI).

While $75 of our dollars might seem expensive for an Alpha, I've been enjoying it greatly and consider it very good value for my gaming dollars. I'm old enough that most big budget releases don't interest me at all.

To do this with 3 people, and to have you tell us you read our feedback as time permits, is mightily impressive.

I'm keen to see what comes next.

Cheers

[Mordenkain]

12 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

As a long time naval history enthusiast and having played naval combat games back to board games like "Victory in the Pacific" and "Midway", then on to things like "Jutland" with individual counters moved around on a floor and using a "range measurer" and rules for accuracy and individual paper sheets for every major unit with armour values, hit boxes and the works, I love what you're attempting here.

Been starving for a game like this since 1992 (I still can't believe it's that old) saw the remarkable "Great Naval Battles of the North Atlantic: 1939-43" with its brilliant damage system (if crappy graphics of course, and very poor AI).

While $75 of our dollars might seem expensive for an Alpha, I've been enjoying it greatly and consider it very good value for my gaming dollars. I'm old enough that most big budget releases don't interest me at all.

To do this with 3 people, and to have you tell us you read our feedback as time permits, is mightily impressive.

I'm keen to see what comes next.

Cheers

Try Jutland Pro, it is a very god PC Game.

Edited November 7, 2019 by Mordenkain

[Steeltrap]

13 hours ago, Mordenkain said:

Try Jutland Pro, it is a very god PC Game.

Interesting, will have a look.

[Illya von Einzbern]

On 11/6/2019 at 9:15 PM, Nick Thomadis said:

Fellow Admirals,

Your participation in the forum, your comments, suggestions, criticism, everything is deeply appreciated and acknowledged. We have been quite silent the last days, because we are extremely busy preparing our next update and planning all the necessary features before releasing the game on Steam Early Access. Our main development team consists of only 3 people and currently our hands are full!

The complete road map with the main features is going to be provided next week. Soon, we will  inform you about our forthcoming update "Alpha 3", at least those confirmed, since we continuously add and improve aspects of the game, based on your feedback.

Thank you a lot for your patience and your extraordinary help!
 

No rushes you guys are doing very good job.
We are just too impatient to wait and have great hopes and wishes from your game.

Thanks you very much for to interesting games you have made so far.
The more aspects and varied tactics you can use in the game are massive +
Thank you very much

[Joryl]

On 11/6/2019 at 11:15 AM, Nick Thomadis said:

Fellow Admirals,

Your participation in the forum, your comments, suggestions, criticism, everything is deeply appreciated and acknowledged. We have been quite silent the last days, because we are extremely busy preparing our next update and planning all the necessary features before releasing the game on Steam Early Access. Our main development team consists of only 3 people and currently our hands are full!

The complete road map with the main features is going to be provided next week. Soon, we will  inform you about our forthcoming update "Alpha 3", at least those confirmed, since we continuously add and improve aspects of the game, based on your feedback.

Thank you a lot for your patience and your extraordinary help!
 

All I can say is Take your time I thank you for all your hard work... Quite honestly even in this early build I have had a blast.

 

the only feedback I can think of If you have ever played PTO 2 they had a great campaign structure IMO. 

Edited November 8, 2019 by Joryl

[Pterry]

I noticed in battle one of the ship classifications was AR??, aka a repair ship. Wonder if this will be a controllable ship or a vessel requiring escort that if surviving the battle allows some repair at sea

[Kasuga]

Nice, maybe with roadmap i can take a decision, normal preorder or early access preorder ⚓

I am curious, buy is still a pain in the ass or was improved? i think this is a very weak point, to much complex and to much problems... i dont know if preorder for early access is going to be active in Steam or only as is now.

 

 

[RHDK]

Guess the whole US Army vs US Navy have been taken just a tad too far

[Illya von Einzbern]

10 hours ago, RHDK said:

Guess the whole US Army vs US Navy have been taken just a tad too far

It's a interesting history tidbit ^^
haven't seen that text before

[jakub1936]

Just to add my bit to feedback. I love your game, it is excellent idea and I am excited about the developments!

Time slowing down during engagements should be optional - perhaps button in menu settings which can turn it on/off?

I hope there will be more variants of hulls, so you can for example set up yourself whether you want any secondary guns in casemate and how many...

What about starting battles with either realistic or arcade mode (similar to WarThunder) in order to see torpedoes marked (maybe like WoWs) or make it an option in menu.

Training level and numbers of the crew should have impact on ship's performace. E.g. ship with skeleton crew of demoralised men who have seen most of the ship burnt and their comrades fall cannot be expected to load and fire the guns exactly each x seconds. Later in campaign mode newer ship with untrained crew and/or captain ought to be on par with somewhat older ship with well-trained veteran crew etc.

Damage to sections should also be differentiated for left/right side.

As for camera, please allow view for following shells/torps like in WoWs.

If ship is fitted with radar there should be information from radar available to player so the player knows how many ships there are and where are detected.

[TimberwolfD]

As a bit of a latecomer to Alpha 2, this will include a lot of previously identified issues voiced by others upthread. I am including previously identified issues more as votes in support of the issues. I have attempted all but 2 of the missions and completed all but 6 as of posting. I see promise for this game and the campaign mode should be awesome, but there are issues from minor to major to address to get there.

 

Ship building (minor to moderate issues with future improvements):

Hardpoint/mounting is awkward, especially for later battleship/dreadnoughts. Could we get a size limit indication for points to show the maximum size of mountable turrets? There is an unnecessary number of actions needed to figure out what size turret will fit. This extends to the included barbets with the upper level fore and aft towers. My biggest issue is with adding secondary turrets, which requires a lot of searching for viable spots.

I would recommend adding a middle superstructure component to bridge the space between the fore and aft towers which would include hardpoints for secondary armaments. I am thinking about the US BB five twin 5 inch turret mounts on each side or Yamato's fore and aft triple turrets with three twin turrets on each side.  This would also work at the cruiser level with structures like a Cleveland cruiser's fore and aft twin 5 inch mount and side pairs of twin 5 inch mounts. These could include tower bases with casemate hardpoints or integral barbets.

Funnels seem to be a mechanic that isn't implemented yet (?). Should there be a tie into engine performance and damage control?

Fire control seems to be more handwaved than it should be in a designer/simulator. Going forward it would be nice to see placement of FCS as a ship building option/requirement. This could tie into the control of secondary weapons and (effective) engagement ranges of weapons. There is a natural and historical progression from local gunners aiming by eye to basic optics, to turret rangefinders, to battery rangefinders to radar control.  Additional shipboard equipment such as mechanical computers and plotting rooms/CIC could improve acquisition rates. Implementation of different per turret/gun target acquisition would increase realism and show the massive changes in technology and doctrine from pre-dreadnoughts to WWII BBS.

 

AI/Formations (Major issues):

Major issues:

Formation flagship changes automatically and disorders divisions. I had excessive issues running TB and DD attacks because the lead boat would get blasted and the flag would shift to the next ship and then the division would swirl in place while being under fire with the next flagship usually getting blasted in the process. Wash, rinse, repeat until all of the ships are disabled or dead. As a quick fix to this behavior, instead of keeping ship number 1 in the division and trying to reform the formation, just drop the damaged ship out of the division and have it pull away on a heading that won't interfere with the division (and preferably other friendly divisions). Longer term it would be nice to have the damaged ship fall astern of the formation and try to rejoin or retire as directed by the player. If the ship pulls out of the division, open the division list automatically and show the ship with buttons above the ship icon letting the player choose an action. The point at which a ship retreats could/should be a function of morale, assuming morale is implemented.

Ships/divisions will change targets despite being directed to fire at a target. So I tell a division to target a BB and they take it down to 30% structure and then start going after a cruiser while still under fire by the BB. Given the mission objective nature of the current game, this is particularly infuriating. The mission goal is to kill the BB and my ships get 2/3rds of the way to completing the mission and then they start engaging another ship, resetting to hit chances as they restart the engagement. So now they need several salvos to reacquire the target ship. At least three times, this behavior cost me games because the wounded target blasted my ships while not being engaged or my ships abandoned PB shots to chase after shiny DDs or CAs.

Other issues:

Changing formation and spacing is inefficient as implemented. Because all ships of a division run at the same speed (if possible), ships will effectively never achieve formation changes. Allowing ships to change speeds independently would improve this process. I would make formation changes occur at the center of a formation, so going from line astern to line abreast would require less adjustment. Also, put the slowest ship at the center of the line abreast formation so that faster ships can go the longer distances. For line abreast to line astern, have the formation execute a ~90 degree port or starboard turn to line the ships up and then have the lead ship execute course change back to the original heading. Alternatively, give the player an option to have ships execute one of three options (Port turn, starboard turn, or shuffle with faster ships taking up lead slots and slower ones falling astern).

 

Engagements (Minor to Moderate):

Secondary Targets:

Definitely covered in previous comments. At a minimum guns on opposite sides of the ship should be able to engage separate targets. I would tie increasing control and effectiveness to improvements to FCS on the ship.

I would apply the following logic tree to secondary engagements based on increasing FCS:

• Closest target - Basic gunner
• Best to hit/most likely to damage (ie don't bother shooting the BB with 3 inch guns when a DD is in range) - Individual optics
• Coordinated battery fire (target acquisition by battery instead of by gun/turret - faster acquisition) - plotting room
• Rangefinders and radars improve first shot accuracy and reduce the number of salvos needed to find the range with radars working at night and in bad weather.
• Rangefinders on turrets only serve that turret. Separate superstructure mounted rangefinders are larger/better/higher and improve all guns' accuracy.

Battle damage reduces FCS down the scale as components are destroyed. So when the plotting room is destroyed, coordinated battery fire is no longer in effect and when the the/a stereoscopic rangefinder is destroyed, main turrets with integrated rangefinders devolve to those rangefinders for their bonus and secondaries lose the benefits of a rangefinder.

Torpedoes:

As others have noted, the AI seems to be unwilling to fire torpedoes. I approve of not wasting ammo, but... The AI is far too conservative. The bigger issue I have though is the lack of information I have as the player. Why isn't it firing? Under what conditions will it fire? In several of the DD/TB missions, I wanted to set up crossing torpedo patterns to guarantee hits by one group or the other. But there is no way to do this with the current AI system.

As a solution I would propose pre-plotted attack patterns. So a division of four line astern DDs could be given a "crossing torpedo attack" order that would have boats 1 and 3 go starboard X degrees and boats 2 and 4 go port X degrees forming a V and launching torpedoes across the center while the boats peel back around. Similarly, a division could be given a "torpedo run" order that would have boats in line astern simultaneously launch on a selected target. A "bearings launch" order would have every boat in the division launch its torpedoes on a selected bearing.

Attack patterns could be part of a training progression tree. Each class of vessel could get selected tactics. For example, DDs and TBs get advanced torpedo tactics. CLs and CAs get simple torpedo tactics like broadside and retreating cover fire (think IJN cruisers with rear angle torpedo launchers) and gun tactics like saturation fire on a target area. BBs and DNs get zigzag course changes and saturation fire. Advanced tactics between groups would let CLs/CAs (automatically) take up screening positions for BBs/DNs and likewise for DDs with CLs/CAs or BBs/DNs. Not that you couldn't screen manually, but the advanced tactic would automate it.

 

[TimberwolfD]

One additional addendum for gameplay:

In the longer range battles, I get the alert for smoke sighted [direction], but there is little to see and very little clue where the enemy actually is. Perhaps an icon for smoke with some kind of scale could be added. This could be based on the ship's funnels and engines, giving another impact to funnel and engine choices. So you get a smoke sighted icon at, say the 10km ring, with a number representing the amount of smoke.

Edited November 12, 2019 by TimberwolfD

[Steeltrap]

21 hours ago, jakub1936 said:

Training level and numbers of the crew should have impact on ship's performance. E.g. ship with skeleton crew of demoralised men who have seen most of the ship burnt and their comrades fall cannot be expected to load and fire the guns exactly each x seconds. Later in campaign mode newer ship with untrained crew and/or captain ought to be on par with somewhat older ship with well-trained veteran crew etc.

Damage to sections should also be differentiated for left/right side.

If ship is fitted with radar there should be information from radar available to player so the player knows how many ships there are and where are detected.

Thought I'd comment on these three.

Devs have said crews will be added, and numbers and training will be factors. They've not gone into greater details, but the general ideas appear to include what you've mentioned.

Agree port/starboard (or left/right, perhaps a toggle like the measures are) would be a nice idea. Stability ought to be a factor, too, and that's largely only relevant once it's possible to flood one side of a ship but not the other.

There is info given as to what is spotted. It shows up through icons along the top of the screen, and if you double click on an icon the screen will skip to where the first is, then further clicks takes you to any others included in that icon (eg. DD x 3 icon allows you to skip to each DD first by double clicking, then each click after jumps to the next one). The game will render a model as soon as a means of detection, be it visual or radar, has detected a ship. Once class of ship is known, the icons will reflect that, too. Thus icons will start as "Ws?" as in "Warship?", then become more specific as to a guess at class and then ultimately specific for each class.

Cheers

Edited November 13, 2019 by Steeltrap

[Cptbarney]

ooooooooooh, i can't wait for the next patch.

Kinda excited as to what it will be too be honest.

[Absolute0CA]

17 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

ooooooooooh, i can't wait for the next patch.

Kinda excited as to what it will be too be honest.

Same here I've quit posting here more or less because I'm running out of shit to say that isn't broken record.

[Cptbarney]

5 minutes ago, Absolute0CA said:

Same here I've quit posting here more or less because I'm running out of shit to say that isn't broken record.

Ye just saw teh patch notes, im excited now, but im wondering what dem new hulls will be as well.

Think Nelson was confirmed, interested to see what others they had, maybe heavy cruiser hulls and some of the later light cruiser hulls?

[Nick Thomadis]

New update is available. Closing and making new feedback thread.