The gunnery model

[Riccardo Cagnasso]

This game could very well be THE BEST GAME EVAH for the naval enthusiast. But there's a weak spot: the gunnery model.

At the moment, as far as I understand, it is a "simple" model based on a hit probability calculated from many bonus and malus.

There are two problem with this approach. First of all, it will never be accurate enough. It doesn't matter how endless the list of possible modifier is. This model will always abstract too much.

Also, is gamey. It encourages a "min max" approach that will kill any different approach and create a single "best" build in any tactical situation.

A much better and more realistic approach would be to simulate the fire control  with modifier to the accuracy of this process. Then the ships fire at the calculated fire solution and you add the accuracy characteristics of the guns to get a CEP. From there you use RNG to get the trajectory over time of every shell. Then you simulate the actual shell being fired in a way no different than WOWS or war thunder. This way a shell can actually be dodged, for example.

I don't know if the developers can transition to a better gunnery model at this point in the development model, but they really should.

[disc]

What do we know about the gunnery model, anyway?

Do we even know that the guns work on a 3d basis? Do the tracers match real shell trajectory, or is it just a visual? I often see shells ghost through and hit turrets hidden by the superstructure, which makes me wonder (though notably I have never seen a shell ghost through and miss entirely). Likewise, friendly fire from shells does not appear to occur. Can a gun hit a target it is not aiming at?

Perhaps the backend is totally abstract. Maybe gun fires, program calculates chance of hitting ship, if yes program calculates chance of hitting specific compartment, then an approximate trajectory is created and displayed, with curving midflight to effect a "hit." Then the game figures out partial pen, overpen, detonation, etcetera. If it is this abstract, it might be hard to add in hitboxes and such.

The whole gunnery system is a strange black box right now. We know what goes in, and obviously what comes out, but we seemingly don't know how the computer is thinking in the middle.

[Steeltrap]

8 hours ago, disc said:

What do we know about the gunnery model, anyway?

Do we even know that the guns work on a 3d basis? Do the tracers match real shell trajectory, or is it just a visual? I often see shells ghost through and hit turrets hidden by the superstructure, which makes me wonder (though notably I have never seen a shell ghost through and miss entirely). Likewise, friendly fire from shells does not appear to occur. Can a gun hit a target it is not aiming at?

Perhaps the backend is totally abstract. Maybe gun fires, program calculates chance of hitting ship, if yes program calculates chance of hitting specific compartment, then an approximate trajectory is created and displayed, with curving midflight to effect a "hit." Then the game figures out partial pen, overpen, detonation, etcetera. If it is this abstract, it might be hard to add in hitboxes and such.

The whole gunnery system is a strange black box right now. We know what goes in, and obviously what comes out, but we seemingly don't know how the computer is thinking in the middle.

The fact we can see some truly bizarre shell trajectories from the same turret strongly suggests to me we're seeing a visual representation of an abstract, at least to some degree.

Maybe it sprays the available shells into a zone where it has calculated the target will be, as gunnery in fact works, but it does so already having calculated how many will hit and where. The detailed modifiers do give numbers for the chances of any one shell of X shots hitting, as well as half salvoes and so on.

I don't mind it too much. I find the apparently nonsensical performance of HE shells v AP in many situations to be of far greater importance, and the related problems of not knowing how the pen systems or damage systems work. And of course that also brings in armour itself being a mystery.

Been raising this whole problem of 'testers' being ignorant of what's an expected result and thus what's a bug a number of times recently.

I've looked for examples of hitting a target other than my intended one when there are several reasonably close, but don't think I've seen it yet. If it isn't possible, that again suggests a 2D abstract calculation leading to a 3D rendering.

Edited November 19, 2019 by Steeltrap

[Steeltrap]

17 hours ago, Riccardo Cagnasso said:

There are two problem with this approach. First of all, it will never be accurate enough. It doesn't matter how endless the list of possible modifier is. This model will always abstract too much.

Also, is gamey. It encourages a "min max" approach that will kill any different approach and create a single "best" build in any tactical situation.

A much better and more realistic approach would be to simulate the fire control  with modifier to the accuracy of this process. Then the ships fire at the calculated fire solution and you add the accuracy characteristics of the guns to get a CEP. From there you use RNG to get the trajectory over time of every shell. Then you simulate the actual shell being fired in a way no different than WOWS or war thunder. This way a shell can actually be dodged, for example.

It's not clear to me how your suggested version particularly changes the 'min/max' situation, or that in fact any system ought to. If you're designing your Nation's weapons of war, I'd have thought min/max is the goal. Navies did study characteristics of their guns, and mounts, and shells, and propellant, and optics, and FCS, and all sorts of other things to come up with the best possible combinations, which is to say greatest likelihood of scoring hits that would do damage in the shortest possible time and firing the least number of shots.

However the game indicates the performance of all those components, aren't we going to weight them up and build ships based on "least cost for best ability to achieve mission/missions"?

I understand the concept that a lesser fire control system linked to less sophisticated mounts will result in poorer gunnery solutions and ability to deliver the shells to that solution, but, other than the possibility of hitting something else, I'm not convinced it makes a practical difference. If your less accurate FCS and less accurate guns are putting shells into a wider area that is less likely to contain your whole target, or potentially any of it, isn't that much the same as saying you've a 3% chance of hitting?

Isn't the point of the gunnery system to represent how likely 'x' FCS linked with 'y' guns on 'z' mounts is to score hits?

The whole WoWS ovoid hit area and sigma of guns has its own problems, too.

That's not to say I necessarily disagree with your view, and certainly always welcome different ideas to discuss, it's just not clear to me this isn't more a question of preferred method than a practically superior result.

And I suspect you're correct saying the devs most likely aren't about to change it now.

Cheers

[Cptbarney]

Maybe you could mix the two together? i mean it is an alpha so we could test both possible gunneries and also i like the idea of gunnery also being linked to the shell itself so its no longer a visual representation but also a physical object that can interacted with.

To go further you can even make it so that the weather and even wear and tear or quality effects accuracy, shell curve, trajectory etc.

[Steeltrap]

20 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

To go further you can even make it so that the weather and even wear and tear or quality effects accuracy, shell curve, trajectory etc.

They affect gunnery already.

Your hull shape and weight distribution, and thus stability/pitch/roll characteristics, all affect how much the weather and sea conditions influence your gunnery (there are tooltips over most  numbers in the shipbuilder screen). The various marks of guns reflect improvements to the mounts and other technologies, and the propellants/explosives also affect a number of things. I do think it would be better to split propellants and bursting charges, however.

The devs have done it via different means as inputs to what we suspect is the model, but they're still there.

[Cptbarney]

1 minute ago, Steeltrap said:

They affect gunnery already.

Your hull shape and weight distribution, and thus stability/pitch/roll characteristics, all affect how much the weather and sea conditions influence your gunnery (there are tooltips over most  numbers in the shipbuilder screen). The various marks of guns reflect improvements to the mounts and other technologies, and the propellants/explosives also affect a number of things. I do think it would be better to split propellants and bursting charges, however.

The devs have done it via different means as inputs to what we suspect is the model, but they're still there.

Ahh ok, well the games gunnery system is more complex than i thought, i guess code can only simulate so much as simulating actual physics is well...

Extremely difficult in general. As long as its not wows aiming system then im fine.

Think i mentioned in the alpha 3 thread for different types of fuses, charges and fillers i think.

I guess, crew and experience would be the last defining factors? (so morale, actual experience, maybe personality, discipline, intelligence, hunger, fear etc.)

Hell if the crew don't like you or mutiny (that would be hard to do but could be fun sort of lol) could seriously effect your ships (hey maybe a new naval academy mission?).

Besides that and metal type i have no clue what elseo could be factored in besides additional weather effects (cyclones, hurricans, ice etc.)

[admin]

2 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

The fact we can see some truly bizarre shell trajectories from the same turret strongly suggests to me we're seeing a visual representation of an abstract, at least to some degree.

 

Can you show us a couple of examples please if you come across ones. Name the topic as - Bugs in shells trajectories.

[admin]

2 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

Ahh ok, well the games gunnery system is more complex than i thought, i guess code can only simulate so much as simulating actual physics is well...

Actually unlike water cloth physics ballistics it is much easier with gunnery. 

And the main concept to understand here is that there is no difference between 

Here is the WW2 land example that will demonstrate this concept
Lets say we need to satisfy the most detail oriented tank realism enthusiast and need to implement gunnery on the 88mm

Using the historical tables we can achieve the 85% armor penetration at 2000m in multiple ways.

1. Method 1: simulate the molecular level, metal composition of the projectile, simulate viscosity of steel before, and during penetration and tweak all that until we arrive to 85% at 2000 m range.
2. Method 2: use historical table and just give the game an absolutely correct historical curve from the proven historical reference. 
3. Something in between.

From experience we found that for penetration of armor it is much easier for everyone to use method 2 or 3. We both (you as historical enthusiast and us as developers) want to only argue about effective armor, its type, % penetration chances at distance and curve.. Not the armor molecular viscosity or atomic level of simulation.

But some parameters must be simulated using method one if they are key for gameplay or ship design. For example we simulate accuracy in detail using method 1.

Because this is a historical single player game our hands are untied, we do not have to balance the classes or guns between each other (for example giving small ships a chance) and just show everything as it is making sure a 1939 ships with modern guns, and advanced dumaresqs will just be better, more accurate and deadly compared to earlier variations. Trained crew which will come later will improve it even further (or ruin it) because everyone remembers a curious case of HMS Tiger which missed most the shots with the most advanced directors. 

If you see something that is balanced abnormally or incorrectly let us know it will be fixed as soon as main priorities are finished or even earlier. 


(edits: wording, typos, better image replacement)

[Cptbarney]

33 minutes ago, admin said:

Actually unlike water cloth physics ballistics it is much easier with gunnery. 

And the main concept to understand here is that there is no difference between 

Here is the WW2 land example that will demonstrate this concept

Because this is a historical single player game our hands are untied, we do not have to balance the classes or guns between each other (for example giving small ships a chance) and just show everything as it is making sure a 1939 ships with modern guns, and advanced dumaresqs will just be better, more accurate and deadly compared to earlier variations. Trained crew which will come later will improve it even further (or ruin it) because everyone remembers a curious case of HMS Tiger which missed most the shots with the most advanced directors. 

If you see something that is balanced abnormally or incorrectly let us know it will be fixed as soon as main priorities are finished or even earlier. 
 

Fair enough, im not great with numbers far more of a design person myself, sadly peeps beat me to punch with stuff (bad barneh).

Hopefully i can get some stuff reported for alpha 3 eventually lol.

It's just during lectures they made out creating physics especially realistic physics was a pretty daunting and horrible task to do lol.

 

But yeah don't rush mate, take your time. good qoute here:

A delayed game is just delayed, a bad game is forever bad.

Either way will play some more today, loving the game so far.

[Angus MacDuff]

2 minutes ago, admin said:

Here is the WW2 land example that will demonstrate this concept

One of the most important factors in Naval Gunnery is the movement of your gun platform.  Sea state and mass of your gun platform is critical to accuracy.  A small ship in a high sea state cant hit anything and even a battleship in rough seas has a very reduced accuracy. 

[admin]

25 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Fair enough, im not great with numbers far more of a design person myself, sadly peeps beat me to punch with stuff (bad barneh).

Hopefully i can get some stuff reported for alpha 3 eventually lol.

It's just during lectures they made out creating physics especially realistic physics was a pretty daunting and horrible task to do lol.

 

But yeah don't rush mate, take your time. good qoute here:

A delayed game is just delayed, a bad game is forever bad.

Either way will play some more today, loving the game so far.

post you are quoting was updated with more examples.

Having given you the example on the penetration and ballistics i would like to point out that we fully replicate many game elements by using method 1 (full simulation)
For example accuracy: All possible parameters influence the end result including even very minor ones, arriving at realistic low hit rate with early tech.

[Cptbarney]

7 minutes ago, admin said:

Post updated btw

Having given you the example on the penetration and ballistics i would like to point out that we actually simulate many elements by using method 1

I think taking into account metal type and also the stats of those metals is quite interesting actually.

Also means that other mechanics can be introduced. Still looks bloody complex lol but im not good with code so yeah.

Still nice amount of work done, i do like method 1 since it takes into account more variables and this will allow you guys to expand upon features later on if needed (meaning longer game life in general).

Dunno if method 2 would be feasible at all for you guys in general.

[admin]

4 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

I think taking into account metal type and also the stats of those metals is quite interesting actually.

The quality of course is taken into account. We do simulate quality and effective armor.
What i meant is that when designing the model you can stop somewhere and achieve realistic numbers without going to the molecular level or without simulating how coal interacts with iron during cementation. You can just say its cemented and give a historical bonus.

[Mycophobia]

3 hours ago, admin said:

The quality of course is taken into account. We do simulate quality and effective armor.
What i meant is that when designing the model you can stop somewhere and achieve realistic numbers without going to the molecular level or without simulating how coal interacts with iron during cementation. You can just say its cemented and give a historical bonus.

With regard to quality, as of the current patch, the over-estimation of armour quality are still an issue. As mentioned in the old armor quality post, the game use close to IRL penetration value against krupp armor for its guns, but the starting point for in game armor is wrought-iron. This issue have been somewhat mediated in the current patch due to the small upward shift of gun penetration, but armor still feel somewhat too effective.

Regarding the overall gunnery model, I don't think there is any issue with a "simple" model that does not have WoWs/WT like ballistic. RTW operates entirely on abstracted numbers and can deliver a quite realistic simulation. There is no issue with being "gamey" if the number/factors themselves are not "gamey or exploitable". The game accounts sufficient factors that I don't think the min/max, which as pointed above is something all real life naval designer do, is something easily achievable. I'd only be concerned if the accuracy factors are overly simplistic and unrealistic, making it easily exploitable by cheesing certain factors.

Currently I think my only issue with accuracy is the comparative inaccuracy of secondary guns, especially at close range, which looks like is going to be addressed for the next patch.

Ofcourse, for something that has a visual element like UAD, there should be some effort to smooth out the visual presentation. Currently seeing shell passthrough non-intended targets is quite immersion breaking, and I think the game should at least account for the possibility of shells impacting none intended target. (I.E Italians overshot the British BB during battle of Calabria but damaged escorting British DDs)

[Steeltrap]

12 hours ago, admin said:

Can you show us a couple of examples please if you come across ones. Name the topic as - Bugs in shells trajectories.

Thanks for popping in and giving some more specific info, appreciate it and always nice to have some contact.

If I can capture an example, sure. I don't want to give the impression it is happening quite obviously every battle. There was one that stands out in my mind where, unless I was mistaken, my aft x3 turret managed to fire two shells astern of a target and one ahead. The target was broadside to and maybe 6km away and I happened to be looking from the perspective of behind my guns (love the visual feel generally, by the way). Was a bit of a 'wtf?" moment, LOL.

That's one reason why I guessed you were using all the modifiers (per below) to conduct a 2D hit calculation then rendering it, rather than producing trajectories of shells from the guns with an aim point at the estimate of where the enemy will be and essentially throwing the shells out there and seeing what happens. Which of course you could have done, as we were discussing in this thread. Although I'm not sure you've specifically stated exactly which you're doing, come to think of it.

I suspect doing it your way is more efficient from a calculation perspective, assuming we're more or less correct in our guesses, because the second version means you would have to calculate the effects of hits when they occur, thus splitting calculations.

12 hours ago, admin said:

Having given you the example on the penetration and ballistics i would like to point out that we fully replicate many game elements by using method 1 (full simulation)
For example accuracy: All possible parameters influence the end result including even very minor ones, arriving at realistic low hit rate with early tech.

I do like that so many factors are obvious if we want to go looking.

You might have seen a different thread where we're discussing if getting locked in 'ladder aiming' is always an error; would be very helpful if you get time to comment.

I don't think I've seen a penalty for "multiple ships with similar guns engaging target" and also a factor for being/not being under fire. It comes up in the thread about 'ladder aiming' I just mentioned. If the ' stuck in ladder aiming' is always a bug, might I suggest the factors I just mentioned perhaps ought to be considered?

@Mycophobia has summarised the point about armour effectiveness well, something that's been mentioned several times. I would add to that the whole question of the penetration mechanics, as I still find some results with HE to be perverse compared with AP rounds. How can an HE round do huge damage hitting a deck, including all the way down to the keel and starting flooding, when a plunging AP shell of the same calibre has harmlessly bounced off it 30 seconds earlier, for example? That's something I find hard to accept is working as planned, but we don't really know.

Of course we all understand you have very limited time for doing so and engaging with an enthusiastic bunch of players, while hopefully providing encouragement for you, is also a potentially bottomless time sink, lol.

Cheers

Edited November 20, 2019 by Steeltrap

[Blothorn]

I'd note that you often get more realistic results out of a statistical model than a trajectory simulation--the trajectory simulation will omit/simplify some factors of necessity, and it's difficult to ensure that they roughly cancel out.

That said, I don't much like a lot of the numbers at least as of the present alpha--in particular, size seems overweighted and platform stability underweighted. (More specifically, small ships get too much of their evasiveness from size, not maneuver--a zig-zagging CL should be hard to hit at 15,000 yards when time-of-flight matters and the danger space is narrow, but in a straight broadside at 1000 yards it shouldn't be that much harder to hit than a BB.)

[Diabolic_Wave]

5 hours ago, Eblingus said:

"For example accuracy: All possible parameters influence the end result including even very minor ones, arriving at realistic low hit rate with early tech."

There is nothing realistic about your game's gunnery, because all these numbers are pulled out of your ass.  You can't even quote a naval gunnery chart, you use a tank one LOL.

How exactly does being close to the flagship improve your accuracy?  LOL

 

Tank gunnery was being used as a simple example of how one abstracts gunnery, not as something they were using as a source for the gunnery. I suggest you reread it.

As for how being close to a flagship might improve accuracy, it probably shouldn't improve accuracy much, but it should improve communication of fire orders and target range between the flagship and ships following in the line, at least before radio is used.

I agree that the distance from flagship shouldn't have a particularly big influence, but you might have phrased all of this more respectfully.

[RAMJB]

I don't have a problem with a statistical calculation for hits in the game. Not sure if a lot people posting here know about it, but at anything other than point blank range naval gunnery was in fact an exercise on statistics. Literally "place X ammount of shells in this square area of Y by Z yards where we're predicting the enemy will be when the shells arrive and a % of them will hit the enemy ship". 

So having gunnery based on statistics seems fine to me.


What doesn't seem so fine (personally, I don't think it works at all) is in certain scenarios where you have destroyers maybe 1km away from a ship shooting even the kitchen sink at them and hit %s are absurdly low. At point blank range things like the target's speed (that have quite a large effect at medium or long ranges) is mostly irrelevant at the hour of aiming a gun - even a miscalculation of several knots on the target ship will still give you a hit. So some variables in the % hit calculation such as the effect of speed on the final % to hit should be weighed by distance...because, yes, a small destroyer can be moving at 35 knots, which would mean it'd be a lot harder to hit at even moderate ranges with shell travel times of a dozen seconds or more...

  but if it's only 1km away from my cruiser, with shells that only require 2-3 seconds of flight before impacting, that speed doesn't matter mostly for squat...and if you miss once because you grossly misjudged the lead, the next shot FOR SURE is not going to have the same problem. Yet I'm just out of one scenario (The predread only I think, the one where you design either an armored cruiser or a predreadnought, you're given a couple extra CLs and go against a bigger BB and a couple CLs) where I had two light cruisers firing at two enemy light cruisers at maybe 1.5km from each other and they would hit anywhere in the sea but on the enemy ship. And that's just ludicrous at those ranges.


Another thing I?m not sure is properly implemented is firing solution calculations, and the progressive refinement of it through time on straight sailing ships. historically once you had a target solution, you'd improve it over time even after you began firing for effect, so you'd become progressively more accurate with time as you refined your solution.

Problem being that a change of course, speed, or both from the enemy ship would ruin your solution and you'd need to work on it again to find the precise new speed and course. Same story when your own ship changed course and speed (naval gunnery was conducted using your own movement as a baseline to aim your guns, if you changed your course, your whole solution would be ruined and you'd need to work it from scratch again - that's why big gun ships rarely weaved and zig-zagged during battle, but rather kept steady courses).

I don't know if all that is implemented - if it's not...it should be ;).

Edited November 21, 2019 by RAMJB

[Angus MacDuff]

10 minutes ago, RAMJB said:

What doesn't seem so fine (personally, I don't think it works at all) is in certain scenarios where you have destroyers maybe 1km away from a ship shooting even the kitchen sink at them and hit %s are absurdly low.

Good writeup overall and I agree for the most part.  I'd say the inaccuracy of small ships at close range is not entirely absurd.  In any sort of sea state, those small ships are incredibly lively and in our target time period, they often aimed individual guns from the mount.  Catenary would spread their shots pretty wide.  On the subject of own-ship zigs, knowing your own course/speed change makes the zig procedure on the chart very simple and retains accuracy quite well (been there/done that).  You're quite right about target zigs, of course, and it could take several salvos before you even realise there's been a zig.

[Skeksis]

15 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

I'd say the inaccuracy of small ships at close range is not entirely absurd

But still it doesn’t look or feel right, at some point gameplay has to be “plausible”.

Edited November 21, 2019 by Skeksis

[Angus MacDuff]

4 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

But still it doesn’t look or feel right, at some point gameplay has to be “plausible”.

I've actually fired a gyro stabilized gun on a modern 4000 ton destroyer (5"54 Oto Melara).  If the seas are lively, its very difficult.  Imagine a non-stabilized gun on a 1000 ton destroyer  (of our time period).  It's incredibly difficult. 

[RAMJB]

24 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

I've actually fired a gyro stabilized gun on a modern 4000 ton destroyer (5"54 Oto Melara).  If the seas are lively, its very difficult.  Imagine a non-stabilized gun on a 1000 ton destroyer  (of our time period).  It's incredibly difficult. 

Firing on moved seas made things difficult. That's a given. Even then remember that even WW1 vintage ships had interruptors connected with gyros to fire the guns at the proper moment. Of course that wasn't present on all ships, and of course it wasn't the same as firing on a smooth, calm sea... but still.

But to account for bad seas we already have modifier penalties in place for the gunnery calculations. And I'm perfectly fine with them. My gripe is the penalty when firing at a fast ship. Sure, when that ship is several seconds of shell travel time away that speed is a problem, particularily so if changes of course are involved.

But when the same ship is a couple kms away, literally a couple seconds shell travel time, that it's moving at high speed or low speed won't change things by much. Even the most violent course correction called at the very moment the shell is fired towards the ship won't do much to make the shot miss most of the times.

Yet the penalties in here are the same wether that fast ship is 1km away, 2km away, 5km away or 15km away. Makes no sense. At point blank ranges, at least, that penalty should be much lower than when the ship is at farther ranges.

same, to a lower degree, with size penalties. Sure, at 10km the size of the ship matters A LOT. When that same ship is only 1km it still matters...but it matters a lot less. Some penalty should be involved regarding size no matter the range, but the same flat line penalty for size shouldn't be in place at 1km than at 10km. It's like saying it's as hard hitting a 50m long destroyer when it's at 10km than what it is hitting it when it's at 1km. Makes no sense.

Edited November 21, 2019 by RAMJB

[Skeksis]

38 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

I've actually fired a gyro stabilized gun on a modern 4000 ton destroyer (5"54 Oto Melara).  If the seas are lively, its very difficult.  Imagine a non-stabilized gun on a 1000 ton destroyer  (of our time period).  It's incredibly difficult. 

If too many people continue to advocate realistic modes then success will be a single narrative, as with NA.

Apart from flight simulators and alike, all games are arcade in nature, plausible and playable, paramount of audiences!

[RAMJB]

NA is a multiplayer game.

This one is not. It's a completely different animal.

It's a simulation/strategy wargame mix. And in this genre incorporating realistic features is the way to go.  Don't try to push arcade narratives in a game that's supposed to be a representation of historical naval combat. That has it's place in certain games, it does not on certain others; If you want something arcade, there's World of Warships out there, which already covers the arcade approach. Leave this one be what's supposed to be.

And before you mention anything more about paramount of audiences I'll take a moment or two to remind you that some extremely popular games of a genre like this, emphasizing realism over arcadish features have happened in the past and have had exceedingly high success. From Microprose's Task Force 1942 and the whole Great Naval Battles in the 90s, to the 2000s Fighting steel series, the whole SIlent Hunter series (which most popular mods are in particular those that increase realism to compensate the dumbing down of realism in the vanilla game, proving that realism is a highly desirable feature in games of this genre, contrary to what you say) 

And even nowadays extremely hardcore simulations as the DCS series prove there's a wide audience for high realism, there's a vast market out there for players who're tired of dumbed down mechanics and "balance" features that have absolutely nothing to do with what historical naval combat was, but there has not been a realistic naval combat simulation/strategy game in 3D since RE studios Jutland more than 6 years ago. (Rule the Waves goes a good way to scratch the itch but it's not the same).

There's a market for games with a strong realistic component over dumbed down mechanics for arcadish gameplay, and an audience for that market. And btw, realism doesn't imply "non-playable". Compromises will always have to be made because it's not the same being in a bridge of a warship 80 years ago, as in front of a computer in 2019, but you can draw that line at a point where immersion and realism is really high, and the game still perfectly playable.

Edited November 21, 2019 by RAMJB