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How Powerful Should Torpedoes Be?


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So as one of the many things I checked out with the Alpha-2 build of the game, I revisited a test I had done on the previous builds available and created a cruiser for the mission 'Defend your convoy' with the minimum requirement for guns and loaded the side with torpedoes. The goal of this ship was to bow tank as much incoming fire as possible from the enemy BC while closing the range until the ship could be brought full broadside to unleash a barrage of torpedoes and then run away from the battlecruiser before a lucky salvo sends the test ship to the bottom of the ocean. the strange thing was, after hitting the USS United States (the enemy BC) with 11 of my 21" torpedoes she was crippled, and every one of the lower bulkheads had completely flooded, however the ship was able to keep sailing as she had maintained a 5% float and had not succumbed to the damage.

 

I am by no means an expert on naval combat or the history thereof, but I would find it hard to believe that any ship could survive that sort of strike from 11 torpedoes, let alone 3 or 4, but I could be mistaken. If you all have any historical examples of what happened to me happening in real life, please let me know about it, and if my hunch is correct and the torpedoes are currently under-performing relative to their historical counterparts, maybe we can come up with some solutions to make them a little more effective in game.

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Just ran the experiment again to see if it was a fluke the first time and got even poorer results for the torpedoes. This time, HMS Cape Town has 8x5 22" torpedo launchers (the best currently in the game) and we went up against the Furia, the first salvo of torpedoes was a 100% hit, with 20 22" torpedoes taking the Furia down to about half of it's health and float. The second salvo, pictured below, landed only 17 of the 20 22" torpedoes, but was sufficient to finally finish off the enemy ship.

 

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screen_1920x1080_2019-11-19_02-16-15.thumb.png.bfc43982b4e4dd880231afd7998ad144.png

 

 

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You might find this discussion interesting:

 

In general, the consensus seems to be that torps are more accurate and more numerous in game play than perhaps ought to be the case, but that they seem to have their damage reduced to compensate.

There also seem to be some problems with higher level techs that appear to make ships significantly more resistant to them than ought to be the case, even the suggestion that the belt armour thickness is being included in torpedo mitigation which it really ought not.

So, yes, there are issues, and it's not clear quite where all the competing factors will end up.

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Guess furia was to angreh to die lol.

But yeah peeps are tied between moar damage, but chances of being duds and i think no reload (so one shot thing) or what they are now but just tweaking the stats more, maybe flooding can have more of an impact and maybe if we get to customise the types of charges and fuses being used in torpedoes?

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Made a Destroyer to use for the Armed Convoy Mission.

Besides a few Guns, I used 4x4 20" Torps. It took me many tries to sink the CA in that missions. Many times the CA got hit with a full salvo, 16 torps, but it only lost like 50% HP, if at all and the flooding... wasn't even existing after 5 minutes. They fixed the holes in seconds (no room was flooded fully), even when the Torps where hitting the Ship from bow to stern.

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The next alpha build will have some changes to torpedo damage. We will have to see.

Part of the problem is that right now the AI is too stupid to realize you're closing for a huge torpedo launch. It knows to try evasion when torpedoes are spotted in the water, but the approach of a whole destroyer squadron doesn't seem to ring any bells. We'll have to see if that is ever changed, too.

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1 hour ago, disc said:

The next alpha build will have some changes to torpedo damage. We will have to see.

Part of the problem is that right now the AI is too stupid to realize you're closing for a huge torpedo launch. It knows to try evasion when torpedoes are spotted in the water, but the approach of a whole destroyer squadron doesn't seem to ring any bells. We'll have to see if that is ever changed, too.

True.  The threat of torpedo attacks is what shaped tactics and maneuvers, not the ability to spot torpedoes then react to them.

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I do think they need a buff, or something.  Hit a transport, in the undefended convoy attack mission, with 4 broadside and didn't sink it.

Kind of goes along with the entire low superstructure and flotation, once it reaches 10% and below it becomes very difficult to finish off.  I've pumped broadsides into ships with low superstructure, getting 500+ damage and the percentage doesn't move.  I've seen what looks like the entire ship on fire and that percentage not move.  I realize there is a saturation point, but I shouldn't have to pump 3-5 broadsides from 12 large guns (10" and up) into a merchant ship with 5% superstructure health from 1.5km away just to sink it when one hit earlier took 10-15% off.

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Torpedo bilges along waterline, extensive bulkheads, watertight integrity, and warhead size are the variables.  The warhead size and detonator type of the WW2 German/American/Japanese torpedoes determine the hole.  Contact holes were usually smaller and less effective against major warship with torpedo bilges filled with fuel or ballast water than influence exploders setting off warhead maybe 1 or 2 meters under keel.  The hull could still be intact but leaking with a hit along torpedo bilges.

11 American Mark 13 torpedo's hit the IJN Yamato, poor training and poorly managed damage control preventive counters such as counter flooding using extensive bulkheads from righting the ship.  Older service, more experienced crew and training, Yamato could of probably taken more.  Read somewhere later American South Dakota's and Iowa's were designed to take 15 or more hits....never 'tested' so we will never know.

The few hits doing what they did at Pearl was considered self inflicted as the ships were not at wartime watertight condition.  Open hatches, etc, peace time mode.

 

Oh and on the unarmored merchants you need to switch to HE manually to finish them off, AP just punches two holes...one in, one out, little collateral damage.

Edited by oldsoldier
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Keep in mind, it seems that the way damage is modeled in the game currently is based on the damage to the bulkheads/compartments. If you have a completely green ship with a waterline turned red, that's not going to knock them down to 0%. You just have to hope for enough flooding with your spreads, unfortunately. However, I was just doing the TB vs Dreadnought mission and 19"s weren't doing anything to the AI designs...

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Yamato is a poor example to extract many conclussions about in-game damage effects of torpedoes. I've put 9 torpedoes on a 23000 ton battleship that refused to sink. Yamato was a 70.000 ton monster with a sh*tload of reserve buoyancy. Ships that massive are very hard to sink by flooding alone.

The main problem with the damage model in the game, specially in what regards to torpedoes, is that it seems capsizing is not modelled. At all. And most of the sinkings caused by torpedoes on capital ships were achieved that way. The problem isn't torpedo damage, the problem is that until capsizing is modelled, the way most ships would go down because of torpedoes does not exist in game.

Obviously that has to change :).

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My concern with torpedoes is similar.  a transport with few bulkheads should succumb to 2 or 3 torpedoes easily.  A Warship,  however should be able to better withstand damage.

I played the defended convoy scenario a few times.  I hit the CA with 6 torps and it was crippled. It lost most of its speed and I left it for dead.  The Transports were hit by 10 or more torpedoes and continued on with little effect.  (20 inch torps with TNT warheads)

Transports are too tough.

Some warships aren't tough enough.

As far as accuracy goes, from what I have done, and what I have seen on You-Tube, players compensate for low accuracy by using cheese-loads of torpedoes. A 50 torp salvo should be awesome.  It should also be very rare.

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Having actually run a couple more tests, I just wanted to say that in the early game, before the AI has access to torpedo protection the torpedoes seem to be much more effective. Playing the armed convoy escort mission with a bunch of light cruisers lined bow to stern with torpedo launchers proved effective in sinking the whole fleet without being detected. I suspect this may be due in part to the AI freaking out when it spawned in and the anti-collision dooming them to follow their original course straight into the path of the torps. Even still it is proof that an important feature of your lighter vessels will be to screen for torpedoes before they sink your capital ships.

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