Alpha-3 News! [26/11/2019]

[captinjoehenry]

10 minutes ago, RAMJB said:

well the barbette is what houses the bearings that let your turrets turn. It also has inside the mechanisms that link the magazines to the turrets. Destroy the barbette, or damage it enough to render the equipment inside inoperable, your turret might be fine (it also might NOT be fine at all, more of that later) , but might not be able to turn, or might not be able to receive shells from below. Or both.

It's not unprecedented that hits that couldn't perforate the barbette to still cause enough damage to leave the turret inoperable. Even glancing blows have been known to do that, just by deforming the plate itself and lodging it stuck into the turret above it was possible to jam a turret frozen in place. Repairs to restore the mobility of the turrret could be done "on the field" (cutting the plate wit blowtorches, for instance, to free the turret) but could take hours, not to mention that doing that under enemy fire wasn't the best idea ever.

A penetrating hit detonating inside the barbette would kill the turret allright. Best case scenario all the reloading mechanism will be gone. A worse scenario is a flash fire that goes up into the turret and makes a flambee out of the crew. Worst case scenario a flash fire going down the barbette right into the magazine. You can guess the results. Thankfully that was quite uncommon for post-WW1 designs (which incorporated flashtight doors that were opened and closed when needed to bring shells and powder up to the turret), but still wasn't something that could be discarded outright.

At any right annoying as it might be, barbettes were key for the operation of the associated turrets. Get a barbette KO, the turret is KO aswell.

(And yes, I'd also like very much to give the barbettes the armoring I choose, instead of choosing it in the equipment menus. Then again I understand the rationale of doing it that way)

Yep all makes perfect sense to me.  But if Barbette hits kill turrets as they should I really need to be able to custom armor them.  Because right now enemy BB shells OVERPEN my barbettes while being unable to harm my turrets.  

So yes right now it just doesn't work with the equipment menu.  Tying it to the turret thickness could work and would probably be the easiest way to do it.  Or at least if you select barbette IV it's thick enough to protect against your own guns at close range or something.  Because as it is choosing IV barbette already adds a % of weight based on the weight of the turret and the amount of armor you put on the turret.  Just making it so the barbette inherits the amount of armor on the turret should work just fine

[disc]

The fundamental issue with barbettes is that they appear to only be associated with the placeable object. Most guns of 8in and greater caliber had armored barbettes, or at least big armored handling rooms right under the turret. An armored ammunition hoist or barbette tube would extend down to the armored magazine roof, if the barbette itself did not go that far. 

As near I can tell in the game, turrets placed directly on the deck don't have an ammunition supply chain of any kind. At least, we have no indication showing they do, apart perhaps for the "ammunition detonation" critical, which I suspect is an abstracted modifier to hits on the gun mount itself. This gives "deck-mounted" guns a certain advantage over "barbette-mounted" guns which do have a part of the ammunition supply modeled.

21 minutes ago, RAMJB said:

So you can perfectly go into the designer, choose an "all or nothing citadel", then put some armor on the Belt extension and Deck extension and be perfectly fine with it. You haven't broken any design law by doing so - because historical AoN designs also did so.

We cannot specify transverse bulkhead thicknesses, so any hits from fore or aft can cause huge damage if the extended deck and belt are too thin. Thus our purported all-or-nothing design would be fatally flawed when attempting a chase or retreat. Versus, say, the Nevada class, which had no belt or thick deck forward of No.1 turret, but did have 13-8in transverse bulkheads.

Neither can we really specify increased compartmentation in the fore and aft parts of the ship, which would go a long way in increasing damage resistance in these unarmored places. The "compartmentation" slider we have affects the whole ship, as near I can see.

Edited December 3, 2019 by disc

[captinjoehenry]

6 minutes ago, disc said:

As near I can tell in the game, turrets placed directly on the deck don't have an ammunition supply chain of any kind. At least, we have no indication showing they do. This gives them a certain advantage over barbette-mounted guns.

Well I think there is something along those lines and the barbette directly effects it.  As when you suffer an ammo detonation most of the time it's centered beneath one of the turrets that got hit and penetrated.  The Barbettes seem to work wonders in this case and using the Barbette IV seems to completely negate any and all ammo detonations that are based under a turret.  Still doesn't save you from a massive citadel penetration but using Barbette IV definitely works for protecting the various turrets ammo supply.  Just not the placeable Barbette that seems to have near 0 armor

[Steeltrap]

1 hour ago, disc said:

As near I can tell in the game, turrets placed directly on the deck don't have an ammunition supply chain of any kind. At least, we have no indication showing they do, apart perhaps for the "ammunition detonation" critical, which I suspect is an abstracted modifier to hits on the gun mount itself. This gives "deck-mounted" guns a certain advantage over "barbette-mounted" guns which do have a part of the ammunition supply modelled.

It is true that turrets flush with the deck did have that advantage, but equally untrue that they didn't have the same mechanism beneath them. Being on a raised barbette for the purposes of super-firing arrangement simply meant the raised part of the inner workings needed to be protected more thoroughly as they could be hit directly.

2 hours ago, disc said:

We cannot specify transverse bulkhead thicknesses, so any hits from fore or aft can cause huge damage if the extended deck and belt are too thin. Thus our purported all-or-nothing design would be fatally flawed when attempting a chase or retreat. Versus, say, the Nevada class, which had no belt or thick deck forward of No.1 turret, but did have 13-8in transverse bulkheads.

This is for me a hugely significant problem at the moment. I did some digging around, and wiki (yes, I know) claims the Royal Sovereign class pre-dread BB had 16" fore and 14" aft transverse bulkheads, and the first of those entered service in 1892.

Bouncing AP shells off a BB's side then blowing it apart with HE from the bow or stern is plain nonsense and MUST be addressed IMO or claims to 'reality' are hollow. It's even worse when you watch the same guns' AP shells bounce off the bow or stern first and then HE kills it. The complete reverse of historical accuracy.

I've said many times already that the whole mechanism for HE penetration and damage seems utterly out of balance. I will be looking very closely at the next version to see how well this has been addressed. Right now the game is uncomfortably close to WoWS in the sense of "spam HE and kill anything and everything, no thought or skill required". This single aspect is enough to kill any other claim of historical accuracy the game might justifiably claim because it is SO central to everything and hugely broken at present.

Cheers

[captinjoehenry]

19 minutes ago, Steeltrap said:

I've said many times already that the whole mechanism for HE penetration and damage seems utterly out of balance. I will be looking very closely at the next version to see how well this has been addressed. Right now the game is uncomfortably close to WoWS in the sense of "spam HE and kill anything and everything, no thought or skill required". This single aspect is enough to kill any other claim of historical accuracy the game might justifiably claim because it is SO central to everything and hugely broken at present.

Cheers

Totally agree with you.  It does seem though that the devs are progessively working away at the HE problem.  Both in this upcoming patch and the one before it they've nerfed HE which makes me think they'll keep nerfing it until it works right.

[JHorsti]

What is the current ETA of the update? I'm really hyped for it!

Edited December 4, 2019 by JHorsti

[disc]

5 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

It is true that turrets flush with the deck did have that advantage, but equally untrue that they didn't have the same mechanism beneath them. Being on a raised barbette for the purposes of super-firing arrangement simply meant the raised part of the inner workings needed to be protected more thoroughly as they could be hit directly.

Precisely! Thus the (apparent) lack thereof in the game is a problem.

7 hours ago, captinjoehenry said:

As when you suffer an ammo detonation most of the time it's centered beneath one of the turrets that got hit and penetrated. 

Interesting, I had perhaps mistakenly thought the game's ammo detonations were from turret hits. Maybe there is some barbette system hidden away from us. Certainly the selectable barbette option reduces detonation risk. The question, I think, is how.

Are there anything akin to magazines on our ships? Would be interesting to see if our turret placement actually affects placement of "magazine" compartments belowdecks.

[Cptbarney]

6 hours ago, JHorsti said:

What is the current ETA of the update? I'm really hyped for it!

Same, i can't bloody wait lol.

[RedParadize]

I hope we don't get another past/future/news/update 😬

[Johnpesce]

I’m gonna be honest I want information I thought it said in the last post by last weekend it’s been almost 2 weeks now?

[Steeltrap]

20 hours ago, disc said:

1. Precisely! Thus the (apparent) lack thereof in the game is a problem.

2. Interesting, I had perhaps mistakenly thought the game's ammo detonations were from turret hits. Maybe there is some barbette system hidden away from us. Certainly the selectable barbette option reduces detonation risk. The question, I think, is how.

Are there anything akin to magazines on our ships? Would be interesting to see if our turret placement actually affects placement of "magazine" compartments belowdecks.

 1. Yes, I was agreeing with you re barbettes in case that wasn't clear.

 2. I'd say there definitely are magazines. My experience has been there are 2 cases likely to cause devastating ammo explosions in decently armoured ships (some CA and all BBs), which is to say explosions of large calibre ammo and propellant. The first is an AP round that strikes the centre belt and manages to penetrate, presumably striking the magazine behind. The second is the bow or stern hit as I mentioned in my earlier posts, and the worst thing about that is it almost always is caused by HE where AP tends to deflect.

 I always pause the game whenever there is a major explosion so I can see what caused it. I've not seen a chain of details in the log where it's a destruction of the turret or barbette followed by an ammo explosion. While that doesn't mean it's impossible,  I'm inclined to say either the log doesn't reflect it correctly or it isn't happening because, as I said, I check every such explosion in detail immediately.

 I know the barbette tech does speak of reducing ammo explosions, so perhaps it's not working at present as part of the failure of barbette destruction seemingly to have any effect on anything whatsoever.

As a final point, ammo explosions also appear not to have any effect on ammo supplies as listed, which seems a bit of an oversight.

[Marder]

10 hours ago, Johnpesce said:

I’m gonna be honest I want information I thought it said in the last post by last weekend it’s been almost 2 weeks now?

They're probably still in the closed testing phase. Wouldn't mind it if bugs came out and got worked on, that'll benefit us in the long run. That said, folks would probably appreciate some trickling of updates. Maybe on how the bigger features like the custom battle editor would look like? 

Either way, I think I know how you feel. Been looking forward to custom battles since I got this game. The Academy missions are starting to lose their luster. Haven't picked up the game in like a week now. Hope the update gets released soon, and that the custom battle editor is gonna be as flexible as possible. 

[Steeltrap]

11 hours ago, Johnpesce said:

I’m gonna be honest I want information I thought it said in the last post by last weekend it’s been almost 2 weeks now?

Header of this thread is dated 26/11 and the follow up was 27/11, so 9/8 calendar days ago respectively as I'm writing this.

I'd expect some time next week at the earliest as I doubt they'll drop it on a Friday.

Edited December 5, 2019 by Steeltrap

[CaptMorg70]

21 minutes ago, Steeltrap said:

Header of this thread is dated 26/11 and the follow up was 27/11, so 9/8 calendar days ago respectively as I'm writing this.

I'd expect some time next week at the earliest as I doubt they'll drop it on a Friday.

They did drop the last patch on a Friday. So it wouldn’t be THAT surprising if they did it again.

Edited December 5, 2019 by CaptMorg70
Spelling

[Rick W]

Just be patient gents... Its all good. This is going to be a long road. Enjoy the ride and stop asking "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" 

[Wowzery]

I will admit, I too was wondering if there had been any update to the release time.

[Skeksis]

We all prefer quality over quantity, don’t we.

But in saying that I’ve been wondering about the first beta release, alittle bit more down the 'patch' road, will we get a single nation with a single region (if that’s the campaign design) to play. Like a first chapter of the campaign, you know to test the campaign mode before it gets to far into development.

[Tetrus]

On 11/26/2019 at 9:22 PM, Nick Thomadis said:

We just meant that the possible ships to build in custom battle are based on the campaign progression, which means that you cannot build a spaceship but only ships of the campaign technology tree between 1890-1930 and only as far as we have progressed our work on the campaign build tree. The possibilities are endless, since we do not use fixed models, as you already know.

Wait a sec i just want to clarify this because i still didn't get it Will we be able to use all parts and stuff in the editor (of course as far as you implemented it) without playing the campaign, or do we need to research it in the campaign to use it in the editor? Because that would be disappointing. If that really is the case, would we need to go through the campaign of all nations or is 1 enough to have it for ever? Sorry im confused xD

Edited December 5, 2019 by Tetrus

[Nick Thomadis]

The build is currently in testing phase and is scheduled to be released, most possibly on Monday 9/12/2019!

EDIT:
Corrected date and removed related posts, for no confusions. 

[monbvol]

Thanks for the update.

And at least for me I won't complain if it takes a bit longer as I'd rather have something quality than something quick.

[RedParadize]

Monday is better than Friday. There is always a game breaking last minute change that make it to release built. At least that way the team wont have to work on weekend!

[Cptbarney]

I was expecting it next week on friday, but this sounds gud as well.

Too bad i have smelly assignment to do for wednesday but ill defo play after i hand it in!

'w'

[sarrumac]

This is a scandal, it's monday since as much as 25 minutes over there and I still can't see the patch!!!

 

REEEEEEEE!

Can't wait though.

[Johnpesce]

1 hour ago, sarrumac said:

This is a scandal, it's monday since as much as 25 minutes over there and I still can't see the patch!!!

 

REEEEEEEE!

Can't wait though.

What time zone is it supposed to come out from?

[Ignominius]

Woke up early this morning to sit here and refresh the page until the patch drops. I'm pretty excited to test out the new missions.