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>>>Alpha-3 General Feedback v65<<<


Nick Thomadis

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42 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

The overall tone is that many find them too inaccurate to be effective.

The overall tone can be whatever it might be. This already has been discussed: biased "feelings" formed on the base of an overall lack of knowledge about how naval warfare was conducted maybe useful as feedback in games as WOWS. BUt not in one like this,




To reiterate it once more: secondaries' current lacklusterness comes from the fact that 

a) the game currently does not allow for multiple targetting, slaving secondaries to whatever the main guns are firing at. This is not how it's supposed to be, so until that is introduced, one of the main advantages of having a secondary battery in battle (engaging several targets simultaneously) isn't felt at all.

b) The game currently does not model supression or crew penalized abilities when subjected to heavy fire. Ships subjected to a hailstorm of secondaries just sail through as if nothing was happening without any impact to their fighting ability. Hence secondary batteries are penalized because other of it's main advantages in battle isn't there at all yet.

c) The game currently is limited to short engagements only where main battery ammo seems more than enough for almost anything. When the whole campaign is released, and large scale battles are fought (in which you MUST save your main battery ammo for critical targets, not for whatever random DD that happens to sail nearby), the large ammount of ammo secondaries bring to the table ,mixed with the a) and b) advantages currently missing already named avobe will make them priceless to have.

d) the game currently does not model the exceedingly high maintenaince cost of shooting main guns. These are scenarios after which your ship is no longer even saved. No need to rebore and reline main gun rifles. You aren't running a navy that has to pay running costs yet.
Main battery guns had to be relined and rebored each 100 to 300 shots depending on the gun we're talking about. They were really expensive to put them back in working order. Secondary guns had a barrel life of THOUSANDS of shots. Hence in an engagement where DDs are present if you shoot your main guns right now there's no penalty. Penalty that won't exist until the campaign is released. Again, other of the main advantages of secondaries which is not in-game YET.

e) the current gunnery model gives a series of to-hit modifiers which are mostly flat across ranges (Some change with range, such as "long range targetting bonuses, others do not). Some of those modifiers should not be so draconian at short ranges (point blank). Secondaries *DO* have too low accuracy at very low ranges, under 2.5km or so. Beyond that their results are perfectly believable.

f) the current armor model is an oversimplification placeholder that causes armored ships to be covered in far larger areas of plate armor than it was the case historically. This hurts secondary guns ability to hurt those ships. Once a definitive, more accurate armor model is in place, the effect of secondaries on unprotected areas of warships will be greatly increased.



I've said it before, I've said it again: there were very good reasons secondaries were considered vital for warships. None of those reasons was that those weapons were any "accurate" on a per-shot basis. Currently none of those reasons is in the game, but they're all bound to be at some point in the future. Because, as advertised, this game will replicate naval combat of the era, and all those factors mattered. So they will be in here. Some will come sooner, some will come later.

Giving any categorical statement about the secondaries "needing" anything at this point (much less an accuracy boost that is not warranted: those guns were much less accurate than main batteries for many reasons already named in previous posts) before ALL those factors are in the game and modelled, so their advantages can be felt (which right now, can't), it's just poor feedback. Because you'll be boosting the performance of weapons that are lacking most of the things that made them important, because they don't "feel" that important RIGHT NOW. The only solution is NOT to "buff them" in their current state. It is to wait for the game to be properly developed and all those things that mattered, included. THEN they will feel as important as they should. Without any unrealistic, anhistorical, and unneeded "accuracy boost".  


It only happens that **RIGHT NOW** this is a game halfway in production. A lot of things that are going to be in here, aren't yet. You can't say "this weapon doesn't work well" when the context is that of a game where of the whole lot of things that made that weapon system important, only two are modelled: their existance, and their chances to hit. Nothing else.  That's like saying that a half backed pie needs a lot more flour when it's not even baked, because it doesn't seem solid enough. No shit. It's not baked. It's not even supposed to seem solid yet. And if you add flour now what you'll do is to ruin the freakin' pie. So leave it the heck alone, and wait for it to be baked first.


So secondaries are currently not as useful as they should be. Of course they are not. 80% of the reasons why they mattered and were important aren't yet in the game. What you can't do is to give them a completely absurd boost to their accuracy right now to compensate, when the rest of the reasons why they were useful aren't here yet. Because once they're there then you'd end up with ridiculously strong secondary batteries, far more than what they actually were, and turning any warship using them into floating versions of the Death Star II, vaporizing anything in range of those spitters of death. Which should NOT be the case (because it was NOT the case either in historical naval history).


Once those factors are in, then it will the time to do a proper look into how useful they are. Right now it's just nonsense coming from people with ill-informed beliefs about how those weapons worked historically (which, again, the game is intended to replicate). They just look at those ships and they think they should work in some way they didn't. and when they (Expectedly) don't, their immediate reaction is to say "hey, that's wrong".


Turns out no, it's not wrong. And it doesn't need to be changed just because people who don't know better thinks it's wrong, when it is not.

So even then, when the game is complete, feedback based on the "feels" of people who know nothing about naval combat of the time will be as solid as now. Meaning: not at all. This is a game that's advertised as replicate the important factors of naval combat, design, and strategy during the big gun era. It's not a game advertised to replicate naval combat "so it feels right for people who can't differentiate Port from Starboard, much less how a ship actually fought".

Battleships of the time were NOT floating deathstars, and no matter how hard some people "Feel" they should be, they weren't, and they shouldn't be here either.

Edited by RAMJB
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21 minutes ago, RAMJB said:

The overall tone can be whatever it might be. This already has been discussed: biased "feelings" formed on the base of an overall lack of knowledge about how naval warfare was conducted maybe useful as feedback in games as WOWS. BUt not in one like this,




To reiterate it once more: secondaries' current lacklusterness comes from the fact that 

a) the game currently does not allow for multiple targetting, slaving secondaries to whatever the main guns are firing at. This is not how it's supposed to be, so until that is introduced, one of the main advantages of having a secondary battery in battle (engaging several targets simultaneously) isn't felt at all.

b) The game currently does not model supression or crew penalized abilities when subjected to heavy fire. Ships subjected to a hailstorm of secondaries just sail through as if nothing was happening without any impact to their fighting ability. Hence secondary batteries are penalized because other of it's main advantages in battle isn't there at all yet.

c) The game currently is limited to short engagements only where main battery ammo seems more than enough for almost anything. When the whole campaign is released, and large scale battles are fought (in which you MUST save your main battery ammo for critical targets, not for whatever random DD that happens to sail nearby), the large ammount of ammo secondaries bring to the table ,mixed with the a) and b) advantages currently missing already named avobe will make them priceless to have.

d) the game currently does not model the exceedingly high maintenaince cost of shooting main guns. These are scenarios after which your ship is no longer even saved. No need to rebore and reline main gun rifles. You aren't running a navy that has to pay running costs yet.
Main battery guns had to be relined and rebored each 100 to 300 shots depending on the gun we're talking about. They were really expensive to put them back in working order. Secondary guns had a barrel life of THOUSANDS of shots. Hence in an engagement where DDs are present if you shoot your main guns right now there's no penalty. Penalty that won't exist until the campaign is released. Again, other of the main advantages of secondaries which is not in-game YET.

e) the current gunnery model gives a series of to-hit modifiers which are mostly flat across ranges (Some change with range, such as "long range targetting bonuses, others do not). Some of those modifiers should not be so draconian at short ranges (point blank). Secondaries *DO* have too low accuracy at very low ranges, under 2.5km or so. Beyond that their results are perfectly believable.

f) the current armor model is an oversimplification placeholder that causes armored ships to be covered in far larger areas of plate armor than it was the case historically. This hurts secondary guns ability to hurt those ships. Once a definitive, more accurate armor model is in place, the effect of secondaries on unprotected areas of warships will be greatly increased.



I've said it before, I've said it again: there were very good reasons secondaries were considered vital for warships. None of those reasons was that those weapons were any "accurate" on a per-shot basis. Currently none of those reasons is in the game, but they're all bound to be at some point in the future. Because, as advertised, this game will replicate naval combat of the era, and all those factors mattered. So they will be in here. Some will come sooner, some will come later.

Giving any categorical statement about the secondaries "needing" anything at this point (much less an accuracy boost that is not warranted: those guns were much less accurate than main batteries for many reasons already named in previous posts) before ALL those factors are in the game and modelled, so their advantages can be felt (which right now, can't), it's just poor feedback. Because you'll be boosting the performance of weapons that are lacking most of the things that made them important, because they don't "feel" that important RIGHT NOW. The only solution is NOT to "buff them" in their current state. It is to wait for the game to be properly developed and all those things that mattered, included. THEN they will feel as important as they should. Without any unrealistic, anhistorical, and unneeded "accuracy boost".  


It only happens that **RIGHT NOW** this is a game halfway in production. A lot of things that are going to be in here, aren't yet. You can't say "this weapon doesn't work well" when the context is that of a game where of the whole lot of things that made that weapon system important, only two are modelled: their existance, and their chances to hit. Nothing else.  That's like saying that a half backed pie needs a lot more flour when it's not even baked, because it doesn't seem solid enough. No shit. It's not baked. It's not even supposed to seem solid yet. And if you add flour now what you'll do is to ruin the freakin' pie. So leave it the heck alone, and wait for it to be baked first.


So secondaries are currently not as useful as they should be. Of course they are not. 80% of the reasons why they mattered and were important aren't yet in the game. What you can't do is to give them a completely absurd boost to their accuracy right now to compensate, to then when the rest of the reasons why they were useful aren't here yet. 

Once those factors are in, then it will the time to do a proper look into how useful they are. Right now it's just nonsense coming from people with ill-informed beliefs about how those weapons worked historically (which, again, the game is intended to replicate).

But even then, when the game is complete, feedback based on the "feels" of people who know nothing about naval combat of the time will be as solid as now. Meaning: not at all. This is a game that's advertised as replicate the important factors of naval combat, design, and strategy during the big gun era.

Battleships of the time were NOT floating deathstars, and no matter how hard some people "Feel" they should be, they weren't, and they shouldn't be here either.

Nothing you are saying is incorrect. But this post demonstrates that it's you that don't read what other people write.

I made a whole thread detailing how and why the gunnery model should be rewritten exactly for these scenarios.

Yes, secondaries should be really accurate at point blank, at least up until a certain tech level. But this is difficult to model with the current implementation based on modifiers. You would have to add another modifier called "point blank" that happens in a certain range for a certain gun. And then it has to be balanced against all other modifiers. And then what about big guns with slow rotation time against "point blank" fast targets?

The damage model is entirely another beast, and you are mostly correct when you suggest that small(er) caliber should do some "temporary damage" by distrupting ship functions. But it's entirely a moot point until you cannot hit anyway.

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44 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

I know you see small caliber as hail of fire and dissuasion. But who say dissuasion say credible treat.


Also, no. You're somehow implying that I think the in-game current model for the secondary guns is good enough.

No.

You seem to imply that I'm defending that it works perfectly right now.

No.

And to show how much "no" those no are "no", I'll quote a paragraph from one of my previous posts:

No contention from this end. Because that's a valid point no doubt. The effect of being under heavy fire isn't in the game. Yet. That's the key word. "Yet" ;). How do I know it will be in there?. Well, because that factor has been modelled in every naval fighting game ever produced. From TF1942 up to Rule the Waves 2. Noticeable penalties to firing accuracy, and AI taking things a lot more cautiously if subjected to a hailstorm have been present in any immersive naval game covering the era of the big gun battleship since more than 30 years ago... 

It's a no brainer it will be here too.

 

I'm not saying "volume of fire" is effective in game yet. I'm not saying secondaries are effective in game yet.

I'm saying secondaries were effective historically because of volume of fire. Not that they currently are.


Why not?. Well, not because they lack any accuracy. That's not their problem. Their accuracy ratings make sense compared with the main battery chances to hit at different ranges. The problem is that (and I said it in the avobe post)

a) the effect of supression because of being under heavy fire is not modelled in the game. YET.
b) the ability to split main battery from secondary to shoot at different targets it's not modelled in the game. YET.
c) at point blank range they don't hit as much as they should. But ONLY at point blank range, and due to a gunnery model that's in progress.
d) when they hit armored targets they don't do much because the current armor model is simplified and a placeholder. So they aren't as useful against big ships as they should. YET.

So of course right now secondaries don't look that great. They still do help, mind you, but they're nowhere as useful as they should be- YET.

But none of it stems from being not accurate enough. The proposed so-called "solution" given by you and others to "increase accuracy" is not a solution. It's a boost the weapon system doesn't need. What it needs is the ability to target several different targets with different batteries, some kind of supression model for ships that are under heavy fire, a more detailed gunnery model for point blank ranges, and a revamping of the current armor model.

All those are things that will happen in the future at some point or another. And then secondaries will feel right. But not because anyone "buffed" their accuracy, but because the reasons why they were useful in real life will be here too. Which currently isn't the case.



 

 

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15 minutes ago, RAMJB said:

And I'll keep doing it. As many times as is necessary.

you're welcome.

Saw you in the world of warships forum, the disaster that is the PR event, thankfully nothing like that will happen here unless. You know we go down the multiplayer route.

Also i want secondaries buffed cus i like the pew pews (and so they aren't useless decorations).

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14 minutes ago, Riccardo Cagnasso said:

Nothing you are saying is incorrect. But this post demonstrates that it's you that don't read what other people write.

I made a whole thread detailing how and why the gunnery model should be rewritten exactly for these scenarios.

Yes, secondaries should be really accurate at point blank, at least up until a certain tech level. But this is difficult to model with the current implementation based on modifiers. You would have to add another modifier called "point blank" that happens in a certain range for a certain gun. And then it has to be balanced against all other modifiers. And then what about big guns with slow rotation time against "point blank" fast targets?



I dare say here that it's YOU who don't read what others write.

You might have made a whole thread detailing how and why the gunnery model should be rewritten.

Myself, on my part I've been mentioning their lacklusterness at point blank range in almost every post I've written in this forum that somehow relates with the gunnery model. And not only for secondaries. Main batteries also suffer from that problem.

that point has been made by myself, IN THIS VERY THREAD, multiple times, in multiple posts, across multiple pages.

yet you feel free enough to come here saying you've read those posts (Which you obviously have not)...and go on throw this MASSIVE personal attack, in this terms, and I quote:

 



There are people here that are actually arguing that secondary batteries should be completely and utterly useless because of HISTORICAL ACCURACY.

So, basically the theory here is that admirals and top brass of the entire world were complete idiots who spent unholy amounts of money to fit their ships with tens or hundreds of totally useless pieces of artillery. For decades.


I don't know what to say. It's... I don't want to be offensive.

 

 

Essentially you're implying that myself has come here, said that the gunnery model is perfect, that it should not change because of HISTORICAL ACCURACY (which is utter BS, I haven't even implied the gunnery model is right, I've said, and I state again, that secondary gun accuracy is perfectly fine at anything but point blank range), that I somehow have implied that the top brass of the whole world who designed warships for decades were idiots.

And you finish it in the most passive-agressive way you can. suggesting that the only thing you have to say about it would be labelled as offensive, so you don't.



Now tell me, dear gentleman. Who of us both here DOES NOT READ what the other side has written?. 

 

Edited by RAMJB
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There's no way around it @RAMJB, as more and more users come online they want their secondaries (small caliber) to smash incoming DDs.

I'm definitely in favor of personal preferences to accommodate such services but I'm also leaning towards 'mods', this ability would surely do the job, not only for secondaries accuracy buffs but skins too and many more other options, even for the designer tool and campaign preferences.

I'm sure programmers would love to create this kind of interface, it'll be quite a coding feather in there cap! More importantly, Dev's can steer the game in one direction while mods go in another, offering variations for all audiences.

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@RAMJB Listen. The fact that I did not mention all the point you make, do not mean I do not know them. It doesn't mean I do not agree either. I said some of these point myself. You are giving me intent I do not have. Answering to things I did not say.

As for UA:D, you seem to expect all these things to make it into the game. I do not. I critique the game as it is right now, not against something it might or might not be in the future.

As it is, small caliber is ineffective.

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2 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

There's no way around it @RAMJB, as more and more users come online they want their secondaries (small caliber) to smash incoming DDs.

I'm definitely in favor of personal preferences to accommodate such services but I'm also leaning towards 'mods', this ability would surely do the job, not only for secondaries accuracy buffs but skins too and many more other options, even for the designer tool and campaign preferences.

I'm sure programmers would love to create this kind of interface, it'll be quite a coding feather in there cap! More importantly, Dev's can steer the game in one direction while mods go in another, offering variations for all audiences.

Maybe a tab in-game to download mods? like steam workshop essentially.

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Mods is a perfecly nice solution for me. Accuracy sliders in game could be another (Even while I think that'd be wasting development time away from many other things that's important).

But a game that's advertised as replicating historical naval warfare combat, can't go on and being putting things according to whatever unreasonable and unfounded "expectatives" players have. It would actually defeat the whole purpose of the game. Now if someone wants to walk forward and release mods with different accuracy models that change the gameplay so it ends being like sci-fi martian ships sailing on the seas of Alpha Centauri, I'm all for it. This is a singleplayer game, after all - but it's core should be what it is advertised to be like.

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9 minutes ago, RedParadize said:


@RAMJB Listen. The fact that I did not mention all the point you make, do not mean I do not know them. It doesn't mean I do not agree either. I said some of these point myself. You are giving me intent I do not have. Answering to things I did not say.

As for UA:D, you seem to expect all these things to make it into the game. I do not. I critique the game as it is right now, not against something it might or might not be in the future.

As it is, small caliber is ineffective.


As it is small caliber is not exactly innefective. But nowhere close to as useful as should be. Agreed. But accuracy has nothing to do with that other than at point blank ranges.

As for UA:D I expect all these things to make it into the game because while it's being developed by a small team, Rule the Waves does incorporate all those things (And more) and was developed by just one guy (well, the programming, it's actually 2-3 guys doing the overall job). If RTW could get things right and nail them as they did years ago, with almost an one man team, there's no reason why UA:D can't. And I'll go further, if they don't, they'll be wasting the game potential. And I don't think they want to do that ;).

Their intended purpose is to portray realistic naval combat of the age of the big gun warship. This they can't deliver if they don't model all the things I've mentioned. Hence I fully expect them to make it into the game.

Finally, you're perfectly OK with giving your feedback about the game as it is "Right now". But expect others to remind you that, right now, it's little more than a very basic framework to build on, and that most of what's in there is in placeholder status. As such there are things that you perceive aren't right - doesn't always mean they aren't. Sometimes they will, other times (like this one) will be the result of the game lacking ,at this point, the many things that synergize with that particular aspect of the game to make it more relevant.

Long story short: changes in gun accuracy are core to a game and should never changed based on the kind of feedback given thus far. i agree, small calibers aren't as effective as they should be - but I insist, it's not because lack of accuracy. So the solution is not to increase it. It's to bring all the rest of things that synergyze with them and make them worthwile.

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@RAMJBIf only you would have said it like that 4 page ago. It would have saved allot of needless argumentation.

As you said UA:D team is really small. To compare it to RTW is unfair, for allot of reasons. I have work on games. There are the core feature that are essential and there are the ones that would be "nice to have". If its not on the released test version (some call it Alpha, others Beta) then it is more likely to be on the "nice to have" side. Now, many "nice to have" do not make it into the game. UA:D could very well contain no more feature than the one present or announced. I surely hope the crew feature (that is planned) will include morale, but they did not mention it. Bottom line is you should not have expectation beyond what is advertised.
 

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I've...been saying that....like, for the whole thread? XDDDDD. Heck in this very page I said pretty much the same!. I even listed the reasons as a) to f)  ;).

Anyway nice to see that we finally seem to understand each other :). I have much higher hopes and expectatives out of the developer team, though. The points I've brought across are not in the "nice to have" bucket. They're pretty "must haves" if the game wants to live up to what they say they want it to be, and as such I expect them to be brought in at one point or another before the game is released. We'll see with time, anyway :).

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  • The new USN towers cannot fit the historical 5" guns they held. Please allow the use of 5" guns on that, maybe 6" considering this is a sandbox.
  • The limitations on where you can put towers is somewhat anti fun. Let us decide where towers go, the snap points restrict creativity. In some cases they can mess the weight distribution up because they cannot be positioned far enough to the rear.
  • Barbettes absolutely need to be freed from snap points. I would also like to be able to stack them to another level. including placing them on the mast turret snaps.
  • Secondaries need to be able to target something else besides what you command the MB to fire at.
  • Adding a FCS option in the builder for secondaries seems like a good idea.
  • Torpedoes are literally a pile of explosives, and should probably explode if hit.

 

Edited by Hangar18
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I still find secondaries to be all but useless. 

When I see destroyers I just command my ship to take a couple salvos from my main guns and that gets the job done better than an hour of spamming 5-8 inch shells at them.

Those annoying constant smokescreens tend to make all accuracy low as hell though.

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59 minutes ago, Hangar18 said:
  • The new USN towers cannot fit the historical 5" guns they held. Please allow the use of 5" guns on that, maybe 6" considering this is a sandbox.
  • The limitations on where you can put towers is somewhat anti fun. Let us decide where towers go, the snap points restrict creativity. In some cases they can mess the weight distribution up because they cannot be positioned far enough to the rear.
  • Barbettes absolutely need to be freed from snap points. I would also like to be able to stack them to another level. including placing them on the mast turret snaps.
  • Secondaries need to be able to target something else besides what you command the MB to fire at.
  • Adding a FCS option in the builder for secondaries seems like a good idea.
  • Torpedoes are literally a pile of explosives, and should probably explode if hit.

 

1- IIRC the battlecruiser tower can't fit the 5'' gun. But the BB one (Iowa's) can. Maybe I'm wrong though, but I tinkered with that superstructure a bit a couple days ago and IIRC it could take 5'' turrets no problem. The BC hull should be able to take them too, however (I think the hull is modelled after an Alaska, and Alaska did mount those...)

2- Plenty of people agree. I'm sure at some point we'll see a lot more freedom in that.

3- yes on the free from snap points. Not so much about the "stack". Super-super firing (two deck high over weather deck) turrets firing from that high was exceedingly dangerous. Turrets tended to be tremendously heavy (yamato's turrets weighed 2500 tons, roughly the same as a full sized destroyers). Placing them so high would increase the height of the ship's CoG so much as to make it dangerously unstable. BBs were rather top heavy (especially by the very late WWII era), and that just with one or two superfiring turrets. Anything beyond that would compromise the ship itself. It's no wonder it's not allowed (And personally I think it should be kept that way).

4- absolutely yes. Not only secondaries, torpedo targetting should also be independant from whatever the main (and secondary) batteries are firing at.

5- with advanced enough tech, without question yes (FCS for secondary batteries didn't happen until the very late 30s, and even then not in all nations)

6- oh hell yes. Especially those with the "oxygen propulsion" option. It's not widely talked about but those "wonder weapons" going off because of enemy gunfire was the reason at least two japanese cruisers went off in battle.

 

Edited by RAMJB
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20 hours ago, RAMJB said:

The overall tone can be whatever it might be. This already has been discussed: biased "feelings" formed on the base of an overall lack of knowledge about how naval warfare was conducted maybe useful as feedback in games as WOWS. BUt not in one like this,




To reiterate it once more: secondaries' current lacklusterness comes from the fact that 

a) the game currently does not allow for multiple targetting, slaving secondaries to whatever the main guns are firing at. This is not how it's supposed to be, so until that is introduced, one of the main advantages of having a secondary battery in battle (engaging several targets simultaneously) isn't felt at all.

b) The game currently does not model supression or crew penalized abilities when subjected to heavy fire. Ships subjected to a hailstorm of secondaries just sail through as if nothing was happening without any impact to their fighting ability. Hence secondary batteries are penalized because other of it's main advantages in battle isn't there at all yet.

c) The game currently is limited to short engagements only where main battery ammo seems more than enough for almost anything. When the whole campaign is released, and large scale battles are fought (in which you MUST save your main battery ammo for critical targets, not for whatever random DD that happens to sail nearby), the large ammount of ammo secondaries bring to the table ,mixed with the a) and b) advantages currently missing already named avobe will make them priceless to have.

d) the game currently does not model the exceedingly high maintenaince cost of shooting main guns. These are scenarios after which your ship is no longer even saved. No need to rebore and reline main gun rifles. You aren't running a navy that has to pay running costs yet.
Main battery guns had to be relined and rebored each 100 to 300 shots depending on the gun we're talking about. They were really expensive to put them back in working order. Secondary guns had a barrel life of THOUSANDS of shots. Hence in an engagement where DDs are present if you shoot your main guns right now there's no penalty. Penalty that won't exist until the campaign is released. Again, other of the main advantages of secondaries which is not in-game YET.

e) the current gunnery model gives a series of to-hit modifiers which are mostly flat across ranges (Some change with range, such as "long range targetting bonuses, others do not). Some of those modifiers should not be so draconian at short ranges (point blank). Secondaries *DO* have too low accuracy at very low ranges, under 2.5km or so. Beyond that their results are perfectly believable.

f) the current armor model is an oversimplification placeholder that causes armored ships to be covered in far larger areas of plate armor than it was the case historically. This hurts secondary guns ability to hurt those ships. Once a definitive, more accurate armor model is in place, the effect of secondaries on unprotected areas of warships will be greatly increased.



I've said it before, I've said it again: there were very good reasons secondaries were considered vital for warships. None of those reasons was that those weapons were any "accurate" on a per-shot basis. Currently none of those reasons is in the game, but they're all bound to be at some point in the future. Because, as advertised, this game will replicate naval combat of the era, and all those factors mattered. So they will be in here. Some will come sooner, some will come later.

Giving any categorical statement about the secondaries "needing" anything at this point (much less an accuracy boost that is not warranted: those guns were much less accurate than main batteries for many reasons already named in previous posts) before ALL those factors are in the game and modelled, so their advantages can be felt (which right now, can't), it's just poor feedback. Because you'll be boosting the performance of weapons that are lacking most of the things that made them important, because they don't "feel" that important RIGHT NOW. The only solution is NOT to "buff them" in their current state. It is to wait for the game to be properly developed and all those things that mattered, included. THEN they will feel as important as they should. Without any unrealistic, anhistorical, and unneeded "accuracy boost".  


It only happens that **RIGHT NOW** this is a game halfway in production. A lot of things that are going to be in here, aren't yet. You can't say "this weapon doesn't work well" when the context is that of a game where of the whole lot of things that made that weapon system important, only two are modelled: their existance, and their chances to hit. Nothing else.  That's like saying that a half backed pie needs a lot more flour when it's not even baked, because it doesn't seem solid enough. No shit. It's not baked. It's not even supposed to seem solid yet. And if you add flour now what you'll do is to ruin the freakin' pie. So leave it the heck alone, and wait for it to be baked first.


So secondaries are currently not as useful as they should be. Of course they are not. 80% of the reasons why they mattered and were important aren't yet in the game. What you can't do is to give them a completely absurd boost to their accuracy right now to compensate, when the rest of the reasons why they were useful aren't here yet. Because once they're there then you'd end up with ridiculously strong secondary batteries, far more than what they actually were, and turning any warship using them into floating versions of the Death Star II, vaporizing anything in range of those spitters of death. Which should NOT be the case (because it was NOT the case either in historical naval history).


Once those factors are in, then it will the time to do a proper look into how useful they are. Right now it's just nonsense coming from people with ill-informed beliefs about how those weapons worked historically (which, again, the game is intended to replicate). They just look at those ships and they think they should work in some way they didn't. and when they (Expectedly) don't, their immediate reaction is to say "hey, that's wrong".


Turns out no, it's not wrong. And it doesn't need to be changed just because people who don't know better thinks it's wrong, when it is not.

So even then, when the game is complete, feedback based on the "feels" of people who know nothing about naval combat of the time will be as solid as now. Meaning: not at all. This is a game that's advertised as replicate the important factors of naval combat, design, and strategy during the big gun era. It's not a game advertised to replicate naval combat "so it feels right for people who can't differentiate Port from Starboard, much less how a ship actually fought".

Battleships of the time were NOT floating deathstars, and no matter how hard some people "Feel" they should be, they weren't, and they shouldn't be here either.

You know a  ton more than I do about historical naval combat.

I would love for things to work as you described them.

One issue though:

How confident are you that all these things will eventually make it into the game? Or how likely is it that the devs will be pleased with a less realistic approach?

Edited by fsp
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13 hours ago, RAMJB said:


3- yes on the free from snap points. Not so much about the "stack". Super-super firing (two deck high over weather deck) turrets firing from that high was exceedingly dangerous. Turrets tended to be tremendously heavy (yamato's turrets weighed 2500 tons, roughly the same as a full sized destroyers). Placing them so high would increase the height of the ship's CoG so much as to make it dangerously unstable. BBs were rather top heavy (especially by the very late WWII era), and that just with one or two superfiring turrets. Anything beyond that would compromise the ship itself. It's no wonder it's not allowed (And personally I think it should be kept that way).
 

Being able to stack would enable us to make configurations like that on the Yamato or Alaska, where a secondary mount superfires over the top of a superfiring main battery turret.

It would allow us to implement such configurations without requiring special superstructure models for every occasion.

Also whilst putting a triple 18" gun that high is a very bad idea, the 6" mounts on the Yamato were still pretty hefty at nearly two hundred tonnes.

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maybe its a bug, or mechanics, but since the update, overpens seem to do more damage than actual penetrations; i was messing around with a few 18 inchers, when an armored cruiser flat out refused to die; it took about 300 damage each time a shell nearly half a metre in diameter exploded inside it's hull. whenever a shell hit a destroyer and passed through completely, they'd die almost instantly with 3k damage; this led to a silly situation where 30 overpens amounted to 18k damage but 35 pens to about 4k.

smaller guns are much much worse and become completely useless below the 15 inches, with even those 15 inchers doing damage in the tens to maybe 200 damage max. what gives? im talking mostly AP here. irl, a battleship with 11 inch cannons crippled an aircraft carrier with a few shots; the external armor shouldnt be a factor in the damage done once the shell penetrates and explodes internally, right?

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I'm not sure I understand everyone's continued complaints about secondaries. I've found them to be extremely effective against Destroyers and Torpedo Boats, even smaller calibers such as the 3" batteries. I think giving them anymore of a buff would begin to degrade the use of the Torpedo boat and Destroyer squadrons to the point where they're pretty much useless. At one point, European navies seriously considered doing away with capital ships in favor of small, maneuverable torpedo craft which seriously hindered the Royal Navy's Battlecruiser and Battleship squadrons during the Great War, so it would make sense to keep them lethal. 

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1 hour ago, Spiz101 said:

Being able to stack would enable us to make configurations like that on the Yamato or Alaska, where a secondary mount superfires over the top of a superfiring main battery turret.

It would allow us to implement such configurations without requiring special superstructure models for every occasion.

Also whilst putting a triple 18" gun that high is a very bad idea, the 6" mounts on the Yamato were still pretty hefty at nearly two hundred tonnes.

Ah ok, yeah for secondaries that'd work. Kinda sorta. Those high turrets in the Yamatos did no good for their topweight ;). But weren't dangerous either. There's also the precedent of the Atlanta class with the super-superfiring arrangement (that wasn't trouble free, Atlantas were VERY problematic because of topweight issues too, but again, it was not as dangerous as to make it impractical).
 

So yeah, for those cases, sure. Just not for main battery guns on capital ships. That was pretty much a no-no.

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