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

[RAMJB]

1 hour ago, fsp said:

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?

If I took one thing out of GameLabs out of my experience with Naval Action, which combat model I loved to bits, they're really committed towards delivering an immersive combat system. Doesn't necessarily translate into "realistic" at every level (naval action combat was much faster than whan real life maneouvers and combats ever were, for instance...but the tactics to use were all realistic), but means that what mattered in real life, also matters in the game.

Taking that as a baseline, and even more after I was told that the main dev of this game is the same guy that made the Darthmods for Total War, I'm extremely hopeful the factors I stated will make it into the game sooner or later. I'm reluctant to say "confident". It's already been too many years of developers letting me down in too many games to feel confident even from the ones I trust....but yeah, let's say that I'm very hopeful and leave it at that :D.

Edited December 15, 2019 by RAMJB

[Skeksis]

2 hours ago, The Fundamentalist said:

I've found them to be extremely effective against Destroyers and Torpedo Boats, even smaller calibers

I’ve been trying 1914 CL vs DD (AI) , 1v1, max 6’ mains, in battletime after 10-15 minutes virtually no DD damage, sometime after the 10 minute mark the (new) AI usually runs so results are sort of inconclusive (so far), and also I haven't sunk the DD yet. Potentially for this 'running battle' is that the timer would run out (torp strikes excluded).

But now I have growing concerns for prolonged battles with small calibre.

But I’m not seeing "extremely effective" results?

Edited December 15, 2019 by Skeksis

[The Fundamentalist]

46 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

I’ve been trying 1914 CL vs DD (AI) , 1v1, max 6’ mains, in battletime after 10-15 minutes virtually no DD damage, sometime after the 10 minute mark the (new) AI usually runs so results are sort of inconclusive (so far), and also I haven't sunk the DD yet. Potentially for this 'running battle' is that the timer would run out (torp strikes excluded).

But now I have growing concerns for prolonged battles with small calibre.

But I’m not seeing "extremely effective" results?

Very weird. I've had excellent performance on small caliber guns from Battleships to Torpedo boats. I wouldn't say they're a precision instrument, by any means, but they seem to produce results that appear realistic. Given that four or five 3"-5" hits severely incapacitates the smaller craft, I think its an even balance for now. 

In the Destroyers vs. Torpedo Boats mission, 4 Destroyers held off and sank 6-7 torpedo boats (at a cost of all 4 destroyers, mostly due to the fire from the heavy cruisers), of which were hit multiple times from the small caliber batteries on the pre-dreadnought. I've experienced similar results in the Rise of the Heavy Cruisers mission with 8" batteries supported by triple 5" batteries and against destroyers in the Cruiser Killer mission with 3 CA's sporting 6 triple 10" batteries and the same triple 6" batteries. Multiple hits on destroyers with 6" guns that did an impressive amount of damage until the DD structure went below 20%. Then, apparently, they become exponentially more resilient at patching holes and being naturally resistant to raging infernos. 

Edited December 15, 2019 by The Fundamentalist

[RAMJB]

55 minutes ago, The Fundamentalist said:

Very weird. I've had excellent performance on small caliber guns from Battleships to Torpedo boats.

Same experience here. Of course there are battles where I've got more lucky than others, but on average a DD that's not bigger than 2k tons won't take a 6'' hit lightly. Like, at all. Can it happen that a 6'' hits a DD and he doesn't even notice it?. It can happen, if it hits in a place where it's not really damaging important stuff. But shove a 6'' on the mid hull of a DD and watch half his machinery go offline instantly (usually with a good deal of flooding and fires to match).

In general what to expect out of secondaries:

4'' is highly underwhelming. Just too light of a shell. And so was historically, the RN was forced to pretty much create a new class, the Iron Dukes, which only "Upgrade" from the previous one was just to fit 6'' secondaries to replace the previous 4'', as by 1910 it was clear that 4'' wouldn't do enough against destroyers . It's highly significant, because at that era destroyers displaced less than 1k tons on average. So if you're hitting a 1500 tonner with 4'' guns, don't expect miracles. They weren't considered powerful enough against ships even half that size.

5'' are also on the weak side. Again, something confirmed by historical data. 5'' shell size was restricted by the need to keep it light enough to be handled by the crews (all shell handling was manual in those guns) without exhausting them too soon, while achieving high rates of fire. The only nation that placed bets on them as secondary caliber was the US. Everyone else was sporting 6'' guns in their capital ships. From the UK to Austro-hungary, which is telling. 

Then again the american 5'' batteries were able to output a sheer volume of shells out that no 6'' of the era came close to match (once more, well portrayed in game- 6'' guns fire a notably heavier shell than 5'' guns, but their reload takes a steep nosedive in the 5'' to 6'' caliber transition, compared with the drop in RoF from 4'' to 5''). So it was a case of trading one advantage (rate of fire) for another (damage per hit). 

again and at any rate, from my experience, reasonably sized DDs just don't eat 6'' very well. Now if we're talking the 3000 ton displacement monsters that can be built in 1940 in the designer...well 3000t is more than what some light cruisers displaced in WW1. They can take quite a number of them and still chug along. But that's more because of the big size of the target making them MUCH more resistant to hits, than any actual lack of damaging ability on part of the secondary gun.

Edited December 15, 2019 by RAMJB

[Hangar18]

On 12/14/2019 at 9:23 PM, RAMJB said:

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).

ok, we already have penalties for that in game. if people want to eat the those penalties, let them.

[Skeksis]

@The Fundamentalist you've mostly highlighted late game era (1930+), also DD vs TB mission hit chance is up to 3% plus but I don't know that mission era but it must be late tech or the academy options giving better accuracies. 

Custom battles at 1914 tech light calibre @ 2.5-3.0km range the hit chance is around about 0.3-0.6%, results vary abit but generally at that rate it makes for long battles. Rates improve with aiming but as soon as the target drops out of sight the hit chance resets to zero, adds to the battle time.

I guess you guys already know that early campaign will be below 1914 tech and the tech you describe is late campaign, so I'm alittle surprised you guys are not playing early dreadnoughts too. 

 

Edited December 16, 2019 by Skeksis

[RAMJB]

4 hours ago, Hangar18 said:

ok, we already have penalties for that in game. if people want to eat the those penalties, let them.

It's not a case of having penalties or not....it's a case that putting batteship guns that high could even risk the warship doing a Wasa the second ANYTHING (wind, seas, battle damage, flooding, whatever) compromises it's stability.

Topweight is just not a case of penalties, it's a case of something that if you overdo your "Penalty" is seeing your ship going turtle just because. And I'm betting here that if in the game anything like that happens to someone's very expensive ship with lots of turrets, they are going to complain. A lot.

So nah, I'd rather not have that option at all for guns that big and heavy, than "Penalize" it with the reasonable consequence to so much topweight in a given ship

[Illya von Einzbern]

Rapid firing guns simply can't hit DDs nor will CAs guns turn if the ship turns.
Been testing this several times. Even with minimal speed on CA the guns refuses to turn if ship is turning and after several seconds the guns suddenly starts to move. This makes dodging torpedoes and engaging DDs is just impossible.

[RAMJB]

If the maneouver is faster than the ability of the turrets to traverse and keep tracking the target, yes they won't move until they can. Much less fire.

I guess they should still be turning as the ship changes course, even while they can't track the target and fire, it'd make it faster to restart firing once the course is stabilized.  It's a pain in the ass and probably could be somewhat less inconvenient, but it's perfectly normal than when being thrown around in evasives, the guns of a ship have trouble keeping track of the enemy and if those maneouvers are harsh enough, they are prevented from firing alltogether until their traverse rate can match the lateral displacement of the target.. 

[Hellstrike]

The two things to keep in mind are that each hull has a different stability value. A battleship can get up to 85, while a light cruiser is around 30. And that value impacts base accuracy. BBs also come with way better superstructure, giving you another 15-25 base accuracy. So the same 6 inch gun will perform much better on a battleship.
One thing I have noticed in regards to secondaries is that the 4 inch ones have much better accuracy at short ranges than the 5 inch ones (Defend your Convoy mission, both mark 4). It switched at around 5000 meters, but that implies that there is more to the accuracy formula than just maximum range. And it makes some sense that you would have better results with a lighter turret because you can turn it more easily, which probably also means more accurately.

 

[RedParadize]

As I said elsewhere:

Secondary battery issues:

1-Small caliber accuracy effectiveness is still too low at close range.

2-Secondary often get stuck in ladder fire bug.

3-Secondary turret turn too slowly to track target.

4-Secondary will not fire until all turret of the same caliber in firing arc are aimed. All weirdly positioned turret will delay salvo.

5-Turret (all of them) sometimes stop turning during maneuver. (Sometimes it even start turning in opposite direction.)

[RAMJB]

2 hours ago, RedParadize said:

1-Small caliber accuracy effectiveness is still too low at close range

LOL. I see what you did there.

Yeah, they are valid complaints. Not sure about the secondary turret training speed though, that's something I haven't really measured, nor I think it can be done right now because I think their train speed is linked to the main battery (again, both batteries firing always together is something that the game needs to adress). I think #4 is also related to that.
 

Edited December 16, 2019 by RAMJB

[Cptbarney]

2 hours ago, RAMJB said:

LOL. I see what you did there.

Yeah, they are valid complaints. Not sure about the secondary turret training speed though, that's something I haven't really measured, nor I think it can be done right now because I think their train speed is linked to the main battery (again, both batteries firing always together is something that the game needs to adress). I think #4 is also related to that.
 

They seem kinda slow, very noticeble on 6inch+ plus secondaries. I hope we get 200k tonne hulls for memes.

[RAMJB]

50 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

They seem kinda slow, very noticeble on 6inch+ plus secondaries. I hope we get 200k tonne hulls for memes.

6'' was on the top of what was reasonable for a uniform secondary battery. I'm not surprised their traverse isn't fast, as it wasn't either in designs of the era. Even the british 5.25''  DP mount on the KGVs was shown to be underwhelming in traverse and elevation (especially for AA roles). I wouldn't expect a secondary to traverse very fast just because of being a secondary. Actually kinda the opposite, in most of the designs of the era the secondaries had to make do without any real power traverse, unlike the main guns (they were trained by manual force very similar to how you'd traverse a field artillery piece with rotating handles to make the mount turn and elevate). Which obviously adds to the problem. Of course there were some cases of warships with powered turrets too, but those were in very late eras only, and in the global scope of things, very few.

I know there were some ships that loaded guns heavier than 6'' (Lord Nelson class for instance), but those were cases of a mixed main battery - those intermediate caliber guns weren't though of as part of their "secondary" battery.

Edited December 16, 2019 by RAMJB

[Fishyfish]

1 hour ago, Cptbarney said:

They seem kinda slow, very noticeble on 6inch+ plus secondaries. I hope we get 200k tonne hulls for memes.

I really hope to see a lot more fleshing out of the 1890 to 1910 era before we see something like a endgame 200k ship.. I can't help but browse through Conway's and Jane's and see all that actually was that is represented as it currently stands very glossed over before we get full bore made-up nonsense. 

[The Fundamentalist]

19 hours ago, Skeksis said:

@The Fundamentalist you've mostly highlighted late game era (1930+), also DD vs TB mission hit chance is up to 3% plus but I don't know that mission era but it must be late tech or the academy options giving better accuracies. 

Custom battles at 1914 tech light calibre @ 2.5-3.0km range the hit chance is around about 0.3-0.6%, results vary abit but generally at that rate it makes for long battles. Rates improve with aiming but as soon as the target drops out of sight the hit chance resets to zero, adds to the battle time.

I guess you guys already know that early campaign will be below 1914 tech and the tech you describe is late campaign, so I'm alittle surprised you guys are not playing early dreadnoughts too. 

No, I've done some 1904-1915 battles since writing that comment and I've found the performance of the secondary batteries to be within reason. I'm not sure what you guys are expecting, as I believe the US Naval accuracy during the Spanish American war was somewhere around 1% for all calibers. I also wonder what ship configuration and cruise speeds you're using, as I intentionally slow my ships to their cruise speed during gunnery duels as well as limit the amount of top-heavy equipment that horribly affects accuracy. I've noticed that at higher speed settings, accuracy drops off significantly for all vessels. 

It absolutely makes sense that targets dropping out of sight or no longer being tracked have to be reacquired. I'm not sure what the complaint is for that one. 

I wish I had a handle on the screenshot function to use visual aids. It would make this discussion so much easier

[captinjoehenry]

Upon playing further one thing has come out to be rather annoying.  And that's the rudder being knocked out more or less all the time.  Which is highly annoying as it's protected with belt extended armor instead of being armored with main belt thickness as in real life rudders were heavily armored instead of just being lightly armored

[RAMJB]

1 minute ago, captinjoehenry said:

Upon playing further one thing has come out to be rather annoying.  And that's the rudder being knocked out more or less all the time.  Which is highly annoying as it's protected with belt extended armor instead of being armored with main belt thickness as in real life rudders were heavily armored instead of just being lightly armored

Steering, and propulsion in general, were the achilles heel of big warships of the era. For very much the reasons you stated: given their position they were impossible to protect properly.

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

Just a question that is coming up for me: If I do a custom battle, am I only able to do the design for one type of ship for my fleet, and all the others are randomly generated?

[fsp]

1 minute ago, Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf said:

Just a question that is coming up for me: If I do a custom battle, am I only able to do the design for one type of ship for my fleet, and all the others are randomly generated?

Just one ship. If you chose different types though, you can pick which type you design. The others are done by the AI.

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

Damn. Thank you!

[Nick Thomadis]

Hello Admirals,

We just deployed an important hotfix including the following:

HOTFIX v66 (18/12/2019)
Balances
- Addressed issue making ships too hard to sink.
- Fine tuning of damage model, addressing especially the low power of secondary guns.
- Improvement of short range accuracy for secondary guns.
- Improvement of dynamic aiming mechanics.
- Reduced damage resistance of torpedo protection belt, so that there is more critical damage against large torpedoes.

Fixes
- You can now restart a custom battle via menu, or replay it after victory/defeat (and also rebuild your designed ship, if you made any).
- Fix of unbuildable over-the-budget ships in missions.
- Fix of small issue with renaming of ships.
- Fix of exception due to Fn hotkeys of saved designs in missions.

We close this thread and open up a new feedback thread for filtering better your information.
Please visit this post:  >>>Alpha-3 General Feedback [HotFix v66]<<<