>>>Alpha-3 General Feedback [HotFix v66]<<<

[RedParadize]

26 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

OK, here's something from DK Brown's The Grand Fleet (the pre-war destroyers chapter). Note the comment on the lower right corner, and remember that 1914 in the game's mind means a 1000-1400 ton destroyer.

Can I get the next page? I have a intuition on what its leading to.

Also, as I said I am not discarding the trend toward higher caliber on DDs.

@RAMJB You missed the point I tried to make.

Edited December 20, 2019 by RedParadize

[RAMJB]

8 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

You missed the point I tried to make.

No, I did not miss the point you made. Your point is that DD vs DD gunfire should be more effective than secondary BB battery vs DD. Somehow.

I came back from the total list of destroyer losses that happened during the biggest battlefleet engagement of history, where a grand total of 0 were sunk by destroyer gunfire alone. While secondary battleship gunfire, exclusivelly, sank at least 3 out of 13. 

I did not miss any point, I'm afraid. I just have shown how history proves it wrong.

Edited December 20, 2019 by RAMJB

[arkhangelsk]

On 12/21/2019 at 3:58 AM, RedParadize said:

Can I get the next page? I have a intuition on what its leading to.

Also, as I said I am not discarding the trend toward higher caliber on DDs.

@RAMJB You missed the point I tried to make.

Actually, it stops talking about guns at all. [Attachment deleted]

 

Edited January 13, 2020 by arkhangelsk
Deletion of old media to conserve quota

[RedParadize]

@RAMJB
I mentioned Jutland because in that battle DDs of both sides mostly succeeded at screening their formation. Isn't it a proof that their armament were deterrent enough?
I also mentioned the Texel action. A battle were the involved DDs were not bound to screening duty or torpedoing large ship. In that battle DDs did destroy other DDs.

@arkhangelsk
Ah, its sad that they did not explicitly said why it was surprising that the 25pnd guns was used. Its weird, I trough these were actually QF 12-pounder 18 cwt. Anyway, what is your point? Because as I said 3 times already I do not discard the trend toward larger caliber on DDs.

Edited December 20, 2019 by RedParadize

[llib]

By the way one thing I wonder is following:

-Most of people here probably know how few lucky hits could have decisive effect on engagement, even if all they do is cut some cables which disables fire control. Has anyone actually tried to design and use timed/bursting shell against ships? I mean one that would effectively cover large area with relatively small shrapnels, taking out all exposed electronic/equipment/manpower on large area of ship...

Or if not that, were things like 15-inch shrapnel shells of QE/Rewnown/Hood/Revenge classes ever used against ships? Or were the special Yapan anti-air 18-inch shells fired against the opposing DD/DE's? I'd expect both of those to have competely debilitating effect on enemy ship...

[RedParadize]

@llib Most AP shell of the covered era included a method or another to delay explosion yes. Some did not perform as expected trough.  As for pre impact explosion it appeared in ww2, but not for that use.

[RAMJB]

2 hours ago, RedParadize said:

. I hope I do not need to provide you reference for this, but DDs of the battle of Jutland and Texel action, among many other battle, proved to be capable of providing a effective deterrence when performing their screening duty and also capable of sinking enemy DDs.

 

Yes, they were useful as screening forces.

No they weren't very useful in their "capability of sinking enemy DDs", which is the part of your argument that I disagree with and the reason why I posted the jutland loss list of destroyers and their respective causes.

Yes DDs sank DDs now and then. Of course they did.

But no, DDs of that era, they weren't particularily efficient at doing it. And in the game right now, they are quite proficient at it. Which they shouldn't be.

Edited December 20, 2019 by RAMJB

[RedParadize]

Just now, RAMJB said:

Yes, they were useful as screening forces.

No they weren't very useful in their "capability of sinking enemy DDs", which is the part of your argument that I disagree with and the reason why I posted the jutland loss list of destroyers and their respective causes.

Hey, I specifically mentioned the Texel action for that reason. But even if we stick to Jutland, the fact that DDs of each sides did deter torpedo run is a proof in itself. Who say deterrence say credible treat.

[RAMJB]

24 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

Hey, I specifically mentioned the Texel action for that reason. But even if we stick to Jutland, the fact that DDs of each sides did deter torpedo run is a proof in itself. Who say deterrence say credible treat.

And I don't disagree with that. But I don't see how we translate "being a credible deterrence" into "being a DD killer". Because that's the current state of affairs where DDs are concerned.
 

[RedParadize]

Please @RAMJB , go look at Texel Action, Here, on that one Wikipedia will do just fine. DDs equipped with 4" and under can quickly and reliably kill 400t DDs. And if they can kill a 400t, they can also kill a 1000t. There is no meaningful armor on DDs.

Now, I am not gonna ask where you got the DD vs DD zero "kill" on the battle of Jutland. Considering the complexity of the DD engagement I have some reserve on the matter. I find it difficult to believe that reliable "who hit who" account even exist on that. If you do have data on hand about this I would be curious to see it. If you do not that is fine, I will take it as you referring on the general opinion of the specialist on the subject. Regardless, for me it does not make much difference, if DDs equipped with 4" and under would have posed no credible treat to other DDs then everyone involved would have acted very differently.

Edit:
@arkhangelsk My bad, I miss read the 25pnd thing. it was indeed 12pnd on the article you provided. About that gun, to be more specific the QF 12 pdr 12 cwt Mark I. Was a dated gun with relatively poor performance for its caliber and size. That's what I was expecting to see on the next page.

Edited December 20, 2019 by RedParadize

[akd]

Some more from D.K. Brown’s The Grand Fleet on secondary batteries and their effects during Jutland:

Quote

The number of hits on ships which sank can only be estimated (by Campbell) but are of the right order. This leads to a hitting rate of 0.5 per cent for the British batteries and 1.0 per cent for the German. Hits were unlikely as one might expect from hand-worked guns, close to the waterline and hence with poor visibility. Inertia forces on the heavy and fairly long barrel of the 6in 45cal would make it difficult to train and elevate rapidly, particularly when the ship was pitching and rolling or turning. Fire was normally opened at 7500–8000yds. German accounts say that firing on their destroyers by British battleships was not very effective. 13 One can only wonder if director control, fitted later, would have made a big difference.

The damage caused to capital ships was slight with the exception of one direct hit on the left 15in gun of Y turret in Warspite which put it out of action. The cruiser Calliope was hit by five 5.9in from Markgraf which put two of her 4in guns out of action. The armoured cruiser Defence was fired on by the 5.9in of several German ships but the number of hits and the damage caused must be uncertain, as with Warrior. Amongst the destroyers, the Acasta was hit by two 5.9in from a battlecruiser at about 1820hrs which put her (single) engine-room out of action and she had to be towed back to port, while the Broke was badly damaged by nine hits, including one or two 5.9in from Westfalen but was able to make her own way home. Moorsom and Onslaught suffered single hits without serious damage whilst Onslow was towed home after three 5.9in hits from Lutzow. Petard had four hits from Westfalen which slightly reduced her speed and Porpoise was hit by two shells from Posen or Oldenburg. The disabled Nestor and Nomad were sunk by the 5.9in guns of battleships.

On the German side, the destroyer V48 was disabled by Shark but was then hit by a 6in from the battleship Valiant. G41 had a 6in hit from a battleship on the forecastle and lost speed as a result, while S51 lost a boiler to a battleship 6in at 1930hrs and V28 was hit forward, losing speed, at about the same time. All in all, the few hits which were scored caused little damage, but the battleship Rheinland suffered two hits from 6in fired by Black Prince, one of which caused extensive superficial damage. There is always an exception; the battleship Westfalen’s secondary battery and even her 3.45in guns were extremely well controlled, partly due to skilful use of searchlights. Note that thirty-five rounds of 3.5in were fired in an unsuccessful attempt to sink the disabled destroyer V4.

Quote

In conclusion, 6in (or 5.9in) secondary batteries aboard capital ships were expensive, unlikely to score hits and their exposed ammunition could endanger the ship. The correct way to protect battleships from destroyer attack was a screen of light cruisers and destroyers. A light 4in battery may well have been desirable to boost morale rather than protect the ship.

 

Edited December 20, 2019 by akd

[RAMJB]

32 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

Please @RAMJB , go look at Texel Action, Here, on that one Wikipedia will do just fine. DDs equipped with 4" and under can quickly and reliably kill 400t DDs. And if they can kill a 400t, they can also kill a 1000t. There is no meaningful armor on DDs.

Now, I am not gonna ask where you got the DD vs DD zero "kill" on the battle of Jutland. Considering the complexity of the DD engagement I have some reserve on the matter. I find it difficult to believe that reliable "who hit who" account even exist on that. If you do have data on hand about this I would be curious to see it. If you do not that is fine, I will take it as you referring on the general opinion of the specialist on the subject. Regardless, for me it does not make much difference, if DDs equipped with 4" and under would have posed no credible treat to other DDs then everyone involved would have acted very differently.

 

First, you grossly underestimate the ability of bigger ships to better take damage. Think of this: a 45 caliber pistol will reliably kill a 100kg human being at 10 feet. Would you try your luck shooting a Panther that weighs 250 with the same gun?. Or will you rather have something with more "oomph"?. 

Then why do you expect that the same gun that can deal hash damage to a 400 ton ship is going to do the same with one that displaces twice and a half tons?. 

The truth is that bigger ships in general absorbed hits better. And that the increase of caliber deemed necessary for big ships to deal with them only underscores it. If it was the same to hit a bigger target with the same gun, why did the RN move up to 6'' guns from 4'' ones?. the answer you have in this same thread. I quoted it last page.


As for sources, I have plenty about Jutland. The one I used for the list I provided is V.E. Tarrant's "Jutland, the German Perspective". Not my only book on Jutland and sources about the losses of the sunk ships during the battle that I can recall right now do not disagree at any point with the details I gave.


And once again I'll have to insist. "posing a credible threat" does not equal "posing a mortal threat". "Disabling" does not equal "Sinking". Several of the DDs destroyed during the battle of jutland (notably Nestor and Nomad) were anihilated by secondary battery guns from the HSF battleline, because their machineries had been seriously damaged by destroyer gunfire and they couldn't move out of the way of the incoming battlewagons..

Getting your machinery shot out so the big guys can come and blast you into kingdom come for me qualify as a VERY "credible threat". I've insisted it many times in this forum , going back to the alpha 2 discussions about secondaries: disabling a ship does not equal SINKING a ship. The distinction is critically important, yet many times I see it disregarded here as if it was the same. When it was not.
 

The result is that in game we don't have DDs "crippling" others. Which DDs could more or less do, not particularily greatly, but could very well do. What we have instead is DDs outright SINKING others - which was quite the uncommon thing, as I have to insist, Jutland underscores. And that is a problem.

Edited December 20, 2019 by RAMJB

[RedParadize]

6 minutes ago, akd said:

In conclusion, 6in (or 5.9in) secondary batteries aboard capital ships were expensive, unlikely to score hits and their exposed ammunition could endanger the ship. The correct way to protect battleships from destroyer attack was a screen of light cruisers and destroyers. A light 4in battery may well have been desirable to boost morale rather than protect the ship.

Thank you.

 

Above all other consideration I would prefer if that conclusion is also true in UA:D. Before the last patch it was not, now it kind of is, but not quite.
We are getting away from the subject again, my fault too sorry.

As far as Alpha 3 Patch goes. I think accuracy buff, while not being perfect, is a step in the good direction. Having said that, I agree with the conclusion that many shared, ship get pen and crit surprisingly often now. I am unsure if its due to the fine tuning of the damage model or if its just the gained accuracy made that made this more obvious. But it does highlight issue with the Armor/Damage model.

I am of the opinion that Armor/Damage model should take priority over accuracy balance. Accuracy still can be tweaked later on, and most likely will need to be as changing damage model will make it necessary.

[RAMJB]

3 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

As far as Alpha 3 Patch goes. I think accuracy buff, while not being perfect, is a step in the good direction

I'm sorry, did I read this properly?.

So just after reading a quote that says that 6'' battery gunfire during the battle of Jutland was considered tremendously innacurate, you state that "buffing the accuracy" of guns was a "step in the right direction", when those guns now hit far too much than what they used to? (not to mention far more than what that very quote that you read mentions).

I mean...what?.

 

[RAMJB]

13 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

I am of the opinion that Armor/Damage model should take priority over accuracy balance. Accuracy still can be tweaked later on, and most likely will need to be as changing damage model will make it necessary.

Also sorry ,missed this.

No. Or not that way. One thing is unrelated to the other. Guns did damage. Guns do damage here. Whatever damage a gun did in real life should be replicated here. That is completely unrelated with how many times those guns are expected to hit, or miss.

Guns historically had a given accuracy. Guns hit at more or less known ratios. Guns should hit with the same accuracy or innacuracy here. Whatever accuracy ships showed to have in real life should be replicated here. That is completely unrelated with how much damage those hits will do.

When both are right we'll have a credible simulation.

If not at best we'll have some sci-fi game where the ship models and date settings are just circunstancial, and which could very well be based around airships fighting on the clouds of jupiter instead with just a change of skin and designer hull and weapon models.

We're once again falling for WOWS "balance" traps. This game does not need "balance". HIstorical designs were balanced on their own out of compromises taken during the design of ships, so were fleets of the time which were balanced out of the compromises taken during the process of funds and costs allocation vs fleet size and composition. No need to artificially bring something that will mess up the immersion of the simulation aspect of the game by "balans" when no "balans" is needed.

Otherwise you'd end up with something that's not a naval simulation, but yet another arcade game more. I've read the statements about what this game is intended to be - and they talk about immersive naval combat. Not about "balans for the sake of balans".

So, no, the damage model should be worked on to believably portray the abilities of guns to deal damage, armor to deflect it, and ships to absorb it. And the gunnery model should be worked on to believably portray the actual chances to hit of weapons of the era. Both. At the same time. And independently from each other.

Edited December 20, 2019 by RAMJB

[monbvol]

After giving the new hotfix a few tries I shall add my feedback.

Some of the actual parts need their sizes adjusted downward still so that some things can be fitted near the towers and funnels better, including many towers and funnels.

AP seems to be performing a little better now for penetration.  Once we get a firing range setup I might be able to give better feedback about adjustments for this aspect.

Damage for AP shells though still feels a bit underwhelming on large ships with high armor even when they penetrate.

I'll have to setup more engagements with smaller ships to see how accuracy of all weapons is faring against small ships.

More design feedback is I can't actually make the main armored belt thin enough to replicate some of the treaty heavy cruisers.

Likewise I'm struggling to figure out when we can get superfiring setups and when we can't as the barbettes aren't always mountable and there is no feedback to tell us why.

[RedParadize]

@RAMJB You are misinterpreting my message and intent.

No I do not want UA:D to look like WOWS. I did not play that game in a long time, but just like WOT, WOWS just FPS but with ship/tanks at the place of character. It has no tactical level and/or the tactic do not looks like their real life equivalent at all. Note one thing, WOT and WOWS tactical side was not ruined because of lack of technical accuracy, but because WG went for technical over tactical accuracy. As I stated before if I have to chose between technical and tactical accuracy I will go for tactical all the way.

Back to UA:D, I will try to make myself as clear as possible. Prior to this patch, Guns under 8" were not hitting anything unless within ridiculously close range. It was rendering secondary, CL, CA and DD screening completely useless. Now, what I want some incitative to add secondary to Pre-dreadnough warship, I want that incitative to decline as torpedo range increase. I want screening, CA and CL to be the best TD/DD counter past early WW1. Not because their guns are miraculously better at it, but because they are more expandable than Battleship.

I want this because its a good approximation of what was naval warfare.

Edit:
There is one annoy me allot about the way you answer to my post. Not only you edit out key part but you act as I didn't said them at all. You do that often and honnestly it fell borderline dishonest. Please stop doing that.

Edited December 20, 2019 by RedParadize

[RAMJB]

30 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

Back to UA:D, I will try to make myself as clear as possible. Prior to this patch, Guns under 8" were not hitting anything unless within ridiculously close range. It was rendering secondary, CL, CA and DD screening completely useless. Now, what I want some incitative to add secondary to Pre-dreadnough warship, I want that incitative to decline as torpedo range increase. I want screening, CA and CL to be the best TD/DD counter past early WW1. Not because their guns are miraculously better at it, but because they are more expandable than Battleship.

I want this because it a good approximation of what was naval warfare.

Then argue for historically correct values. Not made up ones based on "how things feel on one end, so we adjust the other end".

Because historically CLs, CA, and DDs were relevant and not useless. With historical performances, they will be relevant and useful here too.

I think the problem is what it's being judged here as "relevancy" and "usefulness". Because it's being based on parameters that don't correspond to the ones that mattered in real life.
And I'll insist again: in real naval fights, sinking enemy ships was awfully hard. Even lowly destroyers were hard to sink. Depending of which ships and class, crippling them was far less hard than sinking them. And so the ability to just cripple or damage enemies (without outright sinking them) was enough to make certain ships VERY relevant. And furthermore: sometimes just the threat of them being able to do that, was enough to provide effective screening.

We've already spoken about this in the past - is down to features not yet in the game but that need to be in. Like a more evolved AI that weighs more the potential damage they might receive vs the damage they have actually received, and some noticeable effects of the supression being under fire meant. Currently we have DDs doing direct charges towards battleships, unabated of what it might happen to them and undisturbed by defensive fire. When in fact they should probably be a lot less agressive in the presence of a mass of enemy guns, and react in believable ways when subjected to those guns' attention. which they currently don't.

That's why those ships you say were "useless" and "irrelevant" felt useless and irrelevant. Not because their intrinsic accuracy and damaging properties were lacking - but because we're missing vital pieces of the equation that were as important, if not more, than the accuracy of damage dealing ability of those ships.


Look, when you're making a puzzle yet you're missing pieces, the solution to complete the puzzle is to find the missing pieces and putting them where they belong. Complaining the puzzle is incomplete and that it doesn't feel right that way, and somehow trying to change the shape of the perfectly functional pieces already in place to fit the idea you have of a complete puzzle will mean only trouble. trouble short term because by deforming the existing pieces you're breaking something that wasn't broken. And trouble long term because once the REAL missing pieces are put on the table, they won't fit on the puzzle anymore, and the result will be a distorted disaster.

Judge things on their own on a modular basis. Compare how things are in game vs how they were in real life, leaving aside other ideas. pre-hotfix accuracy (except at point blank range) was perfectly believable. Pre-hotfix damage models (except on certain ship classes with outwordly and unrealistic ability to absorb damage as transports with full bulkheads) looked fine.

that they didn't add up to a proper experience - yet- doesn't mean they were wrong. Meant there were missing pieces. We're still missing exactly the same pieces now, but now the things that before were ,analyzed on isolation, working rather well, now are out of whack too.
The result is plain to see: the changes that happened with the last hotfix haven't fixed anything that was broken before, while they have broken things that weren't broken before. It all adds up to that right now, each battle feels like a fake experience that ruins any immersion the game had (which was notable for such an early testing stage) because every gun hits far more than what it should - and to compound it the damage model has been also tinkered with and not in a good way. TL:DR we have ships that turn into submarines after 10 minutes flat of engaging enemies against which they should've been able to fight for far longer.

Yet you still think that "the accuracy changes" of that hotfix were "a step on the right direction". It defies comprehension. It really does. At least mine. Maybe it's that I'm really lacking in intelligence, but I just don't understand it.
 

Edited December 20, 2019 by RAMJB

[akd]

2 hours ago, RedParadize said:

@RAMJB You are misinterpreting my message and intent.

No I do not want UA:D to look like WOWS. I did not play that game in a long time, but just like WOT, WOWS just FPS but with ship/tanks at the place of character. It has no tactical level and/or the tactic do not looks like their real life equivalent at all. Note one thing, WOT and WOWS tactical side was not ruined because of lack of technical accuracy, but because WG went for technical over tactical accuracy. As I stated before if I have to chose between technical and tactical accuracy I will go for tactical all the way.

They are closely interrelated and you can’t really have one without the other.  Look at the quote in the bottom of my post.

Quote

Back to UA:D, I will try to make myself as clear as possible. Prior to this patch, Guns under 8" were not hitting anything unless within ridiculously close range. 

I’m not sure this is true.  The big problem was more specific: ships were incapable of hitting destroyers or TBs with guns, even within ridiculously close range, and of course showering them with close misses has no physical or morale effect.

Now the problem broadly remains: big ships are still mostly incapable of hitting small ships even at ridiculously close ranges, but now those small ships can achieve 100% hit rates with guns vs. big ships even at what is for them medium range, and across the board accuracy is generally boosted out of line with historical limits, especially for the bookends of our broad era (although with some limited testing I’ve found hit rates for middle-caliber guns circa 1910 to be in line with trials, but with “target locking” occurring much too fast).

This suggests that largely the issue was not baseline accuracy, but more specific to the interaction of the various malus / bonus factors and to a gunnery model that treats the long-range gunnery problem the same as the short-range gunnery problem (they are in fact vastly different.)

 

Quote

It was rendering secondary, CL, CA and DD screening completely useless. Now, what I want some incitative to add secondary to Pre-dreadnough warship, I want that incitative to decline as torpedo range increase. I want screening, CA and CL to be the best TD/DD counter past early WW1. Not because their guns are miraculously better at it, but because they are more expandable than Battleship.

Wanting “incentive” to add big secondary batteries to pre-dreadnoughts highlights a pretty fundamental difference in how you might approach this.  What if their presence in reality was actually a fallacy based on bad presumptions?  You want the game to justify this fallacy post-facto?  Wouldn’t it be better to have the actual relationship between the technology and tactics play out in game as in reality, then you can try the historic designs, but also be rewarded for taking different approaches.

Edited December 21, 2019 by akd

[RedParadize]

@RAMJBMy reasoning behind it in the very post you quoted. I fail to see how it could be clearer than what I said in all my previous post.

It's time to move on. We are far far away of topic here.

 

[Nick Thomadis]

@RAMJB
Thank your for the passion you show to offer your personal opinion about how the game should improve, but I would like to ask you to not repeat yourself so often in the same feedback thread and not try to convince other players in an offensive manner. Everybody's opinion is respected here, and we want to read it without enforcements.

We appreciate that you want a realistic combat simulator and this is what we want to achieve. Arguably, we have already accomplished this at a great deal. If players try to play at realistic long distances, maneuver (do not fast forward, do not move at a straight line always, just try to roleplay that if their ship is damaged, people die, expensive ships sink...), then you should notice similarities with the historical results. 

The very low hit rates that you want to achieve correspond to engage distances and evasive actions that usually players are not doing. Surely, secondary guns are still not powerful enough to destroy big vessels, unless the target is at very short distance, so they can cause fires, floodings with more chances due to higher penetration. Secondary guns, as players asked, should be a threat, otherwise we will create an unrealistic situation that ships (and the AI) will try to always come close to distances much smaller than 5km, just to see some damage result.

Nevertheless, we are paying attention to everyone's feedback so that we keep improving the game as players would like.

 

[RAMJB]

26 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

and not try to convince other players in an offensive manner

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

????????????????

 

Don't worry, after reading *that*, which I don't know where it comes from, nor why, I won't "try to convince anyone" of anything, ever again, in this forum, because for all intents and purposes I'm done with it.

Edited December 20, 2019 by RAMJB

[Custard]

Not a single post @RAMJB has made has been in anyway offensive imo, ftr I read every post

[Nick Thomadis]

There is no need to flame the thread. 
Posts like those:

On 12/18/2019 at 10:00 PM, RAMJB said:

They also could develop the game they intend and promised, according to the parameters that match those intentions, and just forego hearing the "opinions" of those who know as much about naval warfare as I do about the abyssal ecosystems in the depths of the Mariana Trench.

Because "coalescing" opinions is something tremendously dangerous when a lot of those "opinions" come from people who can't tell the difference between bow and stern.

and some others (no need to mention or are edited) can create unneeded tension to a feedback thread that is about a game. This feedback thread just needs to stay on topic while RAMJB is welcome to continue offering his valuable knowledge about naval warfare.

[arkhangelsk]

1 hour ago, Nick Thomadis said:

There is no need to flame the thread. 
Posts like those:

and some others (no need to mention or are edited) can create unneeded tension to a feedback thread that is about a game. This feedback thread just needs to stay on topic while RAMJB is welcome to continue offering his valuable knowledge about naval warfare.

First, let me thank the administrator/moderator and gamemaker for providing concrete examples of what he considers unacceptable. I've had my posts removed or edited before in other boards, and often it is unclear exactly what's wrong with them, where the borderline is.

To the points you made about the game. First, my sense is that you've come much closer to that "realistic naval combat simulator" with Alpha-2 or Alpha-3 Pre-Hotfix than with the thing you made now.

Second, I cannot agree that the overall situation (in Alpha-2 or Alpha-3) makes me eager to charge to point blank range with my battleships or even my destroyers. I've seen my main guns gut too many battleships, cruisers and destroyers to not have a healthy respect for the consequences of closing to a range where they are even more effective. In fact there is only one reason I actively try to close to point blank range, and that's because of the damage model which right now seems to turn destroyed compartments and equipment into de facto indestructible objects, so after a certain point Structure does not continue to go down. I question the realism of this, and it is the main motivator that makes me close to unrealistically close distances so I can "stab" the enemy battleship to its death (since the game insists on sinkings).

P.S. I tend to hold off on getting really close until the last main gun goes red on the screen. They are scary. I don't think I'm not being deterred against getting close.

Third, overall, the destroyers do act as effective screens, even in Alpha-2. If I play them right, your AI chooses to commit its torpedo boats against them rather than rush for my battleship, and as the main armament of the two armored cruiser try to hit them as well, they really protect my battleship. Sure, committing heavy guns against destroyers might not be doctrine, but at least if feels very realistic for the crews to drop any doctrine of that kind out the window and just engage the closing-in vessels.

Psychology is simulated - hurray! And destroyers are useful in their doctrinal roles - hurray!

Meanwhile, the little guns may feel weak to the player, but I have tried the tactic of trying to sending my destroyers in a beeline to those armored cruisers to take them out with torpedoes (so I can concentrate on the torpedo boats). The overall fire effectiveness is sufficient to make that a bad idea (I got my butt kicked). In other words, from a gameplay or balance perspective, everything works!

And yes it must have been possible to kill things with even Alpha-2 little guns despite the protestations of critics. I was targeting the CAs with by BB there, so my destroyers must have been inflicting some damage. I swear I saw things go yellow and red. Slowly, but it happened. Otherwise how would I have cleared the mission. 

As an aside, I really liked that mission despite how much time and frustration I had playing it. It really forces you to do things right to win (for many other missions once you design the ship you've almost won), thus it teaches you more about the game than any other scenario.

May I suggest trying other methods of making those secondaries be a little bit worth sticking on for the player? I understand you are still putting together the campaign, but first, you should let us target 2 or 3 things at once (Main, Secondary, Torpedo) - the AI already sometimes diverts some guns as needed, so this is just making it possible manually as well. Second, try giving us the option to take the same ships through 3-5 missions. If we have can dual target and must conserve ammo, we might just use the secondaries without the latest artificial bumps.You might also require something other than "Very Short" to participate in these chained-missions, so we might actually try the other Range settings.

Just some thoughts.

Edited December 21, 2019 by arkhangelsk
Add Post Script