Will support aircraft be added into the game?

[WelshZeCorgi]

I think it's fitting to have CVs in the game, yes the game is titled Dreadnoughts and its mainly about Dreadnoughts, but I look at it and see the birth, development, flourishing maturity with the arc complete with the eventual aging and death of the battleship concept in that era.

Edited January 15, 2020 by WelshZeCorgi

[Illya von Einzbern]

Don't forget that some dreads and BBs were converted to CVs

[Whomst'd've]

On 1/15/2020 at 5:16 PM, Steeltrap said:

As a general comment on polls, I have worked on them (internal/staff and external/customer directed) for major corporations in the past and I can attest writing good ones is not as simple as it seems.

One thing, for example, is you ALWAYS ought to provide a "don't know/undecided/want more info" option. Faced with a blunt yes or no, most people will vote 'yes' if the topic is something they think they might want, even if they do so simply to avoid being seen as saying they don't want it and influencing the devs to rule it out.

If I reveal the results on this, we have 33 votes with 87.88% (29) choosing "yeah". That's no surprise whatsoever, in part due to what I said above. To be blunt, the more a poll delivers a massively one-sided result the less valuable it is; commonly due to the topic or potential flaws in its design, or both.

The problem I have with polls like this is they are generally inadequate in their specifics.

What, for example, is meant by "support aircraft"? Does that include the "fire and forget" fighters mounted on ships in convoys, especially the Arctic ones, designed to intercept scouts like the Fw Condor either to drive them off or hopefully shoot them down? 

I'm not at all having a go at you for putting up the poll, it's just I find it mildly frustrating that people say "yes" without having enough relevant info to make an informed choice.

Let's face it, most of us are ALWAYS happy to have more features and toys, lol, so I'm not saying I'm any different from everyone else. 😁

If we ARE going to make polls like this, we owe it to each other AND the devs to flesh out what we mean BEFORE we ask the questions.

I'd suggest saying "we want another bunch of things that require development work but we've no specifics so you work it out" is not very helpful, lol.

 

This was pretty much exactly the point I was making over and over in the "should CVs be included" thread. If you implement them accurately, they alter the nature of naval warfare irrevocably.

Bear in mind, too, that whatever ends up on a CV starts off as land based. Not especially relevant in the Pacific, but anywhere you're operating within land based range it is. That's a large zone around Europe including the Med.

I have no particular issue with scout planes. My own preference is they add to the ability to spot things at the strategic map level but have NO role in combat. I know spotting planes were used quite a bit with shore bombardments, but I don't recall them being common or significant in the ship v ship gunnery combat that occurred in WW2, and the 40s are the "end game".

Cheers

p.s. I didn't vote because an "undecided/need more info" option wasn't available.

Oh thank you for letting me know about this i'll tweak this right away chur for that! 

Also fyi for people who are interested, made a topic regarding turrets and barbettes here:

 

[Whomst'd've]

I have tweaked the polls as suggested

[Steeltrap]

9 hours ago, Whomst'd've said:

I have tweaked the polls as suggested

Thanks. I suspect it won't matter given people are unlikely to revisit and change their votes, but appreciate you taking the time to do it.

There already was a CV thread. I suspect adding it here is going to confuse things.

General rule of polling? Work out what you want to know and from whom, limit the scope, ask clear and unambiguous rather than potentially misleading questions.

Cheers

Edited January 17, 2020 by Steeltrap

[Whomst'd've]

2 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

Thanks. I suspect it won't matter given people are unlikely to revisit and change their votes, but appreciate you taking the time to do it.

There already was a CV thread. I suspect adding it here is going to confuse things.

General rule of polling? Work out what you want to know and from whom, limit the scope, ask clear and unambiguous rather than potentially misleading questions.

Cheers

fair enough ill remove the CV question, leave that for my CV thread

 

[Shaftoe]

I think cruiser/battleship-based spotter planes would be a fine addition, especially for the campaign. Sure, they aren't super useful in battle, but that does not mean that they don't have a niche to occuply in game. Aerial scouting is much more handy than having to send out torpedo boats or destroyers to look out for enemies. If recon planes would be implemented on tactical level, it'd open more mission types that could be built by the developers. For example, they can be used to locate ships from enemy convoy that split up, or keep an eye on fleeing enemies, or help shipborne artillery to hit ground targets more accurately. It'd be how the devs would decide to implement it anyway. I just think that adding scout planes to both tactical and strategic layers would add more possibilities to play with, and to build on.    

[disc]

Battleship/cruiser/destroyer aircraft could and can fill several roles.

1. Scout patrols. The aircraft flies over a certain area, or accompanies a fleet or convoy, to seek enemy ships, aircraft, or submarines. Widely used during the Second World War. The Japanese took to this to an extreme, and famously about their whole scouting force at Midway was made of cruisers' planes. Later in the war, some patrol planes equipped radar. These days, destroyer/cruiser helicopters have dip-sonars and sonar buoys to search for submarines.
2. Spotting. An aircraft can fly towards the enemy and observe shell splashes and impacts. It can then radio back to its parent ship to correct shots. A battleship or cruiser could thus fire accurately to great range. Air spotting was used to a certain extent in surface battles during the Pacific War, but surely not to that theorized in the '30s: This is partially because the infamous battleship "Decisive Battle" just didn't happen, and there were only four big daylight surface actions anyway. But, as has been said, air spotting was and is extremely useful for land attacks.
3. Attack. Cruiser and battleship floatplanes commonly equipped bombs or depth charges. Those with machine guns could also strafe. Mostly this was for attacking submarines: I believe at least one Japanese cruiser/battleship plane was used to attack a carrier at the Battle off Samar. The Americans had plans for battleship torpedoplanes, but this never materialized. Helicopters usually carry homing torpedoes to attack submarines.
4. Air defense. Though a floatplane or helicopter may be of less value against a land-based fighter, those armed with guns or missiles can fight off their own kind and bombers to some degree -- again, see US plans for battleship fighters.
5. Illumination. A floatplane can drop flares to illuminate the enemy. To my knowledge, only the Japanese put this into any naval use, at Savo Island and possibly Sunda Strait and some of the other 1942 actions. Flares were also used by Japanese torpedo planes making night attacks. Compare British pathfinder aircraft with their incendiary bombs.
6. Transportation. Aircraft are good for getting around places. Helicopters can also be useful for landing troops.
7. Search and rescue. A floatplane can land next to downed pilots and overboard sailors, and carry them back to a safe location. Some helicopters can land on water, but most can simply hover and lower down a rope. Both planes and helicopters can deploy liferafts.

I have no clue how and if any of these things could (or, more philosophically, should) be in the game, but it's fun to think about.

Edited January 18, 2020 by disc