Duds and malfunctions?

[WelshZeCorgi]

Any chance that dud shells/torpedoes/what have you, are implemented? 

Also component malfunctions? Like when the prince of Wales had teething problems, causing the turret or gun to not work when it first started its attack on the Bismark? 

Edit: Y turret jammed. "Wikipedia"

Prince of Wales also survived a 15" dud shell from Bismark hitting amidships, ending up near the after boiler rooms. Talk about a 2 for 1. 

 

Maybe there should be a reliability aspect. Like new and very old ships, repaired damage from previous battles should suffer from reliability issues. Or rushing construction of a ship. 

Edited January 2, 2020 by WelshZeCorgi

[WelshZeCorgi]

To add to the dud munitions point, in ww2 the US mk 14 torpedo went through a troubled development stage, crippling its performance in the early stages of the war. Maybe poor funding, contracting a disreputable manufacturer to build it, bad leadership (like the generals or politicians in the hearts of iron series, research can be carried out by NPC members with stats in your admiralty board) or neglecting or skipping over techs can cause duds and reliability issues with new weapons and tech. 

Edited January 2, 2020 by WelshZeCorgi

[arkhangelsk]

Sounds like  an interesting idea, with the caveat that the player should be allowed a reasonable progression where they can get a perfectly reliable ship. It is one thing if they suffer duds knowing they skimped, but if they did everything and they still suffer a failure, they would first try the Save / Load button and then start filing complaints.

[Reaper Jack]

I mentioned this in passing in the feedback thread a few days ago, in relation to German shells in WW2 being of notoriously shoddy/sabotaged manufacture, with half of all German hits during the battle of Denmark Strait being duds. 

Definitely would like to see it implemented, sensibly as arkhangelsk put it. Skimping on budget, suppliers, using slave labor or labor not loyal to the country, poor manufacture. These are all components we should see in a campaign, often on paper a ship can be better than others but in reality it's these background, secondary factors that mark it as actually being better or worse than others. (On paper some Soviet ships were actually decent, in reality they are all frankly trash due to reasons like the ones I mentioned.) 

[WelshZeCorgi]

4 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

Sounds like  an interesting idea, with the caveat that the player should be allowed a reasonable progression where they can get a perfectly reliable ship. It is one thing if they suffer duds knowing they skimped, but if they did everything and they still suffer a failure, they would first try the Save / Load button and then start filing complaints.

Every nation has had issues with its war machines, land air or sea, ancient to modern times. So while I agree that careful planning, flexibility and good choices should result in minimizing the number of faults, failures, catastrophes and duds, I don't think it should be possible for anyone to go through an entire campaign, 40 years or so, and NEVER experience a dud shell or a faulty component or a troubled development program. 

And it only seems fair for the player to know that the AI are suffering from failures and duds as well. 

Edited January 3, 2020 by WelshZeCorgi

[disc]

I don't know, I think it would be very annoying. Who likes to have weapons that just don't work?

It would be historical, yes, but it seems to just add in more elements of chance. Imagine how awful it would be to launch a torpedo shoal and have them just break up instead of exploding. I perceive this as worse than simply missing.

I would rather abstract this. What if there were damage modifiers on shells and torpedoes? Using completely arbitrary values, perhaps poor quality control would give 30% less damage, moderate quality control would give 10% less damage, and high quality control would have the full damage.

[Reaper Jack]

15 minutes ago, disc said:

I don't know, I think it would be very annoying. Who likes to have weapons that just don't work?

It would be historical, yes, but it seems to just add in more elements of chance. Imagine how awful it would be to launch a torpedo shoal and have them just break up instead of exploding. I perceive this as worse than simply missing.

I would rather abstract this. What if there were damage modifiers on shells and torpedoes? Using completely arbitrary values, perhaps poor quality control would give 30% less damage, moderate quality control would give 10% less damage, and high quality control would have the full damage.

As long as  the AI gets the same system it should be fine. 

Having faulty equipment is also a methodology for stopping players from building designs that were historically absurd, such as triple 18 inch turrets in 1910. There's a reason it wasn't done historically; the technology, while possible, was not up to standard yet. 

[WelshZeCorgi]

56 minutes ago, disc said:

I don't know, I think it would be very annoying. Who likes to have weapons that just don't work?

It would be historical, yes, but it seems to just add in more elements of chance. Imagine how awful it would be to launch a torpedo shoal and have them just break up instead of exploding. I perceive this as worse than simply missing.

I would rather abstract this. What if there were damage modifiers on shells and torpedoes? Using completely arbitrary values, perhaps poor quality control would give 30% less damage, moderate quality control would give 10% less damage, and high quality control would have the full damage.

Why is "It's annoying" a valid counterargument? Because what about other annoyances in the game? I find losing a naval academy mission annoying, but does that mean I should then demand a dreadnought game that never beats me? I find glancing blows, deflected shots and partial penetrations annoying. Should they be removed from the game? I also get annoyed when the opponent outranges me and gets in a lucky hit in before I even fire a shot. Should the AI never fire before it's fired upon? 

Should the runner at the Olympics go to the officals and say. "Hey running an 60 yard dash is annoying, been doing it for years and I'm sick of it... How about rock paper scissors?"

Stuff not working is part of war and sadly, everyday life. Bad components have certainly swayed battles or stunted what should have been a clear victory all throughout history. And the game's makers seems very quick to tell us that this game aims to be as close to realism as it gets. 

 

And it's something that can be minimized. Annoyed your radios don't work? Stop buying your radios from that recluse working in that ramshackle hut deep in the hurtgen forest and pen a contract with that famous industrialist that makes all those solid radios for the empire's citizens. Or develop your own, better, purpose-built ones by sending out agents to recruit the best minds in the Empire and set up an electronics laboratory in that unused room in the basement of the Naval Research department.

 

It's one thing if something annoys you AND you can't do anything about it, but a whole different ballpark if you can do something to solve the problem that makes you annoyed. I don't want bounced shot or partial pen to be removed, I want to position my ship better so it's striking the armor flat on. I don't want the AI to not use it's superior range against me, I want to design a ship with bigger, better guns; or design a faster one to close that distance quickly. I don't want a game that cannot beat me, I want to think, scheme, discover, uncover, discuss, argue, debate, plan and figure out a way to beat that SOB the next time I see him. I'd say that's what's so fun about this game. 

Edited January 3, 2020 by WelshZeCorgi

[WelshZeCorgi]

1 hour ago, Reaper Jack said:

As long as  the AI gets the same system it should be fine. 

Having faulty equipment is also a methodology for stopping players from building designs that were historically absurd, such as triple 18 inch turrets in 1910. There's a reason it wasn't done historically; the technology, while possible, was not up to standard yet. 

An extremely interesting take on the topic. Technically no one is stopping you from doing triple 18s in the 1910's, but no one is going to play their tiniest violin when it loses a battle, its designer having expected his over-engineered design to become the world-conquering, ultimate wunder-weapon that would have never been viable historically. 

Edited January 3, 2020 by WelshZeCorgi

[arkhangelsk]

6 hours ago, WelshZeCorgi said:

Why is "It's annoying" a valid counterargument? Because what about other annoyances in the game? I find losing a naval academy mission annoying, but does that mean I should then demand a dreadnought game that never beats me? I find glancing blows, deflected shots and partial penetrations annoying. Should they be removed from the game? I also get annoyed when the opponent outranges me and gets in a lucky hit in before I even fire a shot. Should the AI never fire before it's fired upon?

First, it is not like he is completely against the idea of quality making a difference. He is just suggesting it be done another way that will overall lead to approximately the same result, but be more deterministic.

Here is where the chase for realism, or how to handle realism, bumps into the reality that this is a game. Unlike in real life, players are not obliged to take the die-roll the world  gives them. They have a Save / Load button. Sure, if what happened is only of moderate importance they'll eat it. If what happened was critical, they'll use the Save / Load button and request an appeal. And cutting out the Save / Load button just to avoid such things will clearly increase the inconvenience too much.

Further, you now get into the ball of worms that is ... what is the appropriate "minimum failure rate" anyway? Don't you think we have enough discussions on accuracy, penetration and damage already? Imagine trying to balance this fourth factor as well. Do we make it different for each country?

There is also the argument that the game should reward you for correct actions and punish you for incorrect ones. If you get hit despite taking all the correct actions, it can be very frustrating and the computer can be accused of bias. As it is, when players see the AI come out with a 44 knot monster with lots of guns, there is a real temptation to ask to see the design. The suspicion the AI is getting a better deal is always there, and would only be increased with such a thing as a mandatory minimum failure rate.

Edited January 3, 2020 by arkhangelsk
abused to accused

[WelshZeCorgi]

6 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

First, it is not like he is completely against the idea of quality making a difference. He is just suggesting it be done another way that will overall lead to approximately the same result, but be more deterministic.

Here is where the chase for realism, or how to handle realism, bumps into the reality that this is a game. Unlike in real life, players are not obliged to take the die-roll the world  gives them. They have a Save / Load button. Sure, if what happened is only of moderate importance they'll eat it. If what happened was critical, they'll use the Save / Load button and request an appeal. And cutting out the Save / Load button just to avoid such things will clearly increase the inconvenience too much.

I'm not sure how it could be shown, much less proven, that both systems would come within an acceptable "result area" if one or the other doesn't exist. Perhaps sample builds of both mechanics can shed light on whether or not that is true, but saying outright that it's doable isn't something said with confidence. 

Integrating failure and dud mechanics into the weapons and ship parts would throw off all the values in a way that makes no sense. So if an early type of radar in the game was reputed to work only half the time, (for sake of argument) do you half the radar range? If the turret jammed 2% of the time, do you add 2% to its original miss rate? I don't think complaints would be any less if they saw (-2% accuracy for reliability)

 Save scumming is a valid point. Though I'm wondering why that's a point in your favor. People wouldn't save scum with a game like the the current build? 

And if you mean that save scumming would occur more, what would that matter? The purpose of any game isn't to make players minimize save scumming, otherwise we should remove other annoying hurtles that players of the game must challenge themselves to solve, like bounced shots, partial pens and the yada-yada-yada. Doing that would also decrease save scumming, but neither of us would want that. 

Quote

Further, you now get into the ball of worms that is ... what is the appropriate "minimum failure rate" anyway? Don't you think we have enough discussions on accuracy, penetration and damage already? Imagine trying to balance this fourth factor as well. Do we make it different for each country?

As we only seem to have famous examples and reports, and that such information may be difficult to determine, it only seems reasonable for all nation's to start on a level playing field and then have those increase or decrease based on play. This is hopefully with the intention that as play continues, the nation's will begin to become unique in their differing qualities of their equipment. Besides, you start the game at the birth of the dreadnought, everything that happens after that is made by your marks. 

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There is also the argument that the game should reward you for correct actions and punish you for incorrect ones. If you get hit despite taking all the correct actions, it can be very frustrating and the computer can be abused of bias. As it is, when players see the AI come out with a 44 knot monster with lots of guns, there is a real temptation to ask to see the design. The suspicion the AI is getting a better deal is always there, and would only be increased with such a thing as a mandatory minimum failure rate.

And if the base expected failure rate was unreasonable, I'd agree. But I will wager that there can be a base minimum that could be reached that players wouldn't mind or rarely notice. But would only begin to see the importance of quality when they begin cutting corners and making mistakes. Mistakes that they can learn, recover and reverse from (the US WW2 submarines sank an incredible amount of tonnage despite the shoddy MK 14 torps, making them the top sub program regardless.) 

And again, the AI would follow the same rules. If transparency is needed to prove the AI isn't cheating (both in this theoretical mechanic and current alpha mechanics) perhaps an option can be provided to see the enemy failures or ship design. (enemy duds would be obviously given to the player regardless) 

I'm reminded of Hearts of Iron series, where of nearly (tech, unless you consider time constraints a negative) every decisions you made few to no options where there are only green positives across the board.  You were forced to work around your situation in order to give yourself the best chance of winning. It made for compelling gameplay and interesting points of play that you don't get in a level of asteroids or call of duty.  

Edited January 3, 2020 by WelshZeCorgi

[WelshZeCorgi]

Oh, you were talking about the base minimum failure rate. I was thinking of something super, super low, nonzero number. 

Edited January 3, 2020 by WelshZeCorgi

[arkhangelsk]

1 minute ago, WelshZeCorgi said:

Oh, you were talking about the base minimum failure rate. I was thinking of something super, super low. 

If that's so, I suggest making it zero and be done with it. To go over your previous answer in brief, I think players will accept that knowingly installing an early radar, or deliberately using extremely high pressure machinery ... etc, will induce a failure rate. This is what players will feel to be a "fair tradeoff". But we should avoid as far as possible force majeure where nothing the player can do (except Save/Load) will eliminate the possibility of a lightning strike.

And I'll disagree that games should not reduce the incentive for players to save-scum. IMO, save-scumming happens in two scenarios - the first when they can immediately see how they can do better and can implement it with minimal time loss. That can be considered a learning experience and a good thing in a single-player game. The second is actually the exact opposite, when they had been the victim of RNG. In that case, S/L imposes almost no time cost and no thought cost - just reload and a better result should come. This S/L does not come with a feeling of having learnt something, just the feeling of reversing an injustice - it does not improve your enjoyment of the game and if it happens too often may put you off the game entirely.

Also, remember the player can S/L and the AI can't. So a player may deliberately choose less reliable (but higher performing) parts, with the preparation to S/L a lot to ensure RNG goes in their favor each time (or at least for the critical shots). That gives them an unfair advantage.

[WelshZeCorgi]

You make a very good point.