Planning of next updates

[Siranui]

Sorting out the build UI, please. The time taken to build is massively inflated by struggling with the AI. QoL changes that are immediately obvious:

•  
• Buttons for adding an inch of armour to a location at a time, instead of having to click 60 times to add 6".
• In addition to  having the sliders for displacement and speed, have little arrows at each end to add or subtract incrementally. Currently one has to click and drag 'just so' to get things right.
• Marks on the displacement slider which show us where the vessel will become larger. It is extremely annoying to move the slider down and for guns to be taken off without any warning when this will happen.
• An indicator which clearly states the funnel capacity required for 100% boiler efficiency.
• For the UI to highlight exactly which parts are 'badly placed' in a consistent manner.
• The UI to prevent parts being placed in a 'badly placed' manner in the first place.
• For it to be clearer which guns will fit where in advance, rather than a matter of experimentation and fiddling about.
• For components which allow the mounting of others (barbettes and some towers) to clearly state what can be balanced onto them, rather than being a matter of experimentation.
• For there to be a button which allows the change of calibre of primary, secondary, casement batteries and torpedo tubes with a single click, instead of needing to change each one, individually.
• The removal of the port and starboard offset if it is not possible to place things only on a single side of the vessel. Surely this mechanic is currently moot?
• For the game to clearly state what fore and aft offset will do mechanically, and at what thresholds.
• To be able to click a 'fire arc view' which shows a plan view where all primary, secondary and torpedo arcs of fire can all be highlighted, for consideration.
• For there to be a way to highlight all guns on a design. Currently, if I want to remove all 2" guns from a build, I have to painstakingly 'find' all of those little barrels by squinting and waving the mouse around, while checking the armament precis to see if I've found them all, instead of being able to directly see where they are.
• Sort out the annoying bug which tells us that parts are badly placed until we click the 'hull' view, or otherwise backtab out of the current item selection.
  
  
  
  
   

Edited January 27, 2020 by Siranui
Additions

[AfricanWarrior]

Before we get the campaign - or alongside it - I wish that the designer should be worked on more. I made a thread about it which I'll link to but the major thing I'd want is to replace the node snap points with a centerline.

 

[HusariuS]

34 minutes ago, Siranui said:

Sorting out the build UI, please. The time taken to build is massively inflated by struggling with the AI. QoL changes that are immediately obvious:

•  
• Buttons for adding an inch of armour to a location at a time, instead of having to click 60 times to add 6".
• 
  
  
   

You can just click with your LMB on the number and change it lol.

Edited January 27, 2020 by HusariuS

[Siranui]

39 minutes ago, HusariuS said:

You can just click with your LMB on the number and change it lol.

You may, and it is a useful feature, but that's not what I asked for.

I want to be able to see the effect of adding each inch at a time, with a single click. The click-to-edit option requires me to click the box, move a hand to keyboard, type and hit return each time I modify, which is about as time-consuming as ten mouse clicks.

Edited January 27, 2020 by Siranui
typo

[the_really_good_man]

In battle, the UI could be reworked so I can see which guns are damaged/destroyed. As of now, its too small, and as a colorblind person. I cannot distinguish between green and red shading.

[SmoCro]

Okay.

I have been playing the game for 2 or so month now, enjoy it greatly.

A couple of things I'd like or that I notice:

-Different targets for different guns or at least different gun groups (large and small); at the moment if the destroyers come for me I cannot prioritize a destroyer without also switching my main gun to it...which is unlikely to hit and wastes ammo I need for bigger fish.

-Separate targets for torpedoes; especially interesting when using torpedoes to attack ships that you intend with just torpedoes

-Allow me to "switch off" gun groups. There is little point in throwing 2" or 3" guns against the armor of a BB

-Make chassis available independent of country in the campaign; or at least provide the option

-Let me have a Nelson or Rodney, allow me to place structures and barbettes more freely.

- Allow forward facing torpedo tubes on torpedo boats, etc.

- small torpedo boats maybe? (MAS, E-boats, etc.); alternatively allow for them in the campaign as events/area modifiers

- Breakdown (maybe by drop-down) of ricochets, blocks, etc. It can be quite important to now whether the ricochets and blocks are my 2", my 6" or my 15".

-A Debriefing, maybe tables, etc. at the highend luxury level I'd like to see a map that shows the engagement (preferable zoomable) and also ship models that show hits and damage from the hits

- Unclutter damage reports. No more "main gun destroyed" after the gun has already been destroyed. I have seen a gun be destroyed as much as 8 times

[Siranui]

1 hour ago, the_really_good_man said:

In battle, the UI could be reworked so I can see which guns are damaged/destroyed. As of now, its too small, and as a colorblind person. I cannot distinguish between green and red shading.

Also, which are currently firing. That would be very handy.

Having just spent another stint in-game, I'd like to reinforce how good it would be to - when viewing enemy ships - in addition to seeing penetration chances and all that stuff, a simple bearing and speed.

[Tycondero]

9 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

True, it could be a side project or something, a task they can complete over a few years or so piece by piece. That way they don't have to rush and stress getting it done while also focusing on far more important things, maybe an idea for it to be released with one of the DLC's if this game is successful enough?

Perhaps yes. However, no matter how cool it would be I do wonder how much effort such a thing should get. I fear that most players would just look at it a couple of times and move on to play the actual game and never look back, especially if the build process would be quite generic. 

To be honest. I think I would rather like it more if we could design the ships in actual dry dock state instead of in a flooded one. I think this would serve both the players interested in seeing the ship "build" as well as those who do not. In this actual dry dock state you should be able to see the propellor shafts, hull etc much better and get a better idea on the size of the ship.

Edited January 27, 2020 by Tycondero

[Admiral T]

I think we need some kind of speed/gun caliber limit for each period?

[Hrulj]

I would like to see the following:

 

1. Ability to increase the length or width of a ship without increasing max tonnage. I don’t wanna slide all the way to 100k tonnage just for a few meters extra. Plus it destroys immersion with such insane weights that dwarf Yamato. Most ships seem too fat. It should just lower available tonnage. 
 

2. Lower the component weight and overall decrease in max tonnage. It is impossible to build a historical design and not have it go into late 40s Iowa weight if not Yamato even. By all means leave it possible to build a 100k ton ship but if I just copy the dreadnought design or Queen Elizabeth I’d love the weights to be pretty much the same rather than 20k overboard. 
 

3. International naval treaties in campaign and out of it as one option to standardize designs and minimize appearance of 18inch battleships. 
 

4. Removal of the crumpled hull model when the ship isn’t destroyed. The way it’s portrayed now makes it look like God himself took the ship, rolled it in his fist like an aluminum foil into a ball and then unrolled it into shape all crumpled and broken. Limit it to magazine detonations and such rather than simple shell impacts. Such destruction would historically cause the ship to be written off. Instead increase the appearance of holes, tears and shrapnel on the hull and turrets. If a turret is destroyed but magazine hasn’t detonated make it torn up, on fire and smoking or simply cratered from impacts. Reserve the current burned out turret design for destroyed ships that were on fire but it burned out. 
 

 

[Hangar18]

On 1/6/2020 at 2:29 PM, Nick Thomadis said:

more important than campaign

not sure why this hasn't been said....steam workshop support.

[roachbeef]

1 hour ago, Hangar18 said:

not sure why this hasn't been said....steam workshop support.

Ah, the Bethesda approach.

[arkhangelsk]

On 1/28/2020 at 5:46 AM, Hrulj said:

2. Lower the component weight and overall decrease in max tonnage. It is impossible to build a historical design and not have it go into late 40s Iowa weight if not Yamato even. By all means leave it possible to build a 100k ton ship but if I just copy the dreadnought design or Queen Elizabeth I’d love the weights to be pretty much the same rather than 20k overboard.

For QE, the weights are almost exactly the same. The QE's full load displacement is about 33000 tons. No comments on the appearance, but it is objectively possible to create something with the same stats (in fact a little better because no QE ever actually hit its designed 25 knots).

 

 

Edited April 5, 2020 by arkhangelsk
Recover quota by deleting attachments

[Tycondero]

9 hours ago, Hrulj said:

I would like to see the following:

 

1. Ability to increase the length or width of a ship without increasing max tonnage. I don’t wanna slide all the way to 100k tonnage just for a few meters extra. Plus it destroys immersion with such insane weights that dwarf Yamato. Most ships seem too fat. It should just lower available tonnage. 

This I would very much like as well. The game has mechanics to simulate the effects of a sleeker longer versus wider shorter design already, why not make it adaptable if possible?

[Bluishdoor76]

19 hours ago, Siranui said:

Sorting out the build UI, please. The time taken to build is massively inflated by struggling with the AI. QoL changes that are immediately obvious:

•  
• Buttons for adding an inch of armour to a location at a time, instead of having to click 60 times to add 6".
• In addition to  having the sliders for displacement and speed, have little arrows at each end to add or subtract incrementally. Currently one has to click and drag 'just so' to get things right.
• Marks on the displacement slider which show us where the vessel will become larger. It is extremely annoying to move the slider down and for guns to be taken off without any warning when this will happen.
• An indicator which clearly states the funnel capacity required for 100% boiler efficiency.
• For the UI to highlight exactly which parts are 'badly placed' in a consistent manner.
• The UI to prevent parts being placed in a 'badly placed' manner in the first place.
• For it to be clearer which guns will fit where in advance, rather than a matter of experimentation and fiddling about.
• For components which allow the mounting of others (barbettes and some towers) to clearly state what can be balanced onto them, rather than being a matter of experimentation.
• For there to be a button which allows the change of calibre of primary, secondary, casement batteries and torpedo tubes with a single click, instead of needing to change each one, individually.
• The removal of the port and starboard offset if it is not possible to place things only on a single side of the vessel. Surely this mechanic is currently moot?
• For the game to clearly state what fore and aft offset will do mechanically, and at what thresholds.
• To be able to click a 'fire arc view' which shows a plan view where all primary, secondary and torpedo arcs of fire can all be highlighted, for consideration.
• For there to be a way to highlight all guns on a design. Currently, if I want to remove all 2" guns from a build, I have to painstakingly 'find' all of those little barrels by squinting and waving the mouse around, while checking the armament precis to see if I've found them all, instead of being able to directly see where they are.
• Sort out the annoying bug which tells us that parts are badly placed until we click the 'hull' view, or otherwise backtab out of the current item selection.
  
  
  
  
   

The building UI works perfectly imho and most of this suggestions are really not needed. The most important thing for me atm is removing the harsh limitations on things like towers and barbettes plus more real ship hulls and parts. In battle UI should also take priority over the builder UI since that one does currently have several problems.

[arkhangelsk]

12 hours ago, Hrulj said:

1. Ability to increase the length or width of a ship without increasing max tonnage. I don’t wanna slide all the way to 100k tonnage just for a few meters extra. Plus it destroys immersion with such insane weights that dwarf Yamato. Most ships seem too fat. It should just lower available tonnage. 

Don't you think it is manifestly absurd for you to be able to increase the volume of the ship without increasing max tonnage?

3 hours ago, Tycondero said:

This I would very much like as well. The game has mechanics to simulate the effects of a sleeker longer versus wider shorter design already, why not make it adaptable if possible?

I don't think it has "mechanics to simulate". It has fixed coefficients for each hull type, which don't change just because you lengthen the hull (change displacement).

[Angus MacDuff]

12 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

Don't you think it is manifestly absurd for you to be able to increase the volume of the ship without increasing max tonnage?

Darned physics......If you increase the length without increasing the tonnage then of course it becomes narrower.  This will impact stability, which affects gun accuracy.  You can make it a pencil for all I care, but then it will roll like a barrel.

[Illya von Einzbern]

11 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

Darned physics......If you increase the length without increasing the tonnage then of course it becomes narrower.  This will impact stability, which affects gun accuracy.  You can make it a pencil for all I care, but then it will roll like a barrel.

Make it long enough and you'll have large submarine then it doesn't matter if it spins right round.
(like ships in cartoons when rudder is jammed XD... the good old cartoons)
But yes seriously. Making ships longer and narrower is kinda bad idea. For a submarine sure but now you are larger sonar ping target as well better target for D-chargers.
Isn't there a option for different hulls already in game that are longer slimmer....

Surely you can make it longer and thinner with armor plating but.... it will snap like a very thing spaghetti.
= make it longer it weights more but supports more (logical after all). Make it shorter and vise versa.
To be fair making ships wider would also affect on the acceleration and slowing down and max speed.
Sure you can increase the ships engine capacity to push a sideways brick to 30 knots but... why do that? 

I would actually have the engine capacity not give directly the ship speed but rather affect its size and have more engine options like diesel turbo charge or high pressure boilers ect. We can keep the turbines and other engine variants but give them bit more flavors like we have for exhaust systems. With different engine modifications like high pressure steam turbines, if the engine is damaged you will lose crew due to steam burns. Hits on the hull with these kind of engines may get leakages on the piping causing the engine to not work with full capacity and be more harmful for crews. With turbo charged diesels repairs would take longer and have and have a chance of random ignition due to bad repairs. (engine becomes unreliable in flank speeds if repaired under combat situation.) Benefits for said engine modifications. For high pressure engines they would accelerate faster than regular boilers. Turbo charged would increase the power to weight ratio making the ship more faster when maneuvering and possible max speed (would make the diesel engine to compete with the 8-turbine engine which is amazing if you can fit it to your behemoth ^^)
Diesel engines are good to lower the weight of your ship but you lose so much horsepower which not so nice trade. Would think that diesel engines would be better than turbines.

pretty please gib more love to engines and allow us to dedicate space for said engines like 220,000 horse engines and not direct 30kts engine... this would actually make some engines more desired than others not just for the nice hp it has but it's effect on the speed it self.

This actually makes sens. Having a 6 turbine 160k hp engine would allow ship of 25 metric tonnage ship go 28knots and 8 turbine version would push it to 30 kts with better speed maintaining capacity (don't quote me on the engine to speed ratios... i am not that kind of engineer).

To summ it up.
Engines should come with different sizes for different classes to give better presentation of ships technical details (immersion).
Make different engine variants more meaningful and give some possible upgrades to these engines like high pressure or turbo charged. (diesel engine has so poor hp/ tonnage )
The size of the engine would effect it's likely hood of getting hit (logical right?)
Allow specification to were the engine would be located along side with auxiliary engines (nothing too silly for this please).
If Diesel engine ships accelerates too fast this could be presented as fire coming out from smoke stack.
Example. From economical half speed to flank speed. something along this 1/4 (0 to 8kts) half(9 15)to, 3/4 (16 to 22), full (23 to 28), flank speed 28+).
These speed would affect on over all travel distance "remaining fuel in combat after combat"
(this did happen on IJN Destroyer when trying to out maneuver american plane on a bomb skipping run. The plane missed his attack and mistook the fire from the smoke stack as critical damage. How ever this got the attention of other ships nearby.)
Source: Book Destroyer captain Taimenchi Hara Solomons campaing chapter

 

sorry for long wall of text
Ideas of nice tings popped out as writing

[Siranui]

2 hours ago, Bluishdoor76 said:

The building UI works perfectly imho and most of this suggestions are really not needed. The most important thing for me atm is removing the harsh limitations on things like towers and barbettes plus more real ship hulls and parts. In battle UI should also take priority over the builder UI since that one does currently have several problems.

No, it does not. You even contradict this position and acknowledge the failings in the last sentence of your post. 

The build UI and mechanics are not currently acceptable as a finished commercial product, and - respectfully - I do not require feedback on my QA comments from other customers stating that their suggestions are more important than others and that my issues are moot. That is for he development team to decide.
 

[Hrulj]

4 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

Don't you think it is manifestly absurd for you to be able to increase the volume of the ship without increasing max tonnage?

I don't think it has "mechanics to simulate". It has fixed coefficients for each hull type, which don't change just because you lengthen the hull (change displacement).

Not really. I can make a 35000 ton ship that is 100 meters long or 250, the thing that is impacted is width of the ship and stability. 

4 hours ago, Angus MacDuff said:

Darned physics......If you increase the length without increasing the tonnage then of course it becomes narrower.  This will impact stability, which affects gun accuracy.  You can make it a pencil for all I care, but then it will roll like a barrel.

Pretty much that. 

3 hours ago, Illya von Einzbern said:

Make it long enough and you'll have large submarine then it doesn't matter if it spins right round.
(like ships in cartoons when rudder is jammed XD... the good old cartoons)
But yes seriously. Making ships longer and narrower is kinda bad idea. For a submarine sure but now you are larger sonar ping target as well better target for D-chargers.
Isn't there a option for different hulls already in game that are longer slimmer....

Surely you can make it longer and thinner with armor plating but.... it will snap like a very thing spaghetti.
= make it longer it weights more but supports more (logical after all). Make it shorter and vise versa.
To be fair making ships wider would also affect on the acceleration and slowing down and max speed.
Sure you can increase the ships engine capacity to push a sideways brick to 30 knots but... why do that? 

I would actually have the engine capacity not give directly the ship speed but rather affect its size and have more engine options like diesel turbo charge or high pressure boilers ect. We can keep the turbines and other engine variants but give them bit more flavors like we have for exhaust systems. With different engine modifications like high pressure steam turbines, if the engine is damaged you will lose crew due to steam burns. Hits on the hull with these kind of engines may get leakages on the piping causing the engine to not work with full capacity and be more harmful for crews. With turbo charged diesels repairs would take longer and have and have a chance of random ignition due to bad repairs. (engine becomes unreliable in flank speeds if repaired under combat situation.) Benefits for said engine modifications. For high pressure engines they would accelerate faster than regular boilers. Turbo charged would increase the power to weight ratio making the ship more faster when maneuvering and possible max speed (would make the diesel engine to compete with the 8-turbine engine which is amazing if you can fit it to your behemoth ^^)
Diesel engines are good to lower the weight of your ship but you lose so much horsepower which not so nice trade. Would think that diesel engines would be better than turbines.

pretty please gib more love to engines and allow us to dedicate space for said engines like 220,000 horse engines and not direct 30kts engine... this would actually make some engines more desired than others not just for the nice hp it has but it's effect on the speed it self.

This actually makes sens. Having a 6 turbine 160k hp engine would allow ship of 25 metric tonnage ship go 28knots and 8 turbine version would push it to 30 kts with better speed maintaining capacity (don't quote me on the engine to speed ratios... i am not that kind of engineer).

To summ it up.
Engines should come with different sizes for different classes to give better presentation of ships technical details (immersion).
Make different engine variants more meaningful and give some possible upgrades to these engines like high pressure or turbo charged. (diesel engine has so poor hp/ tonnage )
The size of the engine would effect it's likely hood of getting hit (logical right?)
Allow specification to were the engine would be located along side with auxiliary engines (nothing too silly for this please).
If Diesel engine ships accelerates too fast this could be presented as fire coming out from smoke stack.
Example. From economical half speed to flank speed. something along this 1/4 (0 to 8kts) half(9 15)to, 3/4 (16 to 22), full (23 to 28), flank speed 28+).
These speed would affect on over all travel distance "remaining fuel in combat after combat"
(this did happen on IJN Destroyer when trying to out maneuver american plane on a bomb skipping run. The plane missed his attack and mistook the fire from the smoke stack as critical damage. How ever this got the attention of other ships nearby.)
Source: Book Destroyer captain Taimenchi Hara Solomons campaing chapter

 

sorry for long wall of text
Ideas of nice tings popped out as writing

Iowa is 20 meters longer than Yamato and 20 000 tons lighter to boot. She is 6 meters thinner than Yamato. She made up instability with slightly deeper draft. The shape of it allowed it greater speeds as well as more usable surface space for the infamous american tradition of packing as many AA guns as humanly possible onto a battleship. That was also paid for with 4 inches less of armor plate on the belt and 6 inches less on turrets. I don't see why making such a ship should put you into immense never before built tonnages. 

[arkhangelsk]

1 hour ago, Hrulj said:

Not really. I can make a 35000 ton ship that is 100 meters long or 250, the thing that is impacted is width of the ship and stability. 

Iowa is 20 meters longer than Yamato and 20 000 tons lighter to boot. She is 6 meters thinner than Yamato. She made up instability with slightly deeper draft. The shape of it allowed it greater speeds as well as more usable surface space for the infamous american tradition of packing as many AA guns as humanly possible onto a battleship. That was also paid for with 4 inches less of armor plate on the belt and 6 inches less on turrets. I don't see why making such a ship should put you into immense never before built tonnages. 

That's not exactly the vibe from "Ability to increase the length or width of a ship without increasing max tonnage." but anyway. What is affected in your example is not only the "stability" and width, but also the Hull Form and every other coefficient currently accepted by the game as assumptions for its calculations.

In game terms, Yamato and Iowa would be completely different hulls with coefficients specially entered. Neither the coefficients or the CG models are very amenable to someone just deciding to narrow them.

If you have an allergy (understandable) to the tonnage getting too big, just stick with Dreadnaught IV - if you don't play Japan or the US, it seems you are stuck with that anyway.

[BattleshipOfDestruction]

We need more Barbette options in terms of both sizing and height and the ability to place them and guns closer together. Also, to do a period correct Yamato-Class Battleship, there needs to be a secondary Barbette big enough to fit a triple 6" gun mount and tall enough to clear the height of a superfiring layout of 2 18" gun turrets. Basically the way I see it is that there is a Barbette option for every two calibers of main guns and the Barbette changes shape to fit the guns when they are placed on the ship. Each Barbette will have three heights so you can have up to a 3 high superfiring design to keep the limitations for stability of a ship in mind. The only way you could possibly do a three turret superfiring arrangement on a battleship for example was if you were designing a super battleship because of the added stability of a wider and heavier hull. If you were to attempt a triple superfiring arrangement on an Iowa Class Warship hull, it would be easier to capsize due to the forces at work. Even Yamato, could not fit a third 18" gun turret in a superfiring layout despite her massive size because the hull was not stable enough for a third turret at an increased height. The maximum that she could hope for in terms of design was the 6" turret placed in a tall Barbette before and after her superstructure as part of her secondary suite.

Edited January 28, 2020 by BattleshipOfDestruction

[Hangar18]

21 hours ago, roachbeef said:

Ah, the Bethesda approach.

no no no...were using the paradox approach.

[Hangar18]

Hey everyone...as a reminder. this is a thread for things more important than the campaign. essentials > small features

[Whomst'd've]

16 hours ago, BattleshipOfDestruction said:

We need more Barbette options in terms of both sizing and height and the ability to place them and guns closer together. Also, to do a period correct Yamato-Class Battleship, there needs to be a secondary Barbette big enough to fit a triple 6" gun mount and tall enough to clear the height of a superfiring layout of 2 18" gun turrets. Basically the way I see it is that there is a Barbette option for every two calibers of main guns and the Barbette changes shape to fit the guns when they are placed on the ship. Each Barbette will have three heights so you can have up to a 3 high superfiring design to keep the limitations for stability of a ship in mind. The only way you could possibly do a three turret superfiring arrangement on a battleship for example was if you were designing a super battleship because of the added stability of a wider and heavier hull. If you were to attempt a triple superfiring arrangement on an Iowa Class Warship hull, it would be easier to capsize due to the forces at work. Even Yamato, could not fit a third 18" gun turret in a superfiring layout despite her massive size because the hull was not stable enough for a third turret at an increased height. The maximum that she could hope for in terms of design was the 6" turret placed in a tall Barbette before and after her superstructure as part of her secondary suite.

Something similar to this?