Alpha-4 News

[Teckelmaster]

Can not wait, can not wait, can not wait.....

Gun balancing will be the main topic for ever, which obviously is inevitable. I only wish, we had a separate thread for it, dear devs, can you please make a sticky thread for gun calibration with each patch, so that we do not have the same discussion over and over and over in 15 different threads? As much as i enjoy reading and diving deeper into that topic, i do really find it to be out of place, when i see the depths it takes. It makes it easier to find the extremely entertaining (i seriously and honestly mean this) stuff many of the members contribute, but also allows to keep track of the actual topic of the thread and anything else, besides secondary guns and armor model, that might be interesting.

Just saying...

Once more: Thank you for this game!

[Shaftoe]

42 minutes ago, Teckelmaster said:

Can not wait, can not wait, can not wait.....

Yeah, I hope we will get it next week without delays, too. Alpha-4 appears to be very promising.

[Skeksis]

15 hours ago, fsp said:

I was really, really hoping for a taste of the campaign next Alpha, but can fully understand that they are not quite there yet.

if the map is working then releasing a campaign teaser with only the map would be very nice, that's with no gameplay or AI or anything, just the map/maps interface itself, just for a look-see, just a thought. 

15 hours ago, fsp said:

Saving your design in custom battles!

and building all the ship classes.

I think this is the feature to push for, in the following update, too make it critical. So many players want to create historical battles with custom battles mode but the mode isn't ready for that yet. But the mode should be capable. After academy missions, reproducing ships and there historical battles is the next best step for players.  

Edited February 1, 2020 by Skeksis

[Cptbarney]

Yeah i can't wait for the next patch.

We also need a way of making the game more divisible between historical and non-historical so that way we can make our choices on we want the game to be like. So i hope in alpha 4 or 5 we can have something Admirals School, which features all the historical battles (up to the relevant period and time) with all the historical loadouts and areas, that way people can simply jump in and play with those events.

Also be nice if custom battles allowed you to make maps as well with islands, beaches, lighthouses, bases, oil rigs, broken hulls etc. to recreate other less known battles in general.

[Shaftoe]

Yeah, purely historical battles with accurately recreated ships would be very nice. A very strong selling point in its own right.

Edited February 1, 2020 by Shaftoe

[arkhangelsk]

11 hours ago, Skeksis said:

and building all the ship classes.

In fact, is there a reason why we are not building all the ship classes? I mean, even if you like auto-ships, it's just a matter of clicking the BB, Auto-Design, CA, Auto-Design, CL Auto Design ... etc until all the ships are made, then starting. It isn't that inconvenient or a waste of time (the computer spends time putting together ships anyway). Plus we can at least check what we have to live with.

[Hellstrike]

Guys, I feel like one thing you're forgetting while comparing gun accuracy in-game is that various hulls have different stats. A BB is generally more stable, that's why the same gun is more effective on a BB than on a CA. And the tower usually offers better base accuracy as well. Because the game includes those factors in the tooltip AFAIK.
Whether or not those stats are accurate is a different question, but this whole debate overlooked the reasons why guy accuracy is different IN-game.

 

[Cptbarney]

20 minutes ago, Hellstrike said:

Guys, I feel like one thing you're forgetting while comparing gun accuracy in-game is that various hulls have different stats. A BB is generally more stable, that's why the same gun is more effective on a BB than on a CA. And the tower usually offers better base accuracy as well. Because the game includes those factors in the tooltip AFAIK.
Whether or not those stats are accurate is a different question, but this whole debate overlooked the reasons why guy accuracy is different IN-game.

 

Forgot about that, too be honest i don't want ships to be too inaccurate otherwise the game becomes incredibly boring, and frustrating as well, but not so that every single shell hits.

Needs too be a nice balance between the two.

[arkhangelsk]

57 minutes ago, Hellstrike said:

Guys, I feel like one thing you're forgetting while comparing gun accuracy in-game is that various hulls have different stats. A BB is generally more stable, that's why the same gun is more effective on a BB than on a CA. And the tower usually offers better base accuracy as well. Because the game includes those factors in the tooltip AFAIK.
Whether or not those stats are accurate is a different question, but this whole debate overlooked the reasons why guy accuracy is different IN-game.

 

I've checked. You are right. Not or changing anything, the hit rate of a 5" Mark 5 is 31% on the battleship, 27% cruiser and 18% on the light cruiser (as of this hotfix).

36 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Forgot about that, too be honest i don't want ships to be too inaccurate otherwise the game becomes incredibly boring, and frustrating as well, but not so that every single shell hits.

Needs too be a nice balance between the two.

I'm on the realism side of this, but even from a World of Warships type "gameplay" perspective, the correct balance is closer to Alpha 2 than this hotfix. Sure, if you play the battleships, you might be thinking that it is more fun (though I don't know why you can't be satisfied with blowing apart destroyers using main guns). If you are the destroyer trying to get close enough to the battleship to plug it with torpedoes, it is a pretty painful experience. If the main guns hit you, you are dead. That's the same either way so all you can do is pray to not get hit.

The secondaries have increased in effectiveness enough that while it used to be pretty even between the battleship and the destroyer trying to make the attack, now the destroyers get rendered ineffective or are forced to launch too far out and the salvo misses except by luck. Great for the battleship, not so great if you are trying to be the destroyer.

[Cptbarney]

4 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

The secondaries have increased in effectiveness enough that while it used to be pretty even between the battleship and the destroyer trying to make the attack, now the destroyers get rendered ineffective or are forced to launch too far out and the salvo misses except by luck. Great for the battleship, not so great if you are trying to be the destroyer.

Well i guess the only thing we can do is sit and wait for the patch too come along to see how things go ahead.

But then some torps in ww1 could reach 11km or even 14km, so it makes me wonder if we will see torps like that or torpedoes will simply get flat bonuses to range, speed, power, penetration, cost and weight.

[Skeksis]

6 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

In fact, is there a reason why we are not building all the ship classes? I mean, even if you like auto-ships, it's just a matter of clicking the BB, Auto-Design, CA, Auto-Design, CL Auto Design

Not exactly sure what you mean here but if you mean why not use auto-build then...

For me, when I want to recreate a battle I want to reproduce all the ships as accurately as possible, from the capital ships to support ships, every armament, armor, superstructure, engine & speed and condition. Most would just match armament and armor and from watching videos (CC) seems to confirm this. CC also confirms the frustration level but lets be equally clear, no one and none of them are complaining while in alpha.  And there's a small frustration of rebuilding the same ship over and over again.

To do reenactments, large scale reenactments, it will take a few days to build all the ships as accurately as possible, especially for fulltime workers with only a couple of hours available per night, that means there must be save options. And CC are 'very' interested in reenactments.

Reenactment is the way to pursue history and if one plays in this genre then one is more likely to be interested in this pursuit, henceforth player designed ships and the 'priority' level of custom battles becomes obvious.

Edited February 1, 2020 by Skeksis

[RAMJB]

45 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

And CC are 'very' interested in reenactments.

Well talking as one, and just one, of those CCs...

 I can't give less of a damn about them. I'd rather have ships *I* design going against whatever the game throws at me. Because I know what to expect out of an historical scenario. I do not know what to expect when I don't even know what I'm about to meet in battle. 

That said, I don't have a problem with the suggestion at all. I'd be happy just by having a toggle that allows me to put a tonnage limitation on the custom battle mode so the AI stops throwing 100.000 ton monsters when I'm trying to do a video with a 40k tonner. Designing the AI warships might be cool but I don't feel an overriding need for it. Then again, it's a feature which I don't see hurting at all, so why not.

But as something "urgent"?....nope. A new armor layout model is urgent. A new damage model is urgent. More options in the designer about placement of structures and turrets are urgent. This is a "would be nice to have". But no, it's not urgent. Not for me, at least.

Edited February 1, 2020 by RAMJB

[Teckelmaster]

If you do not choose Japan as your enemy, you will not get 100k monsters to fight. From my experience.. And even Japan seems to throw such big ships only in a few of many occasions at me (yesterday i had to restart 5 times, to get my american monsters to fight a proper japanese monster).

But i agree, the more options we do have to choose from, the more satisfying the game will get. From totally random surprise battles, to completely designed "my personal battlescenario".

As i always say, the more liberties we have, the better the game will be. Give us the option to go full RamJB-historic mode and give me my "Teckelmaster spacetech thrown into ww2 to completely destroy whatever opposition you meet mode" and anything inbetween! And please stop pretending that was impossible and this game can only be played one way or it was trash. It is neither dificult to do, as we se with every update, nor destroying any experience. If you can have optionally realism and optionally arcade, bam, that is what i want. And the option to mount Plasmaweapons. Like in OPTION, you dont have to cheat, but feel free to. Not as a standard feature. Like a cheat.

The more options to individualise your gaming experience, the better. That is why i want planes and submarines, even though i actually do not like the idea of both being in the game.

And by the way: what is a CC?

Edited February 1, 2020 by Teckelmaster

[RAMJB]

3 minutes ago, Teckelmaster said:

If you do not choose Japan as your enemy, you will not get 100k monsters to fight

I chose the US. I got a 90k+ ton warship a couple times XD

what is a CC?

Content Creator. Fancy way to say youtuber XD.

Edited February 1, 2020 by RAMJB

[Teckelmaster]

I mean, as enemy, not your own force, choose something like Spain and you will face a 69k Monster max. as they have access to dreadnought iv only. From what i understand and usually experience in custom battles.

 

And thanks a lot

 

Edit: I just tried a couple of games, BB vs BB, i was China, enemy was Spain. The very famous Sinospanish war from 1940 was recreated about 10 times, 5 with locked and 5 with unlocked tech. I brought the biggest guns available and was countered with dread III and dread IV´s. Not one above 59k tonnes. Was just curious. Can we actually confirm if the unlock function works on the player only or does the AI also get access to all the ships?

But as a sidenote: My favorite 120k is 5 triple 18 inch turrets and 3 tripple 15 inch on each side, it is a blast seeing it blow anything with salvo 2 where salvo 1 is for rangefinding and sometimes even does the job xD that thing might want a 120k 6 inch gunboat as an escort I would love to see them appear as a pair

 

Edited February 1, 2020 by Teckelmaster

[arkhangelsk]

2 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Not exactly sure what you mean here but if you mean why not use auto-build then...

I meant the exact opposite and am wondering why we have to ask for the ability to build every ship. It seems so easy to just have the mechanization be that we design ship one (say a battleship), then when we click on the cruiser hull instead of just dumping our battleship it saves it for use and let's us start designing the cruiser, and so on until we have designed everything. I do like the ability to design all ships.

1 hour ago, RAMJB said:

That said, I don't have a problem with the suggestion at all. I'd be happy just by having a toggle that allows me to put a tonnage limitation on the custom battle mode so the AI stops throwing 100.000 ton monsters when I'm trying to do a video with a 40k tonner. Designing the AI warships might be cool but I don't feel an overriding need for it. Then again, it's a feature which I don't see hurting at all, so why not.

But as something "urgent"?....nope. A new armor layout model is urgent. A new damage model is urgent. More options in the designer about placement of structures and turrets are urgent. This is a "would be nice to have". But no, it's not urgent. Not for me, at least.

Maybe what should be done is just split off those hulls into a new category of "Super Battleship" in Custom Battle, along with a new designation - perhaps BBB?

Edited February 1, 2020 by arkhangelsk
Add a note to RamJB's comment

[monbvol]

Still hoping we'll get more light cruiser and destroyer hulls but all in all this looks like it'll add a lot of interesting stuff to keep us held over for now.

[Skeksis]

1 hour ago, RAMJB said:

what is a CC?

Content Creator. Fancy way to say youtuber XD.

is it not "Community Contributor"?

Edited February 1, 2020 by Skeksis

[Skeksis]

46 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

It seems so easy to just have the mechanization be that we design ship one (say a battleship), then when we click on the cruiser hull instead of just dumping our battleship it saves it for use and let's us start designing the cruise

Custom battles is a scenario customisation screen, designer tool couldn't possibly know (even if you set all the parameters exactly the same) that you are re-entering the same scenario or previous scenario, thus the reset.

There has to be a user friendly interface for selecting and save ships for all classes that transcends gaming sessions.

Edited February 1, 2020 by Skeksis

[RAMJB]

1 hour ago, Skeksis said:

is it not "Community Contributor"?

For games like WOWS and that stuff where they have that kind of program going under that name. But other than that CC has always been content creator.

Not that it matters anyway xD.

[Skoggatt]

1 hour ago, monbvol said:

Still hoping we'll get more light cruiser and destroyer hulls but all in all this looks like it'll add a lot of interesting stuff to keep us held over for now.

I'm fine with more BB hulls this update so long as the other classes "catch up" at some point in the future. I agree that there is a shortage of CL and DD hulls to play around with which makes it harder to really test how those classes should play out however.

[Skoggatt]

4 hours ago, Skeksis said:

For me, when I want to recreate a battle I want to reproduce all the ships as accurately as possible, from the capital ships to support ships, every armament, armor, superstructure, engine & speed and condition.

I want to be able to do this as well, but not to recreate historical battles. This is at its core a game about coming up with your own designs, but to me that means at a minimum it has to allow for all of the real world designs from the period with enough flexibility to come up with your own stuff.

I personally won't recreate historical designs when I have the freedom to create my own, but if the ship designer can't model all of the different real world designs from this era then I won't feel like I can create all the designs I want to experiment with. I don't think there should be a hull for every single ship launched from 1890 to 1940, but there needs to be enough variety that you can recreate any of the crazy pre-dreadnoughts, semi-dreadnoughts, super large armored cruisers, and so on with every class. And of course having a better method of laying out turrets and a more detailed armor system is a necessary part of that.

[Steeltrap]

On 1/30/2020 at 8:29 AM, flaviohc16 said:

SECONDARY TARGHET Is great, but can we also switch ammo?

Was going to ask exactly this. In some scenarios I am constantly switching ammo selection so as to get the best from my main guns and then secondaries where the best shell choice differs between them but the AI can't manage to work that out. It's a pain in the butt, and not at all scalable for larger battles.

If I KNOW what the best ammo choice is, either the AI's decision making ought to be improved OR I need to be able to set primary and secondary ammo separately.

[DetCord]

Eagerly awaiting this!

[wasabi cat]

i wonder when we can design much normal CA and DD.the bridge and hull right now is pretty strange