>>>"Alpha-4 v67+" General Feedback<<<

[Hangar18]

On 2/16/2020 at 2:35 AM, arkhangelsk said:

I'm not thinking specifically of your post, but the grunts all over the place about the toughness of ships against torpedoes. For your pictures oh goddarnit it only ate 7 torpedoes. I also notice it only has 8 14" guns which means there's probably quite a bit of weight left for a good TDS. Just feed it about 5 more torpedoes and see how it reacts first.

When people are talking about how overly tough ships are to shells and torpedoes, I think it must be remembered that ships in real life almost certainly did not have the equivalent of the game's maximum damage mitigation systems. Between catalog specs and more subdivision no one can see, the choice in real life is obvious.

My technique when designing the Yamato in the link is based on the idea of first building the ship to the Standard displacement (which was about 71000 t by Wiki) with the range locked at Very Short, put in all the "surface stats", fill the unused displacement up with protective systems, then increase the range to Very Long while increasing Displacement to the Full Load, then shrinking the range bar back until everything is within weight limits, and finally another touch-up.

I would disagree that they should be better than reality. The guns don't function that way, the torpedos don't function that way. 

[Nikademus]

Pros:

 

Beautiful graphics.

Intuitive controls 

Detailed damage results on own and enemy ships*

Interesting customization ability

 

Cons

Historical feel is tenuous at best

Ai tends to design similar ships that bear little to no lineage with the nations being represented

Guns are only designated by size and mark.    Including caliber would give a more historical feel as well as differentiate guns of different capabilities and/or eras.

Scenario play with small #’s of ship have a WWII feel to them.   Cruisers, especially CL types tended to screen, and once the primary surface battle began (WWI or earlier squadron/fleet sized engagements), got out of the line of fire so that their smoke would not hinder the primary gunships (BC’s and BB’s)

Secondary and tertiary guns remarkably effective, esp. on small WWI era or earlier. Cruiser and DD hulls.    

Penetration values are……remarkably powerful, esp. the medium and light sized guns.   Their capabilities appear so inflated that a single CL, with suitable “tech upgrades” can outgun and sink a pre-dreadnought era battleship.      Torpedoes were their primary big ship killer weapons.   Guns of 6” or less at best would pepper a hull and superstructure.

Detailed damage results on enemy ships*.    Yes.  This is a pro and a con.    I love that this option is there.  However, it should probably be balanced by a FoW option.    Knowing just how badly an opponent is hit can be a big part of the enjoyment experience.   However, for those who wish to test their decision-making prowess not knowing if or how badly an opponent is hurt will have great bearing on the decision the player will make.   (I wish Steam and Iron had this option!  This game only allows FoW.)

Hulls and features are extremely generic.    I’m assuming that the mature version of the game will feature hull and structure types that are more appropriate to the nations building them.  (right now, they all look like knock off of British ships with some exceptions. (French pre-D hull, some turrets)

Can’t control armor thickness?    (This seems odd as its one of the Big three trade-offs in a warship design)

 

Initial impressions of game and combat (Brief):

 

Overall I’d say this game suffers in the same way that NWS’ Rule the Waves suffers.  Ships are naturally built to favor firepower and tend to sport triple turret batteries with closely spaced similar secondaries.  Some of the design’s borderline on the silly.    If it fits, and if the tonnage is not succeeded then it’s all good.   Great for what if situations but when it’s the norm, then the enjoyment factor is reduced.    There is no sense of flavor where the historical nations are concerned.   They might as well all be interchangeable.      If it’s the developer’s intention that this game should be 100% designer ship then much of this commentary can be discarded.    My preference would be for a historical framework with an option to explore alternate designs, but that’s just be.   As I said, this game feels very much like the 3D equivalent of Rules the Waves or World of Warships only with a design your own ships element.    I would only remind the devs that players will tend to create new patterns that will become ‘tried and true’ thus the result of the ‘design your own ships’ gadget is to create just another standard with little variation.   

 

The penetration values listed appear to bear little resemblance to their real-life devices with the partial exception of WWII era BB guns.   Secondaries and below have IMO extraordinary penetration capabilities.   I thought it might be due to the different classes of armor (iron all the way up to advanced Cemented and/or Face-hardened steel).    However, the values do not change when choosing between the types.       Playing scenario 1 bore this out.   Even considering the new effect, having a CL sink a PBB 3 out of 4 times out in the open sea 1v1 is a stretch.   It’s not just a problem of gun effect, but also of accuracy.   WWII large cruisers, light or heavy might pull off such a saturation but earlier era cruisers would be lucky to score a few hits at battleship fighting ranges.     Secondaries on said battleships suffered similar abysmal hit rates prior to WWII era turreted designs.   I would strongly suggest that estimated pen values adjust for the different armor types to give a baseline.  

 

Damage:

 

Death by a thousand pin-pricks, especially medium and light caliber.    These types tend to score a lot of significant hits.   The flood chance increase has made this worse.     A large reason is partial and full penetrations on hull areas, sometimes even primary armor coverage spots.    Saturation attacks are possible but in most eras the ship would have to get very close resulting in flat trajectory shellfire which would make floatation hits a small likelihood.  (not so much here) I realize that part of the challenge here is assigning “structural points” to a warship.   It’s a useful mechanism, and Steam and Iron use it as well.   It has to be very fine tuned however otherwise you get artificial limits on a ship’s ability to absorb hits.  

 

Floatation is represented as a % and there is no list factor.     Such a feature would be nice but is not critical to a good representation.   However, having the 3D ships tilt and list when FLT damage accumulates makes them look silly.   The reason is because even a moderate list will make most gun turrets and casemate positions untenable.      If list is not to be included then the models are better represented as sitting lower in the water with maybe some small list factors as a variety.

 

Ship Design:

 

Frankly my first impression here is bewilderment.   I find it hard to fathom for example, how any pre-Dreadnought era battleship could be ‘designed’ to exceed 21 knots, much less 24.    An amusing experience was my last custom battle.   I did my best to basically design SMS Seydlitz and got close (except it looks like a UK ship).   I ended up having to limit the speed to a fairly realistic 27.5 knots as I had maximized protection as was the German tenant.       Once battle was joined, my compatriot was an Ai designed German BB….with triple turrets (of course..as were the UK BB’s and BC’s) and 30+ knot speed.    lol         While I think the design component is admirable and obviously is a central feature of this game, it feels like the parameters allowed are entirely too broad and break credibility.     Certain technological limits created hard stops depending on the era.

 

Will continue to follow the Alpha with interest.   My hope is that it can balance customization with the extreme historical presentation as provided by Steam and Iron.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[arkhangelsk]

18 hours ago, Hangar18 said:

I would disagree that they should be better than reality. The guns don't function that way, the torpedos don't function that way. 

Usually, nations put their best in guns, torpedoes and armor plate. The same is not as true of TDS, where the standard is more like the minimum. Usually, the standard for a battleship would be to resist your own weapons. For the Japanese in the 30s would be a 24 inch torpedo with over a 1000 pound warhead. They settled for 880 pounds resistance (before they added some weak points in a hasty attempt to improve the ship's shell resistance).

Of course, this being a game, you can choose to make a wiser choice

4 hours ago, Nikademus said:

Ai tends to design similar ships that bear little to no lineage with the nations being represented

Guns are only designated by size and mark.    Including caliber would give a more historical feel as well as differentiate guns of different capabilities and/or eras.

Hulls and features are extremely generic.    I’m assuming that the mature version of the game will feature hull and structure types that are more appropriate to the nations building them.  (right now, they all look like knock off of British ships with some exceptions. (French pre-D hull, some turrets)

My preference would be for a historical framework with an option to explore alternate designs, but that’s just be.   As I said, this game feels very much like the 3D equivalent of Rules the Waves or World of Warships only with a design your own ships element.    I would only remind the devs that players will tend to create new patterns that will become ‘tried and true’ thus the result of the ‘design your own ships’ gadget is to create just another standard with little variation.   

These four points actually relate to a fundamental tension between the "History" buffs and the Free Campaign buffs. People always want historic guns, historic hulls and historic everything, but they are not as aware of how they are likely to reduce one's ability to go their own way when creating their own nation's navy. The problem (geography and economy) should be realistic - that you are are forced to follow the historical solution should be minimized.

By the way, anybody that feels the game is giving them too much information already HAS the buttons within the game to get rid of it - each window can be rolled up by clicking on that down arrow on its upper bar

[Xthlegion]

I am having problems with guns reloading but not firing.  This is happening to me in the new training scenarios.  I have to manually (click on the target) to get the guns to fire.  For the main guns that means it only fires ranging shots each salvo, as if I am reinitiating an engagement with the target.  It is making the game nearly unplayable.  It is also happening if I put my ship on AI.  I get a target lock, guns reload and won't fire, taking multiple salvos from the enemy ships.  This is in the Alpha4-V68 version.  

[Shaftoe]

8 hours ago, Xthlegion said:

I am having problems with guns reloading but not firing.  This is happening to me in the new training scenarios.  I have to manually (click on the target) to get the guns to fire.  For the main guns that means it only fires ranging shots each salvo, as if I am reinitiating an engagement with the target.  It is making the game nearly unplayable.  It is also happening if I put my ship on AI.  I get a target lock, guns reload and won't fire, taking multiple salvos from the enemy ships.  This is in the Alpha4-V68 version.  

Perhaps... you set your guns on "safe" and they don't fire because chance to hit is very low?

[DougToss]

What I'm seeing is that damage through gunfire and torpedos is not going to be made better by making those more damaging, longer range, accurate etc. etc. but rather by working on the floatation, compartment and armour systems. They're already incredibly far from the real weapons systems and ships don't sink - or depending on the patch - 2in guns sink battleships. 

For those asking for more freedom with ship designs, including and especially custom hulls, I think this is a similar dilemma. Until the devs can get floatation, displacement, weight, horsepower requirements and damage working with pre-made hulls, there is no way these systems are working well enough to handle player designed ones. 

All-in-all I can see the foundation being laid but I know how frustrating having early access is for all parties involved. 

[Steeltrap]

6 hours ago, DougToss said:

What I'm seeing is that damage through gunfire and torpedos is not going to be made better by making those more damaging, longer range, accurate etc. etc. but rather by working on the floatation, compartment and armour systems. They're already incredibly far from the real weapons systems and ships don't sink - or depending on the patch - 2in guns sink battleships. 

For those asking for more freedom with ship designs, including and especially custom hulls, I think this is a similar dilemma. Until the devs can get floatation, displacement, weight, horsepower requirements and damage working with pre-made hulls, there is no way these systems are working well enough to handle player designed ones. 

All-in-all I can see the foundation being laid but I know how frustrating having early access is for all parties involved. 

Very much like your take on things.

It's why I with many others (although mine was the most 'process' focussed as that's my professional training and experience)  have been speaking about the importance of working on each aspect of the model INDEPENDENTLY of others. Yes, ultimately they MUST work in concert to produce the intended results, but chasing those results BEFORE you've got each part within the general area of what you want is in my opinion a problem.

Get the "to hit" system as close to what you regard as ideal as you can, or at the very least at the point where the most questionable aspects are ironed out so you'd be happy for the general public to use it.  In this particular one, "to hit", there are still questions around things such as the degree to which a target's speed influences the ability to hit it.

Realistically the ability to determine speed, course and range are what matters when it comes to being able to know where I ought to fire my guns (how accurately I can fire them to that position is a separate can of worms). If I know the other two to a ridiculously high degree then different target speeds make NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL with respect to the difficulty of hitting it. It's all about plotting where the target will be when my shells will get there. Range and bearing from me give me its current position, course lets me draw a line along which it's travelling and thus different speeds simply move the target along that line by greater or lesser distances.

The devs, however, have chosen to build their model such that it applies modifiers based on a target's speed DIRECTLY, and also to the target's "manoeuvres". This has some nonsensical consequences at the extremes, as any such system is likely to do without very close and careful modelling of each factor.

As we've seen and experienced, this is just ONE part (a single modifier) of ONE part ("to hit") of ONE part ("gunnery") of ONE part ("tactical combat") of the game. Yikes.

It's why I wrote that post quite some time ago now about the 'process' view of all this.

It's also why I believe communication by Nick or others is becoming increasingly important.

We've played enough now that we would like some better picture of "this is where we are, this is where we're going, and this is why the next update will contain the following things".

In short, "trust us" only works for so long. How to manage your test community is a trick in itself.

None of which, as I often say, is intended to sound unappreciative of the great work they're doing, or their generally good feedback and involvement. I get paid to improve things in large companies. A consequence with mixed blessings is I tend to think that way ALL the time, LOL.

Cheers

 

[I Scouting Group]

On 2/19/2020 at 8:37 PM, Xthlegion said:

I am having problems with guns reloading but not firing.  This is happening to me in the new training scenarios.  I have to manually (click on the target) to get the guns to fire.  For the main guns that means it only fires ranging shots each salvo, as if I am reinitiating an engagement with the target.  It is making the game nearly unplayable.  It is also happening if I put my ship on AI.  I get a target lock, guns reload and won't fire, taking multiple salvos from the enemy ships.  This is in the Alpha4-V68 version.  

I've also noticed this, but to not the same extent. My ship will be engaging a target and I'll notice that although the guns are showing as having been reloaded, the main battery is no longer firing. If I re-select the current target, the main guns will fire immediately. The secondary battery seems to be unaffected.

Thus far, the problem seems situational and I've no idea what causes it. I'm confident, however, that it's not a product of the guns being set to "safe" because with the ridiculous amount of ammo available right now, there's no real reason to even attempt to conserve ammunition.

[supershanks]

Purchased the game a week ago loved it, particularly learning through building ships that can overcome the challenges of the mission. Have played my way through to scenario 8, the pre dreadnought conflict,  which I was struggling to win. In the last couple of days after learning more about building better ships and matching components etc., I went back and replayed the earlier ones, I expected to do a better job given my learning. However they have got much more difficult, for the reasons outlined by others in this thread. It's at a stage just now that it seems a waste of time playing which is sad.
One thing that did surprise me at the end of my 1st battle was the total anticlimax at the end, just a you won/lost. 
I had expected an anarak's analysis of hits shells fired by gun type etc., etc., I don't know if the devs have analysis of this in a debugger or something to aid the balancing process, but it crosses my mind that such statistics could be a valuable source of statistics to help balancing and tuning the game and provide some more concrete for feedback from this community.

[supershanks]

Just playing a custom battle.
Have a BB with 4 triple 14" guns 
Looking at the gun accuracy single (any of a salvo)
the screen shot shows a cumulative probability of 4x3 14" 3.3% 32.80%
The cumulative probability seems low. I make it it should be 39.6% (ie 3.3% x12) 
Is it possible to explain, how is the 32.80% arrived at ?
 
Ref: Cumulative frequency:
https://www.mathsisfun.com/definitions/cumulative-frequency.html
Screen Shot: 
Table: 

[arkhangelsk]

First, the accuracy was rounded up - it is closer to 3.25% (rounded up to 3.3) than 3.3 proper.

Second, (1-0.0325)^12=0.327315092=32.7%

[RedParadize]

@supershanks
I know its not your question, but lets cover quickly the 3.3% part. If you take the 0.5% base accuracy at 14.7km. (written on top of the column) then multiply one by one the % to the bottom you get 3.3%. I got 3.53 but number are rounded and I may have done one or two mistake.

As for the question, if you had 12 guns on the firing angle would be 39.6%.At top of the image it say "any of 12" but I am not sure if that number get updated. Were all your turret in firing angle? Maybe one was disabled?

[PainGod]

On 2/23/2020 at 3:40 PM, supershanks said:

Just playing a custom battle.
Have a BB with 4 triple 14" guns 
Looking at the gun accuracy single (any of a salvo)
the screen shot shows a cumulative probability of 4x3 14" 3.3% 32.80%
The cumulative probability seems low. I make it it should be 39.6% (ie 3.3% x12) 
Is it possible to explain, how is the 32.80% arrived at ?
 
Ref: Cumulative frequency:
https://www.mathsisfun.com/definitions/cumulative-frequency.html
Screen Shot: 
Table: 

The probability for any one tube to hit should be calculated as follows:

12 * ( 0.033^1 * 0.967^11 )
number of possible solutions * ( hit probability^number of tubes supposed to hit * no-hit probability^number of tubes supposed to not hit )

In order to calculate the probability of any one tube hitting, one must take into account any possible outcome where just one round hits.

 

Correspondingly, if one were to calculate half-salvo hit probability, one would have to take into account every possibility where half the gun tubes hit. If I'm not too wrong on that, there are 924 distinct possibilities (12C6 = 12! / [6! * (12 - 6)!]) where any six out of 12 tubes hit.

In short, for whatever reason, hit probabilities for combined tubes seem to be somewhat inflated ingame. This gives you only a 27.4% probability of hitting with any one tube out of twelve; a half-salvo hit with the given 3.3% hit probability calculates down to around 9.8 * 10^-5%.

 

What @arkhangelsk calculated (and apparently what UA does) is the probability of all tubes not hitting, then subtracting that percentage value from 100%. He also forgot to actually write down that last step in his post. 😛

I can only assume the same holds true for the half-salvo hit calculation.

 

E: Granted, the UI doesn't specify that it's any one tube hitting. As such, the salvo hit probability isn't wrong per se - it just makes my inner statistician's skin crawl. Whatever the hell is going on in regards to the half salvo hit probability, I have no idea.

E2: Alright, I haven't calculated this, but I think UA displays the probability of at least half the salvo hitting. Which means adding up the probabilities of any six, any seven, etc., up to all 12 tubes hitting. I am still somewhat doubtful even that number would come even close to 0.6%, though.

Edited February 24, 2020 by PainGod

[Evil4Zerggin]

We have three different probabilities here:

1. @arkhangelsk computed the probability of at least one shell hitting. This is IMO the value implied by the word "any".
2. @PainGod computed the probability of exactly one shell hitting.
3. @supershanks computed the average number of shells hitting.

Why are these different? Because of the possibility of multiple shells in the salvo hitting. These are not counted at all under #2, which is why it's smaller than #1. Meanwhile, #1 only counts multi-hit salvos as one, which is why it's smaller than #3.

[PainGod]

10 minutes ago, Evil4Zerggin said:

We have three different probabilities here:

1. @arkhangelsk computed the probability of at least one shell hitting. This is IMO the value implied by the word "any".
2. @PainGod computed the probability of exactly one shell hitting.
3. @supershanks computed the average number of shells hitting.

Why are these different? Because of the possibility of multiple shells in the salvo hitting. These are not counted at all under #2, which is why it's smaller than #1. Meanwhile, #1 only counts multi-hit salvos as one, which is why it's smaller than #3.

 

A point I conceded in my edit.

Emphasis mine: Aren't you contradicting yourself there?

 

#3 is only applicable for large sample sizes, which singular salvoes fall far short of. Every salvo needs to be viewed separately, though they all should in theory average out to 3.3% of all fired shells hitting for an infinite number of attempts.

[Evil4Zerggin]

5 minutes ago, PainGod said:

Emphasis mine: Aren't you contradicting yourself there

No? Counting multi-hit salvos as zero gives a smaller result than counting them as one, which gives a smaller result than counting them as the number of shell hits.

[PainGod]

2 hours ago, Evil4Zerggin said:

No? Counting multi-hit salvos as zero gives a smaller result than counting them as one, which gives a smaller result than counting them as the number of shell hits.

I see what you meant, but the way you phrased it implied #1 only counted salvoes where more than one projectile hits in your addon text?

[Evil4Zerggin]

I suppose it would have been clearer to say "counts multi-hit salvos as only one", though if I had meant the other interpretation I would have said "counts only multi-hit salvos as one".

[disc]

To clarify, the game calculates the chance that at least one shell in a salvo will hit. The formula is = 1 - [ (1 - x) ^ y ] , where x is the chance for an individual shell to hit and y is the number of shells per salvo. For example, a battleship firing 9 guns at 5% accuracy has a 1 - [ (1 - 0.05)^9 ] = 37% chance of hitting with at least one shot in a salvo. Convesely, there is a 63% chance that no hits are obtained in that salvo.

The cumulative model used by @supershanks is not displayed in the game. It calculates the average number of hits given a certain number of shots. For a 9 gun salvo at 5% accuracy, the cumulative probability is just 9×0.05=0.45. This number gives the expected quantity of hits for nine independent shots. Only an average of 0.45 hits are expected, ie less than one. If we assume the gun fires 200 times, then the value is 200×0.05=10. Thus, an average of ten hits.

[Steeltrap]

On 2/24/2020 at 3:25 PM, RedParadize said:

As for the question, if you had 12 guns on the firing angle would be 39.6%.At top of the image it say "any of 12" but I am not sure if that number get updated. Were all your turret in firing angle? Maybe one was disabled?

(This latest bit on hit probability etc is an excellent discussion on a topic I've been considering myself, so thanks to everyone involved)

Hi Red, yes, it does get updated.

I have one ship built along the "big guns, few large secondary (2x7" mounts), crap-ton of armour". It uses the wing turret slots and then I managed a funky sort of 'side by side yet slightly off-set centreline' arrangement of 2 turrets between fore and aft superstructures.

Because of that, while normally the wing and one of the midships turrets can bear on a target on each side, there's a narrow angle at which BOTH the other turrets can do so.

When I move the cursor around to consider selecting a target for the secondary battery, mostly it will show me something like 4x2 7" (the full battery) and "4:", meaning 4 barrels can fire.

Sometimes, however, that second number will read 6, indicating the target is in that narrow angle where the wing turret and BOTH the turrets aft of the main superstructure can be trained on it.

Furthermore, when the secondary guns are already trained on a target, the number will change from 4 to 6 if the bearing from my ship to the target shifts to fall within than narrow band.

I use this info quite a lot, as it's helpful if you're seeking to optimise angling v guns on target.

It's also why I tend to accept a higher "pitch" value than strictly necessary as I see little point in carrying guns that can't bear on a target unless I'm presenting a wide angle. In other words, I favour maximising the firing angles for my main battery over minimising the pitch value I suffer by pushing turrets further towards the bow and stern than strictly necessary. (As an aside, some of the bizarre weight distributions of hulls can more or less force you to do this anyway, but I DO always consider it outside the question of getting rid of weight offsets. In fact I'll tend to get firing angles I want then try to sort the weight issues from there.)

I also do my best to mount main turrets so they don't have restricted traverse zones if at all possible. That's important due to the game's highly annoying habit of waiting for all the guns to bear before firing. If you turn so as to switch a target from your port side to starboard, be that ahead or aft of you, and you have a turret that can't turn 360 degrees, it has to "go the long way" to train on the target after such a shift.

It appears the system checks to see the total guns of the battery that CAN be trained on a target and then won't fire any guns until ALL of them ARE trained on it. This is rather annoying when you've got 2 or 3 out of 3 or 4 turrets trained yet they don't fire while that other turret turns the long way to come to bear. Given the time to train that one turret can be as long or longer than the reload of the guns, FIRE THE OTHER GUNS YOU IDIOTS!!! LOL.

Well, that was all a bit longer than I expected, but I'm sure you and others are used to that by now. 😁

Cheers

Edited February 25, 2020 by Steeltrap

[Sonar]

Feedback:

Sinking ships could have variable sink rates.  A sinking ship is a navigational hazard, and it can take hours for a ship to sink.

Along those lines, dead ships don't usually immediatly stop dead in the water.

 

I'd like to see more focus on prewar and interwar hulls personally.