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

[Evil4Zerggin]

You can trivially see that Hull Form has no effect on engine power needed by toggling between Iron Plate armor, which has a Hull Form penalty. Hull Form claims a modifier to "Engine Weight" but in fact has no effect at all. Although, if it did have the claimed percentages, we would have literally weightless engines!

[RedParadize]

@Evil4Zerggin Hull form seem to work ok.

BC of 1940 (all unlocked). Kept speed at 36 and bring tonnage to 40 000t and touched nothing else:

1st Modern BC +110H.F. Engine Mass:4 765t
2nd Modern BC +120H.F. Engine Mass:3 902t
3rd Modern BC +115H.F. Engine Mass:4 333t
4th Modern BC +100H.F. Engine Mass:5 628t
BattleCruiser V +125H.F. Engine Mass:3 470t (my favorite hull!)

Edited February 8, 2020 by RedParadize

[arkhangelsk]

24 minutes ago, Evil4Zerggin said:

You can trivially see that Hull Form has no effect on engine power needed by toggling between Iron Plate armor, which has a Hull Form penalty. Hull Form claims a modifier to "Engine Weight" but in fact has no effect at all. Although, if it did have the claimed percentages, we would have literally weightless engines!

Well, they could at least have avoided obvious embarrassments (now that I bother to look at that box) like making the battlecruiser hull, clearly intended to be more streamlined, require more power per knot than the dreadnaughts.

Now that they've reduced our power to hurt enemy battleships or even battlecruisers, all of a sudden every hit is precious and the speed mechanic, which was at worst "Oh how cute, it'll take me two more salvoes before I nail him anyway" is starting to really hurt.

[RedParadize]

HP must be wrong. Minor bug I would say. If I had to bet, under the hood only mass, hull form and speed must be considered. HP is most likely a calculation on top of that.

Much less annoying than the shell count that confuse the am mount per barrel and the amount per gun. Effectively you get 3 times more shell in triple gun than single mount. For that reason I only use the triple mount.

[Evil4Zerggin]

Hmm, then maybe only the base Hull Form is being applied and not additional modifiers?

[arkhangelsk]

8 hours ago, Reaper Jack said:

Will finally post a general list of issues that I can see with the current update. 

First, that's less a list of issues you can see with the current update than a list of issues with the game. If you recognize that this is a wall of text, cutting out Work in Progress items or problems that have always been there is a good start.

8 hours ago, Reaper Jack said:

....Capital ship hulls need to be capped at 34 knots ...

Now that we know the HP meter is effectively broken, yes, putting hard caps on speed may be the only realistic short term fix to the problem. In the longer run, I think Hull Form should change SHP, which in turn changes the engine weight - not change engine weight without changing HP, and it should be calibrated so with the modern battleship, 33 knots is about 212000 HP and so on.

8 hours ago, Reaper Jack said:

I would like to see each nation getting their own turret stats as well as shell weight and velocity differences varied between all nations

Gun range is also far lower than historical as well

The quibble about weights and MV aside (hadn't checked out what they've put for this round in those two areas yet), I actually disagree with "each nation getting its own turret stats" on philosophical grounds - this game is supposed to be about YOU building a navy. You shouldn't be overly trapped by the choices that navy made in our world. If you want high velocity gun with light shells to simulate a particular nation, the game should give you to option to replicate it, but you should not be trapped into following it with "national characteristics".

Similarly, the "gun range" in game does not have to be the realistic ballistic range regardless of the chance to hit, and I think the goal should be to simulate the realistic firing cycle rather than following a rate that's achievable in gun drills and then slapped on as a catalog spec. 

8 hours ago, Reaper Jack said:

- Crew is a much needed mechanic.

Yeah, except when the game does simulate (deliberately or accidentally) psychological factors, such as screening ships getting target fixation or ships making intelligent, human decisions to retreat, people beefed. Everyone claims to want psychological factors, but since they are subjective, putting them in tends to be the cause of endless whines. The allure fails when your ship suddenly refuses to respond because it failed a "Morale Check".

8 hours ago, Reaper Jack said:

- Torpedoes need to be reduced in number (as I noted in a post just above this) but their damage when they do hit needs to be realistic also. Right now they seem to fare slightly underwhelmingly against cruisers but very underwhelmingly against capital ships. 

- The AI is too good at dodging torpedoes

I put these two together for their interrelationship. First, the AI should be allowed to be good at what it is good at (such as doing mathematically optimal combs of torpedoes). It gives you something to strive against and compensates for the areas it isn't as good at. It shouldn't be "nerfed" from doing so because of whiney human players. You know, it's funny - when the AI is bad at something, we ask for it to improve, but then when it actually gets good we say "Devs, AI OP, plz nerf."

And remember, YOU get to share in this AI advantage. If you aren't sure of what to do when you see the torpedo warning, turning the AI on may be your best way out. Just don't blame it too much if it doesn't work - remember you turned on the AI because you did not know what to do.

As for the torpedoes, I'm of two minds about it. On realism grounds, ideally this is the case. On the other hand, remember again that our torpedoes are 100% reliable, but the AI is not. Also, if their battleships start blowing up after one 24-inch torpedo nicks them, human players will not generally be very understanding.

But, devs, really, can we have hydrophones on BBs since you keep giving us missions where we don't have any destroyers or light cruisers that might have hydrophonic capability?

[Evil4Zerggin]

Actually this is getting stranger and stranger:

• A 1940 BB (Modernized Dreadnought II) and BC (Modern), both of 51000 t displacement and 36 kt speed.
• The BC has higher Hull Form...
• But a higher HP requirement???
• But its engine weighs 1/3 as much???

[arkhangelsk]

17 minutes ago, Evil4Zerggin said:

Actually this is getting stranger and stranger:

• A 1940 BB (Modernized Dreadnought II) and BC (Modern), both of 51000 t displacement and 36 kt speed.
• The BC has higher Hull Form...
• But a higher HP requirement???
• But its engine weighs 1/3 as much???

OK, let's see. ~270,000HP for 36 knots is plausible if you assume a very streamlined for speed hull, so let's roll with that. Divide by 4536 tons of engine weight and we are getting 59.7 HP/ton. Multiplying by 14014 tons of the BB, the BB should be producing (assuming similar engines) 836,734HP. If you look at it this way, the penalty for a lesser hull form feels very steep 😱

[roachbeef]

36 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

But, devs, really, can we have hydrophones on BBs since you keep giving us missions where we don't have any destroyers or light cruisers that might have hydrophonic capability?

I'm all for BBs and CAs having hydrophones, but the proper answer is to stop sending us into scenarios with either no DDs or DDs we can't design ourselves. And instead of artificial mission timers that fail us after an arbitrary amount of time, either

1. Remove the timer entirely
2. Allow for minor victories when enemy retreats heavily damaged, minor defeats, draws, etc.
3. Add some crew so ships can be combat ineffective without sinking
4. Have actual consequences for being too slow: actually have enemy reinforcements come in, ship running out of fuel to RTB, etc. Don't say "time's up, you lose!"

[Reaper Jack]

51 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

- Snip -

Aye, I went off on a bit of a tangent indeed. My concern with torpedo dodging is that the AI gets no penalty for making maneuvers literally every 5 seconds (in terms of accuracy, realistically they would be constantly acquiring a new firing solution.) And as of right now, the AI can micromanage dodge with individual ships while we as the human player cannot, a simple check box to automatically maneuver when torpedoes are spotted would go a long way, seeing as the AI clearly already does this, and would mean we still have control over our ships.  I also believe this check box should exist for a ship retreating to the rear part of the line, or that it should be a given order to do so. I've had a few too many times where the lead ship attempts to do this and simply blocks off the other ships, forming a pile up of sorts. 

Torpedo damage on the other hand would need to also be more realistic if we are going to go in the direction of actual realistic torp numbers on board. This will vary heavily and mean that you as the designer have to consider the very real threat of torpedoes and allocate weight to protecting against them. However I also believe that only Oxygen torpedoes should have range above 10km, while I am sure that some regular and electric torpedoes could go over 10km, the cases were rare, or they sacrificed speed to do so, this would give our secondaries a better opportunity to do their job, combine crew into this as well, and near misses will persuade destroyers to break off attempted torpedo runs as will direct hits, before they enter torpedo range. 

As for gun ranges, no, I must disagree. In game Eighteen Inch or 457mm guns can reach almost 40km, as they did historically, but modern heavy cruiser guns can barely make half their historical range? This presents a problem to me because half the point of the modern treaty and post treaty cruisers was mobile actions that required dishing out damage almost surgically while taking as little as possible in return. Outranging smaller guns was part of this strategy for all navies as even destroyer shells and especially light cruiser shells could be catastrophic to Heavy Cruisers, especially the low armoured treaty cruisers. The only guns that should have a range in the 10-18km region are destroyer weapons up to 140mm. (Also, 139/140mm or 5.5 inch guns are something I would like to see added, as several navies used them historically. Notably France and the USSR, with dual purpose 140mm secondaries considered for use by many more.) 

[RedParadize]

1 hour ago, Evil4Zerggin said:

Actually this is getting stranger and stranger:

• A 1940 BB (Modernized Dreadnought II) and BC (Modern), both of 51000 t displacement and 36 kt speed.
• The BC has higher Hull Form...
• But a higher HP requirement???
• But its engine weighs 1/3 as much???

One displace 39kt and the other 27kt. For boat friction matter allot.

Edit:
I am not happy with simplifying this into "friction". So let me explain it a bit further. Displacement type of hull require to move more than their weight each time they advance their own length. Slim and well profiled hull help when it come to that. Also, since volume scale to the cube and surface scale to the square you get a appreciable reduction of friction on the hull when the ship get bigger. For that reason bigger displacement hull ship require proportionally less force to go the same speed.

Anyways. Hull form buff seems to work fine. Not so sure about HP trough, but if I was you I would not pay much attention to it. It doesn't mean the same thing as it does for car.

Edited February 8, 2020 by RedParadize

[Evil4Zerggin]

13 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

One displace 39kt and the other 27kt. For boat friction matter allot.

Used tonnage does not affect either engine HP or weight, only the maximum displacement matters. For example, here is the same BC after coating it in 50" armor:

 

 

Edited February 8, 2020 by Evil4Zerggin

[RedParadize]

@Evil4Zerggin Ah, I see what you mean. Move the displacement slider, you will see the HP and engine mass change. Basically what it mean is that if you do not max out your ship to its displacement you do not get a reduction in engine mass. I am fairly ok with that.

[arkhangelsk]

1 hour ago, Reaper Jack said:

the AI gets no penalty for making maneuvers literally every 5 seconds (in terms of accuracy, realistically they would be constantly acquiring a new firing solution.)

We already get a penalty for maneuver and there is no reason to believe the computer doesn't get that same penalty. AFAIK, no one has clear-cut caught the AI having "rights" that players don't have (remember, you can detach ships to maneuver them, too). In the case of torpedo evasion, it is just infinitely attentive and on a good day knows his ships a lot better than the player, that's all. It's "Player Skill". Your check box threatens to remove the need for attentiveness and further, if the computer doesn't evade the torpedo for the player (it does happen), the player will be demanding fixes.
As for completely losing lock on any significant turns, regardless of realism I suggest you don't do it if you don't want the AI to get another edge. Guess WHO can compute mathematically-perfect intercepts and other maneuver solutions on the fly, remember the exact limits of its gun arcs, and coolly maneuver the ship deftly to JUST avoid torpedoes by less than 1/10th of a ship length. Hint, it is not the player. YOU would be making constant sharp maneuvers and losing lock all the time. IT will be nudging its rudder so your torpedoes just squeeze past him.

1 hour ago, Reaper Jack said:

only Oxygen torpedoes should have range above 10km

I am already using every torpedo damage reduction measure they've given me. Presumably, my protection is at its theoretical max and better than Yamato and Bismarck combined. I'm still feeling the torpedoes bite me. As for the ranges, right now it seems the performance is optimized off giving oxygen torpedoes their due - IIRC the last in-game torpedoes were 14km range or so, and the oxygen is 30% extra so +4.2=18.2km at 46 knots, close to their actual range in RL. Historically, the difference should be more like +100% in favor of the oxygen torpedo and the electric torpedo should have the ranged halved again, but I guess they didn't want to make THAT heavy a penalty for not developing Oxygen.
Further, historically guns did not deter destroyers from making torpedo runs, at least not enough that your proposed change will have much effect.

1 hour ago, Reaper Jack said:

mobile actions that required dishing out damage almost surgically while taking as little as possible in return.

I won't object to them adding more range blocks, but at 7.5% base hit rate even at 17500m, you will not be very "surgical" in any case. You still do get a outranging edge on 6" and 5", so you can still out-range the light cruisers and destroyers. Plus remember, in this game, 11-inch guns on heavy cruisers are available for those who want that extra bit of reach.ockquote widget

[Reaper Jack]

32 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

We already get a penalty for maneuver and there is no reason to believe the computer doesn't get that same penalty. AFAIK, no one has clear-cut caught the AI having "rights" that players don't have

I am already using every torpedo damage reduction measure they've given me. Presumably, my protection is at its theoretical max and better than Yamato and Bismarck combined. I'm still feeling the torpedoes bite me. As for the ranges, right now it seems the performance is optimized off giving oxygen torpedoes their due - IIRC the last in-game torpedoes were 14km range or so, and the oxygen is 30% extra so +4.2=18.2km at 46 knots, close to their actual range in RL. Historically, the difference should be more like +100% in favor of the oxygen torpedo and the electric torpedo should have the ranged halved again, but I guess they didn't want to make THAT heavy a penalty for not developing Oxygen.
Further, historically guns did not deter destroyers from making torpedo runs, at least not enough that your proposed change will have much effect.

I won't object to them adding more range blocks, but at 7.5% base hit rate even at 17500m, you will not be very "surgical" in any case. You still do get a outranging edge on 6" and 5", so you can still out-range the light cruisers and destroyers. Plus remember, in this game, 11-inch guns on heavy cruisers are available for those who want that extra bit of reach.ockquote widget

- Never said so, I am saying that maneuver penalties are not severe enough, I do not expect to see an 1895 armored cruiser one shot Destroyer after Destroyer at 7km with 229mm guns, hitting nearly every volley from one turret, all the while at full rudder shift and changing speed. (Yes, I watched this happen to varying levels on repeat.) 

- Oxygen torpedoes can reach over 22km in game, or at least I have seen AI torpedoes that reached 22km. Yes, they should be the most powerful, never disputed that (they should also be a massive explosion risk and be very, very expensive.) Cheap torpedoes have shorter ranges, this is what you paid for historically, if you wanted 15km range with the German G7a for example, you slowed the speed to 26 knots, meanwhile electric torpedoes never achieved ranges in the double km digits through WW2, which frankly is a price they should pay for an 87% boost to their stealth. Agai, there are factors we don't currently have to account for which are at play, such as the campaign economy and the fact I haven't seen torp tubes get detonated since Alpha 2. Oxygen will not be the be all and end all weapon for torpedoes if you go in a different direction. 

- Guns did deter destroyers from making torpedo runs, several times. The most famous example is the night action versus Bismarck before she was sunk, her secondaries did exactly what secondaries were built to do, not sink, but tell the enemy Destroyer to sod off in the most explosive manner possible. 

- 7.5% is plenty as far as accuracy is concerned, add modifiers and it goes up, my heavy cruisers have gotten up to 20% accuracy at current max range. (Which is too much.) And also, no, you're not protected from 6 inch weapons, the range difference between them, especially if different shell types are used, or different propellants, can be less than 1km. 11 Inch guns are fine and dandy, but be prepared to pay through the nose for them in the campaign. From the designs I have made if you're putting 11 inchers on cruisers you might as well build a small battlecruiser instead going by the little costs window. 

[Steeltrap]

11 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

Are you sure it isn't because your 8" guns are Mark 4 and your 14" guns are Mark 3? At 5000m, as taken off a randomly generated battleship in that mission, the hit chance of the 8" Mark 4 twin is 9.8%, while the 14" Mark 3 triple is 6.2%, increasing to 6.5% for singles and doubles. By the way, 12" Mk 3 are 7.4-7.8%, and 9" Mark 4 are 9.8-10%.

 

Yes, that was a factor. Regardless, it was a similar story, though not as extreme, for 10" mk4 v 6" mk4. I tried using triple mains, but also doubles.

They appeared simply to have brought main back BELOW secondary guns at useable combat ranges when coupled with lower tech levels.

The best you can mount on the BC hull in that scenario is Lvl 2 main tower and Lvl 4 secondary, plus lvl 2 rangefinders.

I don't accept that 6" guns ought to be 70% more accurate than 10" at 7.5km (I think that was it).

It also appears that there's no differentiation between main guns and secondaries when it comes to aiming bonuses, although I'll need to check that further.

That Armoured Convoy mission has changed from being too easy to wipe out the warships to being largely impossible to do so. Happily my own ship of course becomes a beast in terms of durability, so I just charge to the end of the transport column at 30 knots and pick them off one at a time, eventually having to put up with being shot at by everything as I deal with the last transport or two. Not that they can do much to me, either.

I've also noticed I am taking many more hits from the AI than I used to. Just how that happened I don't know.

Again, telling us that the difference in main gun accuracy v secondaries doesn't tell us much. HOW it has been done becomes rather important to know.

My general opinion hasn't changed. Main guns OUGHT to be more accurate than secondary guns under MOST circumstances because they were the ones coupled to the most sophisticated fire control the ship had, and that ought to be particularly evident as fire control methods improved yet secondary guns were not linked to directors. We've seen all sorts of great evidence supporting that. The secondaries still benefit from firing several times more rapidly than the main guns.

The second point is it's true we ought to see fewer main gun hits, fewer hits in general in fact, than we saw in Alpha 3 hotfix. What we SHOULDN'T see is penetrating AP hits do bugger all.

I've been thinking about all this for a while, and might open a thread specifically to discuss thoughts on the damage model. I am of the view we are seeing too many (hopefully) unintended consequences from changes that were meant to address something. Either it was done hastily, or without proper assessment of the cascade effects, or the fact is the whole damage model is still just too simple to produce results that aren't either too weak or too powerful. Plus it seems adjusting it to make sense in one situation means it no longer makes sense elsewhere.

Which brings me back to understanding the design, and how various factors combine to produce results.

Cheers

[Steeltrap]

6 hours ago, RedParadize said:

 
This meta work from the point were you get deck torp to end game. Basically, you snipe DDs with guns, they do not need to be big, and use massive volley of torpedo against anything else. Max speed is a must, some decent armor just to be sure. With a ship like this, you can kill a handful of Super Battleship and their escort.

Not saying that this should not be allowed. I mean, maybe it would have worked. But I would prefer if that was the job of DDs.

I appreciate the playing around to find what works in the update, lol.

The fact that BC works as you describe simply highlights the problems. Again, it's as though the devs have heard our comments about things being too EASY to sink with gunfire, so they've made it far too difficult to sink ANYTHING much with gunfire rather than adjust the durability solely of the BBs and BCs. CAs and CLs ought not be shrugging off 11" or greater shells, just look at Battle of River Plate for relative effects of small v larger shells.

At the same time, it appears torps were left more or less along (don't know, don't really play with them).

So you end up building a frankly ridiculous BC in response to the new reality. Ingenious, lol, but no way on earth would a navy build a capital ship like that when it could so easily build a load of CL and DD to do the same, just as indeed they did with CL "destroyer leader" classes leading a DD division (I know IJN did that, but think the Germans and Brits also did in WW1 at least).

Edited February 8, 2020 by Steeltrap

[Steeltrap]

7 hours ago, DougToss said:

     Were I to speculate, I would guess that the Devs are taking feedback from here - which is great - but are acting reactively which is not. What I mean is, rather than trying to change each system to achieve the desired result when things go wrong take the time required to get each system perfectly right. The balance between firepower-mobility-protection  will only be right when each leg of the tripod is fully developed. It's changing the input to get the right output, without looking at the other things at play.

This is a fantastically succinct and easily grasped version of what I was trying to convey in the long post I made about the individual processes that combined to produce the tactical combat experience. Each needs to be developed within itself to produce the best results in line with the devs' intended final product.

Playing around with different factors within incomplete systems, let alone trying to placate the often very different demands of we players, is not the way to go.

While I discussed this issue before, lately I've been saying it outright and why it troubles me.

Great stuff.

[RAMJB]

22 minutes ago, Steeltrap said:

The fact that BC works as you describe simply highlights the problems. Again, it's as though the devs have hear our complaints about things being too EASY to sink with gunfire, so they've made it far too difficult to sink ANYTHING much with gunfire instead of being able to adjust the durability solely of the BBs and BCs.

At the same time, it appears torps were left more or less along (don't know, don't really play with them).

I know some people are going to disagree but hear me out here.

I think it's a matter of knowing where we stand. WE're not sitting on a finished game, nor anywhere near. This is very much a game in need of many changes and modifications in order to make it immersive and representative of naval combat of the big gun era.

In doing things like this when you do something that means a drastic change, like this change to the way damage works, you're bound to "break" things that seemingly were working before. I want to emphasize the word "seemingly", btw. At this point ,where you're about to introduce such a change you can do it in two ways:

a) change what you want to drastically change, and proactivelly drastically change the rest of things that dynamically interact with that particular part of the game, in hopes of landing somewhere close...but risking landing terribly far. And there are A LOT of such things, so there's a risk of some of them being more or less OK, others being completely off-the-mark, etc. Then you have to adjust them all at the same time, which is a heck of a headbreaking effort and can end up being a straight up nightmare.

or

 

b) change what you want to drastically change, leave the rest as it is, and reactivelly change the other parts of the game that interact with that one, to bring everything in line in due time, not by changing them all at a time, but by adressing a couple of them at a time. Far simpler, far less problematic, the drawback being that after the initial change the whole game will be out of whack, and that this way is a longer process to bring everything in line.  


This change is meaningful. VERY meaningful. I think the change here was based on just one parameter: hull resistance factor now is REALLY important at the time of calculating the real structural damage sustained by a ship from a penetrating hit. Which is EXACTLY how it should be. A 50.000 ton warship will take a 16'' shell much better than a smaller ship built with way less sturdiness, as a cruiser or a destroyer.

this in turn, however, has brought a lot of things out of line, specially those which were/are linked to structural and compartment damage. Flooding mechanics seem to be strongly affected aswell, so are destroying individual components: both related with compartment damage which is also now lower than before, which compounds the problem because now weakening an enemy is a much harder proposition.

The results are incredibly hard to sink battleships - but it's a temporary thing. Now that the structural damage taken by big ships is at what I'd say a very good place, it's time to work out the rest of things that are NOT in a good place anymore and bring them up to standard once again.

Meaning, that right now our task isn't to report battleships are too hard to sink. That's a no brainer. What we need is to report how, and give ideas on how to adjust other areas of the game to adapt to that new reality, which is a GOOD reality even if it has messed up things for the time being. Some extra ideas of how the mechanics could be adapted for a better representation of how things actually were can be great too.

The foundation is laid, time to build on top of it. I'd rather have it this way that the devs having introduced this change alongside a sweeping list of changes on everything else that would make it EXTREMELY HARD for us to note all the parts that need adjusting, and for them to bring them in line.

That's my take on it at least. I also don't think that this was based on players feedback alone. From what I've seen thus far the devs indeed listen to the playerbase but they have a pretty clear idea of what they want to do on their own. This (making big ships very hard to sink through structural destruction alone) was a VERY prominent weakness of the game, which needed to be adressed. It has been changed, and of course that has produced problems. Not surprisingly. Now it's time to help them changing the other areas of the game that have been affected in order to make the battle system as immersive and believable as possible in what regards to the damage model.

Edited February 8, 2020 by RAMJB

[Evil4Zerggin]

The torpedo situation is getting a bit out of hand.

These are 21" torpedoes. A second 90-combo of torpedoes still couldn't sink the BB.

(The fact that I was able to do a 90-combo is another issue...)

Edited February 8, 2020 by Evil4Zerggin

[Steeltrap]

3 minutes ago, RAMJB said:

I know some people are going to disagree but hear me out here.

 ~ good stuff ~

That's my take on it at least.

I'm fine with that.

I very much agree with the principles of capital ships being much tougher and have said so. Also agree with my towers not being killed by a few 4" shells.

What would be IDEAL from my perspective would be some slightly greater engagement from the Devs in terms of pointing us in certain directions.

If they know they're going to make DRASTIC changes, DON'T SURPRISE US. In fact, I'd suggest rather than a blanket "Alpha 4 feedback" I'd welcome them pinning a few specific topics, such as "accuracy", "gunnery damage", "torpedo damage" and similar. We could post where our feedback is most relevant, and they'd be telling us BEFORE WE'VE EVEN PLAYED A BATTLE the sorts of things they are expecting and wanting feedback on.

I already have some thoughts on the damage model that might well be completely the reverse of how they've done things, for example. Regardless, the damage model remains such a crucial, APPARENTLY crude, and very much opaque thing.

Sharing a bit about the specifics of it, just as they did quite some time ago on the gunnery model, would be a very welcome action on their part IMO.

Cheers

[Steeltrap]

As an aside, as I realise I'm writing some fairly critical posts, I thought I'd make a few different and general points:

I think it's great we're seeing continued development. While we're perhaps a bit perplexed as to the nature of the changes, it's great we're still seeing it and the devs communicating as much as ever.

I also completely understand the devs are extremely busy and the forum can be an endless time sink if they're not careful, lol. I don't expect complete, let alone 'perfect', information. I do think some greater depth on crucial mechanics being developed and that might be specifically obvious within an update would be great, but also know there's only so much they can do. The call for more info is intended as a "suggested improvement" in itself.

Despite the point above, my first lengthy post in this thread, back on page 3, contained a fair bit of specific feedback and then some broader, constructive yet critical comments. Admin gave it a like. That says a lot, I think.

It's also great that the discussions, even where some of us may be somewhat in disagreement over certain things, are positive and mutually respectful from what I can see.

While I'm expressing some irritation at recent things, and less than ideal explanations and communications regarding them, it's because I remain as willing as ever to attempt to contribute to an excellent result.

Cheers all

 

Edited February 8, 2020 by Steeltrap

[Mhtsos]

After the latest match, I can attest that secondaries now (in many cases) are far more accurate than the main battery.

Eg. in a 1916 BB (undamaged) with single 6" @ 7-8km that had more accuracy than the main 13" vs a CL .

Something that shouldn't happen, as in theory the single secondaries are under local aim and the main battery has a beefy tower/main controller.

|

I think that is a symptom of overcompensating "adjustments" to feedback from here, as is the return of the HE spam.

 

[Tousansons]

HE spam was in since the beginning, it was always more reliable to load HE at long/mid range, in alpha 3 these HE could pen and flood as easily as AP. In alpha 4 it seems to work better now that AP penetration is so low, but trust me, nothing really changed here.

I agree with the "overcompensating adjustement" and in my opinion it is a mistake. Tweaking accuracy/pen/whatever numbers this dramatically when crucial parts of the game are still not here feels wrong and could just blind the feedback in the direction of these said numbers before the important part that are broken since day 1.

[arkhangelsk]

6 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

I don't accept that 6" guns ought to be 70% more accurate than 10" at 7.5km (I think that was it).

Ah yes, the poor ten inch gun, one of the disfavored calibers this round.

I've gone over the accuracies of the guns, Mark I to Mark V. It seems that basically there are three "favored" calibers this time round - the 2-inch, the 9-inch and the 12-inch. The guns immediately after them get clipped in accuracy and then slowly climb up again in accordance to their caliber.

If I'm feeling really nice, I suppose I can explain away the 2-inch's close in accuracy buff as the can be handled manually Factor. I can even suggest that the 9 inch is based on the idea that 10 inch and 11 inch are not so much battleship calibers as cruiser overcalibers, and that was their clumsy attempt to punish people for using them. Actually you are supposed to use Pitch/Roll to punish them but I guess the formula couldn't be stretched enough for that. Still, a better solution if this is the case is to quietly make two sets of 10 and 11 inch weapons, one for the cruisers and the other for the battleships.

And I really cannot see why the 12 inch is a favored caliber. I can almost forgive Mark 3 to 5 on the theory that by then the 12-inch is an obsolete caliber unless it is a specially made gun. But the buff is there, all the way to Mark 1 and 2.

Also, my sense is that the base accuracies of each gun is set positivistically (like me entering raw numbers into Excel) rather than them being the result of some formula considering baser elements. That's the only way to explain these arbitrary bumps.

As for your problem ... just design your ship with 9 inch guns for now.