80 Oxygen Torpedoes to sink 1 BB... Late Game Torpedo Protection Systems still WAY overeffective

[Accipiter]

so i just did a test in Custom Battle to see how late game torpedoes behave vs late game Ships, and i build a bunch of Destroyers with the most powerful torpedoes available in the game and launched them at 1 enemy BB + 2 CA to see how much damage they did and how much it took to sink them with torpedoes alone.

setup:

24 inch (610mm) Oxygen Propulsion Torpedoes with 1940 tech and Unlock Mode on (the MOST powerful Torpedoes possible in the entire game)

thankfully the AI was nice enough to actually use a late game super BB hull (the one that is based on Iowa Class, it displaced just a little over 100 000 Tons). it had Maximum Bulkheads but i do not know what Bulkhead Armor, Pumps, and Torpedo Protection System the AI chose because the info card doesn't tell you that.

Result:

89 Torpedo hits total (took about 3 or 4 to sink each CA trough Structure Damage more often than flooding)

Just over 80 Torpedo Hits in multiple volleys to Finally sink the BB trough Flooding.

-the first 20-something torpedoes got the structure down to about 70% Health and cause a little flooding that was almost always pumped out completely. and damaged 1 out of the 3 engines, that's all.

-after about 40-something torpedoes, the structure was a little under 50% and flooding stabilized at over 70%. Rudder and 2 out of 3 Engines damaged.

-after about 60 something torpedo hits, the structure was down to where ALL compartiments at the bottom of the hull where red and most above that where either Yellow or Red, all other compartiments had no damage. 3 out of 3 engines and rudder damaged at this point. hull Structure HP was around 30%, and after that all further torpedo hits did NOTHING at all to structure. flooding stabilized at about 40%.

-Further Volleys of torps finally slowly brought flooding to 0%. sinking after just over 80 Hits total (more than 1 hour ingame time). structure still at around 30% while sinking. about 1/3 of all the torpedoes that hit did not cause any flooding, just structure damage.

also, it took a LONG time (over 30 ingame minutes) for the BB to finally come to a stop after all 3 out of 3 of its engine modules where destroyed. that is someting i noticed with Late game Hulls, especially the BB: they take a ridiculous amount of time to drop speed after losing engines or after you cut the engine to Zero kts in the speed bar. even if you maneuvre in a sharp turn. probably something to do with their massive Hull Shape stat. definitely needs looking into as well.

i suspect the reason late game Hulls Specifically are so resistant to torpedoes is the way their massive Hull Resistence stat interacts with the Torpedo Protection System's Percentage based Bonus. but i'm not sure obviously.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Accipiter

[Cptbarney]

Hotfix is coming soon fam, it should address some if not most of the stuff beign said in the feedback threads.

Not sure when it will drop either later today or tommorrow. hopefully they touch on torps as well.

[RedParadize]

I do not think they can correct this with the hotfix. It was there in alpha 3 as well.

[arkhangelsk]

Just now, RedParadize said:

I do not think they can correct this with the hotfix. It was there in alpha 3 as well.

IIRC, torpedoes were relatively effective in Alpha 3. And we do have to be careful of what we wish for. I remember someone saying something about how it is much easier to get torpedo hits (and it is not just because the torpedoes are 100% reliable) in UA:D compared to reality, and looking at all these "I smashed dozens of torpedoes into the hull" reports, there is likely truth to this. So basically this helps balance things out so a destroyer (for example) is roughly in the same position as in reality.

[Cptbarney]

3 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

I do not think they can correct this with the hotfix. It was there in alpha 3 as well.

Dunno, they seemed quite effective in alpha 3, ill have to admit i didn't play many of the very end missions much (because i like to go up in order). Think i got to mid 1930's tech before alpha 4 hit.

[Shaftoe]

IIRC, historically most torpedo protection systems, including those we have in the game, were way less effective, sometimes borderline ineffective. Some people on this forum even provided sources and explained why.

So, yeah, I completely agree. Should be much less effective, or - to be precise - way more realistic.

[RedParadize]

1 hour ago, arkhangelsk said:

IIRC, torpedoes were relatively effective in Alpha 3. And we do have to be careful of what we wish for. I remember someone saying something about how it is much easier to get torpedo hits (and it is not just because the torpedoes are 100% reliable) in UA:D compared to reality, and looking at all these "I smashed dozens of torpedoes into the hull" reports, there is likely truth to this. So basically this helps balance things out so a destroyer (for example) is roughly in the same position as in reality.

I made myself clear in feedback of what I wish for, hopefully it will considered for future update. I do not think it will be adressed in hotfix as it add new mechanics:
 

Quote

Torpedoes:
At the moment torpedo are both strong and weak. They are strong because they bypass armor and cost/mass is very low. They are weak because you need a unreasonable amount of them and with good pumping a ship can stay afloat after being hit by hundreds of torpedo. It should not be possible to deliver massive torpedo wave at point blank range without being punished for it. In alpha 3 you could do that with destroyer, not anymore (more on that later). But you can do it even better with larger heavily armored ship.

A possible solution would be to make deck torpedo more damage sensitive and have catastrophic result when destroyed. If exploding torpedo launcher would damage surrounding object and hull,  it would make deck torpedo hazardous and large stack of them truly dangerous. Torpedo could also have a wider spread, it would increase hit chance at range and make multiple hit less likely. These two measure would limit the amount of torpedo that hit, thus allow a significant buff to their damage. Ideally a single torpedo should be able to sink a poorly protected ship and significantly impair its fighting capacity of better protected one. Multiple hit should be able to sink anything.

I would take dud torpedo too. I just forgot to add this to my comment.

@Accipiter Humm, after few try I am not so sure that TDS are that great. I mean they work, but the best one can take up to 20% of the ship mass.

Edited February 11, 2020 by RedParadize