Upcoming Alpha-5

[Bluishdoor76]

me still waiting for this update :3

[lordcmdr]

Just now, Bluishdoor76 said:

me still waiting for this update :3

Ditto

[Dedlike]

1 minute ago, lordcmdr said:

Ditto

same here, i hope we get it this week atleast ...... wich i start to doubt

[Cdodders]

1 hour ago, lordcmdr said:

Ditto

Patience my young Padawan

 

[KiltedKey]

Oh man, If we get seven hulls to choose from with the Modern Battleship mission, my test bed for designs, I don’t know how I’m going to have any free time to do anything else. Even breathe.

Modern Battleships is the mission I use as the test bed for builds for flexible battleships. You have to make them able to take on anything, be flexible, take on large numbers, and yet not have infinite money.

Edited March 12, 2020 by KiltedKey

[Hangar18]

7 hours ago, madham82 said:

What have you noticed that makes you think bow tanking like WoWS? I have definitely landed pens against a bow on target at the right ranges for plunging fire. The only real issue is that bow on is a very small target to hit.  Typically when my accuracy is high enough to hit consistently bow on, my shells are no longer plunging. 

I've always considered it like this. angling to or from gives a high chance of a bounce. especially if you have an extended belt. At range besides far, I would say its better to just go bow/stern in.

if you are plunging shells, that doesnt really care about the angle of the ship.

[madham82]

24 minutes ago, Hangar18 said:

I've always considered it like this. angling to or from gives a high chance of a bounce. especially if you have an extended belt. At range besides far, I would say its better to just go bow/stern in.

if you are plunging shells, that doesnt really care about the angle of the ship.

Yep exactly. If you look at how the Hood approached Bismarck on that fateful day, the captain charged in at high speed to get under plunging fire range. Then turned broadside when he thought he was close enough. Just turns out it was too late anyway. 

[shaitan]

Related to the difficulty of destroying a fleeing battleship however, is that the deck armour is modeled as being at the height of the upper deck, such non-penetrating plunging hits are deemed to do zero damage, whereas a realistic armoured deck will merely stop plunging hits from damaging -vital- components. Combine this with penetrating plunging hits still only ever destroying the highest deck location, this leaving the mid and lower damage locations completely untouched, and it contributes to making battleships beyond a certain tonnage and armour level nigh on impossible to kill if they choose to run.

[roachbeef]

Well my school is staying closed until Tuesday, and we're starting remote classes, so I can use my skills of introversion to save the time others spend going outside. Take your time devs. Just don't go outside, as we need you to stay alive until release

[Hangar18]

4 hours ago, madham82 said:

Yep exactly. If you look at how the Hood approached Bismarck on that fateful day, the captain charged in at high speed to get under plunging fire range. Then turned broadside when he thought he was close enough. Just turns out it was too late anyway. 

still makes it like WOWS, being broadside is a much larger disadvantage.

[Shaftoe]

Edited March 13, 2020 by Shaftoe

[Steeltrap]

7 hours ago, Hangar18 said:

I've always considered it like this. angling to or from gives a high chance of a bounce. especially if you have an extended belt. At range besides far, I would say its better to just go bow/stern in.

if you are plunging shells, that doesnt really care about the angle of the ship.

 

7 hours ago, madham82 said:

Yep exactly. If you look at how the Hood approached Bismarck on that fateful day, the captain charged in at high speed to get under plunging fire range. Then turned broadside when he thought he was close enough. Just turns out it was too late anyway. 

 

2 hours ago, Hangar18 said:

still makes it like WOWS, being broadside is a much larger disadvantage.

The trouble is somewhat complicated.

Reality was that hits were infrequent at range. Thus the most important factor was giving yourself every chance TO HIT.

That meant being a stable platform, and firing all your guns as often as possible.

In the game, however, that's not the case. Scoring hits is remarkably easy against most targets, especially BB on BB. In fact the accuracy numbers for very long range with radar are frankly insane.

Thus damage mitigation becomes more important. If I can hit you firing 4 or 8 guns, but facing you at an angle means your hits are much less likely to damage me even IF it means I can only fire 4 guns, that's what makes sense.

With bloated hit rates the game needs to do something to make combat last longer than 3 minutes.

So we have the current system that, as @Hangar18 has said, starts to resemble WoWS. "Angling" and HE become far more relevant.

Trouble is no ship mounting large calibre naval rifle fires HE at a properly armoured target because it's well understood HE in all probability will NOT be likely to reach critical areas. Jellicoe himself said exactly that in his 'combat instructions' for want of a better term; he felt HE might rearrange the upper works and cause some issues and loss of effectiveness, but it was inside 10,000yds that he expected the real damage to be done WITH AP (the fact their AP had such poor performance was a different matter).

Given someone mentioned the Battle of Denmark Strait, the current game would tend to encourage Bismarck to fire HE at the oncoming Hood and Prince of Wales. Had she done so, however, no deck and magazine penetration, no catastrophic loss.

I all but know there's little point firing at a BB that is facing me bow/stern on, or at a steep angle. I might shoot HE at it if it's the only target. But I know I'm highly unlikely to achieve much until the ships shows me its broadside.

The trouble is this is rewarding me for tactical behaviour at odds with naval practice at the time. Being bow or stern on in a capital ship in a battle was a result of wanting to alter the range, not a question of reducing damage.

My view is the damage and armour systems are still very much works in progress. If the near-final systems continue all but to necessitate behaviour entirely at odds with actual naval doctrine then I will be extremely unhappy.

I have said elsewhere it's the damage/armour/damage control aspects I regard as the greatest issues for the success of the game. I've not a lot of interest in playing, regardless of all the new hulls (and I find the focus on late-game, 'modern' hulls rather underwhelming considering how the bulk of the period covered is pre-1930), precisely because of these things.

Yet it's only v5 of Alpha. They're nowhere near finished. So I'm not overly troubled given there's so much scope for change.

Cheers

Edited March 13, 2020 by Steeltrap

[arkhangelsk]

Maybe it's just me, but do you have this sneaking suspicion that while end on, ships are harder to hit than the percentage indicator suggests (thus relatively easy to hit while broadside)?

[Marshall99]

Well my university was closed because this COVID-19. So I have a lot of free time to play this epic game Also I bought some FFP3 masks. Anyway this is the best time to play this game 0-24

[HusariuS]

9 minutes ago, Marshall99 said:

Well my university was closed because this COVID-19. So I have a lot of free time to play this epic game Also I bought some FFP3 masks. Anyway this is the best time to play this game 0-24

Sure... edit: Normal people are panicking but students... they are just happy with free time xDD

And me waiting for Alpha-5:

Edited March 13, 2020 by HusariuS

[ColonelHenry]

@Nick Thomadis Can we get a little bit hint when this will drop please? I'm soooooo looking forward to this update

[Shaftoe]

Hey @Nick Thomadis! How's your Friday going?

[Cptbarney]

Imagine what the tension for alpha 6 would be like lol.

[Dan Dare]

[Bluishdoor76]

Yup still waiting, soon..... soon......

[madham82]

11 hours ago, shaitan said:

Related to the difficulty of destroying a fleeing battleship however, is that the deck armour is modeled as being at the height of the upper deck, such non-penetrating plunging hits are deemed to do zero damage, whereas a realistic armoured deck will merely stop plunging hits from damaging -vital- components. Combine this with penetrating plunging hits still only ever destroying the highest deck location, this leaving the mid and lower damage locations completely untouched, and it contributes to making battleships beyond a certain tonnage and armour level nigh on impossible to kill if they choose to run.

If this is true, the issue would be present when not bow/stern on as well. Plunging hits have to be doing some damage to lower decks otherwise you would never get an ammo detonation against a BC/BB at those ranges. Now maybe it isn't fully fleshed out, but has to be some modeling of it in the game's current state. Also if you think about it, why should you expect to sink a fleeing BB at that angle? Short of a lucky hit to a magazine it would never have happened IRL. Steeltrap's reply below sums up the reasons, but I agree better simulation of the armored decks is needed. Even if a plunging hit didn't damage the vitals because the armored deck stopped, it should be doing some structural damage. 

 

4 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

Reality was that hits were infrequent at range. Thus the most important factor was giving yourself every chance TO HIT.

That meant being a stable platform, and firing all your guns as often as possible.

In the game, however, that's not the case. Scoring hits is remarkably easy against most targets, especially BB on BB. In fact the accuracy numbers for very long range with radar are frankly insane.

I all but know there's little point firing at a BB that is facing me bow/stern on, or at a steep angle. I might shoot HE at it if it's the only target. But I know I'm highly unlikely to achieve much until the ships shows me its broadside.

The trouble is this is rewarding me for tactical behaviour at odds with naval practice at the time. Being bow or stern on in a capital ship in a battle was a result of wanting to alter the range, not a question of reducing damage

Yet it's only v5 of Alpha. They're nowhere near finished. So I'm not overly troubled given there's so much scope for change.

Cheers

You nailed it. However I kind of see the high accuracy as part of trying to achieve a balance between fun and realism. Sure it isn't realistic, but I don't think 3 or 4 hour engagements that result in few ships sunk or damaged would be fun. Could things be improved, sure. Historically most engagements ended in one side withdrawing.  IMO this should be worked into the game. Some of the missions that force you to sink X ships are unrealistic, especially when the AI can simply turn tail and make it impossible to sink them. Forcing the enemy to withdraw should be counted as victory. 

Edited March 13, 2020 by madham82
read that wrong

[Cptbarney]

i also think that instead of a ship dying at 0% it should be rendered useless at say 5% for 100k tonners and above 7.5% for most bb's. 10% for BC's and supercruisers, 12.5% for heavy cruisers, 15% for lights and dd's and 20% for transports.

That should help eleviate the forever invincible thing that ships suffer from when kiting or tanking in.

[madham82]

19 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

i also think that instead of a ship dying at 0% it should be rendered useless at say 5% for 100k tonners and above 7.5% for most bb's. 10% for BC's and supercruisers, 12.5% for heavy cruisers, 15% for lights and dd's and 20% for transports.

That should help eleviate the forever invincible thing that ships suffer from when kiting or tanking in.

You could make that work by having the ship scuttled/abandoned at X% or even better, when it's main weapons/engines/steering/other vitals are all destroyed. Maybe create some kind of value for combat effectiveness and use that to determine it. 

[Cptbarney]

26 minutes ago, madham82 said:

You could make that work by having the ship scuttled/abandoned at X% or even better, when it's main weapons/engines/steering/other vitals are all destroyed. Maybe create some kind of value for combat effectiveness and use that to determine it. 

Yeah it could say something like 'Super Battleship IJN Aki has been abandoned due to engines being destroyed!' Or 'CA Minotaur has been scuttled due to weapon destruction!' something along those lines basically.

[Dedlike]

i wonder what nick ment by a "little more time" :v one one hand i can understand not wanting to release compleatly broken stuff, on the other hand the comunity is probably going to find dozends of bugs anways