Maybe it's just me, but... those caliber progressions are a bit funky.

[Kommandant Flauschige]

I've played through slightly over half of the Academy missions, and one of the most delightful missions was "The Modern Battleship".

It puts you up against a few CL's, a few CA's, about 5 DD's, and 2 dreadnoughts.

I was allowed to put 2x triple 18in turrets, 1 fore and one aft, plus, for the sole reason that there wasn't enough space on the deck for more 18inchers, I popped in 2x triple 15in turrets, superimposed behind the 18in ones. In addition there were a few assorted 8in and 6in turrets placed here and there.

Now, by putting the ship through a gunnery-aimed refit, I could semi-accurately land hits at the maximum range of my guns.

That allowed me to start firing at the enemy far, FAR before they had time to even detect me.

I was able to utterly wreck a CA, 2x DD's, and a BB before I was spotted. I simply kept blazing away, and soon had sunk all but two destroyers. At that point I'd run out of ammo for all of my main battery guns, but as I was given enough displacement in the Shipyard to slap the Moon onto the fantail and still get decent mileage, I had used that to its fullest, boosting up my speed to the max. That meant I could make about 36kts, which subsequently meant I could dodge any and all torpedoes that even glanced in my direction. My secondaries, kitted out with Auto-Reloading and Hydraulic Turrets, soon sent the last of the impotent enemy to Davy Jone's Locker.

I finished off the mission with roughly 98% structural damage and 80% flooding.

Oh, did I mention I had a twenty-inch-thick belt?

 

All of this leads me to make a... shall we say... informed point that a bit too much displacement was handed out for the mission.

Thoughts?

Edited April 20, 2020 by Kommandant Flauschige

[Steeltrap]

It's a mission that's intended to show the sorts of power the higher/highest tech levels available can produce, and how significantly they can overshadow lesser tech.

It's somewhat like the "Armed Convoy" mission where you get to build a Dreadnought and go against pre-dread BBs, a CA and 2 CLs.

Having said that, I have long been of the view the high end tech is WAAAAAY too effective, especially with respect to accuracy. While to SOME extent increasing accuracy over historically accurate values is understandable (the average person has no idea of how low real gunnery performance was at range even in WW2), it has some significant and what I think are bad consequences for lots of OTHER things (damage model, armour, damage control to name a few).

Mind you, building a ship with 18" and 15" is so contrary to all the lessons of naval design. What made HMS Dreadnought so famous? Other than greater and reliable speed through turbines, it was the "all big guns of same calibre".

There are still loads of things for the game to resolve if it's to fall within the range of "as accurate as reasonable". But that's why we're playing NOW, to test all this stuff. Some scenarios are likely designed just to check just how greatly the different tech levels alter power, and what happens if even just a few significantly more modern ships encounter a bunch of lesser ones, as that will have implications for AI design and indeed the whole campaign.

Cheers

[Kommandant Flauschige]

Thanks for the prompt reply!

I think that the level abovementioned kind of... well... shows rather clearly the misbalancing of the tech, in my opinion.

I also note, with relation to 'all lessons of naval design'...

Isn't naval design's greatest objective to make a ship that can fight effectively as possible?

Upon that principle I can assume that using whichever technique you like, so long as it works (or has been proven to work), will guarantee the greatest amount of success.

Now, for me, my technique putting the maximum allowable number of guns of the largest allowable calibre on my ship has gotten me through almost all of the missions where you can use any BC's or BB's.

Very good point about H.M.S. Dreadnought, though.

One of my favorite parts about UA:D is simply bypassing all those centuries of naval action that made the technological and design progression possible and simply design ships as modern as I can (advanced Fire Control, ALL guns along the centerline, etc, etc.).

[Hangar18]

19 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

It's a mission that's intended to show the sorts of power the higher/highest tech levels available can produce, and how significantly they can overshadow lesser tech.

It's somewhat like the "Armed Convoy" mission where you get to build a Dreadnought and go against pre-dread BBs, a CA and 2 CLs.

Having said that, I have long been of the view the high end tech is WAAAAAY too effective, especially with respect to accuracy. While to SOME extent increasing accuracy over historically accurate values is understandable (the average person has no idea of how low real gunnery performance was at range even in WW2), it has some significant and what I think are bad consequences for lots of OTHER things (damage model, armour, damage control to name a few).

Mind you, building a ship with 18" and 15" is so contrary to all the lessons of naval design. What made HMS Dreadnought so famous? Other than greater and reliable speed through turbines, it was the "all big guns of same calibre".

There are still loads of things for the game to resolve if it's to fall within the range of "as accurate as reasonable". But that's why we're playing NOW, to test all this stuff. Some scenarios are likely designed just to check just how greatly the different tech levels alter power, and what happens if even just a few significantly more modern ships encounter a bunch of lesser ones, as that will have implications for AI design and indeed the whole campaign.

Cheers

I think a large part of the bloat is the armor. You can get silly amounts with the later tech, with no downside outside cost.

[Latur Husky]

Academy missions are supposed to teach you what solutions will give you best result in certain situation. It let's you ignore other factors of the ship and focus just on your goal. Wait until there will be missions or when campaign comes out where you have to design multiple ships and classes and compose a working fleet. In academy missions you also often get advantages based on bonus you've chosen.