"Destroy a Full Fleet" is currently impossible

[Norbert Sattler]

Please fix this mission. Right now this mission is almost impossible.

I just tried this mission 8 times in a row and 5 out of those 8 times the enemy destroyed main gun turrets or the main tower with their ranging shots. And even when that didn't happen, the enemy still just takes out the main and secondary tower in short order which puts the on paper chance to hit below 5 percent, if my ship(s) can even still see the enemy at all.

Also the chance to hit value is completely off. My guns have a text saying 33% chance to hit, so I'd expect that on average two of my six shells from those guns would hit each salvo, but instead only a single shell hits every three salvoes. which is 5.5% hit chance. And I'm not talking about bounces off of the enemy armour, but actual misses with water splashes.

Right now this mission is unplayable.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Norbert Sattler
corrected misspelling in title

[Latur Husky]

Some missions are really hard, but they can be beaten. Also if enemy can hit you consecutively and you can't hit the enemy, that means you might look at modifiers and adjust to eliminate them. Or maybe you just need to change something in your design. If your guns get's eliminated by plunging shots, maybe get more armor on turret tops, reduce the distance (push a bit more aggressively), get thicker barbettes, and change propellant. Maybe grab heavier or lighter ammunition etc...

[Norbert Sattler]

How will changing the armour of the ship help when it's the main and secondary tower that get destroyed? You can't put any armour on those. Just armouring up the Conning Tower doesn't protect the firecontrol equipment and radar.

Also I noticed that it's only the first two salvoes the enemy does... or rather the ranging shots and first salvo that's so broken. In the rest of the round all shots that hit the very same turrets bounce off, regardless of whether it's plunging or direct fire, but in the first 30 seconds of the mission if they hit they always go through.

I also can't believe that being hit by the raning shots of an enemy more than 20 km away is something that should almost consistently be possible.

Also my issue isn't that my ships can't hit (well, that too, but not only that), but that the numbers the game tells me are way off from what is actually happening.

If you stay out of secondary range, the chance to hit even with 16" turrets, best rangefinder, best radar and ships going at the speed that gives the highest cruising speed bonus get 5% chance to hit... that number you see as 5% anyway and as I mentioned the real chance to hit is significantly lower than that... in other words you can't hit. Meanwhile the enemy can hit you with at lest two battleships and a battlecruiser and potentially also the heavy cruiser depending on the RnG designs and they will hit you.

If you go into range of the 203mm/8" you get an absolute torrent of fire that will set you ablaze and your firecontrol equipment disabled in short order, crippling you for the rest of the battle. Going any closer without first taking out the DDs and CLs is pure suicide because they pack very strong torpedoes, so rushing in is not an option either. Even with maximum anti-torpedo protection, tripple bottom and maxed out bulkheads, those torpedoes will cripple you. And there are too many to dodge them all reliably.

Please don't go off of how it was in previous verisons, but give it a try as it is right now.
I strongly suspect that originally the mission was made for an earlier version of the game and balance chances to ships since then have made it next to impossible (as well as a bug that makes the gun values go bonkers the first 30 seconds of the round - which is something other people on this forum have also reported, so it's not just me).

Edited April 26, 2020 by Norbert Sattler
clarifying better what I mean

[The_Real_Hawkeye]

I can't comment on the specific mission, as I haven't tried it yet, but afaict, @Norbert Sattler is correct with the bogus to-hit numbers.

15 to 20% to-hit chance, 3 BBs, each with 4 x 2 12-inch guns. With this, I'd expect to get some 3 to 5 hits with each 3-ship-broadside. As is, I get perhaps a single hit per 3-ship-broadside - if I'm lucky.

As I see it, there are 2 possibilities. 

Either the game is blatantly lying to me or the RNG is complete and utter ***** - which, come to think of it, isn't unheard of in games.

[Cptbarney]

Ye just tried with a french old style dread and a 2 french BC's got rekt with the latter, ran out of ammo with the former before i could finish the BC off.

Ill try again tommorrow with the same ship.

[Strait Raider]

This was one of the harder ones for sure. In the end this was one of a couple of missions I had to use a semi-memey build for, so some advice:

Maximize firepower tech, upgrading your offensive capabilities is almost always a much better choice because you can manage your survivability through appropriate range and angles (you are probably already doing this). The most efficient big guns for this mission are probably the 16" guns due to accuracy being much better than anything else over 9".

Try Battlecruisers, because battlecruisers are IMO OP under the current system.
- Battlecruisers are much cheaper than battleships and much harder to hit, while making it much easier to chase down fleeing ships, which is important in this mission.
- Battlecruiser's main drawback is vulnerability, but with the ability to slot citadel V and barbettes IV you are basically immune to serious damage at range or nose-in. When combined with maximum bulkheads it's almost impossible to have your ammo go off (it's a bit exploitative I think currently and needs work).

I was able to squeeze out 3 Battlecruisers with 2x3 16" guns each, for the equivalent firepower of two Iowa-class ships, but going 40 knots. Still enough left over to run a solid suite of secondaries.  Don't worry too much about armoring up, but keep half-decent horizontal protection for when you close the distance. I did not bring torps

Smash the big capital ships at range, although it will be very difficult to secure a kill due to current mechanics. Try to focus one at a time and secure at least one BB or BC kill before they start to run. Once the bigger ships are crippled and likely fleeing you can start closing the distance and dealing with smaller ships. The maneuverability of your battlecruisers will help dodge torps and their speed means you can somewhat take your time.

Keep in mind that you don't have to sink all the capital ships - the objective is only 70% of ships, so killing all the small targets can net you the win. I might not have killed either of the battleships in my run, come to think of it.

[Norbert Sattler]

I take it you meant two tripple 16" turrets?

In my game I just tried the same, but the standard Barbette can't carry the 16" and even on full displacement I have no spot where a huge one can fit. The only way I can fit three turrets is to make a Q turret between the main and secondary towers, which doesn't leave enough room for a second funnel, or go with one in front and two in the back, which only works by picking a smaller secondary tower and thus trading in accuracy and damage control. Either setup isn't exactly great for chasing down feeling enemies either, since you only have two guns forward, which will have you stuck in a loop of constant "ladder shooting in progress" since two guns aren't enough to ever get fully aimed... or at least it was that way when I tried to chase an enemy with a ship that had two doubles forward, but one was taken out.

[Norbert Sattler]

Okay I just had their weirdest design against me in that mission.
One of the enemy BBs had two 18" turrets forward and just a couple of small secondaries in the back and a full set of 8" casemates - also concentrated mainly in the forward section of the ship.
While the stats said it had a topspeed of 23 kn, it was barely moving at all and clearly had it's nose dipped at quite an angle, both probably because of the massive forward weight offset.

Where in all of my tries yesterday the BBs exceeded 600 mm of armour and despite the heavy armour never went below 26 kn and usually stay well above that.
Here the two BBs were around 400 and 500 max amour and 25kn and 22kn speed (except the 25 as mentioned certainly never reached that speed due to weight offset).
Thanks to their much lower speed my ships could actually hit from beyond 8" gun-range, unlike yesterday, despite using tripple 16", which are a little less accurate than the twin 16" I used yesterday.
Even the DDs had far fewer and shorter range torps and the CL was a gun-only setup and all were bizzarly easier to hit for my 8" guns, though I guess the lack of damage instability on my ships from being hosed down with a torrent of shells had probably something to do with that.

Either I had an extremely lucky break today, an unlucky streak of epic proportions yesterday or the game is far more forgiving with what it gives the enemies if you use BC instead of BB yourself.

Either way I think this mission needs some rebalancing. With BBs the mission is pretty much impossible and with the BC the mission wasn't even particularly hard anymore. With the BB it's about being able to survive and stay in an effective fighting shape, with the BC the only problem was not letting the enemies escape and getting them within the timelimit.
With 2 BCs I managed to beat the misison by destroying everything except 1 BB on the first try... with 12 seconds to spare. ^^

Thanks for the tip with the BC.

Edited April 27, 2020 by Norbert Sattler

[Hardlec]

Have the AI design the ship.  Have the AI play the AI.  If the result isn't 50/50, there is a significant skew in difficulty.  I don't look for the computer to be a pushover, but I don't want the AI cheating, either.

It might be a good idea to have difficulty levels at the player's command.  

[Shaftoe]

This mission needs to be adjusted. Either the enemy overwhelms the player, or player runs out of ammo and/or time. That's not how a well designed scenario should work.

[cipher315]

I will say this mission is hard but no ware near impossible.

Some pointers. I go with enhanced firepower and 2 BBs

Also remember you win condition is kill 70% of the enemy ships you can do this without so much as scratching the pant on the enemy BBs. The 3 DDs CL CA and BC are over 70% and 15-16in guns with 7-8in casements as back up will shred the lighter ships. You still win even if at the end the two enemy BB's would kill you if the fight were to go to the end.

[Hardlec]

On 4/26/2020 at 11:35 AM, The_Real_Hawkeye said:

I can't comment on the specific mission, as I haven't tried it yet, but afaict, @Norbert Sattler is correct with the bogus to-hit numbers.

15 to 20% to-hit chance, 3 BBs, each with 4 x 2 12-inch guns. With this, I'd expect to get some 3 to 5 hits with each 3-ship-broadside. As is, I get perhaps a single hit per 3-ship-broadside - if I'm lucky.

As I see it, there are 2 possibilities. 

Either the game is blatantly lying to me or the RNG is complete and utter ***** - which, come to think of it, isn't unheard of in games.

Okay:

I am severely concerned when I bring a fleet of 4 battleships, with best possible fire control and 12 by 15 inch guns each, and I can't score a hit.  In the meantime, my enemy is shooting me to pieces with 10 inch guns.  This is wrong.  Please don't insult me and say it's not.

I am also extremely concerned when I pay the price for a 30 knot ship, set my division speed to max, and can't get a single ship to exceed 19 knots.

The AI always hits first.  Always.

There is no way for me to make a simple tactical choice:  Stay out of torpedo range.  It is to laugh.  Undetected destroyers announce their presence when they hit my capital ships with a salvo of torpedoes  I have NO ABILITY TO DODGE.  I may as well not bring battleships to a battle where there are destroyers.

I want to test my ability to design ships.  There is no documentation on how to design ships.  I watch videos on all these cool ship designs that I can't reproduce.  Look, Mr. Designers, I want to design ships, not spend hours trying to master an arcane and undocumented ship designer.

I want to test my tactics, not my ability to master an arcane and undocumented tactical interface.  

There needs to be a way to choose the difficulty level of combat.  Sorry, guys.  The AI always hits first, scores disproportionate numbers of critical hits, and commands to my ships, allegedly under human control, are ignored.  Ships with 30 knot speed which are not damaged, ordered to full speed, should move at 26 to 28 knots, not 18 to 20 knots.

I love the concepts, and I love the art.  But it doesn't compensate for an outright poor user interface.

Yeah.  I'm a paying customer and I want to do the same cool things they do on Youtube with complimentary software.

[Cptbarney]

Might try this mission again.

[kadm]

To beat a mission you need to understand it.

1) Destroyers are always a threat 
2) Enemy will run if battered (and is very fast)
3) All enemy ship types present
4) Enemy has 2 BBs and a BC
5) Enemy has high torpedo protection
6) You need to kill 70%. As there are 9 ship that means 7 ships need to go down.

Let's look at potential composition
DD/Cl -> invalidated by 5
CA -> can't really fight with BBs, especially because 5 (you can put 4 tubes/side on this hull)
BC -> if you are a gambling man, remember the cards are stacked against you (those 2BBs, even if you can kill them you will be battered and slow, enemy will run away)
BB -> if in doubt BB

Ok what are the design requirements:
Fast (because 2) 30+ is a must
Able to take a hit (2 and 4) So high armor is a must
Not totally useless against DDs (1 and 3) So decent secondary battery, torp protection (max one torp hit, and not a disabling one), maneuverable (for a BB)
Can kill capital ships (you need to kill minimum of one (6), realistically 2) so some decent guns are needed

Cheap (hehe)

Hard thing to do, I present fast battleship Ugly. (rotations are due to first time trying to go for small form factor and forgot to change that, now that i see I also could take better 2nd tower)

Enhanced firepower, best FC and RAD are a no brainier.
The next quality improvement is on a guns with too small of a caliber. (hell even 16" were not able to pen the enemy BB which had 50+ effective o.O)
triples are fun but doubles are cheaper and more accurate (and we need armor)  

General ship design:
Look at:
pitch 
roll
weight offsets

It's cool that you built a 15 or 18 barrel 16" monster with secondaries that could level a small city. But usually, in the same displacement range, fewer guns will be better, because due to better balancing the fire platform is more stable, and those guns are more accurate. You win by hitting the enemy not by killing all the fish in the ocean.

 

But design is the half of battle. Few things to have in mind:

Avoid the torpedoes (that torpedo protection is more for betterment of the crew morale, then actually protecting from torpedoes)
When possible prioritize DDs (when the second one sinks they will start to run, fire a salvo or two but don't count on sinking the third (I didn't) )
Avoid the torpedoes
A damaged ship that is slower than yours stops being a target. 
Avoid the torpedoes
Pick your targets (I disregarded super-BB (tried to maintain high angle of impact) and went for BC first then weaker BB (when BC got an engine hit) then back to BC)
Avoid the torpedoes
Did I mention that you need to watch out for torpedoes? (Generally you want to close in to the distance that they cannot hit you too hard but you can start disabling their ships, but those DDs require you to balance the range greatly)
 

Going back to slowed BC after sinking a BB:

Just passed the mission:
DD got away (~47 knots O.o)
second BB had 25.x" and krupp+citadel (+108%) O.o
While some luck is needed, it's not pure luck (I got an engine hit pretty late in the fight) 

 

Battered but victorious. 

[Hangar18]

On 4/26/2020 at 9:08 AM, Norbert Sattler said:

Also the chance to hit value is completely off. My guns have a text saying 33% chance to hit, so I'd expect that on average two of my six shells from those guns would hit each salvo, but instead only a single shell hits every three salvoes

which is....about 33% hmmmm.....

go back to the in game tool tip, re-read what its telling you.

[Norbert Sattler]

Just now, Hangar18 said:

which is....about 33% hmmmm.....

go back to the in game tool tip, re-read what its telling you.

A single hit every three salvoes and each salvo consisted of 6 shells.
That means my ship hit about 1 out of every 18 fired shells, i.e. about 5.5 % which is less than half of what the game told me it shoud be.

The hit chance is meant to show the chance of each individual shell hitting, not of a single shell out of an entire salvo hitting.