cant hit anything

[I'mnotgivingmynametosomema]

Even when focusing on aim, I just can't hit anything. I've never seen a hit chance better than 5 percent. Even when I put the least main guns possible, only use single barrel , use mark 3  guns,max the engines for stability,maintain a cruising speed, and use the best towers I can, It makes no difference. About a 1 percent hit chance,edging up around 5 percent while we are trading paint . The only way I'm moving though the academy is by abusing torpedos. I'm not sure what the issue is, as  the enemy seems more than capable of hitting me reliably at ranges where I can't even see him. 

[Ulaid]

Screenshot of your design? 

[Norbert Sattler]

There are many things affecting aim.

To properly aim, ships need to go through a process of making a few shots until they get a good bearing. Having only one or two guns of the same kind makes this process take a LOT longer, so double and tripple barrel turrets help here.

The smallest guns are not necessarily the most accurate. Look at each gun to see which one has the best accuracy. For example the 16"/406mm are more accurate than the next bigger and the next smaller calibre guns.
In general doubles are more accurate than tripples, but you need to make sure to have at least two turrets with the same guns to get the faster aiming.

Main and secondary towers are big part of aiming. The better the tower the better your hit-chance. With Radar Gen 2 is better in every way, except weight and cost than Gen 1.

There are two kinds of rangefinders, one specialized in closer and one in longer range fire.

Also speed matters. You get a significant bonus to chance to hit if you are going at the lower end of "full". Going at "Flank speed" (the highest setting) or getting too slow will reduce and eventually eliminate that bonus. That exact sweet spot will differ from ship to ship, but it's always somewhere near the lower end of the "full" braket.
Manouvering also gives debuffs to aiming. If you do anything other than going in a straight line, you are less likely to hit anything and also less likely to be hit.

Getting damaged and flooding also reduces your chance to hit. The debuff from taking damage will reduce over time (if you don't get hit again), but the flooding debuff will only reduce, if your crew manages to pump the water out again.

I'm not sure if this works in the game too, but at least in reality mixing guns of close calibre also reduced accuracy, because it's hard to tell the shell splashes of a 15" apart from a 16", so a ship armed with both will have trouble aiming.

That's all I can think of right now.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Norbert Sattler
rephrased a bit

[Hardlec]

In the scenario "Meet the American Battleships, I tested the notion that I couldn't hit anything as confirmation bias.

I built 4 battleships with almost nothing except the best fire control, all the geegaws to up my rate of fire, and 4 turrets of 3 15 inch guns.  So:  48 heavy guns with the best fire control and the highest rate of fire possible.  

I was able to get off 10 salvos, 48 guns each, before I was torpedoed.  Of 480 shots, none, as in 0, shots hit.  The 2 american battleships fired 8 salvos of 18 shots each and hit me 14 times.  

I'd suggest that the designers look at playability as a factor in this game.  I pre-ordered this game.  I've been playing since the first version came out.  I'd won every scenario available before the first update.  I've been able to beat the computer in the Ironclad duels, after losing as the monitor 8 times before winning.  I lost as the Virginia 12 times until I learned a cheat, putting a gun where I shouldn't be able to put a gun.  I've played about two dozen games in the most recent update.  Won NONE.  

It's really not "confirmation bias" when I lose my biggest ship to enemy gunfire, on the computer's first salvo, before I have even located the enemy.  

It's really not confirmation bias when I lose my biggest battleship to a salvo of torpedoes that apparently was launched before the scenario began.

It is not possible to roll back time in this game.  So, screenshots, which would take me several game seconds to create, will only show the aftermath.  But I'll start filling up your bandwidth with them.

[Muppetlord]

You could also post a video.

While I do agree that accuracy seems to have taken a turn for the worse in the later updates, I won't say that it's objectively wrong, as I'm not that well read on the real world data. And there are of course dozens of factors in play as well with every salvo. Scoring 0 hits out of 480 shells with the best directors and radar seems like something that would occur only if you were doing multiple things wrong however.

What were you firing at? At what range? At what speed were you going? What speed did the target have? How was the sea-state? Did you maneuver your ship? Did you switch targets? What type of directors did you have?

We need to know more to understand what's going on here.

[Hardlec]

How about this:  Assume the human has a legitimate issue and stop asking for an impossible-to-obtain video of what happened?

You can't repeat/ the action, unless you're a youtuber and have everything recorded.  I don't know many people who have that kind of bandwidth.

I have similar results.  The Computer scores hundreds of hits, I score maybe a dozen.  

What were you firing at? It often doesn't matter.  The computer snaps MY target selection off the closest ships and shifts it to the battleships.  No, I don't have video.

At what range?  Until the enemy is identified, you don't get that information unless you try to put your cursor on the blip that might be the enemy. 

At what speed were you going? Only question I can answer.  Usually Cruise.  

What speed did the target have?   Never given.  speed and heading of the enemy is not listed until the enemy is identified.  I haven't lasted that long yet.

How was the sea-state? Same as the enemies.  Non-sequitur and moot

Did you maneuver your ship? Can't answer this for the enemy. Trying to maneuver is problematic at best.  The computer simply ignores your orders to maneuver.  Note:  This is not "there is some lag time"  This is "the little white dot snaps back to where it was before I attempted to maneuver."

Did you switch targets? The computer often does not allow me to switch targets.  I keep trying to target the destroyers closing to torpedo range.  

What type of directors did you have?  The typical answer is "best available."

If the computer is outscoring the human hundreds to one, the error is not with the human.  

Maybe you should put in a feature where the game automatically  creates and saves a log that can be "copied and pasted" to the forum. 

Yes, friends I consider the request for a screenshot quite the same as saying:  Your a liar, prove otherwise. 

[Barbancourt]

On 5/12/2020 at 6:13 AM, Muppetlord said:

While I do agree that accuracy seems to have taken a turn for the worse in the later updates, I won't say that it's objectively wrong,

The guns fire at such bizarre angles it just doesn't seem like things are working properly.  In a certain other PVP game involving Warships unrealistically derpy gunnery is a balancing mechanic, but in this game there's no need for such artificial derpitude.  It really detracts from enjoyment of the game. 

Really enjoying the new ironclads

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by Barbancourt

[Wowzery]

I've noticed that the AI does hit earlier and more often than I do.  Many times I can even up the odds as the battle progresses but if my design can't take damage well I will lose.

[DougToss]

There's some discussion of this going on in the combat feedback thread. It's hard to tell if players are disappointed at hitting at a realistic rate, which would prove that the model in the game is working as intended, and people are expecting too much. On the other hand, if players are hitting less than in historical gunnery tables, even when mounting equivalent guns and fire control systems, that would mean the model in the game is defective in some way.

Disparity between the AI and Player is even more troubling because any change in speed or heading that would cause the player to miss, would also cause the AI to miss. That's because ballistic calculations rely on the position, speed and heading of the target as well as the own ship. Two ships with equivalent armaments and fire control systems would be expected to maintain their own speeds and headings, even though that exposed them to enemy fire, because it was the only way to ensure that their own fire was effective. 

Though we don't yet have static or towed targets, maybe we could start logging our results and building tables. That would give us much more information.

Ideally, the game could record tables as a debug feature.

Edited May 27, 2020 by DougToss

[Barbancourt]

Ships (both sides) in my battles are often missing a broadside-to-broadside enemy (slow and constant speed) at 500-600 meters range by half a ship length or more in azimuth beyond the bow/stern.  🙈  It isn't just ranging, but they can't even point the gun in the right direction some of the time.  I don't see enough smoke displayed in the battle to explain it away as poor visibility.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Barbancourt

[admiralsnackbar]

Is the game able to log what the hit probabilities were for each shot fired and whether that shot was a hit or not? Then you could take that data for both player and AI ships and see what's going on?

[Cptbarney]

9 hours ago, admiralsnackbar said:

Is the game able to log what the hit probabilities were for each shot fired and whether that shot was a hit or not? Then you could take that data for both player and AI ships and see what's going on?

Not yet, but this is badly needed, since then everyone here on the forums can collate data and pool into a thread, this will give us a good idea on whether the mechanic is working correctly or is either too effcient (too accurate) or borked (too inaccurate) compared to irl historical values.

There is some data regarding how many shots fired, what ships hit and did what and the types of shots (ranging from bouncing, over-pens (lol), pens, partial-pens, shatters, riochets).

Dunno if theres any stats on accuracy atm, but theres no table that pops-up at the end which would make the above so much easier. Im assuming that will arrive in alpha 7.

[Norbert Sattler]

As Cptbarney said, the log isn't about how each single shot performed, but there is a log that correlates all shots of a ship if you mouse-over the two symbols left of the Log symbol under the ship schematic. Green is for shots fired by you and red for shots fired at you.

This also works with 100% identified enemy ships.

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Norbert Sattler
Removing old pic to make room for new

[DougToss]

On 5/31/2020 at 5:16 AM, Cptbarney said:

Not yet, but this is badly needed, since then everyone here on the forums can collate data and pool into a thread, this will give us a good idea on whether the mechanic is working correctly or is either too effcient (too accurate) or borked (too inaccurate) compared to irl historical values.

There is some data regarding how many shots fired, what ships hit and did what and the types of shots (ranging from bouncing, over-pens (lol), pens, partial-pens, shatters, riochets).

Dunno if theres any stats on accuracy atm, but theres no table that pops-up at the end which would make the above so much easier. Im assuming that will arrive in alpha 7.

I don't understand why there aren't firing tables, that's very important information to have. 

[Prelude_to_Oblivion]

I care not about firing tables or anything o0f the like. I just want my guns to hit more than 1 in 30 when under 2km away in 1910.

[Dave P.]

5 hours ago, thisgameisretarded said:

I care not about firing tables or anything o0f the like. I just want my guns to hit more than 1 in 30 when under 2km away in 1910.

I'm sure the sailors crewing the historical ships this game is based on would have liked that very much too!

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

I mean, while I agree that realistic accuracy implies lots of misses... having a 10% chance of hit at 200m away in the 1890s campaign is just way too... much.

200m away! That's the closest possible distance before collission! The reason why I hate 1890s campaign is because I can spend 15 minutes at x2 speed with two stationary Battleships 200m away from each other missing shots constantly... like, how is it even possible? 200m away!

For example, in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba in 1898, engagements occurred between 1,100m and 2,400m and both factions hit each other's ships HUNDREDS of times! (altough 85% of the Spanish ammo was defective and non-functional so it didn't cause a lot of damage).

Edited March 13, 2022 by SPANISH_AVENGER

[Darth Khyron]

On 5/27/2020 at 2:26 PM, Wowzery said:

I've noticed that the AI does hit earlier and more often than I do.  Many times I can even up the odds as the battle progresses but if my design can't take damage well I will lose.

I can confirm this. Regardless if my designs have better fire control, more accurate guns and the fire-control-wise best towers, the AI hits earlier and more often. Since the latest patch, my shots seem to be off by a considerable margin.

[Dave P.]

On 3/13/2022 at 5:04 PM, SPANISH_AVENGER said:

I mean, while I agree that realistic accuracy implies lots of misses... having a 10% chance of hit at 200m away in the 1890s campaign is just way too... much.

200m away! That's the closest possible distance before collission! The reason why I hate 1890s campaign is because I can spend 15 minutes at x2 speed with two stationary Battleships 200m away from each other missing shots constantly... like, how is it even possible? 200m away!

For example, in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba in 1898, engagements occurred between 1,100m and 2,400m and both factions hit each other's ships HUNDREDS of times! (altough 85% of the Spanish ammo was defective and non-functional so it didn't cause a lot of damage).

Do you have a source for that w/r/t 1898? The only thing I could find made it sound like a lot less. 😞

In the context of the game itself, trying to increase accuracy is fine, but I haven't seen anybody mention trying to add MORE DAKKA, which seems to work pretty well. 🙂

Edited March 14, 2022 by Dave P.

[Skeksis]

This doesn’t look like a bug to me, seems more like a reversal.

Age old battle, historically accurate game vs enjoyable entertainment.

 

[neph]

1 hour ago, Dave P. said:

Do you have a source for that w/r/t 1898? The only thing I could find made it sound like a lot less. 😞

In the context of the game itself, trying to increase accuracy is fine, but I haven't seen anybody mention trying to add MORE DAKKA, which seems to work pretty well. 🙂

careful, you'll reinvent the dreadnought!

[Kryptonic]

Playing the 1890s campaign, the AI seems to hit 85-90% more than my ships hitting them and I only seem to hit when the AI ships are blocking LOS of each other (one directly behind the other).  The ratio doesn't change much based on distance to target or speed.  While missing many shots seems historically accurate,  missing this much doesn't make any sense.  I've tried playing 2 1890 campaigns, one as Germany, the other as France and was getting the same results.  I'll use Tier 4 or 5 towers and still miss about 10 to 20 times more than the AI, thus ultimately losing battles as a result. 

I have built ships that have even displacement and balanced low to high pitch to row percentages, but the consistent missing shots persists.  

Note: I haven't tested against other campaigns, or custom battles yet, but training missions are much different and those seem to work correctly.  I was shocked by the difference when I played campaign.

Please let me know what you might need to help troubleshoot or kindly advise as to what I might be doing wrong.  Thanks! 

[Lakel]

10 hours ago, Kryptonic said:

balanced low to high pitch to row percentages,

I'm gonna need you to expand on that.  Also yay necros.

Whats your crew training? Barrel length? Are you running at max speed or slowing down to cruise speed? Using the highest mark weapon or just the smallest?

Mind balancing your ship is important  but so is keeping the pitch and roll low on top of balanced, then you have the use of beam, and draft, increase beam and reduce draft to maximize accuracy if you dont mind paying the other penalties.

Ultimately this is coming out to my ships utterly destroying the AI, the occasional nasty hit received but nothing in comparison to what my ships are dishing out.