>> Game Mechanics Feedback <<

[Dwight Looi]

I am played through 80% of the Academy missions and many Custom Combat scenarios. Here are where I think the game can be improved:-

1. Use Historical Hull types. Instead of Modern Battleship, Dreadnought II or whatever, design and name the available hull types after historical ships. Eg. Dreadnought, Queen Elizabeth, New York, South Dakota, Yamato, etc. And, make them available based on country selected.
2. The Citadel Weight Penalty should be proportional to the Length between the foremost and rearmost turret. This will discourage players from ridiculous designs with lots of turrets pushed to the ends of the ship as it rewards a compact superstructure and turret location.
3. To keep things simple and easy to understand, Gun Penetration should be roughly equivalent to the caliber. That is an 18" gun will penetrate 18" of armor plus or minus a few inches of RNG fudge at <= 25% of the gun's range. Beyond that it should decrease progressively and it penetrates 25% of the gun caliber at maximum range. An 18" gun will hence only penetrate ~4.5" at maximum range. This should make deck armor practical.
4. Instead of Mk5 14" Gun, Mk3 16" Gun or something along those lines, more advanced guns can be named for their calibers. Eg. 16"/45 vs 16"/50.
5. Guns and Weapons should be individually have a "target closest" button. That is, players should be able to point the Main Guns or whatever they what manually, or have certain weapons designated for close in defense. Allowing the player to be deliberate about targeting the main guns while letting the AI fire some or all of the secondaries at DDs nearby will make the game more enjoyable and logical.

[HusariuS]

12 minutes ago, Dwight Looi said:

I am played through 80% of the Academy missions and many Custom Combat scenarios. Here are where I think the game can be improved:-

1. Use Historical Hull types. Instead of Modern Battleship, Dreadnought II or whatever, design and name the available hull types after historical ships. Eg. Dreadnought, Queen Elizabeth, New York, South Dakota, Yamato, etc. And, make them available based on country selected.
2. The Citadel Weight Penalty should be proportional to the Length between the foremost and rearmost turret. This will discourage players from ridiculous designs with lots of turrets pushed to the ends of the ship as it rewards a compact superstructure and turret location.
3. To keep things simple and easy to understand, Gun Penetration should be roughly equivalent to the caliber. That is an 18" gun will penetrate 18" of armor plus or minus a few inches of RNG fudge at <= 25% of the gun's range. Beyond that it should decrease progressively and it penetrates 25% of the gun caliber at maximum range. An 18" gun will hence only penetrate ~4.5" at maximum range. This should make deck armor practical.
4. Instead of Mk5 14" Gun, Mk3 16" Gun or something along those lines, more advanced guns can be named for their calibers. Eg. 16"/45 vs 16"/50.
5. Guns and Weapons should be individually have a "target closest" button. That is, players should be able to point the Main Guns or whatever they what manually, or have certain weapons designated for close in defense. Allowing the player to be deliberate about targeting the main guns while letting the AI fire some or all of the secondaries at DDs nearby will make the game more enjoyable and logical.

I fully agree with first, second and fifth point, but I cannot agree with third and fourth.

Not sure about third point, it sounds very simplified for this game, and it also conflicts with fourth point because if we gonna have more advanced gun (by either using a "Mark" system or "Barrel lenght") mean increase in accuracy, range and penetration, and this mean that for example 18-inch gun would be able to penetrate 19-inch armor from 25% of its maximum range.

[DougToss]

1. My understanding is that this is more or less how things work already, with NotHood being added recently. Nations do have different hulls available. 

2. I agree. 

3. Unequivocally no.  Members of this community worked very hard during testing to find all sorts of references, firing tables, contemporary and historical work in naval gunnery and ballistics. The simulation will work better (and the game will be more fun) when the ballistics model matches the real results. It makes testing and "balancing" every other system easier because the results are known and can be compared to well-documented reality. A simplified model will radically depart ship designs, naval doctrine and combat from reality. I would argue that it is better to teach players about reality to inform their designs rather than breaking any pretext of realism to accommodate uninformed designs. 

4. Semantic, but sure. Regionalized naming could be interesting, different navies used different forms of designation. 

5. I don't have a problem with guns under local control in some contexts or before central control, firing or directors were developed, but I'd prefer fire control and gunnery to hew as close to the real theory and practice as possible. If some guns, in some mounts, in some navies were under local control in some situations, I think it ought it be allowed. A main battery of a BC split to engage multiple targets in 1920? No chance. 

[madham82]

2 hours ago, Dwight Looi said:

I am played through 80% of the Academy missions and many Custom Combat scenarios. Here are where I think the game can be improved:-

1. Use Historical Hull types. Instead of Modern Battleship, Dreadnought II or whatever, design and name the available hull types after historical ships. Eg. Dreadnought, Queen Elizabeth, New York, South Dakota, Yamato, etc. And, make them available based on country selected.
2. The Citadel Weight Penalty should be proportional to the Length between the foremost and rearmost turret. This will discourage players from ridiculous designs with lots of turrets pushed to the ends of the ship as it rewards a compact superstructure and turret location.
3. To keep things simple and easy to understand, Gun Penetration should be roughly equivalent to the caliber. That is an 18" gun will penetrate 18" of armor plus or minus a few inches of RNG fudge at <= 25% of the gun's range. Beyond that it should decrease progressively and it penetrates 25% of the gun caliber at maximum range. An 18" gun will hence only penetrate ~4.5" at maximum range. This should make deck armor practical.
4. Instead of Mk5 14" Gun, Mk3 16" Gun or something along those lines, more advanced guns can be named for their calibers. Eg. 16"/45 vs 16"/50.
5. Guns and Weapons should be individually have a "target closest" button. That is, players should be able to point the Main Guns or whatever they what manually, or have certain weapons designated for close in defense. Allowing the player to be deliberate about targeting the main guns while letting the AI fire some or all of the secondaries at DDs nearby will make the game more enjoyable and logical.

1. Ok, but what do you do when you play a country that never built a modern BB, have them use a historical dreadnought hull? I think what you are really after is some choice of historical hulls for their respective nations in addition to the generic ones. That should be doable, but may not launch with the game.

2. There's a lot of issues with the weight/armor placement that forces designs that are not historical. So I definitely agree some changes needed.

3+4. That is far too arcade for a game with goals of this one. Penetration is not directly to shell size. For instance the 12" guns used on the Alaska class outperformed at all ranges the 14"s guns used on pre-WW2 US BBs. This comes into your number 4 point, caliber is not the deciding factor either. Advances in propellant, barrel and gun mount construction all play a part. The MK numbers are basically used to show the level of technology in that gun. This will make more sense when we have a research tree in the campaign. 

5. Guns using local fire direction are not very accurate, especially at anything over close range. You are basically reverting to pre-dreadnought era fire control. Fire Directors aren't just a plotting room, they are an entire system. So not being able to use all the benefits of centralized fire control really limits accuracy. To implement it would require changes to accuracy penalties to account for it. Not saying it can't be done, but would require several other changes to game mechanics to keep it from be completely unrealistic. As is, naval doctrine stresses concentration of fire because of the inaccuracy of naval gun fire (i.e. on a single ship,). Main and secondary guns firing at different ships probably wasn't uncommon. Engaging more then two ships just didn't occur unless a ship was swarmed by the enemy, in which case the commander has made a serious tactical error. At that point, accuracy isn't a concern...survival is. 

 

[Sapier]

I'm new to the game but have been playing a lot since I got the game on Sunday.  I don't know if I am missing something or if it's just not implemented yet but I would appreciate a way to stop the lead ships in a squadron auto changing when it takes a hit.  I was driving a squad of 3 fast destroyers into torpedo range of a BB escorted by DD's, I was dodging the torps from the DD's on the way in when the lead ship took a shell hit (about 25% damage, slight flooding but otherwise ok) and I suddenly lost control of the ship and it turned directly into 3 torps I would otherwise have not hit.  If I had realized in time I may have been able to pause, detach, and dodge but I only had a few seconds.

So, I would like it if the game auto paused when it makes a change as to the ship you are controlling, or the ability to disable the auto change or make it so that when the AI takes over a ship it doesn't turn into the path of an incoming torpedo spread.

[o Barão]

46 minutes ago, Sapier said:

I'm new to the game but have been playing a lot since I got the game on Sunday.  I don't know if I am missing something or if it's just not implemented yet but I would appreciate a way to stop the lead ships in a squadron auto changing when it takes a hit.  I was driving a squad of 3 fast destroyers into torpedo range of a BB escorted by DD's, I was dodging the torps from the DD's on the way in when the lead ship took a shell hit (about 25% damage, slight flooding but otherwise ok) and I suddenly lost control of the ship and it turned directly into 3 torps I would otherwise have not hit.  If I had realized in time I may have been able to pause, detach, and dodge but I only had a few seconds.

So, I would like it if the game auto paused when it makes a change as to the ship you are controlling, or the ability to disable the auto change or make it so that when the AI takes over a ship it doesn't turn into the path of an incoming torpedo spread.

You can detach all ships from the division in the beginning to prevent this behavior. Now instead a squad of 3 dds you will have 3 dds acting solo but close together if you want. Is not a perfect solution but works.

[Dwight Looi]

On 5/21/2020 at 10:12 AM, madham82 said:

3+4. That is far too arcade for a game with goals of this one. Penetration is not directly to shell size. For instance the 12" guns used on the Alaska class outperformed at all ranges the 14"s guns used on pre-WW2 US BBs. This comes into your number 4 point, caliber is not the deciding factor either. Advances in propellant, barrel and gun mount construction all play a part. The MK numbers are basically used to show the level of technology in that gun. This will make more sense when we have a research tree in the campaign.

The game is NOT VERY REALISTIC and VERY ARCADE right now anyway. If it is going to be arcade then it should be easy to understand. If it is going to be realistic, then it needs to model armor in a 3D, layered, manner with tapering belts, canted belts, splinter decks, etc. -- more like World of Warships model the ships and their armor design (not that that game is not arcade BTW, just that it is more sophisticated in the armor modelling. Not sure that is practical given that this game is about design ships on the fly on canned designs.Currently an All-or-Nothing or Turtle back scheme is simply a percentage modifier to armor weight for a certain thickness which is BULLSHIT. They behave VERY differently in real life with the latter being optimized for close range direct fire. If it is going to be simple, then make it simple. Besides, historically, proofing against 14" guns does actually require about 14" of steel or thinner belts which are angled to be about 14" given the trajectory within the range of immunity. The Iowa for instance has 12.1" internal belts angled to be proof against 14" and arguably 15" weapons, but not it's own 16" main battery.

Right now, the Displacement of the hulls and designs are total Bullshit and not period accurate by a factor of two or three. Before 1936 everything should be more or less capped at 36,000 tons -- treaty battleships forces interesting and realistic compromises!

[madham82]

12 hours ago, Dwight Looi said:

The game is NOT VERY REALISTIC and VERY ARCADE right now anyway. If it is going to be arcade then it should be easy to understand. If it is going to be realistic, then it needs to model armor in a 3D, layered, manner with tapering belts, canted belts, splinter decks, etc. -- more like World of Warships model the ships and their armor design (not that that game is not arcade BTW, just that it is more sophisticated in the armor modelling. Not sure that is practical given that this game is about design ships on the fly on canned designs.Currently an All-or-Nothing or Turtle back scheme is simply a percentage modifier to armor weight for a certain thickness which is BULLSHIT. They behave VERY differently in real life with the latter being optimized for close range direct fire. If it is going to be simple, then make it simple. Besides, historically, proofing against 14" guns does actually require about 14" of steel or thinner belts which are angled to be about 14" given the trajectory within the range of immunity. The Iowa for instance has 12.1" internal belts angled to be proof against 14" and arguably 15" weapons, but not it's own 16" main battery.

Right now, the Displacement of the hulls and designs are total Bullshit and not period accurate by a factor of two or three. Before 1936 everything should be more or less capped at 36,000 tons -- treaty battleships forces interesting and realistic compromises!

No disagreement on the damage model not being great at the moment, but remember we are still in Alpha. Core components are not set in stone. Now if by the time we get to Beta and things are not changed is another story. 

As for "proofing", that is more a rule of thumb for ideal design. I don't see many examples of ships actually being built that way for a number of reasons.

One, guns don't have fixed penetration values, they vary by range. So for example 14" guns might not pen more than 14" of armor at 15K yds, but at 10K yds they can pen 16" of armor.

Two, you touched on, plunging fire. At long ranges the belt isn't providing all the protection. So proofing using the belt wasn't useful. In fact the Iowas were designed with an immunity zone to 16" shells from 18K-30K yrds. So they were in effect "proofed", but in a way that favored their intended use. Not the close range dueling like the 14" gun vs 14" belt rule of thumb was intended to dictate in design.

Third, shell design itself. Here the Iowas provide another example, the Mk8 APC actually had performance that was like the 18.1" from the Yamatos. My example of the 12" from Alaskas also comes into play here two. So you can have guns that perform better than their actual size would lead you to believe. This diminishes the importance of the rule again, since you can't be certain the performance of enemy shells will be indicative of the armor needed. I believe I read the Italians had issues with their shells under-performing in WW2 for example.   

Fourth, armor quality. This is where the game has tried to reflect the reality. 12"s of Iowa armor is not equal to 12" of Yamato's. I seem to remember reading that British armor was best produced, followed by the US. Japanese armor was not up to either in quality. How much, that's debatable. Here I think the game still needs some work. I would like to see an option in the designer to toggle which type of armor to provide gun pen values. To me that would be more intuitive that using the iron values for everything. 

Yea I have heard some good arguments about displacement being off. I've tried to recreate some historical ships and noticed it as well, but we don't need a hard cap on it by any year. Remember this game is a sandbox in alternate history. You could play a game were there never was a London or Washington Naval Treaty, therefore restrictions never forced any design changes. I would definitely like option to play with a treaty restriction. We could have some pre-set campaign options to include them or not. 

[WhoCares]

On 5/21/2020 at 4:24 PM, Dwight Looi said:

...

3. To keep things simple and easy to understand, Gun Penetration should be roughly equivalent to the caliber. That is an 18" gun will penetrate 18" of armor plus or minus a few inches of RNG fudge at <= 25% of the gun's range. Beyond that it should decrease progressively and it penetrates 25% of the gun caliber at maximum range. An 18" gun will hence only penetrate ~4.5" at maximum range. This should make deck armor practical.

...

Picking up on this third point, others already have said that it's not a good idea.

What I think would be great instead, would be an indication at what range your own guns in your current configuration would penetrate your current armor config.

For the guns we already have the range table that tells us how much standard(!!!) belt and deck armor they can pen at what range. However, that does not take into account bonusses from different types of armor, like +100% armor effectiveness for Krupp 4, and other bonusses like from the selected citadel. That means if a gun says it can pen 20" of armor at a certain range (and in that already reflecting your selected propellant, shell type, yadayada), 10" of Krupp 4 on the belt would be enough to protect you beyond that range against a ship with similar or weaker config.

it would be nice if while changing the armor thickness, in a mouse-over we could see at which range our installed guns would pen that armor in our current config. That would help to design the armor layout in that way to create exactly such invulnerability windows as madham82 described it above for the Iowa. I try to do so already for some of the harder scenarios, but it requires a lot of back and forth checking and calculating (also with other guns), at least if I don't want to go completely beyond reason with the armor layout and safe me some weight for other components. It then also makes for interesting gameplay to get and stay inside that invulnerability zone - at least until the AI decides to throw 18" shells at my balanced design 🙄

Edited June 7, 2020 by WhoCares

[DougToss]

The ballistics in this game are already mickey mouse nonsense, I'd like to get serious about gunnery and get some real tables and formulas from the Devs. 

I don't care about balance. I think that's a great way to bork your game. I would rather the Devs use the myriad of good models for simulating ballistics, match a Royal Navy gunnery table with a known caliber, target dimension and range, and work from there. 

Change logs like "We made 12" more powerful" are aggravating in the extreme. Than what? How? Why? On what basis? 

When 12" guns behave like 12" guns, armour, protection and firepower will balance themselves as they did. 

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by DougToss

[ArtifaX]

40 minutes ago, DougToss said:

When 12" guns behave like 12" guns, armour, protection and firepower will balance themselves as they did.

Only if they have realistic weight values, which is not quite the case at the moment...

But i agree, penetration at ranges and accuracy should be the anchor point for balancing

[Latur Husky]

On 5/21/2020 at 3:24 PM, Dwight Looi said:

I am played through 80% of the Academy missions and many Custom Combat scenarios. Here are where I think the game can be improved:-

1. Use Historical Hull types. Instead of Modern Battleship, Dreadnought II or whatever, design and name the available hull types after historical ships. Eg. Dreadnought, Queen Elizabeth, New York, South Dakota, Yamato, etc. And, make them available based on country selected.
2. The Citadel Weight Penalty should be proportional to the Length between the foremost and rearmost turret. This will discourage players from ridiculous designs with lots of turrets pushed to the ends of the ship as it rewards a compact superstructure and turret location.
3. To keep things simple and easy to understand, Gun Penetration should be roughly equivalent to the caliber. That is an 18" gun will penetrate 18" of armor plus or minus a few inches of RNG fudge at <= 25% of the gun's range. Beyond that it should decrease progressively and it penetrates 25% of the gun caliber at maximum range. An 18" gun will hence only penetrate ~4.5" at maximum range. This should make deck armor practical.
4. Instead of Mk5 14" Gun, Mk3 16" Gun or something along those lines, more advanced guns can be named for their calibers. Eg. 16"/45 vs 16"/50.
5. Guns and Weapons should be individually have a "target closest" button. That is, players should be able to point the Main Guns or whatever they what manually, or have certain weapons designated for close in defense. Allowing the player to be deliberate about targeting the main guns while letting the AI fire some or all of the secondaries at DDs nearby will make the game more enjoyable and logical.

1. We already have that, many historical ships shared hull designs (look at US Standard Type for example).

2. Ship designs are being rebalanced every patch more or less. And there is already a penalty for putting weight at either ends of the ship encouraging more compressed builds. (it's called Pitch)

3. No, there is much more factors that affect penetration, it's not World of Warships.

4. Gun technology and barrel lenght are two separate things. What I would suggest is to actually add option to install differen barrel lenghts that will impact accuracy, weight, aiming time etc...

5. That is very interesting idea. Might be useful for secondaries indeed.