Patch Information: Forthcoming Improvements

[DerRichtigeArzt]

4 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

New notable changes regarding torpedoes:

• Early tech torpedoes are now having smaller range and are slower. This makes the impact and evolution of torpedoes more historically accurate.
• Sonar/Hydro equipment is now available for CA, BB, BC, making capital ships much more aware against torpedo threats. Stealth and torpedo detection levels have been rebalanced accordingly.
• "Fast Mode" of torpedoes rebalanced. Range penalty is less but accuracy is reduced further.

Changelog updated.
Soon the build goes to testing phase.

That is accualy really good

In years 1890-1905 torpedoes were a little broken. 

I think that you should adjust flooding damage, mainly how fast compartments flood and how hard it is to pump out water in the early game. 

Also in the early game AI tends to skimp out on bulkheads making their builds good but easy to sink. 

In comparison I have never built a ship with less than many bulkheads. Maybe they loose in other aspects but not having to worry about sinking through, well...sinking is a great bonus. 

My point is as follows. AI should focus less on guns/speed and more on armor/flooding protection. Also I've seen AI use tech worse than is available to it like Krupp 2 armor when it could use 4. 

Using armor worse than is available should not be considered when trying to cut the costs. Maybe the AI should consider removing this single 2'gun that also blocks the vision of main battery on its battleships. 

Bringing me to my last point. AI sometimes creates a mishmash of guns for no reason. I've seen ships with quintinary batteries in 1930's. Max 3 sets of guns should be a limit for the AI untill you make it design intelligently not at random as it does now. 

[Nick Thomadis]

45 minutes ago, DerRichtigeArzt said:

In comparison I have never built a ship with less than many bulkheads. Maybe they loose in other aspects but not having to worry about sinking through, well...sinking is a great bonus. 

My point is as follows. AI should focus less on guns/speed and more on armor/flooding protection. Also I've seen AI use tech worse than is available to it like Krupp 2 armor when it could use 4. 

This is something that you are going to see in the improved AI Auto-Design.

[DougToss]

Does that signal changes to bulkheads are forthcoming?

[Nick Thomadis]

15 minutes ago, DougToss said:

Does that signal changes to bulkheads are forthcoming?

What exactly is needed to change? Can you clarify?

[Shaftoe]

1 hour ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Sonar/Hydro equipment is now available for CA, BB, BC, making capital ships much more aware against torpedo threats. Stealth and torpedo detection levels have been rebalanced accordingly.

 

[Cptbarney]

Just now, Nick Thomadis said:

What exactly is needed to change? Can you clarify?

I think its due to maximum bulkheads giving large or huge amounts of bonuses to damage con and i think ship survivability, and something about them being unrealistic in that regards (im not well versed with ships entirely, so i don't know much about bulkheads), which makes ships really hard to sink when combined with high armour values.

I think someone else can explain it better, im not sure if this is causing the bow-in invincibility where AP is unable to pen past destroyed bulkheads and sections of the ship reaching lower down and hitting deeper compartments.

[DougToss]

11 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

What exactly is needed to change? Can you clarify?

@Steeltrap and @RAMJB have posted in some detail, I can go looking for their specific posts.

The gist of it is, all other design considerations are secondary because of how effective higher level bulkheads mitigate damage. If the player realizes this and the AI does not, the player will always build winning ships of a given displacement. This is largely the case now. You'd be a fool not to max out bulkheads, the AI doesn't, you win.

If this is simply corrected to both player and AI maximising bulkheads, it's not really a design choice, as any reasonable person would choose that level of bulkheads and the AI will too. Choosing any level less, knowing the AI will is a guaranteed loss in the inverse of how picking them now is a guaranteed win. 

I think that this indicates a problem with the system, rather than simple AI utilization of the system. Ideally, there would be either reasons not to use the maximum level of bulkheads possible, or barriers to doing so. 

I believe others have crunched the numbers in more systemic terms, but this is pretty easily observable just by dropping into a scenario and playing with bulkheads and comparing a design to an AI design with fewer bulkheads. 

Armour is a bigger can of worms, but I understand that is still very much in active development. 

Edited June 11, 2020 by DougToss

[HusariuS]

3 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

What exactly is needed to change? Can you clarify?

What about increasing Cost and Hull Weight for Number of Bulkheads by 10-25% and increased penalty for available tonnage?

Increasing Cost and Hull Weight for Reinforced Bulkheads modification by 25-50% could also be a nice idea.

They should also affect maximum speed of the ship and Engine Efficiency, because thicker armor means heavier ship and heavier ship means more horse power needed.

[Nick Thomadis]

4 hours ago, DougToss said:

@Steeltrap and @RAMJB have posted in some detail, I can go looking for their specific posts.

The gist of it is, all other design considerations are secondary because of how effective higher level bulkheads mitigate damage. If the player realizes this and the AI does not, the player will always build winning ships of a given displacement. This is largely the case now. You'd be a fool not to max out bulkheads, the AI doesn't, you win.

If this is simply corrected to both player and AI maximising bulkheads, it's not really a design choice, as any reasonable person would choose that level of bulkheads and the AI will too. Choosing any level less, knowing the AI will is a guaranteed loss in the inverse of how picking them now is a guaranteed win. 

I think that this indicates a problem with the system, rather than simple AI utilization of the system. Ideally, there would be either reasons not to use the maximum level of bulkheads possible, or barriers to doing so. 

I believe others have crunched the numbers in more systemic terms, but this is pretty easily observable just by dropping into a scenario and playing with bulkheads and comparing a design to an AI design with fewer bulkheads. 

Armour is a bigger can of worms, but I understand that is still very much in active development. 

In upcoming build the AI designs will have tendency to build ships with higher bulkhead protection, depending on the available tonnage (I gave you access to the beta so you can test it). It is not always the best solution to use many thousands of tons for maximum bulkheads and have, for example, much weaker armament, armor or low speed. So, sometimes the AI will not use the highest possible setting but overall the design should be balanced.

There are many ways to design a ship and because speed and mobility will become larger tactical factors, making a ship overly tanky and slow should be not as overpowering as before.
The highest bulkheads do not provide the aiming progress of many large guns. The higher speed may help to avoid contact and keep distance from stronger enemies (this will be more reflected in campaign). So the short answer is: yes there is an improvement. It is certainly not final, since there are more features and ship components to be added, so weights will be adjusted accordingly and will be managed more effectively by the AI.

[Nick Thomadis]

48 minutes ago, HusariuS said:

What about increasing Cost and Hull Weight for Number of Bulkheads by 10-25% and increased penalty for available tonnage?

Increasing Cost and Hull Weight for Reinforced Bulkheads modification by 25-50% could also be a nice idea.

They should also affect maximum speed of the ship and Engine Efficiency, because thicker armor means heavier ship and heavier ship means more horse power needed.

It has been done, as part of the ship weights balance.

[Shaftoe]

9 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

In upcoming build the AI designs will have tendency to build ships with higher bulkhead protection

Are'n you concerned that giving AI tendency to build ships with maxed out bulkheads will result in having to fight unkillable ships? Especially in case of battleships, since AI tends to max out armor, sometimes creating fast ships armed with dangerous weapons and being protected by 16" or even 18" armor belts. 

This problem may become especially noticeable in missions where players are supposed to defeat the AI armed with more modern technology, or achieve victory by relying on torpedoes.

I think AI should build more realistic ships, and not insane monsters with over 9000 mm of armor, and 100500 reinforced bulkheads inside. 

[Nick Thomadis]

19 minutes ago, Shaftoe said:

Are'n you concerned that giving AI tendency to build ships with maxed out bulkheads will result in having to fight unkillable ships? Especially in case of battleships, since AI tends to max out armor, sometimes creating fast ships armed with dangerous weapons and being protected by 16" or even 18" armor belts. 

This problem may become especially noticeable in missions where players are supposed to defeat the AI armed with more modern technology, or achieve victory by relying on torpedoes.

I think AI should build more realistic ships, and not insane monsters with over 9000 mm of armor, and 100500 reinforced bulkheads inside. 

The AI should build more realistic ships with the new patch, in the manner of what is the best combination of guns, protection and equipment installed, but since we have many speculative hulls, it can experiment, as the player is able to experiment. The player can create "abominations" much more often than the AI, I assure you that (Note: actually it should never build bad looking ships that the novice player might do). The main goal is to have an AI that is always a capable opponent or a useful ally for the player, with good looking ships. Any remaining issues, can be fixed in next patches.

[Shaftoe]

41 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

The AI should build more realistic ships with the new patch, in the manner of what is the best combination of guns, protection and equipment installed

Please, define "best". It's common wisdom that in certain situations, different kinds and combinations of equipment will be best picks. This means that largest guns and thickest armor aren't always the best choices. In fact, among several viable designs, there could be several "best" ones, just different in one way or another. So I don't really understand what you mean by saying the AI will go for "best" combination.

A. Do you mean that we'll see the AI always trying to fit biggest guns, thickest armor and best speed available?

B. Or will the AI design its ships to best perform specific tasks, sacrificing gun size, speed and armor thickness in favor of something more important for the specific job? 

[Hellstrike]

I think that some turret techs should be restriced. Triple turrets for destroyers appear way too early and allow the AI to build massivly overgunned ships compared to historical counterparts.

Also, can you add 150mm (basically 6 inch) guns to German destroyers? I know that they were kinda bad, but it would be intersting to see if the player can come up with a suitable design which makes them work. 

[Shaftoe]

7 hours ago, Hellstrike said:

I think that some turret techs should be restriced. Triple turrets for destroyers appear way too early and allow the AI to build massivly overgunned ships compared to historical counterparts.

Also, can you add 150mm (basically 6 inch) guns to German destroyers? I know that they were kinda bad, but it would be intersting to see if the player can come up with a suitable design which makes them work. 

I agree with both suggestions. Makes sense to have some more realism in a realistic game.

[Tycondero]

Will the AI also (eventually) be tuned to be in line with national characteristics?

For example, the USN for a very long time had the BBs limited to around 21knots with good firepower and adequate armor. The French tended to build faster, lighter armored ships with less turrets, whereas the Germans had somewhat lower caliber guns with good armor penetration capabilities and were generally more accurate.

I understand that tech availability somewhat impacts the design choices for the different navies already, but some parameters can still be steered towards a more focussed build/plan.

[ArtifaX]

1 hour ago, Tycondero said:

Will the AI also (eventually) be tuned to be in line with national characteristics?

There was a suggestion to have 2 modes (historic and random). First will try to emulate history, another would have random tech researched.

If devs go with just one option I personally think random should be the one (or if they go with both, then random implemented first). Cause this is what gives you replayability and have you react to whats happening rather then memorizing what the enemy has at each stage so u can counter it.

[Cptbarney]

1 hour ago, ArtifaX said:

There was a suggestion to have 2 modes (historic and random). First will try to emulate history, another would have random tech researched.

If devs go with just one option I personally think random should be the one (or if they go with both, then random implemented first). Cause this is what gives you replayability and have you react to whats happening rather then memorizing what the enemy has at each stage so u can counter it.

Think it was non-historical and historical, so one gives you far more freedom and less restrictions and the other trys to follow history as closely as possible. Plus any other optional stuff they add that can be removed or added to each mode (like turning treaties on and off and then selecting which treaties if you selected the former).

If they can i would go for both too be honest, would increase replayability massively.

[IronKaputt]

21 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Sonar/Hydro equipment is now available for CA, BB, BC

Can we also have an optional smoke generators for them?

[SiWi]

Just now, IronKaputt said:

Can we also have an optional smoke generators for them?

my understanding is that technically any ship can generate smoke.

[Steeltrap]

The problem is that the bulkheads ARE so ridiculously significant. I can tell pretty quickly if a Transport has MAX bulkheads because it can soak 6" secondary gun hits all day long.

Whether or not there are trade-offs is an entirely different question. The fact remains that bulkheads stop and or control flooding and fire SO well REGARDLESS OF SHIP CLASS.

I've written about it MANY times.

Again it gets back to the modular/process design question. If bulkheads are grotesquely effective because intended damage control factors, such as available crew and relevant mechanisms such as pumps and/or firefighting points and gear, have not been implemented, fine. But it would be better simply to say so than to attempt to play around with whatever values exist right now.

The fact remains I can sink a pre-dread BB with 23" of belt armour and a ton of guns yet MIN bulkheads with TWO hits, one in the bow and one in the stern, because it will flood out.

The CL accompanying it can absorb truly silly levels of punishment in comparison.

THAT'S what I'm talking about, and have done for months.

The fact that "flash fire" can occur for weapons that DON'T have separate propellant charges (i,e, 2 part ammo) or DOESN'T feature an true turret and trunk to a magazine are also things that simple DO NOT MAKE SENSE.

Put differently, perhaps someone can explain how a Transport with 3" guns experiences flash fires. (On the plus side, it's apparently the only way to KO a TR's guns, so it's not all bad news).

Saying the chances for DDs will be reduced does NOT address the most significant point: DD CLASS WEAPONS OUGHT NOT PRODUCE FLASH FIRES, PERIOD. Reducing the chances of something that ought not occur at all hardly seems anything to crow about.

But I've written about all these things, multiple times. Indeed I wonder at times whether there's any point.

[DerRichtigeArzt]

Bulkheads would be less of if we had crew modeled. Even if the ship is not sinking the crew may abandon ship if it comes under heavy fire. Also fire would be more dangerous since damage control teams would die. I have not seen an official statement regarding crew implementation. But I hope it will be added since it would finally put an end to unsinkable ships.