Long list of issues (Please read)

[neph]

On 7/24/2020 at 2:06 AM, Whomst'd've said:

Also this is more of a wish but I'll throw it out there anyway, have the turret size/diameter be based on gun size and the number of guns in that turret. If your confused look at the King George V class battleships (ww2). 

100% percent needs to be done

[neph]

Regarding gunnery: especially in the pre- and early-dreadnought era, fast moving ships--even on unchanging courses--were indeed harder to hit. Why? Because the range is changing faster. Unless you're on parallel equivelocity courses (or starting from the same origin), the range is changing nonlinearly as ships pass one another. This requires constant nonlinear adjustment, not just in calculation, but in physical reaiming of the turret. When ships are moving faster, this process must be done faster lest the error in "the range I'm aiming to hit" and "the range the target ship is at" becomes out-of-hand.

The idea behind "speed is armor" was a huge influence on the design of the British Navy through the early 1900's via 1st Sea Lord Jackie Fisher, inventor of the Battlecruiser, HMS Dreadnaught, etc.

Point being: with modern (1930+ era) computers and centralized fire control systems, the effect of speed on targeting is trivial. Before that? Absolutely not.

Edited September 19, 2021 by neph

[Steeltrap]

^ I would suggest "Speed is armour" proved a flawed concept even IN WW1.

Need only look not just at Jutland, but even before that with the twin battles of Coronel and Falklands. The reports following the defeat of the German squadron commented on the accuracy of German gunnery of even the lighter guns out to ranges as high as 14,000yds against the BCs. Fact was the BC's armour was sufficient for those armaments, and indeed it was with an eye to defeating Armoured Cruisers (such as the Scharnhorst and Gniesenau) the BCs were designed. They proved extremely good at doing exactly that with next to no damage in return.

It wasn't they weren't hit, it was the actual armour was sufficient to defeat the shells that hit them. Come Jutland they were also hit, but by shells their armour didn't always defeat. Somewhat unsurprisingly perhaps, it turns out that "armour is armour" while speed is hope, LOL.

Regardless of relative courses, the change of range IS linear, it's just the line is a function of trigonometry, so of sin, cosine or tan depending on what you're dealing with.

The biggest difficulty earlier systems struggled with was calculating accurately the speed and course of the target AND being able to generate a solution where your own ship's course and speed were factored in and used to train the guns automatically. Faster simply means a larger lead distance but it's no more complicated than that.

Changing speed and/or course are more important when it comes to difficulty of gunnery, and in that sense more speed is better as it also gives greater scope to achieve those things to meaningful degrees between salvoes from an enemy.

In practical terms, if I fire a few ranging shots thinking you're at one range and doing 20 knots then my fall of shot suggests in fact you're slightly closer on a different course at 23 knots, that's going to be pretty clear pretty quickly. What matters then is how your speed and course VARY, not whether we're on parallel courses.

Well that and the ability of your systems to deliver shells to whatever you've determined is the appropriate bit of ocean your target ship will be occupying when they arrive.

One's a matter of calculation, the other is a matter of effective delivery. Systems evolved so as to get much better at BOTH, which is what's necessary.

But I think to say speed makes things more difficult is too basic. If anything, I think the game does a poor job of punishing very LOW speed yet that's in fact what was shown to be true over and over and over. You could say they're the same which indeed they are EXCEPT it highlights it's how the target's location changes from the estimation that really matters. A stationary target isn't changing it at all, and a system that manages your own ship's movement effectively will very quickly start to straddle a stationary target and, most importantly, not really lose its accuracy.

Anyway, probably banged on too much, lol.

Cheers

 

[TAKTCOM]

5 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

^ I would suggest "Speed is armour" proved a flawed concept even IN WW1.

At 1550 hours (USN/local time) a single "light cruiser" was spotted about 16 miles (26 km) behind the Japanese task force, approximately 250 miles (400 km) SSE of Christmas Island; this was in fact Edsall. The destroyer was perhaps no more than 38–54 kilometres (24–34 mi) from the last reported position of Pecos and likely attempting to get to her stricken comrades. At about 1603 hours she was seen from the Japanese heavy cruiser Chikuma and within five minutes the cruiser opened fire with her 8-inch (203 mm) guns. Fifteen minutes later the battleships of Vice Admiral Gunichi Mikawa's Sentai 3/1 (Hiei and Kirishima) opened fire with their main battery of 14-inch (356 mm) guns at extreme range (27,000 metres (30,000 yd)). All shots missed as the destroyer conducted evasive maneuvers that ranged from flank speed, about 26 knots (48 km/h; 30 mph) to full stop, with radical turns and intermittent smoke-screens.USS Edsall sinkingEdsall also disrupted the Japanese with counter-attacks, firing her torpedoes and with 4-inch gunfire. Edsall signalled that she had been surprised by two enemy battleships; this was copied by the Dutch merchant ship Siantar more than 160 kilometres (99 mi) away.The Japanese surface vessels (2 cruisers, 2 battleships) fired 1,335 shells at Edsall that afternoon with no more than one or two hits, which failed to stop the destroyer...

[Zuikaku]

After loading the game battle damage is no longer visible on ship hulls. Also all gun fired/hit rates are lost

Edited September 19, 2021 by Zuikaku

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[madham82]

Please stop with the BS about speed (seeing it has been exhaustively discussed). Speed is a variable. The difficulty is to account for rapid changes in it or lack of accurate speed calculation to begin with. Absolutely nothing to do with the value. Go watch Drachinifel's video on gunnery. Not once is high speed mentioned as a problem.

Also Jackie Fisher's statement is about the concept of a BC, fast enough to escape from anything with guns bigger than it is armored against (i.e. an actual dreadnaught). 

Edited September 21, 2021 by madham82
sp

[neph]

On 9/18/2021 at 9:54 PM, Steeltrap said:

Regardless of relative courses, the change of range IS linear, it's just the line is a function of trigonometry, so of sin, cosine or tan depending on what you're dealing with.

I'm sorry, you're absolutely right. The change in heading is terribly non-linear, my mistake

[Steeltrap]

On 9/21/2021 at 11:45 AM, neph said:

I'm sorry, you're absolutely right. The change in heading is terribly non-linear, my mistake

Hey, no trouble.

As @madham82has commented, the gunnery problem is most affected by CHANGES in the relevant numbers. There's nothing more difficult about hitting a target doing 30 knots as one doing 10 IF their speeds and courses remain the same.

@TAKTCOM I would suggest your post inadvertently makes exactly MY point.

It wasn't the SPEED that made it so hard to hit, it was the "flank speed to full stop, radical turns and intermittent smoke screens". In other words, the ability to CHANGE the relevant factors (course, speed, even visibility) by substantial margins in periods of time that meant shells in the air wouldn't hit her even IF they'd been accurate when fired.

Put it this way, had she been at 2,000yds does anyone think those manoeuvres would've mattered much?

Granted, a smaller, faster and more manoeuvrable ship has greater SCOPE to make significant changes, but make no mistake it's the CHANGES, not the values per se, that are what makes it harder to generate a meaningful gunnery solution and hence more difficult to hit.

Not even sure why we're discussing it as it's all very well known stuff, lol.

Cheers

Edited October 7, 2021 by Steeltrap

[Steeltrap]

On 9/20/2021 at 5:32 AM, Skeksis said:

You're right, this 'super' smashes every ship no matter what speed they're doing!!!

Curious, have you built one yet with the new update? 

No, haven't touched the game for a long while.

[Norbert Sattler]

I have a suggestion: I think it would be a good idea to add another level of damage.

Right now you have heavy, medium and light damage. I think a "superficial" level with reduced cost would also make a lot of sense.

Yesterday I had a fight with a 1920 CA that took a whooping 14 damage, little enough that in-mission it was still listed as 100% structure. But after the mission it was counted as lightly damaged and cost 8.3 million to repair, thankfully for just a single month.

I think having to pay about a third of the price of the ship value in repairs for what amounts to little more than a scratched-up paint-job is rather on the ridiculous side. Having a superficial damage level for say... anything above 97% hull integrity would be a long way to make the later period campaigns feel both more realistic and less frustrating.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Norbert Sattler

[Littorio]

On 12/2/2021 at 4:05 AM, Norbert Sattler said:

I have a suggestion: I think it would be a good idea to add another level of damage.

Right now you have heavy, medium and light damage. I think a "superficial" level with reduced cost would also make a lot of sense.

Yesterday I had a fight with a 1920 CA that took a whooping 14 damage, little enough that in-mission it was still listed as 100% structure. But after the mission it was counted as lightly damaged and cost 8.3 million to repair, thankfully for just a single month.

I think having to pay about a third of the price of the ship value in repairs for what amounts to little more than a scratched-up paint-job is rather on the ridiculous side. Having a superficial damage level for say... anything above 97% hull integrity would be a long way to make the later period campaigns feel both more realistic and less frustrating.

 

Agreed. This would be helpful.

[Marwan_041899]

I have noticed a couple of things that need addressing.
first, the TR losses doesn't scale up and the only way to make to go away is to reach back 100%: which means if i lose 2 transports for example i get to 98% TR Capacity and get a 50K in TR losses but if i get my TR capacity back up to 99% i don't get a +25K in TR losses and it can add up to millions at 99% and the only way to get it up is to get to 100%.
secondly, the armor of casemate guns is heavier at the same armor level as the turret from the same caliber despite a casemate being significantly smaller in surface area, which leads to a casemate generally heavier than a dual turret of the same caliber.

[Littorio]

48 minutes ago, Marwan_041899 said:

I have noticed a couple of things that need addressing.
first, the TR losses doesn't scale up and the only way to make to go away is to reach back 100%: which means if i lose 2 transports for example i get to 98% TR Capacity and get a 50K in TR losses but if i get my TR capacity back up to 99% i don't get a +25K in TR losses and it can add up to millions at 99% and the only way to get it up is to get to 100%.
secondly, the armor of casemate guns is heavier at the same armor level as the turret from the same caliber despite a casemate being significantly smaller in surface area, which leads to a casemate generally heavier than a dual turret of the same caliber.

I can't speak for the turret/casemate issues, but I can say the same for the transports. It took me awhile to figure out exactly what was going on there. I felt stupid, but I didn't realize that "100%" referred to your nation's shipping needs. So at 100% you have exactly as many ships as your domestic+international trade needs. Lose one or two ships and you start having penalties from the lack of vessels to meet those commitments. But you are absolutely right, it's an all or nothing situation - which begs the question then: why have percentages?

If that's how they are going to code it, then just have a condition: Do you have all the TRs needed? If yes, no economic penalties. If no, a penalty is applied. But bothering to have a percentage there that doesn't scale the penalty in correlation is just absurd and depressing. It's why it took me so long to figure out what that whole  bar actually meant in the first place, because the flat rate threw me off.

 

[Marwan_041899]

4 minutes ago, Littorio said:

I can't speak for the turret/casemate issues, but I can say the same for the transports. It took me awhile to figure out exactly what was going on there. I felt stupid, but I didn't realize that "100%" referred to your nation's shipping needs. So at 100% you have exactly as many ships as your domestic+international trade needs. Lose one or two ships and you start having penalties from the lack of vessels to meet those commitments. But you are absolutely right, it's an all or nothing situation - which begs the question then: why have percentages?

If that's how they are going to code it, then just have a condition: Do you have all the TRs needed? If yes, no economic penalties. If no, a penalty is applied. But bothering to have a percentage there that doesn't scale the penalty in correlation is just absurd and depressing. It's why it took me so long to figure out what that whole  bar actually meant in the first place, because the flat rate threw me off.

 

it probably is just a bug in the calculations easily fixable
here is a photo that shows the casemate issue
to the left the armour is the same and to the right it shows the weight and cost

[arkhangelsk]

11 hours ago, Littorio said:

If that's how they are going to code it, then just have a condition: Do you have all the TRs needed? If yes, no economic penalties. If no, a penalty is applied. But bothering to have a percentage there that doesn't scale the penalty in correlation is just absurd and depressing. It's why it took me so long to figure out what that whole  bar actually meant in the first place, because the flat rate threw me off.

My suggestion to this is that they just let us Design and Build our own transports. If we are building battleships, cruisers and destroyers, it is just one more click to build our own transports.

Then let us control said transports. Even if none of my warships are actually around, give me the Battle Screen anyway. Give me a chance to save my transport.

[Littorio]

16 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

My suggestion to this is that they just let us Design and Build our own transports. If we are building battleships, cruisers and destroyers, it is just one more click to build our own transports.

Then let us control said transports. Even if none of my warships are actually around, give me the Battle Screen anyway. Give me a chance to save my transport.

I agree and have suggested before elsewhere on here that building transports should be considered, particularly since some of them are randomly armed and some are not. Controlling them? Maybe it would depend on the circumstances. It does seem they flee stupidly sometimes and in rare cases they might be able to contribute to a fit. But 9/10 times transports lose to any real warship.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Littorio

[Skeksis]

54 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

My suggestion to this is that they just let us Design and Build our own transports. If we are building battleships, cruisers and destroyers, it is just one more click to build our own transports.

Then let us control said transports. Even if none of my warships are actually around, give me the Battle Screen anyway. Give me a chance to save my transport.

 

37 minutes ago, Littorio said:

I agree and have suggested before elsewhere on here that building transports should be considered, particularly since some of them are randomly armed and some are not. Controlling them? Maybe it would depend on the circumstances. It does seem they flee stupidly sometimes and in rare cases they might be able to contribute to a fit. But 9/10 times transports lose to any real warship.

At least if we could design transports and nominate the design for battle build. This way the 'Transport Capacity' figure could remain the same for finance mechanics and also the auto battle implementation would remain the same. Just our design would be incorporated.

As for commanding transports it's game design choice, hopeful in the future Dev's will be willing to let us command but until then....  
 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Skeksis

[Hemidal]

Couple problems/unclear rules:

 

1. How exactly convoy raiding works? I managed to decimate CA, CL and DD of 1930 UK they were left with 20 BBs. Suddenly I've started to loose 20 transports a turn (fortunately they asked for peace in 2 turns so whew). I didn't get any convoy defence mission in mean time.

2. Ship damage: I think it should take longer to repair but it should be also cheaper. In most cases a pain of not having a capital ship to fight theirs is far greater than spending whatever money on repairs. Also sometimes damage is so minor that I don't think it should warrant a whole turn in port + ridiculous amount of money.

 

And last a request: when we create a fleet for campaign could we also choose what was researched before?