Which missions remain overly difficult?

[RebelTheHusky]

Mine is out of the list: There Can Be Only One

The enemy designer takes the biggest possible calibre of 19" or 20" with an insane amount of accuracy and range over your ship, no matter the calibre you use making it impossible to complete this mission.. by the time your shells start hitting it over and over again, your ship is already down to either 40% hull or 30% hull or flooded all the way to 30% float

[MacSix]

I found First Casemates: CSS Virginia to be very easy... especially when exploiting it by ramming the enemy monitor. Prioritise armor, bulkheads, and speed. Have the one gun, casemates are not required. Ram the enemy, finish them off. On the other hand, this exploit doesn't work in the scenario where you need to kill a destroyer with a light cruiser because your ship's captain slams on the brakes to get from 30kts to 0kts in a split second so ramming is not possible. If that is actual game mechanic (not allowing ramming), perhaps that should become available after a failed attempt.

Edited July 25, 2021 by MacSix

[OochyCoo]

Im struggling now with pocket battleship - the french battle cruiser just runs off at incredibly high speed and I cannot make a build that can keep up with enough armour to survive. So much for "enemy will never retreat" I see that on a lot of missions but they do in fact retreat as fast as possible.

[Armchair_Admiral]

I am playing all the missions in the current version as the progress has been erased. The Modern Battleship mission seems to be overly difficult. Taking out 70 percent of all enemies requires two battleships, which are not top-edge due to lack of funds. A single battleship is fired upon by 13 ships and runs out of ammunition, even if it survives long enough.

[neph]

On 10/10/2021 at 5:36 AM, Armchair_Admiral said:

I am playing all the missions in the current version as the progress has been erased. The Modern Battleship mission seems to be overly difficult. Taking out 70 percent of all enemies requires two battleships, which are not top-edge due to lack of funds. A single battleship is fired upon by 13 ships and runs out of ammunition, even if it survives long enough.

Have you run across this thread?

 

[Danikov]

Sink the Raiders is impossible in Core Patch 0.5 v90.

You have no control over the transports and all must survive else the mission fails. Most of the time the mission spawns in with the 3 cruisers in firing range and firing upon the transports, sinking one within 1-5 minutes of the encounter starting.

You can't kill all 3 of them that quickly and there's no way to draw aggro, so you're at the mercy of the AI creating a circumstance where the transports survive, which I haven't had happen once in all of my attempts so far.

[Dman1791]

Has anyone actually managed to complete Torpedo Banzai? Even using electric torpedoes, the AI seems to be able to either completely or near-completely evade torpedo salvos, which mean that you need to get extremely close in order to get successful torpedo hits. But you can't get close, because the enemy force is so incredibly powerful compared to your destroyers or cruisers. It appears that the main problem is that the AI seems to detect torpedoes far before a player would be able to (I've also noticed this with ships- I'm often spotted first even in smaller ships with good towers). There's also the problem that you need a lot of hits to sink even one battleship, and you tend to run out of ships/torpedoes before the enemy runs out of battleships.

[LoSboccacc]

idk in all my attempts I spawned between the tr and the enemy ca, so I can just angle, make noise, attract all their firepower, after that is just absolute slaughter

 

 

[OochyCoo]

did everyone lose their saved progress with the new patch?

Edited October 31, 2021 by OochyCoo

[Waruiko]

First Casemates: CSS Virginia took some outside the box thinking.  I had to ignore the 'lesson' and just put as big as possible guns on top of the ships 'back' so they would work as turrets and could always fire.

[CaptainsEyePatch]

I would like to mention "There can only be one"

I openly refuse to believe this is even beatable. If anyone has beaten this, I don't believe you until I see evidence.
You start getting shot at (And hit) Before the enemy is even visible and I have closed to the point that I'm taking 5 inch gunfire before I can land a single hit on the enemy with 16inch guns.

With the best radar/fire directors in the game. The enemy is still Insultingly accurate compared to anything you can possible make, despite this being a 1940's ship you are using.

It's actually a mission so badly made, I'm actually rather put off to the entire game.

[AurumCorvus]

19 hours ago, CaptainsEyePatch said:

I would like to mention "There can only be one"

I openly refuse to believe this is even beatable. If anyone has beaten this, I don't believe you until I see evidence.
You start getting shot at (And hit) Before the enemy is even visible and I have closed to the point that I'm taking 5 inch gunfire before I can land a single hit on the enemy with 16inch guns.

With the best radar/fire directors in the game. The enemy is still Insultingly accurate compared to anything you can possible make, despite this being a 1940's ship you are using.

It's actually a mission so badly made, I'm actually rather put off to the entire game.

"There can only be one"... is not that hard to be extremely honest. The design I used to initially beat it was a bog standard 4x 2 20" ABXY design, no secondaries. Make sure to max out training, S-V rangefinder, Gen II radar, auto loading, tube powder. And it's not like there is a hard limit to work around either. I managed to get a max tonnage ship with a 16" belt/turret, 10" deck/turret top armor alongside a 28kn speed. 

Also, to make sure that I wasn't mistaken on any part of the mission, I built a 61k BB w/ 2x 4 20" AB design right now and tested the mission again. Same armor inches as above, but I ditched some of the less useful stuff (torpedo protection, etc) and managed to boost it up to 30kn. Not really too special, just a rough design that I just threw together.

The enemy ship wasn't a clown car either, rather bringing 18" guns in an ABY format, with 18.1" of armor, with a secondary split between 7" and 4". It was 24kn as well.

We traded hits initially at range (like literally I'd get two hits on my salvo and the reply salvo would get two in return). This held until I had closed the range at which point the autoloading shined through and I ended the mission with about double, maybe a bit more, the hits the enemy ship had (though it helped that I knocked out their Y turret).

Also, proof: 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Dreadnought vs Modern Cruisers seems almost unbeatable to me.

[Earthdragon]

I know I am a bit late, but I recently bought the game and needed my time to figure it out.

For me, Wounded Beast was pure luck, but German Wrath at the North Sea seems too unfair with the enemies sight range.

 

In general, every mission with a very tight time limit (yes, even gun basic 1) and with op spotting range for the enemy feels rng. And fleet commands dont work properly just yet, maybe if it would some missions would be far more beatable.

[Tcat]

I'm up to 34/57 completed, with successfully completing everything I've tried until I got to "Near Jutland". it's the first one I haven't found a solution for, and skipped to complete other missions. The main issue is you end up only designing a small part of your force, usually 3-5 Destroyers. You get paired with 2 AI-built Battlecruisers and must destroy 3 AI-Built Battlecruisers, with 12 enemy Destroyers reinforcing.

You must destroy all 3 enemy Battlecruisers and the main rub is that you can't lose more than 70% of your Destroyers and either of your AI-Built Battlecruisers. The ideal number of Destroyers to build to be useful appears to be 3 or 5, with 3 allowing you to lose 2, and 5 allowing you to lose 3. Complicating this is the bad sea conditions. It takes time to catch up to the Battlecruisers you must destroy, and the enemy Destroyers always have a part to play, turning the battle into torpedo-alley, which can be difficult to keep tabs on.

I've come close to finishing it, but it's very difficult. I've had one too many Destroyers lost just as I'm trying to sink the last Battlecruiser. I've tried rerolling the battle until I get decent Battlecruiser designs on my own side, with designs varying wildly. Some measure of crew experience, survivability, and speed is ideal for the Random BCs.  My last try included 3 destroyers with 40+ knot speed with decent gunnery, to help fight of destroyers, and 2 triple torpedo launchers (no reload), to try to get early damage in on the BCs. The enemy Battlecruisers are very good at dodging torpedos though, with a combination of speed and maneuverability making them difficult to land early, vital, hits on them to shape the fight.

This mission might have gotten even more difficult with the latest updates, where the enemy focus fires, almost without fail, incoming torpedo-carriers. The ships you don't design have to end up doing a lot of work and good luck if one of your BCs loses a rudder and/or an engine with a dozen enemy DDs around. Still, I do feel I could finish this if I were designing the Battlecruisers, and not the DDs.

[Tcat]

Here is my design for the destroyers. Fast. Went with near max armor around the belt and ignored deck armor, since weather conditions makes gunnery near-exclusively close-ranged. I typically balance destroyers around not making themselves brittle where they blow themselves up with ammo explosions or flash fires. Reduced ammo loads helps with that and on the gunnery side I can mitigate that a bit with the ammo load the 5 4-inchers carry. Triple torpedos would take a long time to reload anyway, and if the spread of 6 - 21 inch torpedos can cause some damage early, and my Destroyer survives the encounter intact, I'm more than happy to use the Destroyer to hunt down the enemy DDs with gunnery the rest of the mission.

The uniform battery of 5- 4 inch guns is setup to succeed with 61 crew veterancy, smoke interference totally mitigated, etc, giving each gun a greater than 8.5 round per minute with decent accuracy. Honestly, not aware of a way I could approach this better.

[SlowTrot]

Tcat, that's a beautiful, high-end destroyer. It would do well in the campaign (although expensive!), but these tough “commando” scenarios, for better or worse, you've got to make some difficult sacrifices and specialize to make it work. Think Doolittle raid style - bring only what you need. I’m sure they would’ve flown naked if they wouldn’t freeze to death.

In this case, 3 DD’s is going to be very hard. I won with 4 once, but would not be able to do so consistently. The issue is the BC's will hit your incoming DD's at least once, slowing them down. (I swear a hidden game mechanic is an accuracy bonus prior to landing the first shot, a discussion for another day). That's going to severely hamper your ability to land torps.  You need a few sacrificial DD’s to absorb the hits while let others close in. 

In this case, that simply means more. More means cheaper – start tearing everything out but the torps. Standard quarters? Nah. Armor? Useless against close range big guns. Then come the painful bits – guns? Again, useless against the big ships, and by the time the enemy DD’s arrive, you’ve got to be in the wrap-up phase anyway. Engine? All you need is speed – get the weight savings elsewhere. Even training – doesn’t seem to help with torps anyway. Strip it all off while optimizing speed and torps and you can get 10+ ships. Not pretty ships alas, but BC killers.

The player gets some pretty atrocious BC’s for fun, so good luck with them… 

BTW Near Jutland is a great scenario to test your torpedo attack skills - short and sweet, if you can win consistently, you’re in a good place.

Edited February 7, 2022 by SlowTrot

[Tcat]

I've done well in the campaign. I've unlocked the 1940s campaigns for both Germany and Britain, playing at medium difficulty. The campaign doesn't build ships to include crew costs. The Destroyer I posted costs less than $10 mil without crew. It's over $6 mil for the standard compliment of regulars.

I've considered a swarm of cheaper Destroyers. True, I thought about cramped quarters and a less trained crew to cut down on the only cost that truly rivals the cost of the engines. I might try that next. It's just a pain to manage so many ships until formations work better. 

[Tcat]

Lots of sacrifices to push from 3 to 9 Destroyers. 3 knots slower. No armor. from 2 triple 21 inch torpedos to 2 double 18 inch. Cramped quarters. Little training. Few bulkheads. 

 

After slicing crew costs, it was necessary to ask for some similar trims to engine costs, and to choose less technological choices in other areas. I'd be interesting to see other designs that can squeeze more into a budget that includes 9 Destroyers.

[Tcat]

Squeezed a 10th Destroyer in with 3 double 18 inch torpedos if I use the extra cash option. Gonna give it a shot with that. 

[Tcat]

Won with the 10 Destroyers. Lost 2. Was pretty cheesy about it. After the torpedos were expended I used several Destroyers as projectiles.

[SlowTrot]

On 2/8/2022 at 10:53 PM, Tcat said:

Won with the 10 Destroyers. Lost 2. Was pretty cheesy about it. After the torpedos were expended I used several Destroyers as projectiles.

Well done! It takes some cheese to be sure. I use DD's as projectiles often, particularly against other DD's. Much easier to ram than to shoot with the lousy aim of small cal weapons at present. Ram a ship, slow it down, come in close for a torp kill.

[neph]

On 10/25/2021 at 2:34 PM, Waruiko said:

First Casemates: CSS Virginia took some outside the box thinking.  I had to ignore the 'lesson' and just put as big as possible guns on top of the ships 'back' so they would work as turrets and could always fire.

protip: build two tiny and cheap ships & just ram the enemy

[ZorinW]

Torpedo Basics 

Since the introdutcion of the crew skill slider and the new ammo types the battleship that you are facing will slaughter you before you even reach torpedo range since their guns are now usually very accurate and they carry a ton of them, which all can heavily damage a torpedo boat.