Ship Designer looking more of a kit bashing designer

[Tankaxe]

First I would like to preface that I understand that the previous modular design the devs developed were found to be to complex for the player and difficult for the AI to make a design out of. I also further understand that hard points are necessary because the AI will struggle building a decent ship without them.

 

Yet despite all of these consideration I find my self dissatisfied with the current status of the ship designer. I find myself making less of a ship completely born from as an original design to just "Montana with 18" guns!" or "Hood with 16" guns!" One of major gripes of this are the super structure designs being based mostly on existing ships while also not making ships original also come with severe limitations in regards to size, usability and aesthetic. The top of the line tower that comes with a barbette can't fit your 16" guns? You can go ahead and try the smaller tower that doesn't come with the barbette to fit it while losing out the accuracy and spotting bonus simply because the shape of the top of the line tower is unworkable. Try combining the best US top tower with out the equivalent rear tower that doesn't come out as a blocky mess.

 

I understand that testers here like the idea of building ships that were built historically and agree that tools should be available for player to do so. But for players who may want to build a French style US all forward battleship are prevented because only the French can use that hull have nothing to for them. Hulls completely dictate on what the player can or cannot do from the predread hulls where the only thing you change are the gun batteries and towers. To the mid/late game hulls that if you not going meme ship starts looking samey because of hardpoints.

 

The biggest limiting factor is the hardpoints system and as I prefaced its there specifically because the AI wont be able to handle ship designing without them. But they also massively restrict the player and forcing designs that look quite ugly look at. For an example trying to build on the super battleship hull as the US and putting the tower as back as possible to fit two turrets in the front will force me to put my rear turrets to the freaking stern of the ship creating a very displeasing empty space between the rear tower and the gun. Doesn't help that it is also the only place to fit a barbette at is shoved so far to the back. Finally some of the ships just hurt to look at and I can't look at them and go "yeah this totally seems like a design that would be considered historically" of course their are exceptions but the AI ain't winning any beauty contests.

 

We are the leader of our countries navies the player shouldn't be forced into a linear experience and the restriction of the ship designer prevents that.  Anyways that's the end of my thoughts on the ship designer and again I completely understand that the way it is now are from discovered limitations with the AI and other factors. Thus I would like to open the thread to discuss about the ship designer but with the caveat we try to keep the topic 'realistic' designer ideas and not "I can make a BC with with a 40 torpedo broadside and 40kt top speed lololol"

[FinnishJager]

Tankaxe laying down the truth.

[coalminer]

On 11/17/2020 at 12:03 AM, Nick Thomadis said:

This is a feature that is in our backlog. We cannot offer full freedom as it would be not realistic to add barbettes where machinery could be placed or far ahead in the bow/stern of the ship, were practically it would be impossible. But something, could be done for an improvement in the future. We can first allow more slots in practical places (Which is the most efficient method, for the player too).

In this update, you will notice already several improvements in various hulls and more placeholders for barbettes or guns.

Quoting a post by Nick from Alpha 9 feedback (another response was given in that thread instead) but just felt that this resonated with this thread.

With the addition of quad guns in A9 a few more options and flexibility was given to us the players in designing vessels and I have been experiment alot of many of the (weird) 1920s/30s designs the French thought of, but I have always found myself gravitating back to ABXY superfiring triples even in early vessels as there is simply no downsides to going with that than the usual Q mounts or cross deck firing designs. Much of the designs are so limited that regardless of the time era, most ships end up so limited by the designer that they all look like late 40s battleship designs just with whatever technology the time period offered. This is further exacerbated by the fact that higher tech towers often come with pre-existing superfiring barbettes forcing the player to use them (to make ABXY designs). Tower designs being simply based off historical designs also does not help as the historical designs were faced with certain restrictions (such as the G3/N3s) but this is not accurately reflected in the game and rebuilding the historical ships only serves to handicap the player with a less efficient design.

 

[Skeksis]

13 hours ago, Tankaxe said:

But for players who may want to build a French style US all forward battleship are prevented because only the French can use that hull

For this part...

Styles should be nation based. What this does is that it ensures replayability, play one nation building style, then play another nation ship building style, the whole time battling different styles, different ships, different nations, very good this way.

If to have freedom to cross-dress nations, it would reduce all styles to the 'year of', very bad.

Worst for the campaign too, ships may start to look the same, for every nation, for every class, for every battle, that is called 'rinse and repeat' gameplay, no thankyou to that boredom please.  

However Custom Battles should only be limited to the mind's eye, that's for sure!

Edited November 23, 2020 by Skeksis

[Tankaxe]

1 hour ago, Skeksis said:

Styles should be nation based. What this does is that it ensures replayability, play one nation building style, then play another nation ship building style, the whole time battling different styles, different ships, different nations, very good this way.

I respectfully disagree, I certainly am not saying that the devs should throw a Richelieu hull to everyone who unlocks the tech for it. Certainly nations should develop their own styles of ship design that makes them unique but it shouldn't lock other out of it. The player is the naval secretary, the one who has the final say on how naval development should go forward on their respective country. Sure the French should have their bonus's such as quad guns and all-forward armament that's up to the player to take advantage of it. But if they want a French style 12 15" Montana then it should be possible if they chose to instead of saying "whelp should've gone someone else."

 

Ideally each nation should have their own hulls or styles for every possible design they want.

 

I would hope so in the campaign that each nation would be experienced differently based on their geopolitical situation, colonial commitments, economy and national traits that the player has to plan around in regards to ship design. That alone would add a ton of replayability as the player is pushed around on each nations limitations that forces them to adapt without locking designs from each other.

[Bilderberger]

1 hour ago, Skeksis said:

For this part...

Styles should be nation based. What this does is that it ensures replayability, play one nation building style, then play another nation ship building style, the whole time battling different styles, different ships, different nations, very good this way.

If to have freedom to across-dress nations, it would reduce all styles to the 'year of', very bad.

Worst for the campaign too, ships may start to look the same, for every nation, for every class, for every battle, that is called 'rinse and repeat' gameplay, no thankyou to that boredom please.  

However Custom Battles should only be limited to the mind's eye, that's for sure!

Frankly, we already have that. As of right now, once you've built one ship, you've basically seen everything the period had to offer. Of course there are exceptions to the rule but, as many people already stated, in most cases you simply end up with the same design.

To me the designer is quite bland. It was intriguing for the first few hours or so, but it lost most of its charm soon afterwards. So many fundamental issues ought to be fixed, yet I can't see it happening anytime soon. So much time has passed, so little has been done. Bulkheads for instance. Members of the community pointed it out months ago and still, we haven't gotten any kind of confirmation, besides, of course, the surprise that people actually consider it an issue. Furthermore, the fact that the devs are as transparent as the North Korean government when it comes to the future of their game doesn't make it any better.

Excuse my pessimism, I am open for conviction, but experience has taught me otherwise.

[Skeksis]

14 hours ago, Tankaxe said:

I...disagree

I know.

14 hours ago, Tankaxe said:

But if they want a French style 12 15" Montana then it should be possible if they chose to instead of saying "whelp should've gone someone else."

Then all that nations would represent is a flag. I was just trying to think of how many games that have different national properties/traits, actually there’s alot of them, all of them, harder to come up with games that don't differentiate.

Choosing a nation to play its style of ships would be a feature, not only that, it’s the crux’s of the genre and realism. IMO more people would be looking to play a nation and its ship types/styles opposed to picking one based on geographic location alone.

14 hours ago, Bilderberger said:

Frankly, we already have that. As of right now, once you've built one ship, you've basically seen everything the period had to offer. Of course there are exceptions to the rule but, as many people already stated, in most cases you simply end up with the same design.

To me the designer is quite bland...

I like to think that Dev’s haven’t got the volume of required hulls yet, heck there’s even a dreadnought 1 hull being pasted as a CA hull. It’s not what we have but more of a case of what we don’t have yet, hull-wise, variation-wise, and it's bringing about similarities. 

Also if you look at earlier dreadnought era, there's not that many cruiser and destroyer variations, there maybe some RL restricting elements aswell. 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Skeksis

[Bilderberger]

1 hour ago, Skeksis said:

I know.

Then all that nations would represent is a flag. I was just trying to think of how many games that have different national properties/traits, actually there’s alot of them, all of them, harder to come up with games that don't differentiate.

Choosing a nation to play its style of ships would be a feature, not only that, it’s the crux’s of the genre and realism. IMO more people would be looking to play a nation and its ship types/styles opposed to picking one based on geographic location alone.

I like to think that Dev’s haven’t got the volume of required hulls yet, heck there’s even a dreadnought 1 hull being pasted as a CA hull. It’s not what we have but more of a case of what we don’t have yet, hull-wise, variation-wise, and it's bring about similarities. 

Also if you look at earlier dreadnought era, there's not that many cruiser and destroyer variations, there maybe some RL restricting elements aswell. 

I sincerely hope that anything we've seen so far is nothing compared to what this tool is supposed to look like once it is properly polished and done. There are so many quirks, I don't even know where to begin. We've got armor, armor schemes, hulls, lacking hull customization or customization in general, tid-for-tad +- XYZ% improvements, bulkheads, the campaign... ugh. I like to think that one day all of this will be of no importance and we all come together and laugh about how bland this now magnificent designer once was. I sincerely *want* to believe. But I don't. Time-wise I cannot see it happen. As I've said earlier, I am open for conviction, nothing is impossible, the game is not done yet, but... yeah. From my point of view it's either a long journey of early access or a half baked release. Let us all hope it's going to be neither.

[PainGod]

What I still find especially grating with regards to the ship designer is the hardpoint system. Especially where main and secondary towers are concerned, it should be removed.
Where barbettes are concerned, it should be removed as well.

 

There is no good reason to force it on players except for modules attaching to (or next to) other modules, like smokestacks on towers or primary to secondary towers, and even there it's overdone. As it is it unduly limits the player's options to design their ship the way they want to.

[Fishyfish]

1 hour ago, PainGod said:

What I still find especially grating with regards to the ship designer is the hardpoint system. Especially where main and secondary towers are concerned, it should be removed.
Where barbettes are concerned, it should be removed as well.

 

There is no good reason to force it on players except for modules attaching to (or next to) other modules, like smokestacks on towers or primary to secondary towers, and even there it's overdone. As it is it unduly limits the player's options to design their ship the way they want to.

Unfortunately the devs have taken a pretty firm stance on hardpoint restrictions under the explanation of "we want to limit placing weapons and barbettes where machinery would be, too far forward or astern" and etc. And while I agree with you I also see their point. Granted I think the best work around would be for them to develop a system where we the player outline where machinery, fuel bunkers, living quarters, magazines and the like go within the hull. 

My issue is that there is a very small pool of parts as the vast majority are simply rescales, or subtle variations with more or less gubbinzs stuck to them. Take the recent french funnels for example, or the new french towers. There is very little differences between the sets as they're nearly identical parts. At this point in time I don't have any faith that the devs will pump out a bunch of additional parts sets for the sake of part diversity. They've made no allusions to this matter and frankly seem to be content telling the player base that "Y patch has new parts letting you build 7 new warships!" When infact its maybe 2 ships just rescaled and distributed over 7 different classes.

 

That said, I actually have to agree with:

5 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Then all that nations would represent is a flag. I was just trying to think of how many games that have different national properties/traits, actually there’s alot of them, all of them, harder to come up with games that don't differentiate.

Choosing a nation to play its style of ships would be a feature, not only that, it’s the crux’s of the genre and realism. IMO more people would be looking to play a nation and its ship types/styles opposed to picking one based on geographic location alone. 

And I believe this to be their gimmick in primary differences between nations in the upcoming campaign. Short of technological buffs/debuffs (for example Britain getting access to dreadnoughts first) and financial constraints towards fleet construction and maintenance there's really not much else to delineate between different nations.  Do I like it? Not necessarily, do I understand and accept it? Yes. 

 

[Jatzi]

Everyone on this forum really seems to like recreating historical ships as already stated above so I can see the nations limited to one style being quite popular. I wouldn't play this game more than once after that. Like if I want to recreate an historical battle or a potential battle between historical ships, like Yamato vs Iowa, then I can do that in custom battles. That's the place to do that sorta stuff. The campaign is supposed to be a sandbox of sorts. The goal shouldn't be to artificially limit nations to a specific style but instead bring the in the factors that led to those styles. All forward armament came about as a weight saving measure due to treaty limitations (cost probably played a role too but mainly tonnage in a world with naval treaties). Remove the treaties and I honestly doubt the style would have happened. So if you want France to adopt all forward styles make treaties a thing. Make them better than RTW's treaties by letting us have some kind of input. I'd imagine nations like the US would have less restrictive limits in a treaty. Depending on government type you could have the option to circumvent treaties a bit at the risk of diplomatic penalties. So if you're a democratic but less powerful nation, i.e. France, you gotta work with what you got and bam all forward designs. I could go on but my point here is that such styles that you guys are arguing about became a thing for a reason. Real world factors, complicated things, led to why different nations designed their stuff differently. The devs should be seeking to put those factors into the game in some way. Make the campaign actually kinda deep and I bet you'd end up with organic styles and trends for each different nation. 

 

An example of this is as the US in RTW I never build all forward designs because I'm so rich I can just build bigger, more expensive ships. As Spain or Italy yeah you can bet I'm building all forward designs asap so I can get a decent design at a smaller tonnage, reducing build time and most importantly cost (those nations are poor). As the US I'm building medium and long range vessels, in RTW 2 my carriers are lightly armored to account for that range. As Italy a lot of my ships are short ranged(allowing for more stuff at the same tonnage or less tonnage for the same capability making them cheaper which is necessary) and I can afford to build short ranged armored carriers without sacrificing too much air capacity since the range is short. No artificial limits, I could build a super armored carrier if I really wanted to as the US. Or an all forward dreadnought. But I don't cuz I don't need to. As Italy in the Med in RTW 2 armored carriers are nice(land based bombers are hell there due to how close everything is) and short range is all I need which makes that actually possible. Organic styles and trends for different nations without crappy artificial limits.

[coalminer]

Personally I prefer the campaign to be geographically locked against the nations (e.g. Brits build Brit style ships, Germany German styled, etc.) and the player instead gets to choose from the tech tree which hull to research. E.g. starting with the baseline predread hull and moving towards dreadnoughts would be given the option to choose between the various nation's Dreadnought 1 hull (or light cruiser hull 1 to UK light cruiser hull 2, IJN light cruiser hull 2, etc.). This would be similar to a tiering system for the hulls (in this case also for the towers). The idea is for the designer to be similar to the warship gunner series because that is one of the most ideal and easy to use interfaces while giving the players alot of freedom.

(not the best example as its a modern DD being built but you get the idea)

This will give the flexibility to the player to research what they want to and when they want to, if I want to try a pacific campaign as Japan with fully forward quads (french style) against the US, then I should have the freedom to do that. Not to always go build the same thing all the time and simply leave it to RNG and the AI to decide how my campaign plays out.

Most people are familiar with other grand strat titles like HOI and such, imagine playing France there and only ever having the option to get attacked by Germany in each playthrough, it gets pretty boring very very quickly and if its going to follow historical timelines downright predictable.

[SonicB]

12 hours ago, Fishyfish said:

Unfortunately the devs have taken a pretty firm stance on hardpoint restrictions under the explanation of "we want to limit placing weapons and barbettes where machinery would be, too far forward or astern" and etc. And while I agree with you I also see their point. Granted I think the best work around would be for them to develop a system where we the player outline where machinery, fuel bunkers, living quarters, magazines and the like go within the hull. 

The logic they're using really frustrates me, to be honest. Turrets take up machinery space and you can put them anywhere along a forward-aft line about 75% of hull length on most ships. In fact on the Fuso class they literally had to raise a midships turret on a barbette to get the machinery under it.

Furthermore, funnels were nearly always placed above machinery spaces, so the very fact that we can choose where the funnels go indicates that machinery is not in a perfectly fixed place on the hull.

Edited November 24, 2020 by SonicB

[Cptbarney]

3 minutes ago, SonicB said:

The logic they're using really frustrates me, to be honest. Turrets take up machinery space and you can put them anywhere along a line from bow to stern on most ships. In fact on the Fuso class they literally had to raise a midships turret on a barbette to get the machinery under it.

Furthermore, funnels were nearly always placed above machinery spaces, so the very fact that we can choose where the funnels go indicates that machinery is not in a perfectly fixed place on the hull.

Ye, and the designer is too limited too do any proper kitbashing anyways. Makes me wonder if its a game engine if so, they may as well announce and say they need to work on it. If they don't know how to solve the problem they could source outside help and credit them. 

I want the designer to give me as much freedom as possible, while also being able to restrict users in sensible manner and for custom modes the ability to design whatever you wish whether that be historically accurate as possible or putting turrets on top of superstructures and funnels coming out of the side of the ship.

[1MajorKoenig]

On 11/23/2020 at 4:38 AM, Tankaxe said:

First I would like to preface that I understand that the previous modular design the devs developed were found to be to complex for the player and difficult for the AI to make a design out of. I also further understand that hard points are necessary because the AI will struggle building a decent ship without them.

 

Yet despite all of these consideration I find my self dissatisfied with the current status of the ship designer. I find myself making less of a ship completely born from as an original design to just "Montana with 18" guns!" or "Hood with 16" guns!" One of major gripes of this are the super structure designs being based mostly on existing ships while also not making ships original also come with severe limitations in regards to size, usability and aesthetic. The top of the line tower that comes with a barbette can't fit your 16" guns? You can go ahead and try the smaller tower that doesn't come with the barbette to fit it while losing out the accuracy and spotting bonus simply because the shape of the top of the line tower is unworkable. Try combining the best US top tower with out the equivalent rear tower that doesn't come out as a blocky mess.

 

I understand that testers here like the idea of building ships that were built historically and agree that tools should be available for player to do so. But for players who may want to build a French style US all forward battleship are prevented because only the French can use that hull have nothing to for them. Hulls completely dictate on what the player can or cannot do from the predread hulls where the only thing you change are the gun batteries and towers. To the mid/late game hulls that if you not going meme ship starts looking samey because of hardpoints.

 

The biggest limiting factor is the hardpoints system and as I prefaced its there specifically because the AI wont be able to handle ship designing without them. But they also massively restrict the player and forcing designs that look quite ugly look at. For an example trying to build on the super battleship hull as the US and putting the tower as back as possible to fit two turrets in the front will force me to put my rear turrets to the freaking stern of the ship creating a very displeasing empty space between the rear tower and the gun. Doesn't help that it is also the only place to fit a barbette at is shoved so far to the back. Finally some of the ships just hurt to look at and I can't look at them and go "yeah this totally seems like a design that would be considered historically" of course their are exceptions but the AI ain't winning any beauty contests.

 

We are the leader of our countries navies the player shouldn't be forced into a linear experience and the restriction of the ship designer prevents that.  Anyways that's the end of my thoughts on the ship designer and again I completely understand that the way it is now are from discovered limitations with the AI and other factors. Thus I would like to open the thread to discuss about the ship designer but with the caveat we try to keep the topic 'realistic' designer ideas and not "I can make a BC with with a 40 torpedo broadside and 40kt top speed lololol"

I agree that this is a significant issue. A couple of thoughts:

 

1) hard points - it is a simplistic system to avoid Nonsens designs by AI. BUT: you can leave them in the background and skip the usage of these for players (and replace them with stuff mentioned in 2) and 3) ...)

 

2) the hulls: currently the system Is far too limiting. I would suggest to add:

- length to beam ratio slider 

- style elements to chose from such as bow and stern form, belt design (eg inclined, tapered, etc) and such to shape a new hull every time you build a ship!!!! Not just two/three hull options we can do right now 😞

- define machinery space to restrict placement of large caliber barbettes and guns and define where funnels can be placed 

3) superstructure: I understand the devs can’t put in tons of structures but there is an easy way out: split up the module Into smaller ones. Therefore more combinations are viable. Such as:

- bridge 

- barbettes 

- mast (!!!)

- funnel - more options, the current ones are small and look not convincing. Plus for placement See machinery space in 2)

 

I guess that would be it for a next iteration - what do you think @Nick Thomadis ...? 🙂

[Cpt.Hissy]

Related to above:

 

 

[Jatzi]

9 hours ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

Related to above:

 

 

Everything you said there just reminds me of SpringSharp, a program to design ships. If they took that style of design and brought it into this game it would be so nice. Like you set up everything in something like that and the game generates everything for you. It's not going to happen at all but I can daydream