Alpha 11 - Speculation Thread

[1MajorKoenig]

Howdy,

I am currently once more really hyped about the game (or better about its potential). I don’t play necessarily much but I am eager to see it’s further development! So....
 

What are we going to see in Alpha 11?

- ship designer overhaul? (??)

- campaign?

 

Btw. Re-watched the old trailer yesterday and it is glorious. Exchanging entire hull (!!!) sections! Can’t wait to see the ship designer being redone! (Hype)

[Cpt.Hissy]

Another fix for formations and evasion logic, maybe this time final.
Persistent in-formation ship order?
Some arbitrary percentage shuffling aka "balance".
Bugfixes (that probably don't fix half of what they claim again?)
maybe, some more hardpoints for editor.
H o p e f u l l y, a promise to actually fix the editor, but i doubt any actual changes in this field as for now.

[1MajorKoenig]

49 minutes ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

H o p e f u l l y, a promise to actually fix the editor, but i doubt any actual changes in this field as for now.

Yes that would be also my wish! 
 

Although I am really curious to get a flavour of the campaign as well. However somehow I have the feeling the campaign will take more time 

[Cpt.Hissy]

I can't get it, how one can want campaign already when the core mechanics are half placeholder, half nonexistent at all. How it would even work?

also to clarify, i don't doubt they will ever fix the editor... yet.. I doubt it will be already done with next patch.

Edited January 4, 2021 by Cpt.Hissy

[1MajorKoenig]

7 hours ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

I can't get it, how one can want campaign already when the core mechanics are half placeholder, half nonexistent at all. How it would even work?

also to clarify, i don't doubt they will ever fix the editor... yet.. I doubt it will be already done with next patch.

That’s simple: currently I have little reason to play. I may play a custom battle from time to time but that’s pretty repetitive. Plus with the current severe limitations of the designer the ships turn out pretty similar as well.

Academy missions are ok for a tutorial but not much more for me.

 

Therefore I hope that the campaign will bring a reason to play, build, Refit, etc 

[Cpt.Hissy]

well it's simple. I too rarely play, mostly after a new patch just to find a bug or two and see that it's still pointless 'cause of crippled editor and all these flaws in logic, AI and damage model. Also the single existing victory condition of "sink [part of] all dumb and weird boats before a timer runs down".
Adding Campaign now aint gonna save it.
Only fixing mentioned flaws will.

[Tycondero]

I hope for two things, either one would make me very happy:

- First limited version of the campaign

- New armor/citadel model

[Cdodders]

Hulls for KGV, Nelson, Lion and Vanguard. Some proper superstructure for the N3/G3 hulls so you can make them properly. New turret designs and the ability to choose which design you are using, AA guns (idc there is no planes atm, I want AA guns!), more in depth armour design/modelling, more in depth superstructure designing .....

 

Oh this isn't a wishlist?

[1MajorKoenig]

16 minutes ago, Cdodders said:

more in depth superstructure designing .....

That one I really want as well.

 

In general I feel that the ship designer could be beyond awesome if could be enhanced (quite a bit though). 

[SonicB]

Adding to all the above: a fix for the AI auto-designer that this time actually fixes things. Dropped this in the clowncar thread but it's worth posting here just to count the sins:

Oversized destroyer tower: check
Shrunken 1920s battlecruiser hull: check
One (1) main gun on a pointless barbette: check
Unused rear deck big enough to land a plane on: check (feature or bug? you decide)
Is clearly a tugboat cosplaying as a light cruiser. An attempt was made.

[Bigjku]

For the love of everything holy please let me design all the ships in my custom battles.  I beg you.

The speeds and armament are all over the map.  I built Iowa Class replicas at 33 knots.  Game generates 34 knot heavy cruisers, 24 knot light cruisers and 27 knot destroyers.  I have had heavy cruisers generate with no secondary guns.  Any sort of nonsense you could imagine.

Oh every ship in the fleet has a different propulsion technology and different torpedoes.  So that’s fun for my OCD.

[Cpt.Hissy]

Ok, i named realistic expectations, so here are the wishes / suggestions
 

- All (or at least main) guns of same caliber to be considered as a single group and to receive shared aiming data.

- Repair that old bug or whatever it is, when not all guns fire in each salvo even when they should.

- For guns to stop shooting literally backwards if RNG said so. I'm fine with it to be RNG based, just tweak the visuals so misses are not THAT stupid looking.

- Consistent tech in autodesigned fleets: to counter issues mentioned above. In simple terms, program should pick a set of technology choices first, and then design entire fleet using those choices for every ship in it. Optionally for all ships of certain class to follow some shared criteria for it (like all battleships having same speed and/or same main guns, but being random in details)

- Tone down the waves and ships bobbing around
- Fix most hulls proportions.

Edited January 16, 2021 by Cpt.Hissy

[Cptbarney]

Saving designs in custom battles, so the games replayability shoots up.

[Bigjku]

Would it be possible to get an radar type overview of the ships positions?  Feel like that would help a lot for general awareness.

[Cpt.Hissy]

Yep, missed this.
A map / plotting table mode would be helpful. it could partially or fully replace the freecam for that "realism" feel as well. May be optional.

[Bluishdoor76]

Me personally, I'd honestly like more nation specific parts being added. The current pool of parts is still very lackluster and generic. This wouldn't fix the many issues the builder has but I'd like to have more Nation specific variety rather then the generic parts.

[Cptbarney]

35 minutes ago, Bluishdoor76 said:

Me personally, I'd honestly like more nation specific parts being added. The current pool of parts is still very lackluster and generic. This wouldn't fix the many issues the builder has but I'd like to have more Nation specific variety rather then the generic parts.

ye something to tie us over until the campaigns release essentially.

[Cpt.Hissy]

quantity over quality, eh?
Well may work, if you add everything you can imagine as separate parts, but that's a LOT of models. Would still be better to make the designer logic more flexible.

[SonicB]

23 hours ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

Yep, missed this.
A map / plotting table mode would be helpful. it could partially or fully replace the freecam for that "realism" feel as well. May be optional.

This would be such a good idea. It would make misidentification and the spotting mechanic in general much more realistic once you can't immediately click-zoom to an enemy and confirm its class. This would then allow the spotting range to be extended to a realistic amount and reduce the gamey crap of destroyers popping out of nowhere.

I would allow a limited free camera but restrict it to within, say, five-ten miles of any friendly ship.

[Cpt.Hissy]

How cool it would be if visible models of ships corresponded to their current identification status
starting with vaguely ship shaped brick and slowly refining over time with some generalised elements, until popping in with full detail.
But eh. No rush, let's wait till most critical parts are done before pestering the devs with all these small wishes.

[Jatzi]

On 1/19/2021 at 11:18 AM, Cpt.Hissy said:

How cool it would be if visible models of ships corresponded to their current identification status
starting with vaguely ship shaped brick and slowly refining over time with some generalised elements, until popping in with full detail.
But eh. No rush, let's wait till most critical parts are done before pestering the devs with all these small wishes.

Just make up a generic model for each class and have that be what you see until the ship is identified. And as I've said before allow for misidentification of ships.

 

I'm curious about the campaign. I feel like alpha 11 will be the campaign, they have to know the game is basically dead and the longer they go without it the more likely it's not gonna come back. What they intent to do with the campaign is what I'm curious about though. They've said they're revamping the whole thing. And it's limited to two nations which is interesting. There's very little reason to limit a campaign to two nations if it's really similar to the RTW campaigns. The only difference between those are the starting conditions. In the very first alpha when you could access the early campaign it was basically the RTW campaign with all the nations available. It seems obvious they've moved away from that because if they hadn't I feel we would have a campaign already pandemic or no. It was kinda playable. It was very bad, but it was kinda playable. I played as the UK and got into the war with the US and lost a pre-dread to some stupid TB's cuz it was alpha 1 and combat was horrendous. 

So yeah I have to wonder what they're doing with it. I've seen lots of stuff on the forums and most of it sounds extremely unappealing to me so I hope they haven't listened to any of that. 

[1MajorKoenig]

11 hours ago, Jatzi said:

Just make up a generic model for each class and have that be what you see until the ship is identified. And as I've said before allow for misidentification of ships.

 

I'm curious about the campaign. I feel like alpha 11 will be the campaign, they have to know the game is basically dead and the longer they go without it the more likely it's not gonna come back. What they intent to do with the campaign is what I'm curious about though. They've said they're revamping the whole thing. And it's limited to two nations which is interesting. There's very little reason to limit a campaign to two nations if it's really similar to the RTW campaigns. The only difference between those are the starting conditions. In the very first alpha when you could access the early campaign it was basically the RTW campaign with all the nations available. It seems obvious they've moved away from that because if they hadn't I feel we would have a campaign already pandemic or no. It was kinda playable. It was very bad, but it was kinda playable. I played as the UK and got into the war with the US and lost a pre-dread to some stupid TB's cuz it was alpha 1 and combat was horrendous. 

So yeah I have to wonder what they're doing with it. I've seen lots of stuff on the forums and most of it sounds extremely unappealing to me so I hope they haven't listened to any of that. 

Nick put up a roadmap and explained the next steps. Although it doesn’t mean that Alpha 11 is necessarily already one of the core releases he mentioned. However I agree it sounds like next we will see the skeleton of the campaign.

 

Why only two nations? He mentioned a North Sea Campaign - Germany vs UK which is a very good scenario choice for that era in my opinion. 
 

I don’t mind having that for a starter and have that expanded later on. I am more concerned about how the campaign plays out, what actions you can perform, what options we have, how lively the environment is. Once that is settled for the North Sea you can easily expand to the North Atlantic, Pacific and such 

 

Out of curiosity as I joined a little later - how were the ships directed strategically in the initial version?

[Jatzi]

8 hours ago, 1MajorKoenig said:

Nick put up a roadmap and explained the next steps. Although it doesn’t mean that Alpha 11 is necessarily already one of the core releases he mentioned. However I agree it sounds like next we will see the skeleton of the campaign.

 

Why only two nations? He mentioned a North Sea Campaign - Germany vs UK which is a very good scenario choice for that era in my opinion. 
 

I don’t mind having that for a starter and have that expanded later on. I am more concerned about how the campaign plays out, what actions you can perform, what options we have, how lively the environment is. Once that is settled for the North Sea you can easily expand to the North Atlantic, Pacific and such 

 

Out of curiosity as I joined a little later - how were the ships directed strategically in the initial version?

That's my point. The campaign was originally described as being basically RTW with graphics. And RTW doesn't have scenarios. And limiting a RTW style campaign to 2 nations doesn't really make sense. It's just not necessary, it's so much of a sandbox. Every campaign with all the different nations will be exactly the same except for the starting conditions- budget, colonies, tech advantages, straight up just location in the world. Those make it easier or harder but those are the only differences. After that you can do whatever you want. And that's what I saw when I played it with that alpha 1 bug. They've gone back and revamped everything and are only releasing two nations in a single sea zone? Seems to me like it's entirely different. Which is possibly fine, I'm very much pessimistic honestly, but hopefully it is. But yeah the two nation release makes it seem to me like the campaign won't be a sandbox. Instead there will be scenario's like you said, fight the WWI North Sea campaign. Stuff like that. 

The initial alpha 1 version was basically an incomplete RTW 1 campaign. The tech tree wasn't complete and stuff like prestige was recorded but didn't really do anything. But it was a 3d clone of RTW. Random events set stuff up, you moved ships during each turn to different sea zones. The breakdown of the sea zones was similar to RTW. Once the random events lead to war a battle generator would set up a battle. It was far enough along that if they'd kept up with it I have no doubt we'd have a campaign already.

I'd honestly say a RTW campaign clone but done better would be perfectly fine to me. The strategic campaign in RTW is the weakest part of that game and there's a lot you could do with it. There's been some threads in the past about this and they had really nice ideas. But yeah the second I heard them say two nation initial release last year I figured they were moving away from that towards whatever. Their communication is so bad who knows what theyre heading towards. 

I will say that from little tid bits here and there plus what I saw it really seemed like they were heading towards the RTW clone but better and it made me happy. I remember seeing the US confiscate a ship they were building for a minor nation, something that happened regularly and is sorely missing from RTW. In the sense that you can't do it. Other nations can build your ships and can confiscate them, but you cant do the same for other nations. And minor nations aren't a thing. If they've abandoned all that then I'll be sad honestly. Just like I was sad when they abandoned the initial ship designer. The fact that they did that makes me think they totally abandoned it though.

Edited January 23, 2021 by Jatzi

[Skeksis]

On 1/17/2021 at 11:48 AM, Cpt.Hissy said:

Tone down the waves and ships bobbing around

This could be fixed by tying the bobbing in with the game speed e.g. normal speed full effect, x10 plus no effect (or very minimal effect), speeds in-between scaled to suit effect.

This should solve the over bobbing visual effect at faster game speeds and a simple scaling calc when the user adjusts the game speed wouldn't effect any performance. 

[Cpt.Hissy]

25 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

This could be fixed by tying the bobbing in with the game speed e.g. normal speed full effect, x10 plus no effect (or very minimal effect), speeds in-between scaled to suit effect.

This should solve the over bobbing visual effect at faster game speeds and a simple scaling calc when the user adjusts the game speed wouldn't effect any performance. 

why overcomplicate non existent problem?

there's no issues with gamespeed. There is an issue where default sea state looks like friggin hurricane and our boats are fighting in conditions where half of them should just sink. That is what i mean.