Can secondary guns of same calibre target multiple ships?

[Ernst Preuss]

Does anyone know if guns of same calibre can shoot at more than one ship at a time? 

I've been playing around with one vs many scenarios so I festoon my battleships with many secondary's. When I'm between two enemies, I seem to notice that only one bank of 8" guns will fire, all while other bank of 8" ignores the enemy ship on its side. 

Is this actually the case?

If so, I'll just have to change playstyle  and also install many different guns when up against many small ships. 

 

Many thanks

[Cpt.Hissy]

Currently each "type" of gun, so mains and secondaries, can have only one target at a time. And a third for torpedoes.

[Cptbarney]

I wonder if they will add the ability for something like main guns to have their own individual targets. Secondaries would probs be a bit much really, unless we could assign half on one and half on another for simplification.

[DeadlyWalrus]

Hmm... this got me thinking a bit.  Early on, secondary guns were aimed under local control, so the captain (let alone the fleet level commander) would have fairly little ability to effectively direct secondary fire.  The guns would mostly just blaze away at whatever happened to be in range.  Later, you get gun directors for the secondary battery so then you can engage as many targets as you have directors that can see a target.

Which brings me to the main idea.  Do targeting through the idea of gun directors.  Basically you have buttons for the directors and you can click a director and then click on the target and voila, no more having to play keyboard twister to assign different targets to different weapons.  You could theoretically have a system that allows you to manually assign individual guns to a specific director, allowing various distributed fire options as well.  

[Norbert Sattler]

16 hours ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

Currently each "type" of gun, so mains and secondaries, can have only one target at a time. And a third for torpedoes.

Not quite.
You can only set a single target manually and when you do all your guns of that type will only fire that this one target and nothing else.

But with secondaries I've seen my ships occasionally shoot at two targets at the same time. This seems to happen only when you leave your secondaries to automatically target something and they happen to shoot something that is only in range of the bigger among your secondaries, then the shorter range secondaries sometimes shoot at a different target.

But this only happens in terms of range, not angle and only if you do not manually asign a target to your secondaries... and even then only from time to time to the point where I'm not even sure if it's intended behaviour or a bug.

[Skeksis]

45 minutes ago, Norbert Sattler said:

Not quite.

Yes @Cpt.Hissy is quite right!

Here's the alpha introduction (see under section "controls")...

That's self explanatory and it hasn't changed since, your description is of something else that needs another explanation. 

[Cptbarney]

1 hour ago, Skeksis said:

Yes @Cpt.Hissy is quite right!

Here's the alpha introduction (see under section "controls")...

That's self explanatory and it hasn't changed since, your description is of something else that needs another explanation. 

Although i hope we get the ability to assign guns into groups etc (not during battle but pre-battle as that makes more sense) and then we can use whatever customizable hotkey to assign the different groups of each gun type to target different targets simultaneously. 

[Norbert Sattler]

Or alternatively being able to asign main and alternative target for each group... or at least for secondary guns. That way you could also asign one target on each side of the ship and have both port and starboard guns fire, if you are between enemies.

[Cpt.Hissy]

I can't get it.
When you hover over enemies to target them, there's text panel appearing that describes all the hotkeys for targeting options.
It's not flashing all over the screen sure, but i've noticed it first time i've targeted something, read it immediately after, and i know the options since then.

Why there's so many f**ng blind people?

* * *
On topic, I quite like how it (can) work in From the Depths, that could be adapted here.
You can have several "directors"(AI's) with separate "orders"(targeting settings), and tie any of your guns to any of them.
In battle, guns will attempt to focus fire on a target chosen by their "director", but if so happens they cannot (by being on the other side of the ship), they will individually try and shoot at whatever appropriate target they can reach. Additionally, if there's no appropriate target, they may be allowed to shoot at just anything enemy like in vicinity, or hold fire.
in realistically built ship, you can even have actual directors, giving the best targeting data on primary target, and random "spotters" with less accurate data that will be used for free shooting guns.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Cpt.Hissy

[Skeksis]

Using directors to target has been suggested many times in the past but to no avail. But since the market has changed somewhat, so maybe the team is looking for some improvements and also something for the new guy to do…  

Maybe this…

For each director you place onboard you get +1 in targeting, with local turrets or no directors equaling a single target only. And with a system of assigning/grouping turrets/weapons (in battle) to a director, by any selections of combo’s of mains/secondaries/torpedo’s.

E.g. if a ship is big enough like a heavy cruiser then you could place a main director, aft director and then port and starboard directors, which would give you 5 possible targets, local + 4 directors, local for turrets that are not director assigned. Altogether this would give the user the ability to target wherever, whatever and however.

Points of interest for such a setup…

• Directors to give the target info and an singular accuracy’s bonus.
• Multiple directors assign to the one target to give more accuracy bonuses, maybe!
• Torpedo accuracy bonus could be applied to the spread value.
• All superstructures to be amended to accommodate for at least one director on top, except very early ships.
• Directors should animate like turrets.
• Should be different director types e.g. large & small mains, aft/side large & small. Each director adding their own accuracies value/weight etc.
• More directors could serve as backups too, for the loss of others.
• Scrap the current 3 mains/secondaries/torpedo’s targets and just have the singular local target director as the default, you can't have it both ways, it's either this or the current. 
• Lead ship should control the whole division.
• And the cons.
  • Wouldn’t splitting the division and then have each split independently target achieved the same thing, hmm!
  • Should singular ship combat be considered, given that divisions are already controlled by group logic.
  • UI battle-wise, how to implement it and to be user friendly, more difficult to answer.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Skeksis

[Cpt.Hissy]

I must disagree. That description looks so much "gamey" it doesn't feel right here. May fit in a system specifically designed around very "gamey" approach, but not for a problem that had real solution, for supposedly "realistic" game.

Well if go for full realistic details, every turret and every individual gun mount is it's own director, and technically they all are able to track separate targets, but quality of that mostly is questionable.
What fire control station does, is collects all the trackings from all the connected posts and crunches the numbers.
 So, to mix in some gameyness, let's say our fire control would be a separate "module" assigned to a hull (not a physical object), and it's tech level will define, amongst other things, how many targets we can centrally track at one time. To supply the numbers, there are "director" modules on top, and also every sufficiently advanced gun turret will have it's own tracking capabilities and associated stats. Resulting tracking quality then depends on all operational tracking devices on a ship, and is applied to 1 to multiple targets depending on fire control.
There can be separate fire control with slots for secondary and (eventually?) AA suite.
This gives us 1 or multiple "firing group" slots, and we can assign certain turrets into those and designate targets for every slot.
 On top of this, we can NOT put a gun into fire control slot. This gun may have an option to be manually assigned a yet another target, or it may pick a target automatically, but in any case only gun's own sights are tracking that target and accuracy may be not even worth the trouble. This is local control.
 In case if fire control is knocked off, all surviving guns are going local mode.
Torpedoes use data from main fire control, with how torps are supposed to work that'll do.

Sounds a bit complicated, isn't it?

Now, please recall that it is not an individual ship simulator, it's supposed to be a real time massive naval battle game. While it technically can run just fine for dozens of ships in scene, You physically won't be able to control all of that, on every ship, in real time. Unless you're one of those chinese superschoolboys that win starcraft tournaments.

Solution? A simple, "allow all out-of-range guns to fire at whatever is in their range, apply nerfed accuracy data to imitate lack of central fire control"

[Skeksis]

You’re overthinking it.

As far as tracking goes, cost in cpu power is negligible. The director doesn’t do anything other than supply the target ID to its weapon grouping and that’s upon selection of targets or grouping weapons, nothing else. Maybe director animations would take up some but no more than any other rendering mesh. 

As far as the firing solution goes, that's where all the work is done and it would be per grouping, not per director, not per turret. Then the number of firing solutions to compute would probably be the same as we have currently.

As far as designing with directors goes…

• Take DDs, they would only fit 2, atop main superstructure and local (default), maybe 3 min to cover mains/any secondary/torpedo's grouping. 
• CLs, would fit 3, main/aft/local, that's one atop main and aft superstructures.
• CA, would fit 3-5, main/aft/port/starboard/local.
• BB/BC, would fit 5-7+, main/aft/port x2/starboard x2/local.

But alot of this would be govern by costs, weights and the practicality of adding too many (Dev’s could restrict by class too). Mostly users would try to keep the highest volume of weapons/groupings trained on the same target to destroy it asap, using one or two directors at a time. And why would anyone target more than 5-7 anyway!

With directors as a design option, it increases the scope of designer somewhat and that's the game’s asset and that is where it matters the most.

UI complexity depends entirely on the implementation. 
 

Edited February 16, 2021 by Skeksis

[disc]

An interesting idea, although the idea of multiple directors increasing accuracy against a single target seems a little odd to me. About the only advantage I can see is adding more rangefinder input. Secondary directors usually have shorter base lengths and thus worse ranging estimates, so they don't seem very valuable in that role.

[madham82]

Torpedo mounts don't use separate directors, if using any at all. Most would be local and just get range, bearing, and speed info from the main director. There's no need to refine a firing solution from watching salvos like guns. There's also no need to assign more than one target for them. That's where having some spread/manual fire options would help. 

[Skeksis]

12 hours ago, disc said:

Secondary directors usually have shorter base lengths and thus worse ranging estimates, so they don't seem very valuable in that role.

Exactly, so when the main is knockout the user would be forced to assign the next best director, which would have less values, and so on until only the local default is left, sounds like RL to me.

4 hours ago, madham82 said:

Torpedo mounts don't use separate directors

There has to be some streamlining when it comes to fleet simulations, some compromises. 

4 hours ago, madham82 said:

Most would be local and just get range, bearing, and speed info from the main director.

Somebody has to work out the ship’s course, launcher angle and firing timing, I would have thought they were near or in contact with the bridge, not down on the deck next to the launcher – "local", except when everything else is destroyed. Firing-control, even be it a pencil, for both guns and torpedo's could be simulated the same way, to suit streamlining. 

4 hours ago, madham82 said:

There's also no need to assign more than one target for them

Yes that's OP intentions, to firer on both port and starboard sides, why not torpedo's too? And it would influence designer too, in deciding if torpedo’s to be center-lined or placed on port or starboard based on the number of directors. 

Edited February 16, 2021 by Skeksis

[DeadlyWalrus]

Honestly, I don't think the UI has to be that complicated.  You have 4-5 buttons (main, sec #1, sec #2, torp #1 and maybe torp #2) and you just press that and select a target. Cycling through the directors to see which one has LOS to the target and then assigning guns is the sort of thing computers are rather good and doing very quickly so there's no real reason to force the player to do that (though you could do it through some sort of expanding menu thing if you really wanted).  Then you add an icon above the button to indicate that either because of damage or placement no directors can see the selected target (so the player can quickly see why accuracy is so poor) and that's kind of it. 

In terms of command overload I think that's better addressed through the division control UI. You can largely mirror the individual ship controls for targeting, but add in options for certain default behaviors, should ships prefer the lead ship in the enemy division or their opposite number in the battle line, should secondaries focus on the primary target or smaller ships, etc, etc.  This way the player is primarily focused on commanding divisions and the individual ships in those divisions can largely look after themselves.

[Skeksis]

28 minutes ago, DeadlyWalrus said:

Honestly, I don't think the UI has to be that complicated

As feedback from WotS, complexity works! I use the pause button all the time to set every fire-control and set manoeuvring on every ship/sub/aircraft, that amounts to gameplay, alot of it.

I always maintained UAD needs more interaction and now I know it. UAD time compression is used too much IMO, too much time is just watching the battle unfold, more battle interaction wouldn't be detrimental. 

Edited February 16, 2021 by Skeksis

[disc]

4 hours ago, madham82 said:

Torpedo mounts don't use separate directors, if using any at all. Most would be local and just get range, bearing, and speed info from the main director. There's no need to refine a firing solution from watching salvos like guns. There's also no need to assign more than one target for them. That's where having some spread/manual fire options would help. 

Many early destroyers had no independent directors, using handheld instruments or calculating sights mounted on the tubes. Later cruisers and destroyers oftentimes did have separate directors, although as you suggest they were usually not as complex as gun directors.

A good description of the typical US WWII destroyer torpedo director can be seen here. Pages 15-20 explain the general functions of the device.

https://maritime.org/doc/destroyer/ddfc/index.htm#pg15

Generally a US destroyer would have one or two torpedo directors, either one on centerline or one on each side of the bridge. They were pretty small and are hard to spot in photographs: Usually they are seen on the rear part of the bridge "wings," often covered by a tarp.

[madham82]

55 minutes ago, disc said:

Many early destroyers had no independent directors, using handheld instruments or calculating sights mounted on the tubes. Later cruisers and destroyers oftentimes did have separate directors, although as you suggest they were usually not as complex as gun directors.

A good description of the typical US WWII destroyer torpedo director can be seen here. Pages 15-20 explain the general functions of the device.

https://maritime.org/doc/destroyer/ddfc/index.htm#pg15

 

Generally a US destroyer would have one or two torpedo directors, either one on centerline or one on each side of the bridge. They were pretty small and are hard to spot in photographs: Usually they are seen on the rear part of the bridge "wings," often covered by a tarp.

Yea I was thinking of the traditional gun director (with radar), but that picture shows what I had in mind. A very simple single man station setup that would be just used for torpedoes. I just always thought they were on the mounts themselves or beside them. 

3 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Yes that's OP intentions, to firer on both port and starboard sides, why not torpedo's too? And it would influence designer too, in deciding if torpedo’s to be center-lined or placed on port or starboard based on the number of directors. 

Ask yourself one question, when exactly would it make sense to fire torpedoes from both sides of a ship at the same time? If you find yourself in the situation you feel it is needed, you have already made a tactical mistake. The same applies to guns. 

Tactically, you should never be in the situation where it is necessary to fire from both sides of the ship.

The only cases where I know this happened (and even front and aft turrets engaging different targets) was a single ship being caught by multiple enemy groups. The most famous example being the Graf Spee at the Battle of the River Plate.

Considering the game (at least in random battle and likely in campaign) doesn't support enemy forces coming at you from more than map location, this feature should not be needed. If your tactics are seeing this scenario come up, you should examine why you believe it is necessary or why the game modeling makes it anything but last resort. Because the reality is local gun control, of secondary guns especially, should be hugely inaccurate. Your chance of being bracketed by torpedoes from opposing sides is increased, and the likelihood of any positive outcome for the ship caught between opposing units is remote at best. So why exactly would you put your arm in the jaws of a lion?

[Skeksis]

50 minutes ago, madham82 said:

Ask yourself one question, when exactly would it make sense to fire torpedoes from both sides of a ship at the same time?

Some academy missions puts you in that very position, also it’s not up to us to debate others tactical decisions e.g. if some one wants to kamikaze ships firing torps on each side as they go then that's up to them, players should play the game however they want.

50 minutes ago, madham82 said:

The only cases where I know this happened

Historical tactical references are irrelevant since this game is not exactly historically accurate i.e. visible ranges, weights, tech bonuses, armor, torp reloads, lack of all four arms, penetration, speeds, super hulls, the list continues and it is quite long! best to take the game as is, what it is.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Skeksis

[madham82]

19 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

Some academy missions puts you in that very position, also it’s not up to us to debate others tactical decisions e.g. if some one wants to kamikaze ships firing torps on each side as they go then that's up to them, players should play the game however they want.

Historical tactical references are relevant since this game is not exactly historically accurate i.e. visible ranges, weights, tech bonuses, armor, torp reloads, lack of all four arms, penetration, speeds, super hulls, the list continues and it is quite long! best to take the game as is, what it is.

Yea I left out the absurd setups on some of the NA missions specifically because they teach tactics that will not be useful outside that particular mission in the game. I agree players are free to do what they want, but some probably haven't even considered their tactics are flawed. It is also why I'm not against some kind of implementation of local control, but only with the matching reduction in accuracy. Otherwise you are justifying a change in game logic that doesn't match with the existing logic regarding gun accuracy. 

Assume you meant irrelevant, but the lack of historical accuracy (in some aspects) is not an excuse to implement something that is unrealistic. That only unbalances the game further, because history and the reality of naval combat during this era are key parts of this game. This goes back to my point in my first paragraph. I'm not against implementing splitting fire groups between directors, or even sides of the ships. But it must be detrimental to accuracy to the point that tactics like charging into the middle of an enemy formation are decidedly ineffective (or suicidal).  

Edited February 16, 2021 by madham82

[DeadlyWalrus]

22 hours ago, Skeksis said:

As feedback from WotS, complexity works!

We're really talking about two different things here. Gameplay complexity is (generally) good, because it creates meaningful decisions for the player.  UI complexity is, at best, a necessary evil.  Having to page through menu on top of menu on top of menu to get what you want or memorize byzantine key combinations really should be avoided if at all possible. The focus should be on who to target, not the technical details of how to make the computer comply with that targeting decision. My point is you can build a fairly simple UI that is capable of supporting much a much more complex targeting system.  

[ston5883]

So I think you guys are on to something here. I like the idea of being able to tie guns to a director over what we have now. We could assign the guns to a director in ship building. Otherwise any other gun would be self aiming. As far as the directors go I could see front, back, and secondary. I would go as far as saying the type of gun has to match director type. This would make front and back for main gun types only and they would automatically come on any superstructure we place after researching it. This way it could just be some text letting us know it's on there and what mark it is and just give us our accuracy bonus. Any secondary director gets mounted on the ship manually and they would be able to attach like any secondary gun including on the pre-built mount areas of a superstructure. Sorry torp guys I didn't include the information you brought forth but I think there's a lot more work that is needed when it comes to torps. On the upside if they figure the coding out for this it would make some of the fixes for better control to torps easier.

[Marko Dash]

It would be cool to have a 'local fire control' option, in the 'normal, save, off' tab maybe, that makes it so that each turret fires on the target it thinks it has the best chance to hit but losses all the bonuses from the rangefinder, radar, etc.

 

so you could unleash your secondaries to blindly go ham on the PT boat swarm but keep your primary guns under director control for that running duel with an enemy battleline.