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>>>Alpha-11 HotFix v84 Feedback<<< (1/4/2020)


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18 hours ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

Exactly.
And penetrating shell that didn't go off, or overpen, just makes a hole and potentially spreads officer's panties all over the deck. Though it still can break some super duper important pipe or wire and cause problems with that.

@Cptbarney am sorry, do you know anything about how game entities physics and interactions are processed?

Well you can't calculate physics in unity, only fake it so rng, co-ordinates and various other calculations are needed to fake the simulation, since you would need a supercomputer to perform real-physical calculations in real-time. All things are either simulated via collision models and rng with some visuals or just numbers only.

The game just uses decals to give the impression of a shell going into the ship or making some kind of impact, trying to make this game into simulator is already out of the question especially without a more advanced and static game engine (which unity isn't btw), so all they can do is fake it really.

The only other way i know of a shell being able to effect its surroundings would be to give it AOE kind of ring that represents shrapnel and bits of the shell flying everywhere causing whatever damage to the surrounding structure.

Frankly, like steel trap said it's better if the mechanics were better modelled if possible to give better and more accurate results even if it does slow down the game with far more ships in the match itself.

But i seriously doubt we will see anything as complex, since the time and resources to do it in an engine that's better suited for teaching or for non-simulation games is better spent elsewhere frankly.

either way your just going to have to hope they allow for hard modding and wait for modders to make their own stuff really.

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15 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

It's as though you're more interested in "balancing"

FYI... Game balance - Wikipedia

Some interesting passages there....

"Most recently, game balancing takes players more into account, especially regarding the player created “meta

"Improving game elements (and sometimes game mechanics) is called buff, a devaluation is called nerf. Both can be achieved indirectly by changing other elements or mechanics or introducing new ones"

"If a game is to provide a continuing challenge to players, it must also provide a continuing motivation to play. The game must appear to be winnable to all players, beginners and experts"

"The highest goal of balancing is always preserving or increasing the fun or engagement" 

Game balancing is very important, wouldn't you say.

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1 hour ago, Skeksis said:

FYI... Game balance - Wikipedia

Some interesting passages there....

"Most recently, game balancing takes players more into account, especially regarding the player created “meta

"Improving game elements (and sometimes game mechanics) is called buff, a devaluation is called nerf. Both can be achieved indirectly by changing other elements or mechanics or introducing new ones"

"If a game is to provide a continuing challenge to players, it must also provide a continuing motivation to play. The game must appear to be winnable to all players, beginners and experts"

"The highest goal of balancing is always preserving or increasing the fun or engagement" 

Game balancing is very important, wouldn't you say.

Well what can I say my man, most of the people who payed 50 dollars for this pre order are historical or naval enthusiasts, who care more for realism than "fun or engagement". For them (and for me), realism *is* fun and engagement.

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1 hour ago, HEEL_caT666 said:

most of the people

Are you so sure about that, by CCs alone it seems to me it’s 50/50 of historians and ‘hey let’s pack this ship with as much firepower as possible and shoot-‘em-up’.

I'm not going to knock over those guy's who just wanta to play with freedom. 

Edited by Skeksis
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Quick silly experiment: huge random AI controlled battle.

Observation one:  50 ships in battle just start causing issues, while system is almost idling (and is rather far from calculator). This in Unity games typically means there's a lot of "quantity" stuff (like lots simple calculations) going on under the hood, or real bad optimisation. On the other hand, whole 50 ships, it's not bad at all.

Observation two: due to completely borked formation keeping logic, such battle turns into thinly spreaded chaos that eventually spreads so thin that all ships (including ones supposed to be in, even tight, formations) loose contact of each other and from that moment may meet again only accidentally. With that gunnery part works flawlessly (well, as far as this game can go)
Only controllable be the player with manual steering of every single unit, which makes this game into weird turn based thing with clunky controls. Non controllable by AI at all, so you WILL loose some of them eventually, and as random battle's only win condition seem to be murder, you WILL fail it.

Thought on this: overall looks actually realistic representation of what may happen with bad communication, i guess this may be intended, but then it ought to be documented in some (preferably detailed) form and possibly tweaked a bit towards better control for playability and fun reasons.

Edited by Cpt.Hissy
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On 4/12/2021 at 2:52 PM, Cptbarney said:

Well you can't calculate physics in unity, only fake it so rng, co-ordinates and various other calculations are needed to fake the simulation

  i mean, this is called game physics engine? And it kinda does calculate stuff, and well enough to even be worth applying in some limited real-life cases. Anyway, not a point.

From yer earlier posts I had an impression that you imagine game's treatment of units in analogy with your blender experiments, like meshes, polygons.. editing tools..  And i'd like to tell you it's not how it works. For the most part, game's code doesn't give a damn about your 3d mesh or doesn't even know about it's existence. So for example my earlier replies against internal models had nothing to do with increased polygon numbers or performance, as it's not even a concern in that case.
The underlying logic is an issue. Not that you may have more polygons to draw, but that you want those polygons to be positioned in certain way in relation to some other polygons, which can be unpredictably free-placed by player or ship generator, and in current variant of designer have no relations between them whatsoever..

btw, i have clues that the "box" of armour scheme currently gets projected on top of assembled ship model as whole, somehow. So there's really no discrete hitbox with part designated as certain belts or decks in every model.

Edited by Cpt.Hissy
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3 minutes ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

  i mean, this is called game physics engine? And it kinda does calculate stuff, and well enough to even be worth applying in some limited real-life cases. Anyway, not a point.

Well it is, you can't simulate true physics in a game engine (not yet anyways) otherwise say goodbye to yer PC. The amount of computation power required, for to keep multiple med-high poly meshes, along with the ocean a dynamic skybox etc too much taxation on your CPU, thats why you fake the physics in-general as it requires less coding and less stress on components

3 minutes ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

From yer earlier posts I had an impression that you imagine game's treatment of units in analogy with your blender experiments, like meshes, polygons.. editing tools..  And i'd lite to tell you it's not how it works. For the most part, game's code doesn't give a damn about your 3d mesh or doesn't even know about it's existence. So for example my earlier replies against internal models ha nothing to do with increased polygon numbers or performance, as it's not even a concern in that case.

Of course a game knows about a 3d mesh, how else is the code able to interact with the mesh in the first place? How else are shells able to interact with models in the first place? Hence why you use rigidbodies and colliders so unity knows what is meant to happen when certain re-occurring events well occur you attach scripts to them based on certain factors and events.

Hence why you programme the game so that it uses the model properly, otherwise we might as well use pseudo graphics still. All game engines can recognise 3D models, otherwise why bother using them if they couldn't?

3 minutes ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

The underlying logic is an issue. Not that you may have more polygons to draw, but that you want those polygons to be positioned in certain way in relation to some other polygons, which can be unpredictably free-placed by player or ship generator, and in current variant of designer have no relations between them whatsoever..

 

Um, no all models (except for shells im guessing) have a collider of some kind whether its a custom mesh collider (Or multiple) or a simple box collider or whatever collider is needed for the model depending on its shape and complexity, i doubt the game has any internal colliders or meshes (Anything beyond simple primitves, that make up only a few places) inside for the game to use to determine what it is surpossed to do in-general. 

Or least nothing so complex that the compartments are broken down into smaller and more detailed areas inside the ship, i imagine they are basically cubes that are shaped in a way so that they resembles probs, just a few key areas and maybe colour coded for easier editing and visualisation.

Polygons are nothing more than the literal shell of the model, they make up the physical space of the model, hitboxes are another more primitive mesh, thats scaled slightly wider and over the actual 3D model itself, which is divided into multiple meshes so, to simulate the model being hit in certain parts and also assigning different values based on where its been hit (CSGO, being a good example how getting shot in the legs, does less than being shot in the head while using a simple hitbox mesh over each character divided into hands, arms, legs, torso, head, feet and neck).

3 minutes ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

btw, i have clues that the "box" of armour scheme currently gets projected on top of assembled ship model as whole, somehow. So there's really no discrete hitbox with part designated as certain belts or decks in every model.

The ships mostly likely use mesh colliders, due to them being mostly non-standard shapes and too complex for simple box, cylinder, sphere colliders in-general. These are on the outside, but can be scaled so they are either inside the model or just outside, or a lot further for whatever reason. 

I'm assuming each part or at least the hull anyways is divided into multiple and very large hitboxes, otherwise extended belt and deck couldn't be a thing. It's Primitive, but it works as an alpha for now. Also the other components will have their own colliders and also hitboxes too.

Either way, we will see what the devs will do. We have a long way to go before we have any proper systems in place. Not too mention mod support which will hopefully and any proper.

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19 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

Of course a game knows about a 3d mesh, how else is the code able to interact with the mesh in the first place?

Most processes interact not with the mesh, but with let's call it entity(think different engines etc. may use different names), to which mesh is just one of many linked but independent data sets, colliders being another. For most cases, all that's needed for some function is entity coordinates in space or some other separately added data, and it's shape doesn't matter.
Doing anything with 3d models almost doesn't matter for game's functionality.
for the rest part, you even don't see what i'm talking about.. but it doesn't matter much as neither of us are in dev team or can influence it.
leaving you alone now

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Hey random but really important point: 

Make side guns and centreline guns use the same fire control system. It makes 0 sense for side turrets not to be locked on, while all the other turrets are.image.png.e4af6b5edd335f54a50b7da773c4d4e0.png

Edit:

just realised I'm braindead:

side guns are not on the same axis as the centreline guns, so using data from the main fire control system would lead to inaccurate fire.

Edited by HEEL_caT666
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15 minutes ago, HEEL_caT666 said:

Hey random but really important point: 

Make side guns and centreline guns use the same fire control system. It makes 0 sense for side turrets not to be locked on, while all the other turrets are.image.png.e4af6b5edd335f54a50b7da773c4d4e0.png

Edit:

just realised I'm braindead:

side guns are not on the same axis as the centreline guns, so using data from the main fire control system would lead to inaccurate fire.

No you are correct and has been brought up before. The difference is no greater than fore and aft guns. This goes back to the main advantage HMS Dreadnaught offered, unified main armament.  

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14 hours ago, madham82 said:

No you are correct and has been brought up before. The difference is no greater than fore and aft guns. This goes back to the main advantage HMS Dreadnaught offered, unified main armament.  

Yeah I just thought yknow displacement along the ships axis can be corrected with some trig, for side armaments less so?

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40 minutes ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

All offsets can be accounted for in fire control system, as all guns are static in relation to other parts of the system. There should be no such thing as separate fire control for separate turrets. That's all.

And that includes turrets of different sizes but the same calibre, as we see with King George V (4+2+4), Conte di Cavour and Andrea Doria (3+2+3+2+3), and Nevada (3+2+2+3). All classes had a unified fire-control system and fired broadsides in unison, with no appreciable difference in rate-of-fire or accuracy between the larger and smaller turrets - assuming the quads on KGV actually worked as designed.

The lesson here is very simple: guns should be grouped only by calibre. Furthermore, the difference between turrets of multiple sizes within that calibre should be in cost, weight, technology and (in campaign) reliability. Accuracy or rate-of-fire shouldn't be a factor.

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If we'll dig a bit deeper, there is possibility to have exact same gun in different types of mounts with some of them having central firing control and others not, or ones working better than others. But that's not turret sizes or number of barrels, that's specifically different types of mount.
Reload speed also may differ between turrets, accuracy (dispersion of shot) may and probably should.

But firing solution has no reasons to be separated.

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1 hour ago, SonicB said:

And that includes turrets of different sizes but the same calibre, as we see with King George V (4+2+4), Conte di Cavour and Andrea Doria (3+2+3+2+3), and Nevada (3+2+2+3). All classes had a unified fire-control system and fired broadsides in unison, with no appreciable difference in rate-of-fire or accuracy between the larger and smaller turrets - assuming the quads on KGV actually worked as designed.

The lesson here is very simple: guns should be grouped only by calibre. Furthermore, the difference between turrets of multiple sizes within that calibre should be in cost, weight, technology and (in campaign) reliability. Accuracy or rate-of-fire shouldn't be a factor.

There was precedent for decreased accuracy and rate of fire in multiple turrets. The French warship designer Emile Bertin particularly seemed to dislike dual turrets and favored singles.

  1. He reasoned that two guns would decrease accuracy due to off-axis impulses and disruption of the gunlayers by blast.
  2. Supposedly twin turrets would be a bigger target, too, although I think that is certainly wrong on a per-gun basis. However, it is also true that damage to a multi turret would disable more guns.
  3. It was also thought that twin turrets would fire slower, due to blast disruption and cramped space, and in this there was evidence. Comparative trials in the late 1890s had shown that the French 164.7mm twin had only 1.4 times the output of a 164.7mm single.
  4. The early French turrets were naturally ventilated, and exhaust-gas from two guns was particularly suffocating.

But, I would argue that most of these problems were largely solved over time or with careful detail design. So, all Dreadnoughts had their main guns in multi turrets.

  1. It seems that better training machinery was able to deal with off-axis slew well enough, and central control with salvo timing delays significantly reduced the blast problem.
  2. The "too many eggs in one basket" fear never went away for multi turrets, but their space and weight efficiency largely overcame this.
  3. Bigger, more automated turrets would increase rate-of-fire in multi turrets. I see no particular reason why a modern independently sleeved three-gun 16in turret would fire much slower than a two-gun version. It appears that smaller guns with heavily manual loading may still have had a certain ROF advantage in singles. 
  4. Fans and compressed air scavenging can vastly reduce gas accumulation.
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15 minutes ago, disc said:

There was precedent for decreased accuracy and rate of fire in multiple turrets. The French warship designer Emile Bertin particularly seemed to dislike dual turrets and favored singles.

  1. He reasoned that two guns would decrease accuracy due to off-axis impulses and disruption of the gunlayers by blast.
  2. Supposedly twin turrets would be a bigger target, too, although I think that is certainly wrong on a per-gun basis. However, it is also true that damage to a multi turret would disable more guns.
  3. It was also thought that twin turrets would fire slower, due to blast disruption and cramped space, and in this there was evidence. Comparative trials in the late 1890s had shown that the French 164.7mm twin had only 1.4 times the output of a 164.7mm single.
  4. The early French turrets were naturally ventilated, and exhaust-gas from two guns was particularly suffocating.

But, I would argue that most of these problems were largely solved over time or with careful detail design. So, all Dreadnoughts had their main guns in multi turrets.

  1. It seems that better training machinery was able to deal with off-axis slew well enough, and central control with salvo timing delays significantly reduced the blast problem.
  2. The "too many eggs in one basket" fear never went away for multi turrets, but their space and weight efficiency largely overcame this.
  3. Bigger, more automated turrets would increase rate-of-fire in multi turrets. I see no particular reason why a modern independently sleeved three-gun 16in turret would fire much slower than a two-gun version. It appears that smaller guns with heavily manual loading may still have had a certain ROF advantage in singles. 
  4. Fans and compressed air scavenging can vastly reduce gas accumulation.

Thanks for the detail! I'm not as familiar with late nineteenth-century design, when designers were still trying to figure out the basic construction of a barbette or turret armament. Bertin may well have been right; however, as you said, by the core era of this game the basic problems with multi-barrel turrets had been solved, and the choice of double, triple and later quad (or 2+2) turrets came down mainly to weight distribution, firing arcs and redundancy.

I think that a technology gate, increased cost, and (perhaps) a higher chance of malfunction in earlier versions, if this is ever implemented, is easily enough to reflect these concerns.

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On 4/13/2021 at 7:10 AM, Skeksis said:

FYI... Game balance - Wikipedia

Some interesting passages there....

"Most recently, game balancing takes players more into account, especially regarding the player created “meta

"Improving game elements (and sometimes game mechanics) is called buff, a devaluation is called nerf. Both can be achieved indirectly by changing other elements or mechanics or introducing new ones"

"If a game is to provide a continuing challenge to players, it must also provide a continuing motivation to play. The game must appear to be winnable to all players, beginners and experts"

"The highest goal of balancing is always preserving or increasing the fun or engagement" 

Game balancing is very important, wouldn't you say.

When it's a stand alone fantasy setting like StarCraft? Sure.

When it's a multiplayer shooter etc? Sure.

When it's a very specific set of historical technologies within a narrow application?

No, take your balance and [beeeeep], LOL.

If you sell it on the grounds of realism etc etc? Take your balance and [beeeeeep] even harder.

What's next? Make another game called "Flat tops" and recreate the battle of Midway where we have F-14s being balanced against Zeroes because some players are too lazy or stupid to realise why WW2 fighters might not be a great match against radar and missile equipped jets?

I'm not "pointing" this at YOU, to be clear. All I'm saying is "balance" ought ONLY exist with respect to the relative performances of more or less similar techs such that 14" guns of different types aren't "radically" different but compared with 6" there is a MASSIVE difference regardless of the level of the 14" in question.

But to apply it so a person who sends ships into horribly mismatched conflicts doesn't get absolutely slaughtered so as to keep them engaged? No business in this sort of game. Instead, point them to the twin set of battles from WW1, namely Coronel and Falkland Islands, to show them what happens when ships run into more advanced ships a step or two up the food chain.

If they ARE going to "balance" things like that, then they MUST remove any reference to "realism" unless they are VERY specific about what they mean (yes they look like ships of the era, for example).

Sure, Wargaming makes claims about "realism", but we also know they are a mob devoid of shame or decency (I could give a long list of evidence if anyone finds that hard to accept). I would never accuse Nick or anyone else involved in this project of being like that.

I discussed all this some time back where I said the challenge OUGHT to be to come to grips as to WHY WW1 era Germany had the constraints and issues v the Royal Navy that it did, for example, and to see if the player can do any better. It ought NOT be to make the various Nations so removed from their historical counterparts that they might just as well be relabelled as some sorts of rival teams in a competitive sport. I thought Rule the Waves did a half decent job of that re budgets and the likes at the campaign level.

Cheers

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