Core Patch 1: "Arriving"

[ColonelHenry]

Yes, I would like to build cruiser design that in real life was 10k or something ton without going to 15k ton in this game. Thank you. I appreciate the people who still want this game to be what it should be...

4 hours ago, admiralsnackbar said:

Someone mentioned CL's not having torpedoes. WWII US Cruisers didn't have torpedoes [with some exceptions] and in hindsight that was a good call. 

You know. I never realize that US CLs in WW2 did not carry torpedoes despite the fact that I keep looking at them every time I want to build a "modern" cruiser in this game. The more you know...

Though I should have stated as "CL in 1910s and 20s". I believe most of them carried torpedoes. I was very surprised when my pre-dreadnought didn't die 2km within a CL formation.
 

[roachbeef]

I still maintain that it is better to have the AI build from a bank of user and dev made designs (perhaps track their win rates) and remove their ability to design for themselves. That will solve all of the issues overnight with the unrealistic and limited ship designer, but some people are too enamored by sunk cost.

[TotalRampage]

On 8/16/2021 at 6:18 AM, Nick Thomadis said:

Hello Admirals,

We would like to share the latest information about the upcoming “Core Patch 1: Mission Mechanics Test” which will include the first playable version of the Campaign, in a very limited state. 

Among the various improvements you have requested, there is also a whole new Hull line for the Italian Navy, while all playable nations receive the capability to build their own super battleships (Britain, Austro-Hungary, China and Spain now have a special super battleship hull). 

Please read what is going to be added in the confirmed changelog below. More features can be added in the meantime.

*==============================*
*Core Patch 1*
*==============================*

CAMPAIGN MECHANICS TEST
This very first version of the campaign will be provided as a stable test version for you, while we continue to develop it. You will play as Britain or Germany in an instant war brawl for domination on the North Sea. The campaign is available for starting in the years 1890, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940 with an auto-generated fleet or a fleet you will choose to design and build. The map is limited in scope and in content but this is done on purpose so that we can test, together with you, the new Mission Generation System as it provides battles around the map, and notice how your victories, defeats, the naval blockades have an impact on your Nation’s fleet power and economy. More info for the campaign will become available on its release. 

NEW FEATURES

• Ship Design Saves: Finally, you can now save your favourite designs in Custom Battles! The system works similarly as for the Naval Academy. You will be able to save and reuse your designs depending on the technology year and the ship types used for the battle.
• Battles Saves: You can now save your custom battles or Naval Academy missions at any time during battle gameplay! Load them at your next play session from the special “Load” button found in Custom Battles and Naval Academy.
• Design Custom Battle AI: Now you can design not only one type but all the participating ship types for your fleet in Custom Battles. A new interface helps you to browse all available ship types that you want to design prior to the battle. 
• New “Propellant/Shell Charge” components: The old “Explosives” component which included, temporarily, options both for Propellant and Shell Charge has become split into two new categories named “Propellant” and “Shell Charge”. The new vital characteristics for the shells used in your ship will play a very important role for your designs. 
• New “Rudder Type” component: Rudders are categorized in three generic settings, “Balanced”, “Semi-Balanced”, “Unbalanced” affecting the maneuverability of your ships.
• New Operational Range functionality: Operational Range is now properly measured in Km and is affected by ship design.
• New Conning Tower armor: Now the Conning Tower armor is properly depended according to the weight of the main tower. Previously it was only a crude multiplier of weight and thus it was very light in large warships causing excessive free tonnage.
• New Superstructure armor: The new armor zone is properly protecting the Towers and Funnels and its weight is included in ship design evaluations (previously the armor for Towers and Funnels was much simpler).

13x NEW HULLS

• The Italian “Littorio-class Battleship” can now be recreated in a hull base between 45,000 and 75,000 tons for Italy after 1936.
• New Italian “Super Battleship” available after 1936 with a displacement between 76,500 and 92,500 tons.
• New Italian “Modern Battlecruiser II” available after 1935 with a displacement between 39,500 and 54,500 tons.
• New Italian “Large Cruiser II” available after 1929 with a displacement between 32,500 and 42,500 tons.
• New Italian “Heavy Cruiser ΙΙ” available after 1934 with a displacement between 16,500 and 19,500 tons.
• New Italian “Modern Light Cruiser II” available after 1930 with a displacement between 8,000 and 11,000 tons.
• New Italian “Compact Light Cruiser” available after 1930 with a displacement between 6,700 and 8,000 tons.
• New Italian “Hybrid Destroyer” available after 1936 with a displacement between 3,500 and 4,500 tons.
• New Chinese “Super Battleship” available after 1936 with a displacement between 74,500 and 82,500 tons.
• New Spanish “Super Battleship” available after 1936 with a displacement between 75,500 and 87,500 tons.
• New British “Super Battleship” available after 1936 with a displacement between 80,500 and 92,500 tons.
• New Austro-Hungarian “Super Battleship” available after 1936 with a displacement between 89,500 and 101,500 tons.
• New Small Dreadnought available between 1906 and 1918 for Germany and Austro-Hungary with a displacement spanning from 18,000 to 20,500 tons.

NEW GUNS

• New Special Italian Guns for 3-inch up to 8 inch caliber ranging from Mark 3 to Mark 5.
• New Special Italian Guns for 12-inch up to 20 inch ranging from Mark 1 to Mark 5.

BALANCES

• Shell Ballistics/Weights/Costs have been rebalanced to support the new Propellant/Shell Charge components.
• Belt Armor weight has been increased by about 10% (it could become rather light in the late technology era).
• Torpedo Protection now contributes slightly to the Hull Resistance, making it useful not only against torpedoes.
• Overpenetration mechanics improved. You should not get excessive overpens against torpedo boats, destroyers and generally unarmored ships.
• Fires are extinguished less easily, so they can have more impact on ships. 
• Various others minor.

AI

• Friendly AI division commander has been reworked.
• Improved further the AI design system.
• Improved further the opponent AI.

BUGS & OTHER FIXES

• Fixed guns that could not rotate during battle. The problem was caused by errors in colliders which allowed guns to be placed very near to the superstructure which blocked their rotation.
• Fixed rotation of guns that were mounted on turrets.
• Fixed bug that was related with Attach/Detach of divisions.
• Repairs in the LOD of the new torpedo models. They could cause, very rarely, the “Too many threads'' error in low-end systems.
• Fixed bug that could make early torpedo boats to have 12 inches belt armor in Custom Battles.
• Fixes on the availability of German/Italian/Austro-Hungarian cruisers of the 1900s.
• Fixed bugs that could cause great delays during the Auto-Design processes.
• Fixed a Battle UI issue that showed inactive components still active on the list.
• Fixed issue with 17-inch guns of mark 3 that could be researched slower than they should.
• Various hull and gun fixes as per feedback.

Thank you for reading! We will soon let you know when the patch will become available.

 

Ahh yes.

Nick knows how to make my monday sometimes. 

[Tousansons]

8 hours ago, roachbeef said:

I still maintain that it is better to have the AI build from a bank of user and dev made designs

There was several attempt at driving the developpment towards this road (including me)

Of course there was concern about the percieved added replayability of random designs and the more grounded issue of designing these fixed ships and incorporating them properly in the campaign. With costs in terms of money, time and technology that the AI need to be able to handle which will ultimately lead to "a lots" of designs.

Of course there's still the middle ground used by Rule the waves with template of decent to good designs that the AI fill with whatever tech and money available.

The first iteration of the campaign will definitively be interesting. Will the AI be able to "look" like a real fleet, with design having decent synergies in term of speed and roles? Or will it just look like a bunch of misfits acting like fleets like the IJN post 1944?

Wait and see is the best option "for now" but I sure will voice myself again if I feel that none of my points are covered.

[Cptbarney]

2 hours ago, Tousansons said:

There was several attempt at driving the developpment towards this road (including me)

Of course there was concern about the percieved added replayability of random designs and the more grounded issue of designing these fixed ships and incorporating them properly in the campaign. With costs in terms of money, time and technology that the AI need to be able to handle which will ultimately lead to "a lots" of designs.

Of course there's still the middle ground used by Rule the waves with template of decent to good designs that the AI fill with whatever tech and money available.

The first iteration of the campaign will definitively be interesting. Will the AI be able to "look" like a real fleet, with design having decent synergies in term of speed and roles? Or will it just look like a bunch of misfits acting like fleets like the IJN post 1944?

Wait and see is the best option "for now" but I sure will voice myself again if I feel that none of my points are covered.

Ye i hope they do allow us to make ships for the AI and also improve the ship designer (as it needs it really.) All these things will help the game and give it a ton of selling points compared to any competitors too (RTW's).

Guess we will wait for now.

[Cdodders]

I would like to be able to refit old ships, regardless of age. I have a sort of plan for turning old Pre-Dreads and old Dreads into slow(er), heavily armoured floating forts. Especially when/if aircraft are added in, turning them into essentially AA self-propelled barges with a decent anti-surface capability (keeping the main battery, or at least some of it).

[Speglord]

Refits (within reason) would be really great. Not quite sure how they'd work, though. Most of the refits to WWI-era battleships in the 30s and early 40s included COMPLETE redesigns of the superstructure, propulsion, and even armament. Could be a little tricky to implement, but imo it's a feature that's absolutely necessary for this game, and at the very least for the campaign. I imagine it'll come sometime in the future once initial campaign bugs are worked out.

[DougToss]

RTW  2 was pretty good about giving the AI firm templates to work from, I don't think that would be a problem here. Better the Italian Navy of 1940 predictably look like the Italian Navy of 1940 than the awful designs we see now.

[BobRoss0902]

Literally been waiting for this since I was 15 lol

[Finnwolf88]

7 hours ago, Speglord said:

Refits (within reason) would be really great. Not quite sure how they'd work, though. Most of the refits to WWI-era battleships in the 30s and early 40s included COMPLETE redesigns of the superstructure, propulsion, and even armament. Could be a little tricky to implement, but imo it's a feature that's absolutely necessary for this game, and at the very least for the campaign. I imagine it'll come sometime in the future once initial campaign bugs are worked out.

Refits should be fairly simple to do. Just lock the displacement, hull and armor scheme. You can change pretty much everything else as was done historically. Even armor was added on.

[Zuikaku]

I'll just skip this one. Fantasy superbattleships just fail to impress me. Still waiting for the crew and old hulls.

[ThatZenoGuy]

On 8/17/2021 at 8:31 PM, Kebla said:

just a small criticism to Nick Thomadis: in my opinion you have to lose "the habit" of saying "we'll give you more news SOON" because it doesn't make sense soon, it could be in a week or in a month, anyway thanks a lot for the news I hope that you will not be silent for another month

By this point everyone who plays video games needs to admit that 'soon' is a buzzword for 'any time ranging from a week to ten years'. 

Project Zomboid was supposed to have NPC's and Multiplayer 'soon' and it's been 2 years for multiplayer and 10 years for NPC's lmao.

[Cptbarney]

5 hours ago, Zuikaku said:

I'll just skip this one. Fantasy superbattleships just fail to impress me. Still waiting for the crew and old hulls.

Ye, we only got one old boag, this time around. Need more from 1872-1903 (i just want HMS devastation in the game (1872).)

Edited August 23, 2021 by Cptbarney

[KiltedKey]

Oh thank goodness! Now I can stress test this game and not have to constantly rebuild the same ships again and again, and push my 3900xt. Actually it’s the 16 gigs of ram I need to upgrade…

 

Excellent. I can perfect ship designs and micromanage them to no end, and work on the ideal super heavy battleship and how much armor it needs to be invincible to 20 inch super heavy shells at all ranges.

 

It’s around 29.5 inches, by the way. 

Edited August 23, 2021 by KiltedKey

[Speglord]

14 hours ago, Finnwolf88 said:

Refits should be fairly simple to do. Just lock the displacement, hull and armor scheme. You can change pretty much everything else as was done historically. Even armor was added on.

I was more thinking of the issues of having "modernized dreadnought" hulls and other such things. Will they be available as upgrades for older dreadnoughts, i.e. lengthening the hull (as I believe the Italians and Japanese did with their ships)? I doubt you'll be able to build "modernized dreadnought" hulls from scratch in the campaign, as that wouldn't make much sense.

[Marshall99]

19 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

Ye, we only got one old boag, this time around. Need more from 1872-1903 (i just want HMS devastation in the game (1872).)

Yes, this game needs more old hulls. Because when the campaign will arrive the early game will be boring and repetitive. We have huge variety at the endgame, but in the early game there are only few old hulls. And starting the game with few hulls is not okey. I want to design my fleet as compact as possible at the beginning, so I can save money for later, for better designs. They should give us some ironclad hulls for coastal defense and more armoured/protected cruiser hulls. Also more torpedo boat hulls would be appreciated. Smaller torpedo boats, so we can use them to defend the harbours (cheap, small boat, easily built) There are many many things that this game needs, and we currently don't have them. Also I am looking for the Victoria class Ironclad, because of the frontal main battery. She would be a perfect starter ship. Compact design, secondaries, enough soeed, armour and devastating frontal guns and she has low profile. Excellent for coastal defense. But this was only an example. 

Please give us some more hulls because at the moment we have strong endgame concept, but not a good early game concept.

And early game is as important as endgame.

Edited August 24, 2021 by Marshall99

[Cptbarney]

Oh and need defo need retrofits as well.

[Donluca95]

Guys i'm literally checking the forum twice everyday !! Please devs can you give us any news about the releasing date of this patch?

 

Edited August 24, 2021 by Donluca95

[ThatZenoGuy]

34 minutes ago, Donluca95 said:

Guys i'm literally checking the forum twice everyday !! Please devs can you give us any news about the releasing date of this patch?

 

You're not going to get an answer other than 'current year' buzzword "soon".

[Cptbarney]

3 hours ago, ThatZenoGuy said:

You're not going to get an answer other than 'current year' buzzword "soon".

I understand games development can be fickle or run into problems unexpectedly. However, even a few screenshots wouldn't hurt now and then.

I know i'm repeating myself, but i seriously dislike the valve treatment. I mean i get far more invested and interested when i see regular and consistent updates. Than long gaps with nothing.

Edited August 24, 2021 by Cptbarney

[Commander Reed]

Saving Ship designs is a like a dream come true. I'd absolutely love to create my own ship classes and pretend as if they actually were a true class, sending them into battle/mass producing them. 

Boy, this will be fun.

[akd]

Will be back for some campaign testing.  The very artificial build for single missions part of the game just doesn't do anything for me.

[Mr Vidicord]

Can we get a Royal Navy CL special superstructure please?

[MrStan53]

1 hour ago, Admiral Short said:

Can we get a Royal Navy CL special superstructure please?

Can we get *any* CL superstructures? Every 20s and later CL at the moment looks essentially like either a bigger destroyer or the Trento.

[Commander Reed]

Aye, I believe variation would heavily contribute to replayability. I myself play this game quite often and the lack of hulls is concerning, but I'm staying faithful that the developers will fix this in the near future. After all, it's still quite early.