>>>Core Patch 0.5 Feedback Hotfix v90<<<

[RedParadize]

7 hours ago, SpardaSon21 said:

Given that Yamato's 18.1" guns were the upper limits of practicality, and even then only because the Yamatos were the heaviest things afloat, more than even the proposed Montanas, the devs never should have added the 19" and 20" guns to the game.  If the USA, perhaps the most capable nation when it comes to design and construction, look at their 18" guns and come to the conclusion its possible but impractical to fit the weight and space (even compared to 4x3 16" guns!), the idea that anyone could make a functional 19" or 20" gun is utterly hilarious.

To be clear, I perfectly fine with the 19" and 20" implementation, part of the fun in game like UAD is to rewrite history. I however think that they should be a much bigger downside to them. You mentioned cost, weight and space. But there is also a massive barrel wear increase. High velocity + high shell weight result in a very short barrel life (look at the Paris Gun). I would be surprised if a 20" gun could fire the amount of shell a UAD triple turret has per gun. (Btw Dev, you still need to fix the amount of shell per gun. Why would a 3 guns turret have more shell per barrel than a single gun one?)  Larger caliber guns should raise the maintenance cost exponentially.

6 hours ago, TAKTCOM said:

While IV citadel, AntiTorp V and Triple hull are large investments, absorption of 97% incoming  damage sounds like one of the most broken things I've ever heard.

Yeah, it is a massive investment, but it work. At 97% you only need few inch to protect vs secbat. A 20" deck hit will do no more damage than the fart of a wale. It is ridiculous indeed. While a the obvious fix would be to level resistance across all the hull and tweak the buff from citadel and all, the problem is that resistance is currently the only factor that some-wait protect ship vs plunging shell, specially large caliber one. Make a decent late year British battleship, they all have low resistance, restart battle until you get 18" or more on the opposing team. Large shell deck hit will pen all the way down to the engine, like if the shell was coming down at a +45deg angle.

Beside a much needed balancing pass on hull (and tower), I would suggest that deck should act like "spaced armour", as they were. 3 layer of 1" provide much more protection than 1 layer of 3". Not to mention what deck sized spacing does to shell fuses. I do not think it would be necessary to go for complicated new mechanic to achieve this. Just need to nerf the deck pen or make the "partial penetration" much more likely on deck hit.

 

[admiralsnackbar]

26 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

To be clear, I perfectly fine with the 19" and 20" implementation, part of the fun in game like UAD is to rewrite history. I however think that they should be a much bigger downside to them. You mentioned cost, weight and space. But there is also a massive barrel wear increase. High velocity + high shell weight result in a very short barrel life (look at the Paris Gun). I would be surprised if a 20" gun could fire the amount of shell a UAD triple turret has per gun. (Btw Dev, you still need to fix the amount of shell per gun. Why would a 3 guns turret have more shell per barrel than a single gun one?)  Larger caliber guns should raise the maintenance cost exponentially.

Yeah, it is a massive investment, but it work. At 97% you only need few inch to protect vs secbat. A 20" deck hit will do no more damage than the fart of a wale. It is ridiculous indeed. While a the obvious fix would be to level resistance across all the hull and tweak the buff from citadel and all, the problem is that resistance is currently the only factor that some-wait protect ship vs plunging shell, specially large caliber one. Make a decent late year British battleship, they all have low resistance, restart battle until you get 18" or more on the opposing team. Large shell deck hit will pen all the way down to the engine, like if the shell was coming down at a +45deg angle.

Beside a much needed balancing pass on hull (and tower), I would suggest that deck should act like "spaced armour", as they were. 3 layer of 1" provide much more protection than 1 layer of 3". Not to mention what deck sized spacing does to shell fuses. I do not think it would be necessary to go for complicated new mechanic to achieve this. Just need to nerf the deck pen or make the "partial penetration" much more likely on deck hit.

 

 

Awhile ago I asked about the #shells and #guns. Someone said that three triples turrets would have had more shells than doubles. I suspect the reason that would be the case historically is because a triple turret SHOULD be larger in diameter which means the magazine is larger. But UAD doesn't do it that way. (in terms of diameter) 

[RedParadize]

8 minutes ago, admiralsnackbar said:

 

Awhile ago I asked about the #shells and #guns. Someone said that three triples turrets would have had more shells than doubles. I suspect the reason that would be the case historically is because a triple turret SHOULD be larger in diameter which means the magazine is larger. But UAD doesn't do it that way. (in terms of diameter) 

If you can fit a 3x16" with 405 shell/gun, you can also fit a 2x16" with 405 shell/gun. Same space, but less gun, that's it!

[DougToss]

I think it’s worth mentioning that the Yamato’s guns were inefficient in comparison to other weapons systems:

 

[SpardaSon21]

 

32 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

To be clear, I perfectly fine with the 19" and 20" implementation, part of the fun in game like UAD is to rewrite history. I however think that they should be a much bigger downside to them. You mentioned cost, weight and space. But there is also a massive barrel wear increase. High velocity + high shell weight result in a very short barrel life (look at the Paris Gun). I would be surprised if a 20" gun could fire the amount of shell a UAD triple turret has per gun. (Btw Dev, you still need to fix the amount of shell per gun. Why would a 3 guns turret have more shell per barrel than a single gun one?)  Larger caliber guns should raise the maintenance cost exponentially.

Yeah, it is a massive investment, but it work. At 97% you only need few inch to protect vs secbat. A 20" deck hit will do no more damage than the fart of a wale. It is ridiculous indeed. While a the obvious fix would be to level resistance across all the hull and tweak the buff from citadel and all, the problem is that resistance is currently the only factor that some-wait protect ship vs plunging shell, specially large caliber one. Make a decent late year British battleship, they all have low resistance, restart battle until you get 18" or more on the opposing team. Large shell deck hit will pen all the way down to the engine, like if the shell was coming down at a +45deg angle.

Beside a much needed balancing pass on hull (and tower), I would suggest that deck should act like "spaced armour", as they were. 3 layer of 1" provide much more protection than 1 layer of 3". Not to mention what deck sized spacing does to shell fuses. I do not think it would be necessary to go for complicated new mechanic to achieve this. Just need to nerf the deck pen or make the "partial penetration" much more likely on deck hit.

 

I'd argue that a major reason resistance is the biggest factor with modern ships is because of the preponderance of 18"+ cannons.  It is very difficult to impossible to armor against those, even using ZoI.  We have realistic hulls (to an extent...) but unrealistic firepower.  The pride of the Kriegsmarine in the 1940's were a couple of 15" armed battleships with armor schemes older than Jutland.  Italy's Littorios?  3x3 15" guns.  The Dunkerques?  8 13" guns.  We have modern hulls designed to stop gun calibers that were on their way out the door even before WW1 ended.  Except of course, the purely paper modernized dreadnoughts, as well as the devs wanking off to 120,000 tonne German superdreads.  Never mind the only nation stupid enough to build a class of totally irreplaceable super-battleships was Japan with the 69,000 tonne standard Yamatos, of which they completed all of... 2, despite devoting the vast bulk of their industry to the task.

 

Hell, if any nation should have the most resistance its the USA, given that we fully expected our battleships would be getting hit by modern 16" shells, as well as the cruiser caliber-cannons.  Especially since you couldn't walk inside a treaty ship or later without running into an STS bulkhead.

[madham82]

3 hours ago, admiralsnackbar said:

- Each time the ship is hit the extent of protection is reduced, so subsequent torpedo hits on the same side will be closer to the full damage. 

Are you saying this is in the game currently? I have seen no evidence that protection is reduced by subsequent hits. Quite the opposite, TDS offers a flat reduction based on level selected (and probably other values). I've dumped over a hundred 24" torpedoes into a 100K+ super and watched 100 damage register as near simultaneous hits occurred.  

IRL, even the best TDS systems greatly lose effectiveness from multiple strikes to the same side. 

[Microscop]

20 minutes ago, DougToss said:

I think it’s worth mentioning that the Yamato’s guns were inefficient in comparison to other weapons systems:

 

This combines main and 2ndary armament. Those 5 american inch guns could pump out alot of shells.

Iowa could reload in 30 seconds and Yamato 35 at combat range, also japanese shells had twice the bursting charge aside from pure weight. 

Edited October 5, 2021 by Microscop

[RedParadize]

@DougToss@SpardaSon21 @MicroscopWhile I certainly agree that Iowa class was the most potent battleship of all time, its aura of invincibility is more a result of the propaganda done when it got reintroduced during the cold war to counter the Kirov class. I am of the opinion that Iowa was superior to the Yamato, but it certainly could have lost versus it. Lets not get dragged down into that kind of discussion, it will get us nowhere.

The fact is that many nation decided to stick with lower caliber, at the very least there must be some merit to that approach. Yet we do not see that reflected in the game. Beyond that, in term of balance only, the larger caliber have too much of a edge. Atm 6x+18" is superior than any number of 14" you can fit on a deck. I do not know about you guys but I kind of like pocket battleship and super cruiser, would be fun to not be constrained to super dread.

Edited October 5, 2021 by RedParadize

[Speglord]

Curious to know how refits (not just changing armament and superstructure, but general maintenance + wear and tear repairs) will work in the campaign. HMS Hood was famously years behind on refits when she finally met her fate in 1941; iirc she couldn't even hit her top speed because of the state of her boilers.

[SpardaSon21]

1 hour ago, RedParadize said:

@DougToss@SpardaSon21 @MicroscopWhile I certainly agree that Iowa class was the most potent battleship of all time, its aura of invincibility is more result of the propaganda done when it got reintroduced during the cold war to counter the Kirov class. I am of the opinion that Iowa was superior to the Yamato, but it certainly could have lost versus it. Lets not get that discussion get dragged down into that kind of discussion, it will get us nowhere.

The fact is that many nation decided to stick with lower caliber, at the very least there must be some merit to that approach. Yet we do not see that reflected in the game. Beyond that, in term of balance only, the larger caliber have too much of a edge. Atm 6x+18" is superior than any number of 14" you can fit on a deck. I do not know about you guys but I kind of like pocket battleship and super cruiser, would be fun to not be constrained to super dread.

I didn't even mention Iowa for the reason it was so late to roll out of the slipways.  I was primarily thinking about the North Carolinas and their successors in the South Dakota class.  The Nagatos had been extensively and expensively modernized, and the Yamatos were assumed to have 16" guns (of course they didn't, but the Japanese had done a very, very good at keeping everything about them secret).

 

Also, @Nick ThomadisI hope you don't mind the ping, but I have another document for you on US Explosive D shells:

http://navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-093.pdf

Testing in the 80's revealed it was impossible to have the ammo sympathetically detonate, even using old, old WW2 era 16" shells, and the high capacity HE shells at that.

 

EDIT: According to this page the primary propellant for the USN during the game's time was single-base nitrocellulose, so can that be added in?  It was preferred by the USA for, you guessed it, safety and stability reasons over double-base types.

Quote

SPD was found to have good stability characteristics when properly stored, with some lots manufactured prior to World War I staying in storage for as long as twelve years without loss of stability.

During World War II, the primary USN propellant was SPD in a multi-tube form made up of 99.5% nitrocellulose (12.6% N), 0.5% diphenylamine. The USN used a flat, short cylindrical grain design that usually had seven perforations with the websize varying from 0.023 in (0.58 mm) for the short 3 in (7.62 cm) gun to about 0.174 in (4.42 mm) for the 16 in (40.64 cm) guns. SPD had a good safety record partly due to the harder-to-ignite and slow burning nature of its single-base nature and partly due to the quality of its manufacturing process.

Would upgrade to SPDF as a flashless type propellant with increased safety due to reduced flash but would contribute to the ship's smoke interference rating due to the well... smoke it generated upon firing.

Edited October 5, 2021 by SpardaSon21

[RedParadize]

26 minutes ago, SpardaSon21 said:

http://navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-093.pdf

 

Testing in the 80's revealed it was impossible to have the ammo sympathetically detonate, even using old, old WW2 era 16" shells, and the high capacity HE shells at that.

I would suggest choosing your word more carefully, as the author of the report you posted did:

In other word, they were confident that projectile mass detonation was unlikely.  What about the propellant bag?

In any case, the relatively low chance of flashfire in UAD seems to reflect that.

[SpardaSon21]

3 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

I would suggest choosing your word more carefully, as the author of the report you posted did:

In other word, they were confident that projectile mass detonation was unlikely.  What about the propellant bag?

In any case, the relatively low chance of flashfire in UAD seems to reflect that.

Again, an 11% detonation chance, and only on one specific rack.  I'll give you that I should have been more specific, but since the official word is that even just stacking the shells a certain way prevents a full ammo detonation, it should arguably have a reduced detonation chance over TNT.  Especially since Explosive D is less explosive than TNT in the first place.

God, I love NavWeaps.

[DougToss]

3 hours ago, Speglord said:

HMS Hood was famously years behind on refits when she finally met her fate in 1941; iirc she couldn't even hit her top speed because of the state of her boilers.

I think you’ll appreciate this article

Here, then, are some variant Hoods. It is my hope that, when you lay out one of them on the operational or tactical map of a Second World War at Sea game, you will spare a moment's thought for the men who perished in her, and for those that loved them.

No refit planned or performed could have remedied Hood's many weaknesses, for the simple reason that Hood did not have the spare displacement to take a major rebuild, much less an extensive reconstruction like that given to Renown, Queen Elizabeth, and Valiant.

Hood's actual refits followed the model for British capital ships in general. With modernization driven by necessity remaining the prime mover for funding, it simply was not politically possible to argue for modernization and then refit the newest ships first, politicians and The People being what they are.

Also working against Hood was her carefully nurtured public image as "Mighty Hood". The Admiralty and successive governments had worked to create an aura of power about Hood that the ship itself simply could not support, and it had worked well enough that the German naval command considered Hood to be a real danger to the new Bismarck-class battleships: Bismarck and Tirpitz both ran extensive wargames against her during their working up. Hood's combination of speed and powerful armament meant she could pace the German ships, and do them real harm in the bargain. 

Given such a reputation, it was impossible for any British government to nominate Hood for the kind of massive work it would need to reconstruct her reality to match her publicity, and nothing short of that would be worthwhile. Money spent on Hood was frankly better spent on building new battleships, or on reconstructing Repulse to match Renown.

But Avalanche Press is nothing if not forgiving of some elasticity in national politics, physical laws, and fiscal realities, not to mention historical fact, so having stated it to be nearly impossible, wholly impracticable, and positively wasteful, here are some variant versions of Hood.

 

[vyprestrike]

An issue still exists with towers and barbettes showing up as red and giving a critical error when loading saved designs after restarting the game. This forces the player to pick up and replace all of the highlighted parts to bring the ship into battle, and repeat the process every time the game is restarted.

[Gen-Rampage5]

So am I one of the people that actually hates this update? I mean its a cool feature and all but the super battleships I used to be able to create are out the window now. I now have to use crew skills and different shell types when before it was light-super heavy and a type of powder and now its shell explosive, powder, and then the physical shell weight. please bring back the ability to make super battleships, even the old pre-dreadnoughts are near impossible to make but that's just me.

 

cool update, but not looking for ultra realism.

[AurumCorvus]

1 hour ago, vyprestrike said:

An issue still exists with towers and barbettes showing up as red and giving a critical error when loading saved designs after restarting the game. This forces the player to pick up and replace all of the highlighted parts to bring the ship into battle, and repeat the process every time the game is restarted.

One specific barbette that does this reliably is the Big Barbette that was recently added. I had two on a AH Mod BB (the 112 resistance one) w/ 4 gun 20", and I was having that error every time I loaded the design. I swapped it out for Huge Barbettes and the error stopped appearing on load. Unsure if that helps any in nailing the error.

[neph]

9 hours ago, SpardaSon21 said:

 

I'd argue that a major reason resistance is the biggest factor with modern ships is because of the preponderance of 18"+ cannons.  It is very difficult to impossible to armor against those, even using ZoI.  We have realistic hulls (to an extent...) but unrealistic firepower.  The pride of the Kriegsmarine in the 1940's were a couple of 15" armed battleships with armor schemes older than Jutland.  Italy's Littorios?  3x3 15" guns.  The Dunkerques?  8 13" guns.  We have modern hulls designed to stop gun calibers that were on their way out the door even before WW1 ended.  Except of course, the purely paper modernized dreadnoughts, as well as the devs wanking off to 120,000 tonne German superdreads.  Never mind the only nation stupid enough to build a class of totally irreplaceable super-battleships was Japan with the 69,000 tonne standard Yamatos, of which they completed all of... 2, despite devoting the vast bulk of their industry to the task.

 

Hell, if any nation should have the most resistance its the USA, given that we fully expected our battleships would be getting hit by modern 16" shells, as well as the cruiser caliber-cannons.  Especially since you couldn't walk inside a treaty ship or later without running into an STS bulkhead.

The issue is that we're solidly in the speculative history (at best) world in a treatyless universe. What would the line of battle look like with unlimited naval spending? I don't think UAD's too far off the mark with its guess.

[neph]

5 hours ago, DougToss said:

I think you’ll appreciate this article

Here, then, are some variant Hoods. It is my hope that, when you lay out one of them on the operational or tactical map of a Second World War at Sea game, you will spare a moment's thought for the men who perished in her, and for those that loved them.

No refit planned or performed could have remedied Hood's many weaknesses, for the simple reason that Hood did not have the spare displacement to take a major rebuild, much less an extensive reconstruction like that given to Renown, Queen Elizabeth, and Valiant.

Hood's actual refits followed the model for British capital ships in general. With modernization driven by necessity remaining the prime mover for funding, it simply was not politically possible to argue for modernization and then refit the newest ships first, politicians and The People being what they are.

Also working against Hood was her carefully nurtured public image as "Mighty Hood". The Admiralty and successive governments had worked to create an aura of power about Hood that the ship itself simply could not support, and it had worked well enough that the German naval command considered Hood to be a real danger to the new Bismarck-class battleships: Bismarck and Tirpitz both ran extensive wargames against her during their working up. Hood's combination of speed and powerful armament meant she could pace the German ships, and do them real harm in the bargain. 

Given such a reputation, it was impossible for any British government to nominate Hood for the kind of massive work it would need to reconstruct her reality to match her publicity, and nothing short of that would be worthwhile. Money spent on Hood was frankly better spent on building new battleships, or on reconstructing Repulse to match Renown.

But Avalanche Press is nothing if not forgiving of some elasticity in national politics, physical laws, and fiscal realities, not to mention historical fact, so having stated it to be nearly impossible, wholly impracticable, and positively wasteful, here are some variant versions of Hood.

 

wonderful link, thanks!

[SpardaSon21]

4 hours ago, neph said:

The issue is that we're solidly in the speculative history (at best) world in a treatyless universe. What would the line of battle look like with unlimited naval spending? I don't think UAD's too far off the mark with its guess.

Sure, and I'm not arguing specifically against that.  What I am arguing is that the developers have made dubious decisions extrapolating hulls under evaluation for the IRL threat level to the greatly expanded one in UAD.  The closest one came IRL to the amount of shell weight being chucked around in 1940 in UAD would be the US Maximum Battleships, the biggest of which were 72,600 tonne proposals in 1917, and equipped with 16" of belt armor, 15 18" guns, and a top speed of 25.2 knots.  Frankly the fact the USN thought they could get that level of firepower, speed, and armor in under 80,000 metric tonnes in that era is the most hilarious part of them when you think about it.

Edited October 6, 2021 by SpardaSon21

[Draco]

@Nick Thomadis we've talked about this multiple times before... at a 41 degree fall angle, side and deck pen values should be near enough identical, not 3-1 in favour of deck pens (in fact assuming a vertical belt plate, belt pens should hold the edge over deck pens at this angle)

We fixed this back in patch 11 and now we're back in fantasy-land... why?

[Nick Thomadis]

1 hour ago, Draco said:

@Nick Thomadis we've talked about this multiple times before... at a 41 degree fall angle, side and deck pen values should be near enough identical, not 3-1 in favour of deck pens (in fact assuming a vertical belt plate, belt pens should hold the edge over deck pens at this angle)

We fixed this back in patch 11 and now we're back in fantasy-land... why?

I am not sure I understand. Shells that have angle of fall 41 degrees (nearly the maximum that is practically possible, because we cannot have completely vertical falls) how much side/deck hit probability they should have according to your own fantasy?

[Draco]

Right. First off, sorry for the condescending tone. Not helpful. Bad Draco. Sorry.

So we have a ship, it has a shell incoming at very long range.

The gun firing the shell has the ability to elevate to 40 or 45 degrees, allowing the shell to descend at 45 degrees or above like so (the golden line).

Now if the shell descends towards an armoured surface at above 45 degrees, penetration is higher against deck than belt (assuming no differences in thickness, quality, the belt armour being an internal belt config that's already angled somewhat ect.)

However, if the shell descends at exactly 45 degrees (again assuming equal armour qualities and no as-built angling of the belt) then penetration chances should be equal against both surfaces, in other words, it has the exact same potential penetration of equivalent armour thickness against v/h at this angle of fall.


(ps, sorry for using paint, couldn't find an appropriate image on google).

In the image I posted above, the data states that potential penetration vs belt equals 11.4" equivalent armour thickness against horizontal, but 36.7" equivalent armour thickness against the vertical, even though we are below the 45 degree mark.

Why?

Edited October 6, 2021 by Draco

[Draco]

Now I do concede, most deck armour was not face hardened like the belt, and most (at least super BB era) belt armour was indeed angled, and you could just do a more easily codeable representation of that by having vertical pen be slightly higher than horizontal at 45 degrees if that is not going to be modelled in the full version of the armour scheme rework you've been talking about. still... 11.4-36.7 at below 45 degrees seems... a bit much maybe?

Edited October 6, 2021 by Draco

[DougToss]

I'm thinking back to Artillery School and my machine-gun course, so bear with me. Could what @Draco is describing be the "flashlight effect" of the beaten zone over range? 

As range increases and fall of shot moves from grazing to plunging, the beaten zone moves from being very elliptical to more oval. Theoretically, at a high enough angle the dispersion would be circular.

The reason it is called the flashlight effect is that if you imagine holding a flashlight orientated horizontally, and observe the illuminated area, it will be very long. As you move the flashlight towards shining directly overhead with a 90 degree angle, the shape changes towards being round. 

If we superimpose the change of beaten zone onto a 3 dimensional object, like a warship, I suppose a few things might happen:

1. Angle of incidence would change, so that when impacting the vertical surfaces of the target (belt armour), impact is more acute. This is already modelled.
2. Because the pattern of shot changes, a greater number of shots will plunge in a circular pattern around the deck, as opposed to few rounds grazing at shallower angles

[Draco]

40 minutes ago, DougToss said:

I'm thinking back to Artillery School and my machine-gun course, so bear with me. Could what @Draco is describing be the "flashlight effect" of the beaten zone over range? 

Sorry no.

I'll elaborate.

Here's another visualisation, stolen, again, from navweaps, detailing AP qualities of the 16"/50cal Mk.VIII.

The 16"/50cal has the ability to elevate to 45 degrees off horizontal, and because an artillery fall of shot trajectory, once wind resistance is taken into account, looks roughly like this:

The 16"/50cal has the potential to have a fall of shot all the way up to 53.25 degrees off the horizontal.
As you can see on the navweaps data sheet, penetration of equivalent armour thickness only shifts from being greater at the vertical than the horizontal once the 45 degree mark off the horizontal plain is reached.
Now I understand that this is a game and certain liberties must be taken to limit coding and keep the game from becoming extremely lag-heavy, so if making penetration against v "slightly" higher at around 45 degrees fall angle saves you guys a lot of time and coding effort from differentiating face hardened and non face hardened armour and modelling angled armour plates then NP, more power to you, but I still think that at 45 degrees fall angle it should be closer to 11.4-12.5 or thereabouts.
And if the price is more damage from partial deck pens then that's fine too. After all, when a shell hits the belt and doesn't go through, it more or less just bouncess off, whereas when it hits the deck, it goes through several floors of upper decks and superstructure, tearing all that apart, and then bounces off, before tearing through even more upper decks and superstructure and finally exiting into the sea/air on the other side, so it would surely do more damage, just maybe not "10-20 hits and you're dead" kinda damage like most non german super BBs facing 18" guns tend to last through if they bring anything like a historical deck plate thickness in the current meta.

Edited October 6, 2021 by Draco