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

[Draco]

The only AI designs that are currently competitive with a properly balanced "realistic" design are german and austro-hungarian modern and super BBs, and they are only competitive because their ridiculously high resistance modifiers reduce 18" penetrations to the equivalent of 12" penetrations on any other navy's hulls in terms of final damage dealt.

The AI has no concept of stability, which apart from being problematic in terms of seakeeping would also realistically mean they couldn't hit anything beyond 10km even with 20+ 20" barrels pr. hull.

They also have a bad habit of not applying any fire control direction what-so-ever, which would realistically reduce their effective range to only 1-2 km, regardless of barrel size and number.

Finally they actively under- armor their ships and instead riddle them with anti-torp V and tripple-hull bottoms, maximizing resistance modifiers over realistic armour schemes, Which IRL would have no impact at all on a ship's ability to withstand gunfire.

In short, the AI's ships as of now would be ridiculously ineffective IRL, and their ability to be even marginally succesful in game speaks to the persistent lack of realism resulting from a bad habit on part of the devs to balance the gameplay towards making the poorly designed AI ships pose a proper threat instead of fixing their ridiculous design practices.

If this game wants to sell itself as anything resembling simulator/realism like gameplay then this faulty balancing must be adressed.

As it stands, the game is already decidedly less realistic than WoWS, and that is saying something.

The potential buyer base is mostly made up of historically enthusiastic gamers who experience immersion through realism, and in order for the game to succeed commercially, the concerns of that player base must be properly satisfied.

Period.

[Draco]

8 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

The weight of those turrets are a little heavier than their 5" counterparts. And triple turrets are a way to save weight. 

If you actually read that wiki-page you linked to, you would know the Akizuki class were AA destroyers, whose main surface-engagement utility were their radars.

Tripple turrets are an effective weight saving measure in battleships that already have enough beam to support them anyways, but as soon as you start introducing tripple or even just double turrets of equal calibre to less beamy vessels such as destroyers, the weight offsets required to maintain an equivalent speed to their thinner counterparts more than offset the savings of fewer more compact turrets, due to the increased amount of water that the wider  hull must push through requiring more horsepower and thus more engine compartments.

This is why nobody designed a 5" twin turret destroyer until WWII was more or less over and engine technology had progressed enough to allow it, and having no such cost-benifit relation in game makes the whole experience feel shallow and inconsistent to anyone who has done a modicum of reading on the subject.

Edited September 26, 2021 by Draco

[TAKTCOM]

47 minutes ago, Draco said:

This is why nobody designed a 5" twin turret destroyer until WWII was more or less over...

Mogador-class destroyer, 4x2 138mm, Marine nationale,  1939

Somers-class destroyer, 4x2 5", USN 1939

[DougToss]

7 hours ago, ColonelHenry said:

"rules of their world"... folks, this is why when you make a "realistic" game set in a HISTORICAL settings, you listen to people who are really interested in the "historical" part not Ronald McDonald in McDonaldland. Else, might as well make a WoWS: But You Can Build.

How long can human player remain honorable? Excuse me? I guess zoomers brain are built different but when I play a singleplayer game, I don't intentionally break the AI so I can see "YOU WIN" as long as the game is well made and fair.

You said everything I was going to. Exactly. 

Warships weren't designed for "DPS" or whatever, and the process being described is why the AI is broken. It is using the logic that ship design consists of piling on the most guns of the highest calibre onto the largest displacement. That players think like that, again - read O'Hara, Brown and Friedman or don't but let's not pretend all viewpoints are valid here - but that is not how warships were designed. Having the logic of ship design rooted in The Logic Of Ship Design is the only way to have results that approximate reality. The player's use of that logic can't be determined, but the AI's can be. 

At this point it is starting to feel that the AI's poor design decisions are being defended by people who do not want to be alone in the game world with their own. The difference between sandbox and fantasy is the extent to which things beyond the player are constrained by reality. Nobody is saying that you can't make meme ships, we are simply asking that the AI not. 

[Rui_AD]

missed

Edited September 26, 2021 by Rui_AD

[Rui_AD]

Spotting should be improved. It's ridiculous that you can't even find an enemy 3km away if you don't allow it to fire.

[arkhangelsk]

1 hour ago, Draco said:

This is why nobody designed a 5" twin turret destroyer until WWII

If you are going to claim expertise, at least check simple claims as to whether people have designed a ' 5" twin turret destroyer'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fubuki-class_destroyer

Built starting 1926. Meanwhile have a look at the destroyer with perhaps the heaviest gun armament:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_destroyer_Z34

Includes one twin 6". The twin turret weighs 60 tons. Which is probably more than a triple 5" turret would have weighed. The ship is rated for 36 knots. Z34 is said to have some stability problems, but you can see people have indeed built such a thing so it is not to the extent that it is a manifestly wrong choice.

I'm very OK with impossibilities in reality converting to impossibilities in game. On the other side of the token, if it's possible in reality, it should be possible in-game, and we should be allowed to try paths not taken. And I don't want to accept something being impossible (thus banned) based on the submission of someone who won't even verify that indeed no one has built a ' 5" twin turret destroyer" .

[Draco]

48 minutes ago, TAKTCOM said:

Mogador-class destroyer, 4x2 138mm, Marine nationale,  1939

Somers-class destroyer, 4x2 5", USN 1939

Somers class was dangerously overweight and extremely unstable as a gun platform in all but a perfect flat calm, why do you think it's successors went back to singles?

The French destroyers were all almost twice as large and expensive as their contemporaries, had horrible sea keeping characteristics, and were all several knots slower than their designed top speeds...

I don't consider examples that are widely regarded as failures as valid counter arguments.

Edited September 26, 2021 by Draco

[Draco]

6 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

If you are going to claim expertise, at least check simple claims as to whether people have designed a ' 5" twin turret destroyer'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fubuki-class_destroyer

Built starting 1926. Meanwhile have a look at the destroyer with perhaps the heaviest gun armament:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_destroyer_Z34

Includes one twin 6". The twin turret weighs 60 tons. Which is probably more than a triple 5" turret would have weighed. The ship is rated for 36 knots. Z34 is said to have some stability problems, but you can see people have indeed built such a thing so it is not to the extent that it is a manifestly wrong choice.

I'm very OK with impossibilities in reality converting to impossibilities in game. On the other side of the token, if it's possible in reality, it should be possible in-game, and we should be allowed to try paths not taken. And I don't want to accept something being impossible (thus banned) based on the submission of someone who won't even verify that indeed no one has built a ' 5" twin turret destroyer" .

Being rated at 36 knots is very different from being actually capable of 36 knots in non-perfect conditions, and a fully loaded Z34 could't even manage that in perfect conditions.

If these drawbacks are going to be modelled in game then I'm all for letting everyone design shit ships and see them fail spectacularly, but thus far this does not seem to be in the cards.

Edited September 26, 2021 by Draco

[arkhangelsk]

7 minutes ago, Draco said:

Somers class was dangerously overweight and extremely unstable as a gun platform in all but a perfect flat calm, why do you think it's successors went back to singles?

The French destroyers were all almost twice as large and expensive as their contemporaries, had horrible sea keeping characteristics, and were all several knots slower than their designed top speeds...

I don't consider examples that are widely regarded as failures as valid counter arguments.

 

4 minutes ago, Draco said:

Being rated at 36 knots is very different from being actually capable of 36 knots in non-perfect conditions, and a fully loaded Z34 could't even manager that in perfect conditions.

Now, you are just moving the goalposts and going for a No True Scotsman fallacy. You started off literally saying there are no ' 5" twin-turret destroyers ' and now that there are several, you should at least admit that the AI is creating something real humans might have actually made. Maybe after making it, they'll regret it, but at least it is not manifestly wrong (at least in the area).

The blunt truth is that real navies have been trying to make warships as big as they can afford in sufficient numbers, and packing it with as much DPS capability as possible. Fire control improves accuracy - which means more DPS on target. Protection is there to extend the life of the ship, so it can inflict more DPS. Mobility is there so it can get into a position it can inflict DPS, or run away from another ship with superior DPS - the ultimate intention being to re-commit it another time and place ... to inflict more DPS.

Why do you think the naval treaties include tonnage / ship limits, but because left to their own devices, navies will go for large ships? Do you think Britain begged people to limit themselves to 25000 ton, 12 inch ships because these are natural choices?

Sure, sometimes we get a Tomozuru incident, and the navy designers get more conservative. Barring that, the pressure is always on for more DPS. Can the AI be faulted for emulating this part of human behavior?

=====

Right now, the most common game mode is Custom Battles, where all ships are being asked to perform in calm weather, and cost is not a factor. It may be that once the campaign is on and funds are limited, AI ships will naturally become smaller. When weather becomes a factor, it may be that the loss of stability once believed tolerable with very heavily armed ships will start to drag down effective DPS sufficiently they won't be as much of a threat anymore - perfectly naturally.

We will have to see. But right now, I suggest that we let the AI build what works. I agree that they should be "taught" that there's almost never a disadvantage (in-game) with "Maximum bulkheads" and "Best Fire Control Equipment" since the latter lesson seems to not have sunk in. I agree with the effort to curb overly fast ships, and I won't mind some kind of hard horsepower limit (which will also give the AI a real reason to favor smaller ships that their engines can push).

[Draco]

6 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

you should at least admit that the AI is creating something real humans might have actually made.

I did, I said I don't consider failures as valid counter examples from real life, and custom battles is not limited to perfect flat calm conditions, but goes up to moderate waves, wind ect. In which meme ships still vastly outperform their real life counterparts.

again, if the devs are going to make stability and fire control actually matter at some point, then I'm all for letting the AI and players alike build terrible designs and see them crash and burn.

IF...

[GhostlyDoggo]

Hello all, 

I've been watching this thread for the better part of 3 months and have had the game since this last November, I'm not going to get to much into the progression of the game such as the campaign. I think we all have more or less the same feelings about it, it should have been here by now, but I'm not going to beat a dead horse. But as said by multiple people here i think the damage models need a vast update, gun damage is not realistic nor is it even fun in the current state its at now. Historically the Sinking of Bismarck, Battle of Jutland, and the initial engagement of Taffy III with Yamato show us good references for naval ballistics and detailed damage reports for multiple calibers and eras for weapon technology. It is inexcusable not to implement changes with such details and examples afforded to us by documented naval conflicts. As for the designs of ships i agree with what has been said already, the ai should produce reasonable ships and we should have the complete freedom not to. But why cant we control, the size shape and secondary mounts on our towers and super structures? This is ultimately what decides a ships full design and capability's and is only seconded by hull construction and layout. Why can we not determine the position and usage for compartments such as engine rooms, berthing's and fuel storages etc. ? I by no means am a naval expert, but i have served under the United states navy and toured many museum ships and i believe that gives me at least a decent idea of the complexity's of a naval vessel. I think as a game that advertises ship design and combat this as a minimum should be afforded to us as the paying customers and testers of a game in Alpha. I apologize this was long but i look forward on to what the community thinks and feels about this. And hopefully the developers who read this.  

[TAKTCOM]

Just now, Draco said:

...

The imperfection of Somers and Magador destroyers class is not the point of discussion. I commented on this post which is obviously wrong

1 hour ago, Draco said:

This is why nobody designed a 5" twin turret destroyer until WWII was more or less over...

"5" twin turret destroyer" was were designed and built in many countries, long before WW2 began. USA, Japan, Germany (150mm), Italy (120mm), Britain (120mm), France (130-138mm) and even the USSR (130mm).

What is it all about? AI makes idiotic designs? Isn't that what he always did? Does the player make designs that would never work in reality? Hmm, didn't we buy this game for that too?

And if we're entering non-functional insanity territory, let's take a look at this 295 tonn Destroyer, with 406mm armor and 254mm underwater gun built in the USA in the 19th century.

[arkhangelsk]

6 minutes ago, Draco said:

I did, I said I don't consider failures as valid counter examples from real life, and custom battles is not limited to perfect flat calm conditions, but goes up to moderate waves, wind ect. In which meme ships still vastly outperform their real life counterparts.

again, if the devs are going to make stability and fire control actually matter at some point, then I'm all for letting the AI and players alike build terrible designs and see them crash and burn.

IF...

Stability aside, what do you mean "fire control" doesn't matter? I always go for the best available fire control, and am rewarded with smacking much more damage to my enemy than he does on me.

As for how bad the weather gets, I must admit in all my time playing this - admittedly I'm a relatively light player who only does one or two missions a day, I've never seen seas that go much beyond those presented in those destroyer pictures above - that is, nearly flat.

Take a picture if one day you actually see a storm, will you? 😄 And take pictures showing the relative hit chances on the enemy destroyers, so we can estimate how much they are being affected by the storm.

The fact that Tomozuru incidents happen suggest that the disadvantages of over-arming the ship are not apparent in ordinary conditions, more in cases of the once-a-decade storm.

[Draco]

4 minutes ago, TAKTCOM said:

"5" twin turret destroyer" was were designed and built in many countries, long before WW2 began. USA, Japan, Germany (150mm), Italy (120mm), Britain (120mm), France (130-138mm) and even the USSR (130mm).

I've conceeded twice now that I made and erronous statement and explained why. 

What more do you want?

6 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

As for how bad the weather gets, I must admit in all my time playing this - admittedly I'm a relatively light player who only does one or two missions a day, I've never seen seas that go much beyond those presented in those destroyer pictures above - that is, nearly flat.

A flat calm is a flat calm. In naval terms that means no waves at all. 0 meters wind speed.

We won't get a storm in custom battles as it goes up to moderate waves and no further (as has been mentioned), but in those conditions we still have 0 examples of ships hitting each other beyond 20km, and that was as you say with the best fire control equipment available.

In game I can recall multiple occations of ships hitting each other at 30+ km with lit. no fire control installed at all.

I am not at home so cannot post screenshots, but will do later.

[arkhangelsk]

1 hour ago, Draco said:

We won't get a storm in custom battles as it goes up to moderate waves and no further (as has been mentioned), but in those conditions we still have 0 examples of ships hitting each other beyond 20km, and that was as you say with the best fire control equipment available.

Actually, not quite

 

Quote

 

It is quite well known that HMS Warspite hit the Italian battleship Guilio Cesare in July 1940 at a range of about 26,000 yds. Up until now, I've always believed that this was the longest range hit ever scored on a moving target in a naval combat engagement. However, I recently reread an old book of mine that is an English translation of a German history of the Kriegsmarine in World War II, "Verdammte See" (published in English as "Hitler's Naval War") by Cajus Bekkar. In this book, there is a summary of the sinking of HMS Glorious based upon the German after-action reports. In these reports, there is enough data to have made me think that the Scharnhorst hit the Glorious at a greater range than the Warspite hit the Guilio Cesare. I've been trying to confirm this ever since. I can now report success.

The Warship International article "The Loss of HMS Glorious: An Analysis of the Action", by Vernon W. Howland, Captain, RCN (Retd.). describes the engagement. Some pertinent data points from the article (found in various places):

1. Scharnhorst was 28,600 yds. distant at 1632 when she opened fire
2. Her third salvo hit Glorious at 1638.
3. Scharnhorst was 26,465 yds. distant or slightly less from the Glorious between 1636 and 1638.

 

http://navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-006.php

So first, in real life, the longest hits are at about 25km, and neither of them probably had the equivalent of the very best technology (one's a modernized but still old battleship and the other is an 11-inch ship).

[DougToss]

It's a little disingenuous to present contre-torpilleurs and their Italian counterparts as "typical" destroyers, especially to argue that AI of every nation building heavily gunned, large displacement warships in 1910 is in any way excusable. 

[DougToss]

1 hour ago, arkhangelsk said:

Do you think Britain begged people to limit themselves to 25000 ton, 12 inch ships because these are natural choices?

All you would have to do is skim any of the historical studies that are incessantly linked in these threads to see that navies of all nations realized that the ballooning cost and size of warships were causing tremendous difficulties for their building programs:

Quote

 

It was shown in Appendix 4 that increase in freeboard would lead to a higher maximum righting lever (GZ) at a greater angle, slightly offset by a rise in the position of the centre of gravity. It must be understood that, in this context, freeboard means watertight freeboard. Splashtight covers over gun ports might (or might not) be enough to keep the ship dry but, if the ship had a steady heel, they would leak, making the heel worse. The low gunports of so many late nineteenth century ships were a bad feature. High, unprotected sides would be riddled in action and fail to contribute to stability after such damage. Good subdivision above the protective deck which was such a feature of British ships limited such loss of stability.

 

The early destroyers had a very low freeboard (c0.5√L(ft)) which made them very wet and impossible to drive into head seas. The main reason for the low freeboard was to make them more difficult to see, particularly at night, but the reduction in weight helped them to reach the very high trial speeds, in calm water, called for in the contracts. Even as late as the Second World War reduction in silhouette was seen as desirable in destroyers.
These early destroyers were given a ‘turtledeck’ forecastle on the argument that since water was bound to come on the deck, the turtledeck would throw it off quickly. Baker used the same argument in his very successful Canadian St Laurent class after the Second World War but it was not repeated in later classes. A turtledeck is very expensive to build, it is difficult to use the space inside and effectively reduces the freeboard at the side. One or two of the early Tribal class were rebuilt with conventional forecastles.
The River class of 1901-03 programmes had a conventional forecastle and more or less met the 1.1√L(ft) criterion. They were able to maintain speed in head seas to a far greater extent than the earlier boats with a trial speed some 5kts greater.

 

Quote

 

Over the years weight was saved in cheap items such as the hull and in replacing simple engines and boilers by more complicated types and hence the cost per ton rose. The ships also got bigger and, from the Naval Defence Act, more numerous, and hence the cost of the Navy rose rapidly. Fisher, in his Naval Necessities, not only realised the need to keep the Navy affordable as well as effective but, in scrapping obsolescent ships, made a big step in achieving this aim.

Parliament often tried to find out if Dockyard-built ships were cheaper or dearer than those from commercial builders but there was never a clear answer. In the earlier years, the accounting methods were too different but even after White’s reforms the answer was unclear. Elgar tried hard in the context of the Naval Defence Act ships and his report is summarised in Appendix 9. There is no doubt that from Royal Sovereign onwards, the Dockyards were by far the fastest builders and economy is usually associated with fast building.
Between 1860 and 1905 the size of battleships nearly doubled whilst the cost increased by a factor of four; the cost per ton doubled. Comparison of costs is very difficult; as explained in the Introduction, the treatment of overheads differed between commercial yards and the Dockyards whilst the rate was changed for the latter more than once. Some costs are quoted without armament. In an attempt to get some consistency, the figures in the table below are all taken from White though some of his figures are suspect.

 

This game is not just about building ships in the abstract - the strategic layer is about fleet building programs, not individual ships. If the AI designs ships that will bankrupt their nation, or are impractical, or have no doctrine that provides them with worth, then they are badly designed ships. Full stop. 

A designer that trends towards badly designed ships is not working. It's obscene to point to the largest most heavy gunned designs and smugly say "See? Destroyers weight 2000tn and have 12 5 inch guns." 

[TAKTCOM]

27 minutes ago, DougToss said:

It's a little disingenuous to present contre-torpilleurs and their Italian counterparts as "typical" destroyers, especially to argue that AI of every nation building heavily gunned, large displacement warships in 1910 is in any way excusable. 

"Contre-torpilleurs" translates as destroyer. Nevertheless, no problem, typical USN destroyers for you.

27 minutes ago, DougToss said:

... that AI of every nation building heavily gunned, large displacement warships in 1910 is in any way excusable. 

We do not have a company, so this is all premature. AI may simply not research the necessary technologies and continue to build destroyers WW1 level all timeline.

8 minutes ago, DougToss said:

The early destroyers had a very low freeboard (c0.5√L(ft)) which made them very wet and impossible to drive into head seas.

How does this relate to the game? So far player has no control over the board height and seaworthiness... it's even exists?

[Cptbarney]

Also we need a proper weather system and different sea states as its pretty difficult if not impossible to tell just by looking how calm the sea is half the time.

So a dynamic weather system is a must.

[ColonelHenry]

1 hour ago, TAKTCOM said:

"Contre-torpilleurs" translates as destroyer. Nevertheless, no problem, typical USN destroyers for you.

We do not have a company, so this is all premature. AI may simply not research the necessary technologies and continue to build destroyers WW1 level all timeline.

How does this relate to the game? So far player has no control over the board height and seaworthiness... it's even exists?

"typical US Destroyers" as in the 8 Porter Class Destroyers and what, 5? Somers Class built during the 1930s right before WW2... So 13 destroyers that has the shorter double barrel turrets. In comparison (according to wikipedia), 143 other destroyers built with single barrel 5 inch guns turrets during the same time period. And that's not including similar number of Fletcher class built during WW2. We're talking about early 1930s and before that. Even in WW2, no "typical" destroyer carried triple barrel turrets. If you want to play the numbers game, there you go.

But that's not the point. Like I said, I'm fine with people building these ships BUT if I have to build these ships to play the game because suddenly WoWZers (BatChest) want his ship to look like an artist rendition of his failure at high school physics, then I want my money back because this was not the "realism" that I was sold on. Plain and simple.

Edited September 26, 2021 by ColonelHenry

[ColonelHenry]

1 hour ago, Cptbarney said:

Also we need a proper weather system and different sea states as its pretty difficult if not impossible to tell just by looking how calm the sea is half the time.

So a dynamic weather system is a must.

I agree about the weather. Look at Ultimate Admiral Age of Sail, the missions that take place during stormy weather is good game mechanic design that directly mimic real life condition during stormy weather for combat of the period if not a bit simplified. See, I'm fine with simplification of realism to make a game playable, but it has to be realistic in the first place.

 

[Draco]

3 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

So first, in real life, the longest hits are at about 25km, and neither of them probably had the equivalent of the very best technology (one's a modernized but still old battleship and the other is an 11-inch ship).

Sorry for the misleading posts, I am back home with my books now.

Apologies everyone.

Scharnhorst and warspite hold a shared 1st place (it is difficult to properly ascertain who holds the true first place, as the Italian battleships disengaged at Calabria making precise range estimation nigh impossible).

But like Bismarck, scharnhorst had 10.5m rangefinders, which would probably translate to stereoscopic III in game (given that Yamato holds the first place with 15m which I suppose compares to lvl V). Warspite carried 9.1m rangefinders (in the turrets at least) again, i suppose somewhat analogous to lvl III.

Don't know why I wrote that no recorded hits were scored beyond 20km... I guess debating multiple people from a cellphone broke my brain somewhat... As I was well aware of the numbers... Again sorry!

I will try not to post here without my PC and my books at hand in future.

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by Draco

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[CapnAvont1015]

Yo am I the only one who hates it when the enemy spots you from like 200 miles away? Like I understand if you have a large ship and they have good spotting devices then yeah I understand. But most of the time the AI has enormous ships (even bigger than most of my BBs btw) and sub-par radar which makes you wonder how the hell do they spot me before I spot them? Like seriously my largest ship is the base H-44 class BB and the A.I still builds vessels larger than that and yet they spot me first every single time? It's annoying and kind of unfair, like why bother investing in radar and stuff if the enemy still spots me from another planet. I don't know if it's a bug or that's how it's suppose be but it getting on my nerves. (wow look at this novel I wrote.)