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

[DougToss]

Lol anyone who thinks speed alone gave protection to Battlecruisers has been reading a book called “A History of 1st Battlecruiser Squadron: 1913 - April 1916”

 

 

[RedParadize]

3 hours ago, DougToss said:

Lol anyone who thinks speed alone gave protection to Battlecruisers has been reading a book called “A History of 1st Battlecruiser Squadron: 1913 - April 1916”

Speed may not equal armour but it certainly provide protection. Speed advantage give you the ability to chose if you engage or not. In face of a superior force I would rater be faster than heavily armoured... Because I could flee!

[Nick Thomadis]

16 hours ago, Arrigo74 said:

Quick note on the hot-fix. I have menu and buttons blurred now.

 

14 hours ago, HailCOBRALA said:

Buttons blurred and STILL taking a LONG time to get into battle. AI designs are still taking a LONG time to process. 

If you have this issue then you can go to "settings" and switch graphics to a more appropriate setting. In particular, the buttons will show blurred if "Textures" is at the lowest setting.

[Finwenolofinwe]

Have british Mk3 guns gotten bigger? At present it is impossible to build an Invincible- or Indefatigable-inspired design on the Battlecruiser 1 hull, simply because the side guns don´t fit in any way approaching the real ships. Some patches ago this was easily possible.

[arkhangelsk]

My pre-dreadnought just flashed-fire even though it already used up all its ammo. I tried to take a screenshot, but I forgot that the Screenshot functionality on UA:D doesn't work right. And despite the promises of the scenario screen, I think my enemies had more than 10" of armor.

On the positive side, the enemy created a relatively good dreadnought. It actually remembered to install rangefinders and even hydro. Turret configuration was A-X-Y, with X being an 8" triple Mk 3 that actually worked pretty well with the 3x2 14" Mark 1s it installed in A and Y. The 8" gun's job is clearly to get some early hits in, which it did better than the 14" guns. Overall, the enemy's two dreadnoughts managed about twice my effective damage output (I had 5 predreadnoughts armed with 6 12" guns each) and the 8" guns did about 1/3rd the total amount of damage.

Edited October 1, 2021 by arkhangelsk

[Werwaz]

3 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

My pre-dreadnought just flashed-fire even though it already used up all its ammo. I tried to take a screenshot, but I forgot that the Screenshot functionality on UA:D doesn't work right.

screenshot is f11 I think

also I noticed today they finally fixed the hitboxes on the US late era BB towers

[arkhangelsk]

What I meant was that it didn't work right. Here are the pictures it did take:

[GDFKTT]

Naval Academy Bug Reports - related to the latest patch.

1.  Meet the US Battleships - AI made 3 attempts over about 10 minutes as part of battle loading screen to build a US escorting destroyer model and apparently failed?  Battle finally started and US Battleships were missing their entire flotilla of escorting destroyers.

2.  Hurry Up - After battle started the attacking German BC and CA and their escorts almost immediately retreated instead of engaging the transports allowing the player's battlecruiser rushing to intercept as they were supposed to.  This happened repeatedly utilizing a battlecruiser design with a top speed of 34 knots which should be more than sufficient...  Player unable to meet mission requirement of destroy at least 75% of enemies.

More to come as I continue my playthrough in the new patch.

Edited October 1, 2021 by GDFKTT

[Arrigo74]

Issue with divisions:

does issuing a division Screen orders allow the ship to avoid torpedoes? My screening destroyers appeared to literally run into them.

[Draco]

I've said it before, I'll say it again. H classes are OP. There will be no point playing a 1930s-40s campaign at all if current mechanics stay in place. Germans will win every time.
Here's a quick summary of more or less all my recent battles.

In this test run opposing ships were both equipped with 3x4 SH 18" triple base/TNT IV.

The exact same guns...

Note how full deck pens inflicted on their ships did significantly less damage than over-pens and partial pens did on mine... sometimes by a factor of 1-10 (the two belt hits a third down the overview)...
My ship had several inches of armour more than theirs on all citadel surfaces, but as you can see even with an over 1-4 advantage in hits scored the british battleship was still by far losing the fight. with less than a dozen hits the H-class had my ship approaching half health whilst the H-class itself was still on 9/10ths health after almost 30 hits by the time I rage-quit. Their ship was on few bulkheads, mine was on many...

I'm assuming this disparity will not be resolved at any given point but can someone at least explain the mechanics at work behind these ludicrous numbers?

I just find it very hard to comprehend how H-classes can routinely absorb upwards 200 full penetrations by 18"+ guns whereas my ships are effortlessly sunk by a few dozen over-pens and partial pens without a single shell ever actually penetrating the citadel.

Full stats of ships tested included in case anyone cares...

Edited October 3, 2021 by Draco

[DougToss]

I'm a bit confused about that. I thought armour schemes and internal spaces weren't modelled yet? All else being equal, why was that result so lopsided? My other question would be about bulkheads and crew losses. Am I right in guessing that casualties after partial pens etc. are from splinters?

 

If so, I would be curious about what "Few" Bulkheads and "Spacious" Quarters mean. Obviously, when cleared for action, mess decks and accommodation don't really matter, as the crew wouldn't be in their spacious quarters. Similarly, short of fires or flooding in those spaces, or more importantly spreading from them or spreading through them to important spaces, I suppose their layout isn't critical. I'd assume that any ship after 1900 has largely fireproof furniture and fixtures in those spaces as well, metal bunks and mess tables etc. That part makes sense. 

 

But if spacious quarters applies to working areas of the ship as well, especially if we are taking the combination of spacious and few bulkheads to mean large volumes of internal spaces, then casualties from splinters would be higher. Several of your hits would - I would think, cause casualties from splinters in several fairly important areas, looking at those hits in the fore and aft of sections of the citadel. I would think magazine spaces, lifts and handling rooms would at the very least be damaged, especially if compartmentalization was poor. 

 

What am I not seeing here? 

[killjoy1941]

1 hour ago, DougToss said:

I'm a bit confused about that. I thought armour schemes and internal spaces weren't modelled yet? All else being equal, why was that result so lopsided? My other question would be about bulkheads and crew losses. Am I right in guessing that casualties after partial pens etc. are from splinters?

 

If so, I would be curious about what "Few" Bulkheads and "Spacious" Quarters mean. Obviously, when cleared for action, mess decks and accommodation don't really matter, as the crew wouldn't be in their spacious quarters. Similarly, short of fires or flooding in those spaces, or more importantly spreading from them or spreading through them to important spaces, I suppose their layout isn't critical. I'd assume that any ship after 1900 has largely fireproof furniture and fixtures in those spaces as well, metal bunks and mess tables etc. That part makes sense. 

 

But if spacious quarters applies to working areas of the ship as well, especially if we are taking the combination of spacious and few bulkheads to mean large volumes of internal spaces, then casualties from splinters would be higher. Several of your hits would - I would think, cause casualties from splinters in several fairly important areas, looking at those hits in the fore and aft of sections of the citadel. I would think magazine spaces, lifts and handling rooms would at the very least be damaged, especially if compartmentalization was poor. 

 

What am I not seeing here? 

The top hulls for the Germans and British max out at 150+ and 110+ resistance respectively. That's roughly a 30% increase in damage reduction for the German ship.

The crew quarters options simply increase the number of crew on the ship, by roughly 20% each. Basically, cramped guarantees you'll suffer negative combat effects almost as soon as you start taking damage, and spacious will give you a buffer that allows for a fairly significant amount of damage before negative effects begin to become noticeable.

It's a balancing issue since it's all in value changes and not mechanics. While we might see some changes once the campaign is in our hands, most of that typically happens in beta after most, if not all, of the core component features are in the game. It'll be dependent on whether or not the devs feel adjustments are important enough to warrant the duplicated effort.

[arkhangelsk]

2 hours ago, Draco said:

I've said it before, I'll say it again. H classes are OP. There will be no point playing a 1930s-40s campaign at all if current mechanics stay in place. Germans will win every time.

Overall, you scored 57 hits for 2500 damage, for about 44 damage per hit. He scored 1200 damage in 13 hits, for about 92 damage per hit, so it is about 2:1 on average. I noticed his ships are significantly larger than yours which will clearly make them more resistant to damage. Also, maybe your ship is indeed more armored but I can't tell that because for all your pictures tell me is that maybe the 18" is only on your conning tower. I notice his ship is significantly slower than yours and you have comparable guns, which does not bode well on the idea that your ship is the better protected one. Besides, since you are going two on one, and the enemy ships are larger, I honestly cannot say I'm feeling much at the idea you are at ~70% structure and he is at ~84% structure. Maybe it would help if you concentrate your fire on one ship because based on the numbers you are clearly shifting back and forth between the two ships and I can't believe that's helping you to win.

You need to choose pictures that clearly support your argument 🙂

Finally, depending on how the rest of the campaign is designed, even if the German H-class is ... just better it might be a balanced play. For example, it might be much easier for the British to build more ships or start building their largest class of ship. We'll have to see.

[DougToss]

What is resistance supposed to be, then? Framing strength, unarmoured plating? It’s kind of a nebulous term because it could be resistance to static or dynamic forces, like hogging and sagging, which does not directly translate into battle damage. 

[DougToss]

12 minutes ago, arkhangelsk said:

Finally, depending on how the rest of the campaign is designed, even if the German H-class is ... just better it might be a balanced play. For example, it might be much easier for the British to build more ships or start building their largest class of ship. We'll have to see.

A nation without a strong shipbuilding industry, naval architecture and staff work 25 years out of date, should be able to build better ships? 🤨

 

lol they ships they did manage to build weren’t that great, why would their paper projects be better?

[killjoy1941]

27 minutes ago, DougToss said:

What is resistance supposed to be, then? Framing strength, unarmoured plating? It’s kind of a nebulous term because it could be resistance to static or dynamic forces, like hogging and sagging, which does not directly translate into battle damage. 

Yeah, it's a pretty fudgy factor. I see it as a generic catch-all for "better design" even though it seems to be a design choice to better differentiate design improvement over time. i.e.: An Iowa would still be a much better ship than a Nevada even if rifles, fire control, and SHP were equivalent. 

23 minutes ago, DougToss said:

A nation without a strong shipbuilding industry, naval architecture and staff work 25 years out of date, should be able to build better ships? 🤨

 

lol they ships they did manage to build weren’t that great, why would their paper projects be better?

Again, game design choices. While strict adherences to reality might be fun for some of us, most players don't particularly like lots of asymmetry. At least that's been my experience. That tends to generate lots of game balance complaints.

[DougToss]

18 minutes ago, killjoy1941 said:

That tends to generate lots of game balance complaints.

Lol let me open up “Naval Warfare Fairness: 1700-2010”… 

 

Hmm, it looks like the Austro-Hungarian Navy could not sweep the Royal Navy out of the Med. Well that seems kinda unfair!

 

I’ll be a little less glib - because the strategic situation was not the same for any two nations, their investment in sea power or naval services were uneven too. Look at a map of the UK, then one of the A-H Empire. One of them would be destroyed without control of the seas, one of them was basically fine bottled up in the Adriatic. Why would Austria-Hungary need to invest at a level that would be balanced relative the UK? 

 

Arbitrarily balancing budgets, forces, or the skills, experience and design experience that come from institutional investment will break the game because the sea was not equally important. That should be self-evident for anyone who can read a map, but here we are. 

For anyone gesturing at the High Seas Fleet or Kriegsmarine, that may actually be case in point. The investment in surface ships was never justified through use. In both wars, a decisive surface action wasn’t attempted, let alone won, the fleets spent their respective wars at anchor give or take a handful of engagements, and were sunk or scuttled at anchor. 
 

Germany only needed to pay for an unbalanced fleet in being -coastal ships for general duties, auxiliaries, a handful larger of ships for training and Baltic service, a coastal and Baltic merchant marine, coastal artillery and the U-Boat arm. 

Every mark spent beyond that, tonne of steel, gun, sailor, industrial capacity was wasted.

 

So - giving Germany the trappings of a “balance” against the RN means they win by default - they can take on the RN on equal footing with absolutely nothing to lose from doing so - either in opportunity cost, or in consequences of defeat.

 

 

Edited October 3, 2021 by DougToss

[Draco]

1 hour ago, arkhangelsk said:

 

You need to choose pictures that clearly support your argument 🙂

 

right... armour schemes & relevant modifiers.

so yeah there's a 50kt difference in displacement, or 2/5ths of a difference... but that shouldn't logically change the amount of damage incurred, just the hp pool that said damage happens to... but since hp is nebulous in this game that's hard to really quantify.
All I can say is out of those 44 hits, one single blow was a full pen (a single deck pen occured at like 36km for 311 points of damage, compared to an average 30 damage for my deck pens against him)... the rest of the damage is purely from over-pens and partial pens.
It's just annoying to think that it doesn't matter how well you protect your citadel when the Nr.1 limiting factor for hp is displacement size which then means germany always wins that category because the largest hull the british can possibly build is still 1/4th smaller than an H-class.
Properly designing your citadels, even when you throw real world comparisons out of the window by abiding to the game's sometimes bizzare physics quantities (note my stupidly heavy deck armour for example, but if I don't have that my ship is dead within 10 minutes, guaranteed), should have at least some effect on survivability, but it doesn't because survivability is decided by having A:the largest displacement, and B: playing as germany (or austria hungary, their resistance mods are even more ludicrous, they just won't be in the alpha campaign).

To prove the point, here's an end game overview of what an H-class can do to 4 french modern BBs.

This ship just straight up tanked 150 17" shells (I stayed out of secondary range) and most of my damage suffered was from fires caused by non-penetrating hits (by about a 60-40 split). The H-class just does not care.
This ship had worse armour than my british design by the way... just resistance, bulkheads and displacement all the way...

Edited October 3, 2021 by Draco

[DougToss]

Hmm let me just look at the Kiel Canal real quick…🤔

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[Draco]

7 minutes ago, DougToss said:

Hmm let me just look at the Kiel Canal real quick…🤔

🤣

[DougToss]

9 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

Your posts are either referencing external documents/source, CCs or someone else’s post.

😢🎻

Simulations need comparison to baseline reality. What frame of reference do you propose I use to evaluate gameplay?

Exactly.

As I said before, I’m a defence professional working in the field. Maybe you should sit down and accept that I’m basing my views on more than other videogames.

[Nick Thomadis]

Your ship vs the H-class of almost 125,000 is much smaller. Your opponent is almost 64.5% bigger! The H-Class is a very expensive Battleship that in the campaign will be very difficult to construct and not the best solution to guard all your water borders. In Custom Battles you can build anything  and test out things, but you should not expect to have symmetrical results against Super Battleships.

 

PS. Additionally, your complete "All or Nothing" armor scheme has weaknesses, compared to the much more complete armor scheme of your opponent. You save weight, but you do not make your ship impervious. When we implement a more detailed Citadel, you will be able to design your ship more coherently faithful to the all or nothing principle.

[killjoy1941]

39 minutes ago, DougToss said:

Lol let me open up “Naval Warfare Fairness: 1700-2010”… 

 

Hmm, it looks like the Austro-Hungarian Navy could not sweep the Royal Navy out of the Med. Well that seems kinda unfair!

 

I’ll be a little less glib - because the strategic situation was not the same for any two nations, their investment in sea power or naval services were uneven too. Look at a map of the UK, then one of the A-H Empire. One of them would be destroyed without control of the seas, one of them was basically fine bottled up in the Adriatic. Why would Austria-Hungary need to invest at a level that would be balanced relative the UK? 

 

Arbitrarily balancing budgets, forces, or the skills, experience and design experience that come from institutional investment will break the game because the sea was not equally important. That should be self-evident for anyone who can read a map, but here we are. 

For anyone gesturing at the High Seas Fleet or Kriegsmarine, that may actually be case in point. The investment in surface ships was never justified through use. In both wars, a decisive surface action wasn’t attempted, let alone won, the fleets spent their respective wars at anchor give or take a handful of engagements, and were sunk or scuttled at anchor. 
 

Germany only needed to pay for an unbalanced fleet in being -coastal ships for general duties, auxiliaries, a handful larger of ships for training and Baltic service, a coastal and Baltic merchant marine, coastal artillery and the U-Boat arm. 

Every mark spent beyond that, tonne of steel, gun, sailor, industrial capacity was wasted.

 

So - giving Germany the trappings of a “balance” against the RN means they win by default - they can take on the RN on equal footing with absolutely nothing to lose from doing so - either in opportunity cost, or in consequences of defeat.

UA:D isn't a simulation. It's an RTS with semi-realistic compromises and a currently absent strategic layer. We don't know what the strategic layer will look like - the devs do. A lot of what we have right now will probably make a great deal more sense when we get access to that, and some of it won't.

Changing things like resistance is as simple as changing integer or float values, so I'm not at all worried right now because we don't even have all the component systems which will make the game work.

[killjoy1941]

4 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

Your ship vs the H-class of almost 125,000 is much smaller. Your opponent is almost 64.5% bigger! The H-Class is a very expensive Battleship that in the campaign will be very difficult to construct and not the best solution to guard all your water borders. In Custom Battles you can build anything  and test out things, but you should not expect to have symmetrical results against Super Battleships.

PS. Additionally, your complete "All or Nothing" armor scheme has weaknesses, compared to the much more complete armor scheme of your opponent. You save weight, but you do not make your ship impervious. When we implement a more detailed Citadel, you will be able to design your ship more coherently faithful to the all or nothing principle.

Amusingly, that kind of AoN scheme works quite well even now. If I have access to AoN, I build AoN. I do often zero out the fore and aft armor because the near-guaranteed overpens which result mean your ship becomes highly resistant to damage very quickly.

I'll happily take any refinement to design you might come up with, but that kind of armor scheme does actually work quite well between comparable designs. I quite frankly don't understand why there are so many players on this forum who claim AoN is useless.