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[The Fundamentalist]

2 years into a German 1890 campaign. I really enjoy it, great work. I really like how the fleet mechanics work. It would be nice to customize deployments and squadrons. I really enjoy commerce raiding. That's a ton of fun. 

10/10 best naval game I've played 

[Draco]

On 12/18/2021 at 1:52 AM, TheRealJostapo said:

Why torpedos need serious work.

Many thousands of tons invested in 4x3 18" guns, and enough 7"/6" turrets to take on an entire fleet's escorts...   What out performs all of that?  a few hundred tons of torpedo's.   (well ok, 12x5 24" launchers with max reloads, 6 per side)

This is ridiculous.

This is even with the questionably cheaty AI torpedo avoidance.

I'm not looking for a debate on how torpedos are more lethal (they are, and should be).   Just saying that the very real meta for this game will be to load an unkillable CL (or as illustrated, a super BB hull with solid speed) with unrealistic amounts of armor, ridiculous speed, and as many torpedo launchers as you have deck space for.   Zig zag your way from torpedo max range dumping alternate sides.

The final tally after this salvo hit.

That's 12 launchers with an initial magazine of 160 reloads, amassing about > 720,000 pounds (360t) of loose ordnance and fuel laying around the decks (based on ~4000lb weight of a Mk21 torpedo).

No risk to ME... but hoo boy; the other guys is another story.

There's a reason the Mikumo was desperately shoving her launchers, round and all, out of the ship.   Something I have yet to hear anyone mention here on the forums.

 

While I don't think torpedo damage should be nerfed, I do agree that having torpedoes on your ships in the first place needs to be far more risky than it already is.

I have yet to see a single ammo detonation from a hit to a ship's torpedoes... It's like they're not even there.

[Steeltrap]

On 12/19/2021 at 5:26 PM, Neonknight_ger said:

We need better, more prominent notification. The humble "DD Fearless spotted enemy torpedoes" message tends to be hidden between dozens "CA hits CL with 2 cm for 5 damage" text lines. To make things worse, you have a hard time seeing incoming torpedoe salvos on your PC screen.

A more prominent warning message, e.g. on top of the screen would help much, and also there should be an option to mark torpedoes with notable markings (blue for own, red for enemy ones).

Had several discussions about exactly this issue way back when torpedo spotting reports became a thing.

Here's just 1:

 

[Grayknight]

This show how much you would gain by ability to group ships in to taskforce. Also British invested in that game all their founds in too the fleet of capable TBs (while i put on only BBs and few CAs). Effect is that while they have numericly far bigger fleet and more capable when it come to tons of displacment fighting value) then they are blocked in their first turn. This battle i lost obviously costing me 9k tons of displacment and them about 3.4k ? Something like that proving again that blockade should be reworked to mission to bloc pecific port.

If i atempted to block them with my fleet and they would sail out to fight i would be most likly destroyed.

Edited December 20, 2021 by Grayknight

[Grayknight]

AI shouldent use torpedo boats in line ahead like normal ships but rather swarm enemy locking enemy ships in the net of torpedoes

[SodaBit]

This tactic is getting really old really quick. Please, for the love of god, just make the AI stop this crap. It NEVER WORKS. I'm not sure there is anything that can be done to make it work, I'd rather the AI just death-rush me, at least it'd do more damage than this crap.

[o Barão]

I am doing the late academy missions again waiting for the next campaign update, and i am noticing the same issues with the AI since the new patch.

Enemy BB near my 7 BB division. Prefer to target my DD far away. The secondaries that don't have enough range will target my BBs.

22km range torpedoes but is not using against my 13km away BB division. Instead prefer to use them against my DD far away.

 

I mentioned in the previous post that there was an issue with CLs. Sadly the problem is worse. Is normal atm to see the AI focus in anything that is small instead in focus where is the danger.  In this mission "Enforce the British rule" is normal atm to see the AI targeting CLs and DDs since the beginning at insane ranges.( +25km away)

Also based on feedback from other steam players, i decided to play again the confederate ironclad mission to see what is the issue. Well it seems the AI doesn't want to fight and runs away. The solution was to build to fast ironclads without any casemate guns and go for the ram.

 

I understand the devs are busy with the campaign atm, but i hope to see improvements to the AI decision. Some things got better in the recent update, but in other situations got worse sadly.

Edited December 20, 2021 by o Barão

[baatsman]

On 12/19/2021 at 8:58 PM, HerrTom said:

Finally got to a 1910 campaign. Did a custom fleet and was instantly blockaded the first turn. I think this might partly be due to my (and other players') desire to build high quality ships. I had 5 battleships compared to the British 19, 8 vs 8 CA, 7 vs 16 CL, and 15 vs 19 DD.

But it was still fun fighting the British with the absolute need to sink some of their ships (since I'm hemorrhaging money with everything set to zero except transports to 50), until...

After about a couple of battles every single ship in the British fleet has veteran crews!  This includes the British battleships, which I kept very good track of because I needed to sink them. I sunk every single one I encountered, and yet each battle the new one had higher and higher experience, until they were all veterans.  I think something with how the AI nations gain battle experience is off.  Makes it very frustrating when I'm super constrained by budget and have cadet crews that the AI just magically has that 45% or so higher accuracy.

Noticed the very same issue. Ended up butchered, at 3-5km in what used to be lowrisk torpedo runs, first 10-14 campaign months.

Prob due to some bug, also the player in addition is 'denied' the XP gained when combatting this menace. Showing you the XP gained/lost for a ship after any encounter.

*However,if you then browse the fleetscreen all of it is missing, and it is not due to crew losses and following reinforcement, as this is effecting totally undamaged shipcrews.

Seemingly only Training levels gained from "crewtraining slider" budget are accounted for.

At the moment, they are NOT capped according to the tooltip, but only by max possible level. This goes for both Player/AI. But it kinda make starting with "100% crewtraining" mandatory, boosting ship performance uncomparably quicker than any tech gains possibly can

[shingo3130]

A bit smaller than many of the criticisms here, but I feel like the Germans (in 1890) should start out with slightly larger shipyards to be able to build the Brandenburg class battleships (or something similar).

[Skeksis]

Shipyard Increments, as running a campaign.

British
Starting Shipyard sizes:

• 1890 10500 tons, 2000t increments over 24 months.
• 1900 18200 tons, 3000t increments over 24 months. 
• 1910 29700 tons, 4000t increments over 24 months.
• 1920 39600 tons, 5000t increments over 24 months.
• 1930 53300 tons, 6000t increments over 24 months.

a) Lets say plus 3 increments (of 2 years) from 1930 to 1936 gives us 18000 tons, so 53300 + 18000 = 71300t max, 
British biggest hull is 'Super Battleship' 92000t, available at 1936. 
Currently it's impossible to build 'Super Battleship' hull in 1936, there's a short fall of 20700 tons or you can only start construction in 1942 at 6000t increments (plus 4 years to build). 

b) On average increments should be 3,543t per decade. (92000-10500)/(1936-1890)*2=3543.4. They are only 2317t on average.

Germany is much worst. 
1890 starting Shipyard size is 9000 tons.
Biggest hull is 'Super Battleship II' 130000 tons, available at 1929 (but we'll use 1936).

b) On average increments should be 5261t per decade. (130000-9000)/(1936-1890)*2=5260.8. They are only 1756.5t on average. 

Ok current campaign is just a WIP but these increments will have to be adjusted to ensure that the Shipyard Size is big enough at 1936 to accommodate the largest hull sizes for each nation. This will change decade starting Shipyard sizes, maybe messing things alittle.

Also to note, if the player misses a single month in Shipyard expansion they will fall behind in shipyard sizes to meet 1936 full hull capacity, so maybe some redundancy needs to be built in or add in some way of catching up. - actually scratch that, in stead leave it up to the player on how they want to manage their shipyard and campaign, like skip continuous shipyard increases and fall short of max tonnage or pay the price to meet max yard size.  

Edited December 21, 2021 by Skeksis

[Speglord]

Loaded up the 1890 campaign as Britain and realized that Germany's battleships don't have any secondary armament whatsoever. Didn't encounter this last time when I first played through.

[Grayknight]

Soo. this is first secound of combat and well this need to get fixed :0  + small graphical bug when designing light cruiser.



Oh and another thing - there is something i noticed few times. AI gest more victory points then player, i once fought battle sinking CA and loosing CL, it was 1 vs 1 and it counted as loose, while technicly sinking more tones. Also AI got more VP. Look at number of VP on picture and tell me if there isent anything wrong with it.


Oh and also - seriously damaged ships should spend more time shipyards, and award more VP

Edited December 21, 2021 by Grayknight

[Grayknight]

My Light cruiser got 8 flash fires (i counted them in log) and it is still in one pice. It shouldent be


Edit there may have been more flash fires then i thought

 

 

 

While we at it... WHY AI? WHY? After i have seen you create awesome CA that was able to wreck havoc on my fleets...

Edited December 21, 2021 by Grayknight
more flash fires

[akd]

The guns available to early CLs and their possible mounting points desperately need work:

Early turreted 5-8 inch guns should only be available for Bs (as secondaries) and CAs (as primaries), and even then they would be questionable in many circumstances (shielded 5-7 inch guns were more typical), but thrown on to CLs like these 7-inch turrets they are totally absurd.  For the kicker, a single 5-inch turret placed in a totally nonsensical location behind other turrets and between boats.

Also, to those who say the only problem with the spotting system is the lack of visual weather effects, I just played an campaign cruiser battle where my CLs can only spot enemy CLs at less than 5km during daytime, clear, calm, smooth conditions.  In RTW2, a circa 1895-1900 CL has visual horizon of about 25,000 yards in clear, calm conditions at about 13:00 (max sighting range for Bs and CAs in same scenario is 28,000 yards) and first picks up an enemy CL (as unidentified ship) at about 26,000 yards.  Of the two, RTW2 is what matches up with historical accounts.

Edited December 21, 2021 by akd

[Littorio]

4 hours ago, Grayknight said:

My Light cruiser got 8 flash fires (i counted them in log) and it is still in one pice. It shouldent be


Edit there may have been more flash fires then i thought

 

 

 

While we at it... WHY AI? WHY? After i have seen you create awesome CA that was able to wreck havoc on my fleets...

 

That BB is disgusting. Why have a large main-caliber turret on the rear, only to have a much smaller gun on a superfiring barbette immediately behind it, and an even smaller barbetter gun behind that?

 

 

36 minutes ago, akd said:

The guns available to early CLs and their possible mounting points desperately need work:

Early turreted 5-8 inch guns should only be available for Bs (as secondaries) and CAs (as primaries), and even then they would be questionable in many circumstances (shielded 5-7 inch guns were more typical), but thrown on to CLs like these 7-inch turrets they are totally absurd.  For the kicker, a 5-inch turret placed in a totally nonsensical location behind other turrets and between boats.

The AI seems to love these 5-7 turret CLs. Usually they have awful fields of fire and are severely underarmored as well. Some don't have any torpedoes in order to support all these guns.

[Grayknight]

 

 

1 hour ago, Littorio said:

That BB is disgusting. Why have a large main-caliber turret on the rear, only to have a much smaller gun on a superfiring barbette immediately behind it, and an even smaller barbetter gun behind that?

Why 3 funnels when you have 19 knots of speed? Why standard bulkheads on battleship? And to make it all even funier this ship exploded a moment after i made this picture. Next salvo from my bb did something i assume that it caused flash fire and entire ship just went into oblivion. So ther armor is not adequate either And when i know that AI can make ships like this that made being my CA, CL and DD risky job (it by itself and with screaning force won many battles against me) it makes clown car AI design painfull to watch, fight against and over all not fun to play with at all If AI uses mk1 15 inch when it has acess to mk3 14 inch guns then, in 1920 fear factor is non existant. Why would i be afraid of guns that relode for ages, cannot hit side of the barn and turn so damn slowly that any manuver will cause them to have to adjust for ages... 
 

Edited December 21, 2021 by Grayknight

[akd]

Got a coastal defense mission: my TB and 3x TR vs. 1x Brit TB.  My TB ate 2x torps from the Brit TB due to an accidental wrong heading click, but it was his last two torps, leaving him with just 2-inch guns vs. 3-inch guns on me and TRs and my remaining torpedoes.  Absurdly my TB survived the 2x torpedo hits, so I continued to slowly follow the convoy off into the distance while the enemy TB popped into and out of view over and over again.  Continued this until the END BATTLE button appeared.  Was awarded with a DEFEAT!  Me 1x yellow TB and 3x green TRs, him 1x green TB.  Me 1 VP, him 2 VP  Huh? The mission was protect the transports.

Also, how do you take screenshots with the UI showing so I don't have to type out all that nonsense and can just show it?

Edited December 21, 2021 by akd

[Grayknight]

17 minutes ago, akd said:

Also, how do you take screenshots with the UI showing so I don't have to type out all that nonsense and can just show it?

f12 playing on steam, then it should save it somewhere on your pc

[o Barão]

3 hours ago, akd said:

 

but thrown on to CLs like these 7-inch turrets they are totally absurd.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_cruiser_Esmeralda_(1883)

In fact is the opposite. There was no london or washigton treaty back then to say what a ship could have or not. Here is a fine example. The first protected cruiser. 2x10 inch guns.

The issue there is not the gun size. The issue is how the AI is using them. Different things.

[akd]

2 hours ago, o Barão said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_cruiser_Esmeralda_(1883)

In fact is the opposite. There was no london or washigton treaty back then to say what a ship could have or not. Here is a fine example. The first protected cruiser. 2x10 inch guns.

The issue there is not the gun size. The issue is how the AI is using them. Different things.

These were not mounted in enclosed turrets but in a barbette position with an open shield, a very different gun arrangement.  Note that her 6-inch secondary guns are also in shielded mounts, not enclosed turrets (and also note that she has 6-inch secondaries, not 5-inch, so even early Armored Cruisers are in fact under-gunned in their caliber options, at least for secondaries). And since protected cruisers aren't a thing in the game, Esmeralda is definitely more in line with the starting Armored Cruisers than the early Light Cruisers. 

Even the 5-inch Mk. I turrets in game look pretty silly on the early light cruisers; the 7-inch simply absurd, and would still be so if just one were mounted fore and aft on the centerline.  Fully enclosed turrets were not done on light cruisers at this time, or highly atypical if there are some examples (I can't think of any).  You may say it is just aesthetics, but turrets should be much heavier than a comparable open or shielded mount and require different internal arrangements (direct ammo supply, etc.).  The turreted main guns should be reserved for Armored Cruisers and larger at this time.

What's especially odd is that more appropriate shielded models are available for both 5-inch and 6-inch guns on Light Cruisers, but only with the "Mark II" upgrade.  There's not really an appropriate 7-inch mount for early light cruisers at all, however.

Edited December 22, 2021 by akd

[Danelin Aruna]

16 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Shipyard Increments, as running a campaign.

British
Starting Shipyard sizes:

• 1890 10500 tons, 2000t increments over 24 months.
• 1900 18200 tons, 3000t increments over 24 months. 
• 1910 29700 tons, 4000t increments over 24 months.
• 1920 39600 tons, 5000t increments over 24 months.
• 1930 53300 tons, 6000t increments over 24 months.

a) Lets say plus 3 increments (of 2 years) from 1930 to 1936 gives us 18000 tons, so 53300 + 18000 = 71300t max, 
British biggest hull is 'Super Battleship' 92000t, available at 1936. 
Currently it's impossible to build 'Super Battleship' hull in 1936, there's a short fall of 20700 tons or you can only start construction in 1942 at 6000t increments (plus 4 years to build). 

b) On average increments should be 3,543t per decade. (92000-10500)/(1936-1890)*2=3543.4. They are only 2317t on average.

Germany is much worst. 
1890 starting Shipyard size is 9000 tons.
Biggest hull is 'Super Battleship II' 130000 tons, available at 1929 (but we'll use 1936).

b) On average increments should be 5261t per decade. (130000-9000)/(1936-1890)*2=5260.8. They are only 1756.5t on average. 

Ok current campaign is just a WIP but these increments will have to be adjusted to ensure that the Shipyard Size is big enough at 1936 to accommodate the largest hull sizes for each nation. This will change decade starting Shipyard sizes, maybe messing things alittle.

Also to note, if the player misses a single month in Shipyard expansion they will fall behind in shipyard sizes to meet 1936 full hull capacity, so maybe some redundancy needs to be built in or add in some way of catching up. - actually scratch that, in stead leave it up to the player on how they want to manage their shipyard and campaign, like skip continuous shipyard increases and fall short of max tonnage or pay the price to meet max yard size.  

I really like this idea, although i think some break up for historically available yard space should be made maybe. I know in  the '20's and 30's when naval rearmament started the only ones who made absurdly huge ships was the Japanese, Yamamoto class. Even the American fast BB's in the interwar did not go above 35000 tons. I can understand the want to build huge ships, but very few people did it as it stuck all your horses in one basket. But before they work on that they should really fix weight calculations on ships.

but definitely like the idea of increasing tonnage. I never understood why the Germans dock was 2000 tons under Britain that makes no sense historically. You can even build historical German predreadnaughts at the start of the game.

[Littorio]

Thoughts on latest playthrough: visuals look better in the damage model department. Seriously, I notice buckling and structural deformation now that I never saw before. No idea when that got added. Masts are bent too if damaged. Falling off would be a great next step if they get totally destroyed.

The AI seems to do much better defending convoys. Warships actively get between you and the TPs. It could always be better but it's a step in the right direction.

However, going back to the damage models and visuals, we need some work on magazine detonations + flash fires. I got a hit on their BB for ~ 2500dmg. The forward 11" magazine went up like a Christmas tree with a column of fire that looked like Hood's. Yet, somehow the ship is one piece. It's still afloat, and even crazier, the forward 11" turret isn't a twisted pile of useless garbage.

That thing should be toast, and the hull should be deformed, if not cracked in two outright. Somehow my ship looks a lot worse off despite just normal fires. Meanwhile their whole main magazine goes up and they still have a working turret, bonkers...

[Phelidai]

Unfortunately with the way the campaign is structured in this first release, it leaves out some really critical things. Research is my biggest annoyance because it simply doesn't apply. Even if you had max research budget, the campaign would be over long before you had enough new techs to bother making a new ship design, let alone actually building new ships. The bottom line is that in the current state of the campaign, there is no point in doing any research at all. I really hope further work on the campaign makes research useful in one way or another.

Addtionally, the player is given so little money for shipbuilding that outside of crew training, there is little to no need for new crew. The starting crew pool is often more than enough to last the whole campaign given how few ships the player gets to build. Outside of training, which has never had any meaningful effect for any of my campaigns, there is no point in doing any crew recruitment at all. Hopefully as the scope (and ideally length) of the campaign increases, crew recruitment will actually be a necessary thing to put budget into. While this does trend more towards a suggestion, I think it would be more ideal to split the crew slider into a training slider and a recruitment slider. It would be nice to be able to get the "trained" crew effect on my ships without amassing a few thousand crew that just sit doing nothing.

[Skeksis]

8 hours ago, Danelin Aruna said:

although i think some break up for historically available yard space should be made maybe. I know in  the '20's and 30's when naval rearmament started the only ones who made absurdly huge ships was the Japanese, Yamamoto class. Even the American fast BB's in the interwar did not go above 35000 tons. I can understand the want to build huge ships, but very few people did it as it stuck all your horses in one basket.

Post isn't so much as an idea but something to be mindful of for the full campaign. 

And I think as "absurdly huge ships" are in-game so as their inclusion is warranted or at least the campaign needs the ability to include them.  

[Darth Khyron]

Sooo...a little late, but some thoughts from me, too.

Overall, I am very pleased with the barebones campaign and it's mechanics. Not too complex, some nice options there.
As many people pointed out, the campaign seems to be over far too quickly, depending on the year. I enjoyed every time
I played, but in the later campaigns I feel, I do not have that many options.
The shipyard size is very small, expanding it takes a lot of time and by the time I could lay down a more powerful battleship, the war is long over. Also, technology does not seem to be really relevant in the later campains, because the money needed for construction and the high upkeep and repair costs eat up the available funds.

Usually, I am disregarding the funding for technology altogether to afford a decent battle line, which is still much smaller than the AI's. Due to losses, I am pouring much funds into transport capabilities and of course a decent amount into crew.
Speaking of crew : The player, as well as the AI, seems to be gaining experience well over "Trained".

The AI was much improved, for which I am very grateful. I have encountered battleships armed with 18 inch guns and the AI tried to keep them at range, sending it's escorts to keep me from closing. In the same campaign, the enemy battlecruisers were only armed with 11 inch guns (but on a 44 knot hull). These vessels literally charged my battle line to make their guns more effective.
Torpedo carriers try to box you in (with several divisions, a single division will keep it's line formation) while trying to avoid being boxed in themselves. Well done

The stern chases are...well, I get it that the enemy closes to see what kind of foe there is and tries to run from a superior enemy, that's sensible. It is just that such a stern chase takes a lot of time.
Night battles are frustrating when the enemy can see you and you do not see them, even posessing ships of the same size. You end up being spammed by electric torpedoes which you detect a second before they hit, invariably sinking you before you make contact.

The new hulls, especially the japanese ones, are sweet. They provide some new options and looks and I think they are well done.

Well...japanese navy's dream ship...for all who do not like the enemy torpedo spam...now you can retaliate.

Now, I would like to see some campaign modifications, like the ability to chose starting tech and money and
I hope for new cruiser hulls/Superstructure. Since the current campaign includes Great Britain and Germany, I would like to see Bayern-class hulls, Derfflinger/Mackensen hulls, L20 and corrosponding GK hulls as counterweight to the british G3/N3 hulls and the ability for German destroyers to mount 150mm weapons from 1918 onwards.