>>>Core Patch 1.0 Feedback<<<

[catloverjerrygarcia]

18 minutes ago, Littorio said:

This brings me to something else. Not to start the whole spotting thing again after I laid it to rest for now, but given the restraints of the current system, it would at least be helpful to say which ship spotted smoke. Is it NE of my BB in the center of the flotilla? Is it NE of my TB screen to port, or the ones to starboard? Some basic indicators of which vessels are involved would go a long way right now.

Yup that whole pesky information thing crops up again.

[TheRealJostapo]

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.

 

[Steeltrap]

On 12/12/2021 at 2:01 PM, Skeksis said:

A nation must expect losses. 

Take the most unfortunate lost of HMS Vanguard (1909), sunk by internal explosion at Scapa Flow. I'm not saying this should happen in game but DDs appearing at point blank range can be a way the AI/game could make campaigns challenging and simulate unfortunate losses. 

Maybe the player should endure unfortunate losses? like lets make it a very interesting UAD campaign to play? And then the player endures the struggle to right himself. 

I wouldn't like it myself and I don't play hard-mode either, not yet, but just because I wouldn't like it (or any one else) doesn't mean hard-mode events shouldn't happen, well at least rarely.
 

What does this have to do with the SNAFU vision system and lazy, stupid Borg-sighting?

Random, "oh damn" moments (maintenance failures, training accidents, whatever) are a perfectly fine set of variables about which to have a conversation.

What those factors have absolutely nothing in common with is DDs materialising at 1km when they would never have spotted said BB from 20km in order to close on it.

As for "one must expect losses" , ought I view that as condescending or simply remarkably fatuous?

Be a pretty pointless combat simulator if one never took losses.

I can never quite decide if your ability to type replies that ignore the central point of posts to which you are allegedly replying is deliberate or innate.

Edited December 18, 2021 by Steeltrap

[Steeltrap]

15 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

We will improve the campaign distances. There must be an error somewhere.

If the campaign has some setting that has ships plonked 'x' distance from one another instead of a distance that is directly the output of the visibility/spotting mechanics then I would suggest that's the error.

It's all but mandating scenarios for the player where they will think "WTF??? How did my entire line of ships NOT see that/those further away??"

If the campaign is meant to be with the same visibility system but seems to be producing results that are anything but, then, yes, that would seem to be a pretty easily defined bug.

Are you able to confirm which system the campaign uses for positioning forces, and what the possible ranges are IF they aren't directly produced from the same spotting system that functions in battle?

I understand the campaign might use a scaled down version where it uses the most visible ship from each as the target for the opposition to spot while also using the best vision available in a force as the one that's used to detect something. In other words, a condensed version of visibility vs 'stealth', just as is done in things like D&D 5th Edition and countless other games.

But if it's some arbitrary number set at the campaign level? Even if it's "working as intended" I still think it's poor and would far prefer it be removed and something more along the lines of what I suggested be implemented.

Cheers

[Steeltrap]

3 hours ago, TheRealJostapo said:

This is even with the questionably cheaty AI torpedo avoidance.

I'd suggest it's tied to core mechanics, but I don't believe the AI has any inherent advantage over the player. It must depend on your ability to spot torps and then how responsive your helm is, and the tech for those are open to the AI and player. Granted you might face an opponent who has better tech and thus be more capable, but that's not cheating per se.

The manoeuvrability of ships in the game is rather massively ramped up in some respects. I wrote about it a long time ago, and why it mattered, but it made about as much difference as anything else I've ever written, LOL.

War on the Sea has the same problem. I see people complaining about being hit by submarine ambushes but I've never understood why because ships are so hilariously agile that they almost NEVER ought to be hit. I think I've played something like 350 hours of that game (in fact I largely stopped playing this and have had many interesting discussions with WotS's dev; even got some things altered pretty quickly or various extra config text items added so I could play around with some additional variables) and I've been struck by a torp from ambush ONCE. Even my BBs have no trouble dancing on the heads of pins.

It's ridiculous, but the WoWS crowd in particular now think ships really were able to accelerate crazily, particularly ahead ("0 to 35 knots in a >50,000t warship in less than 60 seconds? Sure, no probs; in fact if you fly the appropriate flag, you can go even faster!!11111!!!"), so if you made the system more realistic perhaps the forum would explode, LOL.

Given it is what it is, however, yes, ships are much more able to avoid torps in just about any situation. But then you can build monster torpedo ships, so that somewhat counters it.

It's almost worth putting some hard limits on just how many of particular weapons and reloads you ought to be able to carry, or at least allowing for that to be turned on by players who don't want massive "walls of skill" tactics to be a thing.

If you put ship manoeuvrability more akin to reality in the game but allowed torp numbers that are just silly to stay, only the AI would use guns, LOL.

To be fair, however, I think this game does it better than War on the Sea, which is even more "my BB starts to turn within 3 seconds of ordering some rudder put on" which is just LOLS.

Cheers

Edited December 18, 2021 by Steeltrap

[baatsman]

Seen this for a while, but belived it to on the todo list.

The crew XP gained in actual combat, shows in the aftermath screen.

But for some reason, taking 0 damge to the ship in question, it is completly removed when checking the fleet rooster later.

This can not possibly be as intended?

[baatsman]

Just a suggestion.

Would be nice if impossible interception missions, got discarded in advance, to prevent 100% wasting players gametime, tempted to try those missions. Or alternatively if altered, becomming at least faintly possible.

-Either by reducing spawn distance

-or removing the telepaths from the AI ships(granting 99% effective kiting heading,from anyone in the galaxy)

-or just have another "discarding" routine entry, removing these annoyances.

 

Example. CLs vs CLs. Spawn seperation distance, 20 km

Side A disengage at -2 kts vs side B trying to intercept.

Side As disengagement vector 99% effective at all times (at least)

3 h of mission time, intecepting at perfect course (2kts) 3.7Km/h * 3h = 11,112m given the starting separation distance is 20000m

Interception impossible. 100% waste of time, and ofc not intentional when developing a product of entertainment.

[TheRealJostapo]

9 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

Given it is what it is, however, yes, ships are much more able to avoid torps in just about any situation. But then you can build monster torpedo ships, so that somewhat counters it.

That's my point exactly...  "Can build monster torpedo ships".   There's no risk associated with equipping weapons with exposed ordnance in an era when ships were expected to weather dozens to hundreds of hits per engagement.

The undeniable meta is, if you aren't allocating at least 30% of your deck space to torpedo's, "your doing it wrong".

[SiWi]

2 hours ago, TheRealJostapo said:

That's my point exactly...  "Can build monster torpedo ships".   There's no risk associated with equipping weapons with exposed ordnance in an era when ships were expected to weather dozens to hundreds of hits per engagement.

The undeniable meta is, if you aren't allocating at least 30% of your deck space to torpedo's, "your doing it wrong".

the later torp protection render torps border useless. Granted we have to wait to see if the AI uses them but even the versions just before that are very strong.

[o Barão]

@Nick Thomadis

Is clear that there is a big issue with the AI in the current patch. Doesn't matter how far away it is , and if there is more dangerous enemies closer. The AI can't see an enemy CL in the player fleet. I am noticing this behavior in all battles where i am using a CL. The AI goes nuts with them.

Edited December 18, 2021 by o Barão

[rgreat]

Default campaign is not fun.

I can not alter starting year and at default one gunnery accuracy is way too low to be effective.

I know it was only a few percents of hits in reality. But that was at long ranges, which is totally understandable! But inability to score hits at close range?

In game even at point-blank range it is like 15% accuracy? WTF?!

How you can miss at these ranges at all?!

 

Edited December 18, 2021 by rgreat

[BuckleUpBones]

5 hours ago, rgreat said:

Default campaign is not fun.

I can not alter starting year and at default one gunnery accuracy is way too low to be effective.

I know it was only a few percents of hits in reality. But that was at long ranges, which is totally understandable! But inability to score hits at close range?

In game even at point-blank range it is like 15% accuracy? WTF?!

How you can miss at these ranges at all?!

 

The same for all games, if you want the good stuff you have to go through the grind! It's a learning experience.

Edited December 19, 2021 by BuckleUpBones

[Neonknight_ger]

First of all I want to say thank you to the developers, I grabbed this game the first minute it was released on steam and played it extensively the past week. Allthough I found it very enjoyable, there are a few things I want to comment,

For me, the main fun of this game is playing a campaign and being able to design and build the ships (strategy) you send into battle (tactics). I understand, that the game is EA, and I hope the campaign will later get much more depth. But currently the operational aspect of naval warfare is just not in the game: You cannot compose task forces and assign them to missions i.e. intercept enemy fleets, patrol an area or raid convoys. Instead, this is completely random. When I glanced to the tech tree, there is a (yet non-functional) tech that increases the chance of more favourable engagements. So - at least for me - it is a major concern that this not just an EA issue but a design decision. 

In tactical battles I stumbled over one problem: Torpedoes. I don´t want to join the discussion if they are overpowered or not, but please: 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). There should also be an option to allow your ships to conduct evasive manouvers on their own.

 

 

[Norbert Sattler]

The grind or editing a file. There the thread "Unlocking 1900, 1910 Start Dates without playing 1890" where someone wrote down where to find the file that handles the unlock and what to add. I personally have not tried it, since I did play through all time periods, but others said it worked for them. And if you make a backup of the file, there's not really any risk.

[Norbert Sattler]

Something that I've been noticing a few times recently is the AI designing ships with turrets that have only a tiny angle of fire and are pretty much useless weight most of the time.

Case in point this german BC (1910 campaign). As you can see the centerline guns are tracking my ship which is at about 10 o'clock position relative to it, but it's wing-turrets just can't turn anywhere near that. Though since they are at least able to fire almost directly to the back this is actually one of the "better" examples...

Edited December 19, 2021 by Norbert Sattler

[Norbert Sattler]

And here's a worse offender with a wing-turret that can't even manage a 45° angle.

[The_Real_Hawkeye]

The AI doesn't know when to use what ammo.

As far as I can tell, the AI always uses the "Auto" setting for it's ammo, which seems to use AP for main guns and maybe(?) HE for secondary guns, no matter what.

So when I'm chasing a retreating  AI ship, given the very high ricochet chance, I'm naturally switching to HE. The AI, however, keeps shooting at me with AP - which bounces off about 95% of the time. This makes it killing them rather easy but also quite boring.

[RedParadize]

3 hours ago, The_Real_Hawkeye said:

The AI doesn't know when to use what ammo.

As far as I can tell, the AI always uses the "Auto" setting for it's ammo, which seems to use AP for main guns and maybe(?) HE for secondary guns, no matter what.

So when I'm chasing a retreating  AI ship, given the very high ricochet chance, I'm naturally switching to HE. The AI, however, keeps shooting at me with AP - which bounces off about 95% of the time. This makes it killing them rather easy but also quite boring.

For player its always better to use HE now. destroyed compartment spread damage to the next. Meaning that if you HE extended belt it will spread into the main, and AI have almost no armour on the extended.

[Traslo]

It would be nice if we could make it so the AI can't fall to revolution or has a much higher tolerance for falling behind in victory points in the campaign. Often you're looking forward to the next generation of ships you'll build and the AI collapses and your save is already wiped and gone. Could just be a toggle where you must simply destroy every AI ship to stop them, but until the campaign is more fleshed out the AI can lose far too easily and kind of stops you having a fun long play with the tech

[HerrTom]

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.

[akd]

I totally missed the addition of the ability to add secondary turrets on top of main gun turrets.  This is really silly and just encourages AI to overequip secondaries even more.  Should be obvious why this a problem and was never done in reality.  In addition to it being hugely problematic (if not impossible) to provide ammunition supply through one rotating turret into a separately rotating turret, you also make the armor for the main gun turrets and their potential connection to the main magazine whatever armor is assigned to the secondary (or even tertiary) turrets.  If that turret on a turret is penetrated and flashes, that goes right into the main turret.  Who in their right mind would provide a route for explosive shells through light splinter armor into a space with a direct opening into the main turrets?

Now someone is going to bring up the USS Kearsarge-class battleships.  The Kearsarges did not feature turrets on top of turrets.  The 8-inch guns on top of the the mains were in a "double turret" gun house integrated into the main turret.  These guns could only elevate independently of the main guns, otherwise they were essentially all part of one two-level turret.  The idea was that given long reload times for the mains in their design timeframe, the 8-inch guns already trained onto the target along with the mains would be able to get off several rounds during the mains' reloading period (the difference in range was irrelevant given fire control at the time).   This was also a completely failed design that was already obsolete even in its very poorly conceived intended use by the time the ships went to sea.

Weld between lower and upper gun houses can be seen here:

Somebody else is going to bring up the tertiary anti-torpedo boat guns (all open gun mounts, not turrets, btw) that made an appearance for a time on various capital ships.  These could not be manned and fought while the main guns were in action.  The idea with these was that they would be manned and provided a limited local ammunition supply (which could be also be replenished by hand by crew on deck because the main guns were not in use) at times when the ship might face surprise attack by torpedo boats (e.g. in an anchorage at night) as the main guns were considered unable to contribute to defense in these circumstances.  

Later, some main turrets featured light AA gun positions on top, but the rationale here was the same: they would be needed and manned during an air attack when the main turrets did not have anything to contribute to the defense of the ship.  While the main guns were in action, nobody would be there as they would obviously be killed or incapacitated when the mains fired.

EDIT: admittedly, for some nations only small caliber shielded or unshielded open mounts are allowed in the positions, so in that case it is possible to have such guns mounted this way, but this still ignores that they couldn't be operated at the same time as the main guns.  The closed turrets that can mount on top of turrets seem limited to, for example, the secondary guns provided to German capital ships in 1910.  This appears to simply be an error in the configuration of the secondary guns provided for the time frame for a number of nations.  Given that the appearance is anachronistic, hopefully they are simply missing the needed 3D art, but the game does currently treat them as turrets allowing you to set top armor values. These small caliber secondaries / tertiaries should be in open or shielded mounts, not turrets.

 

@Nick Thomadis, was this intended or are the mounting points for the main turrets some how getting duplicated in the same position above them?

Edited December 20, 2021 by akd

[Norbert Sattler]

I hardly think a couple of 51" are going to cause much overload.

A main-gun turret that has less than 45° of firing arc and thus won't do anything for most of the battle is a far bigger issue.

[Speglord]

Wanted to post this so Nick and the rest of the dev team are aware:

I unlocked the German 1920 campaign. I'm designing my heavy cruiser currently. I have access to Thick Funnel II and Thick Funnel V; however, I can't fit either of them onto Rear Tower VII (the only rear tower available). Both funnels fit on the main tower.

[baatsman]

On 12/18/2021 at 10:43 PM, rgreat said:

Default campaign is not fun.

I can not alter starting year and at default one gunnery accuracy is way too low to be effective.

I know it was only a few percents of hits in reality. But that was at long ranges, which is totally understandable! But inability to score hits at close range?

In game even at point-blank range it is like 15% accuracy? WTF?!

How you can miss at these ranges at all?!

 

Have crew training at 100% for a year or so. Entry level will rise,and average crew skill will rise to a level where naval artillery,actually become an alternative to torps. You can NOT see any change to it for quite some time,but it is rising

[Adm.Hawklyn]

I have to compliment you on your auto resolve feature, it works far better than the one in the RtW2 game, and while I realize that I should, by all rights, be doing nearly every battle, I tend to only oversee a few battles. Currently on a german 1910 campaign. I do enjoy the campaign, granted I look forward to the world wide map and the geopolitical interaction between  all the nations and not merely two at a time.

 

Again, thank you for this game.