Dodging a torpedo

[Captain Meow]

There's this thing that annoys me. Enemy ship (I'm talking about pre-dreadnought period) not far away from me fires a torpedo, I do the hard to port/starboard (often misclicking on the background & losing time) but my ship at full speed turns at such rate that in most of cases it gets a torpedo hit. Slowing down is impossible, reversing breaks down all engines. Yet I fire a torpedo not far away from enemy ship & I see how it does a quick turn or slows down almost instantly, so I often get a miss.  Is it something not right with AI's physics or I'm doing something wrong while trying to get away from torpedo? For example, a 1896 German battleship with unbalanced rudder, doing 18kn, enemy is like 700m away.

 

(often misclicking on the background & losing time) - that's why there should be an option to slow down / accelerate / steer the ship with arrow keys.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Captain Meow

[Drenzul]

Depends on the ship. 
TBs, CLs  should basically never get hit by torps unless you aren't paying attention (lost a few that way ) 

For anything bigger it depends a lot on the ship build. A ship with a good turn speed and acceleration has a
good chance of dodging torps. I have noticed the AI ships do tend to have Aux Engines and Shaft improvements
which aid turning speed.

A large part is how long it gets to react so good sonar also helps.

But firing from 700m? Practically a certain hit in all the games I've played.

[BilgeRat22]

Hi there, when you spot a torpedo (or when otherwise needed) you can always hit the 'P' key to pause the game. It'll give you time to think about what can be done.

Avoiding a torpedo attack from the AI can be tricky. Here's what I've come up with:

Keep an eye on your Min. Turning Circle stat in the Ship Details panel when you design your ship. It all starts there. One of my 1900 CL designs was way too large, made a great torpedo target. Since then I have started making smaller ships for better agility. (Though they will be more fragile, but also less expensive).

Lower speed means a tighter turn. It's why even crippled AI ships (with a decently functional rudder) always seem to dodge at the very last time. There's an optimal balance between speed and turning rate. You want the turning circle to be tight, but you normally also want to get the maneuver done quickly. 10 kts or maybe "Slow" speed seem to hit the spot for most ships, I think.

When in torpedo range, do what you can to throw the AI's aim off. Speeding up seems to be always faster than slowing down your ship (especially true for the bigger ones), so "hiding" your top speed by travelling at cruise speed or lower may help. You can sprint when needed. Zigzagging/changing heading can also dodge that spread before you see it - all that maneuvering will probably mess with the accuracy of your guns, though.

As for the AI's uncanny ability to dodge your torps, I think it may be spotting your 'fish' as soon as they're in the water. Fast torps are much, much more visible in my experience. On the other hand, I've seen long range normal torp (slow) spreads from me catch the AI unawares. So great when that happens!

[T_the_ferret]

Very early on (before you can get hydro I or good towers) your heavy cruisers and dreadnoughts have little chance to dodge torpedoes because they are fired from very short range, and its even less likely if they decided to use Fast Torpedoes which are available very early as well (for some reason). Your best bet is to mount some low caliber secondaries to cripple torpedo boats that come too close, but if its a cruiser that rushes you then there isn't really any hard counter beyond the hope that you can cripple it as well before it closes the distance.

AIs are known to get insane bonuses to turn practically on a dime no matter the ship type when you fire torpedoes yourself

[Norbert Sattler]

As far as I understand it, "turn rate" means how tight your turning circle is once your rudder is put at the max angle and "rudder shift" is how long it takes for your rudder to go to max angle. Thus for quick changes of course you want rudder shift, rather than turn rate buffs.

Unless I'm entirely mistaken here, that means a balanced rudder is much better for dodging torpedoes at close range. Since it will allow you to far more quickly start to turn away (or toward) the firing ship.

And you should get hydraulic steering gear as soon as it becomes available, since it improves both turn rate and rudder shift and is well worth the investment in cost and weight. I always use balanced rudder and hydraulic steering (or electro-hyraulic later) on my BB, BC and CA. Only with the CL and smaller I stay on partially balanced rudder and steam steering, since they are generally manouverable enough as they are. I never use unbalanced rudders.

I also tend to nearly always go at the speed where the ships get the maximum cruise speed accuracy bonus the moment time-compression is limited to 5x, which not only helps accuracy, but also manouverbility. The only exception where I put my ships to maximum speed is when I'm trying to run away, get a small ship in for a torpedo run or chase down a fleeing enemy (or tail-chase enemies that try to go to ridiculously long ranges).

Once my ships end up closer than 2 km to the enemy, I make sure to angle away from the enemy ship either way. This will increase apparent angle, making enemy shells more likely to bouce or partial pen, rather than fully pen, give you more time to react to incoming torpedoes and start you out at a better angle to turn away and avoid the torpedo on top.

Also once you spot the torpedo, immediately pause the game. Pausing and calmly taking stock is far more likely to work than panic-clicking into the map. The latter might even cause you to turn into torpedoes that would have entirely missed if you just kept going in a strait line.

If the targeted ship is not the formation leader, either gamble with the new avoid torpedo button, or immediately detach them and to the evasion maually.

 

One final warning with torpedoes: The "maximum range" is the range at which the torpedo can be launched, not the maximum travel distance. Once it's out of the tube the torpedo will in my experience travel something between 2.5 and 3 times it's "maximum" range. So don't assume that just because you successfully dodged the torpedo with the ship that was 1 km away from the enemy, that your other ship that's 2 km away from the enemy is perfectly save, just because the torpedo had only 1.5 km range. That torpedo will reach your second ship and further, so make sure it too evades.

Edited December 31, 2021 by Norbert Sattler

[akd]

AI does not get any bonuses that you can’t also employ.  Player has huge advantage against AI in regards to torpedoes because you can use divination to observe what’s happening aboard any spotted ship.

[Punisher_1]

No you are 100% correct. 

Your crews no matter the level seem to be mentally challenged when firing torps. The AI instantly reacts to your launch. If the AI launches torps at you they are incredibly accurate and spotting them is almost too late. So you are only left with constantly changing speed and direction constantly. I found this is the only way to avoid the AI super torps. 

I do think torps in the game are broken for lack of control, aiming and the like. The AI simply have the advantage. 

[Captain Meow]

More like enemy ships have broken physics that makes them slow down / turn rapidly.  Similar to how own ship reacts when my another ship crosses it's way - it slows down almost immediately & then accelerates in seconds back to speed it had.

[arkhangelsk]

Acceleration is indeed too fast in this game (though not nearly as bad as say World of Warships), but at least it is fair. The primary reason the AI can dodge torps and you can't is

a) human players are inattentive. They keep getting bored, turn up the time compression, lose time to respond and come on this board to blame their dereliction of duty on the computer.

b) because they can't envisage the consequences of their turn as well as the computer. The game does give you a line so you can imagine your own turn, but it doesn't help you envisage where the enemy torpedo would be at each stage of your turn.

c) human players build a 100k ton ship, which have a lot of inertia which makes it even harder to predict the interaction, even if you have hydrophones that see them far out.

Let the AI be good at something is what I say.

[Drenzul]

On 1/1/2022 at 3:11 AM, Punisher_1 said:

No you are 100% correct. 

Your crews no matter the level seem to be mentally challenged when firing torps. The AI instantly reacts to your launch. If the AI launches torps at you they are incredibly accurate and spotting them is almost too late. So you are only left with constantly changing speed and direction constantly. I found this is the only way to avoid the AI super torps. 

I do think torps in the game are broken for lack of control, aiming and the like. The AI simply have the advantage. 

Not true, try using Oxygen or Electric torps. They don't react at all till they detect them.

[UnleashtheKraken]

On 12/30/2021 at 5:48 PM, Captain Meow said:

There's this thing that annoys me. Enemy ship (I'm talking about pre-dreadnought period) not far away from me fires a torpedo, I do the hard to port/starboard (often misclicking on the background & losing time) but my ship at full speed turns at such rate that in most of cases it gets a torpedo hit. Slowing down is impossible, reversing breaks down all engines. Yet I fire a torpedo not far away from enemy ship & I see how it does a quick turn or slows down almost instantly, so I often get a miss.  Is it something not right with AI's physics or I'm doing something wrong while trying to get away from torpedo? For example, a 1896 German battleship with unbalanced rudder, doing 18kn, enemy is like 700m away.

 

(often misclicking on the background & losing time) - that's why there should be an option to slow down / accelerate / steer the ship with arrow keys.

Use the hard rudder over controls at the bottom right of the screen.  Do a maximum turn away from the path of the torpedo, and cut speed to half, the moment you see the torpedo.  Works for me, even at point blank, about 99%.

When you click on the ocean for a turn, player ships do not seem to employ maximum rudder, even if commanded to achieve a 180 degree reverse.  Fine for navigation, not good for dodging.