Mission design fail?

[Lucas_Slavik]

Playing Academy Mission: Dreadnought vs. modern Crusier.

Enemy BCs are always running away with 32-38 knots; to even have a chance to hit them, your BB must have +-36 knots (or the enemy will just leave effective range before he gets any meaningful damage). 

While you need all weight on engine, it is not possible to construct any kind of usefull BB. This Mission is not only very hard to win due this, but also boring, frustrating and just - sorry to call it like that - shit.

Had like 4 rage quits in a row by trying this mission. 

Do you feel the same here, or I'm just bad? Whats your solution against enemies running away with 38 knots (without possibility to use CA/CL/DD)?

[Lucas_Slavik]

Tried that mission again today.

This time, with 2 BBs with a cost of 125mil (extra funds).

The enemy CAs had each a cost of 250mil - 39 knots, veteran crew, lot of guns, over 30 torps... Plus the 2 BCs. Sorry, slowly I start to hate this game.

This is not balanced, or fair, or fun. I guess it is not intended that the player just have to reload the mission twenty time to get an enemy which is beatable?

Did they even play there own missions?

Why not just simply limit the funds which the AI ship generator can use for its ships? 

 

edit: yeah, reloaded the game, now the enemy CA are just at 46mil cost. So the AI clearly just have unlimited funds to build it's ships. Especially since crew EXP don't need any tonnage and just funds, this is totally unbalanced. A ship with veteran crew is much more powerfull as a ships with green crew. AI should be restricted in funds, or the Naval Academy Missions can get totally unbalanced/unfun/unwinable some times, which is just bad designed. 

Still - after killing the enemy CA, the mission is lost because the AI BCs run away. Oh and no, it's not the AI going for a long range battle. The enemy BCs run away so far, that they can't even shoot their guns on me. So time will just runs out because the enemy will just stay out of range with his 38 knot BCs.

 

Edited January 15, 2022 by Lucas_Slavik

[AurumCorvus]

God damn this mission has turned hellish. It certainly didn't used to be this bad; my saved design for it is extraordinarily sloppy. Today, I had to build a near-perfect dreadnought to get this over multiple tries.

That being said, I do have some design ideas for you (warning: significant cheese ahead). First, build an all-forward AB design. Whenever you're outmatched in speed, build an AB ship because the AI, eventually, turns sideways to fire. On the other hand, you can just keep your nose pointed at the enemy and use your speed . It also helps avoiding torpedoes. General idea is to place the Main Tower first so that you have the slightest aft offset (like literally the spot where you shift from fore to aft offset). Then place the B barbette in front of the fore/aft line. Balance your stuff around this (use a single Tall Funnel III; the largest one moves your secondary tower too far back and you'll have balance problem. Also, use Sec Tower VIII, I think. The one without the barbette.)

Build it with quad 18s, but no secondaries. Go for 30 knots. Main belt and deck, plus the turrets need to have at least 18" of Krupp II/III (20" of Krupp I, and I recommend 20" for all four armor values). Nothing on anything else. All torpedo protection stuff, except for bulkheads slider and reinforced bulkheads (we're boosting resistance stat, the torpedo protection is a nice bonus). Also, only anti-flood II. No aux engines, oil I, geared turbines, induced. Radar and S-V rangefinder, but no sonar or radio.

Also, take Dreadnought IV over Modern Dreadnought. Dreadnought IV has a much higher resistance value, so it lasts much, much longer.

Turn your nose toward the CAs and target the CAs first; they generally carry torpedoes. If you eat a torpedo, you are going to lose this battle because you can't catch anything. Wait some time until the CAs get a good broadside (so they can launch their torpedoes) and you're in torpedo range. Jerk hard away from your current path. Once you see the torpedoes go by you, shift back to a pursuit course. Wait until you identify the CAs so you can see their torpedo reloads. Keep an eye on their reloads and their firing. When they fire, jerk hard from your present course.

It will be an exercise in patience to manage a hit from your 18s on the CAs. However, the moment you hit a CA, it will lose its engine. You'll catch up and sink it; in fact, while you're sinking it, pursue the next CA.

For the BCs, just angle and pursue them. If they begin to circle around you, you will win because your 18s have more range and much more power than any enemy BC I encountered yet. And the first few penetrations will immediately take out the enemy engines. Once you get the engines, angle, pursue and kill.

Honestly, you might still fail (and I did once). The enemy might have only an 8kn speed advantage, but even at a speed of 8kns, they might escape your 18" guns. Too bad in that case. You'll have to retry it.

If it's any consolation, most of these balance problems relate to balance patches and features for the campaign. When I picked up the game, these Naval Academy missions used to be stupidly easy. You had to build something truly unsuited and bad to fail them.

[Lucas_Slavik]

Yeah really. I had no problem before Steam-Launch, now I just don't get it done.

I mostly tried it the same as you, but only with a smaller main battery caliber. Guess it can work yes, but it's still very bad designed since a single torp hit (or just bad luck by hiting ther faster BB; eventually they are leaving your max range before you hit them hard enought to slow them down) will let you loose. 

Interesting is that you wrote that the BC will start circle you one time. Never happend for me so far; they always just run away in a streight line.

Maybe I try it with 18inchs, but atm I just have no power left for UA:D-frustration