A list of suggestions to improve gameplay- Batch 3

[nightraven1901]

• Until better implementation of the convoy system is complete, please display percentages down to two decimal places, so I know if I need more transports to stay at a given percentage.

 

• Identified enemy ship classes should be viewable outside of battle, so we can check out their builds in a more calm setting. Implement via mouse-over of enemy fleet strengths for a given nation displaying a drop-down list of identified classes, which clicking will lock open so we can click on individual ship classes and easily tell how many you have seen but not immediately sunk.

 

• Repair costs for the final month should scale off actual damage. The AI has a nasty habit of bruising every ship in my force, and even though they're still at 99-100% integrity, they still cost the same full price to scrub the scorch marks off the hull that a ship that got gutted by a torpedo would cost that month

 

• The warning for guns having poor sectors of fire is broken, and will display when there's one gun on the ship with near-perfect coverage.

 

• All hulls should have a flush-deck option, available somehow. I already hate the oversized towers we're forced to use, I don't want to be forced to use a ship designed solely for frontal main gun layouts (like the new French battleships). I reiterate: I would like to be able to add or remove everything on every hull until it's a flush-deck design, and add or remove those cutouts and additions as I desire. As it stands those new French battleship hulls are my new most hated hulls in this game. Please stop, URGENTLY, making these hulls the only option for a ship of that size for a given nation. The Dunkirks (excuse English spelling; French is hard) were both ugly and not suited to defensive tactics; I don't wanna have to build them because you built the hull so no other option is available. Flush-deck setting, PLEASE.

 

• Stealth17's circular battleship video shows that the game can in fact support much more manipulation to hulls than the designer currently allows. Please widen those sliders concerning width and length to the maximum they can support without causing serious issues. The Russians dd actually make circular battleships- I'd like to at least get close to that if I don't mind making hideous monstrousities. Further, whatever is making the game lag out during designing of all heavy ships requires some attention. Draught remaining limited to what ports could reasonably support is however already as far as it needs to go without save file manipulation.

 

• Requesting permission to fire: when a ship has an excellent torpedo or gunnery solution on a target but is currently under orders not to fire that weapon, they should have an indicator that essentially represents a commander bitching to the admiral that they have a clean shot and they want to take it. All I need is a flashing icon shaped like either a torpedo, large gun, or small gun (use the extant icons in the fire control options menu) coloured in green to indicate, "I wanna use this weapon on my target, admiral!!"

 

• It is difficult to order a ship to cease maneuvers. Attempting to use fine mouse control to order forward rudder is time-consuming and not suited to high-intensity battles. I'd like a "steady as she goes" button and a manual entry ability for rudder controls so we can type in desired rudder settings while paused as the mouse accuracy needed to achieve this currently is not presently a realistically viable option. The Let's Players and I struggle with that interface; I request it receive some attention.

 

• Would like a "hull material" button, with steel, aluminium, and wood being my first three options to stock the choices pool. Tiny ships in the world wars periods were often made of wood, as it was well-known that a heavy hit would simply sink them anyway if they were made of steel.

 

• Would like torpedo trackers on both friendly torpedoes and observed enemy ones. A green or red coloured line indicating their path would help. It need only be visible if one of the lines intersects with one of your ships' courses, as they could and did calculate that in real ships.

 

• Would like an option to increase the investment in torpedo launcher traverse speed, like the extant one for big guns. Again, I would like fine control over this on a turret-by-turret basis.

 

• LSM (R) type LSTs carried rockets. Those rockets could conceivably hit ships. Rockets for late-game..?

 

• Would like to customise ship designations. DLs and DDs are not the same. Nor are DEs the same as DDs. I can't differentiate that right now; I have to manually select the ship and assess its weapons to determine if I have an intercept destroyer, a destroyer leader, a support destroyer, a fleet destroyer, or an escort destroyer. And that's just some of the stuff currently crammed under "DD." Don't get me started on other ship types...

 

• Early tech-tree ships have minimal customisability beyond what size guns to fit and spending your leftover displacement. Implementation of any of several ideas I have already presented would fix this; in the meantime just flush-deck hull options for all in all time periods, please. Yes, your exceptionally limited options *look* slightly better but I don't care- their extreme lack of customisability makes them obnoxious to build- it feels like I've made the exact same ship a dozen times. It also makes early naval academy missions just plain slogs to get through. No, I *don't* want to spend an hour watching three ironclads slowly expend their entire ammunition supply into each other, please; nor do I want to do half of the missions I *did* do in that academy as they were plain boring. They don't get interesting until fairly late in the academy (say, one-third to halfway through) and that is a flaw that will drive new players straight outta the game.

 

• Would like working searchlights that mitigate aiming penalties at night. Give me something else to place in those turret slots. Larger searchlights, more mitigation.

 

• Would like some basic automatic orders, like having my intercept destroyers start tacking without constant player attention. Some basic evasion patterns can be coded in without too much difficulty; they may even benefit the AI as it develops.

 

• Would like more *gameplay-specific* information from just about all tooltips. It's mildly interesting that radio direction finding is a thing that was used to find ships in real life, but what is it's *gameplay function?* That's all we need in those tooltips. Save history lessons for the loading screens. And I *like* the history lessons, and still feel compelled to say that...

 

• I want to know how much of a penalty I get to aiming for having mixed batteries and when it applies. Maybe adding those two-inch guns to my destroyers is disrupting their accuracy- it doesn't look like it but I can't tell that anywhere.

 

More ideas as they brew up. Feel free to cite the ones you do and don't like by quote; otherwise the devs can't tell which ones we really want and which are secondary priorities or even plain duds. Brainstorming is like throwing shit at the wall; not all of it will stick...

Edited March 21, 2022 by nightraven1901
Grammaticl corrections.

[slightlytreasonous]

Working search lights would look amazing, we need environment visuals so bad.  Just don't diss the French!

Edited March 21, 2022 by slightlytreasonous

[Blues]

1 hour ago, slightlytreasonous said:

Working search lights would look amazing, we need environment visuals so bad.  Just don't diss the French!

That could be really cool with submarines aswell imagine putting searchlights on your ship which help in also spotting submarines not by increasing a value/range but actually having a cone in which you spot things that would have a lot of potential but its probably me day-dreaming

 

Edit: i dont personally know how much searchlights were used for spotting on warships atleast during the day it could also be really amazing if you could with that actually get into a Night Fighting Doctrine by building your ships with extra Searchlights and perhaps special Crew Training (looking at you rule the waves 2) also set your Task Forces to preffer Engagements during the night or evening/sun rise

Edited March 21, 2022 by Blues

[nightraven1901]

15 hours ago, slightlytreasonous said:

Just don't diss the French!

 

Nothing against the French, their gloried war history, their delicious food, or their people. But those battleships are ugly and ill-suited to defensive engagements, in my opinion. I do love the Jeune École strategy though- and it works too. Loading 51-knot intercept destroyers with as many torpedoes as possible is an excellent strategy- but faster launcher traverse speed would help them actually launch when I give them perfect firing solutions, as would pre-training launchers on the selected torpedo target when on final approach. There ain't a lot of leeway in the displacement for armour if you go with an engine that big...