Suggestions to Improve Gameplay- Batch 4

[nightraven1901]

G'day folks. Yet more suggestions for yet better gameplay. Enjoy, and let the good times roll.

 

 

* Duplex rangefinders should be available; options for whether main guns also have rangefinders to minimise the loss of accuracy when main rangefinder(s) are hit. Number and sizes of rangefinders should have rudimentary options- none, one, few, moderate, many, maximum options. Rangefinders could also be a placeable structure, assuming implementation of the structures system indicated earlier, instead of abstracted options, with each rangefinder being individually modeled and it's effect on accuracy individually tracked. Also would be nice to include rangefinder blind spots.

 

* All turrets should be individually searching for targets when set to aggressive fire-mode; including main and secondary turrets, so we can get all our guns blazing when surrounded, as I prefer to be.

 

* Battleship ambush defence should not include merchant ships. If it does, that's a very unfair convoy defence, as even a maxed-out battleship ain't killing that many light ships before they drop torpedoes and ruin your defenceless and ignorant transports.

 

* Save tabs- at the top of the saved designs window, an extra button to switch into your universal saves would be appreciated. This would preserve function and cleanliness of current saves window but permit persistent saving of designs. I'd also like filter controls to filter by type, weight, modernity, etcetera as I plan on creating large libraries of designs. Now, this final part might be controversial, but I would like this tab to allow me to construct other nation's ships, assuming none of their components would be unavailable to me from a technology perspective. Again: if I want to build ships that look the same as my enemy's that's my prerogative as the ultimate fleet admiral. Some nations just get plain screwed with their available designs...

 

* Near miss damage: large-calibre HE should cause some shrapnel/splash damage, and AP that falls short on trajectory to hit the hull below the waterline should be modeled.

 

* We should be able to click the "some guns have poor sectors of fire" warning and be brought to the offending turret and have it blink for us a couple of times. This is so we can actually know what turret is causing the issue.

 

* The new turrets with little gunnery nests on them are quite nice. Now can I please have an option to not use them, so I can use the old generic ones so they'll fit with barbettes? Better yet, a simple option to remove the nest so I can properly put a superfiring turret over it would be ideal.

 

* Please set all armour preset values to balanced figures so I don't spend ten minutes getting the weight balance perfect only to find that the ship has 500% more aft deck armour than fore deck armour, requiring a complete redesign *after* I think I'm nearly done.

 

* In the Fleet tab, the tooltip keeps getting in the way of what statistics you're trying to look at. Redesigning it so that information is displayed in a dedicated window to the side would be ideal.

 

* In the shipyard for ship design, there's a large dead space where the keyboard move buttons and the mouse movements are all ignored. Please increase the bounding box in which these functions work. Suggest making all space that isn't a button or sidebar accept these inputs. On the sidebars up/down buttons should scroll the sidebar we're mouse-overing.

 

* Speaking of the shipyard, it would save me a lot of effort if the engine efficiency and pitch/roll values all displayed the same tooltip as the sidebar provides. Please.

 

* Aim high and aim low settings would be appreciated so we can exploit poor superstructure armour or aim to hole the targeted ship.

 

* When about to initiate a battle, the window that opens causes the countries, warscore and fleet dispositions tab to fade into inscrutability. Respectfully, don't do that. There's no reason for it and in the current build there may be several consecutive battles scheduled for me by the AI between which I cannot check this tab. In fact, stop making those tabs impossible to close; I may want to order new ships or adjust my spending as a result of the battle I just finished and there's no mechanical reason to stop me.

 

* Convoy escort missions are just not acceptable in current build if you want your game enjoyed or sold. It is literally impossible to protect your convoy from long-range torpedoes, even if your whole force is immediately sent out to meet the attackers, along any relative bearing, the AIs super-torpedo ships are going to fire on your escort force with the rapidity of a machinegun and as you evade you'll inevitably attract salvos that can go on to hit your convoy ships. The crux of the matter is detection range and initial force placement. RADAR is supposed to detect things in plenty of time to respond to it, and even if not (or not available)you're going to have a far more satisfying game if these battles are remotely under your control to win- maybe lengthening the distance between the starting would help, as might reducing the range of torpedoes to nearer their indicated maximum range, or PUTTING THOSE CONVOYS UNDER PLAYER CONTROL and ADDING AUDIO AND VISUAL CUES THAT A SHIP IS ON COURSE TO TAKE A TORPEDO, that latter two being highlighted as they alone will fix this issue without making every convoy defence mission a drudgery of waiting to make contact. Also, if the convoy ships are going to be under AI control, whether we set them to it or you force us to use that alone, then they should follow Mr. Piccolo's advice and DODGE! 'Coz trust me, we're begging them to. I reiterate: all ships under AI control should be using AI dodge-hacks, a term which will be replaced with AI evasion when it becomes more accurate than the former.

 

* Related to the former: please stop letting the AI build super-torpedo ships with literally a hundred or more torpedoes on them each, ESPECIALLY in historical build mode. No-one actually did that. Just we armchair admiral wondered about doing it. Even the Japanese didn't go that far with their most outrageous designs...

 

* Make AI dodge-hacks less noticeable. It's immersion-breaking. Reduce all values that they exceed the limits imposed on a player ship by at least 50% of the difference, preferably 100%. This is a priority concern.

 

* Fleet tags in campaign are way too big to function right, both for ports and ships. Interface is messy and unwieldy; I don't feel very in control of my ships...

 

* Fleet tags could use the silhouette from the designer's plan to show us the heaviest ship in a given force, thus communicating considerably more information than they do now. It would also be comparatively simple to do, too.

 

* I'ma repeat myself: light ship spotting mechanics are not sufficient. Being fired at by ghosts also isn't sufficient. Most other games mitigate this by having the ship that fires balloon out it's detection range by up to 50%, but my primary desire is to get RADAR and SONAR mounts to exist and have more realistic ranges regardless of what they're mounted to, except a slight range buff *for free* by being mounted higher- say, on a BB mast. This bonus should not be *that* high, as it isn't in reality. No more than 100%. Again free from a weight perspective- same RADAR module, same weight- but it should be a roll concern as in reality. After all, that weight is very high up on the superstructure and that's how you get roll.

 

* The dispersion of guns in the current patch is so poor as to be offensive to the Youtubers playing the game (though admittedly, I never really paid it much heed, understanding how the math behind this system works and that the displayed rounds are merely a visual representation of that math). Anyhow, relatively easy fix: reduce the maximum dispersion of the shells being animated by say 30-50%, especially at short ranges, just to improve the aesthetic, if not affect the performance which seems adequate for this stage of development. Nice work making the fall of shot from the same turret look realistic, though; even War Thunder couldn't pull that off.

 

* Please have speed stat display to two decimal places, as it already actually accepts inputs down that far and adjusts the ship's weight and stats accordingly but doesn't actually show the difference (except by the altered stats).

 

* I think we need a mini-map. I am having severe trouble tracking all the ships involved in larger encounters...

 

* Would like an "assist ship" order; for when a ship is critically damaged. Allow us to send another vessel to rescue survivors (adding them back to the trained crew pool after battle) and attempt to stabilize the ship in trouble, at the risk of potentially losing the rescue craft. This will add a new dynamic for damaged capital ships and give us an organic objective mid-battle; we may find ourselves trying to fend off attacks while we complete a rescue or salvage operation. Dedicated salvage ships also appreciated as a long-term stretch goal.

 

* Flagships suffer a -15% accuracy malus due to being out of range of the flagship. Hilarious, but better removed.

 

 

Okay then, as ever feel free to cite both liked and disliked ideas to allow the devs to better understand our wants. Happy hunting, Admirals.

o7

 

 

[Käptn_Flitschauge]

In addition to the point about assisting damaged ships: Giving us the ability to order the crew to abandon ship and make for the nearest friendly vessel wouldn't hurt either

[TelpherPrime]

if we looking "todo" things...easier, more clearly forward turrets positioning.there is problem when u want locate one on deck and second behind over.