>>> Beta 1.06 Feedback<<< (FINAL UPDATE 6th Release Candidate)

[havaduck]

While we are at wishes, I want what the AI already gets:

 

I want to be able to build refit ship classes. Or at least let me copy the design and then built that, I'd be fine with that too.

While we are at it, I need to know also how long the refit actually will take. BOTH in the designer when I play around with the components and also ingame when I actually do a refit.

Now its like defusing a bomb. I will do a refit very rarely, not because it isnt fun or useful, no, its because I dont want to get randomly slapped with 7-9 months of refits. Next time I change armor, armor thickniss, add a rangefinder, change shells and propelland and the game be like: Here you go, 1 month. Have fun and come back.

On the other hand I HAAAAAAAAATE recreating the refit I just did just so I can build it. Like I am genuily amazed its like that. There is the feature of the designer which to play around is genualy pure fun (bugs aside and new features like the citadel that upon introduction ofc need work) and then there is this issue that turns a major feature of the game into tedium and borefest. Recreating the same ship you just did is as much fun as manually copying a handwriten manifest. Because its so boring its also prone to error. Like you forgot to add Barbette upgrade? Uh I sense a refit comming up that will randomly take between 1-9 months, exiting, isnt it? 🙃

 

€: Missed the text, redid it, should be there now.

Edited July 3, 2022 by havaduck

[Skeksis]

2 hours ago, Littorio said:

I can't understand for the life of me how you continue to maintain over time that this spotting system (or lack thereof) is a good feature. It would be one thing if this total and significant deviation from historical norms enhanced gameplay and made it more enjoyable. Instead, it fails to do even that. No one wins, neither "arcade"-type players, nor more historically-minded ones.

Frankly, while the battlemap spotting needs to be changed, the bigger issue that would alleviate the lion's share of the most frustrating encounters in the first place is to add an operational level reconnaissance element to the campaign map. Identification and classification of vessels should be made when the encounter is generated...in fact, IT IS!

Look at the battle markers - it tells you the speed, loadout, and characteristics of the ship facing you...but suddenly that knowledge disappears instantly when we go into battle, and we need to find the enemy again and re-ascertain his ship type? No...NOTHING about this current system makes sense at all.

Having visible ranges is very good way to balance different classes within the same instance, thus keeping that variety of class each with its own purpose. If all were visible then it’ll be a rapid death of destroyers to cruisers, cruisers to battleships and battleships in a slugfest to the horizon, every battle.

At some point realism has to be balanced for gameplay. If there’s a game with total visibility realism then good on them.

But in UAD even blind-firing enemies challenges the player, you cannot deny that. Sure it’s demanding when you can’t shoot back but that just forces the player to mobilize their fleet to overcome those odds. The whole visibility system/mechanics is integrating with... well… everything, big ask to change. 

More often than not, requests to remove is driven by players who just wants to ‘ease’ the challenge. I’ll be very surprised if GameLabs action such a challenge reduction.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Skeksis

[Pappystein]

So I have been playing both Beta 1.06 and "Pre-release" 1.05 for just over 100 hours now.    A few things stand out (I am going to be referring to the Beta 1.06 HFX 22 that was released on or about 7/22/22)

1) Torpedo Magazines in hull for Hull mounted torpedo Explode too easily and no matter the weapon location (Bow + stern) you only have one Torpedo magazine.   I am now not equipping my ships with torpedo and running the campaign map... (I have won against France once, Germany three times and Austro Hungarian Empire three times) with complete fleet wipe-outs because the AI still has Torpedo tubes in the hull.   *bug reported*

2) Campaign, "Auto Created" Fleet.  I have had several times where the AI builds ships larger than my "shipyard" can build so no BB for me.   RIP campaign, start over (3 times out of 4 Campaign builds!)  *Bug reported (I think!)*

3) Ships jumping Squadrons   When a ship takes damage... or otherwise the AI decides to do so due to a loss of speed, the lead ship in a squadron will switch, and the Original lead will either shuffle back into the squadron as not the leader OR worse it will jump to a different squadron of a different type (EG a Battleship joining a Torpedo Boat Squadron!)   Since there is no simple/easy in game way to form up squadrons easily (you have to guess as to what ship you are adding) this is a major distraction in battle.   And can lead to the loss of a lot of ships.   *Bug reported*

4) AI Squadron orders (Eg Scout, Follow etc)  Does not appear to be implemented other than FOLLOW.   EVERY other ship in my fleet is always BEHIND whatever my flagship currently is.   This leads to multiple friendly ship collisions as they all try to get to the same place (even when squadrons have different orders)

5) final "issue" if you were to look at them this way... I have had twice where ships start missions and automatically surrender... this is counted as a ship loss... even if I the player win the mission...   SUGGEST this should be a ship loss only if all other of Players ships are lost and should not be a ship loss if Player wipes out all Enemy ships!

 

Now  aside from these issues some feed back....
I have been involved with Naval game since Great Naval Battles of the North Atlantic on DOS...  In a lot of ways this game reminds me of GNBNA except the damage control is automatic and not a visual granular thing.   I have High Hopes for this game.   The advantage is I can build the ships the way I want them instead of Historical rails I have to ride.    This does lead to a drawback.  While this game isn't limiting us to historic Hulls, and technology... the Technology is mostly on a rail we still have to follow.....   So In my campaign I am playing the British Empire.   I have a slew of ships with 8" Cannons... I am in the middle of upgrading them to 9" because the game has decided 9" gets the 2nd Generation turret first... even though I have zero ships with 9" cannons.   This historical rail is a little vexing.   It is probably too late to look for some sort of change but I would have suggested the prioritize function goes to "sub-assemblies" rather than the main technology.  
 

SUGGESTIONS:

1) New turret types.   The Individually sleeved (and twin Sleeved for the Quad turret.)   These would be a new late game turret functionality designed to arrive circa 1916 (individual for 2x and 3x turrets) and ~1934 for Twin sleeved for Quad turrets.   These turret types, which really came into existence with the USS New Mexico at the 3x level, would fire as if each barrel is in it's own turret for purposes of Rate of Fire.   The giant Quad turrets of the 1930 French Battleships are actually two Twin Turrets combined into a single hull so they would get the 2x2 style turrets.   Again this increases the ROF but every other aspect of these turrets are like their single sleeve for-bearers (accuracy de-buff, scatter etc)

2) Technology randomization by Caliber.   Currently there is a pretty obvious flow to the "upgrade" of Turrets.   Your Heavy cruiser better start with 9" cannons because they will be upgraded to Mk2 before any other size.   Make what comes in what order Random for each game cycle...  Leave the unlocking of new calibers (eg 13") in the same general place, but what gets upgraded to the next level in what order could be randomized to prevent min-maxing builds.

3) Campaign Self created fleets:   Some of the ships in a self designed fleet should be under construction at career start, like the AI created fleets are.  

4) Allow us to build new transports.   An option to build extra transports to reduce/eradicate the permanent penalty you get for loosing transports in the campaign.

5) Positive events.   Currently Events almost exclusively force you to go to war with other factions.  While that is kind of needed there should be some events that at no cost are Positive.   Eg
"Your Navy found a Lifeboat in the ocean near faction X's coast  You returned the waterlogged seamen to their country with the country's thanks"  

6) Will echo others requests for Ability to put into construction refitted versions of ships (under the same class name)   They should be part of the refit class EG HMS Benbow (1906-2) and thus valid for future Refits along with all of the original HMS Benbow class that was brought up to the HMS Benbow (1906-2) class standard.

All in all this has been a great game to play and I look forward to future improvements!

 

[havaduck]

2 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Having visible ranges is very good way to balance different classes within the same instance, thus keeping that variety of class each with its own purpose. If all were visible then it’ll be a rapid death of destroyers to cruisers, cruisers to battleships and battleships in a slugfest to the horizon, every battle.

At some point realism has to be balanced for gameplay. If there’s a game with total visibility realism then good on them.

But in UAD blind-firing enemies does challenge the player, you cannot deny that. Sure it’s demanding when you can’t shoot back but that just forces the player to mobilize their fleet to overcome those odds.  

More often than not, requests to remove is driven by players who just wants to ‘ease’ the challenge. I’ll be very surprised if GameLabs action such a challenge reduction.

 

The funny thing is, thise game seems to want to go for a realistic route, not necessarily simulation but realistic. I am fine with arcade, realistic and simulations. I played all 3 over the years. One that stood out was Fighting Steel. By todays standard it clunky as hell and it wasnt really that pretty even in its prime but the spark is truly there.

I will leave a link to the games english manual here: https://www.navalwarfare.org/files/FSP/Fighting_Steel-Manual.zip

because in my opinion it is worth checking what THEY did, how, why and if it could be done better. (Keep in mind, the game is about the era 1939-1942)

 

Now go straight to page 80 (what the manual describes as 80 not the PDF) and bam! This is so much better than what we have here. I dare you read it, it has everything from gun flashes, star shells, visibility changing from daytime, visibility changes due to wave levels and weather, visibility from raging fires, A BB spotting a BB first. A BB spotting a DD last. A DD spotting another DD even later. Radar. You name it, its most likely there.

Ships also having to keep track of their spotting  (yes radio was a thing, but for example TBS (talking between ships) used at Guadalcanal was cutting edge and brand new and still unusable when the shooting actually started; very much the opposite of this games instant telepatically transmitted data.

 

When I first saw the staged identification prozess, I felt right at home. This is just like fighting steel I thought.

But then the confusion started. I have no problem learning the rules of a new game, but these rules have to be somewhere and make sense. Right now I dont the hell now hat going on. Usually sending fast ships ahead will grant spotting of the bigger ships at ..... some point. That is. I havent figured out anything past that.

It doesnt have to be overly realistic, but it should be playable, understandable and not detrimental to the overal fun of the game.

 

 

Edited July 4, 2022 by havaduck

[Candle_86]

5 hours ago, Littorio said:

I can't understand for the life of me how you continue to maintain over time that this spotting system (or lack thereof) is a good feature. It would be one thing if this total and significant deviation from historical norms enhanced gameplay and made it more enjoyable. Instead, it fails to do even that. No one wins, neither "arcade"-type players, nor more historically-minded ones.

Frankly, while the battlemap spotting needs to be changed, the bigger issue that would alleviate the lion's share of the most frustrating encounters in the first place is to add an operational level reconnaissance element to the campaign map. Identification and classification of vessels should be made when the encounter is generated...in fact, IT IS!

Look at the battle markers - it tells you the speed, loadout, and characteristics of the ship facing you...but suddenly that knowledge disappears instantly when we go into battle, and we need to find the enemy again and re-ascertain his ship type? No...NOTHING about this current system makes sense at all.

I think the best way to fix the spotting issues is quite simple. The Dev's know how tall the tower is, the average human eyeball can distingish a target for quite distance. Maybe reconfigured sighting to be the highet of the sighting top using this formula

SquareRoot(height above surface / 0.5736) = distance to horizon

Now this let's us detect ships maybe 30 miles away, but the human eyeball is inaccurate past about 3km's and really only accurate at point blank, and we wouldn't be able to guess the range well past maybe 6km. So Maybe have the ships detected, but no range, unless we have range finders which also have limits, because may Range finder 1 is shorter than 5, so 1 can get you a target out to maybe 8km but 5 can see all the way out to 20km. This would be a far better system.

As for a challange, that's easy to do as well and dead simple, increase accuracy penalities for big guns vs light cruisers/destroyer/torpedo boats. You could still reduce spotting range based on time and weather, in a heavy downpour you'd be lucky to see an enemy ship at anything but point blank range even with range finders and early radar.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Candle_86

[Tycondero]

Can we (eventually) get a more realistic system for ship range in place for the campaign? I do not know for sure, but I believe that the range parameter in the ship designer works with steps (minimal, low etc) to give mission generation benefits instead of looking at the absolute distance that can be travelled. For example, a maximum range destroyer can do 9000 km in some builds whereas a maximum range BB can be up to 20000 km. I have the feeling both get the same mission generation advantage, even though one has a vastly superior range over the other. 

Also when combining ships into task forces, from my understanding of the game, the idea is that they remain in operation in the assigned area. This means that they actually also travel back to refuel and rearm throughout the month? If the case, it would be a good option to introduce or have an indicator on mission efficiency (similar to how fleets and air forces are handled in HoI4). A fleet that operates a large distance away from the nearest port should be very inefficient in conducting its mission (i.e. sea control), as it should have go and refuel more often. 

Edited July 4, 2022 by Tycondero

[Norbert Sattler]

Speaking of range, it'd be nice if we could adjust that slider freely too rather than in quarter steps. Maybe also rename it to fuel-capacity.

[kjg000]

28 minutes ago, Norbert Sattler said:

Speaking of range, it'd be nice if we could adjust that slider freely too rather than in quarter steps. Maybe also rename it to fuel-capacity.

I think the correct term would be 'endurance ', a combination of supplies, spares, fuel etc.

If the Devs do this do they need to allow for resupply by ship and limited repair at sea?

[kjg000]

9 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Having visible ranges is very good way to balance different classes within the same instance, thus keeping that variety of class each with its own purpose. If all were visible then it’ll be a rapid death of destroyers to cruisers, cruisers to battleships and battleships in a slugfest to the horizon, every battle.

At some point realism has to be balanced for gameplay. If there’s a game with total visibility realism then good on them.

But in UAD even blind-firing enemies challenges the player, you cannot deny that. Sure it’s demanding when you can’t shoot back but that just forces the player to mobilize their fleet to overcome those odds. The whole visibility system/mechanics is integrating with... well… everything, big ask to change. 

More often than not, requests to remove is driven by players who just wants to ‘ease’ the challenge. I’ll be very surprised if GameLabs action such a challenge reduction.

I agree with the sentiment but can't agree with the implementation. 

BTW do I need a magic user on each of my invisible ships or can one wizzard (spelling  intentional) do the entire fleet?

Also BTW HMS Rincewind has just been laid down.

Edited July 4, 2022 by kjg000

[ColonelHenry]

11 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Having visible ranges is very good way to balance different classes within the same instance, thus keeping that variety of class each with its own purpose. If all were visible then it’ll be a rapid death of destroyers to cruisers, cruisers to battleships and battleships in a slugfest to the horizon, every battle.

At some point realism has to be balanced for gameplay. If there’s a game with total visibility realism then good on them.

But in UAD even blind-firing enemies challenges the player, you cannot deny that. Sure it’s demanding when you can’t shoot back but that just forces the player to mobilize their fleet to overcome those odds. The whole visibility system/mechanics is integrating with... well… everything, big ask to change. 

More often than not, requests to remove is driven by players who just wants to ‘ease’ the challenge. I’ll be very surprised if GameLabs action such a challenge reduction.

That's just straight up bullshit. I'm sorry but you really need to stop putting words in other people mouth. Nobody who wants a better spotting system wants to dumb the game down, at least the people that I have interacted on this forum. Every single one of us who wanted it changed had given documentations, wrote probably half a PhD. thesis worth of content on possible changes and suggestion to move toward a campaign spotting system. Repeating a lie over and over does not make it true...

Right now, invisible destroyers/TB with broken AI formation only makes it so that the player has to build a fleet that has the smallest number of ships but insanely broken in order to dodge torpedo effectively while killing these ships as fast as possible to get close to their capital ships for the easy kills. Moving magic spotting from the battle to the campaign map will force the player to build a balanced fleet. Not enough DD, CL will make sure your fleet is completely blind because cruiser actions will stop your fleet from scouting thus the game should force the player into disadvantageous fleet ambush battles in those instances. Instead right now, CLs and DDs are glorified temporary magic invisible spotters; that's just terrible gameplay. Nobody benefits from the current system. The AIs that are focusing on CL and DD get stomped by other nations because right now everyone can afford somewhat the same fleet (like somehow A-H getting more ship than the Brits in 1900), and AI auto resolves make sure they lose in the long run. Meanwhile in battle, these invisible ships are there to annoy the player in a shitty way but are almost useless against the aforementioned godly capital ships.

There are so much you could do with campaign map cruiser (light ships) gameplay instead of invisible ships in  battle but I guess I'm just playing an instrument for a water buffalo (or barking up the wrong tree if you prefer English).
 

Edited July 4, 2022 by ColonelHenry

[TiagoStein]

Good morning. Yesterday I started a French cmapaign at 1900 and  has a bug trying to design some light cruisers. If i set the speed of ANY  french light cruisers to 27 knts. the engine mass skyrocketed to 6 thousand tons, even for a 3500 tons light cruiser. It seems there is something wrong about the "natural max speed" of those hulls.

[TiagoStein]

On 7/2/2022 at 4:09 PM, CenturionsofRome said:

I have BEEN on ships. At deck level - two meters above the waves - I can EASILY spot a modern yacht -which are roughly the same size as TBs and DDs - at 10km without binocs. And that is WITHOUT a giant ass plume of coal smoke coming from a funnel sticking up several stories. 

Being unable to spot a tb at 5k after it has stealth launched torps is a BS mechanic. Being shot at by an invisible 10kt CA at 10km is a BS mechanic. Being shot at by an invisible 15kt BB at 12km is a BS mechanic. 

It is one thing if there is a storm or if it's night. But in that case NO ONE should be able to spot the other except at point blank range, and it would be a mutual spot. 

People have been calling for Spotting mechanics to be overhauled or removed for YEARS now, with math, charts, diagrams, personal, and historical testimony proving that the spotting mechanics are unrealistic - and the game markets itself as realistic -, ahistorical, and unfun.

And on clear weather  we can in game spot it at 10 km.  Most of the cases of so called stealth ships are  with BAD weather (that most people do not bother to check at the corner of the screen)

 

The spotting must remain. What must be implemented is  weather int he graphics so it doe snot look like klingon warships..

[Vanhal]

Did something radically changed with the spotting system? Yesterday i was playing the Pocket Battleship scenario and i saw transports shooting my CA's from few km being undetected all the time, and enemy BC was also undetected and very close judging from the flat angle of shells, and from the silhouettes seen during loading that ship was enormous.

[Zuikaku]

Some suggestions:

- different crew quarters sizes shouldn't add a few men more but rather affect morale and crew efficiency at sea.

- spotting as is has nothing to do with dreadnought age fire control and solutions. Lack of weather implementation only adds to this problem

- fire directors and computers should be separate stations and not melded with towers 

- coal and fuel availability should depend on provinces held 

- possibility to build fueling and coaling stations on remote islands and tankers/coilers for fleet resupply

 

And are we going to get proper weather effects in the next patch?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 4, 2022 by Zuikaku

[kjg000]

3 minutes ago, TiagoStein said:

And on clear weather  we can in game spot it at 10 km.  Most of the cases of so called stealth ships are  with BAD weather (that most people do not bother to check at the corner of the screen)

 

The spotting must remain. What must be implemented is  weather int he graphics so it doe snot look like klingon warships..

This has not been my experience of the game. I only spot enemy ships, including BB's, at more than about 6km if I have RADAR, including when the game reports clear skies, low wind and calm seas. Even in the Great Southern Ocean (not the calmest ocean in the world) spotters, only 18m above sea level, can see whale spouts further than that, and identify the whale species from the spout characteristics.

Spotting is broken and we need other means to compensate for firing on small, fast ships.

[Danz_Von_Luck]

so this is interesting (or maybe its not and I only just realised) but I'm playing a campaign as the Germans from 1890, its the first time I've set the AI to historical rather than random and they seem to be maintaining a certain fleet size - for a while no one built anything mainly just refit thing then I noticed Britain scrapped 2 ships and built 2 then I sunk 3 French ships in a battle and now they have laid down a replacement 3. If this is how historical is supposed to work then wow that's amazing

ok so couple of years later and the AI is definitely sticking to a rough fleet size either refitting ships of scrapping old ones and building replacements - I have to assume its because the AI is set to historical (its the only thing thats different from my previous play-throughs)  

Edited July 4, 2022 by Danz_Von_Luck

[admiralsnackbar]

2 hours ago, kjg000 said:

This has not been my experience of the game. I only spot enemy ships, including BB's, at more than about 6km if I have RADAR, including when the game reports clear skies, low wind and calm seas. Even in the Great Southern Ocean (not the calmest ocean in the world) spotters, only 18m above sea level, can see whale spouts further than that, and identify the whale species from the spout characteristics.

Spotting is broken and we need other means to compensate for firing on small, fast ships.

I actually feel like large caliber shells are pretty balanced against lighter faster ships, to the extent that the current system has a psuedo "firing solution" system 

 

[Carl_Bar]

2 hours ago, kjg000 said:

This has not been my experience of the game. I only spot enemy ships, including BB's, at more than about 6km if I have RADAR, including when the game reports clear skies, low wind and calm seas. Even in the Great Southern Ocean (not the calmest ocean in the world) spotters, only 18m above sea level, can see whale spouts further than that, and identify the whale species from the spout characteristics.

Spotting is broken and we need other means to compensate for firing on small, fast ships.

 

Your hull makes a huge diffrance as there's a fairly hard upper limit on the tower capability. My last campaign i had Modern Cruisers in late 1910's and as a result i had fights where my 14k ton CA's where spotting 4-5k Ton enemy CA's at ranges greater than they could see, (around 10km), without radar.

[kjg000]

59 minutes ago, Carl_Bar said:

 

Your hull makes a huge diffrance as there's a fairly hard upper limit on the tower capability. My last campaign i had Modern Cruisers in late 1910's and as a result i had fights where my 14k ton CA's where spotting 4-5k Ton enemy CA's at ranges greater than they could see, (around 10km), without radar.

Yes, but spotting shouldn't be dependent on having advanced technology just to get less than realistic spotting distances. 

On an average day at sea, you'd expect professional sailors, in a tower and with optics to see a DD or larger near the horizon. It would be less with heavy seas and foul weather, but 10km should be typical for poor weather not rare in fine weather. 

[ColonelHenry]

15 hours ago, Pappystein said:

2) Technology randomization by Caliber.   Currently there is a pretty obvious flow to the "upgrade" of Turrets.   Your Heavy cruiser better start with 9" cannons because they will be upgraded to Mk2 before any other size.   Make what comes in what order Random for each game cycle...  Leave the unlocking of new calibers (eg 13") in the same general place, but what gets upgraded to the next level in what order could be randomized to prevent min-maxing builds.

This game has the ship building mechanic and instead of expanding on how it would interact with the campaign... they opted for something too straight-forward. In my opinion, the technology that we research should be influence directly by the type of ships that we build or the planning of ships. Instead of just waiting for technology just randomly get better, we should be pushing technology toward a direction by drawing up ship blueprints. It's more work for the devs: like we would need to break up some tech nodes for this to work like separate gun house and the gun itself as an example. But the result would be glorious.

[Littorio]

16 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Having visible ranges is very good way to balance different classes within the same instance, thus keeping that variety of class each with its own purpose. If all were visible then it’ll be a rapid death of destroyers to cruisers, cruisers to battleships and battleships in a slugfest to the horizon, every battle.

At some point realism has to be balanced for gameplay. If there’s a game with total visibility realism then good on them.

But in UAD even blind-firing enemies challenges the player, you cannot deny that. Sure it’s demanding when you can’t shoot back but that just forces the player to mobilize their fleet to overcome those odds. The whole visibility system/mechanics is integrating with... well… everything, big ask to change. 

More often than not, requests to remove is driven by players who just wants to ‘ease’ the challenge. I’ll be very surprised if GameLabs action such a challenge reduction.

Let's handles this point by point shall we?

1. "Having visible ranges....balance...different classes...same instance...own purpose" - Uhhhh no. Are you telling me that the only difference in your battles between a BB and a TB is how far their respective, gamey memetower with it's particular "values" can "spot" the enemy?

If so, I don't know what kind of ships you are building. The differences should be patently transparent: vastly different armament, armor, speed, hull durability, crew size, propulsion, etc. Trying to say "Ohh well the #1 distinguishing feature between different vessels is their god-gifted sight range from their super-special towers!" is ridiculous. They will behave differently and have different roles based on all of the aforementioned characteristics. If you keep DDs in a line trying to hit BBs, that's on you.

2. "If all visible...rapid death...destroyers...slugfest...horizon...every battle" - Wrong again, because for some reason you seem to think that a "visually-acquired target" directly translates to "we can accurately hit that target repeatedly at this range." This doesn't bear up to the historical reality that we are suggesting be followed. If what you stated was true, no navy would have ever built anything but BBs, because any other class of ship in battle would be useless, unable to see and thus hit larger ships at range.

I fail to see any condition in UAD in which simply being aware of an enemy vessel on the horizon suddenly translates to being able to hit them squarely time and again. There will always be uses for different classes of vessels. Obviously, BBs are meant to fight other BBs. You seem to be of the simplistic belief that fleet actions wouldn't have many more moving pieces. Lighter ships are meant to fight their counterparts, not the larger vessels (usually). DDs kill TBs, CLs kill DDs, and CAs kill CLs. Anything else is just happenstance and particular battlefield positioning/luck (i.e. a timely torpedo run from light vessels on the battleline).

The scenario you are describing is just BBs siting back and annihilating everything they see from the moment they see it, which is of course ridiculous both in game as well as in reality. BBs can't even reliably hit what they CAN SEE NOW based on your ridiculous spotting fog. Why would that change and increase greatly given another 10-15km of vision???

3. "But in UAD even blind-firing enemies challenges the player, you cannot deny that." - I would not say this current system imposes any more challenge, so yes, I will argue that point. Sure, it's ANNOYING to be invisibly shelled by a vessel I can clearly see the shells ORIGINATING from (or even better surrounded in a CL "smoke ring" clearly marking it's position for all to see - defeating your and the games point of this invisibility adding more "challenge"..). Sure, it makes more of a PAIN to fight every battle, particularly a ship fleeing as it shoots invisibly. Sure, it makes the battles LESS tactically-inclined because no one can make any actual fleet moves but must instead flail about in a literal, non-weather created, dev-mandated "fog."

Instead of having something like Jutland happen, with escalating situations and runs to the south because we see BCs but don't know BBs are just over the horizon, we have an ever-increasing number of Guadalcanal brawls with a mass of ships engaging point blank on top of each other.

4. "'Ease' the challenge'" - And this one just takes the cake as your most ridiculous statement yet. We, the players who want to do away with this fake, battle-map-centric system of "spotting" that negates WHAT WE WERE ALREADY TOLD on the campaign map, (enemy type, armament, speed, etc) and which you haven't addressed AT ALL in your poor response, are the ones pushing for a harder challenge based on reality. YOU, and those supporting your position, be they devs or players, are the ones pushing for an easier challenge. You just stated it above: "If all were visible then it’ll be a rapid death of destroyers to cruisers, cruisers to battleships and battleships in a slugfest to the horizon, every battle. At some point realism has to be balanced for gameplay."

Thus, you feel it would be too hard to compensate for "long-range battleships able to pummel all others" or some such equally nonsensical notion. I already addressed that above, in this doom scenario you describe, the escorts of each fleet would be focused on each other, and the BBs their counterparts. "OMG WHAT IF THERE ARE NO BBs ON THE ENEMY SIDE! WOULDN'T I JUST DOMINATE, OR VICE VERSA IF IT WAS THEM???" So you want every encounter balanced? Who is wanting it easy now? Not every battle featured symmetrical opposition, and indeed most did not.

Regardless, as I stated above in passing - your argument is lacking as it completely disregards any notion of campaign-map, operations-level scouting, reconnaissance, and intelligence, which would abrogate most of the issues on the battle-maps anyway. In a manner, the game already hints at this as it gives you enemy classifications and details entering a given fight. IF WE KNOW THIS GOING IN, which means we sighted and classified the enemy already, WHY IN NEPTUNE'S SALTY BEARD do we need to do it all over again in battle!?

You want to talk about what is "best for gameplay"? Ok, how about not having players chase smoke sighted for 10 mins until the game lets them exit? How about having players actually have to take agency over their forces when the full enemy fleet is spotted on the horizon, giving ample but dangerously critical time to plan moves and countermoves.  How about having the player understand that just because he can see the enemy, does not mean he will hit the enemy with any chance of success, and therefore must move closer to the foe, and thus be in a more dangerous position, in order to hit anything?

Your idea of what is best for the game is flawed and is decisively shot down by your own logic, or dare I say, the lack thereof.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Littorio

[aradragoon]

12 minutes ago, Littorio said:

Let's handles this point by point shall we?

1. "Having visible ranges....balance...different classes...same instance...own purpose" - Uhhhh no. Are you telling me that the only difference in your battles between a BB and a TB is how far their respective, gamey memetower with it's particular "values" can "spot" the enemy?

If so, I don't know what kind of ships you are building. The differences should be patently transparent: vastly different armament, armor, speed, hull durability, crew size, propulsion, etc. Trying to say "Ohh well the #1 distinguishing feature between different vessels is their god-gifted sight range from their super-special towers!" is ridiculous. They will behave differently and have different roles based on all of the aforementioned characteristics. If you keep DDs in a line trying to hit BBs, that's on you.

2. "If all visible...rapid death...destroyers...slugfest...horizon...every battle" - Wrong again, because for some reason you seem to think that a "visually-acquired target" directly translates to "we can accurately hit that target repeatedly at this range." This doesn't bear up to the historical reality that we are suggesting be followed. If what you stated was true, no navy would have ever built anything but BBs, because any other class of ship in battle would be useless, unable to see and thus hit larger ships at range.

I fail to see any condition in UAD in which simply being aware of an enemy vessel on the horizon suddenly translates to being able to hit them squarely time and again. There will always be uses for different classes of vessels. Obviously, BBs are meant to fight other BBs. You seem to be of the simplistic belief that fleet actions wouldn't have many more moving pieces. Lighter ships are meant to fight their counterparts, not the larger vessels (usually). DDs kill TBs, CLs kill DDs, and CAs kill CLs. Anything else is just happenstance and particular battlefield positioning/luck (i.e. a timely torpedo run from light vessels on the battleline).

The scenario you are describing is just BBs siting back and annihilating everything they see from the moment they see it, which is of course ridiculous both in game as well as in reality. BBs can't even reliably hit what they CAN SEE NOW based on your ridiculous spotting fog. Why would that change and increase greatly given another 10-15km of vision???

3. "But in UAD even blind-firing enemies challenges the player, you cannot deny that." - I would not say this current system imposes any more challenge, so yes, I will argue that point. Sure, it's ANNOYING to be invisibly shelled by a vessel I can clearly see the shells ORIGINATING from (or even better surrounded in a CL "smoke ring" clearly marking it's position for all to see - defeating your and the games point of this invisibility adding more "challenge"..). Sure, it makes more of a PAIN to fight every battle, particularly a ship fleeing as it shoots invisibly. Sure, it makes the battles LESS tactically-inclined because no one can make any actual fleet moves but must instead flail about in a literal, non-weather created, dev-mandated "fog."

Instead of having something like Jutland happen, with escalating situations and runs to the south because we see BCs but don't know BBs are just over the horizon, we have an ever-increasing number of Guadalcanal brawls with a mass of ships engaging point blank on top of each other.

4. "'Ease' the challenge'" - And this one just takes the cake as your most ridiculous statement yet. We, the players who want to do away with this fake, battle-map-centric system of "spotting" that negates WHAT WE WERE ALREADY TOLD on the campaign map, (enemy type, armament, speed, etc) and which you haven't addressed AT ALL in your poor response, are the ones pushing for a harder challenge based on reality. YOU, and those supporting your position, be they devs or players, are the ones pushing for an easier challenge. You just stated it above: "If all were visible then it’ll be a rapid death of destroyers to cruisers, cruisers to battleships and battleships in a slugfest to the horizon, every battle. At some point realism has to be balanced for gameplay."

Thus, you feel it would be too hard to compensate for "long-range battleships able to pummel all others" or some such equally nonsensical notion. I already addressed that above, in this doom scenario you describe, the escorts of each fleet would be focused on each other, and the BBs their counterparts. "OMG WHAT IF THERE ARE NO BBs ON THE ENEMY SIDE! WOULDN'T I JUST DOMINATE, OR VICE VERSA IF IT WAS THEM???" So you want every encounter balanced? Who is wanting it easy now? Not every battle featured symmetrical opposition, and indeed most did not.

Regardless, as I stated above in passing - your argument is lacking as it completely disregards any notion of campaign-map, operations-level scouting, reconnaissance, and intelligence, which would abrogate most of the issues on the battle-maps anyway. In a manner, the game already hints at this as it gives you enemy classifications and details entering a given fight. IF WE KNOW THIS GOING IN, which means we sighted and classified the enemy already, WHY IN NEPTUNE'S SALTY BEARD do we need to do it all over again in battle!?

You want to talk about what is "best for gameplay"? Ok, how about not having players chase smoke sighted for 10 mins until the game lets them exit? How about having players actually have to take agency over their forces when the full enemy fleet is spotted on the horizon, giving ample but dangerously critical time to plan moves and countermoves.  How about having the player understand that just because he can see the enemy, does not mean he will hit the enemy with any chance of success, and therefore must move closer to the foe, and thus be in a more dangerous position, in order to hit anything?

Your idea of what is best for the game is flawed and is decisively shot down by your own logic, or dare I say, the lack thereof.

Not specific to your overall argument but wanted to say with point 4: I think it would be amazing to have a different system that could be enabled at the campaign screen. The more realistic option could work along the lines of reality and most engagements will be an unknown number and type of ships while larger formations with screens have a chance to identify the number of smoke detected (I.E. 4 distinct smoke coming from over the horizon), total contacts with radar, or if spotter planes are added allowing number and possibly type as type of generated info. In all cases, besides possibly radar, even when you get information you can't always trust its the full extent.

Just wanted to put it out there as I would actually enjoy that as part of a more difficult/realistic campaign.

[Littorio]

5 minutes ago, aradragoon said:

Not specific to your overall argument but wanted to say with point 4: I think it would be amazing to have a different system that could be enabled at the campaign screen. The more realistic option could work along the lines of reality and most engagements will be an unknown number and type of ships while larger formations with screens have a chance to identify the number of smoke detected (I.E. 4 distinct smoke coming from over the horizon), total contacts with radar, or if spotter planes are added allowing number and possibly type as type of generated info. In all cases, besides possibly radar, even when you get information you can't always trust its the full extent.

Just wanted to put it out there as I would actually enjoy that as part of a more difficult/realistic campaign.

I am not against something like that in theory, but the thing is, based on what you stated, most of that would be taking place on the campaign map, as part of operational-level reconnaissance (in a ideal revamp that is). Really, the only "spotting" that should occur in a battle itself would be if and as individual ships disappear back and forth over the horizon (or in and out of radar range), or else enter a rain squall (or in rare cases duck behind islands or points if land is ever added and we are on the coast).

That is frankly what I find most ridiculous about this whole system as it exists. It is not something that should be happening during an engagement. The spotting and at least tentative identification must have already occurred in order for the engagement to even begin in the first place!

Edited July 4, 2022 by Littorio

[kjg000]

4 minutes ago, Littorio said:

I am not against something like that in theory, but the thing is, based on what you stated, most of that would be taking place on the campaign map, as part of operational-level reconnaissance (in a ideal revamp that is). Really, the only "spotting" that should occur in a battle itself would be if and as individual ships disappear back and forth over the horizon (or in and out of radar range), or else enter a rain squall (or in rare cases duck behind islands or points if land is ever added and we are on the coast).

That is frankly what I find most ridiculous about this whole system as it exists. It is not something that should be happening during an engagement. The spotting and at least tentative identification must have already occurred in order for the engagement to even begin in the first place!

WRT your comments on the information available on the campaign screen and at the start of each battle, there is still a lot to come, judging by the amount of 'wip' technology. 

I'm hoping that we will see some sort of espionage function which will determine how accurate this information will be. Perhaps reporting 1 BB when there are 3 or  none, or reporting the wrong specification for the enemy ships.  Perhaps air reconnaissance will also play a part. 

If it happens I think it would improve the game by adding 'good' uncertainty, as opposed to the 'bad' type which is merely frustrating. 

[kjg000]

4 hours ago, Danz_Von_Luck said:

so this is interesting (or maybe its not and I only just realised) but I'm playing a campaign as the Germans from 1890, its the first time I've set the AI to historical rather than random and they seem to be maintaining a certain fleet size - for a while no one built anything mainly just refit thing then I noticed Britain scrapped 2 ships and built 2 then I sunk 3 French ships in a battle and now they have laid down a replacement 3. If this is how historical is supposed to work then wow that's amazing

ok so couple of years later and the AI is definitely sticking to a rough fleet size either refitting ships of scrapping old ones and building replacements - I have to assume its because the AI is set to historical (its the only thing thats different from my previous play-throughs)  

So, I wonder if this is why some people have had problems with death stacks and others haven't? 

I habitually play with random alliances, not that they work, and have too often had problems with death stacks.

OK, anyone out there who has not had problems with them, do you select historical or random alliances?