Version 1.06 is Borked

[Gregg]

I wrote a Borkness report a few days ago, and although I submitted it on this area of the forum, it never showed up.!

I downloaded version 1.06, then spent a couple days (I normally only get an hour or two to play per day) designing ships, then spent a couple more days working my way from January 1920 to April 1921 when the first battles took place.

First - The biggest problem I have is with starting crew ratings in the campaign. As result of the first battle, I found the English have Veteran, Seasoned, Regular, Trained and Green Crews; while all German ships have Cadet Crews. Talk about a handicap!

Second - The British (and French) have a ton of ships, while as the Germans, I started with a total of 16 ships (, 4 BC's, 2 CA's, 4 CL's and 6 DD's), another big handicap! Yes, I built 10 more DD's before the fighting started (with about 13 more still being built), so I now in April 1921, have 26 ships. The British have almost 26 BB's and BC's!

Third - In the last battle of April 1921 (results attached) I find the British start out with a BB with a Seasoned Crew, a BB with a Regular Crew, a CA with a Seasoned Crew, 5 CL's all with Regular Crews, 6 DD's with Regular Crews, and a DD with a Veteran Crew.

Forth - I've made many Bug reports on things like:

Enemy ships starting out with well trained crews. This allows the enemy ships to fire upon you accurately (3 to 7 % hit probability) while I barely get a 1% hit probability.

The country you are playing starting out with a lot less than one quarter the ships the other active countries have.

Enemy ships always spot me way before I spot them, and start starting firing accurately at my ships, including launching torpedo attacks. It appears the Enemy can see me at 10 km, but I can not see them until under 6 km.

The formation Flagship changes by itself at random, for no apparent reason. Example, in Battle #4, I commanded the two DD's to join formation behind the CA. Next thing I know, one of the DD's is flagship with the CA coming up the rear.

Lots of dud torpedoes, torpedos blowing up in the middle of their run, no where near a ship; and torpedos altering course, and sometimes altering course multiple times.

Citadels on DD's! This is crazy! TB's, DD's and CL's under 4000 tons (scout cruisers) should not have citadels, period. There is no historical basis for citadels on these ships. I have a whole book case full of very hard to find (and very expensive) books nowadays, on warship design; Pre WWI, WWI, interwar war years, and WWII.

DD's taking one, two and even three torpedos and staying afloat. One torpedo was enough to historically sink a DD. Yes there are exceptions, but these exceptions resulted in blowing the bow or stern off the DD. There is only one example of a DD surviving two torpedo hits, and it had had its bow and stern blown off.

That's enough ranting for now.

 

[UnleashtheKraken]

Very excellent write up of the borkness.  I personally have seen number 2 - the enemy always has more hulls.  I've tried normal, hard, and legendary difficulty, it doesn't seem to make a difference.

Number 1 and 3 I have not seen.  I pushed crew training to 100, and had crew skills equal to the enemy when war kicked off.  This is not to invalidate your experience, just that I have not had the experience.

Enemy ships spotting yours - if you have them, try to run a DD or TB screen ahead of the big stuff.  They're harder to spot, and might pick out the enemy before the enemy lights you up.  You are probably being spotted by enemy small units.  I have been able to start firing on the enemy before they on me, by running smallboat screens.

Formation flagship changing is a really bad problem.  At the very least, the devs should just let the player assign a formation lead.

Dud torpedoes, torps running off course, or exploding mid-run is part of the new dud mechanics.  Torp accuracy and dud chance affects this.  I'm not sure how close to history the current setting is, but currently it's very likely to have duds/mid-course detonations/course changes.  I've also seen the torps just fail immediately after launch; there's a splash and no further sign of the torpedo(es).  I don't know if this behavior is intended or not.

Protected section of TB's, DD's and light cruisers.  Yes, this is crazy.  It seems like DDs, TBs, and perhaps light cruisers need to be disassociated from the heavy protected section/citadel mechanics.  It's VERY hard to get the balance close to centered on a starting TB in an 1890's campaign.  I can manage around 20% fore or aft at best.

TB's and DD's taking more than one torpedo hit.  This has plagued the game for years now.  I think there's a problem where the 'splash' of torpedoes (and large gun shells) does not take into account how small DD's are.  I think DD's should have fewer damage sectors, or there should be a multiplier for the splash area of larger shells to have proper effect on small ships.

And now, I'll add you a really fun one:  Torpedoes are sometimes firing backwards out of their launchers.  Where'd I leave that screenshot...

Observe the torpedo streak moving from the BB King Edward the Number.  That torpedo is moving the opposite direction from the BB.  It was launched from the bow torpedo launcher, passing under the BB's keel.  The wake foam to the left of the BB was caused by a torpedo boat that failed to launch a torpedo, despite having no damage, the weapon ready, and having recited the proper invocations to the machine spirit.  (sometimes I think this game determines torpedo behavior on a 2d6 diceroll and it's coming up snake eyes an AWFUL lot.)  Anyways, that torpedo boat of mine was the target of KE#'s torpedo.  It went 180 degrees the other way.  This is not happening all the time, but I've seen it out of the AI's ships (not from mine, so this seems to be an AI only problem, but if a dev sees this, might want to check).

Edited June 17, 2022 by UnleashtheKraken
Hit post by accident, edited to complete bug report.