>>> v1.06-1.08+ Feedback<<<(17/8/2022)

[SonicB]

18 hours ago, o Barão said:

Good ship and very fast. Apart from that single triple 5.4 inch that I would switch for another dual 6.1 and that secondary in the stern is not a bad layout. A CL design in a CA hull, interesting.🤔

Sorry, but that is not a good design. The ship will be unbalanced as hell (or really badly armoured forward) and the sightlines for the main turrets are worse than any CL ever designed (think Dido, Atlanta etc.) The 'C' turret barbette is far taller than it needs to be and the mix of three different types of 2.3" guns and torpedo launchers is ridiculous.

The only thing I can say for it is it's not the worst AI design I've seen this month.

[o Barão]

4 minutes ago, SonicB said:

...and the sightlines for the main turrets are worse than any CL ever designed....

....The only thing I can say for it is it's not the worst AI design I've seen this month.

But there is nothing wrong with the gun layout. Could be better? Yes of course. But is unrealistic? Not really. And those guns in barbettes have a purpose. To give room for torpedo launchers.

I saw many terrible AI designs, and that one is not one of them.

[SonicB]

4 hours ago, kjg000 said:

The trend seems to be towards limiting players to re-inventing historical designs rather than exploring alternatives.

I have to take issue with this. I know most of the people actually interested in historical accuracy have kinda given up and left the forums, but still.

Naval architects (with a few notable exceptions) were not stupid people. Many different alternatives were explored in the last century, and honestly, some worked and most didn't. But they learned from these. If we are going to have a vaguely plausible game then it really does have to reflect a century of real-world experience. I've said much the same thing about the AI designs.

That doesn't mean you can't experiment in campaign with how designs could have been if geopolitics and the demands on navies had been different - for example, the layout of the planned British G3 and N3 battleships had they not been cancelled by the Washington treaty. I love that layout. But experimentation for the sake of it shouldn't be encouraged by deliberately messing with the basic rules of warship design, which are determined by the laws of physics.
 

4 hours ago, kjg000 said:

Still no road-map to help the free labour gamers give meaningful feedback

This. This.

So many open-beta devs are able to publish roadmaps. And that really helps a player base - who are desperately trying to help them - focus their feedback. As well as saving the devs and community managers from having to read through hundreds of posts saying the same thing.

I get that the guys have been burned by the response to that early teaser showing the individual hull segments in the designer - which, let's be clear, should absolutely not still be being used as promo, but was fair enough at the time. The vast majority of people here are adults who understand they bought a beta, and won't throw their toys out of the pram if a particular roadmap feature has to be scrapped, as long as the reasons are clearly explained.

To be honest, I don't know to what extent Nick is performing the role of community manager and how much this is being taken on by any remaining folks from the closed beta, but... they really should consider taking on a volunteer CM or two.

(no, I'm not volunteering, but I recall several knowledgeable and passionate people saying they'd be happy to do it... assuming they're still around.)

4 hours ago, kjg000 said:

As I have mentioned before, the Dev’s have taken on a herculean task in this game and kudos to them for doing so, but perhaps they should be less inclined to shoot the messenger and more willing to take on well intended, meaningful feedback.

Yeah, again, this.

I promise this is the last time I mention the clown car thread (it was my baby, I'm salty), but... that really was a textbook example of shooting the messenger.

A good CM would have got on that thread like a goldmine. Treated it with good humour. Encouraged people to post the version and other ship info to help identify the bugs. Even gamified it with a clowncar of the month award or something.

[SonicB]

17 minutes ago, o Barão said:

But there is nothing wrong with the gun layout. Could be better? Yes of course. But is unrealistic? Not really. And those guns in barbettes have a purpose. To give room for torpedo launchers.

I saw many terrible AI designs, and that one is not one of them.

Well, aside from the terrible weight distribution, B and D turrets can't aim forward. There was a reason the Tone class heavy cruisers weren't repeated (the only comparable IRL design) and also a clear reason that the Didos and Atlantas had a three-step arrangement for their 6" guns.

I'll admit that the cruiser tower with a mandatory barbette isn't helping the AI here. (Devs, if you are reading this, please make versions without?)

I don't know which barbette you're referring to as I mean the one holding 'B' turret, which is far too tall and a smaller one could have been used instead.

If you mean the ones on the side of the secondary tower, then yes, that is the fault of the limited secondary tower selection and I can't blame the AI for that. Although I can and will blame it for not choosing a uniform main armament.

[SodaBit]

I've got some more feedback here, but it isn't exactly news at this point.
High Explosive is simply the only ammo worth using at this point, Armor Piercing is just there for show. Here's why.

This battle is a pretty good example of how most fights I've been in in this patch go. Starts out with both sides slinging AP at each other with neither side gaining an advantage for about 45 minutes. I get one main belt penetration on the enemy dealing about 300 damage, with no critical systems damaged or disabled. I start getting bored and load HE.
The Results are Immediate and Devastating.

Within 15 minutes, the enemy is utterly crippled, numerus 18" shells have penetrated the aft armor belt, causing horrific damage across the entire back half of the ship. Soon there after, several partial penetrations along the main belt manage to achieve what the AP couldn't, knocking out 2 of the 3 engines, while the 3rd is knocked out by another hit to the aft belt, the splinters somehow bypassing multiple layers of protection and damaging compartments deep in the heart of the ship.
The reason that the HE worked so damn well in comparison is down to a variety to factors.
First is the armor scheme the AI uses.

With a heavy preference toward a distributed armor scheme, non-critical areas of the ship are given armor that is insufficient to stop a shell from the ships' opposite number, but more than enough to arm the fuse on said shell. In this case, 100mm was unable to stop an HEBC shell, but did slow it down enough to arm the fuse, allowing it to explode inside the ship.
Second, the way damage is calculated in UA:D. We've recently seen changes that heavy favor full penetrations over partial and over penetrations. While HE shells don't have the same penetrative capabilities as AP shells, their base damage is significantly higher than AP, meaning that an HE shell penetrating a non-critical area of the ship will actually do more damage than an AP shell penetrating a critical part of the ship. 
Third, AP's inherent weaknesses, and HE's total lack thereof. On paper, both shell types have weaknesses, AP shells can ricochet off if the angle is too steep, and HE shells can be blocked if the armor is too thick. In practice however, this isn't the case. AP shells still ricochet off of angled targets, but HE shells are rarely blocked by armor. Even against almost 10 inches of main deck armor, my HE shells still did acceptable damage to the enemy, up to 180 dmg in some cases, And They Always Set A Fire. ALWAYS. In this battle, the AI was set alight 76 times.

About half the ammo that hit the ship was HE, and out of about 50 hits, only one was blocked by the armor, and that blocked hit set another fire. Of the about 50 AP hits, 1 ricocheted, doing absolutely no damage, and only about half of them set fires. Otherwise, the AP did about the same amount of damage on partial and over penetrations as the HE did on partial penetrations. The biggest difference came down to full penetrations, where the HE, despite penetrating a non-critical area of the ship, did about 5 times as much damage as the AP did when penetrating a critical part of the ship.

So, there you have it. You can pretty much forget about the feature where you can choose how much of each shell type you bring with you into battle, all you really need is HE. Shame you can't bring 100% HE though. 

Just for the record because I have nowhere else to put this, the gun that was used in this battle was a British Mk.3 457mm/65 firing standard weight HE w/ Ballistic Cap and AP w/ Improved Ballistic Cap, using Tube Powder 3 and TNT 4.
Range was about 16~18km throughout the battle.

Edited August 21, 2022 by SodaBit

[The PC Collector]

14 minutes ago, SodaBit said:

So, there you have it. You can pretty much forget about the feature where you can choose how much of each shell type you bring with you into battle, all you really need is HE. Shame you can't bring 100% HE though. 

And better not talk about gunboat CLs being able to best BBs in 1vs1 gunfighst by burning them down within minutes with HE spam and "sink due to extensive fire". Essentially, if the BB doesn't manage to disable the CL with the first 2 or 3 salvos, is done for.

[SonicB]

53 minutes ago, SodaBit said:

I've got some more feedback here, but it isn't exactly news at this point.
High Explosive is simply the only ammo worth using at this point, Armor Piercing is just there for show. Here's why.

This battle is a pretty good example of how most fights I've been in in this patch go. Starts out with both sides slinging AP at each other with neither side gaining an advantage for about 45 minutes. I get one main belt penetration on the enemy dealing about 300 damage, with no critical systems damaged or disabled. I start getting bored and load HE.
The Results are Immediate and Devastating.

Within 15 minutes, the enemy is utterly crippled, numerus 18" shells have penetrated the aft armor belt, causing horrific damage across the entire back half of the ship. Soon there after, several partial penetrations along the main belt manage to achieve what the AP couldn't, knocking out 2 of the 3 engines, while the 3rd is knocked out by another hit to the aft belt, the splinters somehow bypassing multiple layers of protection and damaging compartments deep in the heart of the ship.
The reason that the HE worked so damn well in comparison is down to a variety to factors.
First is the armor scheme the AI uses.

With a heavy preference toward a distributed armor scheme, non-critical areas of the ship are given armor that is insufficient to stop a shell from the ships' opposite number, but more than enough to arm the fuse on said shell. In this case, 100mm was unable to stop an HEBC shell, but did slow it down enough to arm the fuse, allowing it to explode inside the ship.
Second, the way damage is calculated in UA:D. We've recently seen changes that heavy favor full penetrations over partial and over penetrations. While HE shells don't have the same penetrative capabilities as AP shells, their base damage is significantly higher than AP, meaning that an HE shell penetrating a non-critical area of the ship will actually do more damage than an AP shell penetrating a critical part of the ship. 
Third, AP's inherent weaknesses, and HE's total lack thereof. On paper, both shell types have weaknesses, AP shells can ricochet off if the angle is too steep, and HE shells can be blocked if the armor is too thick. In practice however, this isn't the case. AP shells still ricochet off of angled targets, but HE shells are rarely blocked by armor. Even against almost 10 inches of main deck armor, my HE shells still did acceptable damage to the enemy, up to 180 dmg in some cases, And They Always Set A Fire. ALWAYS. In this battle, the AI was set alight 76 times.

About half the ammo that hit the ship was HE, and out of about 50 hits, only one was blocked by the armor, and that blocked hit set another fire. Of the about 50 AP hits, 1 ricocheted, doing absolutely no damage, and only about half of them set fires. Otherwise, the AP did about the same amount of damage on partial and over penetrations as the HE did on partial penetrations. The biggest difference came down to full penetrations, where the HE, despite penetrating a non-critical area of the ship, did about 5 times as much damage as the AP did when penetrating a critical part of the ship.

So, there you have it. You can pretty much forget about the feature where you can choose how much of each shell type you bring with you into battle, all you really need is HE. Shame you can't bring 100% HE though. 

Just for the record because I have nowhere else to put this, the gun that was used in this battle was a British Mk.3 457mm/65 firing standard weight HE w/ Ballistic Cap and AP w/ Improved Ballistic Cap, using Tube Powder 3 and TNT 4.
Range was about 16~18km throughout the battle.

Yep. Compare with this 1v1 engagement I had recently where I was unable to get pens, or even do more than 50-60 damage per hit, with superheavy 16" 54' firing Capped-Ballistic II at almost point blank range. The most damage done was with 5" secondaries firing HE.

Main belt on the AI was about 16", front and rear 6" ish.

There is something rather borked with armour and penetration values right now.

Edited August 21, 2022 by SonicB

[Grayknight]

Well to be honest limiting shipyard capacity of having set expendable amounts of dry docks for buildingnwould made mothball far better and would force player to innovaite if you cannhave only 2 bb in construction then you will be consructing and mothballing ships constantly. Increasing shipyard capacity should not be just a matters of how big ships can you build but also how many 

[o Barão]

1 hour ago, SonicB said:

There was a reason the Tone class heavy cruisers weren't repeated (the only comparable IRL design) and also a clear reason that the Didos and Atlantas had a three-step arrangement for their 6" guns.

Yes, there is a reason. They were the last heavy cruisers built by the Japanese navy. But there is nothing wrong with the Tone designs. In fact, is IMO the best design from all of them. Small compact citadel with more armor protection (5.7 inch armor belt) in comparison with the others Japanese cruisers. With plenty of room in the stern to have more float planes for scouting (Japanese navy doctrine)

Also the british did a similar thing with the Minotaur design. (never build) So is not like is something alien to the naval architects. Is a possible solution to solve a specific problem. A similar solution we see in the Nelson class BBs.

 

 

[o Barão]

41 minutes ago, SonicB said:

There is something rather borked with armour and penetration values right now.

IMO, the issue is the citadel and how it works against HE because of the damage mechanic.

 

HE alone, in most cases, would never penetrate the armor citadel in capital ships. However, in game all we have is a ship profile with cells (top right corner). We don't have cells inside the ship to differentiate what is space protected by a citadel or not. At least for me, this is the reason why it is so easy to kill by switching to HE. Is normal to see cells in lower decks, inside the citadel area being damaged by HE. This should not be possible, or at least, those cells, should have a big damage reduction buff against HE to keep the ship alive for a longer time.

 

Let's not forget, that two years ago, the players were complaining how it was impossible to sink an enemy BB running away from the battlefield. Now we are complaining how easy it is by using only HE. Needs little rework to find a middle ground here IMO.

 

[SonicB]

21 minutes ago, o Barão said:

Yes, there is a reason. They were the last heavy cruisers built by the Japanese navy. But there is nothing wrong with the Tone designs. In fact, is IMO the best design from all of them. Small compact citadel with more armor protection (5.7 inch armor belt) in comparison with the others Japanese cruisers. With plenty of room in the stern to have more float planes for scouting (Japanese navy doctrine)

Also the british did a similar thing with the Minotaur design. (never build) So is not like is something alien to the naval architects. Is a possible solution to solve a specific problem. A similar solution we see in the Nelson class BBs.

 

 

The next planned design (Ikuma class, iirc) reverted to a 3-forward, 2-aft arrangement like that of the Mogamis.

The 1947 planned Minotaurs were also 3-forward, 2-aft, not the same as the Tones.

In any case, this isn't a good design in-game because the single aft turret negates any citadel weight advantage, and we don't have floatplanes. Despite the AI occasionally popping out a half-carrier half-battleship design in apparently wishful thinking.

Edited August 21, 2022 by SonicB

[o Barão]

17 minutes ago, SonicB said:

The next planned design (Ikuma class, iirc) reverted to a 3-forward, 2-aft arrangement like that of the Mogamis.

The 1947 planned Minotaurs were also 3-forward, 2-aft, not the same as the Tones.

It seems you confused Ibuki with Ikuma? Anyway, I understood from the beginning the issue you have with those turrets in barbettes, were the fact they were all at the same level and blocking the firing angles.

[admiralsnackbar]

I normally give UAD the benefit of the doubt when it comes to armor penetration but I've experienced something so unbelievable that no amount of circumstance can justify. You can see my early dreadnought with 12 inch guns and ~48 inches of armor penetration at 2.5KM, target is about 3.5 KM away. 

This seems to be saying that partial penetrations are occurring with 45.5 inches of penetration. 

So what kind of armor does this ship have?

It's an iron hulled ship with a 13 inch belt. There is no conceivable way at this range shells should fail to penetrate. Perhaps even there should be overpenetration. 

[LeoA]

Focus Research is still absurdly overpowered. As Italy, I was able to reach Dreadnought tech in 1894. The following clowncar was a design of mine in December 1894:

The design isn't great, mainly because my shipwards were stuck at 20k ton because I didn't pay attention during the first few turns of the campaign. The upper cap of this hull is 21.5k ton, and with that extra tonnage it could be outfitted with more secondaries and armor. Or you could achieve something similar to HMS Dreadnought some 12 to 10 years earlier.

I have also hit 'Advanced' tech status mere 4 years after the start date. Yes, the unfocused techs should lag behind heavily, but it still seems very unbalanced to me, particularly because the AI has no way to compete. Were the AI to use this feature, then maybe you'd have to worry about some country pulling Dreadnoughts by 1895 and the abuse would be justified. Right now you can break any campaign if you actually try to play your best. Be by designing overpowered super BBs 10+ years ahead of their equals, by doing so with DDs and having very fast gunboats with long range torps, etc.

[Vinrellren]

7 hours ago, The PC Collector said:

So, I'm formally changing my "CLs are too expensive" feedback to "Cruisers are too expensive"

Hey, that's why I am often building only capital ships like BBs and BCs. It does make no sense for me to build anything other because of the difference in cost, especially after the change in maintenance cost in addition to HE spam and the advantages the BBs and BCs have in general against cruisers.

I wanted to say that I appreciate all the work the devs have done and I am always eager to send feedback and bug reports but my feedback about how broken tech priority and 12'' and 8'' BBs was met with devs telling me I am not playing the game right by combining all of these broken stats to a BB design. Right now there are a lot of things that need balancing and it's already been reported multiple times not only this week but for months

Kudos to the devs who I hope can balance these things out before adding too many complex features that in the future could make balancing these problematic things harder

I made these comments not to dish out the devs but because I genuinely care about this game and am willing to make this game better by giving what I think is necessary feedback.

[SonicB]

4 hours ago, o Barão said:

It seems you confused Ibuki with Ikuma? Anyway, I understood from the beginning the issue you have with those turrets in barbettes, were the fact they were all at the same level and blocking the firing angles.

Didn't have time to refer to wikipedia so yeah, I meant Ikuma. And the fundamental difference between Tone + the AI design above, versus Mogami, Takao, Myoko, Minotaur etc, is that two of the forward turrets are blocked, not just one.

[Panzergraf]

Refit mechanic still kind of broken, and very exploitable. At least with some of my BB and BC's, refitting them is cheaper than just having them sit in port. Almost as cheap as mothballing them. So why even mothball when you can, in peace time, continously refit your entire navy to save upkeep cost? And as a bonus this keeps your ships up to date and doesn't impact crew training.

It's also possible to refit ships that are at sea in task forces. The refit is then applied the next month, even though the same refit would take months or even years to complete on a ship in port.

More exploitable than the mothball mechanic ever was, in my opinion. I assume it's not intended to work this way.

[kjg000]

8 hours ago, SonicB said:

I have to take issue with this. I know most of the people actually interested in historical accuracy have kinda given up and left the forums, but still.

Naval architects (with a few notable exceptions) were not stupid people. Many different alternatives were explored in the last century, and honestly, some worked and most didn't. But they learned from these. If we are going to have a vaguely plausible game then it really does have to reflect a century of real-world experience. I've said much the same thing about the AI designs.
...

I'd like to agree with you but the game only let's you design ships based on historical examples, not based on the available tech. For example, I can't place a barbette anywhere I want even though the technology to do so exists. Instead I'm limited to the places the dev's have deemed suitable. I  can't place a barbette to have superfireing secondaries unless the specific hull allows it. Some superstructures have barbetts attached weather I want them or not and are presented as the only option.

If I research a new funnel technology it only applies to the specific hulls that can take that specific funnel.

If I have the technology to apply  something to any design then I should be able to apply it to all designs, providing there is no logical reason why not. For example placing torpedo tubes on the centre line of a capital ship.

Sure, some decisions will have appropriate penalties, but it should be my choice to make.

The game currently focuses on only allowing choices based on historical precedent, not on what is possible for a given technology level.

[The PC Collector]

5 hours ago, Vinrellren said:

Hey, that's why I am often building only capital ships like BBs and BCs. It does make no sense for me to build anything other because of the difference in cost, especially after the change in maintenance cost in addition to HE spam and the advantages the BBs and BCs have in general against cruisers.

On the pre-dreadnought era cruisers are good. Even I could say that very early CAs are a bit overpowered cost/power wise, as 8.7"/9.4" are more than enough to kill early BBs, while a CA armed that way is way cheaper than a BB. But once you hit the late dreadnought era, and specially the modern era, costs start to skyrocket. Which is ocaky for BBs and BCs, since these kind of ships get a direct increase with size, either by being allowed to mount insanely big guns or by mount insane amounts of barrels of not so big but still huge guns.

But for CLs and CAs, that doesn't happen. Due to the fact that, no matter how big you make them, they're limited in which guns they can use, they don't get a power increase according to the cost increase. Personally I have found that the second I can make a CL big enough to house 4 triple 200 mm main guns and a number of 105 mm turrets (and a couple of torpedo tubes just in case, once deck lanuchers are available) on the sides as secondary weapons, which can be achieved with the minimum displacement of the modern light cruiser hull, around 6200 T, going any bigger is a waste of resources as it doesn't give me a return in combat power according to the increased price: Going from 12 to 18 main guns and adding 4 more "secondary" turrets with the maximum displacement of around 10500 T get me a around a 50% more of price. While that might sound correct, by that moment said CL is nearly as expensive as a 13500 T CA armed with 4 triple 240 mm guns, more armour, anti torpedo protection and a far more powerful secondary battery composed by actual secondaries which won't give my ship accuracy penalties.

For CAs, meanwhile, I have found that the CA I described in the previous paragraph is essentially the most powerful one you can build while still remaining somehow cost effective. Yes, you can build bigger CAs, and even arm them with 280-300 mm guns, but at that point your cruiser will likely be as expensive as a 25-30k T BC, or even more, so you'll be better outright building an actual BC instead, as I proved a few hours ago.

Edited August 21, 2022 by The PC Collector

[M3rky1]

Has anyone ever gotten anything other than a minor victory late game? I completely wrecked the British and had like 60,000 victory points to their 1,500. It didn't even let me come close to taking any of their territories in the treaty. Is this something that can get looked at? I would like to be able to play past 1950. Just as I am getting the best tech the game ends and I cant play with it. Maybe ask they player if they want to retire every 10 years. IDK why it says end reason low victory points when I ended at retirement. 

[admiralsnackbar]

11 hours ago, LeoA said:

Focus Research is still absurdly overpowered. As Italy, I was able to reach Dreadnought tech in 1894. The following clowncar was a design of mine in December 1894:

The design isn't great, mainly because my shipwards were stuck at 20k ton because I didn't pay attention during the first few turns of the campaign. The upper cap of this hull is 21.5k ton, and with that extra tonnage it could be outfitted with more secondaries and armor. Or you could achieve something similar to HMS Dreadnought some 12 to 10 years earlier.

I have also hit 'Advanced' tech status mere 4 years after the start date. Yes, the unfocused techs should lag behind heavily, but it still seems very unbalanced to me, particularly because the AI has no way to compete. Were the AI to use this feature, then maybe you'd have to worry about some country pulling Dreadnoughts by 1895 and the abuse would be justified. Right now you can break any campaign if you actually try to play your best. Be by designing overpowered super BBs 10+ years ahead of their equals, by doing so with DDs and having very fast gunboats with long range torps, etc.

The issue here is that certain techs are game changing and others not so much. If you look at the effect of selecting a focus, you lose far more in months of research on the other techs then you gain in time saved off the focus selected tech. But that doesn't matter when the research you're getting is worth many times more than what you're losing. 

- many current tech groups do nothing [mines/subs/doctrines]
- Torpedoes in the current game iteration are meh because now they have so many points of failure: salvo misses completely, salvo is on target but torpedoes swerve, torpedoes don't swerve but they explode before they hit the target, torpedoes hit the target but are duds. And even if they do hit the target they're often not powerful enough to do significantly greater damage than would a well placed shell hit. This is true even though 'spotting mechanics' are unrealistically generous for wows style stealth DDS and torp boats
- hull construction, special machinery, and armor forging just give passive buffs that are nice but largely marginal to the large step ups you get from other upgrades. 

- Hull protection is unimportant RN since torp defense tech has huge weight costs and usually the best defense against torps is good secondary batteries and having your ships resistance and displacement outclass enemy torpedoes so that it takes half a dozen good hits to sink your ships. 
- internals protection is decent but with good armor strength levels you really shouldn't need more than 1 layer of citadel deck and belt protection. 


So the thinking man just knows to rush Krupp I, a dreadnought hull, and some mark 2 12 inch guns and they have a ship that can sink entire fleets of 1890s warships. After that it's just a matter of cycling through various gun, hull, and engine techs. 

Bismark Jr. ready in 1904 [1907 was a refit], obviously it took longer than your design,  but I want at least 8 guns and i really don't like wing turrets.  

[The PC Collector]

13 hours ago, LeoA said:

Focus Research is still absurdly overpowered. As Italy, I was able to reach Dreadnought tech in 1894. The following clowncar was a design of mine in December 1894:

The problem is that focus research has to be overpowered, otherwise the penalties you get won't be worth. Other thing is that both the bonus and the penalties should be lowered.

And another problem is that certain techs require to be focused from day 1 only to not fall stupidly behind. In a "natural" research (this is, without using any priority at all) by 1910 cruiser design is already a decade behind, an you won't get BCs until 1917, that assuming permanent 100% funding since day 1, which not not always can be afforded.

A solution for the overpowering of the current tech focus, could be adding an "ahead of time" penalty which reduces the research speed when using focuses on ahead of time techs, and it escalates to the point to, where if the tech is 5 years ahead of time, it simply negates the effect of the focus. Other strategy games use systems like that to prevent the use of breakthrough techs too ahead of time with great success.

Alternatively, this could be coupled with a "behind of time bonus" to avoid techs to fall too back in time, regardless of it is being focused or not. This wouldn't be exploitable by using the focuses, as the "ahead of time" penalty prevents exploitation as it simply gets negated if the tech is too ahead of time.

 

1 hour ago, admiralsnackbar said:

The issue here is that certain techs are game changing and others not so much

This is certainly the main reason of why tech focus is so overpowered. Is not that the function on itself is so overpowered, as it gives you hefty penalties in exchange. But the truth is that there are only 5 or 6 techs which are really gamebreaking to have ahead of time. namely hull design until Dreadnought hull, armour intil Krupp I, guns until 12" MK III, engines until turbines, cruiser until you get BC hull and a decent CA hull (can be done after unlocking dreadnoguht), and rangefinders until radar I. The rest of techs can be safely ignored and neglected for the entire campaign.

Then what in my opinion what makes research focus so overpowered is that you have three to choose between these 5-6 techs, which means that you have to make no real sacrifices to get ahead of time. If the "ahead of time/behind of time" penalty/bonus system, which in my opinion will be the ideal solution, I think that simply reducing the tech focus from 3 to 1, so you have to actually make some sacrifices to get techs very ahead of time, will greatly reduce the imbalance problems created with tech focus.

Sure, getting the dreadnought hull on 1895 would still be an advantage, but if you have to make it not much faster than a pre-dred because you don't have good engines, use lousy Mk I guns and questionable gun dispositions the advantage doesn't look so great now.

Alternatively, an easy fix for Dreadnought Hull rush would be making that the shipyard development work like it should, with the amount you can increase the shipyard wouls start low (like 1000 T) and slowly increasing over time, instead of being a set insanely huge amount depending on the era you start the campaign. Then, unlocking the dreadnought hull in 1895 won't be of any use if you can only build 13500 T big ships.

[Panzergraf]

Are these clown ships? Maybe not if it was the 1890's.
Can you guess which year of my British campaign I encountered these French cruisers?
And no, they were not just old ships kept in service for too long, as I've recycled their entire navy in previous wars, the last war being just two years ago. And not just one-off ships either. ALL their cruisers are like this.



It's 1938 btw.

There really needs to be made some changes to how hull research works. Not just to make it harder for players to get dreadnoughts in the 1890's, but to make it easier for the AI to keep up. If they can research sonar 1 and turbo electric drive, surely they should be able to mount such advanced tech on a hull design from the same century.

[SodaBit]

3 hours ago, M3rky1 said:

Has anyone ever gotten anything other than a minor victory late game? I completely wrecked the British and had like 60,000 victory points to their 1,500. It didn't even let me come close to taking any of their territories in the treaty. Is this something that can get looked at? I would like to be able to play past 1950. Just as I am getting the best tech the game ends and I cant play with it. Maybe ask they player if they want to retire every 10 years. IDK why it says end reason low victory points when I ended at retirement. 

It's not just you running into this issue. I'm pretty sure that the End of Campaign screen is in its first iteration, and isn't feature complete at this time. You can fight half a dozen wars against one power, sinking hundreds of ships and killing thousands of sailors in the process, and have that listed as a "Minor Victory," and fight a single war against another power where neither side actually engages in combat for the entire duration of the war, with no men killed on either side and no ships lost, and have that also listed as a "Minor Victory."

 

1 minute ago, Panzergraf said:

Are these clown ships? Maybe not if it was the 1890's.
Can you guess which year of my British campaign I encountered these French cruisers?
And no, they were not just old ships kept in service for too long, as I've recycled their entire navy in previous wars, the last war being just two years ago. And not just one-off ships either. ALL their cruisers are like this.



It's 1938 btw.

There really needs to be made some changes to how hull research works. Not just to make it harder for players to get dreadnoughts in the 1890's, but to make it easier for the AI to keep up. If they can research sonar 1 and turbo electric drive, surely they should be able to mount such advanced tech on a hull design from the same century.

I've seen this sort of thing before, the AI seems to have trouble balancing out its research. I believe the way it works is that the "AI Personality" sets research priorities at the beginning of a campaign, but never changes them. From these screenshots, I would assume that the AI you're fighting now prioritized the small guns research tree, and completely neglected the cruisers tech tree, meaning that these hulls, despite being hopelessly obsolete by everyone else's standards, are the most modern iterations available to this AI in particular. Thus, you've got guns from the 1930's being mounted on hulls from the 1900's. I've seen it go other ways too, the German AI in one of my campaigns decided to build a 100,000 ton BB in the 1940's using guns from the 1910's. 

[Panzergraf]

3 minutes ago, SodaBit said:

I I believe the way it works is that the "AI Personality" sets research priorities at the beginning of a campaign, but never changes them.

Oh wow, that's kind of dumb🤔

Why not have the AI change "personality" whenever they replace their head of the navy? Which would make sense, if the previous guy performed so poorly he was expelled from the country, surely the next guy would not be too keen on repeating the same mistakes.