Ideas for future updates

[Werwaz]

here are a few things that I think could be improved or added in the next few updates:

1. rework spotting. I think that the current spotting system is fine for over-the-horizon spotting, but there should be a certain "spot everything" area around the ship which would cover everything visible to the eye from the top of the ship's mast. this area would change based on the height of the ship's mast and the weather conditions. 
2. rework campaign AI. 
3. rework battle AI. It is still too easy to dupe and herd with destroyers, and it has trouble picking out the most dangerous target out of an enemy fleet, resulting in me using a few destroyers to draw fire from enemy capital ships and using my own capitals to annihilate them with impunity at close range. throwing it more money in the campaign is only a temporary solution.
4. improve diplomacy mechanics. besides being able to create tension with other countries, we should also be able to become friends with other countries outside of random events. Perhaps one could hold joint exercises, do technology sharing, trade deals, etc. to boost relations with other countries. as part of this, different government type would be added with different buffs and debuffs to a country:
   1. Monarchy: +20% Crew XP, +10% naval prestige gain from winning battle
   2. Democracy: +10%GDP growth, +10% build speed, +10% research speed, -10% Unrest, -10% Tension gain
   3. Communist: +20% build speed, -10% research speed, no general strikes.
5. add officer corps. along with enlisted crew, a player would get a certain number of captains each turn depending on how much they spend on crew training. captains would be assigned to a ship by the player. captains would have attributes that could buff or debuff their ship, and they would gain experience along with their crew, which would give them additional attributes. a captain would be lost if their ship was sunk and they did not abandon ship beforehand, or if they are killed by a hit to the conning tower. losing captains would negatively affect one's naval prestige and unrest. some examples would include, but would not be limited to:
   1. Aggressive: +10% to RoF and forwards speed, +5% flash fire chance, +10% engine damage chance, disables retreat/withdraw
   2. Engineer: +25% damage control
   3. Capital ship expert: +10% resistance, +10% floatability, only applies when commanding BB or BC, incompatible with small ship expert or cruiser expert.
   4. Small ship expert:  +10% funnel capacity, +10% smoke screen duration, only applies when commanding DD or TB, incompatible with capital ship expert or cruiser expert.
   5. Cruiser expert: +10% spotting range, +10% torpedo detection range, only applies when commanding CA or CL, incompatible with capital ship expert or small ship expert. 
   6. Cautious: -10% to RoF and forwards speed, -5% flash fire chance, -10% engine damage chance, +10% view range
   7. Ship sniper: -10% RoF, +20% Long range accuracy
   8. Torpedo marksman: -20% dud chance, +10% torpedo accuracy
   9. Experienced: +10% crew XP gain
6. add more countries to campaign:  I think that it would make more sense to add Spain, Russia and Eastern USA first, then add China, Japan, and Western USA later. 
7.  rebalance hulls: with the new citadel change, the hulls carry a large aft weight offset since the balance point is currently halfway on the length of the ship, and not the center of mass. 
8. rebalance shells: some people here on the forums think that HE is too strong against certain targets. 
9. new hulls: I would probably like the see a US standard, a Tillman battleship, some more pre-dreadnoughts, and more unique cruiser and destroyer hulls added to the game
10. add national modifiers in campaign: each nation would have 2-3 active modifiers that change the way that nation performs. they can change depending on the economic and political atmosphere of the world. some examples would include, but are not limited to:
    1. Isolationism: -25% naval budget, -50% tension gain, no alliances allowed. removed if there is an active war or arms race. activates if country is not in any alliances. USA and China would probably start with this most of the time.
    2. Economic Boom: +5% transport construction, +10% research speed, activates when over 10% GDP growth.
    3. Economic Recession:  -5% transport construction, -10% research speed, activates when under 0% GDP growth.
    4. Empire: +25% naval budget, +50% tension gain, activated when a country holds overseas provinces. Britain, France, Spain, Italy, and Japan would probably start with this most of the time.
    5. Jeune Ecole: +15% construction speed for CL, DD and TB, -15% construction speed for BB, BC, and CA, activates when 2/3 of active fleet is composed of CL, DD, and TB.
    6. Kantai Kessen: +15% construction speed for BB, BC, and CA, -15% construction speed for CL, DD, and TB, activates when 1/3 of active fleet is composed of BB ,BC and CA.
    7. Open Revolt: -75% naval budget, -75% crew training, -75% construction speed, ships may defect to other countries, activates with 75 unrest or more.
    8. General Strike: -100% construction speed, -100% crew training, -100% research speed, lasts 2 months, can activate with 80 unrest or more.
    9. Civil War: -100% construction speed, -100% crew training, -100% research speed, some ships will become hostile, activates at 100 unrest
    10. Arms Race: +75% naval budget, +75% crew training, +75% construction speed, +75% research, +75% tension gain, -25% GDP growth, can activate when relations with another  country are below -75

[slightlytreasonous]

I may have said I would be gone, but that doesn't mean my overwhelming urge to push for a batle overhaul in general ever will be.

[Skeksis]

4. The real question is whether to keep developing the diplomacy generator to handle the player or move towards the player handling their own diplomacy, i.e. sandbox mode. Could have both modes too, optional with a checkbox.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Skeksis

[Plazma]

1. Devs don't care about it. Make your game, next ask the question "what people want".

2. Guns > Accuracy > Penetration > AI campaign (putting money on building ships, transport, crew, refit, research  etc. ) > AI building ships > Torps notification > FPS drop in building ships > 5x 10x 30x enable > enable/disable formations > balance the size of battles (no more 100 vs 100 each turn) > 101 other things... 

NO ADDING ANY NEW CONTENT! Most of thinks don't working from start to the end. Like diplomacy, sometimes you get war sometimes you have peace depends on luck, because "Agree" button doesn't work. If you want reduce pitch you put heavy gun on the both of the end of ships, why not... and you don't use second guns because they magical rise the pitch to heavens... 

 

• rework spotting - need polishing, the AI don't care about spotting right now... urgent, but not the most important
• rework campaign AI - we don't have working right now the campaign AI so no point to rework something what exist in partial and don't working as designed.
• rework battle AI - no point to rework something what exist in partial and don't working as designed. Also the enemy ships shooting, so this is enough. 
• improve diplomacy in campaign - maybe fix this to start working as designed? 
• add officer corps - NO ADDING ANY NEW CONTENT!
• add national modifiers - NO ADDING ANY NEW CONTENT!
• rebalance hulls - Yes, important not urgent. 
• rebalance shells - No need, other elements of the game are broken and because of that HE looks like OP.  Guns > Accuracy > Penetration > spotting and after that we can star balancing armor/hull/shells.
• new hulls  - NO ADDING ANY NEW CONTENT!

I playing right now 1.05 and is better than 1.08. The biggest minus is that is short and boring and the torps are nightmare, but is okay... 

Edited July 11, 2022 by Plazma

[Werwaz]

4 hours ago, Plazma said:

1. Devs don't care about it. Make your game, next ask the question "what people want".

2. Guns > Accuracy > Penetration > AI campaign (putting money on building ships, transport, crew, refit, research  etc. ) > AI building ships > Torps notification > FPS drop in building ships > 5x 10x 30x enable > enable/disable formations > balance the size of battles (no more 100 vs 100 each turn) > 101 other things... 

NO ADDING ANY NEW CONTENT! Most of thinks don't working from start to the end. Like diplomacy, sometimes you get war sometimes you have peace depends on luck, because "Agree" button doesn't work. If you want reduce pitch you put heavy gun on the both of the end of ships, why not... and you don't use second guns because they magical rise the pitch to heavens... 

 

• rework spotting - need polishing, the AI don't care about spotting right now... urgent, but not the most important
• rework campaign AI - we don't have working right now the campaign AI so no point to rework something what exist in partial and don't working as designed.
• rework battle AI - no point to rework something what exist in partial and don't working as designed. Also the enemy ships shooting, so this is enough. 
• improve diplomacy in campaign - maybe fix this to start working as designed? 
• add officer corps - NO ADDING ANY NEW CONTENT!
• add national modifiers - NO ADDING ANY NEW CONTENT!
• rebalance hulls - Yes, important not urgent. 
• rebalance shells - No need, other elements of the game are broken and because of that HE looks like OP.  Guns > Accuracy > Penetration > spotting and after that we can star balancing armor/hull/shells.
• new hulls  - NO ADDING ANY NEW CONTENT!

I playing right now 1.05 and is better than 1.08. The biggest minus is that is short and boring and the torps are nightmare, but is okay... 

1. I don't think we would have adjustable citadels, custom guns, or basically any other 1.06 feature along with most of the more niche hulls and towers like the Von der Tann, many of the pre-dreadnoughts, and the Fuso without community input.
2. Big long list of things that I will give my opinion on in order:
   1. Guns, accuracy and pen were all reworked to a satisfactory level in 1.08.
   2. AI will always be strange and easily clubbed by players due to the complexities of designing a ship and managing a navy. That being said, the clown cars the AI produces today are markedly better than the hideous monstrosities it used to make when I started playing back in Alpha-8, and additional improvements are welcome. 
   3. torp notifications aren't exactly needed since you can just change course as soon as you spot a torpedo.
   4. Performance optimizations are definitely needed to reduce wait time for booting up a new campaign.
   5. I generally agree that 5X, 10X, and 30X should always be enabled.
   6. Formations are quite useful if you know how to use them properly and not as a substitute for competent command. My rules of thumb are to generally have no more than 4 manual battle lines of no more than 4 ships, and all of the other ships would be set to screen or scout for those formations, unless they are serving to draw fire from enemy vessels.
   7. you can generally avoid the doomstack issue by sticking to late era campaign starts (after 1910), and not going for any other difficulty than normal, since the other difficulties just give the AI more money, and therefore more doomstacks. besides, I like smashing AI doomstacks like this one from a while back:

this one was my 2BB, 2BC, 4CA, 6BB, 1BC, 6CL, and 4DD versus the enemy's 6BB, 1BC, 13CA, 2CL, and 1DD.

1. as for no new content... while is is definitely important for the devs to fix existing systems, they still need to add new content if they want to sell more copies of the game, and survive as a company. Most of the people who watch youtubers like Stealth17 or BrotherMunro that don't already have the game are more likely to buy the game if they show off shiny new content like a cool new ship or a shiny new campaign feature. Simply put, fixes are not very marketable to a new audience. If Game Labs can't sell new copies, then the game dies, no new fixes will be issued, and I don't think anyone here want's that to happen. Out of that giant list at the top of the thread, I would be perfectly happy if they only did one of those things over 10 updates, as long as there is something new to do. It wasn't too terribly long ago when this game would only be updated every 3 months, and these forums would be almost dead in between updates. To sum everything up, I think the best plan going forward would be to add some new features, but to also fix existing ones as well in order to draw in new players and keep existing players. If you absolutely don't want any new content, you can just keep playing 1.05 I suppose. 
2. as for the "agree" button to end wars, either they haven't fixed it yet or they are planning on adding negotiated peaces, since the current peace system is currently representing an unconditional surrender. 

4 hours ago, Plazma said:

• rework battle AI - no point to rework something what exist in partial and don't working as designed. Also the enemy ships shooting, so this is enough. 

Enemy ships just shooting at me is not enough when I can play the same tactic over and over, even with inferior ships, and still beat the AI almost all of the time. Its so bad that I even beat the AI when I was using its designs and the AI was using my designs, which are far better designed than any AI clown car. I often that I have to battle the AI on a 1 to 2 ratio in order to get a fun and challenging battle. 

Edited July 12, 2022 by Werwaz

[Tycondero]

The AI is the major problem with the game. Although I think some new mechanics (like the citadel and guns of recent), the game becomes rather boring quickly if it offers no challenge. The AI is just too lackluster, so there should be a major effort to implement a better AI.

[UncleAi]

1. 5x 10x 30x should be always enable.

2. Bring back savedata edit. Many problems like shipyard size or GDP or research speed can be easily solved. 

3. Many parts like radar and radio has ridiculous weight. If you want some "balance", you should balance by cost and tech. 

4. Create a Tactical Map like Jane's Fleet Command or Company of Heroes.  If we spotted some smoke, mark it on the Tactical Map, not just a "Northeast".

5. More active diplomacy like player can spend money to improve relation or insult to worsen the relation. The more prestige I have, the more influence I have on diplomacy. Event is too random.

6. AI need to learn how to build proper warship. Can't we give AI some templates? We can have a campaign option "AI Design: Template/Randomized".

[UncleAi]

In long-term future I hope there will be:

1. Submarine and ASW warfare like RTW. DD and CL can have a ASW Equip part.

2. Designated Research. If I want to research 16 inch gun, they will research it, not some other calibre.

3. Port construction, coastal defence, islands and terrain.

4. Night fight, illuminating projectile and searchlight.

5. Maintenance and supply. Vessel age and long time deploy will affect performance.

All these are just far far matter. Won't achieve in a year or two.

Recent update just added contents that neither player nor AI are good at. Many numbers like pitch and roll are absurd. Make the game more boring and annoying. and without save edit player can't fix problems by themselves.

 

[21hugoPT]

@Werwazyours Ideas are interesting, but the ideas 10.7 to 10.9 to work something must go very bad to happen, unless there is events that will increase unrest a lot or the nation committing war crimes(sinking civilian boats) or losing a lot of crew or losing civilian boats or transport or a blockade 

[Werwaz]

10 hours ago, 21hugoPT said:

@Werwazyours Ideas are interesting, but the ideas 10.7 to 10.9 to work something must go very bad to happen, unless there is events that will increase unrest a lot or the nation committing war crimes(sinking civilian boats) or losing a lot of crew or losing civilian boats or transport or a blockade 

That is sort of the idea, since a competently managed navy shouldn't see these things happen. Those events should only really happen if you are either doing warcrimes or you are losing a war badly.

[Sapphire]

On 7/12/2022 at 10:15 PM, UncleAi said:

1. 5x 10x 30x should be always enable.

2. Bring back savedata edit. Many problems like shipyard size or GDP or research speed can be easily solved. 

3. Many parts like radar and radio has ridiculous weight. If you want some "balance", you should balance by cost and tech. 

4. Create a Tactical Map like Jane's Fleet Command or Company of Heroes.  If we spotted some smoke, mark it on the Tactical Map, not just a "Northeast".

5. More active diplomacy like player can spend money to improve relation or insult to worsen the relation. The more prestige I have, the more influence I have on diplomacy. Event is too random.

6. AI need to learn how to build proper warship. Can't we give AI some templates? We can have a campaign option "AI Design: Template/Randomized".

I'm sure once the game is fully released they will allow savefile editing. It was probably disabled due to users reporting bugs caused by editing the file. In that case, it's much easier to lock saves than to waste dev time as for shipyard size, always always upgrade whenever possible and you'll be fine as for GDP it's easy to manage and reserach can be solved by using cheat engine or a trainer 

[teylife]

On 7/20/2022 at 9:14 AM, Sapphire said:

I'm sure once the game is fully released they will allow savefile editing. It was probably disabled due to users reporting bugs caused by editing the file. In that case, it's much easier to lock saves than to waste dev time as for shipyard size, always always upgrade whenever possible and you'll be fine as for GDP it's easy to manage and reserach can be solved by using cheat engine or a trainer 

I had thought of a "doctrine" system, the AI will try to fulfill the objective of the doctrine you have chosen, for example get the most accuracy in your main weapon, get the most fire capacity of your main weapons or have the most possible armor, changing an admiral would change the doctrine of design or even control in battle

[teylife]

we could have a system for better control of the ships, such as functional formations and a tactical map in game, controlling more or less large formations is super difficult