>>> Beta 1.09 Feedback (Released)<<<

[mikekervin]

Playing as AH with 20,000 power projection I am blockaded by Russia with 0 power projection.

[Pappystein]

56 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

I think design flaws are a very bad idea. Here, the player is designing ships to their perfection, only to have that perfection corrupted by flaws. Perfection and flaws don't mix or can fit together in anyway possible. 

Naval Action has random designing features (and flaws), 2 to 5 slots, a special trait, this suits NA and for things like trading ships and as an MMO, but to carry such RNG into UADs seems more like a company gimmick. The fact is flaws are fixed (or made serviceable) after shakedown cruises before ships are commissioned into service.

Also, none of the ultimate series has such flaws with any of their military units, all successful strategy games, why this one.

Remove flaws altogether. 

I disagree 100% with the "remove flaws altogether" statement.   Flaws are a part of EVERY naval ship... EG how USS Wisconsin's bow is slightly out of alignment (about a degree) with the rest of the hull (well post Korea with the swap of the bow from USS Kentucky)  

HOWEVER they ham-fisted way they have been applied now (I mean I guess you could say it was for testing) is a bit much.  

Excluding the current OVERUSE (as I said it is likely for testing) I recommend:

1) The option to draw out ship building by 20% to reduce the chance of flaws (and lessen the ones applied)
2) As a class is produced serially (IE follow on orders after the first ships are made) the number of flaws should be significantly reduced
3) Add faction specific flaws (like Armor strength changes because of the varied qualities of the alloying process from one country to the next)   EG Krupp IV should have a different strength multiplier in Germany than the US for example (I honestly haven't checked if this is actually the case already admittedly)

[PalaiologosTheGreat]

1 hour ago, Skeksis said:

I think design flaws are a very bad idea. Here, the player is designing ships to their perfection, only to have that perfection corrupted by flaws. Perfection and flaws don't mix or can fit together in anyway possible. 

Naval Action has random designing features (and flaws), 2 to 5 slots, a special trait, this suits NA and for things like trading ships and as an MMO, but to carry such RNG into UADs seems more like a company gimmick. The fact is flaws are fixed (or made serviceable) after shakedown cruises before ships are commissioned into service.

Also, none of the ultimate series has such flaws with any of their military units, all successful strategy games, why this one.

Remove flaws altogether. 

They shouldn’t be removed but they definitely need to be reworked so that 90% of ships have flaws. Additionally, hull flaws should be removed after about 6 months in service as it’s basically shakedown. 
 

UAD is basically Rule the Waves without airplanes so I say they should basically get some of the realism from that game into here.

Edited October 15, 2022 by PalaiologosTheGreat

[Skeksis]

Take the overweight flaw. The very main control factor in designing ships, weight, every single component you add to the weight is carefully considered to optimize your design, right down to a single ton, BANG it's now overweight by 7%: 

• Increased costs.
• Requires more engine power.
• Decreases maneuverability. 
• Increases target signature. 

Damn me now why bother designing best optimal. That's just one of them.

@Baboulinet @Pappystein @PalaiologosTheGreat, a robust debate best serves the Dev's.

Edited October 15, 2022 by Skeksis

[Baboulinet]

11 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

Take the overweight flaw. The very main control factor in designing ships, weight, every single component you add to the weight is carefully considered to optimize your design, right down to a single ton, BANG it's now overweight by 7%: 

• Increased costs.
• Requires more engine power.
• Decreases maneuverability. 
• Increases target signature. 

Damn me now why bother designing best optimal. That's just one of them.

@Baboulinet @Pappystein @PalaiologosTheGreat, a robust debate best serves the Dev's.

In that regard you're right. The weights related flaws makes little sense to me as well. Engine reliability ? Turret rotation rate ? Water pumps efficiency ? Total horsepower reached ? Delays in building time ? Those would make sense.

[Vagrant]

Anti gravity turrets?

[LeoA]

Ships are coming back from the dead. I never noticed this issue before this patch.

 

They're easy to spot because you'll suddenly get a pop-up saying 'X cannot fight because it has low crew'. X had, however, been sunk some 5 turns before. Happened multiple times.

[SodaBit]

Has anyone else had problems with division speed since the patch?
After about an hour of moving around all my divs get their speed cut down to as low as 4 knots, but the second I disband the division, the individual ships can start moving at a reasonable speed again

[PalaiologosTheGreat]

1 hour ago, Skeksis said:

Take the overweight flaw. The very main control factor in designing ships, weight, every single component you add to the weight is carefully considered to optimize your design, right down to a single ton, BANG it's now overweight by 7%: 

• Increased costs.
• Requires more engine power.
• Decreases maneuverability. 
• Increases target signature. 

Damn me now why bother designing best optimal. That's just one of them.

@Baboulinet @Pappystein @PalaiologosTheGreat, a robust debate best serves the Dev's.

Yes, this flaw should be removed as there's literally no way to fix it. If refits fixed it, then I'd be fine with them, but they don't. They stay there forever.

[brothermunro]

One issue with the current implementation of flaws is that there is a workaround:

Build 3x as many ships as you need

Scrap any ships with flaws

This leaves you with a fleet of perfectly capable ships. Makes sense if you can afford it from a game point of view, very undesirable player behaviour from a fun gameplay & realism point of view.

[havaduck]

4 hours ago, Vanhal said:

Except new map and empires i really can't name even a single one feature that is necessary and/or fun. I know it's beta so barely anything works, but the game is currently bleeding from the 1000 cuts of design flaws.

 

True, I thought I give the new version a try. I am really trying to ignore most imperfections, but there is so much design work still to be done. Basic design work.

I personally cant even get to the bugs, because it simply feels unplayabel. A cassemate blocking (somehow, only god knows) a turret on the main decks field of fire? Annoying, but eh, not gamebreaking and to be expected. A crash? Not crucial.

However playing the game? Yeah, Id like to be able to do that.

 

Look at this picture:

 

Looks great, right? 6 battles this turn, and thank god none is jutland sized. I am gonna have lots of fun.

Convoy defence seems promising. Looks like more or less a fair fight on paper. I have the advantage ofc because I abuse the magical 2" guns.

Except ..... the AI is not willing to fight. I have seen them run even from fights in their favor.

 

I have now enough experience with this beta that I can gurantee you the AI ist not willing to fight in ANY OF THOSE battles from the campaign map picture above. They are all more or less fair fights, but the AI will just straight up turn around and run.

 

Funny how we have been mocked for designs of 1890s with speeds superior to dreadnoughts. I thought I purposely go with a more historical aproach and a battle line of 18 knts (BB, CA and CL) and a 25 knts TB. However the AI creates such fast designs. Take a cruiser, mine with 3 smokestackes and 70ish engine efficiency with 18 knts and theirs with 22-25+ knts designs 1 smoke stack and supposedly single digit engine efficiency. So basically the AI will use their magic smokeless coal and will run every time and thats it. (To be honest, being faster and just sinking running AI ships one by one woudnt be much more fun either because:)

Actually thats not eintirely true, there is a ship I can catch! Its ........... their TBs! Yes, all the TB that get draged into a battle (even mine with max. fuel storage) have a few minutes of full speed and then drop to crawl speeds. Therefore my 25 knts TBs cant catch a 19 knts BB of theirs. But my 18 knts BBs can totally catch their 30 knts TBs and sink them one by one as they come into view.

 

Now looking how a good game does handle this: In Fighting Steel you

- had different missions like clash, bombardment, convoy etc with potentially one side being stronger. The AI played all of them and even adapted to event of the battle. So they would not suicide the rest of their division into an attack after, say a leading BB was torpedoed and sunk.

- no course changes until contact (and identification) was made thus guranteeing ships would actually meet instead of running form every smoke cload, spouting whale, civilian or neutral ship or even their own ships. I alway found it jaring that the 1890 GPS aided ships immediatly know how to maneuver to engage or disengage from the enemy. Hell, even WWII subs needed to observe and drive along a target for a while before they had an idea of course and speed.

- a retreat direction. Every side should have a retread direction. Right now the AI will rather spin in circles than face you. Very a-historical.  Historically there is a direction, even with war ruses, you have to go in order to reach a firendly bases or suply ships, avoid enemy ships or on the way to your mission objective. Scheer at Jutland coudlnt just go, fúck it, I dont retreat south, I go *insert another direction here* - they will never epect that.  Or take Tsushima. The russians had 3 routes they could take but the direction in which Vladivostok lay was still imperativ in any of them. After the battle the ships either went for neutral ports or Vladivostock ..... but not the direction of the Japanese homeland. Ass-kiting AI is so infuriating because a constantly in circles driving ship cant be caught on a sharp angle broadside even by a faster one (unless is much) but it also cant escape. It would be much better to try to get damage that impedes speed AND THEN try to run.

- coudnt retreat for the first ...... I cant remember 30-45 Minutes of a battle (remember it would take a few ingame minutes to run into each other, identify and open fire).

_________

Other things I have noticed: Sinking 3 cruiser sized ships with around 50 VP each. Have the AI randomly loose a transport over the turn change gives at least 10 times as much! Hell even when I sunk 6 transports during a battle I didnt get 500 vp for them.

_________

Recon: Dont understand how it works, supposidly doesnt. Its bad weather. 6 TBs are fighting a single enemy enemy CA in an ambush mission the battle generator set up. Their CA opens fire on my ships before mine even spot said CA.  In general the enemy just always sees my ships first an opens fire. I drive into the direction of the shots and return fire eventiually. As it has always been.

________

The whole dipomacy/relations-part is event driven (at least where it counts), which is fine. Its one way this can be done, more importantly is that it works and it is fun. Why exactly do we need the Fleet Tension mechanic that just causes bugs and simply doesnt work? Its not like I can sit 60 ships in the Black Sea and provoke the russians or anyone in general really? The positive relations I randomly get with people through fleet tensions every turn also dont matter if through events, alliances and wars these relations topple by 180 (degrees or relations points, both is possible) in 1 turn.

__________

Design Flaws. Had a multitude of them. Have no controle over them. Researched hull construction thech, did refits, and they didnt do anything. So I guess I will ignore them entirely from now on. I would be completely indifferent if not for the fact this certainly caused (and will cause) a hell of a lot of bugs, while the game is already in the current state.

______

The shown refit timer "works", but somtimes it lies, so it doesnt. At least I get a grasp wheter its going to be a 2 (a few more if it lies) refit or an 8 month (probably a year or more if it lies) long one. So thats an inprovement .....

_____

The last few times I couldnt re bind camera up/down (whichever is last in the list) for the live of me. Restarted the game a few times, didnt do anything. Now today it suddendly works; maybe because I did it out of a battle and not the menu screen.

_____

2"/8"/12" are still overpowered especially if you play with the sliders, but thats intentional for whatever reason.

____

Dindt notice any improved Battle AI. Except for the running. I would trade so many of these new features for an AI that knows how to play its own game and be ......... not neccessarily smart but prove to be an enjoyable opponent Take TW: Warhammer 2 and 3 for example. WH 2 AI is stupid, but on Legendary its an immensly enjoyable game. WH 3 AI is lobotomised fungus that runs like a bitch on every occasion, thus the game is at best infuriating on all difficulties and neither difficulty is fun to play.

[ZorinW]

34 minutes ago, havaduck said:

 

True, I thought I give the new version a try. I am really trying to ignore most imperfections, but there is so much design work still to be done. Basic design work.

I personally cant even get to the bugs, because it simply feels unplayabel. A cassemate blocking (somehow, only god knows) a turret on the main decks field of fire? Annoying, but eh, not gamebreaking and to be expected. A crash? Not crucial.

However playing the game? Yeah, Id like to be able to do that.

 

Look at this picture:

 

Looks great, right? 6 battles this turn, and thank god none is jutland sized. I am gonna have lots of fun.

Convoy defence seems promising. Looks like more or less a fair fight on paper. I have the advantage ofc because I abuse the magical 2" guns.

Except ..... the AI is not willing to fight. I have seen them run even from fights in their favor.

 

I have now enough experience with this beta that I can gurantee you the AI ist not willing to fight in ANY OF THOSE battles from the campaign map picture above. They are all more or less fair fights, but the AI will just straight up turn around and run.

 

Funny how we have been mocked for designs of 1890s with speeds superior to dreadnoughts. I thought I purposely go with a more historical aproach and a battle line of 18 knts (BB, CA and CL) and a 25 knts TB. However the AI creates such fast designs. Take a cruiser, mine with 3 smokestackes and 70ish engine efficiency with 18 knts and theirs with 22-25+ knts designs 1 smoke stack and supposedly single digit engine efficiency. So basically the AI will use their magic smokeless coal and will run every time and thats it. (To be honest, being faster and just sinking running AI ships one by one woudnt be much more fun either because:)

Actually thats not eintirely true, there is a ship I can catch! Its ........... their TBs! Yes, all the TB that get draged into a battle (even mine with max. fuel storage) have a few minutes of full speed and then drop to crawl speeds. Therefore my 25 knts TBs cant catch a 19 knts BB of theirs. But my 18 knts BBs can totally catch their 30 knts TBs and sink them one by one as they come into view.

 

Now looking how a good game does handle this: In Fighting Steel you

- had different missions like clash, bombardment, convoy etc with potentially one side being stronger. The AI played all of them and even adapted to event of the battle. So they would not suicide the rest of their division into an attack after, say a leading BB was torpedoed and sunk.

- no course changes until contact (and identification) was made thus guranteeing ships would actually meet instead of running form every smoke cload, spouting whale, civilian or neutral ship or even their own ships. I alway found it jaring that the 1890 GPS aided ships immediatly know how to maneuver to engage or disengage from the enemy. Hell, even WWII subs needed to observe and drive along a target for a while before they had an idea of course and speed.

- a retreat direction. Every side should have a retread direction. Right now the AI will rather spin in circles than face you. Very a-historical.  Historically there is a direction, even with war ruses, you have to go in order to reach a firendly bases or suply ships, avoid enemy ships or on the way to your mission objective. Scheer at Jutland coudlnt just go, fúck it, I dont retreat south, I go *insert another direction here* - they will never epect that.  Or take Tsushima. The russians had 3 routes they could take but the direction in which Vladivostok lay was still imperativ in any of them. After the battle the ships either went for neutral ports or Vladivostock ..... but not the direction of the Japanese homeland. Ass-kiting AI is so infuriating because a constantly in circles driving ship cant be caught on a sharp angle broadside even by a faster one (unless is much) but it also cant escape. It would be much better to try to get damage that impedes speed AND THEN try to run.

- coudnt retreat for the first ...... I cant remember 30-45 Minutes of a battle (remember it would take a few ingame minutes to run into each other, identify and open fire).

_________

Other things I have noticed: Sinking 3 cruiser sized ships with around 50 VP each. Have the AI randomly loose a transport over the turn change gives at least 10 times as much! Hell even when I sunk 6 transports during a battle I didnt get 500 vp for them.

_________

Recon: Dont understand how it works, supposidly doesnt. Its bad weather. 6 TBs are fighting a single enemy enemy CA in an ambush mission the battle generator set up. Their CA opens fire on my ships before mine even spot said CA.  In general the enemy just always sees my ships first an opens fire. I drive into the direction of the shots and return fire eventiually. As it has always been.

________

The whole dipomacy/relations-part is event driven (at least where it counts), which is fine. Its one way this can be done, more importantly is that it works and it is fun. Why exactly do we need the Fleet Tension mechanic that just causes bugs and simply doesnt work? Its not like I can sit 60 ships in the Black Sea and provoke the russians or anyone in general really? The positive relations I randomly get with people through fleet tensions every turn also dont matter if through events, alliances and wars these relations topple by 180 (degrees or relations points, both is possible) in 1 turn.

__________

Design Flaws. Had a multitude of them. Have no controle over them. Researched hull construction thech, did refits, and they didnt do anything. So I guess I will ignore them entirely from now on. I would be completely indifferent if not for the fact this certainly caused (and will cause) a hell of a lot of bugs, while the game is already in the current state.

______

The shown refit timer "works", but somtimes it lies, so it doesnt. At least I get a grasp wheter its going to be a 2 (a few more if it lies) refit or an 8 month (probably a year or more if it lies) long one. So thats an inprovement .....

_____

The last few times I couldnt re bind camera up/down (whichever is last in the list) for the live of me. Restarted the game a few times, didnt do anything. Now today it suddendly works; maybe because I did it out of a battle and not the menu screen.

_____

2"/8"/12" are still overpowered especially if you play with the sliders, but thats intentional for whatever reason.

____

Dindt notice any improved Battle AI. Except for the running. I would trade so many of these new features for an AI that knows how to play its own game and be ......... not neccessarily smart but prove to be an enjoyable opponent Take TW: Warhammer 2 and 3 for example. WH 2 AI is stupid, but on Legendary its an immensly enjoyable game. WH 3 AI is lobotomised fungus that runs like a bitch on every occasion, thus the game is at best infuriating on all difficulties and neither difficulty is fun to play.

I just don't understand why the devs did not ask us what to add next. I guarantee you that 90% would have been perfectly happy with the world map and them fixing all the old bugs that are STILL present. 

Piling on more and more broken features will kill the game sooner than later. Mark my words.

[Speglord]

Playing as Japan, I seem to be in a constant and perpetual state of war. As soon as I'm about to end a war with one country, two more break out. Money doesn't seem to be an issue at all, but I have so few crew that I can't have my entire fleet operating simultaneously.

[SMS]

The Philippines should belong to the U.S. instead of Spain, which is more prone to conflict with Japan and more in line with history.

[Skeksis]

Playing the US I designed barebones DDs, as per usual, 1 funnel etc. like pre-patch...

But I've come to realize they don't have enough range, only 6868km, to escort taskforces across the Atlantic, they simply run out of fuel halfway across. A failed design no less. 

So back to the drawing board, added in extra upgraded funnels, adjusted beam and draught, increased engine efficiency by 273%, got 21078km range. With range they can now escort capital ships right across the Atlantic... 

 

Well done Dev's with fuel realism introduction. 👍

Edited October 16, 2022 by Skeksis

[Vanhal]

Sorry for shouting but this crap is been for so long as i remember, and devs ignore it despite numerous people telling them to fix this and it's became crippling after the world map has been implemented:

SHIPS ARE STILL RETURNING TO RANDOM PORTS AFTER BATTLE, TRY TO PLAY AS RUSSIA AND GET YOUR SHIPS MAGICALLY TELEPORTED FROM VLADIVOSTOK TO KRONSHTADT!!!

JFC there are tons of bugs, design flaws and bad features from older versions still in the game, feedback gets ignored and instead devs implement more and more mechanics that not only (surprise surprise) are bugged too, but are outright antifun.

 

[TAKTCOM]

10 hours ago, brothermunro said:

One issue with the current implementation of flaws is that there is a workaround:

Build 3x as many ships as you need

Scrap any ships with flaws

It doesn't work in 1890-1895 

I built 3 battleships, 6 armored cruisers, 4 light cruisers and 20 torpedo boats. 32 ships in total. 5 ships of them were without defects. One cruiser of each type and three torpedo boats. 5/33.

Later, I made two improvements to improve the quality of shipbuilding  and built 20 new torpedo boats. 5 of them were without flaws. 5/20

2 hours ago, Vanhal said:

JFC there are tons of bugs, design flaws and bad features from older versions still in the game, feedback gets ignored and instead devs implement more and more mechanics that not only (surprise surprise) are bugged too, but are outright antifun.

Reminds me - Perfect is the enemy of good.

P.S. Russian diplomacy in 1890 is rather wrong.

On the example of Russia, Russia-Great Britain relations +10, even though they have been enemies for decades. Just google Great Game.  This is comparable to the USSR and the USA during the Cold War 1945-1985. 

Russian-Japanese relations - 85 is just wow. In reality, Russian cruisers are use Japanese naval bases, like Nagasaki, until 1894-1895. Russian-Japanese relations began to degrade from 1896, after Nicholas II came to power.

Russia-France +15 is better, but still wrong. The French desperately wanted an alliance with the Russians, as the Franco-Prussian War had shown that the French themselves were not capable of defeating the Germans.

Russian-German relations +5 look just...strange. Traditional relations between Russia and Germany at the end of the 19th century are friends-rivals. Russia has been full of German emigrants (as in the USA, lol) since the time of Peter the Great (1682-1725) and had many cultural, political and economic ties with Germany. On the other hand, the Germans always wanted to become bosses and finally defeat the French, who dreamed of revenge for the Franco-Prussian war. The Russians did not want German dominance in Europe and played the role of mediator, which was very beneficial for the Russian Empire. But, again, everything changed with the ascension to the throne of Nicholas 2 in 1896.

Everything else is Ru diplomacy not so obviously wrong. I mean, just look at the relationship between Great Britain and France. + 35 in 1890? Seriously? They are actually the first and second sea world power, and look at each other as enemies and rivals.

Edited October 16, 2022 by TAKTCOM
WAR FOR IMPROVEMENT

[spinaker]

Sometimes they come back... Periodically, ships appear in my ports, which I dismantled as unnecessary. And what is even more interesting, it seems to me that the same signs appear in the enemy - I have already met and sunk Austrian CA with the same names several times. A couple more times the game hung up at the exit to the strategic map, it was treated by rebooting and skipping the battle.

[Lastreaumont]

9 hours ago, brothermunro said:

One issue with the current implementation of flaws is that there is a workaround:

Build 3x as many ships as you need

Scrap any ships with flaws

This leaves you with a fleet of perfectly capable ships. Makes sense if you can afford it from a game point of view, very undesirable player behaviour from a fun gameplay & realism point of view.

I came to the same solution and start to do it in my current campaign. 

[brothermunro]

2 hours ago, TAKTCOM said:

It doesn't work in 1890-1895.

No it doesn’t but the Pre Dreadnought era is an exercise in sadism 😂 

[Zuikaku]

Would be a good thing to know a roadmap for the next updates so that we know which issues are going to be fixed and how campaign gameplay is going to improve/change.

 

 

 

 

[Thramoun]

14 hours ago, SodaBit said:

Has anyone else had problems with division speed since the patch?
After about an hour of moving around all my divs get their speed cut down to as low as 4 knots, but the second I disband the division, the individual ships can start moving at a reasonable speed again

This sounds like your divisions have at least one ship with "Low" fuel status, even one will make the whole division wait on it. The fuel mechanics were introduced in this patch and it's easy to miss, though it's mentioned in the patch notes.

Take it near a port, I believe a division is within the Operational Range of one of your ports it will regain fuel (costing a considerable amount of cash).

It would be nice if any of this was present in the UI, but I'm guessing there is going to be a UI rework down the line.

[Kebla]

does anyone else have problems placing the barbettes where you want to put them?

[Kebla]

Why can't I put a barbette here?

[Kebla]

And why this one can?