Jump to content
Game-Labs Forum

Appreciation post: maneuvers in formation are so much better


neph

Recommended Posts

Well, we had that in the past. Anyway, is nice to see them working again. But I can't say the same about complex formations.

  • If there is a screen formation with 3 or more ships, and you gave the order to create a battle line, the division leading ship is always in the back. This will create chaos with the ships maneuvering to the right location.
  • The scout formation never worked properly.
  • The line abreast will not work properly if the leading ship needs to fall back because the damage taken.

iCMNE13.jpg

A typical useless scout formation in UAD.

  • There is only one enemy in battle and it is somewhere in my port side.
  • So the 7 division dds in scouting will stay in my starboard side. Makes sense?
  • And to make things worse, we should expect the scouting formation to do some scout, right? Nope, nothing. They will stay all the time in a battle line formation at 90 degree to the leading division. Useless formation in UAD.

ySdFLJW.jpg

This would be a typical, normal scouting formation in game. A semicircle ahead of the main division, maybe 8 km away or more, doing some real scouting for the fleet. We never had this in the game.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you make two scout divisions they'll set up one to your port & one to your starboard. As you make more they'll fill in more.

I think the terminology is a little weird. "Screen" is very much in the modern carrier-based task force concept of the word, insofar as it produces a circular formation surrounding the screened division. "Scout" produces a single line, which, if it were always between you & the enemy, would be exactly a classical screen.

Honestly, they should probably reverse the name of the commands.

To get what you want, assign them to "screen" with loose spacing.

The only problem then is that while "screening" ships seem very eager to go run off & independently engage the enemy. While "scouting" they are much more disciplined.

I've lost all hope to see any of this changed, however. I don't think the devs have any interest in refining these features any longer beyond minor tweaks. Systems that need a complete overhaul are probably never being touched in that depth. Seems like it's bug fixes & then DLC from here on out.

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, neph said:

If you make two scout divisions they'll set up one to your port & one to your starboard. As you make more they'll fill in more.

I think the terminology is a little weird. "Screen" is very much in the modern carrier-based task force concept of the word, insofar as it produces a circular formation surrounding the screened division. "Scout" produces a single line, which, if it were always between you & the enemy, would be exactly a classical screen.

Honestly, they should probably reverse the name of the commands.

To get what you want, assign them to "screen" with loose spacing.

The only problem then is that while "screening" ships seem very eager to go run off & independently engage the enemy. While "scouting" they are much more disciplined.

I've lost all hope to see any of this changed, however. I don't think the devs have any interest in refining these features any longer beyond minor tweaks. Systems that need a complete overhaul are probably never being touched in that depth. Seems like it's bug fixes & then DLC from here on out.

I hope they will do some more refinement on these sorts of features which are part of the core game loop. I don't care so much about simplistic land battles and such since that stuff is just a side show (although some fixes to avoid cases of broken campaigns may be warranted). Poor formation behaviors impact every battle played.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My old suggestion was to simply replace 'scout' and 'screen' with 3 options "Screen [Ahead/Port/Starboard]" ideally with the ability to specify a set distance. When combined with follow you get every option. 

This also prevents any one division from being intertwined with other divisions and ships crashing into each other during the initial deployment phase. 

Edited by admiralsnackbar
  • Like 4
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, neph said:

If you make two scout divisions they'll set up one to your port & one to your starboard. As you make more they'll fill in more.

HeBWrOC.jpg

Thanks for the tip, but still useless, it seems. I set 4 divisions to scout. So I have 2 in the port side almost in the same position, and 2 in the starboard side also in the same position. And none scouting ahead of the fleet.

8 hours ago, neph said:

To get what you want, assign them to "screen" with loose spacing.

FzerLY0.jpg

The distance from the division leader is still too small. Will work ok in 1890, but in 1940 with radar and +20 km torpedoes is still a dubious formation in terms of practicability. And of course, the leading ship from the screen division is the "Hayashimo", not the "Maikaze" or "Kaki". Just to bring hell to the battlefield if I gave them the order to set a battle line.😒

Edited by o Barão
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...