Suribachi Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 Gameplay suggestion. For a long time, players have often lamented the AI runs away and there is never a fight type of battles. These usually result in a draw giving the player nothing but wasted time. My suggestion is to make whatever side spends the most time using the Retreat command to "lose" the engagement. It does not have to be a very big penalty, a hundred or so VP, but enough that the player or AI gets something out of a fight that never happens. After all, chasing an enemy out of an area of operations is a victory in of itself. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonPeretz Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 Suribachi I don't agree. I conduct a cruising operation with a fast cruiser and when meeting a strong enemy, I simply leave him at high speed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suribachi Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 (edited) 44 minutes ago, vonPeretz said: Suribachi I don't agree. I conduct a cruising operation with a fast cruiser and when meeting a strong enemy, I simply leave him at high speed. Let me provide some more detail as you just described one of the scenarios I am talking about from the AI's point of view. The most common scenario I run into with this kind of battle is a Port Strike, specifically ones that do not involve transports and the opposing fleet is "defending". One could argue that the warships that were in port are conducting a breakout so they can regroup and fight another day. That itself is fine, however, with the gameplay as is, the port strike fails because it is a draw even though the defenders never defended anything and just ran for their lives then just return to port as if nothing has happened. This is what I have an issue with because a single cheap ship with greater range can, in theory, stop a vastly superior fleet in its conquest by running over and over again in battle. To me, this is an exploit regardless if the AI is using it unintentionally or a player does it intentionally. A less common scenario, and one that you described, is out on an open ocean is usually a Task Force is Cornered mission, as an example, a single DD coming across an entire fleet is going to run for its life as expected. However, historically, this is a victory for the fleet. If you can deny an enemy from going into certain waters, like how you described by running from a superior force, they cannot defend their transports and yours are safe. You could also sweep or deploy mines or safely bombard enemy shores, but I digress. The issue I have with this second scenario is that, when the AI is running from the player, it accomplishes nothing but wasting the players time, which should be respected. For a player running from the AI, it gets tricky to argue against since we have perfect information. This means that from the onset of battle we know how many enemy ships there are, their classes and capabilities without ever seeing them or firing a single shot. If we did not have this ability and we had to learn the enemies abilities through combat, I would not care about this behavior at all. But since we do, it should be reasonable that if the player has the faster ship, regardless of being out numbered, we should be able to withdraw from the fight so it never happens 100% of the time. However, even with faster ships, sometimes withdrawing fails and we are force to either Auto Battle, which is another discussion in its own right, or battle and again waste our time. Edited August 24 by Suribachi 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justMike247 Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 3 hours ago, Suribachi said: My suggestion is to make whatever side spends the most time using the Retreat command to "lose" the engagement. It does not have to be a very big penalty, a hundred or so VP, but enough that the player or AI gets something out of a fight that never happens. Suribachi... respectfully... that dawg don't hunt... tell ya why... It's all about choice... No matter how hard I try, no matter how strong my fleets are, game code denies me the capability to bring an opposing force to battle. Battles only happen if the A.I. chooses to allow an engagement. Hell, I can't even bring a vastly stronger force into the same body of water as an opposing force, irrespective of how small that force is, because that's how the game's coded... I take pains to ensure my fleet composition is as balanced as I can make it, but that doesn't matter in game; the A.I. has the capability to cherry pick components of your fleet and toss them into battle, whether you like it or not. Hell, even sending a fleet into dock to rearm/refuel is a risk because... privateering... invariably with ships running on fumes, with negligable ammunition. The A.I. has total control over the weather, the time of day etc... Trying to screen your force with smoke has zero impact on the opposing forces' ability to accurately spot and range you... yet the reverse isn't true. So.... no... any time the A.I. generates any of these "dead from the neck up" engagements, I don't care what the opposing force composition is, I'm giving zero credibility to that mess... I'm bugging out. 4 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aldaris Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 My preferred solution to the running away AI would be to never having to load into that battle in the first place. Scenario: the AI doesn't want to fight, because it feels it's outmatched. Force composition is known on the campaign map. From here, it should be a very simple, binary scenario. Is the AI fleet faster? Can it escape? In that case, give me a bloody notification that the enemy fleet slipped away, done. No battle needed. The AI fleet is not fast enough? Then the enemy fleet should step up and fight, regardless of force discrepancy. We can assume that the attempt to escape happened before the battle took place, and they have obviously been brought to bay. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a battle, would there? Simple, effective, and no stupid stern chases ever again. 11 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suribachi Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 1 minute ago, Aldaris said: My preferred solution to the running away AI would be to never having to load into that battle in the first place. Scenario: the AI doesn't want to fight, because it feels it's outmatched. Force composition is known on the campaign map. From here, it should be a very simple, binary scenario. Is the AI fleet faster? Can it escape? In that case, give me a bloody notification that the enemy fleet slipped away, done. No battle needed. The AI fleet is not fast enough? Then the enemy fleet should step up and fight, regardless of force discrepancy. We can assume that the attempt to escape happened before the battle took place, and they have obviously been brought to bay. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a battle, would there? Simple, effective, and no stupid stern chases ever again. Agreed. Basically, what I have been trying to say. I just get tired of loading into a battle, putting the time multiplier on x10 then eventually x30 depending on the enemy's speed compared to mine, before finally waiting for the enemy to get too far away before having to end the battle having never sighted the enemy, firing upon the enemy or being fired upon. 28 minutes ago, justMike247 said: I take pains to ensure my fleet composition is as balanced as I can make it, but that doesn't matter in game; the A.I. has the capability to cherry pick components of your fleet and toss them into battle, whether you like it or not. I agree wholeheartedly with you on this point. Unfortunately, I do not believe I have a workable solution for this that everyone can agree with so I cannot comment on it too much as the game exists currently. If it were different, say if we were allowed to pick and chose which elements of the greater fleet to use before the battle, that would be a different discussion I believe. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Khyron Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 (edited) I am out for now as well. I started a new campaign, hoping that the AI uses the (minimum tech) shared designs I built. Alas...no. Not a single of my designs is in the AIs arsenal. Instead...you guessed it...torpedoes, torpedoes and more torpedoes. The AI crams tubes on every free space, even going so far to place tubes in invalid locations in some cases, I discovered that when trying to re-built ships I got as reparations. Battles against enemy capital ships are only a thing at the beginning of the war. Once sunk, the enemy concentrates on light cruisers and destroyers and masses of submarines, even on harder difficulties, because these can pack lots of torpedoes. I have a collection of screenshots of really impossible enemy designs, but I posted some of these earlier, so I spare you the horror. Regardless of the composition of my task groups, the enemy only challanges a part of it, mostly cruisers and destroyers and even then runs away. Sometimes, shortly before catching up to the enemy, the weather changes to very bad and the chase is futile again. Speaking of weather, often when I manage to generate a battle with a superior forces...crack, rumble...thunderstorm. And even with radar on my side, the enemy sneaks up in torpedo range and I cannot evade the wall of hundred torpedoe streaking my way. While I effortlessly can build balanced battleships and battlecruisers, most smaller ships are hopelessly front-heavy, as many have mentioned earlier. Placing most guns aft, funnels center and aft does not help. Some ships are only balanced when I delete any front-mounted guns, which I badly need in the tail chases (hm...perhaps this is deliberate?). Ah... So, please dear Devs. I would like to love this game, as it is an original Idea. Since I was a little boy, I am "building, drawing, playing" warships and this game was a dream come true. Hell, I even cried when I first build my dream warship. But as of now it is more frustrating by the day. Please reconsider the course the game is taking now, remove the torpedo-based enemy fleets, tweak some weights here and there and get the enemy either to fight or tell me they escape. Obviously, "Auto-Battle" is a very dangerous solution, as this risks my entire fleet against and single destroyer (enemy torpedo-armed light cruisers regulary sink half a dozen ships, including large battleships in aut-battle). There seem to be many frustrated players as of now and I am one of them. I ask you humbly, do something against this frustration. Thanks. Edited August 24 by Darth Khyron 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suribachi Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 7 minutes ago, Darth Khyron said: While I effortlessly can build balanced battleships and battlecruisers, most smaller ships are hopelessly front-heavy, as many have mentioned earlier. Placing most guns aft, funnels center and aft does not help. Some ships are only balanced when I delete any front-mounted guns, which I badly need in the tail chases (hm...perhaps this is deliberate?). Ah... Very curious to know if the funnel system can be overhauled to include the option of boiler orientation. Meaning that we can choose if the boilers are aft of the funnel (a ⅃ looking at the ship from the starboard side), fore of the funnel (an L looking at the ship from the starboard side), or directly the funnel under like they are now (basically a ꓕ ). Being that boilers and engines are a large part of the ships balance, this could help alleviate some of that issue and open up some design options. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justMike247 Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 1 hour ago, Suribachi said: Unfortunately, I do not believe I have a workable solution for this that everyone can agree with so I cannot comment on it too much as the game exists currently. Solution's simple... Hell, we were told they'd put a stop to this BS lord knows how many update *that didn't fix anything meaningful, as usual* back... All they gotta do is delete the code that generates this nonsense in the first place... Simple... Yea... I know... that'd mean having enough "give a chit" to fix some of the multitude of fuggups that the game is rotten with... I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen... Moma didn't raise no fool... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suribachi Posted August 24 Share Posted August 24 USA Dreadnought II hull. Casemate firing arc seems to be rotated 90 degrees from what it should be. All other firing locations appear correct. Replication notes: Year 1908 in campaign. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zuikaku Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 (edited) For now, I just quit this game. Most of the hulls are bow heavy to the point of being unusable. You just can not make balanced ship. By balanced I do not mean monstrocities with everything crammed to the stern because bow is used for transporting gold. And also, AI stupidity with torpedo ships. Edited August 25 by Zuikaku 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhoenixLP44 Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 I will join the train and quit this game for now. I really wanted to love the game post steam release but it's just too painful to play. I will check the next major updates for interesting content but for now I just lost any hope that the devs get it together and make this game into the thing it was always meant to be. Steamcharts might disagree with me but I think this game wont survive much longer if the situation gets worse For now, farewell i hope you can fix this mess soon. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonPeretz Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 (edited) Suribachi Well then ask the developers to make battles in the campaign as multiplayer. This is how it was implemented in Napoleon TW. You have a battle in the campaign - you press the MP button and if there is someone willing online - he joins instead of AI. It was a lot of fun. PhoenixLP44 Zuikaku Darth Khyron I just made a mod for myself and the game is just great. AI works great! Edited August 25 by vonPeretz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zuikaku Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 (edited) One more thing regarding bow heavy ships. I have noticed ships are becoming hopelessly bow heavy after front tower is placed. After that there is hardly anything you can do to compensate this. So tower is the problem. Why since it is not that heavy part and you do not have much room to place it further back? Even 2 heavily armoured turrets with barbettes placed in front of the tower do not have such effect on ship balance. Edited August 25 by Zuikaku 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Khyron Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 1 hour ago, vonPeretz said: Suribachi Well then ask the developers to make battles in the campaign as multiplayer. This is how it was implemented in Napoleon TW. You have a battle in the campaign - you press the MP button and if there is someone willing online - he joins instead of AI. It was a lot of fun. PhoenixLP44 Zuikaku Darth Khyron I just made a mod for myself and the game is just great. AI works great! I appreciate that Modders are creating mods that work just fine and I commend you for your hard work. But I think that is not the solution. When I signed up way back in the Beta phase, the premise was a single player game (Multi-Player was ruled out) that would be fun to play and that's what I bought. In the beginning, there were no torpedo fleets. Yes, the game was not as polished as it it now, but it was a game that placed the Dreadnought/Battleship at it's center. Also, how would you do a multiplayer in a campaign? Force the player to use the unbalanced torpedo ships the AI created? It would greatly help if the "Shared Designs" would be really implemented, regardless of researched technology and torpedo-preferrence, really forcing the AI to build a player-created battleship, regardless of cost and technology. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonPeretz Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 Darth Khyron When creating shared designs, do not use the most advanced technologies. The AI in the campaign simply does not yet have the technology you use and therefore does not use shared designs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Khyron Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 I do not use advanced technologies, I try to be as minimal as possible. Still, nothing. Maybe they build them but later decide to scrap them because there are not enough torpedoes on them, I do not know. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Urst Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 28 minutes ago, vonPeretz said: Darth Khyron When creating shared designs, do not use the most advanced technologies. The AI in the campaign simply does not yet have the technology you use and therefore does not use shared designs. He literally said he was using the lowest tech available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Khyron Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 I guess it is the gun tech level, because the Shipyard always uses the latest guns. So, even if you have a 1920 battleship with semi-oil, steam turbines and the like, but it will have the best guns, which may not have been researched. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzergraf Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 The AI will use Shared Designs at the start of a campaign, but it helps if you design them for a few years before the actual campaign starting date. You know when the campaign generates, it starts generating a few years in advance? So if you start a campaign in 1910, it the game will "simulate" 1906-1910 first, often taking quite a long time for 1906. That's when the AI's build their ships. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Khyron Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 Did that too, no avail. Perhaps I should create for EACH year, but only if the other grievances like enemies running away and ship balance are adressed. I thank you all for your help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justMike247 Posted August 25 Share Posted August 25 7 hours ago, Zuikaku said: So tower is the problem. I think you're almost, but not quite correct there Zuikaku... Yea, superstructures are insanely heavy, and the weight penalties when you add tech systems to them are just plain batchit loopy... But that's not where the problem is exclusively... Every vessel has a centre of balance... like the pivot point of a see-saw, yea? Adding your main tower has just put a bunch of mass forward of that balance point... Now... Experiment with adding other kit to the stern; key point here is you're adding stuff to the opposite end of that balance point. You'll see what I mean. During my last dozen builds, I had to double-take when I see weight added behind that balance point CONTRIBUTING to the fore-end weight imbalance. Moving mahoosive lumps of kit on the stern (turrets are a classic example) doesn't have a fraction of the effect it has when moving forward-mounted kit. I'm honestly not sure which is more unforgivable; the creation of the error, the roll-out of the error when that update clearly hadn't been tested, or that folk have been flagging the error for as long as we have, but nothing's been done about it. The effect is more profound on smaller hulls, DD's, CL's etc, but it's definitely present in every hull. I'm getting tired of being forced to design ships that look more like top-fuel dragsters than fighting ships. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Thomadis Posted August 26 Author Share Posted August 26 Hello everyone, We offer this patch which includes several improvements and fixes that were needed. Please read: v1.6.0.4 https://steamcommunity.com/games/1069660/announcements/detail/4250921873119313455 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zuikaku Posted August 26 Share Posted August 26 @Nick Thomadis any plans to correct tower impact on ship balance (bow heavy designs issue)? Are new hulls posponed? Thank you! 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xPorkulusx Posted August 26 Share Posted August 26 12 hours ago, Zuikaku said: @Nick Thomadis any plans to correct tower impact on ship balance (bow heavy designs issue)? Are new hulls posponed? Thank you! We know the new hulls were postponed back at the launch of 1.6. A better question to ask is if the new hulls will come in a small update (1.6.x) or in the next large update instead (1.7). I have a related question, which is if the new hulls include new towers/barbettes/funnels or if it's literally just hull forms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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