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Post by gornik on Jan 29, 2014 13:41:55 GMT -6
Player doesn't need them, of course, but Tsar and Admiralty do. I decided for myself, that these objectives are direct orders from Peterburg, where people think about politics more, than about war. They want you to show Russian flag to those cunning British in Wei-Hai-Wei, or to Germans in Tsingtao, sympathetic to Russia, or to do at least something to write in morning newspapers... You know bit more about situation, but can't do anything with their stupid annoying telegrams, and just hope to perform your best, save ships and stay alive. This feature makes game more interesting, at least for me - I never know what they will come up with next time . Maybe make penalty for ignoring such missions bit more? (at least optionally). I can't imagine that admiral remained his post after repeated ignoring direct Tsar and Government orders. I think same about this too. Starting just before nightfall is even easier as prevents negative events. Possible suggestions in my opinion may be: More events while starting operation (even in daylight): one ship spots mine or "submarine" near anchorage, another one can't raise steam in time, obsolete engines of third one break... all these events cause delays (or even damage), so your sortie can start in wrong time with weaker forces. Problem is that such decision may make battleship sorties too disadvantageous for Russian, so they'll stay in base for all game time, covered with rust. Though this may be interesting, as player wouldn't be such Lord of Time, as he is now. Ships may start on outer ancorage in lines, but need some time to raise steam, so they are prone to torpedo attacks (as they were historically) if starting in the evening. During night Japanese DD's and CL's patrol independently more locations on Russian possible routes, trying to torpedo them and check their course. BB's try to intercept Russian fleet in morning outside Bay of Korea, in Yellow Sea, if suspect they go there. Here problem is that Russian fleet may slay Japanese ships one by one from short distance and change course to another direction, when spotted. All Russian BB's, especially old Sevastopol's may have their endurance reduced due to low coal quality and any damage or refit overdue should reduce it more. That may make for player nearly impossible to survive ALL battleships in Vladivostok and encourage him to offensive actions in Yellow Sea, though this decision would be frustrating for most players (including myself). More untrained ships may lost their places in battle order in night, even in single division, so if you start sortie with 0 or -1 crews in the evening, in the morning you may find yourself commanding only your flagship and pair of DD's, should waste lot of time trying to find the rest, and enemy may find them first... But this may be annoying and frustrating for players too. Also: not used now ASW requirement may be changed for MS one. Before mission you should assign specified DD's to it, and they are prone to mine hits. But this should reduce risk of mine hit event for others and increase chance to find Japanese minefields.
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Post by fredsanford on Jan 30, 2014 12:34:17 GMT -6
Some things I'd like to see in an improved SAI-campaign, with an eye toward the mega campaign style game: Fleshed out commanders- ability to assign commanders, keep stats for promotion, etc. Ability to freely edit command structure- including AI commands. Include more VP 'deals' to increase variety- perhaps bulk OP infusions in lieu ship reinforcements. Consider a campaign game editor that allows the community to create campaigns, while NWS concentrates on engine improvements/expanded eras. Make doctrine-related AI behaviors (e.g. DD ASW screens) that are hard coded in particular campaigns researched, developed, and created by players and as improved technology warrants. Flesh out repair facilities-docks, cranes, workshops, labor. At the campaign level, maybe have ability to trade OPs/VPs for repair points to represent stockpiling of repair materials and labor. At the mega-campaign level, provide the ability to invest in repair facilities (and other facilities really).
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Post by phoenix on Jan 30, 2014 14:29:55 GMT -6
Another reason I'd like life size ship icons is to avoid the overlapping ships effect. I see this very often at the start of a scenario, but also elsewhere - as in the pic, where the fleet has got into line ahead and there is an overlap. It often means you have to zoom right in to give orders, especially in Captain's Mode. In the pic the mouseover shows the ship we are looking at, but the black writing shows the ship that is 'beneath' it (you can also see the flags for each ship, near the prow);
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Post by alex on Jan 31, 2014 3:08:26 GMT -6
What do you think about common ships survivability or shells power? In my opinion in SIA_RJW shells cause too heavy damage. For battleship's sinking sometimes needs about 10 heavy hits and you need only one 3inch hit to sink DD. Its too low value. At the same time in SAI_WW1 game the shells power looks normal.
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Post by gornik on Jan 31, 2014 13:02:24 GMT -6
What do you think about common ships survivability or shells power? In my opinion in SIA_RJW shells cause too heavy damage. For battleship's sinking sometimes needs about 10 heavy hits and you need only one 3inch hit to sink DD. Its too low value. At the same time in SAI_WW1 game the shells power looks normal. In my opinion, 10 heavy hits (with equal amount of medium) may sink battleship of RJW-time, but with some fortune. Orel, the most damaged ship of Tsushima battle stayed afloat, got 7-10 heavy hits, more than 40 medium and was crippled. However, in Yellow Sea most damaged Russian battleships got 11-13 12-inch hits each (but small amount of 6-inch) and recieved "medium damage" in game terms. I experimented with Yellow sea scenario and campaign save several times, and the problem is that I nearly never saw such amount of hits. Usually ships received 5-8 heavy and 10-20 medium shells, lost some artillery, speed, but stay afloat, if there are not heavy fires or unstoppable flooding, so I think this part of game is reasonable now. The only surprise for me was that Japanese fleet incredibly stronger at point blanc distances-in night or low visibility they may sink any Russian battleship with 3-4 full broadsides nearly without return, but this may depend from big difference in crew training value. As for DD's, I support your point of view, for them there are no much difference between light and heavy hits. Even if shell doesn't sink destroyer immediately, it destroys all her superstructures. Curiously, guns, torpedo mounts and rudder-post often stay untouched even after heavy hit 2-inch shells in your mod, however, work good - destroyers manage to fight even after several hits, as were IRL after 3-inch. Strangely, these hits don't include in statistic. Some improvement, in my opinion, firefight may need - in battles with 1.61 patch ship often got heavy fires after 2-3 hits (Peresvet - 6-7 level half an hour after single 6-inch, maybe her decks were cleaned with oil or vodka , fought bravely with 7-8 level of fire, and then suddenly became abandoned several hours later, after battle ended (can't remember any ship with such end in this period). Now it seems reduced a bit (don't see this after 1.62), but fire on board is still abstract - all guns, machinery, fire control and steering work fine while everything else is on fire. I think some inside damage should be added instead of immediate abandonment - machine damage (no ventilation), guns lost, connection with rudder-post and fire control burn, sometimes flooding of main and secondary calibre magazines to survive ship or their blow up. Without new hits fire should generally tend to extinguish due to crew work and burning out everything that could burn.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 2, 2014 16:30:46 GMT -6
Although I am not as experienced in this particular game as most everyone, I do have a question and a possible request depending on the answer. I prefer as Admiral Togo or the Russian Admiral, to decide and conduct my own combat operations. In other words, I would like a laundry list of available combat operations and I would like to choose the order to pursue them in. I know there are the following: Bombardment; Block ships deployment, movement of two ships to a particular location and mining operations. That is just a few and there are or should be more. I would like a seek and destroy mission to ambush Russian or Japanese ships at sea. My orders should be to ensure the safe arrival of the army and maintenance of the supply lines. My ancillary objectives are to reduce, blockade or destroy the Russian 1st Pacific Squadron.
Can I do this and if not, could this be added as a possibility? If it can be done, just explain it. If not, please consider it. If you have guessed, I am playing this and other games to test ideas and concepts as alternatives to what actually happened. I guess we could call it counterfactual testing of different nodes and possibilities.
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Post by randomizer on Feb 3, 2014 11:43:55 GMT -6
One of the central design paradigms of the SAI series is that the Fleet Commander Player is actually subordinate to a higher authority in some respects. This is represented by the Operations Points (which abstract any number of C3 factors), ship withdrawals and mandatory objectives yielding Victory Points (VP), some in quantity while others not so much. No fleet commander has ever had total freedom of operational control and part of the aim is to place your naval war in the context of the greater strategic goals that are way beyond your (as the Player's) pay grade.
Consider that other objectives on offer may be recommendations, requests or analysis by your invisible staff of possible targets of opportunities or suitable operations to conduct at that particular point in time. There may be occasions where a naval demonstration may be counter-productive in the overall scheme of things. In the RJW, the routine supply of the armies in Korea and Manchuria lay largely outside of the responsibilities of the Combined Fleet command as represented by the Player. However the invasions were set by the Army and these call for closely escorted convoys (mandatory Reach objectives for transports); the timings were governed by military rather than naval considerations and ordered to Combined Fleet command by the Navy Ministry.
Those turns where there are no objectives you are free to develop your own and of course have a wide latitude in mining operations (one per turn) at any time.
The parameters for all this in SAI and SAI-RJW are pretty straightforward, randomized and variable so please consider it a representative rather than absolutely accurate naval command model.
Thanks.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 3, 2014 14:09:37 GMT -6
One of the central design paradigms of the SAI series is that the Fleet Commander Player is actually subordinate to a higher authority in some respects. This is represented by the Operations Points (which abstract any number of C3 factors), ship withdrawals and mandatory objectives yielding Victory Points (VP), some in quantity while others not so much. No fleet commander has ever had total freedom of operational control and part of the aim is to place your naval war in the context of the greater strategic goals that are way beyond your (as the Player's) pay grade. Consider that other objectives on offer may be recommendations, requests or analysis by your invisible staff of possible targets of opportunities or suitable operations to conduct at that particular point in time. There may be occasions where a naval demonstration may be counter-productive in the overall scheme of things. In the RJW, the routine supply of the armies in Korea and Manchuria lay largely outside of the responsibilities of the Combined Fleet command as represented by the Player. However the invasions were set by the Army and these call for closely escorted convoys (mandatory Reach objectives for transports); the timings were governed by military rather than naval considerations and ordered to Combined Fleet command by the Navy Ministry. Those turns where there are no objectives you are free to develop your own and of course have a wide latitude in mining operations (one per turn) at any time. The parameters for all this in SAI and SAI-RJW are pretty straightforward, randomized and variable so please consider it a representative rather than absolutely accurate naval command model. Thanks. My comments are that I am not certain that we can make a generalized statement that the fleet commander was "subordinate to a higher authority, in some respects." The Combined Fleet was subordinate to the Imperial Naval General Staff and the Naval ministry. However, combat operations were the choice of Admiral Togo and were not interfered with, as long as the strategic objectives of A. Ensuring the Army arrived with reinforcements in Korea B. Maintaining supply lines for support. The objectives provided to a player, representing Togo, are operational objectives and they would be his choice. We are getting into historical aspects and so I will research further and provide my observations of this situation on the appropriate forum. As to the game, my question has apparently been answered, and for that, I am very appreciative.
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Post by alex on Feb 4, 2014 7:01:26 GMT -6
New suggestions for all SAI games. It will be nice if player have ability to change crew quality for each side in Battle Generator menu
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Post by fredsanford on Feb 8, 2014 13:19:17 GMT -6
How about an interface revision? Personally, I'd like to get all the button controls that are on the top ribbon, the bottom left, AND all the Force-level and Division-level controls on other screens all consolidated to the lower left. And space bar pauses/unpauses. And a "form line ahead" Force-level command that is active only when near the enemy (similar to Flotilla attack).
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Post by alex on Feb 10, 2014 5:52:25 GMT -6
In both SAI games turrets which located in wings does not fire at forward and aft. They fire only at port or starboard directions. So the turrets in ships like Invincible not working properly: Attachment DeletedI suggest to increase the firing arcs for wings turrets in battleships and battlecruisers: Attachment Deleted
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Post by randomizer on Feb 10, 2014 9:57:51 GMT -6
In both SAI games turrets which located in wings does not fire at forward and aft. They fire only at port or starboard directions. So the turrets in ships like Invincible not working properly: I suggest to increase the firing arcs for wings turrets in battleships and battlecruisers: Actually the arcs are fine from a historical standpoint and working as designed. The P and Q turret arrangement on the Invincible's was quite unsatisfactory and never repeated. Although there was theoretical cross-deck firing capabilities, in practice the arcs were so narrow as to be useless and the SAI design reflects this. In practice, damage to ship equipment from muzzle blast became severe as the arcs of fire moved forward and aft and the practical arcs for the midships turrets was just 60 degrees each side of the perpendicular for a usable range of just 120 degrees. Self-inflicted blast damage was a very real problem with big guns and much ancillary and yet important equipment could be affected even disregarding the physiological effects on personnel. Hatches, ventilators (vital to the health of the engine room crews), ships-boats, davits and hoists, secondary armament and others were vulnerable and their loss could also directly affect the efficiency of the ship in or out of combat. So the arrangement and arcs of midship-mounted wing turrets in SAI is intentional and reflects, in a general way the real restrictions on some of the exotic main battery arrangements of the dreadnought era. There is a very good reason why the centre-line, super-firing turret layput introduced by American naval architects became industry standard. Of course SAI Players may edit the designs to perform as they like but the stock arrangement recreates the real issues with the Invincible's. Thanks
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Post by alex on Feb 16, 2014 9:35:41 GMT -6
Too heavy structural damage from hits. In the picture you can find that two medium hits damage battleship structure at 40%. After 5 medium hits damage close to 100%.
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Post by randomizer on Feb 16, 2014 11:23:16 GMT -6
Too heavy structural damage from hits. In the picture you can find that two medium hits damage battleship structure at 40%. After 5 medium hits damage close to 100%. Perhaps it seems so on this particular occasion. But... FW built a very handy proprietary development tool that allows one to sink a ship literally thousand times in a few minutes and then offers up the hit-data for analysis. So I ran the class through two tests series and averaged the results. On average at 10000 yds and with 2000 examples, it took an average of 41.41 hits by 9" AP to sink a Torgut Ries class with the statistical mean being ~33 hits (50% sunk with between 10 and 33-hits and 50% sunk with =>34-hits). Low was 10-hits and the high a rather remarkable 76-hits but as can be seen from the mean value that number is very unusual. Fully 50% (50.05%) of hits resulted in structure damage. The screenshot does not indicate the type of projectile hits but the HE values would be different and tend to do greater structural damage and cause more fires, which further increases structural damage. So what you are seeing in your example appears to be inside of the probability curve of possible outcomes. Thanks.
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Post by alex on Feb 18, 2014 9:55:38 GMT -6
Another example of too large structural damage. Three 5-inches hits and 45% damage in protected cruiser. Its fully unrealistic result. Attachment Deleted
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