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Post by jwsmith26 on May 10, 2017 11:08:16 GMT -6
I have a question for the forum. How do you guys deal with damaged ships in the middle of a big battle?
Here's what I do, but I'm not sure if it's actually helping the situation or just making my ships better targets - I slow down.
There are many different types of damage that can be sustained by a ship
- Superstructure hits (that can eventually sink the ship if enough hits accumulate)
- Hits that cause degradation of fighting effectiveness, such hits to the CT or fire control
- Hits that permanently or temporarily take out weaponry
- Hits that take out the electrical system
- Penetrating hits (including torpedoes) that affect flotation and cause ongoing flooding
- Hits that affect steering or engines
- Hits that cause fires
In the above list, I don't believe there's much you can do to ameliorate the effects of the first four types of hits (other than beefing up armor when designing the ship). But for the last three types of damage, the action you take after sustaining life threatening hits can save or doom your ship.
In my experience, penetrating hits that cause ongoing flooding are best dealt with by lowering your speed to at least 10 kt. If you ship is moving faster than this it can incur increased flooding due to high speed and can even suffer a failed bulkhead that seriously increases flooding. I tend to drop my damaged ship's speed to below 5 kt and if the situation warrants it I'll bring the ship to a complete stop, even though this makes it much more vulnerable to both torpedoes and gunfire. (I seldom suffer many hits as a result because the battle typically moves on, leaving my damaged ship behind.)
However, I'm not sure this practice actually provides the benefits I am hoping it does. I'm pretty sure about the benefits of reducing speed to 10 kt but I'm not sure if it helps to go below that speed or come to a stop. Does anyone have an opinion about this?
I tend to do the same thing when my ships sustain hits to steering and when the ship is on fire. I bring the ship down to a speed below 10 kt and where possible I bring it to a halt. I do this because it "feels" like the right thing to do in these circumstances, but despite playing the game for over a year I still am not sure if speed has any impact on this type of damage. Can anyone shed light on this?
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Post by konstantinua00 on May 10, 2017 11:45:25 GMT -6
I *think* that disabling fire on ship/squadron should move some people to damage control, making repairs faster
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Post by JagdFlanker on May 10, 2017 12:27:32 GMT -6
i just try to slow down to 4-8kts until flooding hits 0, then i increase speed
if you're in the middle of a big battle melee it might be a good idea to keep at 10-14kts until you get some distance from the enemy. also, even though i almost always forget to do it, it also might be a good idea to assign a DD screen to the damaged ship as they'l at least try to herd the enemy away
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Post by cv10 on May 10, 2017 12:49:06 GMT -6
Slowing down is the biggest thing that I normally do. Another big one is to try and disengage the ship in question (depends on what mode you are playing on). If the ship is not in battle, there's more of a chance that the crew can put out fires and fix damaged rudders as they're not busy fighting the ship (plus it's a bit hard to go out on deck when said deck is being hammered away at). It also depends a bit on what technology you have in Subdivision and damage control.
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Post by boomboomf22 on May 10, 2017 12:51:58 GMT -6
- Penetrating hits (including torpedoes) that affect flotation and cause ongoing flooding
For this one it depends on circumstances for me. In the middle of a melee I may keep on, risking it, especially with late game damage control. However if it is really bad flooding, or a torp hit I will detach the ship and send it home. As I usually play on captains mode I manually control it and lower speed to 10-14kts to avoid bursting bulkheads
- Hits that take out the electrical system
This one the ship usually auto detaches, and I will try to shield it from the enemy with my other ships so as to allow it time to regain electrical power.
- Hits that cause fires
The best way I have found to deal with fires is to order the ship to hold fire as mentioned above I have found it to have a salutatory effect on damage control, probobly cause gun crews and such are freed up to assist damage control parties and ares normally inaccessible due to gunfire and such become available. IE normally you could not be near say the 14" guns on a BB when it fire cause at best it would blow you overboard, at worst the shock-wave would kill you. If they aren't firing then you can work near them.
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Post by director on May 10, 2017 13:21:59 GMT -6
For torpedo or hits that cause flooding (other than minor) I usually detach it and put it on manual, turn it away from the enemy, drop its speed to 3-6 knots and then when the flooding is under control I detach it again. That puts it on auto and assigns a DD for escort.
For electrical system hits, all you can do is try to shield it and draw fire away until it recovers.
I haven't found anything that helps with fires except time. Slowing down, steaming downwind, nothing seems to help except waiting it out. The tip about ceasing gunfire sounds reasonable and I intend to try that next time.
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Post by jwsmith26 on May 10, 2017 13:50:37 GMT -6
For torpedo or hits that cause flooding (other than minor) I usually detach it and put it on manual, turn it away from the enemy, drop its speed to 3-6 knots and then when the flooding is under control I detach it again. That puts it on auto and assigns a DD for escort. For electrical system hits, all you can do is try to shield it and draw fire away until it recovers. I haven't found anything that helps with fires except time. Slowing down, steaming downwind, nothing seems to help except waiting it out. The tip about ceasing gunfire sounds reasonable and I intend to try that next time. The ability to cease gunfire is only available if you are playing in Captain's mode, so while that is probably a useful tip, it doesn't really apply for those of us that play in Rear Admiral or Admirals mode. Regarding fire, I believe I've seen that if you are steaming at high speed there is an increased likelihood of making the fire worse, at least that's been my experience, but truthfully it is pretty hard to tell if your actions are actually affecting the fire's intensity since the fire seems to grow or shrink pretty randomly. |
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Post by axe99 on May 10, 2017 16:14:30 GMT -6
I play on Admirals mode, so there's only so much I can do - but given the AI's tendency to stay at full speed initially after detaching, if I've got a big ship I really don't want to lose that's copped some flooding damaged (and hasn't already detached), I have slowed the whole battle line down to give it a chance to recover. Sadly, if it auto-detaches because of flooding and I slow down, it keeps steaming away at whatever speed it can manage, increasing flooding all the while!
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Post by babylon218 on May 10, 2017 16:55:14 GMT -6
If the damage is beyond minor, and it's one of my Battleships/Battlecruisers, I slow the whole formation and turn away. If it's a cruiser or destroyer, I detach - and if the AI decides to detach at full speed, I take control and manually lower the speed until the ship loses sight of the flag.
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Post by davedave on May 10, 2017 16:58:00 GMT -6
For torpedo or hits that cause flooding (other than minor) I usually detach it and put it on manual, turn it away from the enemy, drop its speed to 3-6 knots and then when the flooding is under control I detach it again. That puts it on auto and assigns a DD for escort. For electrical system hits, all you can do is try to shield it and draw fire away until it recovers. I haven't found anything that helps with fires except time. Slowing down, steaming downwind, nothing seems to help except waiting it out. The tip about ceasing gunfire sounds reasonable and I intend to try that next time. The ability to cease gunfire is only available if you are playing in Captain's mode, so while that is probably a useful tip, it doesn't really apply for those of us that play in Rear Admiral or Admirals mode. I play rear-admiral's mode exclusively, & IIRC hold fire works for me... I also get the impression it helps with damage control (esp. fires). |
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Post by director on May 10, 2017 23:36:56 GMT -6
Just tried it in a cruiser engagement - Byzantine versus Spanish CAs, for the record. My flagship caught fire so I used the 'Hold Fire' button, made a loop (the remaining Spaniard was slowed and burning pretty briskly) and, with the fire out, opened up again.
No way to know if ceasing gunnery was the cause or if it would have gone out anyway, but I'll definitely keep it in my bag of tricks.
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Post by bcoopactual on May 11, 2017 6:54:02 GMT -6
I wonder why that would help. Other than freeing up personnel to assist the damage control parties. That would be significant but I don't know that I'd want to lose my trained gun crews in the middle of a fight with no guarantee that they would be unharmed and able to return to their guns.
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Post by Enderminion on May 11, 2017 7:35:02 GMT -6
I wonder why that would help. Other than freeing up personnel to assist the damage control parties. That would be significant but I don't know that I'd want to lose my trained gun crews in the middle of a fight with no guarantee that they would be unharmed and able to return to their guns. being able to work near cannons, without overpressure killing you |
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Post by boomboomf22 on May 11, 2017 8:58:16 GMT -6
I wonder why that would help. Other than freeing up personnel to assist the damage control parties. That would be significant but I don't know that I'd want to lose my trained gun crews in the middle of a fight with no guarantee that they would be unharmed and able to return to their guns. being able to work near cannons, without overpressure killing you As I mentioned 😝 |
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Post by jwsmith26 on May 11, 2017 11:07:27 GMT -6
The ability to cease gunfire is only available if you are playing in Captain's mode, so while that is probably a useful tip, it doesn't really apply for those of us that play in Rear Admiral or Admirals mode. I play rear-admiral's mode exclusively, & IIRC hold fire works for me... I also get the impression it helps with damage control (esp. fires). I've fought hundreds of battles in Rear Admiral's mode and never noticed I could hold fire. What a dope. Now I wonder what else I haven't noticed about the interface. |
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