Hidden National characteristics

[boomboomf22]

After a recent battle i can't help but wonder if the game models things like the excellent German damage control as a behind the scenes trait.  Here is the result, and a bunch of German ships that survived.  BTW both Germany and I are on the same level of damage control


Here be the not sunk ships.  Some of them would have sunk, but i had to turn my entire line away after one of my own DDs lanched 6 torps at a already sinking BC Mackensen from the side opposite my line... sign I thought that couldn't happen but the targeting on torps has always mystified me.

[garrisonchisholm]

Those are certainly heavily damaged ships, however destroyed turrets aren't by themselves evidence of calamity averted I don't think. A "destroyed turret" could be anything from a penetration and fire in the handling room with the ship saved at the last instant to "everything took a good rattle and the fittings [aren't] tight anymore." The ship with seemingly 100% flotation damage must have been close to its port I'm thinking? Otherwise that would have foundered for sure.

[boomboomf22]

Nope the Freya wasn't. It was still at sea when the scenario ended. As for your point true, but I went thru the logs at the time, and the destroyed turrets were almost universally 16" penetrating hits to the TT at long range (battle was fought in good visibility at 15-20k yards)

[jwsmith26]

May 31, 2017 6:51:03 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

 The ship with seemingly 100% flotation damage must have been close to its port I'm thinking? Otherwise that would have foundered for sure.

I have successfully returned ships to port that have 100% superstructure damage, on one occasion dragging the ship from near the arctic all the way back to Germany.  They require a bit of babying to get them home - they always seem to want to speed up and race for home, which usually results in disaster.

100% flotation damage is another story, one that seldom ends well. I suspect that the actual flotation damage for the Freya was just under 100% and rounded up by the display.

[archelaos]

May 31, 2017 7:35:32 GMT -6 boomboomf22 said:

Nope the Freya wasn't. It was still at sea when the scenario ended. As for your point true, but I went thru the logs at the time, and the destroyed turrets were almost universally 16" penetrating hits to the TT at long range (battle was fought in good visibility at 15-20k yards)

I think it's only British who are handicapped with turret explosions. Other navies seem much safer, I've seen ships with all turrets KO'd still steaming happily. I think you assume KO turret to be full penetration, while
I remember reading (here, last year?) a statistic on turret hits at Jutland, and many German and UK ships lost turrets in a way that would be KO in game without resulting explosions. There were penetrating hits that disabled cradle, or killed/incapacitated the crews, or damaged gears, locking turret in place etc. Add to that those occasions were fire broke out, but magazines were flooded in time or other safeguards worked and damage was restricted to turret itself. Had British not broke their own rules on many ships to get awesome RoF, some of BCs could have been saved too.

Though I have to admit I hate when enemy survives at last 0,5% of flotation pts . Especially as my DDs often sink from lingering 1pt flooding after single hit, while AIs seem to survive much more. Maybe AI has some bonus to damage control?

[bcoopactual]

I'm not aware of the developers ever admitting to any hidden character traits.  Meaning ones not listed in the manual.  

One game while fighting the British at night in the English Channel, I had a (two actually) Baltimore-ish style, late game (around 1920-21) heavy cruiser with TPS Level II take two torpedoes and a couple of large caliber rounds from a British battlecruiser and survive with somewhere around 99% flotation damage.  The Second CA only took one torpedo but she suffered significant flooding and survived as well.  Part of that I attributed to the calmed waters of the Channel that night.  I think a large part of it is just the late game Damage Control tech level and how much more proficient it makes your crews.  That's just me, I don't have your perspective of course not being in your game so if you believe there is a difference in how well your ships perform damage control compared to the German AI, I'm not going to tell you you have to be wrong.

Another thing I might have looked at was crew quality but every ship picture you posted looks like the crew was level -1 or 0.  Not 100% sure what those translate to but it's reasonable to speculate that they aren't elite so unless I'm wrong and 0 means good or above then I would say crew quality wouldn't be the cause in your situation.  

Sorry I don't have anything more useful to add.

As a final note, I'm kind of a fan of that Freya.  Hopefully you can get their government to collapse and take her as a war prize.  

 

[boomboomf22]

Sadly I didn't get to take any ships. While the German gov did collapse it resulted in a compromise peace because the USA had entered to war. The Freya did prove itself against my BCs though and I might have taken it despite its somewhat thin armor. Incidentally my BCs are true BCs and are suffering from it, to see an example of what I have been building go to the best ship designs page and look at HMS Agincourt. I am currently refitting them and may post the refit tomorrow

[axe99]

Germany does get one of its research bonuses for subdivision and damage control, which probably won't hurt its efforts. I've seen the AI (German and other) manage to pull off some pretty impressive saves on occasion - ships that are still progressively flooding and not far off sinking just making it back by the skin of their teeth and all that).  Which I think is a good thing - I've pulled off a few close shaves m'self .