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Post by desdinova on Feb 9, 2019 17:40:23 GMT -6
Having the ability to set division organization would be an outstanding quality of life improvement. It would also allow scout cruisers, a historical ship type, to be useful: lightly armed and armoured but fast protected cruisers used solely as fleet scouts and screens before WWI, then usually reclassified as destroyers/destroyer leaders. You can build them in RTW1, but due to their speed they get picked preferentially by the battle algorithm for raider interceptions and cruiser clashes and a ship of this type has no business operating independently, making them completely pointless.
Also, destroyer minelayers. Right now it's unclear how to utilize minesweeping ships: ships set to "trade protection" seem to focus on ASW, and if you have both minesweeping equipment and ASW equipment the effectiveness of both is diminished. A division system would let you convert obsolete destroyers to minesweeping duty (as was done in real life), without them being drawn into fleet engagements.
As for the question of "why not just make oversize squadrons?" The way I see it possibly working is: you divide your forces into task forces, subdivided into one or more task groups/squadrons. Battles might take place at the task force, task group, or squadron level. Some ships may be unavailable for various reasons, and sometimes ships outside the hierarchy are brought in to cover absent ships. As it stands in RTW1, if you have clear numerical superiority the enemy will already almost always refuse battle unless it happens unexpectedly. So you might split your large task forces into multiple operational task groups to increase the chances of an actual confrontation taking place.
Another quality of life improvement I'd like to suggest is an option in the right-click dropdown menu to cycle back ships that have a '*' in their status back to home areas for maintenance. This is kind of obscure in RTW - I've played the game forever and didn't realize what it meant until recently. This one of the few things in the game that needs actual micromanagement, it'd be nice if it could be handled automatically.
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Feb 11, 2019 8:01:37 GMT -6
I was going to create a new thread for this until I saw this one already here. I think it would be great if we could create task-able divisions and fleets at the strategic level.
The way I imagine it working is that you would first have to create divisions by adding ships (of the same type) to a division container with 4 or maybe 5 slots. I like the idea of the "overstrength" division providing redundancy in case a ship is unavailable, but I see it as costing the 5th ship - i.e. a very low order possibility of getting all 5 ships at sea.
Once you have created your divisions you can then create a fleet. When you add the first division to the fleet it opens up additional slots to assign supporting divisions (Support, Screen, Scout etc) associated with that first division, or you can add another top level division. When you add a subsequent top level division you can choose if it is core to the first or independent. Once the technology is researched you can assign top level divisions to the Main or Scout forces in the Fleet. This would allow you to add each Battle divisions with their supporting divisions and also add some independent divisions that could be assigned separately.
So to give an example I create my notional 3rd Fleet with 2 BB divisions and 2 BC divisions along with assigned support, screen and scout divisions and an additional independent CA division with Screen and Scouts. I deploy 3rd Fleet to Southeast Asia by assigning the Fleet to the station, but once it gets there i realise i need to send something to Northeast Asia. I select the independent CA division and assign that to NEA and the CA's plus their assigned supports move to NEA. when the war is over and I want to bring 3rd Fleet home I give the Fleet the movement order and the units in both SEA and NEA set sail for home.
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Post by dorn on Feb 11, 2019 9:58:19 GMT -6
Having possibility to create divisions could be very nice however it needs very good AI not to get players huge advantage.
Still I would prefer overall improvements in general AI than this feature which would be time demanding to create with good result.
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Post by archelaos on Feb 11, 2019 13:21:15 GMT -6
While I like randomness in battle creation as it feels more realistic than perfectly setup squadrons every time, I'd love to be able to rearrange the spawned forces into division setup I want before the battle starts, so I fully support OPs idea.
One additional thing - in RTW1 in night engagements squadrons sometimes spawn not only close but in fact on top of each other. It would be nice if this was corrected.
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Post by noshurviverse on Feb 11, 2019 19:36:10 GMT -6
One thing I've considered is the possibility of being able to assign ships in a "Master/Slave" relationship (before anyone takes it that way, I'm drawing this from computer programming). A "Master" ship would be eligible to show up in combat regularly, while a "Slave" ship would not show up in forces unless with it's "Master". You could also set the relationship to be "essential", in which case the "Master" ship would not participate in actions without it's "Slave".
So, to give an example, let's say you have an end-game BB, a large-capacity CV and a dedicated anti-air CL. •BB and CL are paired: BB-Master, CL-Slave. •CV and CL are paired with an essential modifier: CV-Master, CL-Slave In this scenario, the BB would be able to appear in actions unescorted, while the CV would not participate in any action (outside of surprises) without it's slaved CL. The CL would not participate in actions unless either the BB or CV was present. This relationship could be applied to classes as well as individual ships, such as [CV-Master, (example name)-class CL-Slave].
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Post by rimbecano on Feb 11, 2019 23:34:25 GMT -6
One additional thing - in RTW1 in night engagements squadrons sometimes spawn not only close but in fact on top of each other. It would be nice if this was corrected. I'm not sure this is unrealistic. HMS Black Prince is believed to have been lost in the night action at Jutland when she mistook the German line for the British and attempted to form up on it (although exactly what she was doing is unclear, as she was lost with all hands). At First Guadalcanal, while the two forces were aware of each other and did at least some maneuvering for advantage before they met, both commanders hesitated until their formations interpenetrated (as an aside, Callaghan was so incompetent that he effectively let a force that he took by surprise get the drop on him), so I think that at least for low crew quality, it should be a possibility for a battle to begin with the forces intermingled.
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Post by archelaos on Feb 12, 2019 0:59:19 GMT -6
One additional thing - in RTW1 in night engagements squadrons sometimes spawn not only close but in fact on top of each other. It would be nice if this was corrected. I'm not sure this is unrealistic. HMS Black Prince is believed to have been lost in the night action at Jutland when she mistook the German line for the British and attempted to form up on it (although exactly what she was doing is unclear, as she was lost with all hands). At First Guadalcanal, while the two forces were aware of each other and did at least some maneuvering for advantage before they met, both commanders hesitated until their formations interpenetrated (as an aside, Callaghan was so incompetent that he effectively let a force that he took by surprise get the drop on him), so I think that at least for low crew quality, it should be a possibility for a battle to begin with the forces intermingled. The problem is that it often results in ramming in the first five turns as the ships literally spawn on top of each other. If the ships spawned just in visibility range it would be ok.
Formations are spawned on a single point, so the bigger group of ships the bigger problem. In cruiser battle it mostly works as intended, but in fleet battles formations are so large that even if centre is reasonably away, leading element may overlap with enemy formation.
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Feb 12, 2019 3:04:05 GMT -6
One thing I've considered is the possibility of being able to assign ships in a "Master/Slave" relationship (before anyone takes it that way, I'm drawing this from computer programming). A "Master" ship would be eligible to show up in combat regularly, while a "Slave" ship would not show up in forces unless with it's "Master". You could also set the relationship to be "essential", in which case the "Master" ship would not participate in actions without it's "Slave".
So, to give an example, let's say you have an end-game BB, a large-capacity CV and a dedicated anti-air CL. •BB and CL are paired: BB-Master, CL-Slave. •CV and CL are paired with an essential modifier: CV-Master, CL-Slave In this scenario, the BB would be able to appear in actions unescorted, while the CV would not participate in any action (outside of surprises) without it's slaved CL. The CL would not participate in actions unless either the BB or CV was present. This relationship could be applied to classes as well as individual ships, such as [CV-Master, (example name)-class CL-Slave].
I am not sure it is a good idea to allow the "essential" modifier you proposed. This would allow players to guarantee that support ships turned up, and does not allow for the case where a ship is available when an operation is launched but develops mechanical problems and has to return to port. I believe this kind of thing happened quite often in the real world, and an operation wouldn't be cancelled for the loss of a supporting ship. Better I think to allow the "over-strength" divisions discussed earlier to allow the player to generate a higher chance of a critical ship being available, at the cost of having to maintain more of those ships. Otherwise I like the idea that supporting divisions are linked to capital divisions and if the capital division is present then all of the supporting divisions will be present as well (allowing for the AI's determination of how many ships are in service at the time). I don't think we can prevent the supporting divisions from turning up if the capital division is excluded because that would prevent the Fleet from scaling down to small cruiser and destroyer scenarios unless you had separate independent divisions of cruisers and destroyers attached for that purpose, which would be somewhat inelegant. It would be annoying to have a large fleet in the battle zone and have the game spawn a small cruiser battle and then tell you that you have insufficient ships available due to the way your divisions are linked!
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Feb 12, 2019 3:09:16 GMT -6
I'm not sure this is unrealistic. HMS Black Prince is believed to have been lost in the night action at Jutland when she mistook the German line for the British and attempted to form up on it (although exactly what she was doing is unclear, as she was lost with all hands). At First Guadalcanal, while the two forces were aware of each other and did at least some maneuvering for advantage before they met, both commanders hesitated until their formations interpenetrated (as an aside, Callaghan was so incompetent that he effectively let a force that he took by surprise get the drop on him), so I think that at least for low crew quality, it should be a possibility for a battle to begin with the forces intermingled. The problem is that it often results in ramming in the first five turns as the ships literally spawn on top of each other. If the ships spawned just in visibility range it would be ok.
Formations are spawned on a single point, so the bigger group of ships the bigger problem. In cruiser battle it mostly works as intended, but in fleet battles formations are so large that even if centre is reasonably away, leading element may overlap with enemy formation.
Hopefully, with the introduction of technologies like radar night spotting distances will be much longer so ships shouldn't spawn so close together in night scenarios. Fingers crossed.
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Post by rimbecano on Feb 12, 2019 6:10:05 GMT -6
The problem is that it often results in ramming in the first five turns as the ships literally spawn on top of each other. But once again, I'm not sure that this is entirely unrealistic. I'm not sure it ever happened, but I can certainly imagine it happening: sleepy lookouts, a moonless, stormy night and the first report you get of contact with the enemy is a report of *contact* with the enemy. There have certainly been enough cases of such events occurring on the high seas between civilian vessels in peacetime, or between friendly military vessels in wartime.
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