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Post by tortugapower on Mar 19, 2019 17:58:31 GMT -6
...ships in RTW take part in many different operations than those that become manually played battles. They train, escort convoys, scout, lay mines and bombard land targets. They hunt for raiders, protect blockade runners, perform minor refits, take shore leave or wait for fuel/ammo delivery and many other.
Manually played battle is an opportunity when both navies have ships in same area so engagement is possible. Those ships may be there for many different reasons, and only minor proportion of them plan to find and destroy enemy main force. Very often they will just run into each other while doing other tasks. <snip> This is a good point, one that I need to consider more in my evaluation of an OOB system. I think it can still play nicely with the ability to choose fleets to a degree. Mind you, I do not want to choose exactly the ships that come to a combat, and I would disagree with a suggestion that do. My desire is *some* player agency. My current suggestions for that are one of the following: - Choose companion ship classes (such that if the larger class appears, it is more likely to be paired with the smaller class in battle -- e.g. I assign my CLAA to be a companion of my CV).
- Create task forces manually, and other non-TF ships find combat in the usual way.
A limit on # of ships in a TF can be imposed by the game, similar to the ASW requirements but as an upper limit (instead of lower). - Enumerate any/all possible ship roles in a box, and allow ships to check appropriate ones. (Possibly demanding from a design standpoint.)
D. Adseria : proposed here creating divisions and assigning them roles from a list (similar to my #C) E. akosjaccik : proposed here an in-combat, turn zero OOB editor, or alternatively task forces (similar to my #B) dorn suggested check boxes for roles as well, so long as they are not too limiting (similar to my #C) As for moving this thread forward in a positive way, I suggest that we ask two things: - Should the player have any influence on ship composition for combat (more than none, what we currently have)?
- If so, what are reasonable suggestions to consider, or which do you think is most promising of the already-proposed list?
I think most of us agree that some change to the combat fleet selection would be good (i.e. answer to #1 is yes). Let's fine-tune the suggestions and keep this a discussion, not a debate.
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Post by cwemyss on Mar 19, 2019 17:59:55 GMT -6
Cool. Another shouting thread. I was concerned we'd run out of those. Which is a shame, because on one hand I feel that the "shouting" is largely based rather on the misunderstanding of standpoints than strong disagreement; and on the other hand the topic brings up an important issue with some good insight and it would be a shame for it to esentially self-destruct. I broadly agree, and I'd add that it's not helped by thin skin, an unwillingness to actually listen to other people, and an overwhelming desire to essentially say "look how much I know".
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Post by williammiller on Mar 19, 2019 18:09:22 GMT -6
Cool. Another shouting thread. I was concerned we'd run out of those. Which is a shame, because on one hand I feel that the "shouting" is largely based rather on the misunderstanding of standpoints than strong disagreement; and on the other hand the topic brings up an important issue with some good insight and it would be a shame for it to esentially self-destruct. I can agree with the above point.
This is a public service announcement from your local PBS station: Play nice. Be polite. Stay on subject.
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Post by charliezulu on Mar 19, 2019 20:33:40 GMT -6
C. Create task forces manually, and other non-TF ships find combat in the usual way. A limit on # of ships in a TF can be imposed by the game, similar to the ASW requirements but as an upper limit (instead of lower). To get it out of the way, this is what I'd support. However, I'm against a hard cap on task force/division/whatever you want to call it size. There's already an in-game mechanic against only building a few ridiculously large ships, and that's "not enough friendly units available" and no raider intercepts. Make a giant doomstack? Suddenly you're never meeting the enemy fleet since they can't be everywhere, enemy raiders run rampant, etc. Since the AI wouldn't necessarily need to make groups like this, the AI for them doesn't specifically need to change. It's also inherently balanced because players can revert to AI-like behaviour at any time, and there's only a slight upside in that you can specialize for various support roles (which, IMO, isn't a bad thing; doing better than the AI because you're following a good doctrine is, by extension, good gameplay). As for moving this thread forward in a positive way, I suggest that we ask two things: - Should the player have any influence on ship composition for combat (more than none, what we currently have)?
- If so, what are reasonable suggestions to consider, or which do you think is most promising of the already-proposed list?
I think most of us agree that some change to the combat fleet selection would be good (i.e. answer to #1 is yes). Let's fine-tune the suggestions and keep this a discussion, not a debate. I think there's actually 3 questions, and that's part of why so many people are getting their wires crossed. I'd split it into: * Should the player have agency over which ships take part in combat together? * Should the player have direct agency over which specific units (either ships, groups of ships, or whatever) take part in a specific combat encounter? * What possible approaches are there to this? Obviously "let players pick from a full list before every encounter" is an answer to both, but your task force proposal would only address the first, and not necessarily the second (although it would indirectly change which ships show up, by removing some from the pool and dragging others in).
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Post by tortugapower on Mar 20, 2019 1:07:07 GMT -6
C. Create task forces manually, and other non-TF ships find combat in the usual way. A limit on # of ships in a TF can be imposed by the game, similar to the ASW requirements but as an upper limit (instead of lower). However, I'm against a hard cap on task force/division/whatever you want to call it size. <snip>
I admit, I wrote that a bit funny. It shouldn't read "limit on # of ships in a [single] TF". I meant that there should be a limit on the total percentage or total number of ships which can be assigned over all of your TFs.
This would force you to have some ships not in big task force fleets, thus providing the game ships for normal encounters (although, as I envision it, TF ships can also get pulled into normal encounters -- the "life got in the way" CLAA in a cruiser brawl situation -- but at a lower chance).
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Post by Adseria on Mar 20, 2019 1:28:31 GMT -6
Ok, so, how about this; there is some sort of "manual selection" system, like my earlier suggestion, but, at the start of a game, you can choose whether you want to use that system or the random selection we have now. The people who want to choose their fleets can, the people who (for some strange reason) like the randomisation can have it if they want it. Everyone's happy (hopefully).
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Post by archelaos on Mar 20, 2019 1:33:26 GMT -6
This would be great. I'd love to have OOB editor either before battle screen or on 0 turn. You can somehow rearrange squadrons now, but for some reason AI often overrule player changes.
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Post by Adseria on Mar 20, 2019 1:36:29 GMT -6
I think, absolute minimum, you should be able to rearrange what ships are in divisions after the battle starts, and manually reassign them between divisions.
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Post by charliezulu on Mar 20, 2019 6:07:00 GMT -6
However, I'm against a hard cap on task force/division/whatever you want to call it size. <snip>
I admit, I wrote that a bit funny. It shouldn't read "limit on # of ships in a [single] TF". I meant that there should be a limit on the total percentage or total number of ships which can be assigned over all of your TFs.
This would force you to have some ships not in big task force fleets, thus providing the game ships for normal encounters (although, as I envision it, TF ships can also get pulled into normal encounters -- the "life got in the way" CLAA in a cruiser brawl situation -- but at a lower chance).
Fair, but wouldn't that be handled the same way by existing mechanics? Don't have enough unassigned ships, and enemy raiders run rampant, you can't maintain a blockade, and you don't have enough units for battles. A UI hint such as not counting assigned ships towards tonnage on foreign stations could help, but IMO there's already a gameplay mechanic to ensure people have unassigned ships too.
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Post by tbr on Mar 20, 2019 10:34:10 GMT -6
The one central issue with RTW was that specialized designs were not viable and this was not due to correctly modelled historical factors but due to the game's force selection mechanism for scenarios. With RTW2 there is even greater potential benefit in specialisation (CLAA, DDR, CVL with pure fighter wing etc.) but without some kind of mechanism which models that navies would task specialised designs according to their role (e.g. never task a small flotilla leader type CL for open ocean trade protection patrol) in RTW2 we would still need to design our ships as generalists or face massive penalties in too many scenarios.
Specialisation, if a valid game choice, would add so much richness to RTW2, almost like squaring the options in designing ships.
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Post by tortugapower on Mar 20, 2019 12:02:14 GMT -6
The one central issue with RTW was that specialized designs were not viable and this was not due to correctly modelled historical factors but due to the game's force selection mechanism for scenarios. With RTW2 there is even greater potential benefit in specialisation (CLAA, DDR, CVL with pure fighter wing etc.) but without some kind of mechanism which models that navies would task specialised designs according to their role (e.g. never task a small flotilla leader type CL for open ocean trade protection patrol) in RTW2 we would still need to design our ships as generalists or face massive penalties in too many scenarios.
Specialisation, if a valid game choice, would add so much richness to RTW2, almost like squaring the options in designing ships.
This sums up nicely the advantages of having some system available. Extremely well said! (No surprise, from tbr) A note to those who wish to rearrange the divisions/OOB at the beginning of combat, once the combatant ships have already been decided: that has been discussed in a different thread by Kimmy, linked again here. I think it's a great point of discussion, although slightly different than controlling/influencing what ships arrive in the combat to begin with. (Feel free to continue to discuss it here, but be aware that a thread of good ideas already exists.)
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