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Post by cabalamat on Jan 21, 2020 9:59:47 GMT -6
> Limited the number of main guns on a ship to 20. > Limited the total number of secondary and tertiary guns on a ship to 32.
I feel these are retrograde steps. The ship designer should allow unconventional designs to be built. If it is considered desirable that ships aren't built with more guns than they typically were historically, then the remedy is to have game mechanics that accurately reflect how useful particular designs would have been. Them unconventional designs will be unsuccessful, unless, that is, they would historically have been effective designs -- in which case they should be effective in the game too.
Part of the fun of the game is trying out building unconventional designs to see if one could do better than what was actually built. While naval architects of the time were no doubt mostly competent, it is unlikely that every ship designed from 1900-1955 was an optimal design.
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Post by stevethecat on Jan 21, 2020 11:13:44 GMT -6
Have to agree, while artificial limits are required to keep the game out of the realm of science fiction it should be flexible enough for some more... Eccentric ship designers.
The secondary barrel limit for instance rules out building a replica Bismarck (if my memory is working) let alone the larger H designs.
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Post by williammiller on Jan 21, 2020 11:41:49 GMT -6
The problem is that certain combinations of large numbers of mounts are in reality physically impossible to accommodate on a ship of a certain displacement: there is not enough usable deck space (for the mounts plus all the other equipment, such as torp tubes, directors, searchlights, mine rails, stacks, etc) and internal space is also not infinite when you consider the magazines, shell lifts, and other requirements for a gun mount, and you must also take into consideration the firing arcs each weapon needs clear to function, plus the upper/deck structure itself can become dangerously weakened with too many perforations. Also, please keep in mind that the usable area of a ships deck does not increase at the same rate as its displacement, due to the cube/square relationship between volume and area.
As stated in other posts here, this is a measure implemented until we have a more accurate 'area/displacement'-based system in place to more realistically take into account all the above-mentioned issues.
Thanks.
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Post by williammiller on Jan 21, 2020 11:50:31 GMT -6
Have to agree, while artificial limits are required to keep the game out of the realm of science fiction it should be flexible enough for some more... Eccentric ship designers. The secondary barrel limit for instance rules out building a replica Bismarck (if my memory is working) let alone the larger H designs. I need to point out for accuracy's sake that the Bismarck had a secondary/tertiary battery of 12 × 5.9 in (6 × 2) and 16 × 4.1 in (8 × 2) so 28 barrels total...within the limit allowed.
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Post by stevethecat on Jan 21, 2020 12:40:47 GMT -6
Have to agree, while artificial limits are required to keep the game out of the realm of science fiction it should be flexible enough for some more... Eccentric ship designers. The secondary barrel limit for instance rules out building a replica Bismarck (if my memory is working) let alone the larger H designs. I need to point out for accuracy's sake that the Bismarck had a secondary/tertiary battery of 12 × 5.9 in (6 × 2) and 16 × 4.1 in (8 × 2) so 28 barrels total...within the limit allowed. You are correct, I was thinking of another mount as being DP when it was AA. But that said this seems like a limitation purely their to reduce options. Not feeling much of an urge to upgrade from 1.09 yet.
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Post by orkel on Jan 21, 2020 15:04:39 GMT -6
Just to be sure, but does the AI also follow these limits?
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Post by cabalamat on Jan 21, 2020 16:21:51 GMT -6
> The problem is that certain combinations of large numbers of mounts are in reality physically impossible to accommodate on a ship of a certain displacement: there is not enough usable deck space (for the mounts plus all the other equipment, such as torp tubes, directors, searchlights, mine rails, stacks, etc)
Fine, then as the number of guns increases, the displacement needed should also increase: space for guns, crew, ammo, etc.
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Post by srndacful on Jan 21, 2020 23:59:15 GMT -6
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but: Don't we already have a variable that tracks the availability of the deck space? I believe it's called "AA Positions used"? Doesn't it already go up and down according to the amount of positions of ... well, just about anything mounted - guns, torps, mines, minesweeping or ASW gear?
IMHO, renaming it "deck positions available" and using it to track ... well, just about anything mounted - like it's doing so far - would provide a 'soft' cap for the number of primary, secondary, tertiary and AA guns, as well as fire control, mines, torps and ASW.
Just my 0.02$ anyway. Cheers!
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Post by captainloggy on Jan 22, 2020 0:35:39 GMT -6
Seems to be what they’re trying to implement, this hard limit is just a stopgap measure. 32 barrels hold up well in history, but of course nobody built 90’000 ton behemoths in history either.
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Post by dorn on Jan 22, 2020 5:06:17 GMT -6
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but: Don't we already have a variable that tracks the availability of the deck space? I believe it's called "AA Positions used"? Doesn't it already go up and down according to the amount of positions of ... well, just about anything mounted - guns, torps, mines, minesweeping or ASW gear? IMHO, renaming it "deck positions available" and using it to track ... well, just about anything mounted - like it's doing so far - would provide a 'soft' cap for the number of primary, secondary, tertiary and AA guns, as well as fire control, mines, torps and ASW. Just my 0.02$ anyway. Cheers! I think that it is right now more about naval thinking that space available as it changes through time even if ship does not change at all.
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Post by avimimus on Jan 22, 2020 10:14:16 GMT -6
So, it is sane... it is a sane idea to limit the guns... it would be nice to have a 'realistic design' option though - so we could have the option of showing poor judgment (and keeping our existing designs).
There is also the fact that this game relies on alternative history (in fact, it revels in it)... big carrier battles between France and Italy in 1924 etc. One could see design priorities shifting in such a world.
Given the following: 4200t Ceres (10x4in), 6720t Atlanta (16x5in)... 45000t "Proposal F" conversion of USS Kentucky in 1948 (40x5in, 8x16in). I do suspect that my 32x5in anti-aircraft cruiser is possible - it just might require more than 17500t to get sufficient deck area.
If I use these three datapoints (admittedly a small sample) and pessimistic assumptions (i.e. treating 4in turrets as if their footprint decreased in proportion to their weight, completely ignoring that deck space taken by the 16in turrets) I would get 32x5in guns on 24000t... so I'm not sure the calculations are that far off in this case.
Also the changes would still allow my 89500t battleship with 18x16in & 12x13in secondaries (I would only have to drop two 2x4in tertiary mounts for it to be legal)... and that would seem more of a travesty than my 24x12in relatively ineffective ship. That said neither of these ships was very effective and the main issue I had was the boyancy bonuses for an 89500t ship are not matched by the actual potentially increased risks of fire spreading from multiple bomb hits nor the increased ease with which such a large deck could be hit by dive bombers...
*edit* Okay, so I did some tests in the editor and a 32x17in design is currently possible... so I get the point!
Anyway, I'm looking forward to improvements in deck area modelling that have been hinted at - and I'm in awe of the quality of the work.
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Post by dorn on Jan 22, 2020 10:54:08 GMT -6
So, it is sane... it is a sane idea to limit the guns... it would be nice to have a 'realistic design' option though - so we could have the option of showing poor judgment (and keeping our existing designs). There is also the fact that this game relies on alternative history (in fact, it revels in it)... big carrier battles between France and Italy in 1924 etc. One could see design priorities shifting in such a world. Given the following: 4200t Ceres (10x4in), 6720t Atlanta (16x5in)... 45000t "Proposal F" conversion of USS Kentucky in 1948 (40x5in, 8x16in). I do suspect that my 32x5in anti-aircraft cruiser is possible - it just might require more than 17500t to get sufficient deck area. If I use these three datapoints (admittedly a small sample) and pessimistic assumptions (i.e. treating 4in turrets as if their footprint decreased in proportion to their weight, completely ignoring that deck space taken by the 16in turrets) I would get 32x5in guns on 24000t... so I'm not sure the calculations are that far off in this case. Also the changes would still allow my 89500t battleship with 18x16in & 12x13in secondaries (I would only have to drop two 2x4in tertiary mounts for it to be legal)... and that would seem more of a travesty than my 24x12in relatively ineffective ship. That said neither of these ships was very effective and the main issue I had was the boyancy bonuses for an 89500t ship are not matched by the actual potentially increased risks of fire spreading from multiple bomb hits nor the increased ease with which such a large deck could be hit by dive bombers... *edit* Okay, so I did some tests in the editor and a 32x17in design is currently possible... so I get the point! Anyway, I'm looking forward to improvements in deck area modellingE that have been hinted at - and I'm in awe of the quality of the work. Even on Atlanta you have only 6 turrets on centerline. And they do not have practically minimal other armament except torpedo tubes.
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Jan 22, 2020 11:34:50 GMT -6
I will chime in to say this even though it is outside the bounds of my "job". Writing one line of code that sets a global limit is vastly kinder on Fredrik's time than writing a formula that would attempt to compute and cover all variables. And when I first heard of the "total" limits to secondaries and mains I grated against them and argued for just that formula, but if the hard limits allow all historical designs with some margin then I found I had little ground to stand on. I would rather Fredrik be able to address other issues.
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Post by mycophobia on Jan 22, 2020 11:58:37 GMT -6
While I very much would like more customization and ability to do unconventional designs, I do see some merit with some restrictions on gun numbers given the game's abstraction on ship size and deck space.
I don't know if current number sit that well since I can see the room for slightly more flexibility with number of guns, then again you can already make some rather "extreme" design like 3x6 light cruisers on a sub 10,000 ton hull even with the current restriction. Ultimately it comes down to a balance of realism and creativity, and I think a hard limit like this, given the game's tonnage limit, does make some sense. I think the restriction is actually still rather generous, especially since you can still put more main/secondary guns than any real ships by a decent margin.
Looking at some turret farm that is quite the norm of UAD next door, I would have to say having a hard limit is probably conductive to realism and honestly design variety since players will otherwise min-max most of the time. Further, I think it actually somewhat help player to put more thought into designing ships if they had to work within some sort of limit.
An scaling limit ofcourse, would be even more optimal, but if not done well can have counter-productive effects. If the time and effort saved can be made to achieve better customizability in other areas or other gameplay features I am all for it.
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Post by akosjaccik on Jan 22, 2020 13:08:19 GMT -6
While I very much would like more customization and ability to do unconventional designs, I do see some merit with some restrictions on gun numbers given the game's abstraction on ship size and deck space.(...) Pretty much, I have to say there is nothing I can add to that. I'll throw in my "dream guideline" for RtW, which would be
- letting the program deny anything that's physically impossible (so as much fun as the "450-gun cruisers with quads hanging from everywhere" are, they needed to go)
- but don't restrict on the basis of "historical uselessness" (for example, give us back the originally featured [devblog] legal hybrid ships!) - lastly, have meaningful choices (for example, significantly more wild oxygen torpedoes), and steer away from the meta-builds (see for example the 2" SEC, the HAA min-maxing, the 16000t conversion-mules - honestly, I believe these are some of the factors where RNG should have a say, call it "variable tech lite by default").
This, of course, fully falls into the first category. While I'm not a particularly big fan of any hard limits or arbitrary numbers, as by default I find them murder variety (like the examples in the point regarding the "meta-builds"), coupled values like this sec+ter, is probably a good enough start, where the player does not necessarily cranks a value up to max, but rather starts to think with the whole spectrum. Now, granted, due to the AA optimization this will still often not be the case, but overall probably a step in the right, or at least understandable direction.
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