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Post by julianbarker on Dec 18, 2013 1:06:55 GMT -6
I have noticed that all should are incredibly vulnerable to underwater damage. Every single ship I have seen hit by a torpedo, of any size, has sunk immediately. No flotation damage, no nothing, just a torpedo hit message, immediately followed by a ship sunk message. Is this intentional, or a bug? Russian battleship's seem to have got torpedoed or hit mines a lot during the war without instantly sinking, although I know it did happen that battleship's were sunk by a single mine etc.
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Post by Fredrik W on Dec 18, 2013 1:28:42 GMT -6
I have not seen this at all during testing, and it is not intentional. Ships can sink from one mine or torpedo hit but it should be rare. I will look into this.
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Post by randomizer on Dec 18, 2013 10:19:26 GMT -6
During testing I saw numerous ships on both sides survive mine and single torpedo hits although some did certainly sink with a single hit. Curious that you seem to be seeing this consistently.
Anybody else? Thanks in advance.
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Post by julianbarker on Dec 18, 2013 13:21:52 GMT -6
Exactly. I would expect to see it happen, but I would expect large ships to not immediately produce a ship sinking or ship sunk message. I will play some more and see what happens. I may just have seen a flock of black swans.
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Post by dickturpin on Dec 18, 2013 14:33:23 GMT -6
I had a French Formidable class take 3 torpedo hits; whilst she did (unsurprisingly) sink eventually, it was a long process and she took about 60 shell hits as well.
Julian's issue is probably not representative and he has just been unlucky?
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Post by julianbarker on Dec 18, 2013 16:51:03 GMT -6
Just posted save game file on my most recent game, and first game since raising this issue. I had both a B and a CA hit once by torpedoes and sink immediately. The Torpedo Hit message was followed immediately by Ship Sunk message. This is what I see on every torpedo hit.
Running this to conclusion, and also looking at the other saved games I have - it looks like every torpedo hit on my ships generates an immediate magazine explosion. Enemy ships seem to flood normally.
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Post by fredsanford on Dec 18, 2013 17:37:34 GMT -6
I had that happen with the HMS Mars in the Beresford's Boast scenario. Had a CA take a torpedo, but it didn't sink immediately.
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Post by randomizer on Dec 19, 2013 9:38:07 GMT -6
We are revisiting this but the data suggests that what you are seeing is entirely representative of the reality faced by naval commanders of the era. About 19-ships were mined off Port Arthur during the war and 17 were sunk, the two survivors were B Pobida and CA Bayan and the latter was written off as unrepairable.
No Japanese ship mined off Port Arthur survived.
Tabulated data from Olender (Russo-Japanese Naval War 1904-1905 Vol 2: The Battle of Tsushima) indicates that no Russian ship torpedoed in that battle survived.
The loss rate of ships built in this era that were attacked by mine or torpedo on the high seas is in excess of 90% and this holds for the experience in the Great War as well.
I suspect that what's being seen reflects the reality of the day; your ships are relatively resistant to gunfire but tremendously vulnerable to underwater attack. Togo had this message driven home on 14-15 May 1904 when he lost Hatsuse, Yashima and Miyako to mines and Yoshino to collision; every ship that sustained significant underwater damage sank. Only little Tatasuta, which ran aground and was repaired enough in situ to make the trip back to base survived and she did not sink because she was sitting on the rocks.
As for the new ships being lost in the Beresford's Boast scenario, in WW1 HMS Majestic was the only ship of the class to sustain an underwater attack. Hit by a single torpedo, she sank and while the sample size is small in this instance, it conforms to the rest of the data. nine-other British pre-dreadnought battleships succumbed to mine or torpedo attack and while there may be ships that survived similar attacks, I could not find an example. Of three Bacchante Class cruisers torpedoed, all were sunk.
I have certainly seen ships survive torpedo hits and mine strikes in SAI-RJW, this happened in the event as well but doing so proved pretty rare.
Just to repeat, this is being looked at by the Team to see if some adjustments are warranted.
Thanks, please keep the feedback coming.
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Post by julianbarker on Dec 19, 2013 12:33:24 GMT -6
Thanks for looking into it. I saw my first ship sink normally following a torpedo hit - Repulse in a generator battle with the French. Torpedoed, got a sinking message about ten game minutes later following flooding. It is not the sinking that bothers me, I understand the vulnerability of ships of this era, but the way the sinking is instant - I seem to be getting a lot of magazine explosions following a torpedo hit.
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Post by randomizer on Dec 19, 2013 13:14:17 GMT -6
Asymmetrical flooding causing a loss of stability is the ship big killer; there need not be enough water in the ship to overcome reserve buoyancy and the ship becomes a total loss pretty fast in many instances. Some ships did capsize very quickly, others blew up and some stayed afloat, on occasion long enough to beach or make port.
SAI does not model beaching but when a ship in the game sinks very fast from a torpedo or mine hit even without suffering a catastrophic explosion, the effect is similar to the rapid loss of stability even if the actual physics of individual flooding damage is not modelled in detail (to my knowledge).
Working through the historical record and running assorted test situations I am becoming increasingly convinced that the current overall cause and effect process is sound. That is not to say no changes should be considered, ultimately FW will make the call and continued Player feedback is important to producing the game everybody wants.
Thanks.
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Post by tirpitz on Dec 21, 2013 9:05:54 GMT -6
I've been playing random Anglo-French battles in the Med all Saturday (not impressing the wife, I should add) and in one particularly rough battle I had three of my predreadnoughts torpedoed. The HMS Royal Sovereign eventually sank but it took the entire scenario to finally succumb. The other two were out of the fight but managed to survive...barely. A French CA had a magazine explosion from a torpedo early in the game but usually the French B's took a torpedo and lingered for a long time before they sank. A few times they even survived.
Loving this game, even though it occasionally gives me a sick feeling in my stomach when my battleships get torpedoed or a turret blows up.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 21, 2013 9:29:39 GMT -6
I've been playing random Anglo-French battles in the Med all Saturday (not impressing the wife, I should add) and in one particularly rough battle I had three of my predreadnoughts torpedoed. The HMS Royal Sovereign eventually sank but it took the entire scenario to finally succumb. The other two were out of the fight but managed to survive...barely. A French CA had a magazine explosion from a torpedo early in the game but usually the French B's took a torpedo and lingered for a long time before they sank. A few times they even survived. Loving this game, even though it occasionally gives me a sick feeling in my stomach when my battleships get torpedoed or a turret blows up. Heh, Heh! War is hell, mate. Now you know how the admiral's felt when their ships would blow up, like Beatty at Jutland. The game does a great job of putting you into that position. I always try to envision the loss of men when that happens. It makes one think twice about doing something really stupid. For the admirals, who didn't have a say, in how the ships were built, it must have been frustrating because they might have know that the ship had a weakness. OTOH, procedures in loading and firing also could get a ship into to trouble, again as at Jutland. So many variables that you the admiral have no control over like the powder type for those heavy shells. At least in the game, you might have some control if you build your own ships. Great.
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Post by dickturpin on Dec 22, 2013 16:45:23 GMT -6
. That is not to say no changes should be considered, ultimately FW will make the call and continued Player feedback is important to producing the game everybody wants. Personally, I think that the torpedo damage levels should not be changed; design issues in period ships and actual battle damage suggest that period ships should be highly vulnerable. As concerns over the torpedo was a significant driving factor in ship development, instilling virtual Admirals with a fear of the torpedo is probably a good thing. The limiting factor in torpedo effectiveness was probably more to do with achieving hits: Japanese circa 10 hits from 350 torpedos in the RJW. However, in S&I, we used to get very poor success rates against cripples until the accuracy was increased. This type of attack was the most effective in the actual war as circa 1 hit only was achieved on an undamaged moving ship. A possible alternative for scenario writers and ship designers may be to look at the delivery system: - - TB's were rarely included as pert of a battle fleet and tended to operate independently in close proximity to their own bases. They generally had little endurance and sea keeping ability. The swarms of "Normand" class that you get with the random battle generator appear to be generic representations of the largest French TB's and are probably over represented numerically within the French Fleet.
- TBD's were slightly more seaworthy but the majority of these were not used as fleet destroyers. The British did attach small numbers to the battle fleet in the Med in this period for example (however, this was more a result of shortage of vessels to blockade French bases).
- Speeds quoted for TB's and TBD's in text books are theoretical or trial speeds in calm shallow water. Trials were often run with optimal numbers of stokers but these could not actually be accommodated within the ships quarters under operational conditions. Most small craft were constructed by commercial builders who had contractual requirements for trial speeds and financial penalties for not achieving them. They thus bear little resemblance to operational or sea speed.
- It may be found that drastically reducing speed of TBD's to little more than B's will make them less effective in fleet battles. TB's could justifiably be made even slower when operating in the open sea.
- The River Class DD which appeared at the very end of the period covered by S&I RJW attempted to remedy the issues of older types of torpedo craft. The aim was for moderate speed in a moderate sea; these were rated at circa 25 kts and were significantly larger and more sea worthy than their predecessors.
Due to lack of game time recently, I have not play tested the above suggestion yet so it may not work out in the game.
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Post by julianbarker on Dec 22, 2013 16:58:05 GMT -6
In my recent games I have seen far fewer torpedo hits and not one has caused the instant magazine explosion I saw in all my early games so I must just have been unlucky.
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Post by Fredrik W on Dec 22, 2013 17:18:12 GMT -6
I must say I am surprised by the number of torpedo hits reported. When I play there are very seldom any torpedo hits at all against moving ships. I suspect many players are fighting at very short ranges or perhaps ignoring the threat of torpedo attack and continuing on a straight course?
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