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Post by joebob73 on Sept 12, 2016 19:28:03 GMT -6
Spartan448, regarding point 4. I understand this is the case from an historical standpoint. I believe the Americans came to the same conclusion later on - that it just wasn't worth armoring the control tower. But my point is that in this game getting a penetrating hit on your control tower has major negative impact. I am curious about your torpedo problem. I have never seen my destroyers be reluctant to fire torps after the early years. Cruisers and capital ship are notoriously reluctant to fire torps but not destroyers. Are you playing the game with the Varied tech option turned on? Have you invested "Torpedo technology" and/or "Light forces and torpedoes"? Are you playing at Admiral's level? Sorry for all the questions, I'm just trying to figure out why your torpedo attacks are insufficient compared to the enemy. It's not just that they're insufficient, it's that they're not happening at all, even when I turn flotilla attacks on, even in the late game when torps have some range to them. And I'm playing at Rear Admiral level. The AI will break off a torpedo run if it experiences heavy fire. And AI ship designs have metric shittons of secondaries. |
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Post by director on Sept 12, 2016 19:37:02 GMT -6
Steps I take:
Set the flotilla attack flag on the flagship squadron control.
Set the destroyer flotilla's target to the ship you want to attack.
Set the destroyer flotilla's stance to Independent.
Usually, that does it - eventually.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Sept 12, 2016 22:24:43 GMT -6
Playing as rear admiral I will take control of the destroyer divisions and send them directly into the enemy line. Once they are close enough, preferably with the lead destroyer already in the enemy line, I will turn them over to AI control. I also make sure a flotilla attack is ordered as director suggests. One other thing I should mention is that there is safety in numbers. If you send a single division against an enemy battleline they are going to get cut up badly and the attack will likely fail. If you send 3 or 4 divisions at once you'll have much better success.
I set both Torpedo tech and Light forces tech to high immediately upon starting the game. By 1915 I'm usually packing 8 to 10 torps onto my DDs. As soon as I can I jump to 12 tubes or higher. By the late teens I see my DDs shooting spreads of 3 or 4 torpedoes at a time and doing it multiple times in a battle (assuming they survive - attrition is pretty high).
But that is my path and my experience. It sounds like you aren't seeing anything like that in your games but there are actions you can take to get there.
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Post by archelaos on Sept 13, 2016 1:01:20 GMT -6
From my experience, DDs prefer deflection shots from the bow. Even if you steam 700 yards to the side, and you think they are in perfect position to just point TT slightly forwards and launch unavoidable salvo, they will wait till they are at roughly 60degr and shot back, with spread going on both sides of enemy ship...
Also, they love to waste torps on already dead targets - there are situations where they launch again, and again on ship crippled early on, just because it is close and stationary. One japanese cruiser took something like 10-12 torps (out of many, many more launched) leaving me with just a few remaining for the rest of their fleet. And they weren't even in flotilla attack mode.
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Post by spartan448 on Sept 13, 2016 21:44:53 GMT -6
 So the Navy League complained about me having too few CAs, so I built them this "Heavy Cruiser". I'm half-thinking of making a custom nation that just constantly gets tons of naval budget now so I can see what happens when you have a whole navy of these things and not just one ship with no actual chance at ever serving a practical purpose beyond telling the Navy League to **** off. |
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Post by jwsmith26 on Sept 13, 2016 23:26:11 GMT -6
Those 2.5 inch turrets are hilarious. But hey, at least you've got plenty of them. :-)
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Post by galagagalaxian on Sept 13, 2016 23:30:45 GMT -6
When that ship gets into a fight there is gonna be a lot of fireworks one way or another!
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Post by marcorossolini on Sept 14, 2016 2:33:26 GMT -6
So the Navy League complained about me having too few CAs, so I built them this "Heavy Cruiser". I'm half-thinking of making a custom nation that just constantly gets tons of naval budget now so I can see what happens when you have a whole navy of these things and not just one ship with no actual chance at ever serving a practical purpose beyond telling the Navy League to off. I'll be frank, that ship is hilariously awesome. Put it on raiding and you'll clear the seas (and that's just the start  ) |
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Post by archelaos on Sept 14, 2016 5:17:24 GMT -6
I see you like taking risks. A DD with 4inchers can penetrate main turrets, and then the big ship turns into very expensive light and sound show...
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Post by spartan448 on Sept 14, 2016 7:58:22 GMT -6
I see you like taking risks. A DD with 4inchers can penetrate main turrets, and then the big ship turns into very expensive light and sound show... That's assuming a DD can even get in range without being turned into swiss cheese. |
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Post by galagagalaxian on Sept 14, 2016 18:09:41 GMT -6
One DD maybe, but how many DDs can it swiss cheese before one gets lucky? With that firepower, maybe it can swiss cheese enough DDs.
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Post by spartan448 on Sept 14, 2016 19:50:54 GMT -6
 So continuing in the saga of appeasing the Navy Board while doing as little actual work as possible, I think I have managed to design the smallest possible Pre-Dread. I think this thing would be more appropriate as a monitor than an actual ship of the line. I kind of want to keep them around anyway though just to see if they actually manage to do anything. |
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Post by Bullethead on Sept 14, 2016 20:28:35 GMT -6
So continuing in the saga of appeasing the Navy Board while doing as little actual work as possible, I think I have managed to design the smallest possible Pre-Dread. I think this thing would be more appropriate as a monitor than an actual ship of the line. I kind of want to keep them around anyway though just to see if they actually manage to do anything. LOL, 1 knot of speed? That's a floating battery, not a ship  . They won't last long but hopefully you can build lots of them. |
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Post by ccip on Sept 15, 2016 1:55:15 GMT -6
Haha, that's great, especially for the price! I think that's a good little political tactic got when you get a demand for battleship construction but want to build something else. I'm guessing even with development costs it's no more than 9 million, so if you get funds raised for battleship construction event, you get to pocket more than 40 million towards things you actually want.
I used to do a much less extreme version of that with DDs, before MS building was added to the game. I would just crank out 200t DDs with low freeboard, which limited them to 21kt. They were totally useless in any fleet role, but dirt-cheap and worked just as well at ASW as any actual destroyer, freeing up useful ships. And if I got a request for DD construction, I could build as many as I wanted without affecting my budget. Nowadays I guess the MS basically does most of those things (and small DDs are no longer as cheap as before, too).
Also, there's something to be said for the 2100t cruisers, which besides the cheapness can also be used to "spam" the enemy into submission with raiders and/or ultra-fast scouts.
Now here is a challenge I haven't seen anyone do yet - how about a battleship or cruiser that gives maximum tonnage per budget spent? The ship itself doesn't have to be big or useful, but can it be built to blockade the enemy cheaply through sheer tonnage?
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Post by axe99 on Sept 15, 2016 4:33:21 GMT -6
That's brilliant, inspired and insane all at once, love it . I've never thought of taking that approach before, might try and have a little fun with that kind of idea as well. |
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. They won't last long but hopefully you can build lots of them.
