Future DLC ideas

[Deleted]

I have some future DLC ideas, if the game dev is interested. I think that most of these things are not just my wish, but are a wish of many. Here are some examples:
1) Submarines reworked DLC (with on/off option before the start of the campaign)
- submarines should be more often present in the battles and should also be mobile
- submarine designer (doesnt need to be as detailed as ship designer)
- submarine classes: coastal submarine (4example II class), regular submarine (VII class), long range submarine (IX, Balao), cruiser submarine (Surcouf, M class), minelaying submarine, electroboats (XXI) 
- design subs deck guns (this should have a huge effect on the "gun duel" outcome)
- design subs AA guns (this should have effect on the flying boat attack outcome. Seriously armed sub should be able to scare off the plane or even shoot it down)
- floatplane scout catapults for long range subs and cruiser subs (this should also make the sub more likely to avoid enemy warships and planes)
- wolfpack battles with convoys (if "wolfpack" tech is already researched)

2) Pre-1900 DLC (start 20, or maybe even 30 years earlier)
- start with second generation ironclads, monitors, or maybe turret ships, etc
- huge crappy guns (and AI tweaks to make it pick the best gun for its ships, not the biggest)
- allow some more "weird" desings that would be in theory possible
- balloons and balloon carriers
- (maybe even some river delta battles with shallow draft vessels?{would require some planet coastline tweaking})

3) Cold war DLC (1960-1990, or to the date of the last weapons with declassified data)
- ships based on SSM batteries
- long range missile warfare
- satelite scanning for enemy ships and bases
- new types of submarines
- helicopter carriers and heliports on BBs and cruisers
- nuclear powered ships and subs

4) "Coastal operations" minor DLC
- monitors, coastal battleships and other shallow draft vessels
- battles in shallow waters (would require a coastline tweaking)
- coastal warships would be prefered for attack/defence during bombardment battles

5) "Mine warfare" minor DLC
- choose an area of defensive/offensive minefields
- option not only to invade enemy area (as it is now), but to also mine its ports (or a single port) against ships, or against subs
- anti-mine technology and anti-mine ship rating and mine-sweeping ship role (like trade protection or active service)

6) "Single battle" DLC
- probably the easiest to be made
- 3 types of battles:
A) pre-made (historical, or "what if")
B) semi-custom (design your own ship/fleet and fight against a ship/fleet generated by PC)
C) fully custom (design your own ship/fleet and design the fleet of your enemy)
- this DLC would also be a good candidate for a first realtime multiplayer battle

[potrero]

To your suggestions I would like to add the following.

1) Ability to toggle superfiring status on certain turrets on/off, as well as the ability to make light mounts (5” or less) into “super-superfiring” configuration. Now we can build things like the Atlanta- and Dido-class light cruisers and Mogami-class heavy cruiser.

2) Add a “hull form” slider to the ship design window to change your ship’s length-to-beam ratio. With this, we can better control whether we want a long, skinny ship that goes fast but loses stability and thus accuracy, or a short, fat, slow ship whose stability makes it a sharpshooter and rides rough seas like a steel island, but also moves like one.

3) Add a menu with different options for secondary battery configuration. All open/turretted, all casemated, mixed (lots of real ships had a mix), and different layouts to choose from so you can have hex-layout secondaries with centerline mounts, or concentrate your secondaries fore or aft of midships to make room for torpedoes and floatplanes. Yeah, it’s mostly cosmetic, but it would be nice.

4) AI wars. Instead of the AI being a cheating bastard ganging up on the player the whole time, AI nations should have wars and alliances vs eachother as well. Players can try to stand back and let them bleed eachother dry while selling arms and supplies, but various random events can potentially drag you into the fight as well. Even if you succeed in staying neutral, the winner might not like you very much if you were supplying the loser.

5) Rework the gun mount armor system. Instead of 1-2 inches being shielded and 3 inches and up being enclosed, add a check box to pick between the two. Gun shields by definition don’t have roofs, so change requirements accordingly. Many navies built enclosed gunhouses whose sides were thinner than 3 inches. And for shielded mounts, 1/2 inch wasn’t unusual for splinter shields. At least allow gun shields on destroyers. Ideally also allow enclosed gunhouses with no more than 1.5 inches of thickness, at least after 1935.

[wlbjork]

With regards to the gun-shields, there is an upper portion which, although it might not cover the crews as you would expect from the name, would provide some protection from splinters.

See the scale model of HMS Veteran: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_and_W-class_destroyer#/media/File:HMS_Veteran_model.jpg

I consider roof is an adequate description of the upper portion of the gun-shield.

[Antediluvian Monster]

May 10, 2020 16:57:24 GMT -6 @pavelsvt said:

2) Pre-1900 DLC (start 20, or maybe even 30 years earlier)
- start with second generation ironclads, monitors, or maybe turret ships, etc
- huge crappy guns (and AI tweaks to make it pick the best gun for its ships, not the biggest)
- allow some more "weird" desings that would be in theory possible
- balloons and balloon carriers
- (maybe even some river delta battles with shallow draft vessels?{would require some planet coastline tweaking})

One advantage of this is that it would fit well in the game's current battle generator which is geared towards surface warfare circa 1900-20. Even more so than the already implemented aircraft.

May 10, 2020 20:34:18 GMT -6 potrero said:

2) Add a “hull form” slider to the ship design window to change your ship’s length-to-beam ratio. With this, we can better control whether we want a long, skinny ship that goes fast but loses stability and thus accuracy, or a short, fat, slow ship whose stability makes it a sharpshooter and rides rough seas like a steel island, but also moves like one.

It's actually so that low stability means slow roll that is good for gunnery (see the "R-class" battleships where this was intentionally sought) and that high stability means fast roll that is less good. Though I don't think anyone ever tried to mess with stability for this purpose by altering beam.

I also wonder if there is a point to this? Can't we just roll with the assumption that length-to-beam ratio (which doesn't even have direct effect on anything in naval architecture, unlike, say, length alone) is generally higher on smaller ships and generally higher on faster ships?

[wlbjork]

The problem with starting before 1900 is the further back you go, the larger the role wind power still plays in ship movement. Then consider that the game is not currently set up for wind powered vessels and it would need an entire new system developed.

Amongst other things, the system would need to track:

Prevailing wind
Wind Speed
Level of Sail
Mast Damage
Sail/Wind orientation

then apply this to each ship in the action.

This isn't so much a DLC as an entire new game. The game will be much less casual to boot, as players will have to learn to make full use of the wind, unless they want to be caught in irons. Probably see fewer incidents turn into engagements as a result.

[Antediluvian Monster]

May 17, 2020 6:58:53 GMT -6 wlbjork said:

The problem with starting before 1900 is the further back you go, the larger the role wind power still plays in ship movement. Then consider that the game is not currently set up for wind powered vessels and it would need an entire new system developed.

Amongst other things, the system would need to track:

Prevailing wind
Wind Speed
Level of Sail
Mast Damage
Sail/Wind orientation

then apply this to each ship in the action.

This isn't so much a DLC as an entire new game. The game will be much less casual to boot, as players will have to learn to make full use of the wind, unless they want to be caught in irons. Probably see fewer incidents turn into engagements as a result.

I don't think a start date 20-30 years earlier (and after German unification would be politically good one) needs sails for battle. Even colonial sloops had screws at that point. It needs to account for them for strategic movement, but it's workable to assume that when the battle starts every ship is under steam power. The merchant ships would end up over-representing prevalence of steam among them somewhat, but is that important?

[buttons]

So many DLC ideas, especially ones which are simple improvements that could be rolled in with other expansions. Tell me did you play Paradox games in your youth?

My issue with such minor improvements requiring payment aside I think the best area for expansion would be in terms of timeline. While Cold War and 19th century are too different from early 20th century naval warfare to use the same core system IMO I think that existing parts of the timeline could have depth added to them, particularly the very early and very late games.

Also submarine warfare is an aspect of this game I hate simply because it is so massively OP that it trivializes the game. Just spam submarines from about 1910 onwards and watch your enemies quickly starve and surrender. While I wouldn't like to have to pay to fix what I see as a flawed portion of the game I would like to see it improved through general patching or through a complete overhaul rolled into a general expansion. Preferably some mechanics so most countries don't just start starving after two months of blockading or submarine warfare (US and Russia would never be driven to starvation through blockade and Germany only started collapsing from the blockade after 3+ years of blockading, constant warfare, mass mobilization, and disease). Perhaps a sort of hidden value for "import dependence" that effects how hard blockades and shipping harassment effect them. Britain and Japan would be hit hard by blockades and shipping harassment, for the US and Russia you might need 5 years of blockading for them to get riots and even then it more represents general war fatigue and popular discontent at being economically isolated with lack of access to foreign goods. Also blockades should require blockading all home ports, Russia needing the Baltic and Pacific blocked, US needing Pacific, Atlantic, and Caribbean blocked, and France needing the Atlantic and Mediterranean blocked.

Overall that should provide interesting changes into waging warfare on other nations so winning wars requires more than either sitting in your home port if you are Britain, France, Russia, or Germany, or just spamming subs.

[wlbjork]

Which version of the game are you playing Buttons?

After patching to 1.21, I ran a game in which I built 10 subs every time there was a sub advance without scrapping any of them. Went to war with about 80-90 subs - then took heavy losses as my opponent built a heavy force of about 70 KEs to deal with them.

[polygon]

I feel like as part of a pre-1900 DLC, coastlines with at least a couple depth gradients and a choice of draught as a tradeoff in ship design would be necessary, to really have monitors and coastal battleships be a useful addition.