Newby questions

[georgeles]

I'm actually an old timer, from years ago. But now I'm coming back. Bought SAI. And I have a few questions that mystify me.

1. I cannot get the campaign editor to run. It says it can't find the designs file. So I copied that folder into the CE folder. Then it just doesn't respond when I try to open a campaign. So far as I can tell, it seems to be the scenario editor that opens, too. Puzzled.

2. How, in combat, can you deploy your fleet into a line of battle, as actually happened? When I try large scenarios, a few battle squadrons are in line with the flag squadron, but the rest stay in positions more like cruising formation. So they rarely seem to get of any shots. I've tried both Admiral and Rear Admiral settings. I also note that the "turn together" to avoid TT attacks seems to work only on the lead squadron, at least at once. The following SQ seems to advance to where the lead made its turn, and only then turn. Is this how it's supposed to work? Or have I missed something. Note that both these questions involve asking "How do I do what Jellicoe did?" Doesn't seem to work.

3. I did play with the scenario editor. As a test, I went through the Final Sortie, and set every capital ship's probability to 95%. But every time I load (under "variable") every ship shows up. So obviously, that isn't the right way to do it.

4. I don't really get torpedo attacks. When I try using the "flotilla attack" button, a few attack, but not many. And that's the only way I can see to do it. I haven't seen DDs attack nearby BBs, on their own, even though they are in good positions.

I have other questions, of course, but I'll leave it at that for now.

[randomizer]

Will try to be of some help.

1. I could not reproduce this today but have experienced it on occasion. There are a couple of possibilities though;

a. Are you attempting to open a stock, 3rd Party, modded or new campaign? The Campaign Editor looks for the *.sdf files in both the Custom and Designs and will deliver this error message if the suitable ones are not present with a separate error message FOR EACH SHIP of that design. Check the path that the Editor is using. Last time I had this I was trying to edit a RJW campaign but my Editor was looking in the Steam and Iron folder. Also try not to swap folders and make sure that copies of the *.env are present in the Campaign folder.

b. Editing or creating campaigns is a non-linear process, which requires frequent saving, exiting and reloading. The Editor is not particularly user friendly but all of the scenarios that shipped with the game were created using the same editor program. Good Luck.

2. This is doctrine. Grand Fleet Battle Orders, even under Beatty's regime delayed deployment from cruising into line until the last practical moment and SAI reflects this. Two major issues were at play, command and control and vulnerability to torpedo attack.

Wireless was of little use for manoeuvring the Fleet in battle because of delays inherent in the process. These included the need to prepare, encode, transmit, decode and action the orders. It was not until the USN introduced VHF line of sight Talk Between Ships voice radios that wireless became an effective means to control a fleet. Once in line, visual communications from the centre, where the flagship was stationed, still took some time and it was desirable to delay that moment for as long as practicable. The formation of columns of divisions derived from pre-war studies which indicated that a salvo of torpedoes may achieve up to 40% hits against a battle line. We know now that their methodology was flawed but this was the reason that the RN reluctantly rejected Horatio Nelson's long-held and sacred dictum that "[T]he order of sailing is the order of battle". SAI reflects these issues and imposes the necessary doctrine on the Player.

The problem is that the algorithms are difficult to determine and only seems to trigger in proximity of the battle fleet ships to the enemy. It might have been better if the trigger was light cruisers and larger from the battle fleets Force rather than mere proximity from the battleships themselves, which appears to be the case. There is no way to edit this without hacking into the executable itself, as far as I can see and the alternative, Captain's difficulty mode, requires you to manually control each division, which can negatively affect your span of control..

Divisions will turn away themselves when threatened and individual ships will take avoiding action without order and this probably works more often than not. One neat feature is that the AI will often turn away even if no torpedoes actually hit the water. Also I would argue that "doing what Jellicoe did", what ever that means, is really only relevant if you face an identical situation and recall that with hindsight, he almost certainly would have done things differently.

All that said, I have had some really good fleet actions where this is less of a problem that you might think. If you know what's coming, you can make the appropriate adjustments to your battle plan.

3. I seldom play with the probabilities. Try setting everything to 5% and if that seems to work, then you won the odds. After all, 95% is not too far from certainty.

4. Again you're seeing Great War doctrine at work. Most destroyers had only three or four tubes and no reloads Most destroyer captains would prefer to attack the enemy fleet rather than passively defend his own and as long as he had at least one functional torpedo he could do both. So time and again the record shows attacking boats firing just one or two torpedoes and then withdrawing with the goal of being able to repeat an attack later. Getting the geometry right for an effective torpedo attack can sometimes be difficult and can take some time. The Flotilla Attack mode actually works quite well but don't be surprized if it takes some time to develop. Not all of your AI destroyer captains will gain a launching solution and if they do, you can probably expect no more than one or two from each ship which achieves a targeting solution and actually launches. Late War destroyers have more tubes and will launch larger salvos and I have seen the Russian Novik fitted with eight tubes, launch a five torpedo salvo in a Baltic Campaign engagement.

Hope this helps.

-C

[georgeles]

Thanks. A few comments:

1a. I'm just trying to load a standard campaign. The 4 that show are the Baltic, Ger Stronger, and the two N Sea ones. They are .cam files, in a campaign subfolder, under the scenarios folder. All I ever get is "not responding" when I try to load one.
1b. Yes, I know it's going to be tough. I just want to load one, save it, and play around with it until I get the feel of it. What I usually do with modding.

2. I get the doctrine point. And it does sometimes work right, sometimes. I do think that it WOULD "have been better if the trigger was light cruisers and larger from the battle fleets Force" (as opposed to the BCF or SG, etc). The fact is that Jellicoe did have the fleet largely deployed in line before any of the GF BBs sighted the HSF.

BTW, I do not believe it was standard in Nelson's day for the order of battle to be the order of sailing. Nelson's comments on the subject make that pretty clear. So do many of the accounts I've read. (At Camperdown, Duncan didn't plan the attack, he just saw he needed to hit fast. In Nelson's case, it was the plan.) And Gordon implies that the change started before the torpedo threat was appreciated. I suspect that, as usual in history, there were several ideas going into the mix.

4. I get this. What is odd is that the thing sometimes seems to stay on, sometimes turns off, even if I forget to change it. One thing I notice it does is get the DDs a bit more likely to fight attacking DDs. Along that line, do the bigger ships EVER fire torpedoes? Or only in Captain's mode?

A few more questions:

A. What exactly does "preempt" mean, for enemy ops? It's not clear what you are supposed to do, and what you get for doing it? If you are running your own ops, and intercept and turn him back, is there a bonus if you picked preempt? Since there is no clue what his op is, it's hard to figure that.

B. It can be hard to change the flag division if you are rearranging your fleet. Sometimes the program keeps wanting to go back to the old system, even if you have change that to a core. It might help if there was a "none" option under the leading division line. Also, when a division becomes flagship, how long does this take? I had a case where I'd reentered port, and a cruiser sq became flag. But it wouldn't stay under my control, always saying "out of sight" of flagship. It ended up going in circles in a bay.

C. Will there be an update? I hope so, and if there is, there are a few things that would help:

i. It's odd that you cannot scroll the OB list with the mouse wheel, in Scen Editor, or the game, but you can with the scenario editor. Similarly, in the Scen OB, you can move up more than one line at a time, but not in the Campaign OB. A pain.

ii. Is there a hard pause? I cannot figure one out.

iii. It would be nice if you had hotkeys taking you to the flagship divs of the various forces.

Just a bit of things off the top of my head. I'm working on an 1914, easy setting, as a simple way to learn.

BTW, I still remember a phone call I got from you over a long email I sent. Beginning "Are you some kind of a nut." I enjoyed it, and still appreciate it.

Thanks again,

George

[georgeles]

A few more points:

Sometimes I find I cannot reassign ships to other squadrons in the same force (and base). E.g., I'd reassigned BBs to concentrate in fewer SQs, after a action. Now I cannot reassign them back to their original SQs. Why would that be?

Also, toward the end of a scenario, you tend to get spammed with 50% fuel messages, especially from DDs. Perhaps it would be better to have only one message per unit (per level). If one DD in a flotilla is low, the others probably are too.

Is there a way to assign a ship to a specific location at sea, getting a message when it gets there. I've lost track of some small ops (2 CLs, or a Minelaying mission) if a big battle occurs.

Also, it would be nice if you had a warning that some ships in a force weren't assigned to their roles. I tend to forget AVs, for instance. OK, that's my fault. I've noticed, however, that sometimes minelayers go to their targets on their own. Is there a rule for when they do? (And do AVs ever do the same?) I've also noticed that using the 5th Battle Squadron is a pain in this. Independent isn't satisfactory, nor is putting it in the line. It won't scout, like the 3rd BCS at Jutland.

Is there anything you can do when a "sub is spotted"? Since there's no indication of direction, it's pointless to change direction.

It would be helpful if, when an AI controlled force, like shore batteries and merchants get attacked, to have the message take you there when you click it, as happens when a ship in one of the main forces sights something. You can look it up, sure. But that seems needless work.

Also, it would be helpful to have some indication of how long it will take to get somewhere. A button showing range at 16 kts, for instance.

Thanks again,
George

[randomizer]

In reply to a few more comments,

1. No idea why the Campaign Editor works fine for me but not for you. Sorry.

2. Bear in mind that the GFBO's were written for daylight and good visibility and, in general, the SAI algorithms for deployment work reasonably well in these conditions. However in darkness and bad weather they are often found wanting. Unfortunately our historical data effectively covers just one data point so we really cannot know what a fleet engagement in poor conditions might have looked like. The Scarborough Raid gives a hint and that points to indecision and confusion. A "Form Line of Battle" button would have been a great asset but sadly there isn't one.

4. I find the Flotilla Attack button usually provides the intended effects given time. This may be a difference in expectations.

See Nelson's Trafalgar Memorandum, paragraph one includes:

... I have therefore made up my mind to keep the Fleet in that position of sailing (with the exception of the First and Second in Command) that the Order of Sailing is to be the Order of Battle, placing the Fleet in two Lines of sixteen Ships each, with an Advanced Squadron of eight of the fastest sailing.

Italics are mine.

Have also had capital ships torpedo other capital ships. It's rare but possible as is fratricide by torpedo. That sucks.

A. Preempt moves your starting points several hours steaming farther out to sea. It often improves the probability of interception and costs nothing.

B. I don't think that this function ever really worked as intended and know of neither options or fix.

C. I cannot speak for NWS but really doubt any update will be forthcoming.

i. Agreed.

ii. The turn needs to complete the current minute before the pause kicks in.

iii. Yup, would be nice.

BTW, I still remember a phone call I got from you over a long email I sent. Beginning "Are you some kind of a nut." I enjoyed it, and still appreciate it.

I have no recollection of this whatsoever! You must have me mistaken for somebody else.

Responses to A Few More Points.

The transfer routines can be unreliable sometimes and I no longer bother using them for most transfers. Instead I edit the saved games using a text editor, Notepad or Wordpad, backing up the original *.sca files. This is pretty straightforward as each ship is defined by a paragraph detailing off of its particulars. Simple cutting and pasting these while ensuring that the ship's unique ID is edited accordingly. The text files are context and punctuation sensitive but easy to edit if a bit tedious.

Fuel and ammo messages are per ship and when and destroyers tend to have fuel issues en mass. The ability to configure messages would be nice.

Sadly you cannot pre-plot a waypoint for navigation although this would be a great asset at times. You CAN designate a destination using the Patrol function but it's really not the same thing.

When one of your ships spots a sub, turning the force away can be prudent. All subs are hostile and your ships may attack your submarines. This sort of fratricide is actually kind of neat and you should avoid operating surface forces in proximity to your submarine patrol areas lest one torpedo you (possible at night or in bad weather) or you sink one of your own (possible in any conditions).

When an AI force is attacked, a sighting report is necessary to take you to the location. As there is often a significant delay between the trigger action and generating the sighting report, that information is often stale. This is actually a feature not a bug and few games model the information reporting delays found in real-world Fog of War.

If you select a division and then click on the map, the text below the Map should show distance in nautical miles, rough time of arrival at current speed and whether the arrival will be in daylight (D), twilight (T) or night (N). This vestigial nav-aid is better than nothing and can be pretty useful at times.

Good Shooting.

-C

 

[williammiller]

Mar 1, 2021 15:37:07 GMT -6 georgeles said:

BTW, I still remember a phone call I got from you over a long email I sent. Beginning "Are you some kind of a nut." I enjoyed it, and still appreciate it.

Thanks again,

George

That was probably Chris Dean (NWS Owner/Store Operator), it sounds like something he would say to an avid naval fan/customer

[georgeles]

Mar 2, 2021 10:02:51 GMT -6 williammiller said:

Mar 1, 2021 15:37:07 GMT -6 georgeles said:

BTW, I still remember a phone call I got from you over a long email I sent. Beginning "Are you some kind of a nut." I enjoyed it, and still appreciate it.

Thanks again,

George

That was probably Chris Dean (NWS Owner/Store Operator), it sounds like something he would say to an avid naval fan/customer

It was. I had assumed that was who randomizer was. My mistake.

[georgeles]

Mar 2, 2021 1:34:01 GMT -6 randomizer said:

1. No idea why the Campaign Editor works fine for me but not for you. Sorry.

I guess I'll just delete the whole thing, and reinstall.

See Nelson's Trafalgar Memorandum, paragraph one includes:

... I have therefore made up my mind to keep the Fleet in that position of sailing (with the exception of the First and Second in Command) that the Order of Sailing is to be the Order of Battle, placing the Fleet in two Lines of sixteen Ships each, with an Advanced Squadron of eight of the fastest sailing.

Italics are mine.

That's my point. It was NELSON, not the RN as a whole, who saw it that way. So far as I recall, other OS=OB actions were unplanned encounters, like Camperdown and Lagos.

C. I cannot speak for NWS but really doubt any update will be forthcoming.

I weep.

I have no recollection of this whatsoever! You must have me mistaken for somebody else.

My mistake. I was assuming you were Christopher Dean. (The C threw me.)

The transfer routines can be unreliable sometimes and I no longer bother using them for most transfers. Instead I edit the saved games using a text editor, Notepad or Wordpad, backing up the original *.sca files. This is pretty straightforward as each ship is defined by a paragraph detailing off of its particulars. Simple cutting and pasting these while ensuring that the ship's unique ID is edited accordingly. The text files are context and punctuation sensitive but easy to edit if a bit tedious.

The bolded part, I do not understand. How do you know what the ID should be?

Sadly you cannot pre-plot a waypoint for navigation although this would be a great asset at times. You CAN designate a destination using the Patrol function but it's really not the same thing.

I do not understand the "Patrol" function. Haven't used it yet. Can it be used in it's place? Seems unlikely. My problem has been little ops, like MLs, which I forget when a real battle starts. Lost a ML that way.

When one of your ships spots a sub, turning the force away can be prudent. 

Is any direction equivalent to "away"? That's the part I don't get. It doesn't say "sub, bearing NNE" or anything like that.

When an AI force is attacked, a sighting report is necessary to take you to the location. As there is often a significant delay between the trigger action and generating the sighting report, that information is often stale. This is actually a feature not a bug and few games model the information reporting delays found in real-world Fog of War.

I get that, and think it's right. The specific cases that get me are when they are bombarding a land battery. Surely you can tell which one made the report. That's something you can find out, with a bit of work, so it'd make sense for the game to just say which. Similar (but easier to handle) is when a patrolling ship gets attacked.

If you select a division and then click on the map, the text below the Map should show distance in nautical miles, rough time of arrival at current speed and whether the arrival will be in daylight (D), twilight (T) or night (N). This vestigial nav-aid is better than nothing and can be pretty useful at times.


Didn't know that. Thanks, that's pretty much what I wanted. Again, I'm a newby.

Good Shooting.

-C


Thank you again,
George
 

[randomizer]

As for Nelson goes, I am surpized that you so readily discount the long tern influence on the RN of the spectacular tactical victory at Trafalgar and the worship of the Admiral's merest pronouncements as though they represented some magical and profound Naval Truths. See Commodore Hoste's action at Lissa in 1811, the Admiralty criticism of Admiral Napier's Baltic campaign in 1854 as un-Nelson like and the lionization in Nelsonic terms of Captain Lord Charles Beresford after the Bombardment of Alexandria. Nelson, or rather an irrational but popular image of Nelson set an impossible standard for Royal Navy leadership for generations and for the most part, not in a positive way. I wonder what the shade of Nelson would have had to say about Martyn Jerram, Thomas Troubridge or Arky Barky Milne? He probably would have approved of Walter Cowen or Reginald Tyrwitt though. Any commander showing Nelsonian initiative in the Grand Fleet would likely have been beached despite the idolization of the dead admiral and his accomplishments.

-C

[randomizer]

ensuring that the ship's unique ID is edited accordingly

Every ship in a division is identified by a unique identifier starting at Ship0 through Ship# whatever in numerical order. This identifier starts every line in the ship's definition paragraph. Look at the entries for any division in any saved *.sca file to see what I mean.

As for sub sightings, any direction will do. If spotted by a flanking escort I tend to turn away in the opposite direction for 10-15 minutes before returning to base course.

Patrol is an optional action found in the drop down menu with screen, support and independent etc. Once set to Patrol, the Division/Force will randomly manoeuvre around the selected point at the ordered speed without further Player input and until the orders are changed. It's a handy tool for the Harwich Force to control the Channel for example.

-C

[georgeles]

Mar 2, 2021 11:19:40 GMT -6 randomizer said:

As for Nelson goes, I am surpized that you so readily discount the long tern influence on the RN of the spectacular tactical victory at Trafalgar and the worship of the Admiral's merest pronouncements as though they represented some magical and profound Naval Truths. See Commodore Hoste's action at Lissa in 1811, the Admiralty criticism of Admiral Napier's Baltic campaign in 1854 as un-Nelson like and the lionization in Nelsonic terms of Captain Lord Charles Beresford after the Bombardment of Alexandria. Nelson, or rather an irrational but popular image of Nelson set an impossible standard for Royal Navy leadership for generations and for the most part, not in a positive way. I wonder what the shade of Nelson would have had to say about Martyn Jerram, Thomas Troubridge or Arky Barky Milne? He probably would have approved of Walter Cowen or Reginald Tyrwitt though. Any commander showing Nelsonian initiative in the Grand Fleet would likely have been beached despite the idolization of the dead admiral and his accomplishments.

-C

It's not discounting anything to point out that Nelson's own words, in his memorandum, clearly show that OS=OB wasn't standard. And it wasn't. That doesn't mean the RN's influence wasn't a bid deal before him. E.g., the much faster gunnery predated Nelson. And I'm not so sure about Troubridge, that's a contest matter. Do not forget his generous words when Calder was attacked for being less than Nelson. HN's rep as an egotist seems to have been real, but almost entirely based on his interactions with landsmen.

And of course, it isn't his fault what was later made of his legend. It was a 19th C thing, the worship of the Master Mind. Napoleon had a lot to do with it. But you can see it in, e.g., Moriarty. I've noticed that in my lifetime there was a shift toward a bit more more emphasis on criminal organizations as such.

And thanks for the other answer. I think I get it.

[georgeles]

I'm finally getting the hang of it. Almost to 1916 in the 1914 Grand Campaign (Brit, normal). Just a few things:

1. Still cannot get the Campaign Editor to open. I always get a "not responding" message.

2. I found a mistake in the OB. HMS Queen Elizabeth shows up a year late, 5/20/1916. All my sources say May, 1915, returning from Gallipoli. Jellicoe's Grand Fleet says 5/28/1915.

3. The game is kind of buggy.
a. Every once in a while, a ship will show up S of W Africa. (0,0 I think.) That will suddenly happen in the midst of a campaign turn.
b. Every so often I get error messages. Usually they don't seem to cause a problem. A few times I had to close and start over. I am not up to analyzing access violations.
c. A division sometimes just refuses to move up the list. This seems to happen only in the Grand Fleet, most often the 5th BS, which I still don't have where I'd like it. (Not fatal, just a pain.)
d. It seems that when reacting with Emergency Activation, all divisions lose their status, even if I take the trouble to set it when activating them. Again, not fatal, but a pain.
e. I just ended a turn with an odd detail screen I won a little battle with a CL and a DD Div from Harwich, sinking to crummy A class TBs. No biggie. But when looking at the details, none of the Harwich units was listed. The TBs were listed as sunk, but with no one hitting them. Weird.

I've also found that if a force is emergency activated, from a force already at sea (say, part of the GF which was left behind), you get a new independent, non-AI command. Intended?

I'm figuring out how to lay mines and get the MLs into base before having the rest continue.

Finally, I note that the AI Germans amass an immense number of Op Pts. I guess it's easy for them to keep everyone at peak training. Not a complaint.

EDIT: I do hope that this gets a revamp. I'm liking it a lot. And frankly, I'm not interested in the a fictional design your own. Just my opinion, YMMV.

[georgeles]

Something really buggy has happened twice. An entire force, first the BCF, then they whole GF, were "rebased" by the system, not by me, when I opened a new campaign turn. The BCF went to Harwich, the GF to Grimsby. That is bad.

EDIT: Yet more weirdness. I had a mission to sink 2 ships (any). I got 3, including a CL and a DD. Yet it said the mission failed. I did note a target  objective circle on the edge of the Heligoland minefield. I did send ship through that, though after the ships had been sunk. I do not understand that.

I really like the game, but it needs work. I hope they return to it.

[williammiller]

Mar 6, 2021 20:44:19 GMT -6 georgeles said:

Something really buggy has happened twice. An entire force, first the BCF, then they whole GF, were "rebased" by the system, not by me, when I opened a new campaign turn. The BCF went to Harwich, the GF to Grimsby. That is bad.

EDIT: Yet more weirdness. I had a mission to sink 2 ships (any). I got 3, including a CL and a DD. Yet it said the mission failed. I did note a target  objective circle on the edge of the Heligoland minefield. I did send ship through that, though after the ships had been sunk. I do not understand that.

I really like the game, but it needs work. I hope they return to it.

For "Sink X Ships" missions the ships sunk have to be within (IIRC) ~50nm or so of the objective in order to count - this is to prevent incidental sinking of vessels far away as counting for the objective fulfillment.

[georgeles]

Yet another problem I'm having. Must the flagship division be the first one on the OB list? I'm beginning to suspect that, because it keeps happening that when I use the last squadron, it always wants to switch to AI, because it's out of sight of the flagship. But there was no other independent squadron in the force. The reason it was last is because "Move up" often won't work when I'm in port, trying to organize the fleet. The only way I've found to handle this is the laborious method of reassigning squadrons above it, then reassigning them back. That is a pain.

Just what do you HAVE to do to designate the squadron you want as flag? Simply making it the only independent, non-AI squadron (and assigning the others accordingly) simply does not work reliably.

Again, I like this game a lot, but it is very buggy. She needs a refit.