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Post by director on Apr 27, 2016 7:26:32 GMT -6
In 'real life' cross-deck firing was pretty much a bust. Ships that tried it found they ripped up the wooden decking, buckled the steel deck underneath and didn't have very good arcs of fire anyway.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Apr 27, 2016 10:39:53 GMT -6
anonuser, I don't think it's a bug that you've described, just a very rare set of random events. The game has a lot of randomness built in, which sometime makes it very unpredictable but for me increases that the fun factor (though your situation is hardly fun). Just when I think I've got things figured out something like that occurs. A few games ago I researched 1500 tons DDs pretty early and then about 2 years later researched 900 ton DDs. For a game developed by a tiny team it has amazingly few bugs but the randomness sometimes reaches right out to the edge of plausibility.
I've built a cross-fire armed BB in almost every game. I probably should just wait for better options to be developed but my impatience gets the better of me when I see other nations start building BBs. What I have found is that there are very few negatives to cross-firing. There is no obvious damage to the ship itself when it fires. As for their field of fire, what I've noticed is that, when firing at a target in broadside, if your aft guns can fire at the target then your cross-firing guns on your unengaged side can also fire at the target.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Apr 28, 2016 11:28:39 GMT -6
Here's a weird experience and probable bug. Playing as Italy I was in a battle with Austria-Hungary. I found my one BB facing two of theirs and I lost my battleship. I also had a computer controlled friendly support force consisting of one battleship and some destroyers in the battle but these ships had not been engaged at all. I ended up running from the battle with the shattered remnant of my force. As I ran away with my single remaining destroyer the support force engaged the enemy out of my sight. This engagement continued until turn 675 in a 500 turn engagement. Finally there were no opposing forces in sight and the very disappointing battle ended. At this point I made the mistake of hitting the Save game button instead of the End game button. The game saved and I chose to exit. I thought, no problem - I'll just restart the game and end the scenario. So I restart the game and, to my surprise, I find the game has now decided that the battle actually did not end after all. The battle starts right up again and the ticker starts counting up as the unseen engagement heats up again. Both sides bang away at each other for hours until one of the enemy BBs gets torpedoed twice. The distant battle then winds down pretty quickly until finally, at turn 964, the 500 turn engagement ends with one battleship per side sunk, plus misc. smaller ships. I then thought I'd test the bounds of the bug. I found I could achieve similar results by exploiting the Windows 10 bug that prevents the game from recovering after it is minimized. After the battle ended but before clicking on the End Game button, I minimized the game. Because of the Win10 minimize bug I could not restore the game to full screen and could only close it. When I restarted the game it did the same thing - it decided the battle had not ended and it started up again and once again fought an unseen battle, this time with different results. I did this a couple more times, each time getting different battle results. That sounds like a bug to me. It's kind of an edge case but I'm sure the authors would prefer that this kind of thing not occur. I've linked two save game files. One file is the game immediately after the game first ended, before I noticed the bug. The other file is the game saved after I finally ended the battle for the last time. link to 1st saved game Link to last saved game |
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Post by anonuser on Apr 29, 2016 12:25:39 GMT -6
anonuser, I don't think it's a bug that you've described, just a very rare set of random events. The game has a lot of randomness built in, which sometime makes it very unpredictable but for me increases that the fun factor (though your situation is hardly fun). Just when I think I've got things figured out something like that occurs. A few games ago I researched 1500 tons DDs pretty early and then about 2 years later researched 900 ton DDs. For a game developed by a tiny team it has amazingly few bugs but the randomness sometimes reaches right out to the edge of plausibility. I've built a cross-fire armed BB in almost every game. I probably should just wait for better options to be developed but my impatience gets the better of me when I see other nations start building BBs. What I have found is that there are very few negatives to cross-firing. There is no obvious damage to the ship itself when it fires. As for their field of fire, what I've noticed is that, when firing at a target in broadside, if your aft guns can fire at the target then your cross-firing guns on your unengaged side can also fire at the target. It worked out alright in the end - I got four centerline turrets about a year later, skipping right past three. Only wound up laying down five semi-dreadnought style ships (two of which got counted as battlecruisers, incidentally). Similarly, my researchers are baffled by triple torpedo mounts ... which is totally reasonable, considering that I haven't even developed double torpedo mounts! I guess my research teams want to skip ahead? ... actually, I wonder, if I get triple torpedo mounts but not double, will it only let me build triple or single mounts, not double? |
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Post by jwsmith26 on Apr 29, 2016 12:37:45 GMT -6
Glad it worked out for you. If you get triple launchers you can build single, double or triple launchers.
It's definitely not your typical tech system. Personally, I really like they way they've implemented this system, incorporating purely technical advances as well as procedural/political/cultural advances and handling all of them within the same elegant and very easily controlled system.
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Post by anonuser on Apr 30, 2016 5:14:37 GMT -6
Glad it worked out for you. If you get triple launchers you can build single, double or triple launchers. It's definitely not your typical tech system. Personally, I really like they way they've implemented this system, incorporating purely technical advances as well as procedural/political/cultural advances and handling all of them within the same elegant and very easily controlled system. I like it too - I like that I have only limited control, so things aren't too predictable. And I'm always rather amused when just after I lay down a ship, I discover a tech that renders it obsolete. In this game, it's happened already with both the times I accepted an offer to buy a ship at a discount... |
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Post by director on Apr 30, 2016 8:09:35 GMT -6
I just laid down a 'quasi-dreadnought' with three double 12" turrets in the main battery and six single 10" turrets in the secondary.
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Post by jwsmith26 on Apr 30, 2016 9:17:39 GMT -6
I just laid down a 'quasi-dreadnought' with three double 12" turrets in the main battery and six single 10" turrets in the secondary. I'm calling it a 'quasi-dreadnought'. Good name, director, but I believe these kinds of ships are generally described by the similar sounding title, "semi-dreadnought". The Japanese Satsuma was such a ship: Satsuma on Wikipedia |
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Post by director on Apr 30, 2016 21:52:26 GMT -6
Yes, but 'semi-dreadnought' is for ships with two main gun turrets and assorted slightly smaller guns. The 'quasi's have three main gun turrets and, with all the 12" and 10" turrets, look something like a floating refinery. LOL. I suppose if it had 1 main gun turret I'd have to call it a 'demi-dreadnought'.  |
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Post by jwsmith26 on May 1, 2016 9:49:02 GMT -6
OK, director, I need a picture of this thing. :-) Has it been a successful design?
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Roumba
Junior Member
Posts: 88 
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Post by Roumba on May 1, 2016 17:14:26 GMT -6
I just had an event when I was scrapping some ships that allowed me to choose to use one as a gunnery target. It said my gunnery has improved, but I don't really know exactly how.
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Post by director on May 1, 2016 20:07:40 GMT -6
didn't build - as soon as I laid it down I got 14" guns and 4 centerline turrets in quick succession. So I scrapped the 'quasi' (or 'queasy') ships since they were less than 6 months along.
Here's a pic of HMS Irregular.
Attachment Deleted |
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Post by jwsmith26 on May 1, 2016 21:31:52 GMT -6
I just had an event when I was scrapping some ships that allowed me to choose to use one as a gunnery target. It said my gunnery has improved, but I don't really know exactly how. Roumba, I've gotten that gunnery target event and I believe that several of my ships got improved crews when I accepted it. It was definitely worth the cost. I've also gotten a similar event that involves a gunnery contest. I've definitely seen that event improve my crew ability on more than one ship per event. |
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Post by jwsmith26 on May 1, 2016 21:50:51 GMT -6
didn't build - as soon as I laid it down I got 14" guns and 4 centerline turrets in quick succession. So I scrapped the 'quasi' (or 'queasy') ships since they were less than 6 months along.
Here's a pic of HMS Irregular.
That's a lot of firepower on not much tonnage. Now if it could actually hit something with central firing. Of course that changes after rebuilds, but then I would worry about the thin skin necessitated by the heavy secondaries and their armored turrets. If it can survive until secondary directors arrive it might catch a second wind, especially since by that time 10" guns have pretty decent penetration. Nice set of 5" guns. Gotta kill those tin cans. Cool ship. It would be fun to take it into battle. I think I'll build something similar next game. I wonder if the 10" guns would suffer from the "multiple ships firing at one target" penalty? They are typical cruiser weapons and seldom used on battleships. But I think they're described as heavy when they fire and it may be the case that all heavy guns interfere with each other. |
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Post by director on May 1, 2016 22:12:51 GMT -6
In real life the reason the semi-dreadnoughts were phased out was because the spotters couldn't tell the difference in a shell splash from anything 8" or larger. So ships 'should' suffer from firing mixed batteries of heavy guns. It's hard to tell because, as you say, it is just hard to hit anything before you get director fire.
I always keep my 'semis' around, refitting them with better fire control as it comes available. They can add a bit to an outnumbered battle-line and, if nothing else, they add weight to my colonial squadrons.
It is thinner-skinned than I like, but not too thin to be useful. British designs emphasized speed (to set the engagement range), rapid fire and heavy guns. These fit in that template.
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