Aircraft Carriers

[SKurj 230]

the carrier made surface gunships at least obsolete...  ppl claim to like wt because more real...   some of the world's most op warships were sunk by cv aircraft, while not having anything to shoot back at... and those ships aren't even in the game yet, and ppl want carriers?

 

nvm the fact you can shoot from spawn to spawn...  so now we are looking at options like that other game putting them so far back they are 'protected'?

 

cv's and subs will mean drastic changes to the game and maps, when they happen...   all we can hope for is they get their own game modes...  

[CyberNapoleon 596]

On 23/03/2023 at 02:54, Shadow__CZ said:

I just don't understand how someone can come up with floating airfield argument now that we have floatplanes and drones. 

Ways to limit damage output of CVs is indeed a concern one thing is obvious in game AA will likely be very powerful against AI squadrons since they will fly in straight line. There is also possibility of making player do every single drop. Of course all these need one thing appropriately strong AA but I touched on that above.

About the counterplay, I don't think that is necessary to be able to damage CV as long as shooting down planes is costly enough and have consequences for the CV player. Cost of 500-1000 per plane would be enough IMO (has anyone idea if spotter planes cost anything currently if they are shot down?) . Also shooting down planes would limit all subsequent attacks permanently for duration of battle. 

Yes, the floating airfield probably isn't going to happen, I was just floating (haha) an idea for what form they could possibly take. That's true, it would be costly to waste planes on something, though the main issue I have with that is CV's are obviously going to be very potent, no matter what way you look at it. Maybe not brokenly overpowered levels of potent, but by their very nature, they're going to be inherently very powerful. We gotta make sure also that we don't have a situation where carriers can dictate the entire course of the game by themselves. They could also give carriers unlimited planes, but that would be unrealistic and probably quite problematic balance-wise, even if they're balanced by the cost. The issue then is if someone is playing them and runs out of planes, well, they can't do anything now. I'd be interested to see how they work in WTE though, maybe I will have to eat every word I've said here. But I doubt it.

 

On 23/03/2023 at 03:40, [email protected] said:

 

Sort of, but also not really. Carriers and their air power absolutely changed surface combat, but it wasn't carriers that killed the battleship, it was guided missiles.

 

Part of the reason this semi-myth is so popular is due to US performance later in the Pacific war, especially cases like Musashi and Yamato. But those aren't really carrier aircraft making battleships obsolete, it was simply a matter of absurdly overwhelming numbers, thanks to the American Essex-class 3D printing machines.

 

What really killed surface combat was guided weapons over the next decade or so. And with that in mind, I'm infinitely more worried about expanding missile systems in Naval than subs or carriers.

Fair enough. I looked at Shadow's proposal and if implemented correctly, maybe they wouldn't be terrible (though there are caveats and that's a big if), I just need to flush my mind out of how they work in the other game. But yes, anti-ship missiles have the potential to be the biggest mess of all three. I know they're technically in game already with that Italian boat, but they're balanced out by a range limitation among other things. I've seen people asking for Exocets and honestly, if you ask me, the day they (and contemporaries) get added is the day naval dies.

 

On 24/03/2023 at 14:43, [email protected] said:

I've often thought that those maps might work better if they had the [Encounter] setup, more like how they appear in the Air modes. Have something to do other than wander around knee-high islands( or nothing at all ). Replacing the aircraft carriers on them w/ the new, better looking ones in either or both modes would be nice in the meantime, atmosphere is important !

Agreed, even if they are just floating airfields, I think that would add a lot to the game in terms of things to do, rather than capture giant circle points over and over. Especially adding more modern carriers as we go up the BR's in terms of ships, we're already at 7.0 already, who knows where it'll end up by the time they're done adding battleships.

[Seahawk_2015 55]

But how will a single player operate the carrier and also operate the entire squadron of carrier aircraft at once? 

 

The only way this could be implemented is to have each carrier aircraft to be operated by an individual player and an individual player operating the carrier. But the player operating the carrier can do nothing other than evade enemy warships (and also submarines, keeping future in mind) and shoot down enemy aircraft to protect the carrier. 

 

I would say it is better for the developers to first add Ai carriers from Air Battles into Naval Battles before going on with playable carriers.

[Jareel_Skaj 298]

Why a whole squadron squadron? Just having them operate 1 aircraft at a time (like hydroplane), only you can choose the loadout, which plane to spawn (out for carrier-capable planes), and being able to spawn next one as soon as the previous dies, would be incredibly OP on its own.

 

Just imagine people running one kamikaze bomber into enemy ships after another. Such a carrier in a semi-competent hands would be able to kill any ship on the map every 40 seconds or so. And heck: I'm often able to kill more than one ship in a go in something like B7A2.

 

I don't know why people think aircraft are so weak in the naval battles that a carrier would need an entire wing to be useful? When I'm worried it would be OP by just letting you control a single aircraft at a time...

[Seahawk_2015 55]

But why hasn't anyone explained this yet? What will the players operating the carriers do? One person can't control a carrier and an entire squadron of aircraft at once. Every plane will require a player for it. And the player operating the carrier can do nothing other than shooting down bombers that target the carrier and avoiding enemy surface combatants. Ai carriers in naval battles is better imo.

Edited April 18 by Seahawk_2015

[[email protected] 682]

11 hours ago, Seahawk_2015 said:

Every plane will require a player for it.

Not necessarily, I imagine they could work something like the AT guns in the Sturmtiger event: fighting on their own in groups w/ reduced effectiveness, w/ the option for the player to take control of a random one in a specified group. Then switching back to maneuver or operate the weaponry of the command vehicle, in this case the carrier, when the situation demands it. Others have imagined other ways to control carrier groups, their posts might be worth taking a look at for alternate solutions.
 

 

11 hours ago, Seahawk_2015 said:

Ai carriers in naval battles is better imo.

I'd certainly like to see the new WW2 high-poly ones in matches in, really any capacity at this point honestly. Most are only present in testdrives for aircraft atm, and some are just sitting in the files completely unused. 

At the very least I'd like to see them replace the ancient low-poly ones that serve as airfields on open-cap maps like Midway.

[[email protected] 682]

Assuming they are going to be replaced at some point, here 's all the low-poly carriers ingame currently viewable in the WT CDK. Italics for ones that have been datamined for the mobile game, Bolded for the ones which have high-poly counterparts in WT already:

IJN Zuikaku

Spoiler

IJN Soryu

Spoiler

IJN Ryujo

Spoiler

IJN Hiryu

Spoiler

IJN Akagi

Spoiler

USS Wasp (CV-7)

Spoiler

USS Lexington (CV-2)

Spoiler

USS Enterprise (CV-6)

Spoiler

HMS Illustrious (87)

Spoiler

RN Aquila, project

Spoiler

 

[[email protected] 682]

Something interesting I've discovered abt the internal modelling of HMS Ark Royal(R09): it has ammunition storages despite not having guns of any kind in the fit it appears ingame in:

 
I don't believe the other carriers have ammo storages which are not obviously placed for use by their gun armament; this might make Ark Royal unique in another way.



Separately, the notes of the currently ongoing devserver include a much-awaited change:
 
Seems like highly detailed WW2 carriers will now be used in Air SBEC ! Hopefully they will expand to the other modes these types of ships appear in, replacing their low-poly carriers w/ these too.
The note abt " German aircraft carriers " seems to imply that a remodeling of RN Aquila, proj. is either not ready or not currently planned.
 
 
 

Edited May 20 by [email protected]
formatting

[[email protected] 682]

This devserver datamine ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/13pz3zg/dev_server_datamine_2251115_226019_part_10/ ) details the changes to Aircraft Carrier selection in Air SBEC, we'll have to see if they carry over to live. It 's USS Lexington from BR 's 1.0 to 3.3, USS Enterprise from 3.7 to 7.7, IJN Shokaku from 1.0 to 7.7, and USS Forrestal from 8.0 to the BR cap.

Additionally, some of the low quality carriers in Historical Campaigns are being removed too. USS Lexington and USS Enterprise are being directly replaced by their new HQ versions, and the IJN carriers Zuikaku, Soryu, Ryujo, and Akagi are all being replaced by the detailed IJN Shokaku.