Aircraft Carriers - WT Discussion

Machinery of War Discussion Navy
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The WT Mobile indeed provied a lot of interesting informations. Of corse the CVs are long way evay because of the gameplay but I really think the CVs could be implemented with no major modifications to existing mechanic.

With all the new info and especially the progress made from the 2016 I decided to ponder how the CVs could look like based on the new knowlege this is what I have comeup with.

New CV gameplay idea based on the new knowledge

The first thing that needs to be said is that for CVs to be implemented current gameplay/objectives should change since currently the game isn´t able to acomodate the CVs.
Another thing which must be considered is vehicle and nation balance so the CVs can not be too powerful and the loss of planes should have serious SL consequences.

Looking at the current in game mechanics and the gameplay contrains. I believe that best approach is to allow CV player comand limited amount of planes in several squads and then give the player ability to take control of one of the squads for attacks against the surface combatans. Since this approach would both limit the damage output and give player to prepare and perform several tasks and objectives simultaneously.

The gameplay would basically combaign both old and current WOWS style CV gameplay.

In battle the CV player would have acces to up to 3 different types of squads to which player could assign numbers of planes based on their preference in same way as with ammo for guns.
EDIT As with ammo they could decide to carry less then the 3 different types or not to carry all planes. The selection of the planes would depend on the researched modification so the fully spaded CV would have acces to more options then just one dive bomber, one fighter and one torpedo bomber.

For example in case of the USS Saratoge I though about these options:

  1. F4F Wildcat with no suspended weaponry
  2. F6F-5 Hellcat with no suspended weaponry
  3. F6F-5 Hellcat with Tiny Tims
  4. TBD-1 Devastator with Mk. 13 torpedo
  5. TBF-1C Avenger with Mk.13-6 Case Torpedo
  6. Maybe TBF-1C Avenger with 2000 lb bomb
  7. SBD-3 Dauntless with 2 x 100 lb and 1 x 1000 lb bombs

From these seven the player would choose up to three.
But even if player chooses the F6F-5 and F6F-5 (Tiny Tim) the numbers wouldn´t be interchangeable between these two.

Like this

End of edit

The CV would also have new “weapon control group” replacing the main battery with “aircaft command”. There they would have acces to launching the 3 different squads, command view and switching between squads.

The command view would be the main way how to command the plane squads.

Command view

  • On the left, next to the the DM view is an overview of the state of the aircraft complement showing destroyed, rearming/repairing and ready for flight planes divided into the 3 types the player chose.

  • Above the DM view is the deck/hangar overview. Which displays the progress of launching and landing of the squads. This action would take time based on the number of lifts, plane catapults the deck arresting gear and deck layout.

    For example in case of the USS Saratoga used in the example she has only one elevator which will slow down the deploying of the planes to the deck / from the deck. But she has two aircraft catapults so the lanching will be quite fast.
    And as all WW2 carriers she has straight flight deck so she can´t land and launch planes at the same time.

Squad launching view

  • On the right is the squad overview which shows current number of squads in the air, the type of plane in the squad and its main armament and also current task and remaining fuel time.

    It also highlights the selected squad and shows the actions which can be done with it.

  • In the centre is the sommand map. Which would show locaition of each squad and the point where the squads is heading to and in case of the patrol also the area which the squad patrols.

    To send squad to specific point on the map the player will choose the squad which they want to give command to with the cycle button [V] simmilarly to the cycling between the gunners. And then by clicking on the map with LMB to place pin on the map to wich the squad will now fly. Player can also decide to send the squad back to CV [Z & +/1], make it patrol the area around the pin [Z & ě/2] or to take direct control over the squad [ř].

The amount of planes and squad would be limited to only 5 squads with 5 planes per squad. This is done to limit the server impact and also to limit the disparity betweent he different CVs. And to make the controls easier.

In the direct control the the player would control only 1 plane from the squad while the other planes would fly after it / circle around.

Direct control


Dive bomber squad


Torpedo bomber squad.

  • In the hotbar player has option for quick switch to “Comand view” and to “Ship control”

  • There would be also button to switch between different planes in the squad simmilarly to the squad cycle function in the “Command view”. Next to it is dispay of the state of the other planes in the squad and if the plane still has the main weaponry.

After the player performs the attact with the plane they can switch to different plane in squad to perform the attack again. This is done to allow player to precisely place attecks and to limit the possible damage of completly RTS gameplay and if the AI planes would attack with the player. If the damage output and or the planes would be too easy to shoot down (even despite the distraction of other planes) the player can be given one ore more wingmen to perform the attack too.

The modification for CV would consist of two types.

  1. These would be new armament/plane modification which would allow the use new planes or new armament.
  2. These are more general amrmament upgrades which would improve the performance of the air arm.
Modification screen for the USS Saratoga

New armament/planes

  • F6F-5 Hellcat and the TBF-1C Avenger these would allow to use new fighter planes / new torpedo bomber planes in the respective squads

    The stock USS Saratoga would have acces to F4F-4 Wildcat, SBD-3 Dauntless and the TBD-1 Devastator

  • There is also modification which allows to equip F6F-5 with Tiny Tim rockets as one of the squads (this isn´t replacement for the F6F-5 just another different squad)

Upgrades to the equipment

  • Aircraft elevators would spead up the preparation/move of planes from the hangar and make the lift more resilient to damage

  • The arresting gear would spead the landing procedures

  • The combat air patrol would make fighter actively target enemy planes even without the patrol area command.

The landing/launch would be completly independent from the player, the launch would be animated just after the launch when the AI would take over. The laning would work in simmilar way where the AI would just fly into square right behind the carrier and rest would be amimated.

Both of these function are in the game but aren´t polished enough to be used in closeups on the CVs

Current AI landing

CV Landing current on Vimeo

From what I can see when I look into the WTM datamines it looks like the WTM will have same system like current WOWS carriers. But with ability of having multiple planes in the game unless I am missing something there is no way how to command planes to fly towards some point on the map which is shame especially when WT´s engine allows that already (Enlisted AI commands, Artilery suppoer and warning marks ).
I really believe that the RTS aspect would really suit WT NF if we ever get slightly larger maps.

3 Likes
22

I didn´t explain it properly but my idea is that the CV player would have acces to for example: Fighters, Fighters with rockets, Fighters with bombs, Bombers with one type of bomb, Bombers with different type of bomb, Diffeerent bombers with torpedoes ect. and from this roster of different squads they could choose up to 3 different squads. Basically it would work same way as the ammo but with planes.

For example in case of the USS Saratoge I though about these options:

  1. F4F Wildcat with no suspended weaponry
  2. F6F-5 Hellcat with no suspended weaponry
  3. F6F-5 Hellcat with Tiny Tims
  4. TBD-1 Devastator with Mk. 13 torpedo
  5. TBF-1C Avenger with Mk.13-6 Case Torpedo
  6. Maybe TBF-1C Avenger with 2000 lb bomb
  7. SBD-3 Dauntless with 2 x 100 lb and 1 x 1000 lb bombs

From these seven the player would choose up to three.
But even if player chooses the F6F-5 and F6F-5 (Tiny Tim) the numbers wouldn´t be interchangeable between these two.

Like this

I imagine that game wouldn´t go that in depth to also count and calculate the suspended weaponry stocks, so I imagine that as long as the CV has airframes from that squadroon it will have weaponry for it.

I first imagined that player could swap the layouts mid battle but I think that is too complex for the scale of WT NF. And would require a lot of new mechanics and it wouldn´t be that useful.
Plus limiting the options gives Gaijin more options for making more veriety.

There needs to be balance between the damage output of CV squadroon and the defensive AA armament of the surface vessels. We can´t have the attacks be too powerful or easy to do.

In my opinion if the full squadroon would attack at once it would be too powerfull and deadly for surface ships.
Same goes for the idea of fully RTS gameplay where the players could quite easily set up cross fire traps with torpedoes ect.

This is somethich which would require proper testing and could be adjusted based on the results.

That might be possible solution but I think it could be quite frustrating to both parties. For CV player when they unknowingly attack BB like USS Nevada which easily shoots down half of the squad. But also quite frustrating when the whole squads attack BB with two MGs like you said.

I am really sceptical to the RTS gameplay because I think it allows exceptionally big first strike potential and also fast get in and get out from the AA buble.

So I was suggesting system which would on one hand give player much more control but also would limit the first strike ability and make the squadroon stay in the AA buble for longer time. And secondly is easier to implement for Gaijin.

It is something which would require testing thats for sure.

If we were to have CVs on current maps I would agree but if they were to be implemented on the larger maps where the CV itself would be relatively safe I need to dissagree. Since in that scenario we would have situation where the CV player can attack other ships with no consequences.

So I think that having high SL for loosing aircraft would be fair trade when the CV itself is safe.

But the value can be adjusted based on testing same as the ammo costs for warships were in the CBT (where the it was 50-80 SL per one shell) which was changed in 1.89.

4 Likes
23

Weird to see Israel tag on this discussion, but anyway…
My biggest gripe with this, is that these carriers are proper, high-budget fleet carriers, at the center of task forces.
I’m more curious about early, small scale escort and light carriers and seaplane tenders - after all, low rank/BR is actually more important than late rank/BR, as the new players being dissatisfied with how these things doing in combat, simply won’t bother going for higher as, again, not many are masochists.
Another thing, maybe those early and small carriers are already powerful enough to occupy the rank 4-5 in the current Naval Forces tree, even with their early war planes, while the large fleet and task force carriers will have to go to 6 and above ranks.
That aside…

I think the game kind of has to, though I admit this may not be a welcoming another set of controls for new players.
Carrier gameplay, in theory, should be management gameplay. Otherwise, it makes carriers kind of pointless to add. And this bit of management can already be… tested, by giving player control of an airfield. If it was implemented. I wonder if there’s some test build for RTS feature testing…

There is a way to change loadout in air battles:

Limiting options would make the vehicles easier to balance, in theory. But I’m not sure if it’s a positive addition overall…
I think the player should have an option whether to make his fighter bombers go for Air superiority or naval attack, after the battlefield situation has changed.

I suppose. So one way to go about this, is to start with an early (light/escort/experimental) carrier/seaplane tender with interwar/early planes, rather than full, late war, fleet carriers.

If it’s late war planes, each having at least a 250KG (500lbs) bombs, coming at a high speed, Maybe… but then we have late war ships with awesome AA armament.
But if it’s several biplanes, who at best have 2 ~50KG (100lbs) bombs, who can easily be shot down even with a slow turning gun, without variable or even time fuse, if not a WW1 machinegun, I don’t think so.
Granted, for small coastal vessels, even 50KGs are deadly, but I suppose these may have an easier time (in a way) dealing with biplanes.

I think the devs should try to implement smaller and lighter bombs, maybe those cluster bombs would actually make some sense in naval forces. So far, only the He 51 C-1 has access to those 10 (or 7 KG) bombs…

Or we might get a situation where folks choose a place just out of AA range, order the squadron to circle around, and go in 1-by-1. Which is also weird.
Another option is player choosing squadron size of 1 plane… Which would basically be the same as we have now. Just a few differences with spawn points.
I think AA on ships have to be buffed in some way.

But yes. Testing is needed.

2 Likes
24

Wow, there 's alot of thought put into carrier airgroup controls here, well done ! Though I worry that, in the form presented, it runs the risk of not actually " playing the carrier ":

Makes sense, you could even have it so the selection of aircraft changes how many are available relative to the maximum possible to take - some tanks w/ gun-launched ATGM 's have a similar caveat to represent how the larger projectiles cannot be stowed in equal numbers to smaller ones.

It might be worth noting that WTM 's USS Essex (CV-9) and likely the carriers which will follow it there, organizes them by their loadout rather than the aircraft classification, F6F-3(2x 1000lb) occupies the " carrierBomber " slot. If we’re taking a similar " three aircraft models max " approach in this suggestion, a similar limitation might present some interesting tactical decisions for an AC player to make: take a higher-performance fighter-bomber group, or one w/ slower dedicated bombers w/ a greater payload ?

Also opens discussion for what might happen to those bombers in the former situation, the example TBF doesn’t have any payload-less loadouts as a player aircraft. The F6F-5, on the other hand, could conceivably fill all three aircraft slots alone, should that be allowed ?

I’m not convinced that removing player control of onboard weaponry is necessary, esp. after the AI main gun changes - there 's still situations where a player might want/might need to have control of their guns. Augmenting/expanding the weapon groups might be better.

This is a fantastic concept for an interface which succinctly describes the current picture of the aircraft operating from a carrier, but what worries me abt it is how it 's completely replacing any view of the match from the carrier 's perspective. At this level of removal there isn’t much use for the carrier, apart from being a tether into the match and something to be annoyed at when destroyed through neglect.
Much of the information presented could be incorporated into the 3rd person view/hotbar HUD, such as the current location of launched aircraft groups( in-environment marker w/ distance, as found on recon seaplanes ) or available aircraft count/readiness ( in hotbar icon/indicated by hotbar icon colour or shading effect, as used by current armaments ). That way the player has the information they need to direct operations from the carrier, rather than only being the operation.

Is this a limit on aircraft aloft, or aircraft in total ? If it 's the former, it might be better to have variable limits based on the aircraft/aircraft groups which are being used, like WTM does - even between carriers in similar time periods there are disparities in their capabilities, so it might be more useful to have greater numbers of low-performance planes in the air for the carriers operating them, or a reduced number of high-impact planes in a formation for opponents to deal w/.

I’m not certain these objectives are compatible if players are given the ability to make every one of their plane 's attacks while the rest stand out of harms way, the main strength of an aircraft carrier is already it 's ability to perform precision attacks. We’ve already seen that player direct control of projectiles is something hugely powerful, being able to intelligently pick an aiming point for maximum damage equalling if not surpassing the ability to disengage while putting an opponent under attack.
The conditional use of wingmen in Single Missions might be worth emulating here: the attack is made w/ the player and AI planes together - but the AI planes decide on their own how to perform it, and how to react under duress. In practice, that could mean the player has the ability to switch to a " lead " aircraft in a given squad, which provides them the advantage of making an attack in numbers. But by leaving the rest of the squad under total AI control, the defending ship 's player only need deal w/ one intelligent attack per squad - the automatic evasion and predictable attack patterns of the wingmen gives the attack greater mass w/o also giving it human precision, one plane is enough for that.

I’m not certain I understand the purpose of making this behavior a modification ?

Nor the reasoning behind this, putting economic pressure on the player for losing part of their capability to do actions in a match. It 's like having additional penalties for getting your turrets shot out, on top of your repair cost.

This is close to something I’ve been wanting to discuss, how should the aircraft available to a carrier be decided ? My personal position is that they should be as close to the ones it operated irl in the form it appears in - which would mean no TBD for USS Saratoga, since as represented in WT she 's at minimum four months, if not years after that plane was removed from service.
Atleast I’d not like to see anything as egregious as the original WT:E 's selection for IJN Kaga: giving it the B7A2, which not only wasn’t ever available to the ship historically but also would’ve been too large to have operated from it.

By " animated " I think you mean removing the aircraft collision model from the game world ? I guess there 's merit to it, ammo can’t be struck when it 's being raised through elevators so why should a carrier 's planes be vulnerable when cycling into/out of combat. Current game implementation is closer to fully automatizing the TO/L cycle than this though, w/ Campaign and Missions AI planes already able to fly off the deck as whole squads and return to fly the circuit pattern onto the wire.

It 's interesting that you bring this up, while our current carriers don’t have any modules for the aircraft elevators or catapults they do actually have ammoracks which aren’t for their guns - likely for use by aircraft.

One thing I’d like to see modelled are aircraft in below-deck storage, as found on some cruisers ingame currently( RN Pola and USS Fargo come to mind ).

I’m in agreement there, but I think it 's important to recognize that a carrier is not an airstrip - it 's a warship. Managing them as a whole, rather than just one aspect of them, would be better - and more inline w/ the representation of other ship types.

While I’d like to see them, I wouldn’t expect seaplane tenders to provide useful insight into how carriers might perform in gameplay: the very low performance of the aircraft they employ makes them irrelevant as an offensive tool, compared to what 's available in the MM where other 800t+ ships are located. So it 's likely they’d keep the same gun-engagement gameplay as late frigates and early destroyers, just w/ an expanded tool for [Domination] maps point capturing and NFEC shore bombardments, until/unless they fix the latter 's lock-on issues affecting minibases and airfields.
Mechanically there might be similarities to AC 's, along w/ those cruisers and BB 's which have multiple catapults and/or stored onboard aircraft.

2 Likes
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One problem with carriers if it hasn’t already been discussed is how many people can spawn in with a carrier? the whole team? 2 or 3 people? there could be bad balance issues with this. Is it alright if one team has carriers?

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We would also need slightly smaller EC style maps similar to air rb for carriers to fit in regular battles.

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I don´t see reason why the small/experimental CV should be handled differently compared to big CVs. Only the seaplane tenders might need different implementation. Yes lower BR CVs would have worse planes/less of them then the hight tier CVs but I don´t see need for different mechanics.

As I said fitting CVs into NF means completly different gamemodes/gameplay. I forgot to mention/point out that one of these requirments is also era/year based TT/BR progression.

Fitting CVs into current TT/BR structure would be impossible for example we have USS Nevada which would have next to no problem with destroying even WW2 fleet CVs but at the same BR we also have USS Arizona which would have problems even with early/pre-war CVs.

I really don´t think that managing fuel/weaponry is necesary. I would say managing ship, up to 5 squadroons and the amaunt of aircraft would be enough. Afterall WT isn´t dedicated CV comand simulator and NF doesn´t even have simulator mode.

Regarding the RTS component and CV gameplay as a whole:

  1. What I presented is very simple implementation of RTS aspect of which are already present in the game/in Enlisted/in WWM. I used very little of new mechanics which arean´t already in game
  2. WT in fact tested/wanted to implement CVs way back before GF when the NF ware originally planned but gaijin then scraped whole NF development and focused on GF. So they should still have some prototypes/ideas how to implement them

Yes but that requires completly respawning the plane, I am not sure that it would be viable. And I originally though about the selection of the loadouts mid battle but I really believe that it would be just too much and would unnecesarly complicate the UI and options. And it would complicate the in game structure/server load would be too sever.

I would really be more worried about the torpedoe squadroons where even the early war bombers can do a lot of damage especially when there is lot of them.

As I said before IMO one of the requirements for CVs to work would be era/year based TT like in GF which would then mean interwar/experimental CVs against interwar DDs/CLs/CAs/ WW1/interwar BBs.

I think current TT structure is just silly and having CVs like Langley or Argus ect. against … I don´t even know against where it would be placed but having these fight anything other then early BBs/DDs ect would be just silly.

There might be some silly interactions but as long as it provides balance it is OK in my book. I would say that fully in formations attacks are just as silly. Or having wingmates which wouldn´t drop the ordnance.

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That is also possibility yep.

Well the system in WTM is inherently more simplified since by looking at it there is no way to research different planes nor different loadouts.
So simple distinction: plane with bombs, plane with torpedo, fighter is sufficient. But in WT, I would expect bit more complex system where the icons show the plane model itself and then what the armament is.

I don´t think it is desirable to allow one plane type ships but I would say it migh be possible if Gaijin wanted to make some unique CV for event. But I would like to see more variations/tradebacks.

I am suggesting to just to replace the “main battery” with the “aircaft command” and have the main guns of a CV (most often the 5 inch multipurpose guns) move into “secondary armament”. Mainly to allow these guns to perform AA fire even when player doesn´t control them.

But I am not sure about the CVs with bigger antiship armament like Lexington.

I envisioned that this would be just window to command the planes across the map. And to provide detailed info about the squadroons in the air but the hotbar, hangar info and aircraft complement status would still be present in the 3rd person like this.

IMG

CV_UI_3rd
CV_UI_3rd1920×1080 177 KB

It is limit for aircraft in the air. I suggest this for two reasons, 1st to simplify the system but more importantly 2nd to limit the impact on the servers. Even what I suggest will IMO cause issues so any increase to this number I would say is not desirable but I would say that it would be possible to make the squadroons smaller/less of them but IDK if that wouldn´t bee too small.

It would need testing to see if it works. But I would say that it would in fact be desirable to have the AIs distract enemy AA fire since single plane attacking is too easy to deal with. As I said in different post I really feel like that in case of whole squadroon attacking/even if it was just 1-2 wingmates it might be too powerful (even if the wingmates would drop the torps based on AI decision) as it would provide large amount of single attack damage.

It is same as the torpedo mode modification, it is way how to provide player different options. Since both system might have advantages/disadvantages but I would say the modified behaviour is better especially when player would want to make fighters escort their bombers.

The ammo costs exist, and more importantly I feel like there needs to be some penality for loosing aircraft since the CV itself is basically safe from other surface ships so if there weren´t any cost for loosing aircraft the CV player could be really careless. And it would be really unfair for the surface ship players.

I confused the Saratoga modification year. I though that current version is the 1942 version so then the TBD would still be apropriate. Since you are correct and it is 1944/45 version that the TBD is inapropriate.

I would say that some liberties should be possible as we see now with shells, but I would draw the line on phisical imposibility such as the IJN Kaga and the B7A2.

I 100% mean just improving current animations. Even now the landing is animated but it looks really bad from close distance.

As you can see in this video

CV Landing current on Vimeo

I would honestly love to see animation such as raising/lowering planes on the elevators ect.

I am not saying not modeling plane ammo in DM just not modeling the amounts/limits for the number of sorties ect. so situation where you have planes but don´t have ammo for them wouldn´t happen. Same as we don´t calculate with fuel but fuel tanks are still modeled for DM.

But I think catapults, elevators or the cables is something which must be modeled for CVs in WT if they are to be player controled same as the planes in the hangar.

2 Likes
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It’s not that it’s handled differently, it’s just that Your limitation of 1-plane control is plausible on these ships (from 6 to 30 aircraft), but on fleet carriers (50+) it just makes them a joke.

So You want to have separate modes and a 1-plane control limitation?
I think that’s overkill.
1-plane control limitation might be needed if we want to try adding CVs as-is.
But if we’re going as far as designing dedicated game modes for them, then I don’t think 1-plane restriction is needed.
More on that later.

I don’t think it is impossible. Techtree and various oddities in it will have to be fixed eventually.
If it’s Fleet carriers we are talking about, yeah, they don’t fit even in rank 5, which probably requires them to be on rank 6 at least.
But for seaplane tenders, escort and light carriers? I think they can, with some success, even be implemented now in warthunder.
Rank 3 could see seaplane tenders added, as a first serious attempt of having aircraft as it’s main tool:

These could be hybrids between regular combat ship and a carrier, similar to some of the cruisers in game, just higher emphasis on it’s planes.

Rank 4 introduce the early experimental and escort carriers:

Bogues, Casablancas, Hōshō’s and similar ones can go here.

Rank 5 would be the light carriers, which to some extent does make these small yet capable vessels appear… not as powerful, owing to that 1-plane restriction, but it can still to some degree have a point with this mechanic.

Since most of examples here are of more modern approach, here would be the classic example:

While the fleet carriers that were used in examples in this thread, would belong in rank 6, if not 7.
Assuming Naval Forces tree will be exanded further into the cold war and jet plane age, I am not sure if this example:

Would be rank 7 or rank 8…

But, either way, with ranks above 5, we get serious problems with 1-plane control restriction. Mostly in the form of aircraft carrier appearing as a complete joke with it’s in-game capabilities.

Returning to the smaller aircraft carriers, All it would take, is to expand existing smaller maps, by, like, 5 Kilometers to every direction, add a CV spawn point in these new areas, and we have a cheap and quick implementation of aircraft carrier in the game. With that 1-plane restriction in mind.

Oh, so, no more than 5, aircraft controlled by the player in the air from a single carrier. Sigh…
I don’t think many play the simulator… For me, realistic is enough.

It seems to me, like the player will have to manually land each plane after an attack run…
In other words, player has to choose a specific loadout pre-battle and try to do the best with it, no attempts to adapt to the changing conditions of battle…
With that, I am positive that multi-role planes will be the most popular option.

The torpedo hell scenario.
Okay, this is one of the places where it is indeed a bit… at odds zone. But I can see ways to tackle this issue:

  1. Price. While inelegant and of limited effectiveness solution, making torpedoes expensive is a way to encourage a player to choose a different weapon.
  2. Space requirements. I am in favor of giving the player as much options as possible, and filling the CV to the brim with torpedoes should be among it. However, torpedoes would be the ones that take up the most space, and by having the space limited, it would naturally make torpedoes the least numerous option.
  3. Control not giving an option to ‘fire at area’. Basically, you can not have AI wingmen attack an empty area and set torpedo traps (Like old WoWs alt-targeting attack). Granted, this creates an issue with minelaying aircraft, that could possibly be added in the future, but that can be tackled later I suppose.
  4. Torpedo bomber number/squadron size limitations. I suppose this is self-explanatory, basically, restrictions the the maximum amount of torpedo-carrying aircraft, if it comes to that.
  5. Ticket costs. Introducing a higher ticket costs to higher-payload planes can also be a way to keep the bomber rampage in check.

There are probably more ways than these to keep the torpedo hell danger at bay.

The ground forces tree I think is in a worse state than Naval forces now… Granted, it’s not as visible for someone who played for a while.

Returning to the gameplay and gamemode changes… The one last option for carrier implementation would be to change the battle format:
Carriers versus carriers mode. Basically, every player, that has at least 1 carrier in his/her lineup, can take part. If we go even more extreme, we can reduce the number to 5 versus 5… But that might be a bit too much.
Both sides start with a convoy that has to be escorted, and the objective is to destroy the enemy’s convoy while protecting yours. The capture point at the end of convoy’s route can only be captured by the convoy. If captured, the team wins instantly - this basically indicates that convoy managed to reach it’s destination/escape. If both convoys are sunk, it’s basically carriers versus carriers dukeout, or until timer runs out.
With this mode, the main target is the AI. So, balance is not that important, and that 1-plane restriction can be removed.

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I don’t see this as an issue of it 's own, it 's more of an offshoot of this:

Additional objectives to allow differing classes of ship to have a purpose in the short-form Random Battle 's alongside eachother would be most welcome, that 's not limited to AC 's though. The large, layered-by-tonnage waves of ships making landings on some of the Air AB/RB versions of our open-circle maps is one that I’ve thought might have a place in NF, but I’m moving swiftly out of the topic of this thread now.

One of the devblogs for that featured the now-removed low-poly IJN Akagi:
wt_navy_screen_10
Hard to imagine that this was once considered as being detailed enough to be a player vessel …

I think you’re overestimating the damage potential of this kind of weapon, which can be avoided entirely when employed at longer ranges and increases the vulnerability of the launching aircraft when employed closer, by obliging them to give up speed and altitude to use it - limitations not shared by bombs.

Not really sure what this is meant to mean, since Ground doesn’t have that either - like here it 's always based on capability. It 's less obvious there since they have far fewer dissimilar vehicle types to progress between vertically, but present nonetheless. Esp. w/ the vehicles possessing lower-than-average damage resistance - that part stays in common.

It 's difficult to predict placements while AC 's haven’t appeared yet, but anticipating the placements of the later/last refits of these ships in particular doesn’t seem too difficult: USS Langley 's airgroup in any refit would be basically irrelevant as an offensive capability at any Bluewater BR, which she’d surely sit at due to the survivability conferred upon her by her size. In her wartime configuration as a seaplane tender she would atleast have useful AA armaments along w/ her 5in gun battery, so as a 3.7-4.3 pseudo-CL she might be workable.
HMS Argus(I49) survived long enough to operate several kinds of WW2 RN deckfighters and bombers, so her age isn’t a huge issue - she 's mostly comparable to Escort Carrier( CVE ) 's apart from it, so I’d expect a similar rating to those.

I think there 's a misunderstanding here, I’m describing a setup where the carrier 's aircraft are separated into groups by their loadouts, like WTM - but the player has choice of what aircraft models are employed in those groups, unlike Mobile 's lack of a selection( at present ).
The F6F is therefore given as an example of an aircraft which could be employed in all slots even if they are divided by the ordinance carried, the question being if players should be allowed to choose to carry an entirely homogeneous aircraft selection despite division across loadouts, and the availability of other aircraft types which do not have this universality.

Ah, if it 's only the one weapon group being used for aircraft control then leaving the secondary and tertiary groups for the ship 's onboard armament would probably be sufficient. CV-2 and similarly-armed ships could probably safely use their larger weapons as " secondary " and their under-51mm weapons as tertiaries then.

Much closer to being a Aircraft Carrier direct control, thanks !

I won’t disagree w/ damage output of single attacks, but from the perspective of limiting damage overall what worries me more is the absolute precision across many attacks that controls of every individual plane( and their potential to make attacks ) given to the player would allow. That scenario maintains the possibility of keeping the player of the defending ship under threat for an extended period of time using far fewer aircraft once the air group is standing close, which in turn provides the attacking AC player more tools for making attacks on others later in the match. Until the AA defense is powerful enough that the number of aircraft attempting to make the attack fades in relevance compared to having hard cover available for them.
Having instead single strong attacks, preceded and followed by greater waits as the full group moves to attack and retires to rearm together, comes closer to reducing the total damage output a carrier can make imo.

Maybe it 's the ability to select orbiting locations for airgroups which would allow the former situation to occur, actually. Removing that to have " Orbit Carrier " and " Move to Attack X Vessel " only would disallow the possibility of having players " store " their aircraft in covered locations to make lengthy, individual precision attacks on nearby enemy players.

I’m just not seeing what option it provides, it 's not as if clean fighters are going to be a primary weapon against ships. Having it unusable until unlocked just seems to mean fighters couldn’t be used to make preemptive attacks against enemy air - just orbit and hope they’re in position to respond.

The ammo cost is applied when the round is launched, whether or not it hits anything to overcome it, surely " aircraft costs " could do the same ? Having the cost only be applied when they fail to make an attack or maintain the ability to make attacks doesn’t make much sense compared to that - it 's actually less penalizing for successful AC players compared to their gun-armed counterparts !

This is Econ stuff anyway, why should it have any bearing on the actual Gameplay ? The real penalty is the loss of an aircraft to use.

I disagree wholly w/ the notion that an AC would, or should be in a position to itself ignore the other ship types it 's rated to face. That would be massive failure of mission design, to allow non-engagement between players like that - and it doesn’t make sense from a balancing perspective either.

Again, " playing the Aircraft Carrier " - not just the AC 's airgroup.

Not really understanding why you’re against this, it 's in line w/ the modelling of other ship 's armaments and their limitations. And it gives a reason for that ammo to be in the DM beyond being an instant kill button.

What exactly do you mean by this ? Arrestor cables are already present to the full degree they need to be functional, and aircraft elevators could come, analogous to the ones for ammo. But what abt catapults needs to be present ?

Unless I’ve fully misread something, I don’t think we’ve ever been discussing having a singular aircraft usable, the way catapult seaplanes work atm.

I think you’re seriously overestimating the effectiveness of these, for the most part they carry aircraft which, ingame, are rightfully not rated to face any bluewater ship to begin w/. They’re mostly inferior to similarly-rated aircraft for the anti-shipping task too. Tender 's actual offensive tool would be their onboard gun armament, and in that regard they’re closer to Rank 1 Bluewater, Rank 2 at a stretch for the most superior ones.

Between our currently non-player USS Forrestal having appeared as a playable vessel in WT:E, indicators for USS Midway now appearing in the current WTM, and the more-extensive-than-needed modelling present on our other AI modern carriers, it does seem we’ll move in that direction eventually. But other types postwar vessels will probably continue to precede carriers of similar era in implementation to WT - I doubt we’re going to start w/ the introduction of jet-operating AC 's.

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It is interesting but my own guess would be that these were just ilustrative images made for devblog and actual player controled units would get more detailed models.

But it is very very interestion to look at these images and wonder what were their ideas after all the rank 12 is upper mid tier.

What I meant with this that currently we have TT and BRs set up in a way that progression works this way: (even if it has lot of exceptions)

WW1/Interwar DDs (bad AA) >> Late WW2/modern DDs (good AA) >> Interwar cruisers (bad AA) >> WW2 cruisers (good AA) >> WW1/Interwar BBs (bad AA) >> WW2 BB (good AA)

With this kind of BR structure I have no idea how CV of any kind would fit, IMO it would be impossible.

If we got gamemodes which would have “Additional objectives to allow differing classes of ship to have a purpose in the short-form Random Battle 's alongside eachother would be most welcome” would allow new BR structure with parraler progression across line from WW1 designs at lower BRs to high BRs with WW2 ships with good AA.

This way scaling the CV to different BRs would be much easier.

I actually completly forgot what actual airwing Langley got, but then it was response to idea that small and early experimental CVs would be more suitable. In this case the US basically has no suitable early CV (the only relevan early CV is Lexingtons which is larger fleet carrier)

In case of Argus that is what I mean the armament isn´t an issue but I still don´t think that it is possible to fit them into current BR structure. As I described above.

I didn´t exaplain it clearly but in my suggestion player wouldn´t be necesarly be choosing what suspended weaponry each plane carries but they are choosing combination of plane and the weaponry as in this image:

CV_UI_prebattle_choose
CV_UI_prebattle_choose1920×1080 124 KB

In my opinion giving option of having one plane in all functions isn´t good for gameplay, but if for some reason gaijin wants to make some kind of unique event/premium CV by giving it an option for one type plane complement (for example USS Princeton (CVL-23) with “Cat Mouth” Hellcats) I have no problem with it.

You are correct, maybe have the cost split into 2 tiers launch and destroyed. I am not sure or maybe couple the lost planes into the repair cost? Any way the loss of planes IMO needs to have bigger impact then just loss of small amount of combat potential game (since it wouldn´t really matter as long as it wouldn´t eat into the amount of planes in the air)

And yes econ isn´t directly influencing gameplay but IMO it still havily influences balance and gameplay. So I believe that it really needs to be discussed.

Because I think it is just needless complication with next to no impact on gameplay. Like for example fuel in ships/tanks.

We also already have working catapults in form of boost. But we were talking about modules. In that case the ammo (which I think can be there just for DM purpose) the elevators, arrestors and catapults don´t have DM modules.
And I think it would be very important for gameplay to have those present and modeled for gameplay and DM.
So damage to elevators would make moving planes in/out of the hangar slower/impossible, damage to arrestors would prevent landing and damage to catapults would slow down launching of the planes even though it wouldn´t have big impact but for example hangar catapults could have some gameplay use.

Of corse putting CVs completly evay isn´t good solution but forcing CVs in melee fights isn´t great idea eighter. Some kind of compromise needs to be made but then there are also options of CV players camping behind islands and other cover. So that is something which needs to be taken into account.

The CVs by design can attack other ships without risking the ships itself so there needs to be some kind of counter play for the surface ships and the best way how to implement it is to treat the planes also as part of the CVs.

I might be thats why I said that I am open to increasing number of wignmates based on testing. As for the bombs, currently the bomb are extremly overperforming and if they are fixed the damage output of dive bombers will be much smalle then that of torpedo bombers.

While I wont disagree that my system will keep surface ships under threat for longer because that is partly the objective.
In current DM system it is much more dangerous to get hit by multiple torpedoes/bombs in span of few seconde then it is to get hit by overall greater number of torps/bombs spread out over longer time.
Also the system of rest of the squad orbiting over the target gives the ship much much more time to shoot down the planes and also allow to use more of the AA armament.

I truly believe that this is preferable but I am open to being prooven wrong with some testing.

It provides option to have planes ignore when player doesn´t want them to angage when they don´t want to. Which can be really helpful if you would want to quickly intercept key squadroon.

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So seamplane tenders with their aircraft facing things like Sumner, Gearing or even AA cruiser like Atlanta (just US examples)? That way they are completly irrelevant even if you allow them to attack these ships with full air arm.

Same applies to the escort carriers even if you would allow attack of whole squadroon against the US CLs.

And light CV on rank 5? Where on one hand even with every possible limitation would just trash any WW1 BB or be crushed by modernised BBs like Nevada.

Also where should CVs like USS Lexington in early refit be placed? Or we just ignore these exist?

No, 5 in one squad and up to 5 squads in total so 25 planes in the air at one time. These really arent that small and unrealistic numbers.

It doesn´t work like that in game. If you are changing armament mid battle the game respawns the plane as if was new one. Which would be extremly complicated for CV gameplay since for this to work the CV would need to have all possible layouts of each plane saved at all times which would make it extremly server heavy.

Doesn´t actually solve the issues just makes it occur less. Which isn´t good option.

Again I don´t think it actually fixes the problem just makes it occur less often.

I don´t think I understand what you mean here. Because one way it desn´t fix the issue and other way it works same as system I suggest

Again I don´t think it actually fixes the problem just makes it occur less often.

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The exceptions are so prevalent that imo they’re the actual rule. All of these ship classes overlap in BR, and there 's no consistent application of ship age as a factor towards BR structure w/in ship classes either. The actual progression, as in other vehicle branches, is by capability - specifically to engage similar vehicles in PvP, relative to their ability to survive an engagement. Era, tonnage, hull classification - all of these work as generalizations for a level of capability but they’re not intrinsically tied to it, as we can see from the actual implementation of the NF TT 's.

W/ that in mind, here 's my rough ( very rough ) impression of where Carrier 's might be placed BR-wise, compared to existing Bluewater ship types:

Spoiler

WT_NF_progression_ratings_by_hull_class_include_possible_carriers_v1

( Even though we can safely ignore CV 's operating planes below the ingame standard of performance, imo there 's still a large MM range they could potentially appear w/in prior to jet-operating " CVA " 's )

The USN also has USS Ranger(CV-4) and USS Wasp(CV-7), despite being younger than the Lexington-classe they’re not improvements over them, so they could probably fill that less-capable-fleet-carrier position ahead of them.

As for HMS Argus(I49), again, in the form she’d be game-relevant in she 's little different from the much-newer escort carriers in capability. So she would likely occupy a similar position to those.

Yes, that 's what I’m describing: the WTM system of having fixed slots for aircraft groups organized by payload, w/ the addition of player selection as to the aircraft which compose those groups( when options exist ).

I’m still not seeing the purpose of having a cost applied for the destruction of aircraft: the costs of other weapons is just a progression bottleneck, not meant as any kind of in-match balancing tool. Those costs are applied when the weapon is employed, whether or not they cover their costs striking a target - the same can be done w/ aircraft. There 's no situation where an opponent destroying a carrier 's aircraft has an equivalent cost, unless you’re already on some future game version where getting a compartment blacked-out adds a compounding penalty to the repcost.

I’m also not understanding what you mean by " as long as it wouldn´t eat into the amount of planes in the air ", where are you expecting aircraft to be when an enemy player destroys them ?

It 's not any more complicated than the equivalent modelling of shell/torp/charge etc. stores, the necessary vulnerability of taking them aboard is paired w/ the fact that they can be depleted in combat.

Aircraft elevators I can see being functional, they’re similar enough in purpose to the ones for ammo on ships currently ingame. I’m not sure how arrestors and catapults could, though: there might be a way to represent the below-deck equipment, but there 's no real way that the cables/rails could be in the DM that doesn’t make them HE/shrapnel magnets for anything striking the deck - while they’re also p much the only part a player directly notices when operating the ship.

If the carrier is to be tucked away somewhere that makes the planes the only part which other players can interact w/, there’s been no implementation of a carrier. It 's just an airgroup w/ an additional abstraction.

" Melee " ranges for a carrier can still be at the edges inside of what conventionally-armed warships can make attacks at, and they retain their advantage of attack accuracy over them regardless of range. So the counterplay of a conventional ship need not be made different from what they would use on a more similar ship - and those ships could use expanded ranges as-is.

There 's a number of fixes which might reduce the ability of bombs to hurt ships, but even w/ them the torpedo still doesn’t have the same potential to hurt ships - due to it 's limitations it 's much more likely not to hit at all, in comparison.

I’m not understanding at all what your objective for managing carrier damage output is, now.

Keeping an enemy ship under threat for longer gives it less opportunities to respond to that threat - they’re not free to set up a comprehensive defense while defending.
The greater danger of a single group 's attack is in response to the limitations of airgroup attack, namely the much longer " shelltravel " and " reload " in comparison to more typical primary armaments. That 's a balancing factor, per-minute attack potential is far reduced, so damage potential w/in each attack makes up for it. And now that the defending ship is faced w/ fewer attacks overall, they can respond better to the ones they do face.

Having the group orbit over the target while only one aircraft makes an attack at a time removes the advantage of having the group - the mass of the attack is no different from having only one aircraft in the group, so defending is no different either.

It is helpful, which is why I don’t understand why it 's being proposed as a modification - w/o it the player doesn’t have any options in the deployment of clean fighters.

Since both of the Lexington 's specifically are represented ingame as being in later refits, might as well.

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It’s in either way unbalanced, as You admitted. I don’t know what were You expecting with the advanced CVs-only being included in higher tiers.
But that’s a cheap and easy implementation that would be possible, even if it’s not the balanced one but let’s admit it - even now naval forces are unbalanced. So, any kind of inclusion of CV into the game would upset the balance even more anyway. In other words, it’s already a mess, so, why not go all in?

And I don’t think that seaplane tenders would be completely irrelevant - seaplane tenders could use their planes to (un)capture points and otherwise annoy the enemy. If anything, they should be at least be somewhat armed themselves, so that they would go to battlefield, rather than sit on the edge of the map.

With a lower BR, or perhaps lower rank and BR, if putting the 2 into folder is, for some reason, impossible.

Okay.
But I don’t see them as impressive, if the player can attack with only 1 plane. Cheerleaders and emotional support is nice, but only if the player does not have to pay for it. At least the ship that is being attacked will have a pinata to play with (expect credit and exp nerfs).

Oh well.
I wonder when we’ll get warthunder 2.0?

Well, then how about making that CVs don’t have bombers at all?
That way, the problem surely will be fixed.
Though, then we have questions regarding the point of an aircraft carrier.

Last option would be to limit the amount of bomber planes (who have large bombs/torpedoes) possible on carriers.

Either way, we’d need to… test a bunch of stuff.

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Blink and you’ll miss it; the Ki-48 missile testing mission in the ongoing crafting event features the low-poly IJN Soryu, which sits just behind the aircraft air spawn location ( War-Thunder-Datamine/mis.vromfs.bin_u/gamedata/missions/events/ki48_logic_template.blkx at master · gszabi99/War-Thunder-Datamine · GitHub )

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( crossposting from here for future reference purposes )

The Vertical-Launch-System of Pr.1143.4 Baku, since the 9M330 SAM it uses has been discovered in the files

image-2image-1

image-1

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I can see the point of having carriers in World of Warships. The reason it makes sense is because there’s no mechanic to actually spawn a plane in a naval game. On the other hand in this game, you can spawn any plane within the battle rating limitations. So it would lead to a couple things that would need to be addressed before it even became logical. After all, why add carriers, if you don’t need a carrier, which is literally the case at this point in time.

That said, the first thing that would need to be addressed is why? Why add carriers? What makes the relevant. So if you’re going to create the conditions which would make carrier relevant, namely making maps where the only way to spawn planes would be from carriers, how would the playerbase response to it? And what kind of limitation would be present? Clearly you’re not going to be spawning heavy bombers from carriers. So will planes that can be launched have some kind of limitation or restriction? If so, would that mean a reclassification of planes because currently there are planes designated as naval attack roles, however I don’t think there are any planes with “naval fighter” roles assigned. Without that my assumption would be that any fighter could be launched from a carrier, and we all know that large fighters, or twin engine fighters wouldn’t be placed on a carrier generally speaking.

So I think the obvious solution to this would be to classify some planes as naval fighters, then to further flag any planes that would have filled the role as naval attack craft. To have maps where these planes can only be launched from carriers, no heavy planes at all, and some maps where there is an existing runway, in which all aircraft can be spawned. However add some kind of a mechanic where airbases, just like carriers, can be destroyed, or rendered inoperable, eliminating the ability to spawn aircraft altogether.

The other thing would be limiting carriers to only being spawnable at the start of a map, and only a specified number.

The other thing would be… what would be the enticement for people to actually spawn them? There’s have to be some kind of mechanic where the carrier an aircraft was launched from would get some kind of credit for the damage the plane did.

That’s the only feasible way I see carriers working. I don’t think there’s any way the you add them like World of Warships has. Planes are already a problem as it is. With some ships essentially lacking any real anti aircraft capability, putting in a carrier which could spawn a squadron of planes the player could control, would most likely convince a lot of people to just stop playing. If you have a hard enough time taking out one plane which can kill you, occasionally… how are you going to deal with a guy controlling half a dozen at the same time? One carrier could decimate the entire enemy fleet, now if you’d end up allowing 3, which is the mechanic for AI carriers now… no one will be playing the naval game.

Personally I think carrier should be added, around 2030, when they’re introducing missile cruisers, etc… they should only be tier 8 and above.

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It’s nice, but in my opinion the current mode with ships is very badly done, it has poor maps and zero balance, and for years gaijn hasn’t fixed it and won’t fix it because it doesn’t pay off for them, especially adding aircraft carriers and their balance, probably not an option, and even more so controlled by AI, it doesn’t pay off financially, It’s a nice idea, but Gaijn has it in…

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Hi ! I’m not really sure what this is supposed to mean, since all naval maps already have an air-spawn location for player aircraft which have an SP cost - carrier capable or not.
There are a few maps which have a carrier to land on / rearm and refuel afterwards for those players using aircraft which have that ability, though. Mostly in the NFEC weekend events.

There 's an overarching " Naval Aircraft " classification ingame( Category:Naval aircraft - War Thunder Wiki ), but it 's mostly an abstraction - it determines if a player aircraft is allowed to spawn from a Carrier on the Air mode maps which feature one.

Something similar to this is present in NFEC, airfield structures there can be damaged to the point of not allowing player aircraft to be rearmed similar to how it works in the Air SBEC mode.

That 's how it works for catapult-launched aircraft( Shipboard reconnaissance aircraft - War Thunder Wiki ) currently, the aircraft being another " weapon " of the launching vessel means that any actions the player makes using it resulting in rewards are counted as being actions taken by the ship - the aircraft is not an independent vehicle in that regard.

You might be interested in reading my breakdown of how Aircraft Carriers work in WTM, as that might have similarities to how they’d be implemented here in the base game - some of the aircraft carriers already here came from there, after all !

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Yeah, I’m not going to go back and basically retype everything I wrote because you can’t think rationally. Try approaching the post exactly as it was stated from the beginning. What would need to be done if you put carriers in, AND altered existing mechanics to suit it. There’s literally a section that says “maps with only carriers, and maps that would function as the currently do.” In maps with only carriers, clearly the existing “you can spawn whatever you want, you just can’t land” model would not be in effect.

Actually that’s on me, for figuring most people would get that, and that I wouldn’t have to be OVERLY nitpicky in my post.

Now if you can only spawn planes that can be carrier launched, because there is no airfield on a map, and only carriers, then wouldn’t that require more planes to carry the designation? Yeah, I kind of thought so.

Then how “shipboard recon planes” currently work… can other players spawn those planes and launch them? No? Huh… so how’s that going to work if the only planes that can be spawned, are from player controlled carriers? Okay, thank you.

In my opinion, there’s no need for carriers, absolutely zero. At this stage in the game you can spawn any plane you want, on complete open ocean maps you could spawn a B29 if it was within the BR. So… why carriers? It would destroy what little population plays the naval side of things here. If your goal is to ensure that the only opponents on the other side are AI, then if you’re lucky they’ll put carriers in tomorrow. If you enjoy playing against other people, then keep hoping and praying that they don’t add them for years to come.

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