Adding a bit of concern regarding aircraft carriers,
they effectively are mobile airfields.
We do have the mobility part, and we do have a miniscule of airfield part - planes, or at least a single plane.
However, we don’t have the airfield commander mode, component or a ‘unit’.
There isn’t an RTS component to build upon.
Naturally, they could implement RTS in reverse (as in, develop the mobility and planes and just put the RTS on the top), but for proper balancing and testing of this, they should already be beginning testing via using the regular ground-based airfield controls. That is, we need the airfield commander component. Ordering squadrons from the airfield control tower, rather than ship first.
There are also several other issues - there are various kinds of planes.
We have heavy bombers, heavy fighters, torpedo bombers and various multi-role aircraft.
Granted, most of carrier-based aircraft (interwar and early war, for the most part) have fairly limited load-out options, which makes them incapable to seriously threaten anything larger than a coastal vessel, the question of balance arises:
What about land-based heavy bombers? Supposedly capable to carry several torpedoes, or 1 gigantic bomb? With squadrons on the opposing side, they’d be outmatched (manually controlling gunners, trying to fend off 4 fighters on my 6). If they also could be a squadron, then it’s a worst nightmare coming true for some folks (4 Pe-8s, nuking everything).
So, it’s yet another balance issue we need to consider.
Yeah, the RTS component being discussed is going to be a wholly new mechanic as opposed to building it on top of something. The idea being discussed has its inspiration drawn from World of Warships’ original CV concept (see it in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdIteppCI84 although obviously, WT will have less arcadey UI, possibly something more akin to a war table with moving pieces.)
I was mentioning that the basis of this mechanic would have been something that might have a foundation in how players dispatch catapult planes off cruisers and the like, but we see it ended up being player-controlled now so that’s simply out of the question.
As for types of planes, I think we can make up for the lack of individual effectiveness in favor of larger numbers and limit the types of planes to carrier-bound aircraft (so you won’t be getting that squad of 4 Pe-8 saturating spawn with their nukes). Yes, this will need to be extensively balanced, which brings up the question if CVs is worth having in the first place.
I think an interesting work around for bots would be to make all guns centrally controlled, as in: you do not aim and fire guns directly for anything bigger than a costal ship, you simply mark a target and input range corrections manually. This would have to be coupled with an “inaccuracy” calculation based on target speed, your speed and a dispersion of the guns to counter target size. This way, bots could mark a target and set range perfectly, but they’ll still be limited to a reasonably percentage of accuracy based on historical values, even with radar controlled guns. I also think it would have a secondary effect of allowing you to juggle steering the ship and shooting a bit more effectively.
edit: and oh yeah I feel a “central gun” controller is more historic as well, since this is how ships usually did range finding.
Modern Missle Frigate and Destroyers should be placed after the green water ships, and seperate them from blue water matchmaker, and should limit the aircrafts that can join in the naval battle, as simulator battles
Personally i hate how you can shoot eachother at spawn right at fhe start, i hate how small the islands are, it feels like theres no elements of surprise, and that you can just spam x and target any ships trying to use islands to be sneaky.
If the islands were bigger, and targeting required actual line of sight id enjoy it alot more.
The last issue regarding aircraft carriers is…
Not all the nations actually had carriers.
US, UK and Japan have no issues here. I think France had some too.
But, Germany, Italy and USSR (at least, not before the end of WW2), not counting the less famous factions like Sweden, had no aircraft carriers. Plans and blueprints, at best.
The Graf Zeppelin, an incomplete carrier for Germany, is likely going to be a premium as well…
On the other hand, I heard that Kronshtadt is considered a fake vehicle by some…
yes, if you do not want to be hit by AA you have to go over 4 km height , e.g in a bomber. And that’s nearly impossible because the game ends before you can reach your target.
While this option would allow for easier multitasking and let the ship feel actually crewed instead of your captain being forced to run marathons of micromanagement to get the battle done, I think most people in Naval (myself included) plays the game because you can personally aim the gun and fire it at the desired enemies. To simply assign, range, and ignore the target afterwards would remove that level of involvement and engagement for gameplay purposes (much like how in tanks, you control the driver, gunner, and commander). Also, this would make the game heavily reliant on RNG and I personally don’t care much about that at all.
Well, in heavier bombers You can.
I know He111 H-6 variant has Fritz-x glide bomb, that can be guided after dropping. I personally found it a bit cumbersome to use.
But with the free load-out of 32 50Kg bombs, there is something You can do…
Or rather, try to do - it is generally unlikely that You’ll hit anything, besides some occasional splash damage and hits in relatively close proximity.
But at the very least you do cause some… emotional damage to the enemy.
I would say that the sizes between spawns should be for DDs around 10 km, for cruisers 15-20 km and for battleships 25-30+ km. While with these ranges the spawns are still in theory in ranges of the onemy ships but the inaccuracy at these is really severe and I don´t think it is actually feasible to have maps large enough to make spawns outside the range.
Absolutelly the different objectives are must, as for the Battlegroup that is something I completly missed.
That is something different what I was talkin about is this (it wasn´t implemented):
Durability loss parameters due to inflicted damage have been adjusted for all bluewater ships. The most destructive effect is now inflicted by torpedoes, HE rounds and AP rounds of the biggest calibres. Due to prolonged exposure to the damage of these rounds, the ship’s hull might critically damage and disable the ship. The rupture limit depends on the ship’s class, size and armouring scheme.
As for carriers I don´t think that RTS component is big issue as long as we don´t need very complicated command. The Enlisted which runs on the same engine has simple squad command and the WW mode also has RTS component. I believe that scaling it up for multiple squads shouldn´t be a big issue.
But I personally believe that the attacks shouldn´t be able to be done from the RTS view since it would make pincer attacks really easy and that would cause CVs to be too powerful.
If the CVs aren´t too powerful I don´t think the fact that not all nations have them wouldn´t be issu since for example not all nations have heavy tanks.
Here is my idea about the CV gameplay in more detail:
I don’t think inaccuracy will be that big of a problem ever since the game introduced that aim assists indicators as a part of aiming (still kind of mixed on that feature, to be honest) people can just aim their cursor at the green chevron once everything is calculated. And if everything is ranged correctly, even if you don’t hit your intended target, you might hit someone else in that dense spawn cluster (which really should be spread out over a wider area on larger maps. Or that one suggestion where everyone spawns in a line moving in the same direction so everybody doesn’t get in each people’s way). In the end, your volley would just be one of the countless shells hurtling towards the enemy spawn and the only way to avoid that is to make the spawns completely out of line of sight. Or being unable to reliably select and target by some condition, a feature I’ve seen implemented to the merchant ships and their fleet in the Encounter game mode.
Oh, it’s like hull break pretty much? Yeah, I kinda wish it would come back in some form, if balanced properly.
Oh, the idea described is lovely! Although still think manually controlling the squad lead (for the “Direct Control” mode) would make it a bit too strong since you have the intelligence of the players managing the controls of the final approach with a squad of torpedo/dive bombers. Yeah, pincer attacks would be very powerful in RTS mode if done properly, but I think maybe you can balance it by the range of engagement. Launching from further away and potentially miss your spread as people notice you, or launch from up close and lose your planes (or a whole squad!) to the AA fire (unless your victim is some poor dreadnought).
Ground got to the point it has because only a fraction of the team plays SPAA per a given time. Most ships come with a built-in AA suite that is plenty effective for picking off air targets (and have got even stronger the last I tried…or I just got worse at flying, both are equally viable). Giving dive/torpedo bombers two more wingmen would marginally increase the chance of survival so all the bazillion rounds in the air aren’t going towards you and only you.
Nah, as someone who plays all three modes I am quite happy with no aircraft being able to get within 3nmi of me without getting shot down, it’s too bad we can’t have the same in Ground Battles.
This concern is relevant for some reserve vehicles, WW1/early interwar-era ships and dreadnoughts.
Most Ships have an AAA suite, and US’ tends to be the best in this regard, and I’m a bit disappointed I don’t get to see it in action more often.
And even if we take a serious look in AAA-less ships, I’m positive that devs can implement armament upgrade system, adding additional AAAs, like we have on some planes and tanks with smoke grenades. These could be the newer design plans, addressing increasing prevalence and power of aircraft.
Naval RB to me is far more enjoyable than Ground just because Ground RB at top tier is “death from above” Thunder, not really a tank battle mode at all.
And even if AAA upgrade isn’t available, you often have a cloud of covering fire from the friendly fleet, unless it’s towards the late game where the team is spread out/died off.