Reworking naval battles to bring new players

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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41

You aren’t really following what I’m saying. The CAS side this autogunner thing is half of the problem, and not what I am discussing with you at this point. Everything I have said since you said this

has been about costals ships being automatically engaged by AA batteries on ships. Costals at 3.0+ (with a few exceptions) are useless because the Destroyers they face in uptiers (a norm of this matchmaker) can be woefully unaware that the costal is present but still get a free kill for no effort. Naval combat where one party doesn’t have to do anything for free kills isn’t combat, it’s broken.

The PT boat with the hardest hitting torpedos in game is useless because you cannot close the distance on a ship of any size because of the automatic AA gunners, even if the player is absolutely unaware of you.

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42

There are 2 sides to this

The first is that you are controlling ships with hundreds maybe over a 1000 crew on-board. You shouldnt in theory be expected to do literally everything single-handedly and there is a limitation to how much you can do solo.

Being in something like a Cruiser and reacting to multiple incoming threats at once is a nightmare and being to just leave the AI to deal with some of it is a god-send. I can focus my attention on perhaps another cruiser, whilst things like PT boats and aircraft are engaged by AI.

The other side of it is that for those Aircraft, ships are almost impossible to approach. Certainly if you try to employ a torpedo. The accuracy is probably too high. The guns will readily snipe you.

Same with the being in a smaller ship like a PT boat. Attacking larger vessels requires sneaking up on your opponenet, but thats impossible if the AI starts firing at you the moment you enter 5ish km.

So there needs to be a middle ground. Perhaps Reduced AI AA accuracy. Disable AI AA fire on PT boats unless they are within 500m. Something like that. Just to create a balance between the poles

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43

…Funnily enough, I’ll actually agree with that. I’ve found ship AI to be accurate to a fault, seeing as they tend to aim for directly where an aircraft would be headed and not account for maneuvers. Adding a degree of inaccuracy would benefit smaller boats a bit, and give more of a random chance to just smack planes out of the sky regardless lol

44

I think how id re-balance the Secondary and AA guns on ships is this

Secondary guns

Leave them how they are vs PT boats, but with a reduced detection range. Maybe 3km? Their current accuracy is pretty low anyway and they often dont hit anything

Increase secondary gun accuracy vs heavier targets like Destroyer. Really no reason why only 5% of your secondary shells even land close to something like a destroyer. Some 4inch shells arent gunna change much if you are slamming 6 or 8 inch shells into them anyway (yes I know you have the fire both at the same time thing, but that needs to be toggle-able via a keybind)

Secondary guns vs aircraft… Tricky, because i dont think they are that bad. Just reduce the range at which they start firing at targets (maybe 6km?) and perhaps add a bit of spread, but not more than maybe 10-20% in-accuracy. More than that and theyd be totally useless and leading HE-VT shells properly is really hard and I dont think the timed fuses work at all when player fired.

AA Guns

I think they should still fire, but have both accuracy nerfs and range nerfs. But it to be dependent on:

  • Class of ship firing
  • Class of ship being attacked
  • Range
  • Calibre of gun

So for something like a PT boat, AA guns shouldnt fire until maybe 500m-1000m in something like a cruiser, but maybe more like 1500m in a battleship. But something like a destoyer wouldnt fire at all, no matter the range. The accuracy to vary from calibre size and the range from target. Like 12.7mm MGs perhaps to be fairly accurate but heavier 40mm guns to have more a spread as the target gets closer.

Same should be true for aircraft as well. Have some guns have really poor accuracy at range like the 12.7mm MGs but have the 40mm guns reasonably accurate but still less than now. Also drop down the range that guns start firing at. So you get this real spread of fire that would look awesome to fly into, but maybe not be as deadly.

I think guns should have sectors. So youd not find yourself with every single gun firing at you unless it was player controlled. Only a selection.

Now as an alternative, you could have some guns fire at aircraft with AI fire and others wont. so maybe lighter armament would be AI controlled but the heavier guns didnt. But thats tricky

Ultimately. I feel there is a middle ground. Current AI control is too much, but no AI control would be just as bad. We need something in the middle and I think it needs to vary from situation to situation

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45

This sounds like it would be nice.

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46

It’s a good middle ground. Only addition I’d make is 20s and above actually firing at heavier targets, spraying over their decks

47

Yeah, Id not say no to that. It is strange why this mass of guns just ignores things like destroyers.

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48

Especially when 40mms can be devastating. But despite having crews of hundreds of men, you can’t get them to simultaneously fire with primaries…

49

Yeah. its definetly a change id make. Alternatively, they could add a keybind to toggle secondary guns and/or AA guns firing with Primary guns. Perhaps also splitting AA guns between light and heavy. So only the heavier guns would be usable in that fashion. Just put down an ungodly barrage on destroyers that get too close

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