Marcomies

While it might not be the most pressing issue here, even with the turret weigh changes the AI still loves putting 3 to 4 barrels on every possible secondary and tertiary turret.

I'd argue that US with its massive industrial capacity was probably the least limited by manufacturing when it came to testing and innovating. It's also not like all the 5"/38 turrets were same standard model either. That Wikipedia article alone lists 13 different production mounts, 7 of which are different enclosed dual-gun turrets for different ship types with weighs ranging from 34 tons to 77 tons and many of them were used concurrently. With aircraft dominating the naval warfare, dual purpose gun's weren't some low priority weapon system either. If the Navy's AA-firepower could have been improved by triple-gun design then surely that would have been pursued. Losing a battleship to torpedo bombers stings a lot more than redesigning a small turret, so surely that wasn't the main reason.

Without getting into the subject of post-war developments and military priorities, I was never arguing against triple-gun turrets being the go-to primary weapon of 1930+ cruiser sized and bigger warships. If you look at the Cleveland-class that you mentioned for example, yes, it has triple-gun main turrets. A significant amount of space on a 20th century warship is usually dedicated to the primary weapon turrets so space isn't that much of an issue there. However, if you look at the secondary weapons on the Cleveland-class, those are are 5" guns in dual-gun turrets and they are packed tightly. Those turrets are basically as large as they can be and still fit on the available deck. All of the ships you mentioned had dual-gun secondaries and Mogami's primary weapons (6" triples) were even upgraded to larger caliber dual-gun turrets (8" doubles) during the war. The Mk 12 5"/38 gun itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5"/38_caliber_gun) was very popular and effective dual-purpose weapon through WW2 and was used in various mounts on warships from Destroyer Escorts to Battleships. It came in various single and dual-gun configurations. The dual-gun turrets generally weighed more than twice as much as a single gun and their dimensions were clearly larger. This weapon was the best US intermediary caliber naval gun of the war but I'm not aware of it ever being deployed or tested in triple-gun configuration. Many US destroyers used these in dual-gun turrets. Even the Atlanta-class cruiser, the idea of which was basically to fit as many 5" guns on a light cruiser as possible, still used dual mounts for all its 8 primary turrets. That decision might simply be due to manufacturing efficiency, but it also seems like the most likely candidate for testing a triple gun version if there ever was any interest or need for such version. If I had to speculate why 5"/38 wasn't used in triple-gun turrets, I would guess that with the required size increase you might as well use 6" guns. The loading process on the best 5"/38 turrets was very fast and effective and squeezing in a third gun without sufficient space increase would probably have slowed down the loading to a point where it would negate the addition of another barrel.

Thanks for the example pictures disc. Those British 4" triples look really impractical. It does seem likely that UAD is currently too optimistic about the efficiency of triple turrets that haven't been up-sized. Reload penalty for smaller calibers could be one way to encourage more historical turret choices but at the same time it risks making the triple option entirely redundant even without the anti-air specific issues being a factor. I wonder how the various French multi gun turrets were arranged internally and how they compared size- and space-wise to similar caliber dual and triple turrets.

I have been following the progress of this game for a while now. It mostly looks amazing but there have been two issues that have kept me from buying it. First issue was the high top speeds that could be achieved without really compromising anything else in a ship design. I'm no longer that worried about this as the achievable and practical top speeds have been toned down in couple updates. They still seem to be higher than what was historically common but maybe the requirements of campaign mode will address that. --- The second, and more significant, issue is the extreme prominence of triple-gun secondary turrets. Looking at historical ships, there are very rarely triple-gun secondaries on anything smaller than a battleship (like Yamato-class or Richelieu-class). In general, turrets with more than two guns tend to be small caliber AA-guns (40mm or less) or fairly large caliber (~155mm). I'm not aware of any cruisers with triple guns on anything other than the main turrets. Even in 1940's when triple-gun main batteries were already a common concept and naval treaties were no longer a factor, majority of up-to-date secondary armaments were still in double-gun turrets. However in UAD the triple-gun secondaries and even tertiaries are everywhere starting from light cruisers. Regardless of caliber, triple gun turrets offer the best firepower, best weigh efficiency and best space efficiency. In UAD it always makes more sense to have have 2 triple-gun turrets over 3 double-gun turrets. If this was realistic, then surely the historical secondary turrets would have been (at least) triple-gun as well. --- With UAD's current turret weighs and sizes, the best design practice seems to be taking the largest caliber turret you can fit with most barrels available and that's it, anything else is sub-optimal. This makes me suspect that UAD doesn't really model all the downsides of triple-gun turrets. I haven't found any definitive explanation for why double-gun secondary turrets were considered preferable option. Spreading out the firepower to increase damage resistance alone doesn't explain why every navy with different doctrines came to similar conclusion. Cost and weight are also unlikely to be the reasons as triple-gun arrangement would surely still be cheaper and lighter than having same amount of guns in more turrets (and all the facilities that come with them). The best explanation I can think of is the space requirements. Surely the turrets were not any larger than they had to be for the best (or sufficient) efficiency. As far as I know, every turret in UAD, whether single-gun or quad-gun, uses the same turret size for the same caliber. You only need to look at some of the in-game triple-gun turrets (especially the smaller ones) to see that they are often packed implausibly tightly, almost breech to breech, in a design based on double-gun turret. Reloading 3 or 4 guns packed way too tightly would probably take far more time than reloading the same amount of guns arranged more practically in double-gun turrets. The space wouldn't be an issue just inside the turret either. Unless the ammunition transfer capacity from magazines to turret was increased in proportion with the additional guns, the total rate of fire would suffer. The space required for larger facilities and barbettes would probably be easier to arrange safely at the center-line than near the sides of the ship. --- In game I think this could be basically modeled by increasing the turret size for each extra gun: One gun turrets could be a size smaller than what they currently are, two gun turrets could be as they are and triple-gun turrets could be a size larger than they are and the quad-gun turrets a size larger as well. This would impact secondary armaments the most as the center-line main turrets usually have more dedicated space to work with. With increasing turret sizes there would actually be a real choice between 4x5", 3x6", 2x7" and 1x8" guns for example. A more restrictive option which wouldn't require changes to the turret models themselves would be limiting triple and quad-gun turrets to main battery guns. This would limit the secondary class guns to dual-gun turrets while still allowing smaller "primaries" to be used as triple/quad secondaries (which would allow replicating designs like Yamato and Richelieu for example). I read that the Update 9 will be increase the relative weight of triple and quad-gun turrets but I suspect that alone will mainly effect the primary turrets since most of the weight usually comes from the largest guns. With the planned change the relatively light secondaries in triple and quad-gun turrets could become even more preferable if the main guns had to be downsized. --- I realize the idea of the game is to allow the players to make their own designs but at least for me the sheer amount of implausible triple-gun turrets on almost every player-made and generated ship is just too much of an immersion breaker. Just to be clear, I'm not asking for the ships to be artificially limited to historical designs, I'm just saying that the current performance of triple-gun secondary turrets surely can't be realistic as otherwise they would have been used far more widely in reality. Other than the triple-gun secondaries the game really looks amazing and every update has been taking it into the right direction. Can't wait to see where this game goes in future.

Looks like a very nice patch. I especially like the teleportation changes.

I don't see any problem with the 4th rates using only high grade notes. In my experience you can usually find gold cheaper than silver since so many players are sailing 5th rates and all crafted upgrades use mid grade notes. Having exceptional 4th rate use 2 mid and 2 high notes would probably keep the material price about same and only save 100 labor hours which is only about 2.2% of the total labor hour need. The suggested change could inflate the silver prices even further.

Frigate being called Frigate is easily the most confusing ship name in the game. Cutter, Brig and 3rd Rate have bit of a same problem but nowhere near as bad.

Having even just two positions for the guns without animation or one-dimensional animation without any more detail would be great in comparison to the guns not moving at all. Closed gunports is something I'd like to see in the open world mode for all ships and also many traders have their gunports open even though they can't have guns in those positions.

Would be great to be able to fire a cannon salute on the world map, just couple visual puffs of smoke and sound. Currently the only way to greet a familiar player in the open world is through chat.

I really don't think that the ability to sink even a large ship with just hitting the waterline is that good for pvp. It really doesn't take any massive display of skill to hit a waterline and it kinda breaks the old dynamic of raking for crew and guns vs shooting sails for reduced mobility vs shooting at hull to sink. Now shooting at waterline will just do all that for you: it takes crew away to deal with the leaks, taking water slows the ship down and you don't really even need to take down the whole side armor to sink the enemy. In addition to gameplay reasons I would also not want to see shooting the waterline for quick kills become the meta of the multiplayer because it couldn't be much further from the tactics and goals of a historical age of sail combat. Sinking ships was already bit too easy and common as it were. I'm not saying go back to what the leaking from gunshots used to be but it should definitely be toned down to where a ship with armor/structure and crew left won't at least sink.

I don't think nation/corporation difference has as massive part in the matter as the OP thinks but it would be nice and healthy for the game to make the borders between nations a little less absolute and to add some more concrete rivalry inside the nations. Letters of Marque could make the players of different nations a bit more fluid. Maybe clans could have some exclusive options (taxation, usage limitations etc) available in ports that it has taken and invested in.

AI being good is not the problem and AI being improved and made more comparable to human players in general is a great thing. The main problem is that in missions the player is thrown into battles against an equal or superior enemy force in terms of ships (made worse by the AI having a ton on free upgrades on their ships). It's just no reasonable considering the game economy, you can't really lose ships during basic grind. Not to mention that the new players have nothing easier to do than equal sized ships with superior upgrades. 1-vs-1 between player Surprise and an AI Surprise should be challenging, there should be a real chance of average player losing. This situation should not be achieved by letting the AI shoot with inhuman accuracy or with the AI having more exceptional upgrades on his ship than what can ever be fitted onto an exceptional player ship. This should be achieved by making the AI play more like a good human player with plenty of human error and stuff like ranging shots involved. Several different skill levels of AI should be made, the easier AI ships missing more with guns, using manual sails in less optimal angles, having longer reaction times to player actions and being worse at avoiding/seeking raking opportunities and such. A missions meant for player's level should not send the player against a ship of equal equal size or two ships slightly smaller. Instead the player should be sent against one ship slightly weaker than players ship (e.g. player Trincomalee vs Frigate) or several ships of considerably smaller size (e.g. player Trincomalee vs Mercury and a Brig). If player wants easier battles he can take a mission meant for lower level (unless he's of the lowest rank) and a player who wants the 1-vs-1 battles with equal sized AI can take a mission meant for one rank higher ships. Don't make the AI easier or refrain from improving it. Just remove the AI upgrade bonuses as they are no longer necessary, always remember to add an element of human error into AI play as the systematic errors are fixed and make missions easier.

The game is open world MMO where ships and equipment can be lost for good and resources are limited. It's not an arena style game so PVP with only matching ships/BR is out of question. I think many of the players originally asking for completely even fights were hoping the final game to have a structure more similar to WoWS or the sea trials for example. While I enjoy an occasional 1 vs 1 encounter (and I have been ganked more times than I have taken part to ganking), even fight is rarely worth offering from a tactical or strategic point of view. I'm personally not completely against limiting the most tasteless ganking possibilities (e.g. 10 constis vs 1 cutter) to some extent but the implemented BR limit is adding more problems and unfairness than it fixes, with the main causes of the most serious unfair ganking problems (post-battle screen and invisibility) remaining unfixed and unaddressed. I think the main reason "no limits" is getting so many votes is that you bundled the BR difference and battle-timer into the same option, the timer being a tool to compensate for the different time and distance scale of the open world and battle mode rather than a pure anti-gangking measure. Opinion polls that go beyond yes/no/maybe or red/blue/green are rarely of much use.

Regardless of how realistic it might be, being able to insta-sink even just a small ship with couple big holes to the waterline is not good for the gameplay. It ruins the balance of hull-shots (sinking) vs rake-shots (crew, guns) vs sails-shots (speed, mobility) and makes the waterline shots only real way to go as it ties down the target crew to fixing the leaks and working the pumps, slows down the ship if it starts taking water and sometimes even sinks it before the armor is taken down. Overall this change speeds up the combat too much and makes ships too vulnerable. I'm not saying that the leaking from gunshot leaks should be reverted back to the pre-patch level on pointlessness but it should be scaled down and maybe softly capped so that the extreme cases like 5 second sinking times would not be possible. In my opinion a ship with armor left should never have an uncontrollable leak that results to unavoidable sinking as long as it has at least a third of its crew left.