Some suggestions for campaign game play

[slashdash2]

Hello all, loving the game so far, i had a few ideas that might be cool for the campaign side of this game.

1.  Map:  If anyone has played silent hunter or cold waters on travel map i love how you can see ideas of what the enemy is doing etc. without knowing how the campaign is going to look map wise and game play wise i cant say for sure if this would work but i would love to be able to have pings of where the enemy fleets and stuff in a general whereabouts. This is more than likely already going to be a thing anyway considering how in depth the Devs are making this game anyway.

2.  Map x2: On the campaign map please make it a bit more RTS not turn based. I love the total war games but it would be absolutely awesome if if i could just zoom out of the current battle that i'm engaged in and look at the world map and see where my second fleet is and then bring them into the fight to help out. I find that such a problem with the total war series in the way that i either have reinforcements from the beginning or not at all. Example: my 2 destroyers are escorting a fleet of freighters and have come across a enemy fleet of 2BB's and 3Cl's. nearby i have my main fleet of 3BB's 3CA's 2CL's etc. I start retreating my small fleet towards my larger fleet and then have them all turn together onto the enemy fleet destroying most in true ambush style and causing an end to the war i'm in because of severely diminishing the enemies numbers in the pacific.

3.  Aircraft Carriers: I would love to see (and this is a bit of a stretch) early aircraft carriers. i know this might get some flak but before you chuck it out here me out. Early aircraft carries were slow and pretty weakly armed and armoured. They didn't hold a lot of aircraft and the early aircraft (biplanes such as the swordfish) used in the time period weren't all that flash either. These should not be overpowered in anyway. Mainly scouting and some light bombing etc. This could lead to some awesome scenes on maps where a fleet is defending a aircraft carrier from an enemy ambush or attack with the aircraft defending the hive like bees as a distraction to get the main fleet away. Flak barrages and early machine gun fire around ships would look awesome especially if the game lets us go into WW2. As a balancing portion in the campaign make them relatively expensive or to maintain compared to other ships and the planes not super strong so as to not make them super common on the field and overpowered. Even if the ships were a mid/late technology to research would add balance to the game too. Some early examples of basic aircraft carriers were the HMS Engadine, HMS Ark Royal/Pegasus and the IJN Hosho just to name a few.

4.  Auxiliary Ships: Lastly id like to suggest the ability to create our own auxiliary fleets to help with our trade for resources, transporting troops and equipment and to refuel and rearm our ships on the waters. This could add a bit more depth and control to income and the map later instead of it just being a numbers game we can visualise and have something to defend to help an invasion. Example: a fleet of 10 troop transports 3 fuel tankers 4 freighters and a bunch of German escorts invading England that the player has created to go on and attempt the capture of England. This would be a awesome sight to see when in a battle map though as it currently is this could be quite laggy but i am sure by the time the ready for the campaign it will be more optimised.

These are just some things that i would love see added to the game and i hope you guys do too. This game has been very fun these last few days and i am dying to get my hands on the campaign and play it properly. As always smooth sailing all, keep up the good work Devs 

edit: just thought of subs being added too because there were early submarines too just an idea

Edited October 16, 2019 by slashdash2
new idea again

[LeBoiteux]

54 minutes ago, slashdash2 said:

3.  Aircraft Carriers: I would love to see (and this is a bit of a stretch) early aircraft carriers. i know this might get some flak but before you chuck it out here me out. Early aircraft carries were slow and pretty weakly armed and armoured. They didn't hold a lot of aircraft and the early aircraft (biplanes such as the swordfish) used in the time period weren't all that flash either. These should not be overpowered in anyway. Mainly scouting and some light bombing etc. This could lead to some awesome scenes on maps where a fleet is defending a aircraft carrier from an enemy ambush or attack with the aircraft defending the hive like bees as a distraction to get the main fleet away. Flak barrages and early machine gun fire around ships would look awesome especially if the game lets us go into WW2. As a balancing portion in the campaign make them relatively expensive or to maintain compared to other ships and the planes not super strong so as to not make them super common on the field and overpowered. Even if the ships were a mid/late technology to research would add balance to the game too. Some early examples of basic aircraft carriers were the HMS Engadine, HMS Ark Royal/Pegasus and the IJN Hosho just to name a few.

Great idea ! 🙂

There were also seaplane tenders and... early seaplanes, such as La Foudre (1895) carrying Canard Fabre, Canard Voisin and Nieuport  seaplanes from 1910 on.

Edited October 16, 2019 by LeBoiteux

[slashdash2]

yeah i know about them but i see them more as spotter planes than more proper carriers but they would definitely  be cool to see in game too  maybe even early subs could be cool too 

[Niomedes]

59 minutes ago, slashdash2 said:

3.  Aircraft Carriers: [...] They didn't hold a lot of aircraft and the early aircraft (biplanes such as the swordfish) used in the time period weren't all that flash either. These should not be overpowered in anyway.

Meanwhile, the swordfish:

Edited October 16, 2019 by Niomedes

[Angus MacDuff]

^^ great pic.  Swordfish would be very (perhaps overly) effective in this game.  Certainly, it would be an entirely different game.  Naval air power changed the dynamic of naval warfare and I'm not sure it has a place in a "Dreadnoughts" game, since it basically made gun-armed warships obsolete.  On the subject though, what about the recon aircraft that were found on major surface combatants prior to WWI?

[slashdash2]

^^Awesome photo it is what i was picturing when typing this post.

1 hour ago, Angus MacDuff said:

(....)  Naval air power changed the dynamic of naval warfare and I'm not sure it has a place in a "Dreadnoughts" game, since it basically made gun-armed warships obsolete.  On the subject though, what about the recon aircraft that were found on major surface combatants prior to WWI?

My idea of having aircraft carriers in game is to make them very slow not able to be very effective just moderately. Enough of a threat to play against but not enough that they can solo fleets. As a balancing aspect for campaign mode having the planes launch in squads of 4 or 5 once their bombs have dropped have to return and reload which obviously takes time and having the carriers only being able to hold 15 aircraft or so that way. Aircraft being obviously more expensive than ammunition so worth trying to keep them alive but also having them as a good scouting unit for finding convoys etc. Also making aircraft carriers as a unit quite expensive to maintain as a unit effectively making early aircraft carriers as a decent support unit but quite slow and defenceless on their own. Like ammunition has a weight in game at the moment, planes should also have a weight factor limiting the amount of planes an aircraft can carry and maybe even the ability to add fuel tanks on the carriers for the planes to limit the amount refuels planes can have on a single outing as well as planes having a limited flight time too granted being say 300 NM (nautical Miles) for say a Sopwith Pup which was the about the maximum range for those planes. Have the range vary for the different planes and such but that would be about 3 hours in game and if there's no time limit in campaign battles (i hope there is a option to make this the case) they would barely use all of that fuel unless they were only scouting. I'm sure most planes would spend about 30 minutes of fuel or so to fly direct to target and bomb then fly back and land. Another balancing point for the game would be plane reload time so they aren't always in the air wreaking havoc.

Carriers should have the option to choose which type of aircraft to take (fighter/bomber) so if both fleets have a carrier they can defend themselves too. A good example for what i'm thinking is Langley from WOWS (i'm using WOWS because we can make it our own) it has 4x 127mm guns and some aa with a top speed of 15 knots. On its own it is slow weakly armed and in this case lets say its using the T4M torpedo bombers which are Pre-WW2 aircraft which i'm sure we could use earlier plane variants as said above. Without knowing how the campaign will play out i cannot completely say how to completely balance the game but this is how i would attempt to balance them. I wouldn't put a hardcap on it like only 3 per nation or something unless it was a repeatable research technology that could be researched an unlimited amount of times but that comes across as too Age of Empires like to me. In saying that i don't know how the research in campaign will work and until that is shown and tested can we work on implementing them in. I would love to see them in game in a Mid to Late game option to build not as something can be built right off the bat, that way there is also more of a focus on the dreadnoughts themselves and other boats but also giving a option for more variation in fleets and hopefully the ability to have some amazing screenshots of planes flying through a hailstorm of flak and aa fire. I do want this game to focus more on ship to ship combat than aircraft but this is definitely something which could look and work amazing in this game if done right. 
 

So to sum up the way i would balance 1. Planes need to land to rearm and fly out 2. Carriers and planes are expensive to build and maintain with a full compliment 3. Planes cannot fly forever 4. Carriers are slow lumbering ships with weak armament 5. Carriers can only hold so many planes and fuel for said planes so once they have run out of either it essentially becomes useless to the fleet until rearmed. 6. Maybe have a infinitely researchable which allows you to deploy another aircraft carrier each time it is researched which would prevent too many being on field but i feel having it limited by economy would be a better way to balance it. i think all in all maybe 3 for a nation (not per fleet) would be about right but see how they fit in game before putting an exact number on. They're pros are pretty self explanatory

 

Edited October 16, 2019 by slashdash2

[slashdash2]

55 minutes ago, Angus MacDuff said:

^^ great pic.  Swordfish would be very (perhaps overly) effective in this game.  Certainly, it would be an entirely different game.  Naval air power changed the dynamic of naval warfare and I'm not sure it has a place in a "Dreadnoughts" game, since it basically made gun-armed warships obsolete.  On the subject though, what about the recon aircraft that were found on major surface combatants prior to WWI?

Even those would be cool for the better accuracy bonus to older ships too yes

[SiWi]

personal Im' pro planes since I think designing carriers or conversion carriers or even battle carriers, could be a lot of fun.

 

Also in the timeframe of the game, 1890-1930's carriers are a thing.

 

And designing a ship with AA in min as well could give the game another layer.

Thou  I really hope for refits in that case...

 

As for the worries it would make Dreadnoughts/BB's obsolet, I don't think that earlier carries would do that and given a good AA you should be able to handle it. Also the damage that early planes did is... well... not dangerous to a BB that shots back and moves.

It could be similar to the submarines, high cost but at the end of the tree you get fairly powerful CV's/planes.

 I wouldn't mind the game going to 1950's anyway...

but first things first: make this game and make it good then we can see if they maybe expand it in some way.

Edited October 16, 2019 by SiWi